SLOOT

by Ian MacPherson

  I resolved not to lose him again.

  * * *

  7 I’ve changed the name to protect the university’s reputation for academic excellence. Same address, though.

  16

  Hayden thought of going down to the Garda station as soon as Brannigan got back the following Monday, but as things turned out it’s just as well he didn’t.

  After a long lie-in brought on by a feeling of wellbeing, he opted instead to listen to an Eddie reel-to-reeler with a late breakfast of beans on toast, a childhood favourite, and one of the few things Eddie had known how to cook. He’d then pop back to the station, whack the confession down in front of Lou Brannigan, and see what he made of that.

  The tape. Eddie’s voice in conversation with a world-weary male circa 1956 fills the room. On the recording, Eddie then plays an earlier tape of himself listening to a still-earlier tape. Riveting stuff: Eddie and friend listening to Eddie listening to himself. Sounds complicated, but it’s a pre-post-postmodern joy, and decades ahead of its time. Eddie chuckles with pleasure.

  ‘Bit solipsistic, mebbe? What do you reckon, Sam?’

  Then Sam’s voice, a totally different Sam from the earlier, world-weary version: ‘This – this is brilliant!!! Mind if I use it?’

  ‘Fire away, Sam. No use it just sitting there. Plenty more ideas where that came from. Glad you like it. Be my guest.’ Eddie’s artless delight in the compliment, not to mention his generosity of spirit, is both admirable and strangely touching.

  At which point Sam pleads a prior engagement and rushes off. Tape ends.

  Hayden shook his head in wonder. Uncle Eddie. ‘Sam’. Was there no end to Eddie’s talent? To his influence? It stirred up strange feelings of familial pride and – difficult to know what the other feeling was, but it felt in some strange way ungenerous, and it made him doubly keen to re-engage with his own work. He set about sorting some more of the clutter on Eddie’s desk, including several notebooks detailing future projects. Inside one, a loose photo of a reddish brown, open-faced dog. Big eyes. Trusting look. Slightly lop-sided face, possibly due to the left ear being set at a jaunty angle. A classic thoroughbred mongrel. On the facing page, the following:

  Lines Written in Celebration of an Everlasting Bond

  Eddie McGlynn & Rusty

  Here lies a ribald, crusty knave

  Who never stooped to beg.

  His dog is known to use the grave

  To cock an idle leg.

  Both knave and beast were man and mate

  When master walked above.

  So does the one now urinate

  To show the other love?

  In spite of himself, Hayden was deeply moved. The world had moved on from rhyming verse and its illegitimate offspring, doggerel, but there was something refreshingly direct about this simple verse. Something indefinable. Perhaps it was the picture of a trusting little pooch, with his big eyes and that look which Hayden recognised immediately – as if it spoke to some deep, missing need in Hayden himself – of unconditional love.

  He was about to read it again, in search of possible clues, when he heard a distinct scratching sound coming from outside. He followed it to the front door.

  ‘Hello?’

  He felt slightly foolish. It was hardly a human scratch. Closer to ground level. And why would a human bother scratching when there was a perfectly serviceable bell and knocker?

  You’re probably ahead of our hero. Verse about a dog? Scratching? Hayden opened the door. Two things sat on the porch:

  •A large cardboard box with a note attached that said ‘We called but you were out’, which he wasn’t, or he’d have fallen over it on the way back in.

  •Rusty.

  At least Hayden assumed it was Rusty. A sad-eyed russet mutt, with one floppy ear and one ear standing to attention, sat whining softly beside the cardboard box. Hayden motioned him in, but he stayed where he was, his doleful eyes trained on the box. Hayden picked it up and went inside, leaving the door open. Interesting. Rusty didn’t just come in: he seemed to follow the box. Hayden placed it on the desk and opened a tin of a well-known brand of dog food. By Royal Appointment to Her Majesty the Queen, apparently. If it was good enough for Her Majesty, you’d have thought…

  He slopped some into the dog bowl. No movement from Rusty, who seemed fixated on the box, so he set about opening it. Inside, a smaller cardboard box. He set about opening that.

  Straw.

  Bubble wrap.

  Urn.

  Uncle Eddie had arrived home.

  Hayden placed the urn on the kitchen unit and turned his attention to Rusty. Rusty sat beside the bowl, totally oblivious to its royal seal of approval, staring with still-doleful eyes straight at Eddie’s ashes.

  Hayden suddenly understood. Rusty, that most faithful of animals, had spent the past week searching for Eddie’s grave in the traditional way. Coffin, burial, conventional graveyard. No luck. Whatever adventures he’d had, and whatever characters he’d met, he’d failed to find the object of his search. Undaunted, he’d followed his instincts, been advised by some wise old animals and bird life along the way and found himself back at Eddie’s at the precise moment that Eddie, in his urn, arrived back too. Sound plausible? I hope so, because I’ve written a children’s book on that very theme8 – although to be honest I haven’t had a great deal of success with children’s publishers up to now, and, based on the first few responses back from literary agents, I’m not convinced my luck is about to change.

  Rusty, meanwhile, sighed tragically, his eyes fixed inconsolably on Eddie’s urn, the doggy bowl untouched. Hayden was moved by compassion and an understandable desire to get as far away as possible from his desk.

  It took some time to find a dog lead, attach it to Rusty and convince him to leave his beloved master. Apparently Rusty and the Queen didn’t share the same taste in dog food, so the plan was to pop down to Madden’s, see what was on offer. Several lamp posts later – perfect scene for a kids’ book, but dog willies and wee-wee are of no concern to us here – Hayden tied Rusty’s lead to a bicycle stand near the main entrance of the supermarket and went inside. Rusty sat and awaited Hayden’s return, his large, melancholy eyes attracting pats on the head and the usual ‘who’s-a-good-doggie’ stuff as Hayden stood deep in thought in the dog food section. Decisions, decisions. He was weighing up the merits and demerits of a self-styled ‘leading’ brand and Madden’s own make – both rich in bone-strengthening marrowbone jelly, for those interested in such matters – when the three aunts scurried past and disappeared down the next aisle.

  Were they trying to avoid him? They must have seen him. He hurried past the special offers and cut them off as they scuttled along the toiletry aisle.

  ‘Ladies, ladies, ladies,’ he said. ‘What an unexpected pleasure.’

  If they were surprised, they didn’t show it.

  ‘Why, it’s our friendly neighbourhood sloot.’

  ‘Are you a sloot? Are you, Hayding?’

  ‘A private dick, pardon our French.’

  They may have been about to launch into more prattle, but Hayden interrupted. He produced Pascal O’Dea’s confession from his breast pocket and waved it playfully across their startled faces.

  ‘Ex-dick, my dears. I rather fancy I may have just solved the case.’

  This was a new Hayden, an effervescent Hayden, and the effect on the three aunts couldn’t have been more pleasing. They rocked back on their carpet slippers in total silence, perhaps for the first time in their long, long lives. They processed the information like wizened anglerfish, and Hayden savoured the moment. They’d had their fun with him, but now? Hah. He was about to confide that he’d have to speak to the relevant authorities first before winding up proceedings, when he heard a familiar voice in the next aisle over.

  ‘I assassinated President Kennedy, Mr. Madd
en.’

  ‘Of course you did, Pascal. Of course you did. And I suppose you bumped his big brother off too?’

  Pascal’s falsetto titter was unlike any sound Hayden had ever heard.

  ‘You knew!’

  ‘That’s a good boy, Pascal,’ said Mr. Madden. ‘Go home to your mammy now and try to stop killing people. It’s not nice.’

  The three aunts were giggling again.

  ‘That makes tirty people he’s killed this week, Hayding. And counting.’

  ‘So anyway. You were saying.’

  Hayden put the confession back in his pocket. ‘It’s… it’s all a bit speculative at the moment. Early… early days.’

  His body language had changed. Playful fled to be replaced by tentative, as he dredged up his first encounter with Pascal from his subconscious. Not, as his conscious mind had deduced, at the front door of Eddie’s house, but before that, deep in conversation with Bram at the Nautical Buoy. ‘Is anyone using the salt?’ Those simpering tones – it couldn’t have been anyone else.

  Hayden was back at square one, he knew it, and the aunts, sensing the change in the atmosphere, seemed to know it too.

  ‘The mystery is not quite soluted yet we humbly submit, Hayding.’

  ‘And sometimes, whisper it softly,’ – there was something in the way they said this that gave it a certain resonance – ‘a mystery is best left unsoluted.’

  ‘But look. Quilted toilet rolls fifty centimetres off, so it’s not all bad news.’

  They grabbed a packet and shuffled off to the alcohol section.

  ‘To replenish our stocks, Hayding.’

  ‘Just in case.’

  ‘You simply never know.’

  Dottie, or it may have been Florrie – the strip lighting was on the blink – nudged him affectionately with a bony finger as they left. Hayden, deflated as only the recently smug can truly be, trudged back to the dog food.

  He opted eventually for Madden’s own-brand Turkey Brunch, and proceeded to fill his basket with bread, tins of tuna, a week’s supply of loose-leaf Assam and a two-pack of budget toilet roll, non-quilted; but his heart wasn’t in it.

  He headed to the tills. The three aunts had got there before him. He was about to duck behind a display of disposable nappies until they’d gone when they spotted him again.

  ‘There you are, Hayding. We’ve been coo-eeing you for yonks.’

  ‘The lovely checkout lady wants proof of age. Isn’t that gas?’

  It was now Hayden’s turn to rock back on his heels.

  ‘I was merely trying to make them reconsider the cooking sherry,’ said Trace. ‘That stuff ruined my life.’

  ‘What the’ – Hayden cut the fuck word just in time – ‘are you doing here?’

  Trace’s reproachful eyes bored through him.

  ‘I was worried about you,’ she said, ‘so I came over. Thought I might be here for a while so, you know, there was this job going…’

  Before Hayden could splutter an outraged response, the three aunts were off.

  ‘Oh now. You never told us you had a young lady, Hayding.’

  ‘Well aren’t you the dark horse? And there was us tinking you were gay.’

  ‘No harm in that, mind. We seem to remember one of us is gay, Hayding. It’s not you is it, Florrie?’

  ‘Not unless Orsing Welles was a lady. And I’m not sure I’m Florrie eider.’

  But Hayden wasn’t listening. He was glowering at Trace. Trace returned his glower with a defiant look.

  ‘You’re a lost soul, Hayden,’ she said, ‘and I’m your guardian angel. Like in that movie. What’s it called again?’

  ‘Stalker.’

  The word had been festering in his mind for some time. Now it was out. It had the intended effect.

  ‘That’s not nice, Hayden,’ said Trace in a very small voice. ‘It’s… it’s hurtful. Oh, and by the way,’ her voice now back to normal, ‘I got you these.’

  She produced a packet from under the counter and thrust it at him. He threw the packet with malice aforethought on the grocery belt, which sent it back to Trace.

  ‘Underpants,’ she said. ‘Three-for-two.’ She stopped the belt and pushed them back to Hayden. ‘You’ll thank me tomorrow.’

  The three aunts were lost in a reverie.

  ‘Underpants, Hayding. That is so romantic.’

  *

  Hayden’s brain hurt. A jumble of thoughts and people, all vying for space. He would have discussed these with Rusty on the way back to Eddie’s if he hadn’t left him outside the supermarket. He noted the oversight when he was halfway back, and returned, chastened, to Madden’s. The three aunts were fussing over the grieving dog.

  ‘There you are, Hayding, and not a moment too soon.’

  ‘Traumatised, he was.’

  ‘A dirty great tabby squaring up to him.’

  ‘Hissing like a ruddy adder, Hayding. And there he was stuck on his doggy lead. Mesmerised.’

  ‘We tink he might have wet himself, Hayding.’

  ‘Or maybe not. Can you wet yourself if you don’t wear pants? Discuss.’

  They were about to set off down the giggle route again. Hayden unwound the lead and feigned nonchalance.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind recently, but here, give me your bags and I’ll see you home.’

  ‘Pass the toot, Hayding, as we say in French. You run on ahead now, like a good boy.’

  ‘You’ll be up to your slooty eyeballs in slooting.’

  ‘Looking for fresh leads and so fort.’

  They patted a still traumatised Rusty.

  ‘No pun intended.’

  Hayden examined their puckered little faces to see if they betrayed any signs of mockery. They didn’t, on the surface anyway, but he was followed up Vernon Avenue by the tintinnabulating sound of girlish laughter.

  The tabby cat encounter was a potentially interesting development. On its own it may have added little, but consider the following: as Hayden and Rusty entered the home stretch, a large, well-fed ginger tom sitting on a nearby wall eyeballed Rusty lazily as he passed. Typical Clontarf cat. Proprietorial. Urbane in tooth and claw. Rusty cowered and gave it a wide berth. Simultaneously, and just as Hayden turned into Eddie’s driveway, a man further along the road stopped at his garden gate and banged, discreetly, on a cat-food tin. The ginger tom yawned, slithered off the wall, stretched and followed the tin.

  Different cat, same response from Rusty: aversion to conflict. Why is this interesting? Rusty, it suggested, was no cat killer.

  * * *

  8 Rapscallion.

  17

  Fast forward ten minutes. Hayden was trying to get Rusty to eat. Turkey Brunch, yummy yummy. Marrowbone jelly, mnnnn. As a desperate last resort, he led by example, taking a few bites himself. Mnnnn, yummy yummy, mnnnn. But his attention was elsewhere. Pascal O’Dea’s confession now lay scrunched in a ball on top of the waste basket, useless. Hayden was furious. The three aunts were delighted with their ‘slooting’ jibes, but he’d show ’em. He wouldn’t rest until Eddie’s murder was slooted.

  ‘Slooted, ladies. Finally, irrevocably, definitively. What do you have to say to that?’ Nothing! That’s what they’d have to say to that.

  As soon as he’d established that Rusty wasn’t interested in Madden’s award-winning Turkey Brunch, he put the remains of the tin in the fridge, filled the kettle, laid out the tea tray and opened his notebook. He drew a line down the page. One side: In The Frame. Other side: Not In The Frame. In The Frame? Brannigan. The Popes. Marina. Possibly Brannigan and Marina. Person or persons unknown. Not In The Frame? Pascal O’Dea.

  It was a start.

  He wet the tea, sat back down and drummed his fingers on the desk. Hayden in pensive mode. Four minutes passed. He’d forgotten all abo
ut the tea as he tried to work out who Eddie might have upset over the years. The church. The arts establishment. Ah! His parents. But hold on; they were in Waikiki at the time of Eddie’s death. End of that line of enquiry. He placed them neatly in Not In The Frame, which now read:

  •Pascal.

  •Mother.

  •Father.

  He’d split his parents up to make it look as if he was getting somewhere, which he wasn’t. He found it impossible to sleep that night, no further forward with his lines of enquiry, no further forward with his book.

  It was after midnight. Hayden was engrossed in the More Sam tape, which gave an added piquancy to the Eddie/Sam relationship. The final section involves an altercation between Eddie and leading literary critic PJ O’Malley.9 A tetchy PJ was furious with Eddie ‘for having the audacity to influence the pre-eminent playwright of the twentieth century [sic]. It upsets the dominant narrative,’ he spluttered. ‘You’re undermining the reputation of the man I love.’ It gets worse. ‘You’ll live to regret it, because let me tell you this: I have the contacts.’

  The recording ends with the celebrated critic’s petulant refusal of a Sweet Ambrosia top-up on the grounds that he hadn’t accepted a drink in the first place, and the pitter-patter of cerebral feet as he flounced to the exit. Hayden didn’t bother adding his name to the possible suspect list. PJ O’Malley had the contacts? He was probably referring to the London Review of Books.

  Hayden was having a quiet chuckle about this when the front doorbell rang. No response from a terminally depressed Rusty, not even a twitch of his good ear, but Hayden tensed up. It was 01.27, well outside visiting hours; unless, of course, the under-cover-of-darkness factor applied, in which case it wasn’t. He put the light out, crept softly to the door and listened. He expected the tuneless whistling of Lou Brannigan, or the menacing silence of the Popes. But no. All he could make out was a high-pitched chirruping sound; a bit like the Dublin Zoo bird enclosure at feeding time. The doorbell rang again.

  ‘Coo-ee, Hayding. We know you’re in there.’