Hall looked at the audio clip on the screen again. At the back of his mind, thoughts were massing.
‘Play that again,’ he told his DI.
DI Slavin dragged the cursor back and clicked. Hall looked out the big sash windows across the plaza at Garda HQ in Phoenix Park.
‘Father, I’m going ahead with it.’
‘What do you mean? Going ahead with what?’
‘Told ya, there’s no way, on me ma’s life, those cunts, sorry Father, are getting away with it.’
‘Leo, we’ve been through this many times over the last months. You must find a way of dealing with this that doesn’t result in more violence. You know these guys, you know what they are capable of.’
There was a slight noise, as if someone had got off a chair.
‘I don’t care if I does die, Father, not if it means I can get one over on them . . .’
‘I’ve said this to you, Leo, that if you are going to hurt another person I am obliged to inform the guards.’
‘Father, ya swore to me ya wouldn’t go to the garda. Ya told me ya swore to me ma ya would look after me.’
‘Yes, I did, God bless her. But this is not what she would want. We can’t give in to these baser instincts, Leo, no matter how much you have been hurt, and I know you have.’
‘Ya seen what they done to people round here. Ya said they were back as if nothing had happened, even after all the deaths and all.’
There was a moment of silence. Hall could hear the baying of sheep from the city farm in the zoo on the other side of the road from HQ.
‘Leo, if they hear you’re around . . .’
‘My life is over, Father. I don’t give a fuck. Anyways, I’m working on something.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘There’s others out there, Father, who want to take the war to the Canal Gang.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Another break. Slavin looked up at Hall.
‘Leo?’
‘The RCAD.’
‘Republicans? Are you serious, Leo?’
‘They know me old uncle, Finbarr. He ran with the RA in the eighties. I’ve got a meet arranged with a contact. I’ve been off the gear now for more than a month. These guys have it in for the Canal Gang over the drugs. I heard Cracko assaulted one of their members and they reckon the gang also burned alive a horse of theirs in O’Donovan flats months ago.’
‘Leo, you are way out of your depth here. For your mother’s sake, don’t go down this road.’
‘It’s for me ma I’m doing it.’
Slavin hit pause.
‘That was half an hour ago,’ Slavin said. ‘The exterior cameras will pick him up if he leaves the church complex.’
‘Get onto subversive intelligence and ask them about this Finbarr and get an update on the RCAD,’ Hall said. ‘I’ll talk to Nessan and let him know. What are Leo’s general movements again?’
‘He leaves the priest’s house twice a week, Monday and Friday, before 7 a.m. and heads down to South Road. He meets this old junkie he knows, scores and walks back. He’s still off the gear, but buys benzos and weed. On his way he picks up cigs and Coke in the shop at the junction and is home by 7.40 a.m. He rarely comes out otherwise, during the day at least.’
Hall nodded. He knew the RCAD wouldn’t take a junkie seriously, even one off the gear, not unless he had something really useful. He took a moment to consider the possibility.
Hall assembled and reassembled strategies in his brain, distracted only by the noise from the zoo as feeding time for the monkeys kicked in.