The Valparaiso Voyage

by Dermot Bolger

  ‘What do I say?’ she asked.

  ‘Just ask if Conor is in.’

  ‘And if he’s not?’

  The phone was answered before I could reply.

  ‘Conor?’ Miriam’s voice said anxiously. ‘Is that you, Conor?’

  I took the receiver from Ebun’s hand and replaced it. Charles stood behind me, more aggressive now.

  ‘I asked who the hell you are?’

  ‘Have you a car?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, slightly thrown. ‘Actually, my mother’s…I’m a named driver.’

  ‘Do you love Conor?’

  ‘What sort of question is that?’

  ‘Answer it.’

  He looked back at the other youths leaving and lowered his voice. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Show me where the car is parked. Trust me.’

  Charles led us outside where two men pressed themselves into the shadows. He took out his keys and there was an electronic bleep as the Ford Fiesta was unlocked.

  ‘Where do you want me to drive you?’ he asked. ‘I mean I don’t know what’s happening here.’

  I took his hand in mine squeezing the wrist until his fingers reluctantly opened.

  ‘You’re walking home tonight,’ I said, taking the keys. ‘You’ll get it back.’

  ‘You must be joking.’ He started to struggle. ‘What will I tell my mother?’

  Ebun already had the passenger door open. I pushed Charles back so that he stumbled over a row of bins.

  ‘Mothers understand true love,’ I said.

  Ebun locked the doors as I started the engine, swerving to avoid Charles who tried to clamber onto the bonnet, then thought better of it. He chased after us screaming until I lost him in the rear-view mirror as I swung into George’s Street. Ebun looked back.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘It’s time you met my tribe,’ I said.

  VI

  WEDNESDAY, 2 A.M.

  Asmall wooden police hut still stood inside the electronic A main gates, a relic from Barney Clancy’s heady days as Minister for Justice when he had required twenty-four-hour armed protection. Ivy from the high boundary wall had spread across its roof to make the hut resemble a decorative folly. I didn’t know if junior ministers merited police protection, but a video camera was angled to monitor anyone approaching the gates of Rosnaree House – or Fort Clancy, as locals had christened it.

  It was 2 a.m. as I sat in the parked car well beyond the camera’s range. Inside the gates coloured lamps among the bushes along the curving driveway cultivated a discreet landscape of shadows. I drove past with my headlights off and turned left down an overgrown sideroad that bordered the property. The ornate wall, erected gratis by Council workmen in the year that my father started work there, now blended seamlessly into the original stonework in the undergrowth. Further down the lane a camera probably guarded the back entrance too. I parked the car close to where I knew that a narrow turnstile in the wall was used to access a stretch of river on which the Clancys owned fishing rights.

  Pete Clancy was obviously no fisherman because the turnstile was padlocked with a chain and looked unused for years. But the lock was rust-eaten and several blows with a car-jack were enough to sever it. I squeezed through with Ebun behind me, the rusty turnstile groaning as it turned. This stretch of the grounds seemed to have been deliberately let grow wild as a contrast to the ordered lawns and walled garden to the right which Pete Clancy or his wife had painstakingly restored. The orchard on my left held no hint of bees now. The curved wing added by Barney Clancy made nonsense of the house’s original Palladian order, but light from a basement room looked beautiful as it spilled onto the grassy slope which formed a dry moat around the building.

  Another light burned on the top floor, but the remainder of the house lay in darkness. I am not sure what I expected to see as we crept forward – Seyi and Conor tied up, Egan and Slick arguing or Clancy naked with some maid. The house’s size lent itself to such speculation. I knew that Ebun felt so too by the way she hung back as if fearful of being entrapped.

  However, when we got close enough to peer down Clancy sat alone in a room so functional it could have been a cell, signing letter after letter piled before him. Trays of correspondence besieged his desk, handwritten, typed or scribbled on postcards. The minutiae of a local politician’s life. Ebun shifted beside me, wondering why I had stopped. But I kept spying, trying to decipher who Clancy actually was by his unguarded expression. He could have passed for a medieval monk though, from the slow scrutiny with which he examined each letter.

  Finally I flicked a small pebble against the glass. Clancy looked up but could see nothing. I flicked a second one. This time he rose and opened a drawer. I expected him to take out a gun, but instead he put away a small Dictaphone. Opening the French doors he remained on his side of the glass as if ready to slam them again.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  I walked down the slope. He peered past me at Ebun hanging back in the shadows.

  ‘Who is she?’ His voice was too low to carry up the slope.

  ‘A friend.’

  ‘Get rid of her.’

  ‘This concerns her.’

  ‘This does not concern her.’ His hiss was sharp. ‘This concerns nobody. This does not exist so far as outsiders are concerned and neither do you. You have no right to come here. How did you get in?’

  ‘The old turnstile.’

  ‘Did anyone see you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does she know who you really are?’

  I nodded.

  ‘You disappoint me, Brendan, like you did your father. Secrets are for families.’

  ‘You’re not family.’

  ‘This party was closer than any family at one time and your father was at its core. Now get rid of her.’

  ‘Tell me where her friend is so.’

  ‘What friend?’ He sounded genuinely puzzled.

  ‘Don’t mess with me. My son is missing. You know that a Nigerian man phoned you today.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Clancy looked perturbed. ‘Why did he phone me?’

  ‘I left the mandates and your constituency office number with her last night. He stole them. Now stop playing games.’

  Clancy looked back into the room. ‘Half my letters were not ready for me to collect and sign this evening.’ He turned, his voice loud enough for Ebun to hear. ‘Why did you bring fucking outsiders in? I could have sorted this. No fuss, nobody hurt, a quiet word and a blind eye. Does she know who I am?’

  ‘She has a name,’ Ebun interrupted, caustically. ‘What have you done with my friend?’

  ‘I don’t need to know your name and I know nothing of your friend,’ Clancy said curtly, starting up the slope towards Ebun who stood her ground. He walked up to take her by the arm, steering her away. ‘Let’s move away from the house. You should not have brought her, Brendan.’

  ‘I don’t take my orders from you,’ I replied, following them as he led her towards the orchard. ‘Now where is my son?’

  Clancy opened a wooden gate into the small enclosure of mature apple trees that were bereft of leaves. ‘I know nothing about your son except that you only had to mind him for twenty-four hours in the last decade and still managed to lose him.’ He stopped beneath a tree, obviously judging it a sufficient distance from the house.

  ‘The last entry in the telephone log in my constituency office was for half-two this afternoon. I found the lights on, a letter half typed and no sign of Carol. She always wanted to see the world if only her miserly uncle would give her the money. I suspect Slick may be quite happy to see her travel for a long time.’ He looked up at Ebun. ‘What age was your friend?’

  ‘In his thirties…I don’t know.’

  ‘Height?’

  ‘Five nine, five ten.’

  Clancy shook his head.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘My wife said there was a phone call before I came in. The Meath Ch
ronicle looking for a quote. I don’t know the details…I…’ Suddenly he gripped me by the jacket. ‘You never changed, did you? Still a fucking Hen Boy with chicken-shit for brains. Did you learn nothing from your father? He kept things tight, never made mistakes except for having you and your bastard brother.’

  ‘Fuck you, Clancy,’ I replied, shaking off his grip.

  He glanced at Ebun. ‘I think you’ve more exotic creatures to do that with.’

  This time it was me who grabbed him, shoving him against the treetrunk. I might have punched him if Ebun hadn’t stepped between us.

  ‘Stop it!’ She pushed me back, then faced up to Clancy. ‘What do you know? What are you not saying?’

  ‘I’m not saying nothing. You were never here, do you understand me?’

  ‘Why was the paper phoning you?’

  ‘Looking for a quote.’ He stepped away from Ebun and leaned against the side of the tree. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t afford to be involved. A black man was found beaten up tonight by the river below the town. They think he stumbled into a cider party. Whatever way he banged his head…I don’t know the details…he’s in the morgue at Our Lady’s Hospital.’ He looked at Ebun. ‘I don’t know who…or if he is…I’m sorry. But nothing can be served by dragging me into this.’

  I should have felt grief for the Nigerian. Instead I could only feel terror for Conor. Ebun hunched down on the grass, crying silently.

  ‘I tried talking to Conor,’ I told Clancy quietly. ‘He wants nothing to do with this business. The kid is scared but stubborn. What if he won’t cooperate with Slick?’

  ‘That could be a good thing. It would buy us time. It’s a catastrophe if Slick gets on that plane.’

  ‘I thought you wanted the accounts closed? I mean it is Slab’s money.’

  ‘Fuck the money,’ Clancy said, almost to himself.

  ‘What do you mean, fuck the money? What else is there?’

  Clancy looked at me coldly. ‘Give me the number of your hotel and wait there until I phone. Bring her with you. That man the police found may not be her friend at all. Do not contact them or your wife or anyone. Do you hear?’

  ‘I said what else is there apart from the money?’

  ‘You’re not listening.’

  ‘My son is missing and you’re not talking.’

  ‘You’re out of your depth, Brendan, so leave the thinking to me if you want him unharmed.’ Clancy knelt beside Ebun. ‘You want to stay in this country, don’t you, miss?’

  His soft tone could not belie the inherent threat. Ebun looked up, not replying. Clancy reached into the long grass to produce a fallen apple.

  ‘You people are like windfalls, never knowing when you’re going to get stood on. Now I’m not saying good decisions can necessarily be arranged. But bad decisions may be indefinitely postponed until you’ve been left lying in the grass so long that you become part of the landscape. There again if you draw attention to yourself someone might just pluck you up and feed you to the pigs. You understand?’ Clancy spoke like a man quietening animals. ‘I’ve been to your country,’ he continued. ‘An EC fact-finding troika. I know how difficult things would be if you’re sent back. On your journey here there must have been things you were told to forget. Tonight is one of them. No matter what he says to you, trust me on this.’

  The spit was loud in the night air, as if Ebun had been storing up saliva in her throat. Clancy didn’t flinch, just dropped the apple and slowly rose, taking out a handkerchief to wipe his face.

  ‘I’ve never seen you in these last ten years, Hen Boy,’ he said quietly. ‘There was a lock on that turnstile. I know nothing about either of you except that you are breaking and entering. Now get this bitch out of here before I set the police on her. Let her friend be a lesson. Things can happen, items can be planted, raids take place. The Women’s Prison in Mountjoy is no bastion of enlightened racial harmony and a criminal conviction would be her quickest ticket home.’

  ‘Where is my son?’ I asked. ‘I’m going nowhere until you tell me where Slick has taken him.’

  ‘Do I know Slick’s mind?’ he replied. ‘The “L” in his name slipped out years ago. Now he’s just Sick, paranoid, thinking the world is perpetually cheating him. Your appearance freaked him out last night and if you turn up again you’ll freak him into doing something stupid. Leave this to me. I was taking care of it before you screwed up and I’ll take care of it now. Get a passport photo taken in the morning and stay in your hotel room. Don’t try to contact me until I call you. I’ll sort out the kid and by Friday morning I want you on a plane.’

  ‘What else is there except for the money?’ I asked for a final time.

  But Clancy was moving away from us through the dark, discarding his handkerchief on the grass.

  ‘You ask too many questions, Brendan, and never the right ones. Your passport will be ready tomorrow night and the boy safely back with his mother. It will be like nothing ever happened. The incident by the river tonight was an attack by kids, someone in the wrong place at the wrong time. Make sure your friend keeps her mouth shut or she’ll be another bloody person I can’t protect. She’s already seen what happens to people who try blackmail. Now leave the same way that you came in.’

  St Mary’s Hospital in Navan was larger than I remembered it, with a new carpark occupying the space where a line of old trees once stood. It was 2.50 a.m. as I parked the stolen Ford Fiesta in the further corner from the squad car positioned outside the Casualty department.

  Inside the nurse summoned a young Garda when Ebun asked to see the body that had been brought in. Her cousin-in-law was missing, she explained. She had heard reports on the radio in Dublin and driven up in the hope that she could check if it was him. The Garda seemed unsure of the exact procedures, complying out of human sympathy and because of the late hour.

  We walked around by the side of the building to reach the mortuary discreetly tucked behind a small grotto. Inside it was cold and the fluorescent light seemed unnaturally bright. The policeman roused an attendant who disappeared through a doorway, leaving us waiting in silence. A few moments later he returned to beckon us forward.

  A drawer had been opened, the bodybag unzipped so that the face of the man I once knew as Niyi was uncovered. But it was hard to recognize him. He had been beaten around the face with something heavy. The skin was puffed up, his eyes open like a sailor scanning an unfamiliar horizon. Ebun leaned across, her fingers about to touch his skin lightly, when the Garda held her wrist.

  ‘Sorry, miss, but don’t touch…the State Pathologist hasn’t examined him yet. Is he…?’

  Ebun studied the face again. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘This is not my cousin-in-law.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Ebun looked up. ‘He has gone to England, I would say, he never liked Dublin. I do not know this man’s identity.’

  The attendant zipped the bag up as the Garda led us away. We shook hands in the carpark.

  ‘I’m sorry you had to come all this way,’ he said. ‘No man deserves such a fate. We know the culprits too, kids drinking, bloody messers. That riverbank isn’t safe to walk along at night. They scarpered but we’ll have them in a day or two. What baffles me though is that I know their antics. They’re not above laying a few digs on someone wandering about there, but not like that, not the way his face is. It’s like he was beaten up already and they applied the finishing touches.’ He touched Ebun’s arm gently. ‘It’s a worry for you, even if you don’t know him. Ireland’s changing, things are coming out that we never wanted to admit were there. Are you both OK for a ride back to Dublin?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Ebun said, ‘we’ll manage.’

  We waited until he went back inside the building before seeking out the car. We sat inside it in darkness, my arm around her as Ebun cried.

  ‘Why did you lie?’ I asked.

  ‘I am not used to policemen not sneering or looking for bribes. He is no more than a boy. I told the truth. The body is not my
cousin-in-law. If I were sure of his full name I would give it back to him. But he’s like the real Niyi now, an unknown corpse in a foreign land. No name will help to catch the young thugs who killed him. And if the men who beat Seyi up have your son then it is you who must deal with them.’

  ‘What does Seyi mean?’ I asked.

  ‘It translates as “God Has Done This”.’

  ‘It wasn’t God’s fault. I set him up.’

  ‘He set himself up. He was always going to. Nothing here would ever be enough for him. He would always need more.’

  ‘That’s why he never liked me,’ I replied. ‘He didn’t just see me as a rival, he saw too much of himself.’

  ‘I was not to be won by rivals. I chose for myself.’

  ‘Then why me?’

  ‘I picked you because I thought you would not stay around long enough to really hurt me. All your life you will keep running from shadows.’

  The Garda emerged onto the hospital steps as if scanning the carpark, then got into the squad car and drove off.

  ‘Maybe I don’t feel like running any more,’ I muttered.

  ‘Then do not trust that snake in the big house. I know his type in my country, only they are fatter and their armpits stink. How could you trust such a man with your son?’

  ‘He asked me to,’ I replied lamely.

  ‘That is no answer.’

  ‘He treated me like an equal, made me feel that we two were on the inside track and the others were gobshites. He made it feel that this was how it was between our fathers. Men who trusted each other. I might have been his confidant had life worked out different.’

  ‘Would you have wanted that?’

  ‘I don’t know. People despised the Clancys but you knew they were clever. They never fucked up for themselves and if you tucked into their slipstream they’d never fuck up for you. Since I was a child I’ve felt that if I earned his respect I’d finally be someone.’

  ‘If he had threatened my daughter I’d have stabbed out his eyes.’

  ‘I’m caught in a web. Whatever way I turn I’m in trouble.’

  ‘I would not mind if he spun the web,’ Ebun said. ‘But you have spun it around yourself.’