The Death of an Irish Tinker

by Bartholomew Gill

  “Come ’ere, Hughie. Come closer now.” Which was impossible: They were as close as they could be. “Tell me somethin’.” She was employing the heavy Liberties accent that of course, she had grown up with and could mimic flawlessly and Ward found fetching, knowing who she was otherwise: Ph.D. historian, art and jewelry expert, and as sophisticated a person as he had ever met. It was her playful, flirtatious tone of voice, which she had used with him all those years before.

  “Can yeh not kiss me? Have yeh forgot how? And who’s to know, so? Here in the dark.” Leaning back, she was pressing her hips and pelvis against him. And her thighs. Which felt…well, too good entirely. For a man committed to somebody else.

  “Is it too much to ask? Or could you be”—she paused and smiled in a way that made her dimples pucker, her eyes devolving on his lips—“afraid?”

  Now they could hear some movement off at the back of the shop. It would be Lugh, their son.

  She raised her face to his. “Quick now, before Lugh comes.”

  When their lips met, Ward thought he felt a shock—and did he see a spark?—before she was in his arms, and they were, well, engaged.

  It was as if they had never parted. The years fled. They were together again, and Ward felt suddenly immortal, as though he were a god simply because she thought he was and would affirm it time and time again. As she had for—how long had it been? a little fifth-column voice asked in the back of his mind—fifteen years, was all. Ah, not much of a test. Give her fifteen more, and see how she feels.

  “Ma, was that Hughie?” Lugh called into the darkness as he moved toward the counters.

  They broke from each other breathless, and Ward caught a glimpse of Leah’s face that he knew he would never forget, as she turned and walked in that direction: blue eyes glassy, her smile masklike. The expression? Bemused but confidently so. As though she had reaffirmed that she had not been wrong in what she had said all those many years before.

  On Ward’s part, he felt a mix of emotions: deep, traumatic guilt that his emotional focus, which had remained fixed on Ruth Bresnahan for the past nearly ten years, was by one kiss alone now blurred. But also a kind of joy that was founded in lust, since now—his eyes following Leah’s…voluptuous (was the only term for her) form toward the lighted cases—he conjured up in a flash every heady, heart-stopping detail of how they had been together all those years before. Ward had then only just got to know women in an intimate way, and Lee Stone—older and married—became his “Aphrodite,” she called herself. And the lessons were utterly unforgettable.

  Now he wondered how she had managed to keep her waist, which had been narrow then and was narrow still. Could she be wearing a girdle? He reached for her waist, and she stopped and turned to him, the same curious smile still on her face.

  “Know what I’d like?” she said in a whisper. “Just one more session with you.”

  When he began to object, she placed a finger on his lips.

  “I know, I know. You have your Ruthie, who’s beautiful, bright, and young. But”—her blue eyes cleared and fixed his—“would it be too much to ask for us to have, say, one final weekend together?”

  When Ward opened his mouth to object, the finger traced his lips.

  “A wee, wild fling is all I ask. And no more.”

  Ward took her finger. “And a wee babby?”

  Her smile did not diminish. “Would that be so wrong? I have time and money, and I love children.” She pulled her finger from his hand, then tapped his chest, turning the nail this way and that into his skin. “Our children.”

  As if they were married in some alternative way. There was a lot of that going on in Dublin these days, thought Ward, and there, although unknowing, he’d been a part of one for fifteen years.

  Because—adding to his burden of guilt was the probability that for all those years Lee Stone/Leah Sigal had been faithful to him, whereas he had used her lessons in love only to conquer as many women as he could before Ruthie. Who had conquered him. And who was very much in his life.

  “And I’d hazard Lugh has turned out well.”

  Who was watching them from the open door of the living quarters and doubtless wondering what his mother and father were discussing with obvious passion out of his hearing. Ward could only agree. Lugh Sigal/Ward, as he now chose to call himself, was a fine lad in every regard: taller than either of them, darkly handsome, bright, and perhaps a better athlete than Ward himself, who had competed in the Olympics and won several European amateur boxing titles in the seventy-kilo weight class.

  What could Ward say to her? How should he reply? “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “Oh, do. Do!” There was a pause, and then, in a lower voice that was laced with ardor, she added, “And think about this: You can kiss me anytime. Anywhere. Your choice. You have my number, just ring me up. I’ll make time or meet you anywhere. Or you can come here. Lugh’s in school most of the day. I love you, I’ve always loved you, and I’ve loved only you. But just as I was when I gave birth to Lugh, I won’t intrude on your life in any way. I just want you to fill me up again. Please.”

  She then turned from him and walked smartly toward their son, leaving Ward feeling as if he’d just been mugged emotionally. Watching her, knowing who she was and how much they had loved each other and how they’d been together, Ward wondered how he could possibly refuse her request.

  It would change things between him and Ruthie, who did not want to get married or have children. At least not yet. She was only thirty. Ward’s past amorous betrayals had proved fatal to the relationships he’d been in, not because the other party found out but because he knew. Somehow it just took the edge off everything, and then a kind of fatal emotional rot set in.

  Ward held out his hand, and Lugh took it in both of his. “Dad, good to see you. What was that all about?” It was the first time that he had seen his parents touch.

  Ward shrugged. “I dunno. I was just trying to see if your mother’s wearing a girdle.”

  Leah’s smile was suddenly brilliant. “Like Aphrodite? You remembered.”

  How could he forget?

  “Well, I’m not telling, not even you.” She turned and walked toward the kitchen. “It’s my secret for the moment.” Which would be revealed the moment Ward acted on her request, of course.

  “Would you like to see my new model?” Lugh asked.

  Ward had to think: Model what?

  “The Blériot.”

  “Ah, yes, the biplane you’re building from scratch.”

  “Built from scratch.”

  “You mean it’s finished already? You’re a genius and take after your mother.”

  Who, with her palms propped on the counter behind her and her glorious bosom wrapped in tight-ribbed red chenille prominent, now regarded Ward as he followed their son to a workroom that functioned as Lugh’s studio.

  Her expression? That same masklike smile but with a slight difference. Now it seemed contented. Or was it smug? As though having satisfied herself on one score, she now knew something he did not. Or refused to acknowledge.

  That she was fighting for his affection and had now planted what amounted to a snake in his mind? That it was inevitable and determined and they would have their session. It was as good as done.

  Having to pry his eyes from hers as he closed the door, Ward felt as if it were.

  CHAPTER 13

  Hang

  BY HALF PAST twelve in the afternoon Peter McGarr was ensconced in Ryan’s Pub not far from Garda headquarters in Phoenix Park. It was a handsome old bar made of mahogany and rosewood with tall Victorian mirrors and frosted glass in the doors of its several snugs.

  The one McGarr chose was at the very back of the pub, and he positioned himself on a banquette where there was no possible mirrored view of him. Ordering three large whiskeys and three larger glasses of iced water, he waited as the popular pub filled up with a lunchtime crowd, loud talk, laughter, and scurrying barmen.

  More than a f
ew times the intricately paneled door swung open and a head appeared. But seeing McGarr and the other glasses on the table, each invariably muttered, “Sorry,” and departed.

  At length an older woman peeked in and, seeing McGarr, entered. “Ah, so there yeh are, and in the usual company I see. Is it for me you bought one o’ them?”

  McGarr shrugged. “All of them, if you like. As I remember, it’s what you drank the last time we met here.”

  “All of a dozen years gone January and on the very same matter, it turns out.”

  McGarr’s head came up. She had something for him. Pauline Honan was in charge of Administrative Services, and the last time they met it was to discuss how the Toddler could have obtained official Garda uniforms, badges, and even handguns. For the Bookends, whom he had just murdered.

  “But I have me knittin’ to do this after’. Not like some. Johnny!” she called to a barman, who had only to see her to know what was wanted: a large pot of tea and a plate of salad sandwiches.

  “What about you?” she asked.

  McGarr flicked a finger at his glass. “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not, silly man. Didn’t I predict you’d end up like this? All glass, no food—it’ll be the death of you yet.” She carried the pot of tea over to the table, then returned for the plate.

  Pauline Honan was a thin, diminutive woman in her early sixties. With a round face, large brown eyes, and an aquiline nose, she looked not a little bit the way McGarr himself had before his own nose had been broken and canted off to the side. In fact, she and he had been an item, once upon a time some twenty years earlier, before McGarr had met his wife.

  “So, how’s the child bride?” Like a slap, her eyes met McGarr’s once, hard, before angling off. She set down the tray and sat. “And now the child. It must be grand being a daddy.”

  McGarr knew better than to reply.

  Her age, which was ten years greater than his, had always been a sore point for her. Somehow she blamed him for the difference, as though they should have met or he should have been born earlier in life, and he could have made it happen.

  Which was the problem between them. There always seemed to be something about him that she found wanting in an essential way and she could correct, according to her agenda. McGarr had stopped seeing Pauline Honan when, one day over a quiet drink, he realized that she simply did not approve of him. He now reached for his glass.

  As though having read his thoughts, she seemed to collapse against the cushions of the banquette. “Ah, Peter, I don’t mean to seem so bitter, here not seeing you for all this time. But it’s just every time I do, I’m reminded.”

  Of how she had thrown her life away on him? Hardly. She was fully forty years old when he met her.

  “Do we get this thing over with, over so I can enjoy me lunch?” “Now that you find me useful again after a dozen bloody years,” went unsaid.

  And how to reply? McGarr held out his hand. When she took it, her body shook with a sob, and tears burst from her eyes.

  McGarr moved closer and wrapped an arm around her. Pulling her close, he held her until she stopped crying.

  The barman, passing to the kitchen, stopped. “Are yiz right?”

  Well, they weren’t wrong.

  “Pauline?”

  “Thank you, Johnny.”

  After a while she pushed herself away from McGarr and turned to a wall mirror. “Will you look at me?” She reached for a serviette. “Just a bitter old bitch, when what I wanted to say was different.”

  McGarr poured her a cup of tea and added milk and two sugars. He placed the cup in front of her.

  “You remembered.” But she reached instead for one of the whiskeys.

  “Is it here I’m supposed to say, ‘I’ll never forget’?”

  She waited a long moment, regarding him. Then: “I ought to get up and walk out.”

  But she knew he had meant it, which was enough.

  She blew her nose so violently and at such length that even the barman reappeared.

  McGarr sought relief in his glass.

  “Now—do we deal with Hannigan, yehr other bastard? And a right bastard, so. Look at this.” From her purse she removed some printouts.

  “The computer with the search function only goes back seven years. But on every occasion—nine in all—that Hannigan was rung up by his ‘Uncle Bill,’ the voice calls himself, didn’t Hannigan bust some poor drugged-up divil and polish his reputation for clairvoyance.

  “‘Not at-tall, not at-tall,’” she mimicked in an exaggerated Cork accent, “he’s only after saying to me yesterday when I congratulated him on the Raglan Road arrests, “‘’tis just plain, old, dogged police work, Pauline. I’m knackered from it, to tell you the truth. ’Bout ready to pack it in altogether.’ The gobshite.

  “Now here’s what Uncle Bill had to say just before the Raglan Road bust.” She flipped to the last sheet and pointed to the transcription, which McGarr quickly read. “Odd, what? The voice is stranger still.”

  Again she reached into her purse and pulled something out: a small tape recorder that she placed on the table. She picked up a glass and drank off a whiskey, before punching down the play button. “Sedative, don’t you know? For the ears. His uncle Bill! From the bleedin’ States no less.”

  Said the voice, “It’s your mother’s uncle Bill. I’m in a phone booth on a Callcard. Could you ring me back?”

  And Hannigan, “By all means, Uncle Bill. Good to hear your voice.”

  “Do I give you the number?”

  “No need, Bill b’y. Don’t I have it right here on me display?”

  McGarr had to hear only two words to know who it was. “Desmond Bacon,” he said.

  “The Toddler? Didn’t he just get shot in the laneway behind the house? It must have been slightly after. Not even an hour.”

  McGarr nodded, pleased to learn somebody else read the dailies closely. And could think.

  “And did you hear Hannigan’s happy, thievin’, treacherous reply? Could he have kissed Bacon’s arse right there and then, he would have. He should hang.” The recorded conversation was over; she punched off the machine. “Care to hear the earlier calls?”

  McGarr shook his head; there was no need. “What about the number?”

  “That the Toddler called from? Cell phone billed to a business on the quays that’s owned by another firm in the Liberties that has an address on the Isle of Jersey.”

  With privacy laws more confidential than those of Switzerland, McGarr knew from other investigations.

  “So, we have a dilemma,” Pauline Honan concluded, reaching for the last full glass. “There’s nothing in that conversation to incriminate Hannigan. Even if pressed to produce ‘Uncle Bill,’ he can always say he’s just a concerned private citizen who made Hannigan swear never to give up his name. And we both know Hannigan. He could retire and play the crusading but persecuted policeman right into the Dail. ‘Sure, Oi’ve busted too many drug dealers for the liking of’”—she swirled a hand—“‘Garda power brokers.’ That class of rot.

  “But you know, I’ve given this some thought. There is something we could do. Hannigan, it seems, is a great one for the cell phone. Carries one with him wherever he goes. And his use of it? Shameless. He’s broadcasting most of the day.” Opening the sheaf of papers, she showed McGarr page after page of numbers called. “That’s just in one week.”

  “Where’d you get that?”

  Pauline Honan glanced up at McGarr; her smile was mirthless and predatory. “Where I could get his conversations were I of a mind. Easily and by meself on borrowed equipment. No risk, no worry.

  “And you—let’s think of what you could do to like check and see if we’re right about this, and it is the Toddler who’s Uncle Bill. Done right, it might even make charges and tribunals and a court unnecessary. And punishment. I can imagine a scenario in which Hannigan could get the max, and you and I would know why.”

  Turning to McGarr, she waited until their ey
es met.

  McGarr nodded.

  “You’ll do that?”

  He nodded again, and Pauline Honan’s hands jumped for his face, which she pulled toward her and kissed on the lips.

  Releasing him, she blushed scarlet. “Now, leave me to my lunch. And I hope to see you again before I die. You’re a rare brave and foolish man.”

  Hugh Ward and his son, Lugh, were bench-testing the four-stroke 2.5-cubic-inch Saito engine Ward had bought him for the Blériot biplane he had built when a knock came to the door of the studio. Leah looked in on them, and Lugh had to shut down the roaring engine so she could speak.

  “Sorry to disturb you. This could be nothing. But didn’t I read a piece in The Times today about a house being raided in Ballsbridge owned by a woman named Waters?”

  Ward stood up.

  “I think she’s out front, wanting to pawn an ancient tore with sapphires and rubies. She has a provenance in her name that’s legitimate. I just got off the phone to England. It’s worth”—Leah hunched her shoulders—“maybe fifty thousand quid, I’d hazard. At least I know I could sell it for that quickly. Says she needs forty and will be back soon to pick it up.

  “We settled on thirty by my personal check, and the balance in hundred-pound notes.” Leah raised a large money bag. “Knowing about the check means she’s dealt with us before, which is probably why she’s here.”

  Sigal & Son was probably the only jeweler in Dublin who would deal with an item so valuable, Ward knew.

  “But I can’t place her. And she’s a Traveler, I’m sure, in spite of the way she looks, which is…chic. I can tell by the way she haggled. The patter. Like she was selling swag.” Meaning the sewing needles, cheap jewelry, and trinkets that Traveling women used to sell door to door to farm wives.

  “You can see her on the television monitor in the kitchen.”

  Looking down at the screen, Ward saw a woman of size standing at one of the counters out front. She had dark hair cut short and was dressed in a rather formal-looking costume, like something she might wear to an opening. And dark glasses.