Living Death

by Graham Masterton

‘No,’ said Katie.

  ‘Foxy’ held out his hand to Conor and said, ‘Well, boy, whoever you are, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Eamonn Collins, a very long-time acquaintance of your delightful lady-friend here.’

  Conor shook his hand and smiled. ‘I expect I’ll find out when you’ve sat down again if it was a pleasure to meet you, too.’

  ‘Foxy’ leaned over to Katie again. ‘You need to find out who’s supplying this stuff, DS Maguire, and I’m serious now. Almost all of it is cut or contaminated with Christ alone knows what and the kids are going to start dropping like flies. At least when I was in the business my product was all good quality. The only clients who passed away on me were the ones who took too much of it, because it was so pure and they were enjoying it so much and you can’t blame me for that.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Eamonn,’ said Katie. ‘I’m sure Saint Peter will take that into account when you reach the pearly gates.’

  Eamonn returned to his table and Conor went to the bar and ordered their drinks. When he came back, he said, ‘I have to say, Katie, you have some very interesting friends.’

  ‘“Foxy” Collins is no friend of mine,’ said Katie. ‘He’s one of the few gangsters in Cork who makes my blood run cold. I don’t know for sure how many people he’s had killed, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it runs into double figures.’

  ‘And you’ve never been able to nail him for it?’

  ‘Conor – if he makes my blood run cold, what effect do you think he has on any witnesses? He’s right, though. I have to find out where all these drugs are coming from. At least one of those six students at Greenmount could have died, and for all I know there are scores of heroin addicts lying dead in their squats and they don’t have anybody to wonder why they’ve gone missing.’

  Conor raised his glass of Murphy’s. ‘Oh well,’ he said. ‘Here’s to survivors everywhere. And us.’

  *

  They went back to Conor’s room at the Gabriel Guest House. As soon as Conor had closed the door and locked it, he took Katie in his arms and kissed her, so deeply and for so long that they were both breathless.

  ‘I dreamed about this last night,’ he said. He pulled off his windcheater and wrestled himself out of his navy-blue sweater and tossed them on to the armchair. Then he took off Katie’s coat, and her jacket, and kissed her again, running his fingers up into her hair at the back of her neck.

  ‘God almighty, you don’t know how much I want you,’ he said. ‘You’re beautiful. You’re like a merrow, do you know that? You put a spell on me.’

  ‘Not too much like a merrow, I hope,’ smiled Katie, kissing the tip of his nose and his lips and stroking his beard. ‘I don’t have a tail and I don’t smell like mackerel.’

  He took off her sweater and then her bra, and then they both raced to strip themselves naked. They tumbled together on to the bed, and Katie kissed him again and again, and gripped his hardened penis in her hand as if she had a right to it, as if she were the queen of lovemaking and this was her sceptre.

  She lay on her back and opened up her legs, but instead of climbing on top of her, Conor lay beside her and massaged her breasts, tugging her nipples until they stiffened. Then he ran his hand down her stomach and started to stroke her clitoris with his middle fingertip. At the same time he kissed her shoulder and then the side of her neck and then her cheek.

  Katie turned her head to smile at him, and he smiled back at her. She could tell by the tension in his muscles and the stiffness of his penis how much he was aching to slide himself inside her, but in his eyes she saw calm, and a look of deep fulfilment, as if he had found at last the woman that he had always dreamed about, and he never wanted their lovemaking to end.

  His fingertip went on playing with her clitoris until it was as stiff as a bird’s beak, and her vagina was wet and slippery. Conor eased his right hand under the cheek of her bottom and dipped his index finger into her, to lubricate it, and then he started to massage her anus. The sensation made Katie roll her hips, urging him to push his finger inside her.

  ‘Conor,’ she breathed. She was gasping now, and her face felt flushed. ‘Oh, Conor, oh, God, you’re amazing.’

  His finger went up inside her anus as far as it would go, and stirred her around and around, and then he lifted her thigh and she could feel the swollen head of his penis between the lips of her vulva. All she wanted now was for him to fill her completely. He was just about to thrust when his mobile phone started ringing – the mobile phone that he had been given to talk to Lorcan Fitzgerald.

  Katie opened her eyes, and suddenly she was back in reality.

  ‘Answer it,’ she told him. ‘Answer it, Conor – quick!’

  Conor was totally confused. ‘Jesus, Katie.’

  ‘Answer it!’ she gasped, lifting herself away from him so that he had to take out his finger, and sitting up.

  He stumbled off the bed and picked his windcheater up off the chair, scrambling through the pockets to find his phone. It was still ringing when he found it, and prodded the screen to answer it. Katie thought: Please remember that you’re Redmond O’Dea.

  ‘Hallo there,’ he said, and she was relieved to hear him put on his Tipperary accent. ‘Yes, sir. Yes. This is Redmond, yes.’

  He was still kneeling on the floor but he turned around to Katie and gave her a thumbs-up.

  ‘They’re all fine dogs, sir, yes, sir, I can promise you that,’ he said, after a while. ‘The Neapolitan mastiff in particular. Oh yes, sir. You can imagine the fights you could have with him, like. You could set three pit bulls up against him, and he’d tear the fecking lungs out of all of them, so he would.’

  He listened for a while longer, and then he said, ‘Okay. That’s grand. I’ll meet you there, Wednesday at twelve, and I’ll bring the dogs with me. No, that’s no bother at all. Thanks for ringing back, Lorcan. I’ll see you then.’

  He dropped the mobile phone on to the chair and stood up. Katie had always thought that John looked like a Greek god, because he used to be so muscular, but Conor was lean and slim and hairy and all he needed was a crown of thorns and a spear-wound in his side to look like Jesus. His penis had half-subsided now but it was still swollen.

  ‘Well?’ she said.

  ‘Lorcan Fitzgerald is very interested in the dogs I have to offer him. He’s checked with Bartley Doran to make sure I’m sound. He wants to meet at twelve on Tuesday and guess where... Bartley Doran’s place.’

  ‘That’s fantastic,’ said Katie. ‘We can have a reception committee waiting for him.’

  Conor climbed back on to the bed and put his arms around her but Katie looked at her watch and said, ‘I’m sorry, Conor. I really need to be heading off.’

  ‘What? You’re not serious, are you?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m really pushed for time and the traffic’s going to be a nightmare. I shouldn’t really have come here in the first place.’

  ‘Oh, Katie, come on. We were almost there. You can’t leave a fellow half-satisfied. It’s bad for his tubes.’

  Katie kissed him and said, ‘You’re wonderful, Conor, and I adore you. But I have to come into the station for a couple of hours tomorrow morning and I can meet you after. Then we can spend the whole afternoon together.’

  ‘You mean it? The whole afternoon?’

  Katie kissed him again. ‘The whole afternoon. I promise.’

  Conor kissed her back, and then, very gently, with both hands, he took hold of her thighs and opened her legs wide. He bent his head down and licked her lasciviously, and sucked her, and when he looked up again he said, ‘There. At least I’ll be able to taste you tonight. I won’t brush my teeth till the morning.’

  As she drove home to Cobh, Katie thought: Why did I leave him like that? I was enjoying his lovemaking, too – in fact I was loving it – and I didn’t really have to go.

  She wondered if she was frightened of how strongly she was attracted to him, and of losing control.

  Sometimes you need to
let yourself go, Katie Maguire. You don’t have to be a detective superintendent when you’re naked, and in bed with a man who excites you so much. Or maybe you do.

  34

  Gerry Mulvaney was woken up by somebody shaking his shoulder and saying, ‘Gerry! Come on, Gerry! Wake up, boy! You can’t sleep all day!’

  He opened his eyes. He saw a middle-aged woman with chaotic hair, grinning at him. He looked all around him and saw that he was lying in a room with pale green walls. No pictures, only pale green walls. A yellowish blind was drawn halfway down the window and he could hear that it was raining outside, and see raindrops dancing on the windowsill.

  His brain felt as if it had turned into cotton wool. He couldn’t think where he was, or why he was here. He couldn’t even remember what his name was. He was aware of a dull throbbing pain in his lower right leg, below the knee, but it was a distant pain, almost as if his right leg belonged to somebody else, and he was feeling the pain sympathetically.

  ‘Where – where the feck am I?’ he said, slurrily. Even his lips felt as if they belonged to somebody else.

  ‘You’re in St Giles’ Clinic, don’t you remember?’

  ‘No. I don’t. And who the feck are you?’

  ‘Oh get away with you, Gerry. I’m Grainne. You’ve known me for years. Listen look – here’s himself. He’ll tell you what the score is.’

  A tall thin man leaned over Gerry like the jib of a crane. Gerry squeezed his eyes tight shut, and then opened them again, and now he began to piece together where he was, and what had happened to him, and who these people were.

  ‘Gearoid,’ he croaked. ‘What are you doing to me, Gearoid? What you said before, about making me disabled and all, you wasn’t being serious, was you, boy?’

  ‘I told you, Gerry. I’m making you useful. Much more useful than you ever were before.’

  ‘My fecking leg hurts.’

  ‘It will, for a while yet, but don’t worry. We’ll be giving you the morphine to keep your suffering down to a minimum.’

  ‘I want to get out of here, Gearoid. I want to go back to my kennels. How can I be selling Lorcan’s dogs for him while you have me in here? Jesus, haven’t you done enough to me? I never let you down before.’

  ‘Well, I know that, Gerry,’ said Gearoid. ‘But you let us down this one time, and very badly, and how can I be sure that you won’t let us down like that again? There’s too much at stake here, Gerry.’

  ‘What have you done to my leg? You haven’t cut it off, have you?’

  ‘Mother of God, Gerry, nothing so drastic as that. All I’ve done is taken out the bones below the knee.’

  ‘You’ve what? How in the name of feck am I going to be able to walk, if you’ve taken my fecking bones out? Can’t you put them back in again?’

  ‘Sorry, no. Once I’ve taken them out, that’s irreversible, and in any event Dermot will have disposed of them by now. Crushed them in the wood-chipper. Besides which, Gerry, you won’t be required to walk in your new role in life. In fact it’s preferable if you can’t. Your new role in life requires you to be chronically disabled.’

  Gerry tried to lift himself up, but he didn’t have the strength. ‘Please, Gearoid. Don’t do this to me. I’ll do anything you want – anything.’

  ‘I know you would, Gerry, but what I want is for you to be crippled for life. That’s the only way you’re going to be of any use to me from now on.’

  Gerry’s eyes filled with tears, and he gave a deep, throat-wrenching sob. He tried to say something else to Gearoid, but he was so frightened and distressed that he couldn’t speak.

  Gearoid said, ‘Grainne, will you tell Dermot to bring in the wheelchair now.’ Then he leaned over Gerry again. ‘What we’re going to do now, Gerry, is show you some of your fellow travellers. You’ll be taking some regular trips to England, once or twice a week at least, and I’d like you to see some of the people who’ll be going with you, before you can’t see them any more.’

  ‘What – what do you mean by that?’ Gerry choked out.

  ‘You’re going to be blinded, Gerry. You have to be. The people in England we’re doing business with, they insist on it. Otherwise there’s always a risk that you could identify them in a court of law, and that would be a disaster. For them, of course, but for me, too. My entire operation would collapse, and we’re talking millions, Gerry – millions. Far more than your eyesight is worth, let me tell you.’

  ‘You said before that I could choose! Blind or deaf, that’s what you said! If it comes to that, I’d rather be deaf than fecking blind!’

  ‘Yes, I said you could choose, Gerry, but like the scientist you are, you chose not to choose. Instead you tried to throw yourself out of the window and cost me two hundred euros in replacement glass. So I’m choosing for you, and I choose not only to take the bones out of your arms and your legs, but to make you blind and deaf. You’ll still be able to feel, and to think, and to eat and drink and go through all of the other bodily functions, but you’ll be trapped in your own little world, Gerry, and it’ll be darkness and silence for the rest of your life.’

  Gerry, again, was speechless, although his eyes were brimming with tears and his Adam’s apple was working up and down with terror and self-pity.

  Dermot came into the room pushing a wheelchair. Between them, he and Gearoid lifted Gerry off the bed and lowered him into it. He was wearing only a black T-shirt and a large white pair of adult incontinence pants. His left leg was bandaged and supported by a blue wraparound McDavid shin splint. He stopped sobbing once he was sitting in the wheelchair and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, but he still wasn’t able to speak.

  ‘Come on, then, Gerry, let’s take the grand tour,’ said Gearoid. ‘I just want you to appreciate that you’re not the only one who’s helping us out with this great enterprise of ours. By the time we’ve finished, we’ll be the biggest importer of narcotics in the country. We’ll make those gangs up in Dublin look like amateurs.’

  Dermot pushed the wheelchair along the upstairs corridor until they reached a large room at the back of the house which overlooked the garden. The walls were plain, with no pictures on them, and there was no television, although there was a Bose music player on a side-table with a small stack of CDs beside it. Outside, it was raining hard, and all the laurel bushes were dripping.

  There were seven armchairs in the room, arranged in a semi-circle, with their backs to the window. In four of these armchairs sat Siobhán and Fiontán, as well as another woman, dark-haired, a little older than Siobhán, and another young man, with a large nose and a blue shaven head with a deep red crescent-shaped cleft in it.

  ‘Here they are, Gerry, your fellow heroes and heroines,’ said Gearoid. ‘There’s two more, but Fearghal’s having a bit of a sleep before we send him off to the UK this afternoon, and Kieran’s still recovering from having his pelvis split apart. You were lucky by comparison. I didn’t have to send my trusty helpers out to run you down. And when I mean run you down, that’s what they do, they chase you in their car and they run you down.’

  Dermot pushed Gerry up to Siobhán’s chair. Siobhán was wearing a thick black polo-neck sweater and a baggy pair of jeans, and socks, but no shoes. Her head was lowered as if she were asleep, but as Gerry was pushed nearer she raised it, with a jerk, as if she could see him.

  ‘This is Siobhán,’ said Gearoid. ‘She can hear you, but she’s blind, and she can’t say hello – or anything else, come to that. But she’s done one run for us already, and we’re very happy with her. She’s pretty, don’t you think? And when the customs officers see a pretty girl like Siobhán, stricken by blindness and such total disability, they’re all the more inclined to wave the ambulance through without turfing her out of it so that they can search it.’

  Siobhán made a gargling sound in her throat, but it was impossible to tell if she were trying to speak, or if she were doing nothing more than swallowing an excess of saliva.

  Next, Gerry was pushed up to
face Fiontán.

  ‘For feck’s sake take me out of here,’ said Gerry. ‘I don’t need to see any more, Gearoid. This is doing nothing at all but putting the fear of God into me. Jesus, Gearoid, I can’t face you turning me into one of these people. I’d rather you killed me. I mean it. Why don’t you just fecking kill me?’

  ‘Because dead people can’t pay back what they owe, Gerry, and dead people are no use to me at all. I could fit out a hearse, I suppose, to carry drugs in, but how many times do you think I could ship your dead body to England and back before Revenue started sniffing at it and growing more than a mite suspicious?’

  Fiontán’s head was tilted back, and he was dribbling and twitching with nervous spasms. The brunette woman kept turning her head from side to side, and she was clearly aware that there was somebody else in the room, although she could neither see them nor hear them. The young man with the cleft in his head sat utterly still, his blind blue eyes staring at nothing, but endlessly grinding his teeth.

  ‘This is Breda, and this is Val,’ said Gearoid. ‘You’ll be making the journey with one or other of them from time to time, so it’s good for you to have an idea of what they look like.’

  Gerry closed his eyes. He obviously knew that it was useless for him to repeat ‘kill me’, so he said nothing. Gearoid had already lamed him. If he blinded him and deafened him and made it impossible for him to speak, that would be just like being dead, except that he would still be alive.

  ‘Right,’ said Gearoid. ‘I think it’s time to make a start on you, Gerry. Will you take him through to the operating room, Dermot, and strap him on the table? I’ll be with you in a minute. I have to ring my mother. She hasn’t been feeling too bright lately.’

  ‘Gearoid,’ said Gerry, but that was all.

  Dermot pushed him back along the corridor and into the room that Gearoid used as an operating theatre. Gerry had stopped crying now, and he was starting to feel numb, as if none of this was really happening. The numbness was partly caused by the morphine that he had been given to suppress the pain in his leg, and partly by his brain defending him against the horror of what was going to be done to him.