Dark Dawn (ds o'neill)

by Matt McGuire

  Inside, a dark oak counter stretched the length of the bar. Black and white tiles covered the floor and a row of optics glistened with amber vials of whiskey — Black Bush, Paddy’s, Dunhill’s.

  Lynch ordered a pint of Guinness and took it to a booth along the wall. From there he could sit quietly, inconspicuous. He could also look out across the whole room, an old habit, but one he never felt like changing, and especially not now.

  He had hoped that a bit of normality, a few pints, might help reset the body clock. Failing that, it would at least give the sleeping pills a hand. He remembered Marie-Therese from a couple of mornings back: ‘Try gin.’ He smiled, thinking about her attitude, a two fingers to life and whatever it threw at you. She was just right. On the way to The George he’d walked past her house and considered asking her out for a drink. It was too blatant though. It needed to be something casual, to look spontaneous. During the day, that was the way to go. A cup of coffee. Just talking. No obvious subtext.

  Every few minutes the snug at the back of the bar erupted in shouting and roars of laughter. There was a group of men and by the sound of it they were well on their way. Lynch looked round the bar, recognizing a number of faces from the Markets. The old man with the Jack Russell had nodded as he had walked in. Lynch liked seeing him, liked the thought of him and his dog, doing everything together. That was loyalty. Real loyalty. The dog never left his side. Right then it was curled up at the foot of his bar stool.

  At the back of the pub the snug let out another roar. Lynch looked round. The group were hidden by the glass partition that topped the seats. He couldn’t make out any faces. He couldn’t make out Sean Molloy, busy holding court. He couldn’t make out Johnny Tierney, banging his empty glass down, ordering someone to get a round in. The rest of the pub were oblivious, or were acting that way. See no evil, hear no evil. Lynch could tell from the fake indifference that whoever was back there had carte blanche to do whatever they wanted. No one was going to say boo to them.

  He was about to get up and leave when a half-drunk pint appeared beside him. It was the dog man. The wee Jack Russell trotted over after him.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’

  ‘Work away.’

  The old man groaned as he shifted into the seat. He introduced himself with a wheezing, raspy voice. Arthur McNally. He was five foot nothing and well into his seventies. He motioned to the dog.

  ‘Sit down there, Sammy.’ He turned to Lynch. ‘Has me run ragged, this boy. It’s like he gets younger, every year I get older.’

  Wee Arthur was a talker, which suited Lynch fine. He was more than happy listening. It was good to sit there, soaking up someone else’s thoughts instead of suffocating in your own. The old man ranged round, talking about the football, how Cliftonville were rubbish, again, and all the building work that was going on round the town. He hardly recognized Belfast any more. Lynch asked him when the pub round the corner, The Kitchen, had disappeared. For ten minutes they added to the rumble of conversation rolling round the pub. Lynch went to buy himself another pint and got one in for his new friend, making a joke about Care in the Community.

  As the barman put the drinks in front of him, a glass shattered inside the snug. In unison the bar turned its head, expecting fireworks. A burst of laughter erupted from the corner. It was only a spilled drink. The bar settled again and Lynch returned to his seat. Arthur lowered his voice and nodded towards the back of the pub.

  ‘Hallions. The lot of them.’

  When he finished his drink Lynch made his excuses and got up to leave. As he backed out of the snug he bumped into someone.

  ‘Sorry there. .’

  He turned to see six foot two inches of Sean Molloy staring down at him. Molloy stood with four men at his back, on their way out of the bar. He looked at Lynch, backing him up against the table. The room was silent, glasses hung in the air, halfway towards gaping mouths. Molloy spoke with menacing quiet.

  ‘If it isn’t Joe Lynch. The big hero. Out walking amongst us.’ He pushed Lynch in the shoulder with his finger. ‘If I was you, Lynch, I’d take a bit more care where I was stepping. These aren’t the good old days any more.’

  Lynch knew about Molloy’s reputation. He was one of Gerry McCann’s boys and could handle himself. That wasn’t the worry. It was the four others that stood behind him. One more Lynch could handle, probably not two, and definitely not four. It didn’t matter who you were, four to one were pretty lousy odds.

  No one in the bar moved.

  Lynch looked at Molloy. It would be one punch and a run for the door. You would make it or you wouldn’t. The rest would look after itself. Lynch braced himself, ready to throw. At the same moment Johnny Tierney stepped forward and jostled Molloy along.

  ‘Come on, big lad,’ he said, slapping his mate on the back. ‘The birds are waiting. This one’ll keep. He’s not going anywhere.’

  Molloy stepped back from the edge. The five men made their way out of the bar, Tierney smirking back at Lynch. Conversations resumed as the doors swung shut behind them. Lynch took his seat, making sure he could see the door, just in case. He looked at his empty pint. At his side, Arthur petted his dog and muttered to himself, under his breath.

  ‘Hallions, the lot of them.’

  TEN

  Ward gave it a poke down the middle with a three wood. Two hundred yards away the ball skipped over a ridge and disappeared out of sight. He’d always thought the first wasn’t the same, after they had filled in the bunker on the right-hand side of the fairway.

  It was 7 a.m. and Fortwilliam golf course was deserted. Ward’s navy Mondeo sat alone in the car park. The fairways sloped along the side of Cavehill and down to Belfast Lough. The grass runway of the first shimmered silver with early-morning dew. This was Ward’s ritual. Nine holes of golf, early doors, while the world was still in its bed. He used an old, rusty set of clubs that had belonged to his father, and always played alone.

  The day before, he had sat for three hours in a divisional meeting. Wilson gave a presentation on the last quarter’s crime stats for East and South Belfast. Slide after slide, he broke down call rates, arrest figures, charges brought. Each column totalled to a nice neat percentage. Policing by numbers. Round the table, the senior management of Musgrave Street nodded in agreement. You couldn’t blame them, Ward thought. The measurement, the neatness, the accountability. If he worked on the third floor and never left the station, he’d probably like to see something so neat and tidy.

  Ward had sat in the meeting, staring at graphs and tables, wondering when policing had become a form of accountancy. Digging out his old notebooks, looking for Spender, had brought back memories from when he’d first joined up. He found himself reading over various incidents he’d attended. Detail after detail rose up within him — faces, names, charges; injuries, victims, suspects; blood spatters, registration plates, street addresses. Ward remembered his first ever Sergeant, Stanley Hannah. Hannah was in his late fifties, six two and built like a bear. He had been at Dunkirk and Normandy. It was an unwritten rule at Musgrave Street, every new man got six weeks with the Sarge. You rode together, twelve hours a day, Hannah conducting lessons on the art of policework. They would sit in the car, or walk the street. The Sergeant would ask — What do you see? What’s he doing over there? What kind of car’s behind you? How long has it been there? Hannah taught Ward — you watch, you listen, you remember. That was the job. You didn’t police with your fists and your boot. At least not when you could help it. In the early eighties things started to heat up and Hannah warned him, ‘This thing’s going to get a whole lot worse, before it gets any better.’

  Ward took a five iron and knocked the ball towards the first green. He couldn’t get up in two any more. In fact, he hadn’t been able to manage it for a few years. There was no need to worry though. That was golf. It had a habit of telling you things you didn’t always want to admit to yourself.

  Hannah had died in the early nineties. It was a big funeral. Guys came in
from everywhere. From across the water. The church was dotted with CID from the Met, from GMP, from Strathclyde. Ward wondered what the Sarge would have said about the likes of Wilson, the careerism, the way the numbers-men now owned the force.

  He pulled a wedge from his bag, thinning his third which skipped through the green and buried itself in a hedge that ran along the boundary of the course. After a quick hoke Ward walked to the second. An hour and a half later he was done. A par, a couple of bogeys and two lost balls. It would do. Coming down the eighth he had stopped and looked back up the fairway behind him. A pair of solitary footprints weaved their way down the wet grass. It was a quiet morning. There wasn’t a breath of wind and Ward felt as if the whole world was there, just for him.

  Afterwards he lifted his clubs into the boot of his car. Ward looked round and saw that the car park was empty. He reached into the pocket of his golf bag and took out his personal protection firearm, a Glock 19. He put it in the door of the car, started the engine and headed for Musgrave Street.

  ***

  Catherine sat in the coffee shop, her bag on her knee, thumbing the brown envelope. John was late. He was always late. It was half eleven and the lunchtime rush would be starting soon. She didn’t want an audience. Didn’t want to hear someone gossiping about their workmates while she handed her husband, the father of her child, a set of the divorce papers. She tried not to think about it, about what he would say. If only she could just hand them over — that was enough. It would start and she knew things would take on a momentum of their own.

  The solicitor had told her he would post them to her husband. It was easier that way. She didn’t agree. No, she’d do it herself. It may only be your job, she thought, but it’s my life. And anyway, things aren’t always supposed to be easy.

  As she waited, Catherine went over it in her head. It wasn’t a discussion. They weren’t going to argue. She would be calm. Tell him what was happening. Hand him the envelope. Simple.

  A waiter dressed in black swept up to the table and asked for her order. She said she was waiting and looked at her watch. Her line manager at Anderson amp; James was a total clock-watcher. She’d have to be back no later than twelve.

  O’Neill hurried into the coffee shop, his black coat fanning out as he turned the corner. His suit needed cleaning, his shirt could do with an iron and he hadn’t shaved. He leaned down to kiss her and she offered him her cheek. His smell lingered near her face, that familiar mix of tobacco and aftershave. Catherine felt some vague memory of desire stirring up inside her. She pushed it back down, reminding herself what she was there to do.

  O’Neill liked his wife in her work-clothes. The black suit and crisp white shirt. He found he always wanted her the most when she was dressed like that. He imagined her walking round the office, issuing orders, getting things done. He loved hearing her on the phone to colleagues, the authority in her voice. It reminded him of the girl he had met seven years ago, when she was about to finish her degree at Queen’s.

  O’Neill’s phone rang in his pocket. He looked at the number. It was Wilson. The Chief Inspector had taken to calling him on a daily basis. He wanted updates. Wanted to know what progress was being made with the case. O’Neill imagined Wilson taking notes at the other end of the phone, compiling a dossier against him. He swore under his breath and rejected the call, putting the phone back in his pocket.

  The waiter swept in again with his pen poised, a mix of pomp and self-importance. O’Neill picked up the menu, his eyebrow creased at the two-page list of drinks. Cappuccinos, lattes, americanos, all in Italian sounding sizes.

  ‘Tall skinny latte,’ Catherine said.

  The waiter wrote her order down with a contrived flourish.

  ‘Do you have coffee?’ O’Neill asked sarcastically.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Black coffee?’

  The waiter picked up the vibe and held back on his offer of muffins and pastries. He went back to the bar to place their order.

  Catherine was embarrassed. Embarrassment became annoyance, which then became resentment and finally anger.

  ‘I see charm school’s really paying off?’

  O’Neill had been hoping she was going to ask him back, to move in again with her and Sarah. He’d hoped the ‘break’ was over, that she’d had some space, that Sarah’s constant questions about when her daddy was coming home had finally brought her round. Looking at Catherine’s face, he knew he hadn’t helped his cause.

  ‘Wise up, love. It’s a cup of coffee.’

  ‘It’s not a cup of coffee, it’s you.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Why do you have to be so dismissive? You don’t care about anything that’s not chasing round Belfast, trying to lock up the latest arsehole who’s broken the law.’

  ‘All I did was ask if they had coffee.’

  ‘You know exactly what you did.’

  Catherine broke off as the waiter returned with their drinks. He placed them on the table and went back to the counter. O’Neill lifted the cup and took a drink.

  ‘Mmmm. Good coffee,’ he said with mock enthusiasm. ‘How’s yours?’

  ‘F-off, John,’ Catherine replied, smiling a little, despite herself.

  She felt herself start to soften, being won over by O’Neill’s sense of humour. He always did this to her. But no, she reminded herself, not today. She had to remember what she was there for. She went back and tried to find the resentment. It was easier that way.

  ‘It’s always the same. It was the same when we went out for dinner that time.’

  ‘That again? Is this a history lesson? Is that what you asked me to meet you for? To talk about some dinner we went to last year?’

  ‘There you go. If it’s not important to you it’s not important to anyone.’

  Catherine had invited two other couples, women from work and their husbands. It was to celebrate her birthday. They’d met at half seven on the Saturday night. O’Neill had told her he’d finish his shift at five but he still wasn’t home from work. She’d spoken to Jack Ward who’d said he was questioning a suspect but he’d get him out of there as soon as possible. O’Neill had been an hour late. Catherine was furious and struggled to keep a lid on things.

  Her eyes bored into the menu while they all waited for him to arrive at the restaurant.

  ‘Those criminals,’ she laughed, cursing herself for repeating her husband’s words. ‘They don’t work a nine to five like the rest of us.’

  In the cafe, O’Neill slurped his coffee. ‘It’s not my fault those girls married two of the most boring men on the planet.’

  ‘You could have been polite.’

  ‘I was polite. I listened to rocketing house prices, to fluctuations in the stockmarket, to the sound of the new Mercedes. . you know, the S-class just wasn’t going to be big enough.’

  ‘You got drunk and called him an arsehole.’

  ‘He was an arsehole.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘He asked me how my day was. I’d spent three hours interviewing a sixteen-year-old girl who had been raped by her step-father. It took an hour for her to stop hyperventilating so that she could string a sentence together. She kept saying, “It was my fault. It was my fault.” And you wonder why I didn’t give a shit about the fuel injection in your man’s fucking car?’

  ‘There you go again. Hiding behind the job. It’s always about you, always about the job. You care more about frigging Musgrave Street than you do about your own wife and daughter.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘You were like a ghost. You were never home.’

  ‘I can’t do anything about the shifts.’

  ‘It’s not the shifts, John. Even when you are home, you’re not really there. You’re staring into space. Running down some street in your head. In some interview, asking a different set of questions. Wondering where it went wrong, what you should have done. .’

  Catherine broke off. Sh
e knew why she’d come now. She wasn’t there to change him. She had been trying for six years and it hadn’t worked. John wouldn’t change. He couldn’t.

  ‘John, it’s not all up to you, you know. You can’t fix everything. The robbery, the theft, the assault, the rape. You can’t stop it.’ Catherine lifted her coffee. It had cooled and she took a large warm mouthful.

  ‘So what do you want me to do then? Talk about cars? Sit in restaurants, wanking on about how fresh the mussels are?’

  ‘No, John.’

  O’Neill wondered how they ended up arguing. It was like an invisible gravity that always managed to pull them off-course. He knew he was going nowhere. He needed to get off the subject, stir up some memories. Talk about something good.

  ‘Listen, you’re right. I could have handled that one a bit better.’

  Catherine stared out of the window at people walking by.

  ‘Anyway, how’s our Sarah? How’s she getting on at school?’

  Their daughter was halfway through her first year of primary school. Catherine tried to ignore him but acquiesced. No matter what she did, he was still the father of her child.

  ‘A right little fixer, apparently,’ she said.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ O’Neill replied, sensing a chink of light.

  ‘I met Ms Harper at the school gate and she was telling me Sarah had volunteered to sit beside the new boy that joined the class. He had spent the morning crying because he didn’t know anyone. She’s a right little fixer that one, so the teacher said.’

  O’Neill smiled, blue eyes shining, crow’s feet gathering at the corners of his eyes. Catherine couldn’t help but see her daughter sitting across the table. The eyes. The smile. The stubbornness. She tried to ignore it.

  ‘I need to go to the toilet,’ she said, picking up her bag and walking in the direction of the ladies’.

  On her own in the cubicle she set about rallying the troops.

  ‘Hand him the envelope,’ she whispered to herself. ‘There is nothing more to say. He won’t change. He can’t.’