Sad Song

by Vincent Banville

  VINCENT

  BANVILLE

  SAD SONG

  Vincent Banville is a writer, critic and journalist living in Dublin. His first novel, An End to Flight, won the Robert Pitman Literary Prize. He is also author of five children’s books, the Hennessy series, along with two crime novels, Death by Design and Death the Pale Rider. He is crime fiction reviewer for The Irish Times.

  SAD SONG

  First published by GemmaMedia in 2009.

  GemmaMedia

  230 Commercial Street

  Boston MA 02109 USA

  617 938 9833

  www.gemmamedia.com

  Copyright © 1999, 2009 Vincent Banville.

  This edition of Sad Song is published by arrangement with New Island Books Ltd.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover design by Artmark

  12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5

  ISBN: 978-1-934848-03-6

  Library of Congress Preassigned Control Number (PCN) applied for

  OPEN DOOR SERIES

  Patricia Scanlan

  Series Editor

  Chapter One

  Blaine was all done up like a dog’s dinner. He was wearing his tan suit, with a lime-green shirt. A purple handkerchief flowed from the top pocket. His shoes were black and laced, his chin was shaved, his hair combed. He was neat, clean and well-shined. He was calling on one million pounds.

  More than a million, if the truth were told. James J. Carey was a “cute hoor” from the West of Ireland. He had started in the building trade in a small way. First a wheelbarrow. Then a pushcart. Then a lorry that wouldn’t start when it rained. In the 1960s he had moved to London. There he joined up with another Mayo man called McMullen. They laid tar in peoples’ driveways. They built sheds and cut corners whenever they could. The business went well. They began to make money. Then McMullen fell – or was he pushed? – into a giant cement mixer and became part of a pedestrian crossing in Earl’s Court.

  Carey married his widow and took over the running of the entire business. Things went so well that in the 1990s he was able to come back to Dublin and run his empire from there. Now he was one of the richest men in Ireland. When he sent for someone, that someone broke into a gallop to come and see him.

  So Blaine moved fast. Since he had set up as a private detective, work had been scarce. Before that he had been in insurance, but the job bored him. His hurling career with Wexford had not gone well either. Three All-Ireland finals and each of them lost. Also, his wife Annie had left him for a body-builder called Harold. It would be true to say that he was a bit down. But when the call had come from Carey, he thought he might soon see light at the end of the tunnel.

  It was a beautiful June day as he hurried along the quays. The smell from the Liffey was awful. The Carey building was huge, like a giant mushroom against the sky. Twelve steps up, swing doors. A porter with a stare like a red-hot poker. A girl who looked as if she had been shined all over sat behind a desk. Blaine spoke to her in hushed tones. She had nails long enough to slice a loaf of bread.

  “Mr Carey is expecting you?” she asked, as though she didn’t really believe him.

  “At sixteen minutes past the hour,” Blaine said. “I was told to be on time.”

  The girl pressed a button set into the desk. A minute went by, then another female, who could have been the girl’s twin, appeared.

  “Follow me,” she told Blaine, and led him down a corridor.

  At the end was a large double door. She pushed one side of it open and waved to Blaine to go in. He moved smartly inside and the door whispered softly shut behind him. If she locked it, he would need a sledge hammer to get back out again.

  Chapter Two

  The office was large enough to land a helicopter. Carey sat behind a desk that was about an acre in area. He had hair like steel wool. A tanned face. Eyes as cold as winter frost. And a small mouth as tight as a duck’s arse. His voice had a smoker’s edge to it when he spoke.

  “You’re Blaine?”

  “I was the last time I looked in a mirror.”

  Carey frowned.

  “Cut out the smart remarks. I want you to find my daughter Sam and bring her home.”

  “Sam?”

  “Her mother gave her the name Assumpta, but she hates it. So everyone calls her Sam.”

  “Johnny Cash had a song about a boy called Sue.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Just making conversation.”

  “You’re not here to make conversation. How long will it take you to find her?”

  “Depends on where she is.”

  “Last I heard she was living in a squat with a crowd of drop-outs. Here’s a photograph of her.”

  Carey poked the snap across his desk and Blaine had to hurry to catch it before it fell on the floor. It was a colour head-and-shoulders shot of an open-faced, cheerful-looking girl. She was in her late teens or early twenties.

  “Maybe I should talk to her mother,” Blaine suggested.

  “Her mother departed . . .”

  “She passed over to the other side?” Blaine asked, wondering if he should bless himself.

  “Only to the other side of Dublin. She divorced me a couple of years ago.”

  “Oh.”

  “The address of where she’s been living up to recently is on the back of the photo. Somewhere in Cabra.”

  “The mother?”

  “No, the daughter.”

  “Why don’t you go and bring her back yourself?”

  “I’m too busy. That’s why I hire people like you.”

  “I charge two-hundred-and-fifty a day. Plus expenses.”

  “See Sylvia on the way out. She’ll give you a cheque for five days’ work. That should be enough for a simple job like this.”

  “What if Sam doesn’t want to come home?”

  “Persuade her. Put a rope around her and drag her back if you have to. A daughter’s place is by her father’s side. Not living the life of a down-and-out.”

  Carey pressed a button – it was a great place for button pressing. The same girl who had shown Blaine in now appeared to show him out. She didn’t speak to him. Just marched ahead, while he followed along behind, admiring the sway of her bottom. It was worth watching.

  Chapter Three

  Blaine got in his car, an old Renault that used diesel and sounded like a tank. He drove to Cabra. He was looking for Number Thirteen, Feltrim Road. A girl with orange hair and vampire eyes gave him directions, which turned out to be wrong.

  He started again, asking directions from an old man pushing a bicycle. This time he was put right. The road had two rows of neat houses with postage-stamp lawns. Number Thirteen had an uncared-for look about it, like a bad tooth in a set of shining dentures.

  He locked his car, pushed open a rusty gate and walked up to the front door. He knocked and, after some time went by, the door was opened. An eye like a blood sunset appeared in the crack.

  “Sam Carey, sometimes known as Assumpta?” Blaine inquired somewhat doubtfully.

  The door opened more fully, to reveal a thin young man in a vest and dirty jeans. He had a large hooped earring in his right ear, yellow hair and a sneer on his face.

  “Yarahhh,” he said in a voice that sounded as if he needed to spit. Blaine sighed, said a silent prayer, then moved forward into the hallway. The young man went backwards, surprised.

  “I’m looking for a girl named Sam Carey,” Blaine explained patiently. “I was told she lived here. If she’s on the premises, I’d like to
talk to her. If she has moved on, I’d be grateful if you’d give me her address.”

  “Moved on,” Yellow Hair said. “What you want her for?”

  “She bought a ticket in a draw. She’s won a Barbie doll and I’m here to deliver.”

  “Where is it then?”

  “She’s got no clothes on, so I left her in the car.”

  “Yarahhh,” Yellow Hair said again, and this time he did spit, just missing Blaine’s shoe.

  Blaine lost patience, reached out and stuck his right index finger through Yellow Hair’s earring. With his other hand he caught the guy by the throat. Pulling firmly on the earring, he said, “Just give me the girl’s present whereabouts, and you’ll have two ears to listen with for the rest of your life.”

  The guy opened and shut his mouth like a fish out of water. His eyes bulged as Blaine pulled a little harder on the earring. “She’s doing up an old warehouse in Ringsend,” he gasped. “Her and a crowd of students.”

  “There now, that wasn’t too hard, was it?” Blaine said. He released his hold on Yellow Hair’s throat and gave the earring one more tug for luck.

  “Hey, what you want to do that for?” the guy protested.

  “Pain is good for the soul,” Blaine told him. “Maybe you’ll be more polite the next time.”

  “There isn’t going to be a next time, I’m out of here.”

  “Me too,” Blaine said, and he turned, walked back down the path, got in his car and drove away.

  Chapter Four

  The sun was high in the sky as Blaine drove along the quays in the direction of Ringsend. June 16th, the day in 1904 that a Jew named Bloom walked around Dublin and became famous. Blaine glanced in his rear-view mirror. He didn’t see Bloom, but he did spy a bright red van that appeared to be following him since he left Cabra. Then again, maybe he was just imagining it. He visited a number of empty warehouses before he finally found the one he was looking for. It stood by itself, right on the edge of the quayside. If you walked out the back door, you’d find yourself swimming in Dublin Bay.

  Scaffolding had been set up against the front of the building, and a fellow and a girl were painting the frontage black. Blaine parked his car and walked in under them. A sign on the door explained that the place was being prepared as a centre for refugees. The inside was huge and had an echo. An Abba tape was playing. The girls were singing about “Money, money, money in a rich man’s world.” A number of young people were doing various things: painting, hammering, drilling holes in walls. Blaine was deafened by the noise. He went back outside, where he leaned against the side of the building and lit a cigarette. The river flowed full and smooth. A tugboat honked. Seagulls screamed. The sky was a pale blue, with just a rinse of white cloud. He smoked for a while, then he turned and glanced back down the quays. The red van was parked some distance away. A bright flash of sunlight glanced off the windscreen, but he was pretty sure there were two people in the front seats. He finished the cigarette, threw it away and went back inside the warehouse. The crowd of workers was taking a break. The tape had been switched off. He went across to the nearest group. They stared at him curiously. The girl he was looking for was not among them.

  “Sam Carey?” he inquired.

  “Who’s asking?” Blaine gazed at the fat young man with glasses who answered him.

  “I’m a friend of the family,” he said. “Just calling in to say hello.”

  “As I hear it, Sam doesn’t get on with her family.”

  “Surely she has a favourite uncle?”

  “And you’re him?”

  “I might be.”

  The guy looked at the girl sitting beside him. She shrugged her shoulders, then said, “Sam’s in the office. Up the stairs. Door facing you.”

  Blaine nodded his thanks and followed her directions. Some of the steps on the stairs were loose and creaked under his weight. He walked along the short corridor at the top and knocked on the closed door. A voice told him to come in. He did so. There were two people inside. A girl and a boy. Blaine did not have to take out the photo to see that the girl was Sam Carey. She was wearing a bright orange bandanna around her hair, a striped T-shirt and paint-streaked cream overalls. Her eyes smiled. The guy with her was big and strong, with muscles that bulged through his singlet. He was wearing cut-off denim shorts that showed his muscular legs. He was also wearing a look on his face that told Blaine to watch his step. Otherwise he might be going back down the stairs head-first.

  Chapter Five

  “Yes?” Sam Carey said, the smile beginning to fade from her eyes. “You wanted something?”

  Blaine leaned a shoulder against the door jamb and tried to look pleasant. He said, “My name’s John Blaine. I’ve been hired by your father to find you. And to ask you politely if you’ll come home.”

  “How polite will you be if she says no?” the guy with the muscles asked.

  “Save it, Artie,” the girl said. “Let’s handle this with kid gloves.” She and the guy had been examining what looked like plans of the building, set out on a table. Now she plopped into a chair, then pointed at another one facing her. “Why don’t you sit down?” she said to Blaine. “There’s something I need to explain to you.”

  “Explain nothing,” Artie said, flexing his muscles. “Why don’t you let me throw this geezer out of here?”

  “Because that’ll solve nothing. Either he’ll come back or someone else will.” The girl put a hand on Artie’s arm and squeezed gently. “Maybe if you went and got yourself a cup of coffee? I’ll deal with this.”

  Artie put on his sulky look, but he did as he was told. As he went past Blaine he managed to give him a shove with his hip. Blaine’s fifteen stone of muscle and just a little fat refused to budge. This annoyed Artie even more and he nearly took the door off the hinges as he went out.

  “Do you mind if I smoke?” Blaine asked, moving forward and sitting down on the chair in front of the girl.

  “I’ll join you,” she said. She took a long, thin Russian cigarette out of a packet and waited while Blaine held a light to it before lighting his own. They blew smoke at one another, then the girl said, “I haven’t seen you before. You must be new.”

  “Your father makes a habit of sending people to bring you home?”

  She nodded, then carefully picked a flake of tobacco off her bottom lip. She had a nice mouth, made for smiling. She also had a nice figure. Since Annie had left him, Blaine had been on lean rations where dealings with the opposite sex were concerned. Sam Carey was a bit young for him, but there was no harm in looking. She took another puff on her cigarette, then stubbed it out in an ashtray made from a large sea-shell. She said, “My father has a number of people working for him. Some of them are pretty tough. Are you tough?”

  “No,” Blaine said, grinning at her, “I’m as harmless as a soft toy.”

  “You don’t look harmless. How did you get the scar over your eye?”

  “An old hurling injury. I’ve a few more, but I’d have to take off some clothes to show them to you.”

  “Maybe later. If we get to know one another better.”

  “You think there’s a chance of that?”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  Blaine leaned across the table and dropped some ash in the sea-shell. He said, “Tell me why you keep running away from home. Does your father beat you?”

  “No, but he does want me to do something against my will.”

  “And that is?”

  Before the girl could answer, there was a sudden outbreak of noise from downstairs. Then Artie came bursting in the door, almost knocking Blaine off his chair. “What is it?” the girl asked him.

  “Jimbo here brought company. There’s a crowd of your father’s goons below, and they haven’t come to help us paint the place. We’ve got to get you out of here.”

  Chapter Six

  Blaine, who had stood up from his chair, now moved back a pace as Artie came at him, fists at the ready. “Hold on a minute,” said
Blaine. “I give you my word I brought no one with me. They must have followed me here. I did spot a red van behind me.”

  “Red van me arse,” Artie told him. “I’ll break you in little bits.”

  Sensing that the time for talking was over, Blaine swung his leg and brought his foot with some force up between Artie’s denim-clad thighs. There was a satisfying thud – for Blaine but not for Artie – and the muscular hero bent over and bit the dust. “I should have warned him I don’t fight fair,” Blaine muttered. “Always protect your essentials.”

  “You didn’t have to do that,” Sam said, bending over the fallen Artie.

  “He said he was going to break me into little pieces.”

  “He may have said it, but he didn’t mean it.”

  “You could have fooled me.” Blaine helped the girl lift Artie up and put him sitting in a chair. He had gone a very odd colour, and all that could be seen of his eyes were the whites. “He’ll be OK in a little while,” Blaine said. “When he gets his breath back.”

  “I hope you haven’t ruined his chances of marriage.”

  “Why, are you engaged to him?”

  “No, we’re just good friends.” Blaine cocked his ear to listen to the sounds of battle downstairs. “Sounds as if your pals are giving a good account of themselves,” he said. “They must be used to fighting for your honour by now.”

  “They do what they can to protect me.”

  “Is there any other way out of here, other than by the front door?”

  “Not unless you want to swim for it.”

  “It’s a bit early in the year for me to go in swimming.”

  “Then I guess we’ll just have to take the boat.”

  “The boat?”

  “I keep a boat moored to the back door, just in case. I don’t know why I’m telling you that, though, if you’re with them.”

  “Didn’t I give you my word I’m not? And my word is my bond.”