The Dead Yard Read online

  Adrian McKinty was born and grew up in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland, at the height of the Troubles. He studied politics at Oxford University and after a failed law career he moved to New York City in the early 1990s. He found work as a security guard, postman, door-to-door salesman, construction worker, barman, rugby coach, book-store clerk and librarian. Having lived in Colorado for many years with his wife and daughters, he and his family have moved to Melbourne, Australia.

  In addition to The Dead Yard, Serpent’s Tail publishes the other two volumes in Adrian McKinty’s The Dead Trilogy – Dead I Well May Be and The Bloomsday Dead, as well as Fifty Grand and Hidden River.

  The Dead Yard

  ‘Adrian McKinty has once again harnessed the power of poetry, violence, lust and revenge to forge a sequel to his acclaimed Dead I Well May Be’ The Irish Post

  ‘The Dead Yard is a much-anticipated sequel to Dead I Well May Be and every bit as good. McKinty crackles with raw talent. His dialogue is superb, his characters rich and his plotting tight and seamless. He also writes with a wonderful (and wonderfully humorous) flair for language, raising his work above most crime-genre offerings and bumping right up against literature’ San Francisco Chronicle

  ‘McKinty’s literate, expertly crafted third crime novel confirms his place as one of his generation’s leading talents…McKinty possesses a talent for pace and plot structure that belies his years. Dennis Lehane fans will definitely be pleased’ Publishers Weekly

  ‘Expat Irishman Adrian McKinty has just put out his fourth terrific book…and he keeps getting better. He melds the snap and crackle of the old Mickey Spillane tales with the literary skills of Raymond Chandler and sets it all down in his own artful way.This is a writer going places. Hop aboard’ Rocky Mountain News

  The Bloomsday Dead

  ‘Those who know McKinty will automatically tighten their seatbelts. To newcomers I say: buckle up and get set for a bumpy ride through a very harsh landscape indeed. His antihero Michael Forsythe is as wary, cunning and ruthless as a sewer rat… His journey in some ways parallels that of James Joyce’s Leopold Bloom on one day in Dublin, but – trust me – it’s a lot more violent and a great deal more exciting’ Matthew Lewin, Guardian

  ‘A pacey, violent caper… As Forsythe hurtles around the city, McKinty vividly portrays its sleazy, still-menacing underbelly’ John Dugdale, Sunday Times

  ‘Thoroughly enjoyable… [McKinty] maintains the bloody action all the way from Lima to Larne with panache and economy. His hero, the “un-f*** ing-killable” Michael Forsythe, is a wonderful creation’ Hugh Bonar, Irish Mail on Sunday

  ‘Packed with sharp dialogue and unremitting action’ Marcel Berlins, The Times

  ‘Compelling thrillers written in a hard-bitten, muscular style, the novels are given an unconventional twist by virtue of Forsythe’s unusually perceptive insights… a fascinating blend of Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne and Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley… McKinty is a rare writer’ Sunday Business Post

  ‘A gut-punching gangster story… this illegitimate spawn of a book, with Tony Soprano morality and James Joyce literary weight, ends the Michael Forsythe trilogy’ Gerard Brennan, Belfast Newsletter

  ‘A tangled and bloody odyssey through Dublin and Belfast… [a] well-paced, edgy thriller’ Terence Killeen, Irish Times

  Dead I Well May Be

  ‘A darkly thrilling tale of the New York streets with all the hard-boiled charm of Chandler and the down and dirty authenticity of closing time…Evocative dialogue, an acute sense of place and a sardonic sense of humour make McKinty one to watch’ Guardian

  ‘The story is soaked in the holy trinity of the noir thriller – betrayal, money and murder – but seen through here with a panache and political awareness that gives Dead I Well May Be a keen edge over its rivals’ Big Issue

  ‘Adrian McKinty’s main skill is in cleverly managing to evoke someone rising through the ranks and wreaking bloody revenge while making it all seem like an event that could happen to any decent, hardworking Irish chap. A dark, lyrical and gripping voice that will go far’ The List

  ‘McKinty’s Michael Forsythe is a crook, a deviant, a lover, a fighter, and a thinker. His Irish-tough language of isolation and longing makes us love and trust him despite his oh-so-great and violent flaws. When you finish this book you just might wish you’d lived the life in its pages, and thought its thoughts, both horrible and sublime’ Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead

  ‘Adrian McKinty is a big new talent – for storytelling, for dialogue and for creating believable characters…Dead I Well May Be is a riveting story of revenge and marks the arrival of a distinctive fresh voice’ Sunday Telegraph

  ‘A pacy, assured and thoroughly engaging debut…this is a hard-boiled crime story written by a gifted man with poetry coursing through his veins and thrilling writing dripping from his fingertips’ Sunday Independent

  ‘If Frank McCourt had gone into the leg-breaking business instead of school teaching, he might’ve written a book like Dead I Well May Be.

  Adrian McKinty’s novel is a rollicking, raw, and unsavoury delight – down and dirty but full of love for words. This is hard-boiled crime fiction with a poet’s touch’ Peter Blauner, author of The Last Good Day and The Intruder

  ‘Careens boisterously from Belfast to the Bronx…McKinty is a storyteller with the kind of style and panache that blurs the line between genre and mainstream. Top-drawer’ Kirkus Reviews

  ‘McKinty has deftly created a literate, funny and cynical antihero who takes his revenge in bloody and violent twists but at the same time, methodically listens to Tolstoy on tape while on stakeouts. He rounds out the book with a number of incredible fever-dream sequences and then springs an ending that leaves readers shaking their heads in satisfied amazement’ San Francisco Chronicle

  Hidden River

  ‘McKinty is a cross between Mickey Spillane and Damon Runyon – the toughest, the best. Beware of McKinty’ Frank McCourt

  ‘A roller coaster of highs and lows, light humour and dark deeds…Once you step into Hidden River, the powerful under-current of McKinty’s talent will swiftly drag you away. Let’s hope this author does not slow down anytime soon’ Irish Examiner

  ‘[A] terrific read…this is a strong, non-stop story, with attractive characters and fine writing’ Morning Star

  The Dead Yard

  Adrian McKinty

  First published in Great Britain in 2009 by

  SERPENT’S TAIL

  an imprint of Profile Books Ltd

  3a Exmouth House

  Pine Street

  London EC1R OJH

  www.serpentstail.com

  This eBook edition first published in 2010

  Copyright © Adrian McKinty 2009

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, dead or alive, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  eISBN: 978-1-84765-170-9

  My sweet enemy was, little by little, giving over her

  great wariness. . . But Death had his grudge against me

  and he got up in the way, like an armed robber, with a<
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  pike in his hand.

  —J. M. Synge, Poems and Translations from Petrarch (1906)

  Contents

  1: A RIOT ON TENERIFE

  2: AN ASSASSINATION IN REVERE

  3: BACK TO THE BIG A

  4: TROJAN HORSE

  5: SALISBURY MISTAKE

  6: A HEIST IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

  7: DEATH ON THE PARKER RIVER

  8: MURDER IN NEWBURY

  9: A BURIAL ON PI

  10: BETRAYAL IN BELFAST

  11: THE SMOKEHOUSE

  12: THE DEAD YARD

  1: A RIOT ON TENERIFE

  Dawn over the turquoise shore of Africa and here, under the fractured light of a streetlamp, brought to earth like some hurricaned palm, I woke before the supine ocean amidst a sea of glass and upturned bus stands and the wreck of cars and looted stores.

  The streets of Playa de las Americas were flowing with beer and black sewage and blood. Smoke hung above the seashore and the smell was of desolation, decay, the burning of tires and fuel oil. The noise of birds, diesel engines, a dirge-like siren, a helicopter, voices in Spanish over a loudspeaker— all of it more than enough hint of the breakdown in the fragile rules of the social contract.

  I was sitting up and adjusting to the light and the growing heat when a kid hustled me under cover and the riot began again.

  Five hundred British football hooligans, three hundred and fifty Irish fans, all of them on this island at the same time for a “friendly” match between Dublin’s Shamrock Rovers and London’s Millwall.

  A riot.

  I wouldn’t say I’d been expecting that but I wouldn’t say I was that goddamn surprised either.

  Some people go through their lives like a mouse moving through a wheat field. They’re good citizens, they pay their taxes, they contribute to society, they have kids and the kids turn them into responsible adults. They create no stir, cause no fuss, leave no trace. When they’re gone people speak well of them, sigh, shrug their shoulders, and shed a tear. They avoid chaos and it avoids them.

  Perhaps most people are like this.

  But not me.

  You’d notice me in the wheat field. You’d notice me because the field would be on fire or the farmer would be running after me with a gun.

  The Bible says that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. Well, trouble followed me like sharks trailing a slave ship. Even when I tried to get away it was there swirling in a vortex around me.

  Even when I tried to get away. Spain. Tenerife, to be exact, the largest of the Canary Islands off the coast of Morocco. It’s a hell of a long flight from Chicago but the FBI won’t let me go near Florida or the Caribbean. Seamus Duffy, the head of the Irish mob in New York City, has had a contract out on me for five years for killing his underboss Darkey White and testifying against Darkey’s crew.

  With that in mind you can’t be too careful about where you take your vacation. So O’Hare, JFK, and seven hours to Tenerife for a wee bit of R & R and of course this is what bloody happens.

  “Brian, are you all right?” the English kid asked. Pale skin, sunburned, wearing a Millwall shirt and white jeans.

  I stared at him. My name had been Brian O’Nolan since I’d moved to Chicago in January. It still didn’t seem right.

  “I’m ok,” I said. “I must have fallen asleep. What the hell is happening?”

  “The riot’s starting up again. Those Irish bastards have all gotten ball bearings from somewhere.”

  I gave him a look.

  One of those looks.

  My speciality.

  “Oh, by Irish bastards, I meant, uh, I meant no offense by the way,” he stammered.

  I didn’t say anything. I almost felt more American now than Irish. I ducked as stones and ball bearings landed in the shop fronts. Pieces of dark lava and Molotov cocktails flew back from the English side.

  The London lads were drunk and the Dublin boys had taken off their shirts, looking like ghosts flitting nervously behind the barricades.

  The riot progressed. A shop window caved in under a big rock, a roof collapsed, a car went up in flames. A big English bruiser trundled along a wheely-bin filled with gasoline and halfway down the hill, he burned some scrunched-up newspaper and tossed it after. The bin exploded and he caught fire.

  Jesus.

  The colors fused: green banana skins, inky smoke, crimson blood, the blue Atlantic and iodine sky merging in the west. Over by the dunes amazed surfers were wondering if the town was on fire, and later it was, as the hotel burned and the surfers and the other noncombatants decided to be long gone.

  At dusk the Spanish police finally got their act together and turned fire hoses on the two sides. The Micks started an outof-date football chant: “Francisco Franco is a wanker,” and the English side trumped that with “What Happened to the Armada?” Singing was general over the lines now and each song was echoed back and as full night fell, everyone got teary-eyed and guilt-ridden and we had a truce, the impromptu leaders meeting up in one of the main squares under a flag of armistice.

  The shadows lengthened and there was a toast. A drink. A parley. And it was agreed then that whatever differences existed between the Irish and the English soccer fans, here, fifteen hundred miles from the British Isles, the story wasn’t terrorism or the Famine or Enniskillen or Bloody Sunday. It was August 1997 now, there was a new British prime minister, and a new IRA cease-fire brewing that extended even unto football hooligans. Aye, we could see that out here with our fresh perspective. Here in Tenerife under the black sky of Creation, where Columbus set out to enslave half the world, where Darwin came on the Beagle, where Nelson lost his arm, and where they still made the same dark Canary drunk by Fal-staff and Sir Toby Belch. Where we were all away from gloomy Albion and we could accept a new vision of a new Earth with sunshine and cheap food and Swedish girls and where we could see the folly of doing evil unto one’s brother. The drunken leaders deciding that harmony would reign forever between kinfolk and that the riot between the Brits and Paddies was over; and from now on we would concentrate on the real enemies: German tourists and the Spanish police.

  So began the second phase.

  * * *

  This time, though, I wanted no part of it, especially when I saw the big NATO war helicopters landing beyond the cliffs and out of them pouring scores of paramilitary cops from Madrid—tough bastards who came with machine pistols and gas and billy clubs that they used up in the Basque country against the ETA guerrillas. Me and the kid, an eejit called Goosey, slipped away from the drunken insurgents under the cover of darkness. We negotiated our way through the abandoned holiday villas and the half-built outlying hotels and the pink-shaded small pensions where a few British expats hid in the dark, having retired to Tenerife to escape the bad weather and (ironically) the growing yob culture of England.

  Goosey, it turned out, was a bit of a mental case from some East London shitehole who wanted us to do a Clockwork Orange–style burglary on some of the pensions, nicking things and hurting people and generally raising a bit of hell, but I would have none of it. They might have shooters, I told Goosey, and Goosey thought this was entirely plausible and got discouraged from the idea.

  Instead up we went into the lava fields and through the mangrove and the palm trees until we’d climbed a thousand feet above the town. We slept in a barn among guano and baked hay and the sleep was the best since the riots had begun two days ago when three Millwall supporters had attacked some guy from Dublin and the peelers had allegedly beaten the near life out of them down at the cop shop. It had grown like a tropical storm, stores being looted and cars set ablaze and the climax came when the local jail had been stormed and the Millwall boys and a team of time-share crooks were let out and one person got himself shot in the shoulder by a peeler.

  The town beneath us five thousand feet and four miles to the west and the paramilitary police taking no prisoners, using dogs, whips, CS gas, and water cannon and this time the rioters were being
rounded up like sheep. Fires burned and the helicopters came and went and it was ending now, we could tell.

  “Agua,” we asked a herder and he showed us a stream and we followed it another thousand feet up into the hills where, at a stone wall, it formed part of the boundary of a hacienda. We vaulted the wall, got about a quarter of a mile before a man in a suit appeared on a three-wheeled motorbike and asked us what the hell we thought we were doing. And not about to let Goosey do the talking I explained that we were innocent kids fleeing a riot down in Playa de las Americas. The man adjusted his sunglasses and said something into a walkie-talkie. He escorted us up to the hacienda, where a beautiful woman in her forties sat us down at an oak table under pine beams and gave us water and brandy.

  “Muchas gracias, bella señorita,” I said and the woman laughed and muttered something to the man in sunglasses and he went back outside and then she said to me in English that she was married and was no señorita anymore and not even beautiful either. To which I sincerely disagreed and she laughed again and asked me what exactly had been going on at the beach and I told her, leaving out our part in the proceedings.