The next thing he knew, the crowd was scattering and he heard one of the teachers yelling across the playground. He was on his face, with blood in his mouth, and as he lifted his head, there was Jimmy waving the picture of his half-naked mother in front of his eyes. Then the photo was gone, and Jimmy was gone, and Conor had a teacher hauling him up by the elbow.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked, his tone terse, not kindly. ‘You need to get yourself to class, lad, you’re late enough as it is.’
Conor stumbled across the playground. He could still see Eva watching, and for a moment he thought she might come and speak to him. But she didn’t. He wiped his lip with the back of his hand and it came away bloody.
‘Go to the bathroom before you go to class,’ the teacher told him. ‘Clean yourself up: you’re a mess, Maggs. And you’re late. Get yourself cleaned up.’
*
Any man who had the price: old or young, it didn’t seem to matter. The picture was a trophy, a memento of the day Jimmy Hanrahan lost his virginity. He’d thought it a great laugh. That picture did the rounds for months afterwards: more than twenty years later, it was as firmly imprinted on Maggs’s mind as the night Doyle took his fists to him.
With steam rising from the coffee cup, he considered what he would talk about with the community group that night. He’d spoken to them a few times but not for some months. He wasn’t sure what to prepare: something inspirational, maybe, or something more doctrinal, such as the Catholic belief that in the Mass Christ really was manifest as flesh and blood in the sacraments. It was the only bit of the Roman idolatry he still believed in; the rest had been usurped by evangelical fervour after his experience in the cell at Rathfarnham. That was another vivid memory – and one that brought him out in a mix of cold sweat and elation. One minute he had Doyle in his ear, telling him he knew what he’d done not just to the girl from Limerick but to his own mother. Then the Lord himself, in all his suffering, was looking down where Maggs lay; where Doyle had left him.
All at once, he knew what he would talk about. Martyrs: he would talk about those who had suffered for their faith. Like Peter, the Lord’s favourite, who had been crucified upside down by the Romans because he didn’t believe he was worthy to meet death in the same fashion as his master.
Monday 1st September 8.45 am
Back at the house in Glasnevin, Quinn and Doyle were ringing round every hospital in the city to see if anyone answering Eva’s description had been brought in. Her handbag was on the hall table, together with her purse, her driving licence, her mobile phone; everything, in fact, other than her car keys. So far, they had found nothing, and right now Quinn was on his landline to the Mater Hospital, situated directly across the road from Mountjoy Prison. Doyle was in the kitchen on his mobile phone; he came through, then, his face taut with anxiety.
‘Moss,’ he said, ‘I just spoke to the City Centre Morgue.’
Amiens Street, right next door to the garda station. Quinn’s heart was thumping.
‘They dragged a body from Spencer Dock,’ Doyle told him. ‘A woman in her thirties, and wearing a wedding band.’
Quinn stared at him. And for a moment he couldn’t breathe: a woman in her thirties, a wedding band. How many times had he been called to a scene where a body had been found after someone had been reported missing?
It was always the person they were looking for.
He could feel the colour draining from his face, and the sweat breaking out on his scalp. He looked at Doyle and saw the same fear etched in his granite features. He could see Murphy naked beneath him; he could feel the softness of her breasts, the warmth of her in his bed. He couldn’t deal with this; not after Danny, not after yesterday. He had to clamp his jaws together to stop himself from breaking down. He tried to steel himself; he tried to think.
Eyes closed, he asked: ‘Was her car down there? Did they find her car?’
Doyle shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask, Moss. I didn’t ask about the car.’
They drove south with Doyle and followed Quinn towards the centre of town. Quinn was just about holding things together and for his part Doyle tried to concentrate on the crisis that was unfolding. But this was family, his brother’s youngest, and all he could think about was the three-hour drive to Kerry. He could not imagine having to tell his sister-in-law that her youngest had taken her life because her son was gone and she hadn’t been able to cope.
Only once had he had to tell that to a family. He’d arrested Jimmy Hanrahan when he was fifteen, after he and a couple of mates had broken into the spinster Bolton’s house on the Ballybunion Road. They’d stolen jewellery which had been given to the old woman by her mother. When she wouldn’t tell them where she kept her savings, Jimmy battered her over the head with her fire poker. She needed thirty-two stitches in her scalp.
It had been a bad business. Jimmy’s old man had always been a toe-rag, and when his mother found out that her boy had gone the same way, she rowed out into the Shannon in a little boat and drowned herself.
Doyle had been the one to tell her husband; John Hanrahan swore that, from that day on, he would never touch another drop of drink. Guilt besieged him because, according to the faith his wife had kept, she would be in purgatory now, her soul neither God’s nor the devil’s. In a bid to contact her, he’d started to visit mediums; not long after that, the souls of the dead started visiting his kitchen. But it wasn’t just the dead; according to old John. it was Beelzebub himself sitting there at the table.
In the car park, Quinn sat in his car. His palms were sweating; he reached for the glovebox and the half-smoked packet of cigarettes he’d brought from the flat this morning. All manner of memories were whizzing through his head: Eva the first time he’d seen her, beautiful, with ochre-coloured hair and eyes the green of polished emeralds. A rugby tour in Kerry, him and Paddy Maguire; they’d won the first match and they were in the bar with Doyle telling Quinn who Eva was, and that he needed to keep his mucky mitts to himself.
Crossing the car park, Doyle opened the door and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. ‘Are you set?’ he asked.
Quinn had been to the morgue many times. He’d seen autopsies being performed; he’d seen more corpses than he could count. But never had he been here like this.
He could picture his wife only yesterday at Danny’s grave, surrounded by people yet enveloped in her own silence. He realised then that she could have done it. In the state of mind she was in then, she could’ve gone to Spencer Dock and thrown herself into the water.
He had to pause for breath. ‘Jesus, Doyler, I’m not sure I can do this.’
Doyle nodded. His own eyes were haunted, his features stiff with tension. ‘Do you want to stay here?’ he asked. ‘Do you want me to do it?’
Quinn swallowed, then, looking sharply at the old Victorian walls, shook his head slowly. ‘If it is her, I have to know. If I have to tell the kids, I have to have seen her myself.’
They made their way past reception, and again he had to catch his breath. As they were walking down the short corridor to the heavy swing doors, which were part-wood and part-plastic, his heart thumped; the knot in his gut was a physical pain now. Pushing open the door, he found a mortuary assistant in the office off to the left.
The odour of disinfectant assaulted his nostrils: he saw white tiled walls, and a tiled floor that had been scrubbed till it squeaked. The assistant, who was wearing a pair of rubber boots, looked up at them through a pane of security glass.
‘DI Quinn.’ Quinn’s voice was little more than a whisper. ‘We were told you had a possible suicide brought in.’
The young man pushed a strand of thin black hair away from his eyes. ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘They dragged her out of Spencer Dock just this morning.’ He closed the office door, then led the way through another door to where the cold rooms and sluices were.
‘I’d say she was in her late thirties,’ the assistant told them. ‘She’s got reddish-brown hair and bl
uish eyes. Dark skirt; white top; no shoes. She’s wearing a wedding ring: nothing particular, just a gold band.’
‘What kind of a gold band?’
‘A narrow one, not unlike that, now you come to mention it,’ he said, nodding towards the one Quinn was fingering.
Doyle crossed himself.
The assistant led the way through the next set of doors, where four stainless-steel tables were set side by side, a few feet apart. Each had a lip along the edge and steel slats running crosswise the full length of the table so that bodily fluids could drain into the belly pan below. The tang of disinfectant was overpowering.
This was where Dublin’s dead were brought. Suicides, victims of road-traffic accidents and murders; they were cleaned up and patched up so that those with the task of identifying the body would be put through as little trauma as possible.
The door to the cold room stood open, and a polished pine casket stood on one table. Beyond was the mortuary itself, the walls filled with refrigerated cabinets, each of which held five trays, one on top of the other. The assistant opened the fourth rack at the second level and slid the tray all the way out. The body was covered in opaque polythene sheeting.
Quinn looked down as he’d done countless times before; only now, he imagined Jess and Laura at school trying to concentrate on their lessons.
He was trembling.
Before he was ready, before he could think about what was to come, the assistant drew back the plastic sheet. She lay with her eyes closed, her skin like candle wax, and strands of auburn hair were matted around her face. She looked pained and weary in death. Quinn tried to part his lips, but his mouth was as dry as an old bone.
‘Have you any idea who she is?’ the assistant asked him.
‘No,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t.’
Monday 1st September 9 am
Outside, the two men leant against the brick wall as if they’d both just run a marathon. Quinn was still shaking; with a sharp exhalation of breath, Doyle crossed himself for the umpteenth time.
‘Thank the Blessed Virgin,’ he muttered. ‘Jesus, Moss, that was a moment and no mistake.’ Quinn stared at the grubby concrete, bits of paper, slivers of old gum.
They were quiet for a few moments, then Doyle cleared his throat. ‘So now then,’ he said. ‘You’re the one that made inspector: where the devil is she?’
Quinn lit a cigarette and as he smoked it, his mind settled. ‘She’s at the cemetery, Joe, that’s where she is.’
‘Ah,’ Doyle said, nodding slowly. ‘Of course she is. And you know what? If we’d taken a step back and thought about it for just a moment, we’d have figured that out a lot sooner.’
‘We’re coppers. We think hospital and mortuary; that’s just the way it is.’ Straightening up, Quinn dropped the cigarette and worked it under his heel. Then he took his phone out of his pocket and called Patrick Maguire.
‘Paddy, it’s Moss,’ he said. ‘Listen, have you spoken to Eva?’
‘Not today,’ Maguire told him. ‘I saw you both yesterday, of course, and I called the house last night to make sure she was all right.’
‘You phoned her?’ Quinn held the phone a little tighter.
‘I did, Moss. Just before ten, I think. I was worried about her; you know how she was yesterday.’
Covering the mouthpiece for a moment, Quinn turned to Doyle. ‘Paddy phoned her a little before ten last night,’ he said. Doyle checked his watch. ‘How was she, Pat?’ Quinn asked. ‘When you spoke to her?’
‘She sounded OK, I suppose; you know, given the day and everything. But I’ve been worried about her. I told you that: the last few times we’ve spoken, there was a sense of hopelessness I’d not seen before. I put it down to the run-up to the first anniversary and …’
‘Her husband not being able to find her son’s killer,’ Quinn said, finishing the sentence for him.
‘Irrational as it is, I suppose, yes.’
‘It’s not that irrational. I’m a Gard, Pat: a copper, me and the Doyler both. Her husband and her uncle: we managed to get the kid she’d befriended into the dock, but we couldn’t do anything about her son’s killer. She can’t help it, she juxtaposes those two events.’
‘You can’t blame her, Moss,’ Maguire said. ‘She’s not blaming you deliberately, and I don’t even think it’s as clear-cut as you say. Anyway, how is she this morning? I was going to phone but I’m up here at the ’Joy.’
Quinn looked sideways at Doyle, who was still leaning against the mortuary wall with his hands in his pockets. ‘That’s just it, Patrick,’ Quinn said. ‘She’s missing.’
‘Missing?’
‘Yes, and from what you just told me, you were the last person to speak to her. We’re at the city morgue now, and …’
‘Jesus Christ, she’s not …’
‘No, but we thought she might be. They dragged a floater from Spencer Dock who answered her description. I’m thinking she’s at the cemetery, Paddy. What do you reckon?’
Maguire mulled that over for a moment. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘if she’s not at home, that’s as likely a place as any.’
‘That’s what I thought. OK, bud, thanks. I’ll be talking to you.’
‘Mossie?’
‘Yes?’
‘Make sure you give me a call – I mean when you find her. Tell her if she wants to get together, that’s fine. Tell her anytime; I can change my appointments.’
*
In the prisoners’ reception at Mountjoy, Patrick Maguire switched off his phone. The doors were unlocked and he went through to the inner vestibule; then the doors were locked again behind him. A second set of doors was unlocked and, nodding to the warder, he made his way to the interview room, where Karl Crame was waiting.
Crame sat with his arms resting on the table. Tattoos from wrist to shoulder: snakes; women; a tapestry of orange, red and blue. His hair was shaved to the skull, and at twenty-two his eyes were cold and grey.
‘Patrick Pearse, there y’are, I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.’
‘Sorry, Karl.’ Maguire sat down and placed his soft leather briefcase by his feet. ‘I got held up.’
‘Listen.’ Crame reached across the table and gripped him by the wrist. ‘I need to know you’ll do what you can for me. The lads in here tell me you’re the man, Paddy – that you actually mean what you say.’
‘Of course I do,’ Maguire said. ‘Why else would I spend so much time with lowlife such as you?’
Crame didn’t smile.
‘It’s a joke, Karl.’ Maguire was Quinn’s age, though a bit smaller and a little wirier, maybe.
‘Chill out, will you, for Christ’s sake? What I said was a joke.’
‘A joke, right. Ha, ha.’ Crame’s eyes were tight. ‘Listen, Patrick, I don’t want to fuck about with any counselling bullshit. I don’t need any of that. I have to talk to you about my girlfriend. I mean, the bitch is determined I’ll never see my son.’
‘Whoa, whoa, slow down, will you?’ Maguire said, facing his palms downwards. ‘What girlfriend? What son? You’ve lost me.’
Crame looked suddenly bitter. ‘I’ve spoken to some of the lads in here, and they told me that if a lad’s got shite going on, sometimes you can help.’
Again, Maguire studied him. There was something about his eyes, which were bleak and empty; it was an expression he was seeing more and more these days. The man reeked of violence: naked street violence.
‘I didn’t know you had a son, Karl,’ Maguire said.
‘Well I do, and that bitch from Jobstown …’ Crame broke off and looked hard at him. That’s where I live: the Kilmahon estate. Do you know it?’
‘Who doesn’t? The Guards have just doubled their patrols down there.’
‘Yeah, well, some of them bastards ought to try living there. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is I’m stuck in here. But it’s not going to be forever, and that cow is trying to stop me from seeing my little boy.’
For the fi
rst time, Maguire could see some real emotion. He sat back now as Crame gesticulated. ‘I might not be any good as a dad, Patrick, and I might not like his mammy very much, but I love that babby, and stuck in here, he’s pretty much all I think about.’
‘What’re you in for, Karl? Dealing, was it?’ There was no accusation, no judgement in Maguire’s voice.
Crame nodded. ‘I was a dealer, yeah, but small-time, you know what I mean. I had a little bit of turf down there in Kilmahon, but it was nothing much. They gave me seven years, and she’s saying she’s not bringing my boy in any more. By the time I get out, the lad won’t know me.’
Maguire nodded. ‘How old is he?’
‘Jesus, he’s only five, and she’s threatening to take him away, move out of Dublin, leave Ireland altogether maybe.’ His eyes were dull now, his hands balled into fists. ‘I was working down at Poolbeg when the bastards laid me off. I had the dole but it wasn’t enough, so I took up with the dealing. I pissed off a couple of players, though: you know, a couple of Dub bastards already in the game. Anyway, they set me up, and that’s how I’m in here: it’s not my fault. I was only trying to make a living, and I don’t deserve to have that woman take my son away from me.’
Maguire sat back. This was the kind of inmate he saw all the time, someone who’d stumbled through a difficult beginning and an impossible childhood – and, almost inevitably, had ended up in Mountjoy Prison. With the influx of drugs, gangs were springing up both north and south of the river. And they weren’t like the old gangs: they were getting younger and younger, and they were capable of the kind of violence that even the old-school boys from Ballyfermot might have baulked at.
‘Listen, Karl,’ he said, ‘if you’re telling me that when you get out, you’re not just going to go back to how it was – and by that I mean get hold of your supplier and start over – then I might be able to help you.’
The Gathering of Souls Page 6
