Eight Ball Boogie E-Book

Declan Burke

• Herausgeber: Liberties Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Harry Rigby likes a smoke, the easy life, and Robert Ryan playing the bad guy in late night black-and-whites. Sweet. But when the wife of a prominent politician is murdered in her best nightie, Rigby finds himself caught in a crossfire between rogue paramilitaries, an internal police inquiry and the heaviest blizzard of coke ever to hit the Northwest. If all this wasn't bad enough, his relationship with girlfriend Denise is on the rocks and he's hitting the bottle. Then there's Rigby's psychotic brother Gonzo, back on the streets and meaner than a jilted shark.

Leseprobe

EIGHT BALL BOOGIE

A Harry Rigby Mystery

Declan Burke

This book is respectfully dedicated to my parents, Kathleen and Harry Burke

Contents

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1

The doorbell rings at five in the morning, it’s bad news, someone’s dead or dying. Which was why Imelda got downstairs so quick, still in her nightdress, padding across the cold tiles of the porch. Flustered, thinking someone might be dying.

Which allowed the blademan to get in close, inside the elbows, driving the shank up hard under the chin. Blowing the artery, spattering the porch. Blood, glass, chrome – Christ, you could’ve hung it in a gallery.

These things happen, although not usually in shiny new towns on the Atlantic seaboard, and rarely to the middle-aged wife of an independent politician that’s keeping the government in clover. But they happen. It’s a crying shame, yeah, so have a cry, feel ashamed and get over it. The rest of the week is coming on hard and its brakes are shot to hell.

My job was to find out who and why, at twelve cent per word for the right facts in the right order. Enough facts, a decent hook, they might even add up to a front-page clipping for the dusty folder under my bed. Imelda Sheridan was dead, which was tough cookies on Imelda, but then every silver lining has its cloud.

Anyway, that was how it all started out.

*

It was early Monday, three days to Christmas, the morning not trying anything it couldn’t handle itself. I stuck a pillow behind my back, rolled a one-skin, lacing it light, just to take the edge off. Sand in my eyes, a jellyfish in my gut, skull humming like a taut rope. The room stinking of stale breath, bored sex, cold cigarettes.

I sparked the jay, watched Denise sleep. Hadn’t watched her sleep in a while, hadn’t had the chance, on a second bite of the cherry and still trying to remember if I liked the taste of cherries. Asleep, relaxed, she looked her age, sneaking up slow on the right side of thirty. Dark hairs at the corners of her mouth, a nose that might have been too big if her ears were any smaller. The lips full, salmon pale, the hair chestnut with auburn streaks, shoulder-length. When they were open, the eyes were round and brown. She thought she could have lost half a stone around the hips but I liked the curves, liked that there was more of her rather than less.

She smelled the dope and her eyes flickered, focusing slow. She knuckled one eye, yawning. Then, sounding resigned, she muttered: ‘Out.’

‘No way, I saw chalk-dust.’

Buzzing on the jay, kidding her on.

‘Out, Harry. Go home.’

‘You know what time it is?’

‘No, but I’d say it’s about half past fuck off.’ She smiled me a tired one that was half regret and half something I’d never seen before. ‘C’mon, Harry. You know you have to go.’

‘Alright. Jesus.’

I stubbed the jay, scrabbled for my tee shirt, shivering, sleet spattering the window.

‘Want to join me in the shower?’

‘No shower, Harry. There’s no hot water.’

‘Fuck’s sakes, Dee.’

Officially, we were on a break. Officially, I was sleeping in the back room of my office over in the Old Quarter, the constant verbals costing a fortune in replacing Ben’s toys.

Off the record, Denise was trying to work out if anyone would take her on with another man’s kid in tow.

I pretended not to notice, the truth is a scab you don’t want to pick at too often. Last night we’d been in the same place at the same time with the same amount of booze on board. That was all and that’s never enough.

She sat up, draped a thin white cotton dressing gown around her shoulders. Said, her voice thin and tired: ‘Just get dressed and go, Harry. Please?’

Then left, showing me how.

I got dressed, went downstairs. She was still standing in the hall, looking at the phone like it was primed, ticking. Ben lying on the living room floor, cartoons blaring from the TV, wearing dinosaur slippers, Action Man goggles around his neck. I was rapping about building a snowman if the snow stuck, how we could put mum’s coat on it, Ben not paying attention, when she called me into the kitchen. She put the kettle on and didn’t turn around.

‘Gonzo left a message. Said he’d be home for Christmas.’

Sounding calm, like Gonzo rang every week, not excited and nauseous, like we hadn’t heard from him in nearly four years.

‘He say what Christmas?’

She turned, pulling the dressing gown tight. Her face was pale, her eyes huge, dark panda eyes.

‘He is your brother, Harry.’

‘Not my fault, Dee. No one’s pinning that one on me.’

She shook her head, disappointed at herself for not knowing better.

‘You’d better go.’

She pushed me down the hallway and stood in the doorway, shivering, not looking at me, arms folded. I stood two steps below, hanging in, postponing the moment when I’d have to admit I left the car in town.

‘Ben should be dressed. He’ll be late for school.’

‘Christmas holidays, Harry. Kids get holidays at Christmas. Not like adults, who get holidays at Fuckallmas. It’s Christmas, by the way.’

‘I know it’s Christmas. Jesus.’ I scuffed at the doorstep, the hangover thick and dull, the dope not helping. The wind gusting sleet. She tucked a rat’s tail tidy behind an ear, said: ‘Harry—’

‘What?’

‘Don’t think that what happened—’

‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

‘No need,’ she taunted, stung. ‘Not after all you said last night.’

I fumbled for a comeback but she was already closing the door, not slamming it. I faced into the sleet and decided to shave at the office, dug out the smoke box and realised I was all out of skins. That was the shape of my week and it was only Monday morning, nine-thirty.

*

They reckoned the population around ninety thousand, and even if you discount all the Shinners who voted twice that’s still a fair sized burg. Which was the plan. They took a town, just sitting there minding its own business, there not being too much of it to mind, and ripped out its guts. Relocated the locals to breeze-block suburbs that sprawled out both sides of the river, south behind the lake, halfway up the mountains, and they’d have poldered the bay if they’d thought anyone was dumb enough to enjoy wet sand between their toes. Threw up a new inner town, a high-rise jungle of credit finance depots, international call centres, multi-storey shopping malls, a software research plant masquerading as a university, most of which was financed by American corporates, most of which was offset by indigenous grants, lo-interest loans, repatriated profits. Midtown was all wide streets, tree-lined, Norman Rockwell’s wet dream parachuted in to the Atlantic seaboard. It all took about five years to finish and no one laughed, not once.

My office was over in the Old Quarter, where Midtown bled into the docks, north of the river heading west. Five or six bustling blocks bisected by railway lines, pot-holed streets and alleyways that always seemed to wind back to the quays. Too noisy to be residential, the passing trade too random to make it worthwhile for shopping centre malls, the Quarter got to keep all its crumbling buildings, cracked pavements and old sewers.

The Quarter drew a volatile crew. Crusties laughed at the skate-kids, who went by sniggering. Winos, bums and buskers worked the crowds for the same chump change. College kids slumming it got a thrill rubbing shoulders with fairies, dips and wide-boys on the make.

I’d been sleeping on a couch in the back room of the office for a couple of months by then, getting used to the idea, starting to fit in with the faces on the streets. Mostly I liked them, respected their lack of ambition, their social inhibition. The kind that lived around the Quarter, they needed to know there was a pawnshop in the vicinity, an Army Surplus Store, a tattoo parlour. The bars had tinted windows, the porn shop didn’t and the greasy spoon cafés should have at least thought about it. There were antique shops, a joint that sold organic Thai food and way too many second-hand bookstores. Out in the back lots that sloped down to the river, a couple of auto repair outfits kept things black and oily. The bars played jazz, trad and drum ‘n’ bass, and in the summer the air hummed with the thick smell of patchouli oil and melting tar. At night you could get stoned just driving around with the window down.

The Quarter was a good place to live, a good place to work, if your girlfriend was blind and your clients were even more desperate than you. Denise wasn’t blind but that was only part of the problem. Denise and me, we had issues. I had only one, but Denise, she liked to share.

*

I made the office around ten, not breaking any records. Picked up the phone to order coffee from downstairs, got Herbie on voicemail. Sounding unusually vital at that early hour, as a rule Herbie was either stoned or asleep and Herbie toked himself into a stupor at least once a day.

‘Harry – Harry? Fuck – Harry, get your arse up to Tony Sheridan’s, up at the lake, back of the racecourse. The wife’s spark out, throat slashed. The Dibble are trying to keep it quiet about the coke. Looks good, the shots are in the bag. Ring if you need directions.’

I didn’t need. Everyone knew where Tony Sheridan lived, except maybe Tony on the nights he thought he lived with the brunette who ran Bojangles, an underage dive down near the river, although not so near it might get a proper flushing if the river ever flooded its banks.

I picked up a dictaphone and notepad. Thought about it, sucked air through my lower teeth, shook my head, thought it over some more – Gonzo home and a gory death all in the one morning, it might be a fluke and maybe not. I unlocked the bottom filing-cabinet drawer, pushed aside the false floor, pulled out the snub-nosed .38. Tucked it inside my belt, snug in the small of my back.

I cut down through the alley across from the coffee shop, crossed the footbridge into the car park. Wasted five minutes trying to remember where I might have left the car. Then I crossed the footbridge again, cut a right down towards the quays to the taxi rank.

The fat flushed cabbie didn’t say a word, flicking glances in the rear-view mirror, chewing his bristly moustache, a smirk curling across his chops. I let it fly, no one had to tell me I looked for shit. The black two-piece was rumpled and creased because it was the only suit I owned and I wore it Monday through Friday, rotating the shirts until both went grey. The thin black tie came free with the suit and I unknotted it every New Year’s Eve, for luck. The shoes were Italian and suede because women look at your eyes first, shoes second, and I had eyes that made women take a lingering look at my shoes.

In the business you need to look like shit. I work off people who like labels, who talk louder and not always on purpose when there’s a shabby suit two barstools along, or in the booth behind the dusty plastic plants in the quiet corner of the restaurant. If a punter was desperate enough to come sidling through my door he had enough problems without worrying about why my threads were better than his. He wanted to see a suit and tie that matched. That was enough and not too much.

And they all sidled. Once in a while someone walked through the door, shoulders back and chin up, nothing to hide. They were the ones who wanted a missing dog tracked down.

Mostly, though, I looked like shit because I didn’t care how I looked, couldn’t afford to care. Down in the Old Quarter, two times out of three you flip a double-headed coin, it comes down on its edge.

Last time, it doesn’t come down at all.

*

Herbie was slouched on his battered moped, elbows draped across the handlebars, the out-of-date tax disc. Bleary-eyed, shivering. A black woollen hat pulled low over his ears, a mop of red curls framing a face the colour of sour milk, chin and forehead a rash of angry pimples.

‘What the fuck took you?’

‘Your mother wouldn’t give me my shoes back.’

‘Better you than me.’ He nodded up at the split-level villa. Three pillars supported the upper storey, the front of which was all glass, with a two-door garage below. He said, casual: ‘They reckon she topped herself.’

‘Cut her own throat?’ I whistled. ‘Brave girl.’

‘Another theory runs like this. She opens the door and he gores her. Drags her to the living room, heels first, she’s still kicking. So he works her own steak knife in the hole, over and back, sawing.’

‘Who’s telling you this?’

‘Regan. Anyway, he puts the knife in her hand, lets the arm drop natural. Wants it to look like suicide. Chops some lines out on the coffee table, leaves it messy, rubs some into her gums, drops the wrap.’

‘Any dabs?’

‘Millions, and you watch too many movies. So – Regan says he takes his time after, grinds a boot into the wedding photo, giving it motive. Sparks a smoke, leaves a butt in the ashtray, stays around to make sure everything’s kosher. Doesn’t touch her up. Maybe he’s a pro, Regan says, or maybe her pants are already piss and shit. Or maybe he gets his jollies clocking corpses draining out.’

‘Always nice to have options. How long is she there?’

‘No idea. They found her about two hours ago.’

‘Who’s on now? Regan?’

‘Kilfeather.’

‘Wanting his name in the paper?’

‘He fucking better.’

Kilfeather waited, watching as I waved a card at the uniformed garda standing by the gate pillars, waiting until I ducked under the yellow tape and started up the tarmacadam incline. Then he waved me back. I ignored him, it was what he expected and I hate to disappoint. He watched me come, a sour twist at the corner of his mouth, saying, tasting the word: ‘Rigby.’

‘In all his tarnished glory. Who found her, Tom?’

Kilfeather catching fresh air was almost news on its own, especially if I could nail down the brand of dynamite they’d used to get him out from behind his desk. He leered down at me, six-two of obtuse duty, ruddy cheeks and no neck.

‘No chance, Rigby.’

‘Did he find her?’

‘He who?’

‘Tony he. Come on, Tom.’

He put his huge hands up, palms showing, miming a push.

‘Back behind the line, Rigby. You know the drill.’

‘You can’t tell me who found her?’

‘It’s an ongoing investigation. I can’t tell you anything.’

‘Not like you to be shy, Tom.’

He didn’t bite. I tried again.

‘So what kind of investigation is it?’

‘The strictly routine kind. And until it’s over, I can’t tell you anything.’

‘You don’t tell me what’s going on, Tom, I’m going to assume the worst. With my imagination, you don’t want to take that risk.’

His voice was flinty.

‘I told you, it’s routine.’

I kissed the dice.

‘Because it’s not suicide?’

‘Who says it’s not suicide?’

‘No one. It’s suicide?’

The ruddy cheeks flamed to life.

‘Don’t fuck with me, Rigby. Get to fuck out of my sight.’

I shook my head, patient.

‘You want me here, Tom, where you can keep an eye on me, keep an ear on what I’m saying. Make like it’s just the two of us, candles and wine, gypsies playing violins.’

He muttered something that didn’t have any vowels. I kept my tone reasonable.

‘It’s only a job, Tom. You’re doing yours, I’m doing mine. All I need’s a couple of answers and I’m off, job done.’

He didn’t answer, staring off across the racecourse to the far side of the lake, to somewhere above where the snow line might have been if it ever got around to snowing. I didn’t blame him. When the sun shone, the view added an extra twenty grand that the house needed like a second swimming pool.

‘How about this, Tom? I’ll tell you what you already know and if I leave anything out you put me straight.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘I hear things. I might know something you don’t.’

‘That’s dangerous, Rigby. I could have you up for withholding information, obstructing the course of justice.’

‘Perverting, Tom, the way I do it.’

He shot a glance over his shoulder, at the unmarked blue Mondeo parked to one side of the house, rasped: ‘So what do I know?’

‘She was found – by who we don’t yet know – a couple of hours ago. Throat slit ear to ear, the wound so deep the spinal cord was almost severed. Her underwear was still intact. Coke on the coffee table, which may or may not be significant. Only fingerprints on the knife – steak knife, serrated edge – are hers. How’m I doing?’

He was back sucking lemons again.

‘You forgot the toaster and cuddly toy.’

‘No one commits suicide up at the racecourse, Tom. People go home from the racecourse and commit suicide, maybe. And who nearly severs their spinal cord cutting their throat?’

‘Imelda Sheridan.’

‘Bollocks. Who’s the prime suspect?’

‘You, now you know so much.’

‘Me and half the town, Tom. Word gets around. How’s the husband?’

He didn’t like the implication.

‘You’re a sick man, Rigby.’

‘It’s terminal, too. Has he been questioned?’

‘Why would we question him?’

‘For spite. Overtime. He’s a humpy cunt. Take your pick.’

‘Say we did question him. What would we ask?’

‘Where he was when it happened. Or would that be too personal?’

‘Suicide isn’t a spectator sport, Rigby.’

‘You know the stats, Tom. Men top themselves, young men. She’s what – early fifties? She has the big house, tennis courts out the back. Trotting around blinding us all with Prada and Louis Vuitton. Husband’s best buddies with the chief whip, and if he fucks that up he can always fall back on the ambulance-chasing. If she’s not in the social pages it means the NUJ’s out on strike and the kids are reared, one an intern, the daughter away saving the rain forests, bless her cotton socks.’ I cut to the chase. ‘Why would Imelda Sheridan commit suicide?’

‘Money isn’t everything. She might have been depressed.’

I didn’t like it, Kilfeather being so reasonable. It meant I was on the wrong track.

‘And maybe she thought Santa wouldn’t come. Who found her, Tom?’

‘No can do, Rigby.’

‘Jesus, Tom—’

The voice came from over my shoulder, gruff, a cement mixer learning German.

‘Kilfeather?’

He didn’t look down at me. I looked up to where a wide face was crowned with thin blonde hair. The suit was a size too small but a Big Top would have been a size too small. He had a Desperate Dan chin and you could have landed a helicopter on his chest in a gale. The smell of stale whiskey wafted across, harsh as petrol. I hoped, for his sake, he was drunk when he bought the camelhair overcoat.

Kilfeather smartened up.

‘That’s right, yeah. Brady, isn’t it?’

‘When I’m off-duty. Right now it’s Detective Brady. Who’s this fucker?’

‘He’s a local hack. Rigby they call him.’

‘What’s he doing here?’

‘Sniffing around.’

‘No shit, Holmes. How come he’s here?’

Kilfeather shrugged, squared his shoulders, letting Brady know, he didn’t appreciate the third degree.

‘How come any of us are here? He heard about it, thought there might be something worth seeing.’

‘He get it downtown?’

‘Probably.’

‘Who?’

Kilfeather shrugged.

‘Who the fuck knows?’

‘Find the fuck out or I’ll cite you in the report. What’d you tell him?’

Kilfeather seethed, cheeks flaming. Dug the word out, rough. ‘Nothing.’

‘You took a while doing it.’

‘He thinks she didn’t top herself. I put him straight.’

‘Straight – what’s straight?’

‘That it’s an ongoing investigation but the signs point to suicide. That much he had already.’

Brady spat, pulled his belt up.

‘Next time, send him to me. No – next time, bang him up.’

‘Yessir. What charge?’

He looked at me for the first time, top to bottom in a sideways glance.

‘Cheap shoes,’ he sneered. ‘And hey, Kilfeather?’

‘What?’

‘Get snotty again and I’ll wipe your fucking nose.’

He went back to the Mondeo, lit a cigarette, caught Kilfeather throwing some juju eyeball. Rubbed his nose, slow and deliberate, so Kilfeather glared at me instead. I took the hint and left.

2

Herbie was still draped across his moped, shivering.

‘Well?’

‘It might not be suicide.’

‘You got something?’

‘Nothing you could quote in a family newspaper.’

‘Fuck.’

He straightened up, blew on his hands, remembered he was wearing gloves. Stared out over the lake to the town sprawled across the foot of the mountain, a verruca out of control. Out across the five miles to the Atlantic, chopping up grey and white.

‘Regan tell you who found her?’

‘No.’

‘Think he might?’

‘Squeeze the sponge, Harry, it dries up.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’ I dug out the makings, bummed a skin, rolled a twist. ‘Alright, leave it with me, I’ll make some calls. It’s already too late for the evening editions anyway.’

‘Kilfeather’s a bastard.’

‘He’s Dibble, Herb. That’s his job. Anyway, Kilfeather isn’t the problem. There’s a big lad from out of town running the show.’

‘You didn’t get anything from him?’

‘He didn’t see me, I wasn’t up a ladder. And a word to the wise. If he finds out Regan leaked you the story, Regan’ll be springing a few leaks of his own.’

He swore, sparked up a ready-rolled from his grass-sprinkled pouch, eyeballing the garda leaning against the driveway pillar. Picked a flake of tobacco from his lower lip, flicked it in the garda’s direction, leaving the middle finger extended. The garda stared back, placid. Herbie said: ‘Think they’re in on it?’

‘Who – the Dibble?’

‘Who else? Fuckers’re into everything else.’

‘Herb – why would the Dibble want Imelda Sheridan dead?’

‘Maybe she was running a brothel, got the Inspector in a compromising position. Maybe she’s plotting a coup, Tony for president, the Dibble got wind of it.’ He shrugged, matter of fact. ‘Could be anything.’

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

‘Get off the weed, Herb. Seriously, man. Your head’s in a jam jar.’

He started winding up, getting excited, tone urgent.

‘This is front-page stuff, Harry. Banner headlines. Big fuck-off shots, see them a mile off, my name at the bottom. Mine, not those Fhotoprint fuckdogs.’

The agency took a cut of everything we cooked up, which bothered Herbie. It didn’t bother me, thirty per cent of fuck all being approximately fuck all.

‘Nail it down, Harry. I gave you this one on a plate. Coke, suicide, possible murder, the fucking lot. What more do you need?’

‘How about proof?’

‘What’re you talking about, proof?’ He waggled his camera bag. ‘The shots’re ready to roll, beauts too, hole in her neck you could roll the black ball into. Only words these babies need are someone’s name on a cheque.’

‘What about some kind of idea of why? A detail or two?’ I was stalling, watching the maroon Civic pulling up, the bodywork too fresh for it to be anything but a rental. ‘It needs to be done right, Herb. We do it right or we don’t do it at all.’

He heard the Civic, turned and looked. Shrugged, the anger evaporating too quick to be healthy.

‘It’ll be done alright, but not by us. Here’s the fucking cavalry now.’

She was petite, five-two at most, the kind of late twenties that takes years of practice. The hair a tangerine peek-a-boo bob, the lipstick apricot. The smile friendly, chasing freckles across the bridge of a snub nose. The eyes deep enough to give me vertigo, wide enough to make me want to jump.

‘Gentlemen.’ Her accent had the faintest of northern drawls.

‘Around here that’s libel,’ I said. I nodded towards the house. ‘And I’d say the pedicure’s been cancelled.’

‘I’ll take my chances.’

She ducked under the yellow tape, flashed a card at the garda, clicked away up the tarmacadam.

Herbie fired up the moped, the engine clattering, rattling, until the exhaust belched a tiny black cloud.

‘Want a lift?’

‘No, cheers. I’m in a hurry.’

He half-grinned, fiddling with his helmet strap.

‘Anything I can be doing?’

‘You could be running a check on Tony Sheridan. Background material, whatever we’ll need to puff out the story.’

‘Money?’

‘Yeah, go the tragic route. All that cash and his wife slashed open. The punters love that shit.’

‘Alright. I’ll buzz you later.’

*

I was halfway to town, down around the cemetery and cursing myself for not bumming more skins from Herbie, when I finally remembered where I’d left the car. Which was when the Civic purred by, indicated left and pulled up on the gravel verge. She leaned across, unlocked the passenger door and pushed it open. She didn’t speak, so I didn’t spoil the moment.

She was a good driver. Her movements were easy, assured, and she didn’t look at me as she drove. Up close I could see that the cream two-piece was raw silk. The tiny burn scar just above her left knee whitened every time she changed gear.

She got straight into it.

‘What’d you get?’

‘Nothing. But that’s off the record.’

‘Put your dick away, this is business.’

‘I don’t mix pleasure with business. And I don’t do business with strangers. Especially ones who tell me to put my dick away.’

She suppressed a smile, not pulling any muscles doing it.

‘Sorry, I’m Katie. Katie Donnelly.’

‘And I’m Harry-Harry Rigby.’

‘I know.’

I didn’t know what to say to that. She said: ‘Want to grab a coffee?’

‘Always.’

We bypassed Midtown, crawling through the one-way system of the Old Quarter, the narrow streets looming three storeys high. Gaudy shop-fronts below, flaking paint and crumbling plaster above.

‘Is the traffic always this bad?’ she asked.

‘It’s Christmas week, the woolly-backs are in town for the annual exfoliation. The rest of us are here because we lack the imagination to realise the rest of the world isn’t just another TV channel. What’s your excuse?’

‘I’m freelance, doing a piece on Imelda Sheridan for Woman Now! Full colour glossy, you know the score, she’s the overachieving charity hound for the February issue. I did the interview yesterday, got shots of the house, her in the glad rags looking out over the lake, the full nine yards.’ She sighed. ‘And now this.’

‘This didn’t happen until this morning. How come you’re still around?’

She nudged the car forward, knocked it out of gear. Fiddled with the thermostat, the windows misting up.

‘It’s a nice town,’ she said. ‘It’s Christmas. I thought I’d stick around and pick up some local colour.’

‘Try grey, we have forty shades.’

We edged around the corner and discovered the source of the traffic jam. He was short and squat, pushing seventy, the curly white hair topped by a WW1 leather flying helmet, complete with goggles. His face was full, moon-shaped and flushed. Standing in the middle of the road, windmilling arms issuing contradictory orders every time he turned around. His shabby overcoat billowed in the breeze.

‘You should do a piece on him. He’s local, he’s colour.’

‘He’s not really what our focus groups tell us our demographic wants. Mind you, that changes every week. Who is he?’

‘The local nutcase, Baluba Joe. They say he hasn’t been sober in living memory. Directs the traffic when the mood takes him and then goes and gets rattlers when everything’s snarled up. Harmless bugger, though.’

‘I can see how our readers would be fascinated.’

She sounded smug. The car was too warm. I needed a smoke, coffee and fresh air, in that order.

‘He’s an old soldier.’ She heard the edge in my voice, looked across for the first time since I’d sat into the car. ‘He’s mad, clinically insane. You can see it in his eyes but if you miss it he’ll tell you himself. Says he spent three days wandering the Congo jungle after his platoon was wiped out in a Baluba ambush. Jungle’s no place to be at the best of times, he reckons. But when you’re eighteen years old, and your mates have been butchered with machetes and you’re still wearing the spray, the screeching of a jungle at night is as close to hell as makes no odds.’

We inched past Joe. Froth flecked his lips. Horns tooted, engines revved. His eyes were haunted.

‘Hold on a minute,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t—’

‘That was back in the sixties, so he’s been forty years drinking anything that won’t kill him outright and not really giving a fuck if it does. He told me, one night, that he knows everyone pities him. Asked me if I knew why.’

She parked with the minimum of fuss, turned off the engine.

‘Harry—’

‘They gave him a medal a couple of years back but he handed it back when the top brass wouldn’t look him in the eye. Kind of took the gloss off it, he said. I told him he should have taken the medal, just to piss the brass off. Know what he said? “No one ever made officer got pissed off that easy.”’

She stared straight ahead, stony-faced. I said: ‘I’d never have made officer material. You didn’t need that grief.’

She peeked at me from under an angled eyebrow.

‘Was that an apology?’

‘Women apologise. Men explain.’

‘But we’re finished now?’

‘Yeah. Who gets to keep the Barry White CDs?’

*

The coffee shop, Early ‘Til Latte, was run by a couple of gay hippies and sold more grass under the counter than coffee over it. We ducked through an archway into the tiny back room. Second-hand books lined the shelves. Posters on the wall advertised Feng Shui courses, Feiseanna, rummage sales. She sat on an old barstool with her back to the arch, crossing her legs at the knee. I squeezed behind the high, rickety table but not so far back I might need a telescope to see the pins. We looked at one another expectantly but I could tell I was the only one enjoying the view.

‘So what can I get you?’ I asked.

‘Tony Sheridan.’

‘You want cream with that?’

I ordered a couple of cappuccinos that didn’t take long enough to arrive and bummed some skins from Andrea, the waitress. Katie took a sip and grimaced. I poured three sugars, made a wish and said, stirring and not looking at her: ‘What makes you think I can get you Tony Sheridan?’

‘Detective …’ She dug a little black notebook out of her shoulder bag, flipped it open. ‘Brady?’

‘Big lad?’

‘That’s him.’

‘He was having a laugh. Besides – what would I be getting Tony Sheridan for?’

She pushed the coffee away, lit a Silk Cut, exhaled. Crossed her legs again.

‘Let’s start over, Harry.’

‘It’s okay with you, I’d rather keep going with the legs.’

She smiled a thin one.

‘Sorry, you’re not my type.’

‘Types are based on previous failures. You should think more about your future.’

‘Look, Harry—’

‘Alright, Jesus, don’t get sour. If I had cleavage you’d be hearing echoes. Everyone does what they have to do.’

‘My sentiments exactly.’

‘And you want to do Tony Sheridan.’

‘Correct.’

I let it hang, rolled a cigarette. It was her move. She pulled a manila folder from her bag, leafed through a file of newspaper cuttings, handed me a clipping. It had a modest headline: Controversial Development Officially Opened. There was a photograph of mostly men in their Sunday best, smiling their Sunday smiles, standing on the forecourt of a hotel. The dude holding the scissors was tall, well preserved and answered to Tony Sheridan if you had a homeless vote. The rest were a supporting cast of investors, councillors and the usual pick-n-mix of wives, fools, flutes and thrill-seekers, some credited, most not.

‘So – what?’

‘I presume you know the backdrop?’

‘Sure, it’s about a mile east of town, just where the river empties out of the lake. Used to get a lot of kingfishers up there. Good salmon fishing too.’

She stared. Then, patient: ‘This is front page anywhere we put it. With the right spin, everywhere.’

‘If, say, we turn up a steak knife in Tony’s glove compartment.’

‘Steak knife?’

‘Forget it. I’m kidding.’

She looked over both shoulders and leaned in over the table, which caused the front of her blouse to drop a good six inches. I stayed where I was, losing my balance anyway.

‘This could be big, Harry. There’s a lot of typists out there calling themselves journalists, still trading on that one story, still hitting the front page, pic by-lines, the works. This is my one story, Harry.’

‘Don’t sell yourself short. Besides, there’s other people want the story.’

‘Who – pizza-face on the moped? Come on.’

‘He doesn’t flash me cleavage but he’s a good bloke. More to the point, he has the shots.’

‘So he opens a gallery, big fucking deal. The shots are useless without the story and a place to put it.’

‘Say I humour you – what’s the split?’

She wasted some time trying not to look shrewd.

‘We take a joint credit. The money we cut fifty-fifty. You can share yours with moped boy.’

‘Fair go. What do you want to know about Tony?’

‘What do you know?’

I nodded at the clipping on the table.

‘That hotel, it happened maybe five years ago. It was a total fucking mess.’

‘Sheridan rushed the planning process through?’

‘Not so fast. He turned up in the locals’ corner, it’s his ward and he lives up there. He made speeches about the environment, his grandchildren, endangered species. Couldn’t have been greener if he was about to puke.’

‘So?’

‘So he got backing from the Greens up in Dublin, did a deal with some bog-trotting Independents who were looking for an abortion referendum. Went over the county manager’s head, got an injunction. Happy days.’

‘But the hotel was built.’

‘Yeah, but two years later. Fianna Fáil were back in power, holding a majority, they didn’t need Tony’s vote. No one’s happy up at the lake, especially Tony, his place overlooks the site. But the deal’s done.’

‘You said the whole thing was a mess.’