by Jess Kidd
May 1976
Mahony spins the Eldorado into Jack Brophy’s drive and kills the engine. It’s a good-sized modern bungalow set out of town on the road to Castleross. The place is well built and well maintained with well-locked doors. Which doesn’t surprise Mahony at all, given Jack’s line of business.
Mahony walks round the back of the house, where the land falls away into an established orchard. Painted beehives nestle amongst the trees; a couple of decent horses pull grass in the field beyond.
Mahony picks up a stone from a nearby rockery and, holding one arm over his face, puts a window in with it. He reaches his hand in and unlocks the back door.
The kitchen is neat. Immaculate. As is the hallway and the dining room. It is pale beige and carpeted thickly throughout. In the sitting room there’s a wooden unit with a turntable and a selection of records, all opera, evidence right there of a diseased mind. A clock from the Deputy Commissioner sits up on the mantelpiece, brassy and smug in its polished glass dome. There are a couple of seascapes hanging on the wall – otherwise, nothing.
The place is anonymous.
The bedrooms are the same. No photos, nothing personal. Mahony opens the wardrobe in the master bedroom, there’s one side for uniform, all pressed and ready, and the other side for off-duty, all pressed and ready. Jack’s civilian clothes are arranged by colour from brown to fawn, with a black suit and a grey suit. The bedside table holds a torch and an alarm clock set for six o’clock.
Mahony takes the torch, looks for a way into the attic and finds it in the third bedroom. He stands on the bed and pulls down the hatch and the steel ladder that’s attached to it. He sees the cord of a light switch hanging above him, so he throws the torch on the bed and swings himself up through the hole.
There’s fuck all in the attic. Mahony goes back down the ladder. He’ll take one last scan about the place then leave. On his way out he passes the pantry and thinks to try the door.
And there she is.
Mahony’s heart turns over with horror.
Crouched naked in an old tin hip bath and swaddled in plastic sheeting, Annie Farelly grins back at him with her eyes wide and sightless and her knuckles resting in the quarter inch of blood congealing in the bottom of the bath.
Fuck no. Christ. Ah no.
On the shelf behind her, between tins of corned beef and string sacks of onions, are her shoes, paired and resting on newspaper, blood dulling the tan polish. Next to them are her clothes. Stained and folded. There’s a cream blouse, a mauve cardigan, a grey pleated skirt, bunched underwear and a bloodied reel of stockings.
Mahony falls out of the back door running as a car pulls up on the drive at the front of the house.
Chapter 54
May 1976
Back in the village hall Mrs Cauley frowns and scratches up under her wig. Her scalp is hopping, which is never a good sign.
She attempts a reassuring smile. ‘Mahony is quick, Shauna. In the wits department there’s none quicker.’
Bridget nods sagely. ‘She’s right. Listen to her now. Dry your arse and drink your tea. Mahony will slip in and out. He’ll be off up the coast with the evidence by now.’
‘He’ll be long gone by the time Brophy gets up to the house,’ Mrs Cauley agrees.
Shauna wipes her eyes. ‘Mahony will have left the house already?’
Bridget laughs. ‘He’ll be in Westport by now!’
Shauna squints across at Mrs Cauley. ‘And he’ll return with the guards?’
‘He will of course.’
‘And Jack will be arrested?’
‘He will, Shauna,’ says Mrs Cauley.
‘God willing.’ Bridget pats her arm.
Shauna stops crying and looks at them. ‘That’s all bollocks, isn’t it?’
Bridget shrugs. Mrs Cauley purses her lips.
Shauna puts down her teacup and grabs her cardigan.
‘It will be tomorrow before we’re underway, Michael.’
‘We’ll be away in just a minute now, Mrs Cauley.’ Michael Hopper manoeuvres the wheelchair into the boot. He has no clear idea where they are going, only that the Bishop himself would murder him if he knew he was taking the priest’s car. But as Bridget pointed out, with Quinn carted off to hospital with paranoia and thorn lacerations to the backside, who is to know?
‘Take us straight up to Brophy’s,’ calls out Mrs Cauley. She turns to Bridget, sitting in the back seat behind her. ‘If that fecker is up there in his slippers watching RTÉ then we’ll know Mahony’s got away unchecked.’ She looks out of the window. ‘Michael, will you put a bit of effort into it?’
‘I nearly have it now, Mrs Cauley,’ says Michael. He glances across the back of the car at Shauna.
Shauna scowls back at him. She has a firm grip on a hurling stick.
‘What are you doing with the hurley there, Shauna?’
‘Weapon,’ she snarls. She also has a paring knife up the sleeve of her cardigan.
Michael closes the boot and gets into the driver’s seat. ‘And why does Shauna need a weapon?’
Mrs Cauley narrows her eyes at him. ‘Self-defence. Jack Brophy killed Orla and Mary Lavelle and now he’s after Mahony.’
Michael laughs until Mrs Cauley fixes him with the glare of a gorgon.
He looks at the grim-faced women with wonder in his rheumy blue eyes.
They have clearly departed ways with the sense that they were born with. But not liking the set of their jaws or the steely glint in their eyes Michael decides the best thing would be to humour them and let Jack sort the lot of them out.
In the back seat Bridget nudges Shauna and opens her bag to let her see what’s inside: a handgun, black and gleaming.
Shauna would be no less surprised to see a cobra coiled in there. The gun has the same terrifying aspect, the same threat, not just to life but also to reality, like the arse has dropped out of normal.
‘Tell me that’s not real, Bridget.’
Bridget grins.
‘Where did you get it?’
‘Let’s just say I’m moving in different kinds of circles now. What with the drugs and all.’
Shauna raises her eyebrows. ‘Would you know how to use it?’
‘I would.’ Bridget looks up at her. ‘I most certainly would.’
Chapter 55
May 1976
Mahony slows his stride. The fucker’s here now. It won’t do him any good to be scuttling away like a coward.
He has to keep the head.
He spits, finds a fag in his pocket and lights it. He looks up at the sky, willing himself to stop shaking and wondering if he can trust either God or his own legs in any of this.
He says a prayer anyway and saunters round to the front of the house as if he hasn’t a care in the world.
Jack is leaning on the bonnet of the Eldorado in his uniform. He doesn’t look like a murderer. He looks like a calm, reliable guard. He nods to Mahony, and the dead collie, nosing down the drive, snarls gently.
‘You’re in a fair bit of trouble, son. Theft of a motor vehicle, hit-and-run.’ He smiles. ‘On a priest no less.’
The dead collie weaves to Jack’s side and glowers up at Mahony with its one dim eye.
Mahony takes a drag on his cigarette just while he works out where the fuck he should aim. He doesn’t fancy his chances. The dead woman in the pantry is testimony to this man’s temper. Plus, Jack has the height advantage, to say nothing of his weight there. For an older man he’s in good shape. Under that uniform the fella is solid.
It will have to be a surprise attack. Mahony has a knife in his back pocket and a pair of fists. There’s gravel at his feet and stone ornaments in the flowerbed. He can see them: there’s a toad, a rabbit and a disrobing nymph.
‘I came to turn meself in. Will you bring me down to the station?’ Mahony nods over at the squad car.
Jack, still smiling, looks Mahony up and down, like he’s measuring his arse for plastic sheeting.
‘Come ro
und the back now until I get the keys for the station,’ says Jack.
So you can whack me on the patio and hose it down after, says the depth of Mahony’s mind, the self-preservation division.
What is really starting to get to Mahony is the thought of ending up in a bucket next to the Widow Farelly. Open-eyed, bollock naked and violated in all sorts of ways, with his boots on newspaper and his knickers folded up.
No fucking way.
‘Lead the way, Squire,’ Mahony says.
Jack turns.
Mahony surprises himself.
Really and truly he does. He wouldn’t have known he had it in him.
All right, so he’d always known he could be a handy little bastard with a few jars in him, but this is another horse entirely.
Here he is, palming the head of the nymph, pulling her up off the ground and raising her up to knock the murdering head off Sergeant Jack Brophy.
It’s as if he’d rehearsed it all his life.
Jack falls down to his knees as if he’s seen the light. And the dead dog leaps around him howling.
And Mahony is off, barrelling back to the Eldorado. He has the car swung round and out of the gate in seconds.
After a minute on the road Mahony casts his eye over the fuel gauge. He even taps it like they do in the films but the needle is still on the red. He has another quick pray. Please God let there be enough juice to get me the fuck out of here.
God answers with a pothole that has him bouncing off the ceiling and which focuses Mahony’s mind back on avoiding the worst bits of the road. His arse slithers up and down the polished leather seat. There is no purchase to be had at all other than holding tight onto the wheel.
And he’s doing a grand job with all of that when a movement in his rear-view mirror catches his eye.
Mahony knows that if he could let go of the wheel he’d be blessing himself right now.
A car chase is one thing.
A car chase on a road bolloxed by craters with a guard’s car a foot off your bumper is another thing. The Eldorado has no chance. She is too long and low and heavy. Mahony takes the corners badly. Branches and brambles score. His only thought now is to get back down into town where there will be witnesses. Where he is less likely to be whacked and put in a hole. He congratulates himself for staying an optimist there.
It’s as if Jack’s read his mind.
The first bump is not even a warning. The second runs Mahony off the road and into a ditch. Jack rams the cop car hard into the side of the Eldorado, scraping all down the flank so that the passenger door bows in and the wing mirror smashes off.
Mahony is up, out and across the field to the cover of the forest beyond, running like bejaysus before Jack has even climbed across into the passenger seat to get out of his car.
Jack watches Mahony run into the trees before he moves around to the back of his car, opens the boot and slowly takes out a knife, a sack and a shovel.
Chapter 56
May 1976
Michael Hopper pulls the priest’s car over when he sees the smash up ahead on the Castleross road.
Bridget has her hand on the door handle. ‘Stay here, the lot of you. Keep your heads down.’
The others watch Bridget approach the cars with the gun trained along on her forearm.
‘It’s just like in the films,’ murmurs Michael in astonishment.
Bridget keeps her body low, moving with surprising speed and grace.
Mrs Cauley smiles. ‘She’s the dark horse, isn’t she?’
Bridget crosses over and scans the field beyond, then walks back to the car. ‘They went into the forest; there’s clear prints. Mahony must have run for cover.’ She puts the safety catch on her gun. ‘I’m going after them.’
Michael Hopper sinks down in his seat and offers up a prayer.
Shauna gets out of the car. ‘I’m coming with you. You stay here with Michael, Mrs Cauley.’
Mrs Cauley rears up. ‘I will not. I’ll bring up the rear. Michael, unload me.’
Shauna looks as if she wants to say something. Instead she leans in through the window and kisses the old woman on the cheek.
Mrs Cauley smiles. ‘Watch yourself, Shauna. And keep an eye on Annie Oakley there.’
Shauna nods and follows Bridget across the wall.
Chapter 57
May 1976
Mahony keeps running. He’s covered some ground but has no idea where he’s been or where he’s heading. He’s like a shagged-out horse in a western: lathered white and beaded with sweat, with a mad hunted look in his eyes. He slows himself, for the forest is thickening, drawing in, and it’s getting harder to gallop. His fags have fallen out of his pocket but it’s no matter, he hasn’t the breath left to smoke one. He’ll think of packing them in now, in the time he has left to him.
He must have put some space between himself and Jack. He leans his palms up against the trunk of a tree and thinks.
All he has to do is to keep the head, find his way through the forest and get help. If he can avoid being found by Jack that’d be great.
And if he is found, he’ll have to properly knock the man’s head off this time.
In the meantime he’ll need a bit of stealth. He looks down at himself; his trousers are OK but his white shirt, laundered by Shauna, has a gleam you could see from the moon. He strips off the shirt and bundles it into a bush. Then he picks up handfuls of dirt from the ground and rubs it over his chest, arms and face and as much of his back as he can reach. Feeling half eejit and half wild man he looks around him for a weapon and takes up a stout stick with a splintered end.
‘If he comes near me I’ll be ramming you right up his hole,’ he says to the stick.
The wheelchair is wedged between two saplings.
Michael shakes his head. ‘I’ve misjudged the clearance there, Mrs Cauley.’
Mrs Cauley counts to ten.
‘I’ll have you free in a moment. I’ll try it again in a minute now.’
Mrs Cauley looks at Michael in despair as he scratches the big red bulb of his nose and ponders.
‘I think the best thing would be if I go back to the car and see if I can find a bit of rope,’ he says. ‘You stay there, Mrs Cauley. I’ll be no sooner gone than I’ll be back again.’
Michael turns and wanders through the trees.
Mrs Cauley wishes for a lend of Bridget’s gun.
Mahony sees the dead girl up ahead of him through a thicket. She’s sitting on the ground with her back to him.
He calls out to her in a whisper. ‘Ida. Fuck. Ida.’
She doesn’t move.
Mahony climbs around the thicket and, moving closer, sees that she’s holding her yo-yo to the place where her heart would have been.
She stares straight past him with her eyes fixed on a distant point, as if she doesn’t see him, as if he’s the dead one.
‘Ida?’
She speaks to him without moving her eyes. ‘You shouldn’t play in the forest today.’ Her voice drifts up reedy, as if through layers of static.
‘I need your help, Ida. I’m lost.’
She dims and flickers.
‘Ida, please.’
Ida jumps up and runs through a tree. She stops and looks back at him over her shoulder without a smile.
Half a mile into the forest they are rushing through dead leaves and stumbling over tree roots. And there it is, the flash in the bracken and Shauna calling out.
‘It’s him, it’s him.’
Bridget takes the shot.
At the sound of the gunshot Ida stops in her tracks.
She covers her ears, her eyes wide.
The echoes fade and Mahony stands and listens. The forest is still, with a breath-holding silence, a shocked speechlessness that pulses about the trees.
Without thinking, Mahony holds out his hand. ‘Let’s go, Ida.’
Chapter 58
May 1950
Orla waited in the clearing.
Francis had lost one of
his booties, so she rubbed his little foot warm.
She put her hair down and made a tent of it for him, his face and her face together under it.
She swore that his eyes were turning brown now, just like hers, just like his daddy’s.
She touched his tiny face. He was the whole of her world, right there.
She waited in the clearing, not knowing how late it was getting.
They were alone but for the flash of a long-limbed hare turning mid-flight, her eyes distended with ancient panic. They were alone but for the bees bumping over the wood sorrel. They were alone but for the shiny-backed beetles threading the moss that swaddled the tree roots. And the man who had stepped into the clearing with a sack and a shovel.
Chapter 59
May 1976
Under the tree canopy, in the early evening sunlight, Mahony follows a dead girl through the forest. Now and again he imagines he hears a footfall alongside them, tracking them. His neck hairs agree. They lift as if under some unholy gaze.
Maybe Ida feels it too. She keeps close to him, turning often to look back at him and sometimes stopping to listen with one faded little shoe lifted mid-step. She holds her yo-yo tightly in her hand; from time to time she kisses it.
Then the forest becomes familiar.
Mahony sees the river just the other side of the clearing.
But this time it’s different.
It is too still: the still of a lake, or a pond; a bright ribbon reflecting the sky.
Ida crouches on the riverbank, rubbing her yo-yo up and down her sleeve and humming a ferocious little song to herself.
Mahony knows his way now, but he hesitates. Ida is looking straight past him, smiling. And all at once she is up on her feet, laughing with delight and patting her dimpled dead knees as a dead collie comes running through the trees towards her.
The first blow catches Mahony on the back of his head and he’s on the ground without a thought in his mind other than to turn over onto his knees and get straight back up again. Jack stands waiting.
And Mahony remembers.
