Angels in the Moonlight

by Caimh McDonnell

  Angels in the Moonlight

  A prequel to the Dublin Trilogy

  Caimh McDonnell

  McFori Ink

  Copyright © 2017 by McFori Ink

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Design by CHAMELEON Studio

  Editors: Scott Pack and Julie Ferguson

  Proofreader: Penny Bryant

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13 978-0-9955075-5-5

  For dad, for being a fighter

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Epilogue

  Get Your Free Novella!

  Big Thanks To . . .

  Also by Caimh McDonnell

  Chapter One

  Rory Coyne’s pulse thundered in his ears. He wasn’t great with heights – and when you’re standing on the six-inch-wide ledge of a building five storeys up, that’s a bit of a problem.

  He tried not to look down but he didn’t have many other options. Looking to the left or right gave him a view of the Dublin skyline, but from an angle that only emphasised that he was now a part of that skyline. He had tried closing his eyes but his treacherous imagination insisted on showing him the ground rushing up to meet him again and again. He was regretting the four pints he’d sunk before getting up here. Four was either too many or too few. It was certainly not the right amount. He was sober enough to be terrified and drunk enough to want to cry.

  A pigeon landed on the balustrade beside him and cooed. He tried to focus all of his attention on it.

  The pigeon looked at Rory and then pointedly down at the ground.

  “Feck off.”

  His sweaty hands clung even tighter to the balustrade as the autumn winds tugged at his bomber jacket. The wind was worse than the view. He steadied himself then quickly pulled his left hand away to wipe it on his jumper. The movement was met with a gasp from the crowd below. A sickeningly giddy shock of excitement passed through him before his hand found its hold on the white stone again.

  He’d been up here for about twenty-five minutes now. For the first ten, nobody had seen him. When standing on a ledge five storeys up, the options for getting someone’s attention are very limited – well, bar the one very obvious and dramatic option. Eventually, some Spanish students had noticed him. A large group of them had gathered, looking up, chattering excitedly for several minutes while the natives tutted and weaved around them. A crowd of foreign students blocking the flow of pedestrian traffic on Grafton Street wasn’t exactly an unprecedented occurrence. Then a girl who worked in HMV had poked her head out of an upstairs window to have a cheeky fag and she’d made eye contact. Her scream had really got things moving. There was now a ring of uniformed Gardaí trying to close off the street below, which had immediately drawn a crowd. Rory’s situation combined two things Dubliners loved: drama and a free show. A busker had set himself up at the edge of proceedings and was belting out a less-than-sympathetic rendition of R Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly”.

  Rory glanced down again. In the middle of the cordoned-off area stood a tall, thin man with a distinctive shock of dark brown hair. He was standing looking up at him, hands in the pockets of his cashmere coat.

  “Is that you, Gringo?” shouted Rory.

  “That’s Detective Sergeant Spain to you, Coyne.”

  “Ah crap.”

  It wasn’t that he minded Gringo so much. As coppers went, he wasn’t the worst. No, it was more what came with him.

  “Howerya Rory, how’s it hanging?”

  He was no longer alone on the roof. The Cheshire-cat grin of Detective Bunny McGarry appeared in Rory’s peripheral vision, about twelve feet away, leaning casually over the balustrade as if expecting a neighbourly chat about the football. McGarry was a big lummocks of a man, with a thick Cork accent and a scruffy, second-hand look about him. He was early thirties, six foot two and fat, but in a usable way; he carried the kind of bulk that could slam through a door or be thrown behind a punch as required. His left eye was lazy which gave people the impression he was slightly unhinged. That impression was frequently backed up by his behaviour.

  “I knew it.” Rory nodded down towards the ground. “Youse two are like stink and shite – never one without the other.”

  “Poetic as always, Rory,” said Bunny. “So, how’s life?”

  “Stay back, Bunny, I mean it.”

  “Cool your jets, Rory boy, I’ve no intention of coming anywhere near ye. I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”

  “Yeah, right you are.”

  “You’ve got great sentimental value to me, Rory. Sure, weren’t you one of my first collars as a newly-minted guard, just graduated from Templemore.”

  “You put me through a wall.”

  “Be fair – that wall collapsed while I was apprehending you. If memory serves, I’d interrupted yourself and Jacko Regan while you were relieving Des Kelly Carpets of some lino. How is Jacko, by the way?”

  Rory didn’t answer. Regan had been halfway over the wall when Bunny had grabbed a leg. Jacko still blamed that incident for his subsequent lack of offspring. To be fair, the wife had left him when he’d gone back to prison, which hadn’t helped.

  In one fluid movement, Bunny was sitting on top of the balustrade, his legs dangling over the side. That was the other thing; McGarry moved with more grace and speed than expected. Something in your mind just couldn’t accept that a big, hairy-arsed, red-faced ape of a man could move with such dexterity. It was like seeing a baby elephant riding a tricycle.

  “I said stay back.”

  “Calm down, would ye? You want to jump? Jump. I’m not stopping you, but I’ve been on me feet all day, it’s four o’clock and I’ve still not had me sandwiches.”

  To emphasise his point, Bunny pulled a tinfoil-covered parcel out of the pocket of his anorak and started unwrapping it. “The car is in the garage again, so I’m trying to save a bit of money by bringing me own lunch in.�
�

  “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “It’s nippy up here, isn’t it?” continued Bunny, well used to people not wanting to talk to him. “But I suppose there’s no buildings to block the wind and that.”

  “Where’s Sergeant Cartwright?”

  “Our designated negotiator is at her sister’s wedding. Would ye like to leave a message?”

  “I want to speak to someone else.”

  “Alright, alright. Jesus, you’re awful jumpy, Rory. No pun intended.”

  Bunny pulled a walkie-talkie from his other pocket and held it to his mouth. “This is Major Tom to ground control, over.”

  Rory saw Gringo holding a walkie-talkie up to his lips down below. “Roger, Major Tom. How’s it going up there?”

  “Well, to be honest Gringo, not great. Mr Coyne seems highly agitated and he’d like to speak to someone else.” Bunny pulled the walkie-talkie away from his mouth and addressed Rory. “Would you prefer to speak to Sergeant Spain instead?”

  “Anybody but you.”

  “Hurtful, Rory, hurtful. You might make me suicidal and then I’d totally steal your thunder.” Bunny lifted the radio back to his lips. “Sarge, he says he’d much rather talk to you. Are you still a big girl’s blouse who’s scared of heights?”

  “Afraid so.”

  Bunny put the walkie-talkie down beside him and concentrated on opening his sandwiches. “It’s a no, I’m afraid. Don’t take it personally, Gringo is generally fierce sociable – for a Dub, I mean.”

  “You need to start taking me seriously.”

  “I really don’t. In fact, if you take a header off this roof, I get a week’s holidays due to ‘emotional distress’. I’m thinking of the Maldives, or maybe Greece. Do you know if they do that plate-smashing thing at the end of every meal? I’ve always fancied a go at that.”

  “You’re a heartless bastard, Bunny. I’m in emotional distress and you’re over there making jokes.”

  “Would you like a sandwich?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? They’re jam and cheese.”

  “Yes I’m . . . hang on, what kind of a fuckin’ lunatic eats jam and cheese?”

  “We’re on the doorstep of a new century, Rory, open your mind to new experiences. I had my first cocktail last week. Didn’t care for it, mind you, but still.”

  “I don’t give a shite about your manky sandwiches or your gay drinks, alright?”

  “Tut tut tut, Rory. There is no cause for lazy homophobia like that. We’ve been on a course.”

  Bunny put the walkie-talkie to his mouth and spoke while chewing. “Sergeant Spain, I feel obliged to inform you that Mr Coyne has used homophobic language while conversing with me in the course of executing my duties.”

  “That is very disappointing to hear, Detective McGarry. Please pass on my discomfiture at the close-minded attitude his choice of language conveys.”

  “Absolutely.” Bunny pulled the walkie-talkie away from his mouth. “Gringo says stop being a prick.”

  “Why don’t you go shag your bum-chum then and leave me alone?”

  Bunny had a mouthful of sandwich and didn’t immediately respond. Rory watched him chew exaggeratedly before swallowing. “I’ll have you know, Sergeant Spain is an unhappily married man, at least for a few more weeks, and I, well, I’ve not met the right girl yet. Your Aisling is a bit of a looker, come to think of it.”

  “You leave my wife out of this.”

  “Widow. You mean widow. Well, soon to be anyway. She doesn’t strike me as the type to stay lonely for long. Is she what you’d call high maintenance?”

  Rory didn’t answer. A wave of nausea was building and he could taste bile at the back of his throat.

  Bunny’s walkie-talkie beeped. “Have you asked him yet?”

  “If you want to ask him, why don’t you come up here, Gringo?”

  “Because, detective, I am down here, coordinating crowd control efforts to ensure Rory’s death plunge doesn’t take out any punters or – God forbid – a busker.”

  “Jaysus,” said Bunny. “Do you think we’d get in trouble for moving one of those mimes under his flight path? I really hate those creepy bastards.”

  “While I sympathise, Bunny, our role doesn’t extend to criticism of the arts.”

  “More’s the pity.”

  Rory regained the power of speech. “Would you two stop bleating on like a couple of old ones, it’s really annoying.”

  “Alright,” said Bunny, “take it easy, Rory. By the way, is it the end-of-the-millennium psychosis blues that have you all suicidal?”

  “What are you on about?”

  “Gringo wants me to ask – he has become a tad obsessed with this, to be honest with ye. He saw a thing on one of those digital channels about how the end of 1999 could be the end of days and now it’s all he talks about. Millennium bugs, Y2K and all that. Planes are going to fall from the sky, he says. Cults will be having mass suicides, he says.” Bunny looked up from his sandwiches as a thought struck him. “You’re not trying to get in before the rush, are ye?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Because it’s only October now. Are you not a fan of Christmas or something?”

  “I’m in emotional turmoil and this is how you handle it?”

  Bunny shrugged. “Well, I’ve not had the training. They cancelled it for the homophobia seminar. The Minister for Justice gets overheard cracking a shitty joke at some banquet and all of a sudden we’re all on a course. Personally, I’ve always got on fantastically with the gays. Statistically, very law-abiding bunch of lads and lasses.”

  Beep. The walkie-talkie crackled into life. “What’d he say about the thing?”

  “Sorry, Gringo, he says it’s nothing to do with the millennium. He’s in emotional turmoil apparently.”

  “Ah, shame.”

  Bunny pulled the walkie-talkie away from his mouth. “Wasn’t it only a couple of months ago that you were trying to jump off the roof of McDonald’s up the road there, Rory? You’d think the good merchants of Grafton Street would’ve learned to lock the doors to their roofs by now.”

  “They can’t,” said Rory. “They’re fire escapes – health and safety – so they’re not . . .”

  Rory stopped talking. The four pints of courage he’d downed were making their presence felt, both on his bladder and his queasy tummy. A spasm passed through his oesophagus and he retched reflexively.

  “You OK, Rory?”

  Before he could respond, his mouth opened and recycled stout spewed forth.

  “Christ on a camel,” said Bunny. “Look out below!”

  Rory’s physical outburst coincided with a gust of wind blowing north up Grafton Street, which was very unfortunate for one side of the crowd of spectators below.

  “Ah for fuck . . .”

  “Ye manky . . .”

  Rory wiped his mouth and glanced over to see that Bunny was on his feet and edging towards him. “Stay back!”

  Bunny held his hands up and slowly backed away to his previous position. “Relax, Rory, relax. You feeling OK?”

  “What do you care? You’re useless at this.”

  “Alright,” said Bunny, “how’s about you come in off there and I’ll even help you fill out the complaint form. Enough of this silliness now, don’t you think?”

  Beep. “Bunny?”

  “Sorry, Gringo, Rory was feeling a bit unwell.”

  “Well, it’s fair to say he has somewhat lost the sympathy of his audience.”

  A voice rose from the crowd of onlookers. “You’d better jump, ye prick!”

  “Hey!” shouted Bunny. “Less of that. Can’t you see this poor eejit is in emotional turmoil?” He turned to Rory. “Sorry about that, Rory. Some people have no sense of decorum.”

  “You’d know,” responded Rory, drawing in deep breaths. “Why’re you here anyway? Since when is Grafton Street you and Gringo’s patch?”

  “It’s not. We were up here pursuing a report fr
om one of the shops of a gentleman attempting to be intimate with a mannequin.”

  “Jesus. Is that Andy Dooge again?”

  “I would imagine so.”

  “The perv.”

  “Don’t be so judgemental. He suffers from agalmatophilia, it’s a proper thing.”

  “Is that—”

  “With a mannequin. Yes. His shrink gave him a note that he carries around that explains it. Poor little pervert.”

  Just then a gust of wind whipped at Rory’s coat and with a yelp he redoubled his grip on the stonework.

  “You’re looking very pale, Rory.”

  “Shouldn’t you be trying to talk me down or something?”

  “Probably. When you tried to jump off the roof of McDonald’s, what did Sergeant Cartwright say to you?”

  “She was good, Cartwright. At least she gave a shit.”

  “Ah, she’s a nice girl, to be fair to her. I asked her out there a few months ago. Turned me down very gently. My advice would be, remember what she said to you then and sorta replay it in your mind.”

  “Thanks a bunch.”

  Beep. Beep.

  “Excuse me, Rory. Yes, Gringo?”

  “The round-up is complete, amigo.”

  “Thank Christ. I’m freezing my knackers off up here.”

  Bunny shoved the walkie-talkie in his pocket and swung himself around so that he was facing Rory, with one leg now on either side of the balustrade.