by Declan Burke
The Audi purred up out of the small wood of oak and sycamore into a sunken dell, smooth lawns running from the forest fringe to either side of the house and curving up and behind to form a steep-sided bowl. A round loop of gravel had fallen short of lassoing the house and had had to content itself with an oblong fountain instead, a trio of arrow-pinging cherubs perched on its rim, a Mexican stand-off in marble. The obligatory Merc was parked out front, a shiny black Lexus tucked in behind, and one of those ridiculous urban jeeps, a Rav4. Spotlights popped on as I cleared the trees, bathing the house with a bluey glow. Squared-off and stolid, exuding a hunched defiance despite its three storeys. Red ivy put a blush on the functional grey stone but had the perverse effect of emphasising the austere lines and harsh angles. Wide steps narrowed to a front porch under a portico that had been swiped along with the Elgin marbles. The flowerbeds were neater than a double gin.
I hauled up the wide steps. Shivering now, a salty Atlantic breeze gusting around the corner of the house. Apart from the ivy, the door’s fire-engine red was the building’s only splash of colour. A brass door knocker in the shape of an elephant’s head was inviting but a lusty swing on its trunk revealed it as ornamental. I pushed the button set into a steel plate to the right of the door. Almost immediately the speaker above the button crackled.
‘Yes?’
‘Harry Rigby. I’m a friend of Finn’s.’
‘Yes?’
‘There’s been an accident.’
An intake of breath suggested he was about to try another affirmative query, but then a bolt slid back. The hallway, when the door had finally swung open far enough to allow me slip inside, looked like it had been designed with fat giraffes in mind. He made to speak but then stood back and let me through. ‘I’m Simon,’ he said, ushering me across the tiled hallway into a study with French windows set into the opposite wall. The other walls were taken up with shelves of leather-bound volumes, although here and there the grotesque exaggerations of modern portraiture leered from the gloom.
He gestured towards an armchair of dimpled green leather, waiting until I’d sat down before perching on the edge of its facing twin. On a squat table beside his chair sat a cut-crystal decanter, a green-shaded lamp and an empty balloon glass. A leather-bound book lay open and facedown on the chair’s arm but I couldn’t make out the title. I couldn’t work him out, either. Forty-something, quietly spoken, with a receding hairline and grey at his temples. His eyes, keenly alert, were also grey. Which made him old and smart enough to know better than to be seen in public wearing black trousers with a charcoal satin stripe running down the seam.
‘It’s bad,’ he said. ‘You’d have phoned if it wasn’t bad.’
‘It’s the worst. I’m sorry.’
The eyes seemed to blossom, then narrow. ‘He’s dead?’
I nodded. He swallowed dry. His eyes glazed over. ‘How did it happen?’
Even as I told him he was frowning, shaking his head. ‘Suicide?’ he said when I’d finished. ‘Finn?’
‘That’s why I thought Mrs Hamilton should know. Before the cops get here.’
‘Of course. She’ll appreciate that. Thank you.’ He didn’t seem to be aware that he was shaking his head all the while. ‘You’re sure?’ he said then. I nodded. ‘But why would he …?’
‘No idea. I’m sorry.’
He licked at dry lips. ‘She’s asleep, of course. I should wake her, but …’
He didn’t move.
‘The news won’t be any worse in the morning,’ I said.
‘No, I don’t suppose it will.’ He was humouring me, buying time. Right then he was miles away, or maybe just upstairs telling a woman the worst news she would ever hear. ‘Do you have children, Mr Rigby?’
‘A son.’
‘If it was you,’ he said, stalling, ‘would you rather find out straight away?’
‘I would, yeah.’
‘I think I would too.’ He thought it over, then noticed my fidgeting fingers and prescribed a brandy for the shock, poured us both a couple of inches. He sluiced his down without waiting for a toast. I wanted that brandy so bad I almost inhaled it having a sniff, but I was a taxi-driver on my way back in to meet with the cops, so I let it run up against my lips and slip away again. Just enough for a taste, to observe the ceremony.
‘I’ll wake her,’ he said. Dutch courage. ‘She should know.’
I stood and fished a card out of the back pocket of my jeans. ‘If you need me for anything, you can get me at that number.’
He glanced at it, distracted, then showed me to the door, thanked me again. He was still standing at the top of the wide steps when I pulled away down the drive, his stance loose, the shoulders slack, and I’d have bet everything I owned he’d have stood there through winter if it meant he didn’t have to climb those stairs and wake the woman who slept so blissfully unaware.
9
‘What I don’t like about it,’ Tohill said, ‘is you were there when it happened.’
‘When it happened, yeah. Not where it happened.’
‘Don’t be cute.’
‘I was down in the yard. The big decision was made nine storeys up. It was all over by the time he got down as far as me.’
‘Says you.’
‘It’s me you’re asking.’
‘Let’s not try to be too smart, hey?’
‘What’s that, policy here?’
The interview room was tricked out like a little girl’s bedroom, pastel pinks and blues. Some new EU directive, no doubt, designed to minimise the invasiveness of the interrogation process for those thugs and scumbags who suffered from a sensitive disposition. The lighting subdued, not so much as a cigarette burn or graffiti scar on the formica-topped table. The smell of paint was fresh enough to give me a faint headache.
Tohill stalked the room with his hands in his pockets, fair-haired, late thirties, his face a scuffed steel-toe boot. He liked me as well as he’d like any other ex-con who’d left the scene of a crime.
We’d chewed that one over. Last I’d heard, suicide wasn’t a crime. Tohill was of the opinion it wasn’t suicide until he said so. Now he leaned on the back of the chair across the table and ducked his head so his pale blue eyes were level with mine. ‘Let’s just go over it one more time.’
‘Sound, yeah. Can we get someone in, make this the official statement?’
‘You in a hurry?’
I was exhausted. There’d been a single uniform standing guard at the PA when I’d dropped back the Audi, who’d just stared, waiting for the punch line, when I’d asked if he could ring for a squad car to take me in to the station. So I’d hoofed it, in along the docks and all the way across town, a long and solitary hike, begrudging every last plodding step. Not exactly the Bataan Death March, okay. But I’d been badly shook for about two hours by then, and it felt like every cell in my body was screaming to shut down, just blank it all out.
And now Tohill looked to be in the mood to break out his Bud White impression.
‘I get the impression you’re the thorough type,’ I said. ‘So I’d say you went up there, had a good look around. And if you’d found anything, what they call signs of a struggle, I’d be having this conversation with my brief.’
‘I found your hands ripped to shit,’ he said. ‘That looks like signs of a struggle to me.’
‘Maybe it does, if you’re willing to get up in court and say I tried to batter Finn off the roof with a pile of scrap metal. And I’m talking about the studio. They find anything up there?’
‘Should they have?’
‘How would I know? I didn’t go up there.’
‘You did go up there.’
‘I mean after. I didn’t go up there after.’
‘You weren’t curious?’
‘That’s a sick question.’
The wide grin suggested that he genuinely enjoyed that one. ‘You’re telling me I’m sick?’
He had all night, a charred corpse and an eyewitness who’d do
ne seven years in the home for the criminally bewildered for shooting his brother in cold blood. Promotions have been grubbed from a lot less.
A Catch-22 bind, no matter how it fell out. If I copped to insanity when I blew Gonzo away, then I was a loose cannon, liable to blow any time, maybe heave a friend through a window nine storeys up.
The flip side being, if I claimed I’d been stone cold sane when I punched a hole in my only brother’s chest, same deal, I was capable of anything.
So I picked a spot on the wall over his head and stared.
‘See, what I’m not getting,’ Tohill said, flicking some pages in the folder on the desk, ‘is why this guy might want to jump. If it was you, grand, you’re off your bap, we’d all be home tucked up right now wondering why you couldn’t have jumped in the water, saved us the hassle of cleaning up the mess. Only this guy looks like he had it all.’
It was a fair question, the one that had been bugging me all night. How Finn had been so upbeat back at the PA before he jumped. If he’d been down, sure, it’d make sense, the black dog snarling and chasing him out onto the ledge. Except Finn, when he was down, could hardly walk. It was when he was up that he wanted to jump, burn off the evil buzz.
Bell jars away …
‘I mean,’ Tohill said, ‘if you’d been smart about it, torched the building and then said he’d jumped from the blaze, we’d all be thinking it was Finn the firebug, he just couldn’t help himself. Am I right?’
The spot on the wall was maybe a damp patch they hadn’t treated, just painted over.
‘Hey!’ Tohill pounded the table with a clenched fist. I started in the seat, a jagged pain darting down my left ribs.
‘Look,’ I said, breathing out slow, ‘I came in here to do you a favour. I don’t need to-’
‘Bullfuckingshit. You’re about this close,’ his thumb and forefinger pressed together, ‘from an obstruction of justice charge. Yeah? Because right now I’m wondering what the big fucking deal is, what it is you’re trying to hide.’ He poked a stubby forefinger into the pristine formica. ‘So my advice to you is to open your fucking mouth and have something half-intelligent come out. Otherwise we’re in for a long fucking night.’
The pain ebbed, subsided. A cold sweat prickling my back. ‘Are we making movies?’ I said. I glanced up at the camera high in the corner, its green light blinking. ‘Tell them be sure to get my good side.’
‘You want me to tell them to turn it off?’ he said. ‘So we can have a proper chat, like?’
Dee once told me I had eyes like a jilted shark. I met his stare and then shut down the lights, let him see what sick really looked like. ‘Just you and me,’ I said. ‘A proper chat.’
A twitch under his right eye, a faint narrowing. Then he rolled his shoulders and grinned. He fancied his chances. ‘Maybe we’ll do that,’ he said. ‘Just not here, yeah?’
‘You’ll know where to find me.’
‘Fucking right I’ll know where to find you. Because right now you’re headed for a padded cell again.’ He straightened up, jammed his hands into this pockets, took a little stroll around the room. ‘Go back to the start,’ he said. A faint smirk. ‘Tell me how you and Finn were bunk buddies.’
‘We shared a room, yeah.’
‘A room?’ He chuckled. Easily amused, Tohill. ‘Where was this, the Radisson?’
‘They called them rooms. Part of the rehab process.’
‘Normalisation,’ he nodded, ‘am I right? So you don’t feel a freak for blowing a hole in your brother. I get it. So there you are,’ he said, rolling his shoulders again, ‘all cosy in your room, and Finn Hamilton wanders in stinking like the pit lane at Le Mans. Did you jump his bones straight away or give him time to settle in?’
He was old school, Tohill. He’d be checking to see if I wore white socks next, asking if I liked to jazzercise to Liza Minelli show tunes.
‘What I don’t get,’ Tohill said, flipping idly through the pages of the folder, ‘is how you got such soft time. Like, here it says fit to be tried, and you were up on murder, there was just you and him in a room, you shot him. Right? Black and white. Except then you’re allowed plead self-defence and temporary insanity?’ He waited. I stared. ‘Next thing we know,’ he flipped a couple of pages, ‘you’re remanded to Dundrum for observation, assessment. Which is supposed to last two weeks, max, except you’re in there four years.’ Again he paused. ‘Maybe you’re more complicated than most,’ he said, ‘but four years’ worth?’ He pursed his lips, made a sucking sound. ‘And then you get transferred to the mental hospital here, nice and easy, not a single objection. Even though,’ he flipped back a page or two, ‘I’m not seeing any gold stars, no one raving about how you’re a model prisoner. What, you think this is funny? I’m some kind of comedian?’
‘No, it’s not that.’
‘Then what’s so fucking funny?’
I shouldn’t have rolled him the shark eyes. Bad things happen. Cogs and gears slipping their mesh, something flapping free in the back of my head.
‘Sitting on the sidelines,’ I said, ‘cribbing and moaning, is a lost opportunity.’ I knew it by heart. ‘I don’t know how people who engage in that don’t commit suicide because frankly the only thing that motivates me is being able to actively change something.’
‘The fuck has that to do with-’
‘It’s a quote, Tohill. From our former Lord and Master, Bartholomew Ahern, you might know him better as Bertie, not necessarily of the Wooster variety. That was his measured response when asked about those critiquing an economic policy driven by an accountant and former Minister for Finance who never learned how to open a bank account. A persuasive guy, though. They’ve been topping themselves in fucking droves ever since.’
‘You’re saying this is why Finn Hamilton jumped.’
‘I’m saying, I’m with Bertie. About not sitting on the sidelines, whinging about how shit everything is.’ I leaned forward, tapped the folder. ‘Being what they call proactive about changing stuff.’
‘Go on.’
‘Gonz was the crazy, Tohill. Mad fucker. He’d killed once already, once I knew of. Was already diving for a gun when I pulled the trigger. Sanest thing I ever did was cut that fucker down. Him or me, yeah? Doesn’t get more logical than that. Except then they said I was the crazy, because I was waiting and ready. What they call malice aforethought. That judge, if he’d ever been in the Scouts, I’d have walked away a free man. Dib-dib-dib, be prepared, you know the drill. But here’s the kicker, Tohill — that mental hospital, man, if you’re not mad going in you’re hinky as fuck coming out.’
‘What’s that, a threat?’
‘Why would I threaten you? You’re not even in the game.’
‘Game?’
‘The game.’
‘I don’t get it. What fucking game are you-’
‘I’ll take a bet with you now, Tohill.’ I leaned in. ‘I’m betting you’ve never slotted anyone. I’m betting you don’t even know anyone who’s ever put a man away. Tell me I’m wrong.’
It was in his eyes.
‘I took Gonzo off the map,’ I said. ‘And yeah, it was me or him, but I did it. You think the world isn’t a better place without him in it? That was me.’ I touched a thumb to my chest. ‘Me. Not you, not any one of you. Me. So if you need to know why I did four years of what they call soft fucking time, go find yourself a guy called Brady, last I heard he was calling the shots in Harcourt Street. A cop, yeah, but a cop who knows how the game works. Tell him I sent you, he’ll give you anything you need to know. As for this bullshit, I’ve had a long fucking night and I’m legally entitled to make a statement,’ I glanced up at the lens, ‘which I’m now officially requesting. So either take my statement and let me go, or arrest me and let me get some sleep.’
He stared awhile, lower jaw moving like he was grinding corn. Then he left the room. He came back with a uniform who wasn’t old enough to shave. The clock on the wall read 5.23 AM.
I stuck to the
story. How Finn’d rang to say his Audi was giving him trouble, which was why he’d needed a cab. He’d been smoking a little dope, sure, but he’d been upbeat, making plans to get married and move to Cyprus. The last thing I’d expected was for him to jump, but he did. Sic transit gloria mundi.
The uniform went away to type up the statement.
‘This dope he was smoking,’ Tohill said. ‘I don’t suppose you know where he got it?’
‘No idea.’
‘Smoke a little with him, hey?’
‘That’d violate the terms of my release.’
‘Still, maybe we should have you take a piss test.’
I allowed that one fall pat, let him feel exactly how small was something so big. He tugged on his nose. ‘Just so you know,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t cost me a second thought to put you back in the bin.’
‘What it’d cost is about quarter of a million a year to keep me there,’ I said.
‘Scum like you, it’s worth it.’
He looked worn down, shapeless and shabby. He’d have been better off investing his tax dollar in a decent suit.
The uniform brought the statement back in to be signed. Tohill leaned against the door-jamb rolling his neck in clockwise circles while I gave it the once-over.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ he sighed, ‘just sign the fucking thing.’
‘No problem. Once I’m sure it’s all my own work.’
There was a knock at the door. Tohill stepped out. I rolled a cigarette, tucked it behind my ear. Tohill came back in, rolling his shoulders.
