by John Brady
Fanning stood next to Murph, and avoided any eye contact with the groups of men. He studied the walls instead, the windows that had been filled in, the two painted-over skylights. One man from a group had detached himself and had begun strolling toward the far end of the room, slowly rubbing his face up and down like a comedian pulling faces while talking on his mobile.
“How come he gets to keep his phone?” he whispered to Murph.
“None of our business.”
A squat, bearded man walked smartly in from the hallway. His beard had the same blue-black tinge as his hair. The groups of men had noticed him, and they shuffled and turned to face him.
“I’ll take bets before,” he called out.
He had the same torn and gravelly voice as one of the Dubliners, the folk group that Fanning’s father had liked, and whose LPs he had later regretted discarding after the funeral. The bearded man coughed, and rubbed his hands.
“No bets during. For those of you here the-.”
He held up his arm then, and he fumbled in the pocket of his wind-cheater. He turned away then and spoke into his phone.
“We’ll see the talent in a minute,” Murph murmured to Fanning. “No rush.”
The smell of disinfectant was stinging Fanning’s nose now. He noticed darker patches on the cement floor next to the wire. The bearded man closed his phone, and whistled.
“A squad car taking its sweet time out on the Ballygall Road,” he said.
The shuffling stopped, and most of the men looked away. Low talk resumed. The man with the beard strolled toward where Murph and Fanning sat.
“Do I know you,” he said to Fanning.
“No way,” said Murph, smiling. “A mate of mine. Sound, so he is.”
“Is he not able to talk?”
Murph’s laugh was forced.
“Ah no, he’s not. He’s a dummy. Aren’t you?”
Fanning said nothing.
“There’s a pair of you then,” the bearded man said. “If and he’s in your line of caper, Murph.”
“Comedy club we’re in here, is it.”
“I’m not trying to make a joke.”
He turned back to Fanning, who concentrated on putting on his most neutral, attentive expression.
“Been here before?”
Fanning shook his head.
“He’s just trying it out,” said Murph. “See if he can make a few bob. I got the okay from Jacko.”
The bearded man’s eyes drifted slowly away from Fanning’s.
“You have him gambling for his fix, do you,” he said to Murph.
“Christ,” said Murph, and shook his head. “What a thing to say.”
“Why’s that? Business these days. Oh. Tell him if he pukes he’ll be cleaning it up himself.”
His eyes darted back to Fanning.
“No hard feelings there, head-the-ball.”
“Ah no,” said Fanning. “You’re grand.”
Something that was almost a smile came to the man’s face, but his stare remained flat and empty.
“He says I’m grand. Did you hear that. ‘You’re grand’ says he.”
“He only means he gets it,” said Murph. “He understands, like. Not as thick as he looks.”
The bearded man’s attention went to the hallway then, and he turned away. Murph elbowed Fanning. “What did I tell you? Didn’t I tell you to keep your trap shut? Didn’t I?”
“He asked me a question.”
“No he didn’t. He gave you notice, that’s what he done.”
“Notice, what notice.”
“You’re on his radar, is what. Don’t be telling people ‘You’re grand.’ Especially him. He runs the thing.”
“I know who he is, you know.”
“It doesn’t matter who he is. This is just something he does. On his own.”
Fanning stretched slowly, to put distance between himself and Murph’s breath. Turning, he saw the bearded man in profile. He was talking quietly to a man with a deeply furrowed forehead and bloodshot eyes.
“He’s one of the Delaneys,” Fanning said, unwinding his stretch.
Murph gave him a scathing look.
“Their pictures are in the papers,” Fanning said. “Newspapers, that is.”
Murph spoke in a low voice, barely moving his lips.
“Christ’s sake. We have serious talking to do after this, I’m telling you.”
Goading Murph had given Fanning a small portion of satisfaction. While Murph took out his cigarettes, Fanning stole another glance at the man Delaney was talking to. He was clean-shaven, in his late twenties Fanning calculated, wearing a newish leather jacket. The furrows on his forehead suggested that listening to Delaney took all his concentration, or patience. He gave curt answers to Delaney, pausing to yawn once. Fanning heard him say something about an Eddsie. It was an odd accent, not quite Dublin-sounding.
Delaney asked him another question. The man answered. Delaney’s head went back, and a look of distaste came to his face. “West Ham?” Fanning heard him say. “What kind of a name is that?”
Smoke from Murph’s freshly lit cigarette washed over Fanning’s face then. As he batted it away, a smell of aftershave came to him in its wake. Who the hell would douse themselves with it, and then show up here?
Delaney and this man were now joined by another man, also in his early twenties. There was a sleepy, morose look to him. His hands hung in the pockets of a plain, zippered jacket. His eyelids slid open and shut to reveal a flat, unfocused gaze. The bored teenager look about a decade later than it should be, Fanning wondered. Probably just stoned. Delaney was staring at him, but the man seemed to be making a point of avoiding eye contact. Delaney glanced at the maroon T-Shirt showing above the zipper, and a sliver of some crest visible, and he turned away.
Murphy’s elbow was sharper than it needed to be.
“Cut the gawking.”
“What colour’s the West Ham jersey?”
“The what? West Ham what?”
“The football team.”
“Christ, I don’t know, do I.”
Another volley of cigarette smoke came his way from Murph.
“Well, who is that guy?” Fanning asked.
“What guy? I don’t know. And quit asking.”
“He said something about Eddsie.”
“Who did?”
Fanning saw that he had Murph’s interest now.
“That guy, the leather jacket there. And his mate, the dopey-looking one. Who’s Eddsie?”
Murph stepped in close and glared at him.
“When we get out of here…”
He waited for Fanning to meet his eyes, and jabbed him in the chest.
“This can’t be going on, you hear? You’re going to get us into trouble if you can’t keep that mouth of yours shut.”
“It’s just a question. After all I’m paying, right?”
“It’s not about the money. This is my call here. I told you already.”
The man said something into his mobile and handed it to Delaney. Delaney held it to his ear, and listened. He nodded slowly several times, said something and handed it back. He looked uncertainly at the two men again and then ushered them by with an open palm. Then he walked back to face the groups, and he waited. Fanning saw him glance several times at the two men, now settling themselves into the small crowd.
“Ready when yous are,” Delaney called out then.
Fanning studied the group of men congregating at the far end of the cage. He saw corners and sections of banknotes in several hands. The men shuffled again and the talk subsided.
“Them tinkers have plenty of money, I tell you,” Murphy said.
“Get yourselves in order,” said Delaney. “‘When the cage is set, that’s it as regards to bets. Rules is rules.”
Fanning had no idea what breed of dog was now walking by the gate of the enclosure. The dog — mastiff, bulldog — jerked its head constantly as if it were having fits, straining and lurching clumsily a
t the end of its leash. Tony didn’t glance up from the dog once.
The dog stopped pulling then, and it lifted a leg. Murph nudged Fanning.
“Marking the place,” he said. “That’s what that is.”
Fanning watched the dog being led back to the hallway.
“Territorial, that’s what that was. Did you know that?”
Fanning noticed that Delaney was again eyeing the two men he had spoken to earlier. The second of the two had taken out a flask. He took a drink from it, and passed it to the other. As he let back his head, the man stared back at Delaney. It was Delaney who looked away first.
“Can anyone come to this?” Fanning asked Murph.
“Are you joking me,” Murph replied with a sneer. “You know what I had to do to get you in here? This is strictly invitation only.”
Fanning looked over at the mismatched pair again. The one in the suit kept his gaze on the cage, but Fanning was certain that he had everything he wanted to notice in his peripheral vision.
“Invitation only,” he repeated back to Murph.
“Didn’t I just say that? You can’t just walk in. No way.”
“People come a long way for this,” he said to Murph. “Do they?”
“I suppose.”
“England, maybe?”
Murph had been rooting in his pocket for something. He stopped.
“England? Why are you asking me that?”
Fanning nodded toward the two men.
“You are so fu- so nosy, you’ll get us both- Look, here’s Tony’s.”
As quickly as Murph had turned angry, his expression had changed.
“Tony’s not a man to bet against,” he murmured.
Something in Murph’s tone made Fanning look over. A blank expression had taken over Murph’s face now, Fanning noticed. Mister Expert himself couldn’t hide his own nervous anticipation of the fight to come.
The second dog looked like a terrier of some kind. It had no ears. It walked with a more jerky intensity than the first, growling low in its throat, and straining to get to the small pool of piss. The man pulling it back kept talking to it. Definitely a tinker, Fanning concluded.
“Wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t something to him,” Murph said.
“But he’s been hurt,” said Fanning. “Look at his mouth.”
“No he’s not. Don’t be stupid.”
“That’s blood there.”
“So?”
“He had another fight earlier?”
“Listen,” said Murph, dipping his head close. The scorn had returned to his voice. “Question for you. Where do you live again? Dundrum, someplace?”
“Near enough. Why?”
“Any pets missing there?”
“Pets? I don’t know. Why?”
Murph let smoke out the corner of his mouth.
“Cute, cuddly little pets? Kittens, like?”
Fanning stared at him until Murph looked up.
“Now, are you happy?”
Something shrank in Fanning’s stomach, and he looked away. Everything was crowding in on him now, the smells, the faces, the slow movements of the men, all under the milky overhead light that cast soft shadows and a pale, dun cast over everything and everybody here.
He half-heard Murph say something about jaws, and teeth, and stamina.
“A hundred, I said.”
“What?”
“Give me two fifties, is what. We’re going to do a bet.”
“Go ahead, yourself. I’m here for research. Not gambling.”
“Yeah, well research me the money or we’re leaving.”
Fanning gave him the eye. Well, at least he had tried. Slowly, he reached into his jacket.
“Fifty for me, fifty for you,” Murph said. “Winner splits anyway.”
“Bets!” Delaney yelled. “Your bets!”
Chapter 10
After the service, Minogue found himself making his way to the churchyard wall. From there, he had a view of the mourners coming out after him, and a place to smoke on the sly. The wind cut into his coat, but he welcomed it, as he did the patches of sunlight that had appeared on the sides of the hills behind the church.
“Very creative,” said Kilmartin, sidling up. “Very unique. Is that normal for a Protestant thing nowadays, I wonder.”
“I’m hardly the one to ask.”
“Bet you liked it all the same,” Kilmartin said. “Right up your alley. That sort of pagan aspect. Unless you want to try telling me it was a hundred percent Christian.”
Minogue made a quick study of Kilmartin’s face for signs of mischief.
“It wasn’t bad, I suppose,” he said. “Pity you weren’t up to coming in.”
“Anyway. What was that plant she was talking about again, in the bogs?”
Minogue knew that Kilmartin had hung around the door to the church. He would have heard plenty from the speakers. Three women who had met outside the door to the church began to laugh like seagulls.
Kilmartin eyed Minogue.
“‘Celebration of life,’” he said. “Right?”
Minogue was reasonably sure now that Kilmartin missed the traditional, lugubrious funeral service he had hoped for.
“Ash-, As- Ash something, what was said in the service,” said Kilmartin then. “I must Google it.”
“Asphodel.”
“It’s a plant?”
“Bog Asphodel.”
“Grows on the bogs? Funny I never knew the names of the things you’d find growing in a bog. All the years I spent mullocking about in or near bogs too. Ironic, or what. And some legend? What was that about?”
“Persephone.”
“I’ve heard of her. Okay. But who was the other one? Dam, Dem…?”
“Demeter. Her mother looking for her every year, and she in the Underworld — Persephone, I mean. The seasons. All that class of stuff.”
“The Underworld.”
“That asphodel is Persephone’s flower.”
“That’s nice, I suppose.”
Minogue had had years of practice returning Jim Kilmartin’s goads with his own.
“It’d be a sacred flower too, then. Obviously.”
“Oh obviously. Very nice entirely.”
Minogue felt for his car keys. A bird scolded from a hidden place nearby. Was it the same one, he wondered, he had half-believed was calling to him in the middle of that old Irish hymn, Be thou my vision. For a moment, he took it to be a cry of grief and anger from the birds who themselves would miss Rachel Tynan, painter and worshipper in their domain.
“But why all the pagan stuff in a church? I’m only saying.”
“It had to do with resurrection,” Minogue replied. “I suppose.”
“Right,” said Kilmartin, thoughtfully. “Easter and all that. But you’d have to know poetry or that, mythology, to get that. Bit over my head. Other people too.”
Minogue did not agree. That disagreement was not sufficient to prompt him to discuss the matter further. Kilmartin shifted his feet so he was looking over Minogue’s shoulder into wilder Wicklow.
“Never in all my life did I think I’d hear people singing in Irish in a Protestant church,” he said. “It was Irish, wasn’t it? But fierce old Irish…?”
Minogue was suddenly weary of Kilmartin’s archaic approach. Maybe Jim Kilmartin would be wondering next why the hesitant fiddle playing of the nine-year-old girl for the hymn had brought everyone to tears.
“I want to ask you something now,” Kilmartin said, clearing his throat. “And of course it goes without saying, I understand your position.”
Minogue waited.
“Any word on whether Tynan is going to call you in?”
“Why would he call me in?”
“You know what I mean. A straight answer is all I’m asking.”
“He’s busy,” Minogue said. “As you can see.”
This drew a scowl.
“The whole Garda doesn’t just shut down if Tynan’s out of the picture, does
it? All I want to find out is one simple thing: how long is he going to leave me hanging. He’s the man with final say. Something’s got to give here.”
Minogue spotted Sergeant Brendan O Leary emerging from the church. He was talking to a short, older man with a hearing aid. O Leary took his leave of the man, and he began to thread his way toward Minogue and Kilmartin.
“What more does he want,” Kilmartin went on. “Listen, Tynan has had all the documentation for what, three months now? What’s stopping him?”
Minogue pulled his coat tighter around his chest.
“Well,” he said, “if he calls me, in I go. I suppose.”
“Of course you do — but not without an AGSI go-ahead, right?”
Minogue had already had two calls from the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors on the matter. He had not told Kilmartin.
“Maybe you should give me your script and I’ll just memorize it.”
Kilmartin took a step back.
“Kick a man when he’s down. Very nice, I’m sure.”
Minogue watched the Commissioner’s aide, Sergeant Brendan O Leary, talking to a grey-haired, fiftyish man in a navy-blue Loden overcoat. O Leary eyed Minogue, and the man looked over too, squinting against the unexpected patches of sunlight. He began to make his way toward Minogue.
“Barry,” he said to Minogue. “Barry Conlon, Foreign Affairs.”
Kilmartin had already made himself scarce.
Conlon’s vigorous handshake was rendered uncongenial because of his bony hands and long, skeletal fingers. Minogue had dropped his cigarette behind, and now attempted to locate the smouldering butt with his heel. He noted that in contrast with the out-of-date cosmopolitanism in his overcoat, Conlon’s shoes were a generation too ambitious, going on forever to narrow, squared-off tips that curled upward.
“I’m glad I was able to reach you,” said Conlon, his eyes blinking rapidly under thick iron-coloured hair, trimmed tight. Impatience showed only around his mouth.
“We wanted to be sure you were on track concerning this man Klos.”
“Yes.”
Conlon raised his eyebrows.
“Didn’t want to leave anyone out of the loop.”
Minogue waited several moments for the slurs to subside within.
