Eoin Miller 02 - Old Gold

by Stringer, Jay

Dreams.

  Dreams don’t like me.

  My dreams were full of Mary, as I had met her, drunk and moody, as I had imagined her last night, angry with me, lonely. Chris Perry kept finding his way into the narratives. All I had to form him were a photograph and other people’s opinions. Other people’s lies. Then I was in either the Myvod or Posada, being laughed at by the locals. They pointed and called me names; they asked where my caravan was. And Bauser kept sitting next to me, getting in the way, asking for drinks and attention. Freud would have had a field day, I suppose.

  Then the scene shifted again, and I was in my police uniform. I woke covered in sweat, feeling groggy.

  It was eight o’clock in the morning. The bottle of whiskey was on my bedside table. I put it in the drawer, unable to face it. I decided drink wasn’t worth the dreams it gave me. A low buzzing nagged at me, as if my headache was actually producing noise. It took me over a minute to figure out that the buzzing was actually my new phone, lost in the pile of my clothes. I fished it out and answered it.

  “Get up,” said Becker.

  “How did you get this number?”

  “You called me from it, remember? Phones can do this remarkable thing where they remember numbers.”

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose. The hangover was fighting at the edges of my vision, deciding whether to go for it full blast or slink away in defeat.

  “Yeah, OK. I remember.”

  “You sound a little rusty. Rough night?”

  “Strange dreams.”

  “OK, well, listen, get a shower and a suit. I’ll be round in an hour.”

  “Wait, wha—?”

  “Bauser’s funeral today. I thought I should go, and I know you should.”

  I didn’t know if I had the courage to face it. But he was right. I got the kid killed; the least I could do was show my face at his send-off. Bauser had a big family. I remembered them from years ago. Could I face them?

  “You’re at home, right?”

  “Uh.” I didn’t really want to tell him I wasn’t. That would lead to questions. Plus my suit was at the house. “Yeah, I’ll see you in an hour.”

  “Less than that now. Get moving.”

  Fifty minutes later I was sitting on the front doorstep of my house.

  My suit was clean, untouched in the last year, and my tie was as close to correct as I would ever get it.

  Becker pulled up and tooted his horn. The toot was totally unnecessary, since I was waiting for him, but it was something he’d always done since we first became friends. Back then we’d be heading out for actual fun. Dinner out, drinks at the pub. We both knew today would be the opposite of fun, but old rituals die hard.

  He was driving some kind of family estate car without the family in it. There was an empty crisp packet on the seat as I climbed in and some mainstream country played on his CD deck.

  “Like it?” He grinned at me as I stared at the CD cover.

  “No.”

  I strapped in and closed my eyes, hoping we could drive in silence. The hangover had been steadily building for the past hour. It was a stealth hangover, one that bides its time. Being in a moving car was actually a relief; the motion canceled out the world moving around me.

  Becker wasn’t going to let me have silence, though.

  “You cracked the case yet?”

  “No. Sorry. Just finding more questions.”

  He grinned. He looked like a child who just found free porn.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I knew it. You’ll never change, Eoin.”

  “Don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do. You get a hold of something, and you never let go. Like a dog or a boy scout or some mutant mix of both.”

  “I just don’t like mysteries. They piss me off.”

  “So the boy’s as good as found.”

  “I think at least one person I’ve spoken to already knows where he is.”

  “The father?”

  “No. The lecturer. The father knows more than he’s saying, but I get the feeling that Paul Lucas knows what’s happened.”

  “Interesting—”

  “No, you had your shot at this. Leave it to me. I need the money, and you’ve got a pensioner on death’s door.”

  “No, she’s off the critical list. She’s doing OK. She’s not ready to talk yet, but she will be soon, and she’ll be able to identify the attacker.”

  “A happy ending?”

  “No. She’s got a broken hip, she’ll never walk right again, and I think she’ll be too scared to leave her home from this point on. It’s terrible.”

  “But the press will make you look good.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, a happy ending.”

  “Very much so.”

  His smile turned cruel, but honest.

  “And the stuff I asked you to look into?”

  “Uh huh. Like I said before, you do this thing with the missing student, then you get your information. You always worked best with a carrot on a stick.”

  “Look, Beck, this is important. OK?”

  “So’s the student. Do your dog-with-a-bone thing one bone at a time,” he said.

  I was too tired and hungover to argue.

  “Perry said something interesting when I met him,” I said. “He said he had enemies—on the force, I mean. You know anything about this?”

  “It’s a job, you know how it is. Everyone has enemies in every job. All that politics, the bitching, especially when you’re brass like him.”

  “No, it was the way he said it. Like, I’d asked him why not just report his son missing to you guys officially, do it the right way, and he said that about enemies. Is there anyone on the force he might be scared of?”

  “You mean could someone on the job be involved?” He looked over at me. I didn’t need to answer. “Look, I’ve not given you this to rock the boat. Don’t do anything that’ll blow back on me, please? Besides”—he paused while he changed gear—“that kind of thing would be above my pay grade.”

  We pulled into Bushbury Crematorium just before the funeral procession arrived. It was a modest line of traffic, the hearse followed by five or six cars. My breath caught when I saw the coffin in the back of the hearse. It had flowers alongside arranged to look like a sports car, and another set of flowers in the window spelled out the word “son.”

  I recognized Bauser’s mother as she climbed out of the limousine. I’d actually quite fancied her a few years back when I met her. She’d been young and strong looking, ready to shout me down as a copper and take on the whole force in the name of defending her boy.

  Now she looked broken and old. With her was an elderly lady who I guessed must be the grandmother. I remembered that she’d been a child who’d come across on the Windrush, one of a boatload of immigrants looking for the promised land. She held the hand of Bauser’s younger brother, Marcus. Out of the following cars climbed the rest of the family, the aunts and uncles, their children in suits too big for them, playing adults on their cousin’s big day. They all huddled protectively round Bauser’s mother as they filed into the hall.

  I didn’t think I was going to be able to go through with it—until I saw that Laura had come. She was representing the force, I guess. If she was going to do it, then I was going to do it. She nodded at me as she walked past, a slight smile at the edge of her mouth. I caught her perfume, and it cut against her formal appearance. It smelled like liquid gold.

  Finally, before Becker and I made our way inside, a minibus pulled up. The Mann brothers had taken the tactful option of not showing up, but they had sent their lieutenants to pay their respects. They filed out of the minibus and formed a somber queue, following us in.

  The service was muted. The priest said a few respectful words, and one of Bauser’s uncles led us all in a gospel hymn. For a moment I almost felt spiritual, feeling the tug of the words, touching on the old-time religion of my father’s family. After that and another speech from the pries
t, one of the children gave a speech that he’d written himself. It was all about his big cousin Eric and how he was happy now in heaven. I couldn’t breathe. I only stopped from crying by zoning out, thinking of a suitable soundtrack for the funeral.

  The coffin disappeared behind a curtain, and that was it. The last journey finished.

  Everyone stood and filed out through a door at the front, waiting in a queue to say some pleasantries to the family. Ahead of me, I saw Laura having a long conversation with Bauser’s mother and grandmother. She looked good. She looked strong. She looked every bit the leader and statesman, and I realized she was destined for her job.

  When it was my turn to speak, Bauser’s mother took my hands in hers and squeezed.

  “The Gypsy man,” she said. “I remember you. Eric said you always had time for him. That meant a lot to him—and me.”

  I choked again, and this time my eyes welled up. “I’m sorry” were the only words I could manage before shuffling off to find Becker’s car.

  Laura waved at us as we pulled away.

  I grimaced and nodded but didn’t wave back. I wasn’t feeling particularly gracious at that point.

  “Looks good in that uniform, doesn’t she?” Becker had just enough of a leer to his voice to make my stomach jump.

  “I should be proud of her, I suppose.”

  “You getting a nostalgic feeling?”

  “No.”

  He mulled something over, then shrugged. “She told me you’re not talking to the doctor she sorted out for you.”

  “No.”

  “He’s not going to chase after you forever, you know.”

  “Good.”

  “I don’t get you, man. I never really did, but these couple of years? You’ve just stopped. Maybe no one else cares enough about you to tell you straight, but Eoin, you’re fucking up.”

  Was this what my mum had held back from saying?

  “Leave it, Beck. Would you rather I followed your route and stayed with the force simply because I had nothing better to do? Stayed with Laura simply because I had nobody else to go to? Is that what you think I should be doing?”

  “You used to be a part of life. You’ve drifted out to the edge of somewhere, and you don’t seem to care.”

  “Never go back. The past is the past. Never go back, and that’s it.”

  “Now you’re just putting up excuses. You’re good at it, though. Almost as good as you are at taking money from the Mann brothers.”

  “Oh, fuck off. Get out of my head.”

  We drove the rest of the way back in silence. The only sound came when I slammed the door shut behind me when we got to my house. He pulled away without a word.

  He didn’t toot the horn.

  I’d hit a brick wall in the shape of Becker. He wasn’t going to play ball until I’d finished his job for him, the lazy fucker. But he was right. And as I’d watched Bauser’s coffin glide behind the curtain, I’d felt the pain of a family being split up. I had the idea I wasn’t going to let that happen again. I was going to find Chris and find him fast.

  I drove back to my hometown and headed straight for the Spring Tavern. At one time it had been the only pub on a busy stretch of road, a bridge that led to the next town over. It had been a stopping point for truck drivers and tourists and a liquor trap for local teenagers. But then the bridge had been demolished as a new road was built, one that cut out the need for drivers ever to come this way. It became a dead end, and the pub became a regular spot only for those with reason to be there or no reason to be anywhere else.

  It was a freestanding building with a huge concrete yard at the back, which had once been the layover point for the trucks. Now it was just a graveyard for rusted cars and a toilet for the local dogs. The pub was still organized the right way, split into a lounge bar and a public bar. The public side would be deserted at this time of day; the regulars would still be at work or collecting their dole money. I walked into the lounge and took a look around me.

  The decor was older than me, cream wallpaper that had yellowed with age. At head height the wall was marked with tobacco stains, where generations of smoke had hung in the air. The carpet was a well-worn brown pattern that had turned shiny and black in the most trodden areas. The seats were wooden benches that ran along the walls, and the tables looked like freshly varnished driftwood.

  Ash Coley was seated at the far end of the bar, farthest away from me. Three of his biggest hangers-on were with him, playing cards and sucking on cigarettes as though there wasn’t a smoking ban in place. Ash was the head of the family these days, after his father had been killed in a Birmingham street brawl a few years previously. He was about ten years older than me and quite a bit wider. His chin had spread downward beneath a strong jaw line, merging with his neck to make him look like a walrus in a T-shirt.

  “Well, it’s the Miller kid,” he called over at me after eyeing me up. “You come to pay your brother’s debt?”

  I shook my head.

  “To apologize for your daddy, then? God knows, somebody should.”

  “No.”

  “What then, sunshine? You know you’re not welcome in here.”

  What the hell. Why play it safe?

  “What’s between you and Michael Perry?”

  His eyes narrowed, and he spread his hands out, laying them palm down on the table. That seemed to be some sort of signal, because his three stooges stood up and made a couple of steps toward me. I felt fresh air on the back of my neck as someone stepped in behind me. I didn’t turn to look who it was, not wanting to take my eyes off the trouble in front of me, but I heard the bolt slam home on the door after it shut.

  Locked in.

  On the plus side, it looked as though my instincts were right. There was something deeper here to scratch at.

  Whoever was behind me pushed forward once, twice. On the third push I got the message and walked over to Coley’s table. I turned then to see who had been pushing me, and it was a small, squirrel-like guy, wiry and frayed looking with a knife in his left hand.

  Ash’s eyes were cold and heavy.

  “You come in here, Diddikai, and start making demands? That chora father of yours taught you no manners, eh?”

  So I was a half-blood and my father was a thief. Nice. There’s nothing like a warm welcome.

  I shot back. “So you do know Perry, then?”

  Coley flicked his head to one side, and the stooge nearest to me punched me in the kidneys. I doubled over and almost fell to my knees, but managed to stay on my feet out of stubbornness. That, or the fact that two of the other stooges were holding me up.

  “Let’s try this again, shall we? Now, you’re a guest here. See how we’re making you welcome? How about you ask nicely?”

  “I’ve heard that Michael Perry used to drink in here. Is that right?”

  “He did, yes. For a while.”

  “His son has gone missing. Do you know anything about it?”

  I felt rather than saw the stooge behind me raise his fist. But Coley shook his head a little and then motioned for me to sit in the chair in front of him. He waved and shouted for someone to fetch me a drink, and an ice-cold bottled beer was put on the table in front of me. Coley then leaned back and eyed me up and down again.

  “So, Mickey’s son has run away, right?”

  I’d never heard anyone use that nickname for Michael.

  “What makes you say he’s run away?”

  “Had to happen at some point. That whole family are running from one thing or another. Just like yours, I reckon.”

  I ignored that last bit and sipped at the drink. My moral high ground was not above accepting gifts. “What do you mean? What are they running from?”

  “Not my place to say. Mick’s got a few things hidden away; you’d need to ask him what they were.”

  There was something in the way he said it. As though he would have told me if his stooges weren’t around. I wondered what could be so secret that he wouldn’t tell me
in front of the hired help.

  “So you’re friends?”

  “I wouldn’t say friends. I don’t think he has any, not really. But he used to come round here while it served him.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a good memory.”

  “He liked being here until it became inconvenient. As soon as it was embarrassing, we were old news.”

  “Who did he replace you with, any ideas?”

  “Just a better class of people. Suits and ties. Handshakes. The right kind of handshakes, if you know what I mean.”

  “Bribes?”

  He sipped his own drink and then shook his head. “Like I said, you need to ask him. But he’s going into politics, right? Not a cheap game, that. A man from around here, he’d need some help.”

  “So you’re saying he’s bent.”

  There was a twinkle in his eye. He nodded at the stooges and they stood back, the tension in the room fading away.

  “Good luck finding the boy. I hope he’s well.”

  I knew enough to quit and stood, nodding at Coley and turning to leave. The squirrel guy stepped forward and punched me in the gut, and this time I did hit the floor. One of the bigger guys then kicked me hard in the face, and the room spun around me. As it slowed down I heard Coley laugh.

  “Just a friendly reminder,” he said, “you come in here again, and we won’t be so nice.”

  Coley’s words hung in my mind. Was Perry on the take? Was someone sponsoring his ambitions? I would have no idea where to start with that. The world of money, secret meetings, and politics was a scary place. I needed to get back into the world I did know.

  I drove into Wolverhampton and walked onto the university campus without any security guards stopping me.

  I began asking round campus. I had the names of Chris’s friends. They had to be there somewhere. I wasn’t getting any helpful answers. In the canteen I tried a new trick; I ran through the list of phone numbers that Stephanie had given me. Most of them went to voicemail, but finally one began to ring. I saw a young woman at a table in the corner pull her phone out of her bag and stare at the number. She shook her head and canceled the call. The phone in my hand disconnected.

  I tried my best smile as I walked over and introduced myself. Three of them were sitting at the table. The leader of the group, a woman in her early twenties who looked slightly older than the others, was named Kelly. She wore a red scarf around her neck and seemed to view herself as an actor with a capital A. It was her phone that I’d rung. As she looked me up and down, I realized I was still in my suit from the funeral, and she seemed to assume I was a cop. Either that or she just liked talking to anyone who’d listen.