Quinn waited. He’d seen the man yesterday; like so many other people, Frank had crossed the river to pay his respects to Danny’s memory. Patrick had been there, of course; thinking of Paddy, Quinn needed to talk to him: his best mate from their rugby days – and Frank Maguire’s little brother. He was a social worker, a prison visitor; as a family friend, he’d offered to counsel Eva. He was a good listener; he was still counselling her almost a year later.
Quinn watched the superintendent get out of his car: at forty-six, he was a career copper – a man with ambitions at Garda HQ. He liked to socialise with the upper echelons but in reality Quinn knew the commissioner, Tom Calhoun, better than he did. It galled Maguire, of course: he was the senior officer and, given his golf-club and Masonic connections, it made little sense that Quinn was more ‘in’ with the top brass than he was. But Calhoun had been a veteran No. 8 when Quinn first made the Dublin second XV, and they’d played together for a couple of years before Calhoun hung up his rugby boots. Maguire had light-coloured hair cut short and brushed forward at an angle across his forehead. He was married to an investment banker who was always flying to London or New York.
Everything about him was proper: where he lived, where he played golf. To top it all, he wore hand-made suits. He was a daily communicant at St Kevin’s Church, across the road from the Garda Club: given that that was where Quinn was squatting, at least temporarily, he’d have to be careful if he was planning on seeing Murphy.
‘Morning, Moss,’ Maguire said, shaking his hand. ‘Did you manage to get through it yesterday?’
For a chill moment, Quinn thought of his son in his grave; the image was juxtaposed with that of another woman in his bed.
‘I tried to phone you last night,’ Maguire told him. ‘My wife is away, and I thought I’d invite you over for a small one.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Around ten, I suppose.’
‘I was here then still, I think,’ Quinn told him. ‘Don’t ask me why, Frank, but I was at my desk looking over the files Murphy and I are taking to Naas.’
‘Your phone was switched off,’ Maguire said. ‘I didn’t think to call your desk.’
Quinn felt in his pocket and discovered that his phone was still switched off. He’d missed a few calls: two from his house in Glasnevin, another from Frank, and two more this morning from Doyle.
That had been at seven. What the hell did the Doyler want so early? At that moment, the phone rang again. Maguire was holding the lift but Quinn nodded for him to go on. ‘Doyler,’ he said when he answered. ‘That’s three times already and it’s not yet eight o’clock.’
‘Why the hell was your phone off?’ Doyle demanded.
His tone sent the hairs rising on the nape of Quinn’s neck. ‘What is it now? What’s up?’
‘Laura tried to phone you, lad, but she couldn’t get a reply. It’s Eva, Moss: she’s not here, and her bed doesn’t look as though it’s been slept in.’
Monday 1st September 7.50 am
Eva’s car was not in its usual spot. As Quinn pulled up he was conscious of the knot tightening in the pit of his stomach. He could see his youngest daughter’s face at the window: she was waiting for him, her nose to the glass, peering out anxiously. He climbed the steps and the front door flew open; Laura threw herself into his arms.
‘Hey,’ he said, ‘it’s all right. It’s OK, Laura, everything’s going to be fine.’
Doyle was at the far end of the hall with breakfast dishes in his hands. The two men exchanged a concerned glance. Laura was holding on to him tightly. ‘Dad, she’s not here. Mam’s not here. We don’t know where she is.’
‘We phoned you, but your phone was off,’ Jess was almost shouting as she came rushing out of the living room.
‘I know, love. I’m sorry.’ Quinn bent to pick her up and, with both of them clinging to him, glanced at Doyle again. ‘I turned the bloody thing off and forgot to switch it on again. It’s a good job you could get hold of your Uncle Joe, girls, wasn’t it?’
In the lounge, he sat down on the sofa with a daughter on each knee. ‘Mam wasn’t in her room when you woke up?’ he asked. ‘Is that how it was?’
Jess nodded. ‘It was awful quiet, Dad. I woke up first and went through to Laura’s room. It was so quiet I thought it was Saturday or something.’
‘Well it’s not,’ he said with a reassuring smile. ‘It’s Monday. I expect your mam had to nip out. She’ll be back soon. Now I think the best thing you two can do is get your things together and I’ll drive you to school.’
‘School?’ Laura looked almost shocked.
‘Your mam will be fine, love. You need to be at school.’
The two girls went upstairs to get their shoes.
Doyle touched Quinn lightly on the arm. ‘There’s tea brewed, Moss, if you want a cup.’
Quinn shook his head. Hands on his hips, he was studying the picture of him and Danny fishing the Tolka. Eva had taken the photograph only a couple of weeks before the boy had been killed.
Guilt pricked him – a sickening sensation in his gut. It had been a year and a day, and there was no sign, no word – and him a detective inspector with as good a network of touts as any copper working.
‘So what do you know?’ Doyle asked him.
Quinn pushed out his lips. ‘I’m just glad you were on the end of the phone.’
‘I was with Maureen last night, so I didn’t get back to Harold’s Cross. This morning I drove to the quays thinking I might have words with your man about those Ukrainians he’s got working for him. I was sitting there when Laura phoned.’
‘I went to the office last night, Doyler. Like I told you, I forgot to switch my phone back on.’
‘Getting the files together for this thing down in Naas, were you?’
‘The justice minister’s pet project,’ Quinn replied, nodding.
Doyle shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘So what about this, then? What about little Eva taking off somewhere and not telling anyone where she was going?’
‘Have you been upstairs?’ Quinn asked him.
Doyle nodded. ‘The girls are right: it doesn’t look as though the bed’s been slept in.’
Quinn could see the unease etched in his face. ‘Let’s get the kids to school,’ he said. ‘I know what you’re thinking but it’ll be fine. Eva’s not one to do anything stupid: you know she’s not.’
For years, Quinn had been subordinate to the older man. He had been a young copper when Doyle was already a sergeant; then Quinn made detective and they’d been sergeants together for a while before Quinn was promoted to inspector. Doyle never had designs on anything beyond the rank of sergeant, and his methods had been gleaned from the ‘Brano Five Team’, who were called out to the trouble spots in the late sixties and early seventies. They were led by Jim ‘Lugs’ Brannigan, a legendary Dublin policeman who boxed for Ireland but didn’t use the Queensberry Rules when dealing with the city’s lowlifes. Lugs used to give the so-called hard men the choice of fighting him or appearing in court; most of them chose the latter. He was famous for taking on a gang in Dolphin’s Barn one night, and he was the one they called when a drunk from Meath Street used a hachet as currency to get served in the pub.
Between them, Quinn and Doyle got the girls into the car, and Doyle drove the short distance to the school. Quinn kissed them and told them not to worry, then watched as they padded across the playground.
‘Do you not want to let the headteacher know what’s gone on, maybe?’ Doyle suggested.
Quinn shook his head. ‘I don’t want to let anyone know, Doyler. Eva’s not herself, we both know that. We’ll just find out where she is and bring her home.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Fuck it,’ he said. ‘I’m supposed to be going to Naas.’
Taking his mobile phone out, he stepped away from Doyle and called Murphy. ‘Listen, Murph,’ he said, ‘something’s come up. Can you take the files to Naas and brief the team without me?’
‘Of course. W
hat’s happened?’
‘It’s my wife,’ he said, hoarsely. ‘She went out and left the girls on their own. Keep a lid on it, will you? Me and Doyle will find her, then I’ll get down to Naas.’
Doyle was standing with his hands in his pockets and his collar turned up under his ears. He had a distant expression on his face. He looked round as Quinn hung up the phone.
‘So you know what I’m thinking,’ Doyle said. He looked squarely at Quinn. It’s not like her; but then it’s not like anyone, is it? You saw her yesterday, Mossie – how she was just about coping and no more. I’m going to say it because it has to be said: I can’t help but wonder if she’s not fetched herself off for the rope.’
Monday 1st September 8.30 am
Conor Maggs made a pot of coffee. He was in the tiny kitchen. Beyond the concrete balcony he could see the back of the hotel, where Polish chambermaids were shaking out the bed sheets. He could smell breakfast: eggs and bacon; black and white pudding; the semolina grits poor people used to eat in America.
He moved to the living room, where he sat down and opened his Bible – a modern version, not the King James one that his aunt had bought him for his First Communion. His aunt had been good to him; she’d given him and his brothers and sisters a home when they had nowhere else, even though she knew that her sister was a drunk who funded her habit by lying on her back. For a moment, Maggs thought about his mother. It wasn’t her fault, but she’d been old with the drink. Old and ugly: too much drink and too many men; too many cigarettes.
*
She’d been up before he left for school that morning. This was very unusual: normally she was still all-but-comatose from the drink the night before. This morning, though, it was almost as if she knew she’d done something very bad; although she couldn’t have known quite how bad, she knew that he’d find out.
His aunt had already left for work. Conor came down from his little room with its narrow bed at the front of the pebble-dash council semi. He was washed and dressed in his uniform of white shirt and blue jumper, the tie only loosely knotted. His aunt always made sure his tie was neat before he left the house. His mother didn’t care. She was overweight and her hair was a mess; and she was wearing the loose nylon dressing gown that was pretty much see-through.
When he sat down to a bowl of cereal, she had a smoke going, leaning with one hand on the worktop, her crimson nail varnish chipped like that of some cheap checkout girl who said little and snapped gum. The cigarette smoke was stifling, and with the windows shut, the fug sucked the air from the room.
His mother was resting with her back to the cooker. She didn’t speak to him, just crossed one leg over the other, the white flesh of her thigh exposed between the folds of the dressing gown. He could see her breasts – she wasn’t wearing a bra – and colour rose from his jowls. Avoiding her eye, he poured milk over the cereal and spooned on some sugar. The work surface was littered with empty bottles. Sherry, mostly, along with a few wine bottles from the supermarket: the German stuff, sweet and cheap; she didn’t care what it tasted like just so long as she could tip it down her throat.
His aunt never got in from work before six-thirty. She worked long hours in a small factory and had to travel all the way to Tralee. His mother had the house to herself during the day; when he finished school, Conor would wander down to the river and sit there watching the otters and the little birds that nested among the reeds. Not wanting to walk in on anything, he did his homework down there or, when it was cold or raining, he’d go to the library.
The other kids would be hanging out and they’d either come looking to give him a kicking or would just take the piss. They’d been doing that pretty much all the time since he and his mother had moved there five years ago. And it wasn’t just the kids; everyone seemed to know what his mother was: the local families, the Guards, the clergy. He was judged because of it, though perhaps not by the priest: his aunt was devout and made sure he went to Mass at least twice a week. It was at Mass that Conor had seen Eva.
He thought about her as he sat there spooning mushy Weetabix into his mouth. She was the only person at school who had any time for him; since he was nine years old, she’d made his life bearable.
She wore his necklace, the one he’d persuaded his aunt to buy for her as a present for his First Communion. It had been a thankyou for her consideration and little kindnesses towards him.
His mother coughed and Conor glanced up at her now, aware of her looking at him guiltily. If he held her gaze for any length of time, she had to look away.
‘Come home early today,’ she said gently. ‘I’ll make you your tea.’
He was stunned: he could not recall the last time she’d made him any food – or even offered to, for that matter. It was his aunt who did the cooking; after his mother had got rid of her last ‘client’, she would sink into the bottle for the rest of the day.
‘I’ve homework, mam,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll just go to the library. I don’t mind.’
‘Suit yerself.’ He could see the pain in her eyes as, with a shrug, she dragged on her cigarette, held the butt under the running tap and shuffled upstairs.
The walk to school took him a mile across town, out of the estate and up through the square, where he saw a group of kids hanging around the shops. Jimmy Hanrahan and his mates – half a dozen of them – roamed the playground at break-time looking for someone to pick on. They hadn’t seen him yet; Conor ducked into the doorway of the Indian restaurant until they’d moved on. They were dawdling, though, and he’d have no choice but to dawdle behind them: he couldn’t risk trying to pass them in the street. Jimmy would never allow that. Jimmy was the local hardchaw, a bully; picking on Conor Maggs was his favourite pastime. At fourteen, he was six months older than Conor, but he was nowhere near as bright: the only lesson he seemed to do OK in was literature – a flair he’d got from his mam, who was supposed to be something of a culchie. His old man, on the other hand, was a vicious drunk who spent the hours when he wasn’t boozing, poaching illicit deer.
Conor waited until it was safe to leave the doorway. As he stepped out to cross the road, Eva’s Uncle Joe swept past in his car and he had to step back again sharply. For a brief moment, their eyes met. The copper looked at him as he always did – with suspicion and malice. He’d been like that since Eva’s father died.
When the car had passed, Conor crossed quickly. It wasn’t often he saw Doyle down here: he was a Guard up in Dublin these days and only came down when he had a few days off. He knew what Conor’s mother was – he’d always known – and he was a prime example of how judgemental people can be.
Doyle had been there the day Conor, Eva and their classmates made their First communion, and Conor knew he’d been against Eva accepting the gift. But her mother was as sweet a soul as her youngest, and told the old bastard not to be so prejudiced.
It was all because of his mother. Conor knew that: he’d never known anything else. He had no clue who his dad was; he could’ve been one of dozens. Fathers had never been spoken about in their house: there was only him and his mother. Here the Guards seemed to turn a blind eye to her ‘business’. In Limerick, they’d been in a tiny flat before the council kicked them out. It seemed as though the door had been knocked all hours of the day. He used to hear the customers bouncing away on top of her, and he’d bury his head in the pillow to try and shut the noise out.
Jimmy was at the school gates: Jimmy who, ironically, had been in the same catechism class as him and Eva. Not that he took any notice: his old man had made him go for the sake of his mother’s religion. A skinny kid, he was brutal and very strong; and he was leaning against the gate with a whole gaggle of other kids around him. One of them looked up as Conor came round the corner; he muttered something to Jimmy and then they all turned. Conor faltered; he could feel the blood rising in his cheeks. He studied the tarmac, acutely conscious that he would have to walk past them.
There were twenty of them maybe, not just from his year but
from the years above and below.
Older kids, younger. One of them yelled out suddenly: ‘Hey maggot, how’s your ma? How’s she feeling this morning?’
The others cackled away like mad things. Conor was trembling; he could feel heat in his bladder; there were tears behind his eyes. This was much worse than usual, but he had no choice, there was no other way to get into the school. He’d had to run this kind of gauntlet more times than he could remember. He did it most days, and he could do it today; it was just that there were more of them this morning.
‘She’s got a right pair on her, doesn’t she?’ another kid scoffed. ‘They sag like spuds in a sack, mind, but they are fuckin’ big.’
Conor stopped dead. He could hear the taunts, but across the playground, by the netball posts, he glimpsed Eva. With her auburn hair and freckles across her nose, she was a thing of beauty – the only thing of beauty in his life. And she always had a kind word for him. She could see the crowd; she would know what was going on.
‘She’s pig-ugly, lads, I can tell you.’ It was Jimmy’s voice. He was holding a Polaroid photograph, and the other kids were gathering round to take a look. ‘I’m charging for this,’ Jimmy cracked. ‘I need to get me money back somehow. Big floppy tits, she has, and a really hairy box.’
Conor’s mouth fell open.
‘Do you want to take a look, maggot? Naw, bollocks do you, you don’t need to, do you? You get to see the old witch every day.’ He held up the picture, flapping it at Conor like a fan.
‘She doesn’t know I took it. She was shit-faced, the fat bitch.’
Conor flew at him. Forcing his way through the other kids like an animal, he leapt. Jimmy was too quick, though: he whipped the photo away and, in the same movement, whacked Conor on the side of the head. Off balance already, he went sprawling; then he was on his hands and knees, and the other kids, girls as well as boys, were kicking lumps out of him.
The Gathering of Souls Page 5
