The Big Snow

by David Park

  ‘That’s your trouble, Swift,’ Burns said, ‘you can’t let anybody do anything for you. Now, maybe Gracey’s getting soft in his old age and he hasn’t been able to get through to you, but there’s things you need to understand. And one of those things is that this is a team and we look out for each other, so you need to stop actin’ like you’re General Custer. For it’s Indian country out there all right and if you don’t have somebody watchin’ your back, you’re goin’ to end up gettin’ scalped. Do you understand what I’m sayin’?’ Swift nodded. ‘I’m only tryin’ to help you son – some day you’ll thank me for it,’ Burns continued, delicately removing a thread from his sleeve. ‘And another thing – for frig’s sake lighten up a bit, you walk round all day with a face like a Lurgan spade. Maguire says you’ve no sense of humour and he’s bloody right. I’m tellin’ you, son.’

  Swift watched him squirm his shoulders into the suit and as he headed for the door he let his fingers feel and trace the cold outline of the gun. When Burns was about to step into the corridor, he called after him, ‘Thanks, I appreciate that.’ Burns paused to nod briefly, then disappeared into the corridor. But even though he had left, no stillness returned to the room and Swift felt the stir and echo of Burns rustle and bruise the air and in his head he carried the image of his yellow-stained fingers against the green of his suit. He wondered about Newburn’s hands, shivered as he thought of reaching out to touch them, then from his breast pocket took out the ring and slipped it on his finger.

  Later that night, as he lay on his bed in an empty barracks, he tried to read but the words wouldn’t register. He thought of ringing his father, then decided to postpone it a little longer and instead opted to go for a walk, but while fastening his laces he heard the wheeze of Gracey’s breathing and the heavy shuffle of his feet. ‘That’s it, Swifty, get your kit on – we’re goin’ out,’ he said, collapsing on the end of the bed and making the metal ends rattle and squeal. ‘We’re goin’ to see a boxin’ match. You like boxin’, Swifty boy?’ Swift shook his head. ‘Naw, didn’t think it’d be your cup of tea,’ Gracey added. ‘You don’t go in for the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, do you?’

  ‘Depends who I’m in the ring with,’ Swift said, reaching for his coat.

  ‘Oh you’re quare an’ sharp, Swifty, so sharp you’ll cut yourself one of these days. And tonight it’s Charlie Newburn we’re gettin’ in the ring with.’

  ‘You’re bringing him in?’

  ‘No, son, but we are going to see the great man, have a wee word. Maybe it’s time we put out a few fliers. Know what I mean?’

  As they drove down to the Ulster Hall, Gracey explained that there was an amateur boxing tournament scheduled and that Newburn had put up most of the cups and prizes. He was a big sponsor of boys’ club sport. ‘A spit in the ocean,’ he said, ‘from what he’s rakin’ in from a string of businesses across the city. And those are only the legit ones we know about. Likes to present himself as Mr Generosity and mostly when there’s a camera about to record it. But do you know, Swift, what really gets up my nose about Mr Newburn?’ Swift shook his head without taking his eyes from the road. A sooty, black crow of a coal lorry in front sullied the eyes as it pressed its shadow across the snow. ‘The bastard never invites me to any of his parties.’ Swift glanced at him but wasn’t sure if he was serious or joking.

  They strode past the doormen with a nod of Gracey’s head and entered the hall, where the ring was set up close to the stage. At long tables close to the ring and served by white-shirted waiters sat the black-tie spectators under a wavering, fuzzy blue scum of cigarette and cigar smoke, while the ordinary punters stood a distance behind or hung over the upstairs balconies. There was a sulphurous smell, primed with dampness and sweat, and Swift flinched with disgust, then started at the sudden, ferocious roar of the crowd as the ring produced a burst of action. Gracey slumped his hands into his pockets and stared at the ring, his head bobbing approval, his blubbery shoulders beginning to duck and dive a little. In the ring two matchstick-thin teenagers bobbed and shimmied a circle of each other, their skinny arms weighted by the bulbous red swell of gloves, then at intervals launched a flailing, flurry of swinging arms as if in a fit, before tightening once more into a protective shell. Gracey’s voice joined with those all around them. ‘Get inside, ya boy ya! Lead with the left! Jab! Jab! Work the right!’ Swift watched the back of his neck thickly tighten and wrinkle as he vicariously soaked up the punches being thrown. Then, when he turned his eyes to the ring again, he saw a slick of blood skite through the air like spray off a car windscreen. The crowd howled ever louder as one of the fighters closed in for the kill, pummelling the crouching head of his opponent until the referee slithered in between them to stop the contest. Gracey shook his head in disgust. ‘What’s he stoppin’ it for when thon boy couldn’t punch holes in a paper bag?’ he said, then beckoned him down the aisle towards the rows of tables. When they got closer a steward held out his arm to stop them but Gracey whispered in his ear and they passed through, Swift following, as he sidled to a spot near the side of the ring and took up a position where they could see the faces of the men sitting at the front table. They had to stand aside while the two fighters were led past. Swift stared at the red weals and blotches on their bodies, the swollen purple clot of the loser’s eye and the referee’s red-stippled shirt. ‘Always makes a mess when somebody’s cut,’ Gracey said, sticking his tongue out over his lower lip. When Swift looked along the line of front-row spectators he could see fine spots of red on some of their shirt collars and on the table cloths and then, as his eye ran the line, he saw Newburn lean forward to tip the ash of his cigar into a tray.

  The red tracery of scratches had faded and thinned into darker lines but they were still there and he was glad that Gracey could see them, too. ‘Steady, Swift, son,’ Gracey said, resting the weight of his hand on his elbow, ‘let the dog see the bone.’ The announcer introduced the next fighters and two more skinny lads bounced up and down on the spot, shaking their heads from side to side like metronomes and shadow boxing. The men on either side of Newburn were laughing at something he’d said and the laughter ignited a flare of anger inside Swift’s head. He held on to the pillar in front of him and heard himself spit out the word ‘bastard’ in a stream of bitter breath.

  ‘Easy, son, easy,’ Gracey said, patting his back. ‘You sound like you’re about to climb in the ring. Get it out of your system. But what makes it so bloody personal?’ Swift smothered the only words that could answer his question and shrugged a reply. ‘Sometimes it gets you this way,’ Gracey said, pausing to point out the fighter Johnny Caldwell, who was standing at the side of the ring, ‘but you need to be able to see the wood for the trees. Need to keep a clear head.’ He tipped his hat to Caldwell, who replied with a little shimmy of shadow boxing. ‘Now if he hits you, Swifty, you go down like a roll of carpet and you don’t get up again. Tatie bread, son.’ The bell rang and there was the instant squeak of boots on the canvas and the slap of glove on glove. Struck matches quivered the dark hall and a gauze of smoke drifted into the lights. Swift fidgeted with impatience as Gracey seemed to settle to watch the fight but after a few seconds he straightened himself and glanced over at Newburn. ‘Okay, Swifty, let’s go and see the man, but unless I tip you the wink I do the talkin’.’

  He followed Gracey as he ambled behind the rows of tables, finding it hard to walk so slowly and almost tripping over Gracey’s heels when he paused for a few seconds to watch the fight. Then he was told to wait while Gracey passed along the row where Newburn sat and he watched as Gracey leaned across the table, said a few words, then pointed to the side of the hall. When he returned to where Swift stood, indifferent to the brawl and spit of the ring, Newburn hadn’t moved or taken his glance from the fight. Gracey read his thoughts. ‘Patience, son, learn a little patience. He’s comin’, he just doesn’t want to seem too concerned.’ He flapped the heat away from his face with his hat and stared at the ring. About a minute la
ter Newburn stood and buttoned his jacket, stubbed out his cigar, then made his way towards them. Each step he took registered him more deeply in Swift’s consciousness as he took in the thick gloss of receding black hair, the broad shoulders, the faint yellow lines of age under his green eyes. His tie-pin winked in the light but Swift’s eyes focused on the dark lines on his cheek and the swing of his hands. There was a roar from the crowd when a combination of punches bounced one of the boxers against the ropes and the stretch and strain of the canvas as the two bodies pummelled into each other.

  ‘Sorry to disturb you, Mr Newburn,’ Gracey said, ‘but I was wondering if we could have a few words with you? Maybe somewhere private.’

  ‘I don’t know what this is about, but it isn’t a very convenient time,’ Newburn said, glancing back towards the ring. ‘I’m giving out the prizes after this fight.’

  ‘It shouldn’t take too long, and by the looks of those two boys the fight’ll go the distance. But if it doesn’t suit we can call with you at home afterwards.’

  ‘OK, but I don’t have much time,’ he said, glancing at a wrist where there was no watch. Gracey led him to a side door and into a corridor that ran the length of the hall. It was almost empty, apart from a tight huddle of men angled into each other who were exchanging money and slips of paper. Swift stood a few paces behind Gracey and slightly to the side so that he could see Newburn clearly and while Gracey apologized again for picking such an inconvenient time, Newburn’s hand checked his black tie was straight, then slid out of sight into his pocket. There was the sound of coins being turned over. Swift listened as Gracey casually, almost uninterestedly, told him he was making enquiries into the murder of Alma Simons and wondered if he had ever met her, or had any information that might be of help.

  ‘Alma Simons?’ Newburn asked, his hand rubbing the end of his chin, ‘I read it in the paper but the name doesn’t ring a bell. A bad business, but what makes you think I might know her?’

  ‘Seems she was livin’ in a Corporation house, without permission, like,’ Gracey said. ‘Just wonderin’ if you’d ever come across her.’

  ‘No, never heard of her until I read the name in the paper. But we’re holding our own investigation to see how she came to be in the house. Bit of a mystery,’ Newburn said, his eyes flicking towards Swift. ‘Wonder you’re not takin’ photos of the fight.’

  ‘Detective Constable Swift – bit of an amateur photographer.’ Gracey said, smiling and shaking his head. There was a roll of laughter from the group down the corridor and swear words splashed about. ‘So you’ve never met this woman Simons?’

  ‘Like I said, never heard of her till I saw it in the paper. I don’t go round visitin’ every Corporation house to see who’s livin’ in it. And I’m goin’ to have to go – I’m givin’ out the prizes after this.’

  Swift waited for Gracey to turn the screw a little but instead he brushed the crown of his hat and apologized for having disturbed his evening’s entertainment. There was a burst of rabid baying from the hall and a collective intake of breath. Newburn turned to go, straightening his cuffs and smoothing the greying side of his hair. Swift instinctively touched the back of Gracey’s coat as if to urge him forward but the broad mass of his back felt indifferent to his encouragement and it was only as Newburn was about to return to the hall, that he heard Gracey say, ‘Mr Newburn, one last thing: do you know a woman called Arlene McGrath?’ Newburn hesitated, one hand on the handle of the door, and then he looked past them down the corridor and shook his head.

  In the car Swift clutched the steering wheel tightly in both hands and hunched over it in frustration. His hair touched the coldness of the windscreen. ‘Just drive the car, son,’ Gracey said as he picked his teeth with his fingernail. ‘And get me home in one piece so don’t be drivin’ like Stirling Moss. And before you start shootin’ off your mouth and tellin’ me what to do, put the friggin’ heater on, it’s brass monkeys in here.’

  ‘Is that it?’ Swift asked, shaking his head slowly from side to side.

  ‘For the moment it is. Suppose you think we should have stuck the cuffs on him right there and then?’

  ‘No I don’t, but I thought you would’ve pushed him harder than that. Maybe the way you pushed Linton. But then Linton’s a nobody, easy to push around.’

  ‘You’re one sparky bugger but don’t push it too far, Swift, I might not appreciate what you’re saying. But because I’m supposed to be teachin’ you the business, let me tell you this for nothing. Newburn’s not goin’ to start blubberin’ into his soup just because you start to scowl at him and, whether you like it or not, right now we don’t have enough on him to stand up in a court. And if you rush in like a bull in a china shop you’ll blow everything to hell and end up nowhere.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ Swift asked, glancing sideways at his passenger.

  ‘We do what we’ve just done – shake him up a bit, put the wind up him. Right now he’s shittin’ his pants back there, takin’ a few more drinks to steady his nerves. Thinkin’ of who he can call on to get him out of this mess. That’s our best tack now. Hope he panics a little, does something stupid.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t?’

  ‘Like I said, it’s a beaten docket, and you should start to understand that before it does your head in any more than it has already. We don’t have anything worth a spit in the wind says he ever set foot in that house.’

  Swift glanced up at the sky, where a full moon suddenly pressed its blue-scabbed face into the dark spaces between buildings. It was the same colour as the dying snow and its etiolated light made the city a vaporous, flitting ghost of itself. Gracey asked him if he wanted to go for a drink but he declined the offer and knew his answer had been the one anticipated. When they got close to Gracey’s home, he told him to stop the car and said he would walk the short distance left and it felt to Swift that for him to see where Gracey lived was considered an intrusion, something that crossed the line that separated work and the private world. He realized how little he knew about Gracey. He knew he was married but not if he had any children or anything else that wasn’t rooted inside the walls of the barracks. As he slowly levered himself out of the car Swift could hear the squeak and wheeze of his breathing, the stretch and gratitude of the bruised seat as it resumed its shape, and then on the pavement he stretched before leaning back in, filling the space with the red strain of his face. ‘Only going to say this once, Swifty, and then maybe it’ll register in that shitehouse of a head of yours. I don’t give a flyin’ fuck who Charlie Newburn is, or who he thinks he is, and best if you remember that.’ Then he smoothed his white wave of hair with one hand and donned his hat with the other, leaving Swift to watch his shambling scurry into the distance.

  He sat in the car for some time staring at the sky. He let his hand find the ring and put it on. It felt good when he wore it. And then carefully with the very tip of his finger he traced the barrel of the gun that still nestled in his pocket. The moon had hidden itself behind tall buildings which leaned against each other like a row of white-spotted dominoes, and as always Swift didn’t want to return to the barracks. He thought for a moment, then turned the car and headed for the avenue off the Malone Road where Newburn lived, driving slowly and deliberately in the hope that it would help him shape his thoughts into some sense of order. When he got there he parked a little way from the house, turned off the engine and lights and waited. The car got cold quickly but he pulled up the collar of his coat and blew into his hands. A woman walking her dog was the only other person he saw during his wait and then, after he had sat for about an hour, he saw the headlights of Newburn’s car swing round the corner and sweep into his driveway.

  Swift got out of the car and watched from the shelter of a privet hedge as Newburn locked his car, then fumbled for the key to his front door. Before he could find it, the door was opened by someone Swift presumed was his wife and he got the briefest glimpse of a woman in a pink dressing gown and a lighted hallway. For a s
econd he thought of knocking on the quickly closed door and saying he had some more questions to ask, of seeing Newburn squirm in front of his puzzled wife while he asked about his business arrangement with the McGraths. But he remembered Gracey’s warning and so did nothing but stare at the curtained opulence of the house and its impenetrable aura of power and privacy which made him feel a momentary flush of insignificance, and in that feeling he understood, too, that Gracey’s assertion of the need for better evidence was nothing but the truth. When he repeated the phrase ‘beaten docket’ aloud, it tasted like ash that he wanted to spit away. He glanced up at a bedroom window as a light made the room glow red behind its closed curtains and let his hand slip inside his coat pocket to feel the comfort of the gun.

  At first he drove aimlessly, letting the currents and contours of the roads take him where they willed, but then, like a man trying to find something to weight and ballast himself, he started to think, to piece things together in his head. It was slow because there was so much and sometimes it trailed off in a tangle of loose ends but he forced himself to keep working through the maze, the mire of frenetic, frantic images that fluttered and twisted inside his head. And just maybe Gracey was right and Newburn would panic, in his desperation do something irretrievably foolish that would carry him inside a closing net. He clung keenly to this glint of optimism and when he turned his face to look at the moon it seemed frozen and stilled into a calm that lulled the snow-scabbed city to sleep. And he knew, without understanding why, that he had to do this thing before the snow melted and vanished into the memory of another time and place. It felt as if, if he didn’t, the truth, the love she would have given him, would also melt and vanish into a world that he knew he would never be able to reach again.

  Like a dog returning to its own home, the car seemed to know its own way, unaided by its driver. Parking at the end of the street in the shadows of a gable wall, he walked down the narrow entry, which was filled with the smoulder of moonlight. The frozen snow crunched into ice below his feet and announced his approach, no matter how lightly he tried to tread, and each step tightened and stretched his nerves. He shone his torch on the yard door and noticed how wrinkled and blistered the paint was. Just as the first time, it swung open at his push, and when he shone his light on the back of the house it glittered in the dark squares of the windows. In one half of the yard the snow had withered away into a pocked thinness and in the other the skirmish of frozen footprints was slowly slithering into a watery oneness. The key felt cold and small in his hand and when he shone the torch on the lock, he saw that his hand was shaking a little.