Islandbridge (12 page)

The barman gave him a blank look, but said nothing.

“I'm a Guard,” said Kelly. He finished the sentence in his mind while he stared at the barman: and I don't care who knows it. “I have to use it.”

It felt strange to be behind the counter of a pub with the phone pushed hard to his ear, waiting. Everything looked different from here. A watery-eyed oul lad scuttled into the pub, with his cap pulled down over his eye and his collar up to his bristles. The barman served him a pint without a word exchanged. The man worked his lips around and Kelly saw that he was juggling his dentures with his tongue. He eyed Kelly; Kelly winked at him.

Eimear sounded sleepy. He didn't want to alarm her. Still, he knew by her voice that she had picked up on something right away. The strange flow and gathering of everything all around him now had him doing a hundred miles an hour in his head. Everything met and ran coursing through his mind as he spoke to her: how it took a week to just drive across Canada, the snow, the North he'd seen in the
National Geographic
, the fields of waving wheat on the Prairies. But also with them came the darkness and the flashes from Junior Rynn's arm that night, the thumping music that bounced around the street from the club as though to shake the whole filthy city loose, the wet grit ground into his palms in the laneway.

Eimear gave a little shriek, the start of her protest or shock or disbelief, but he interrupted it. He knew he was speaking louder, and that he was speaking forcefully and even angrily. He also knew that he was close to smiling, and that the man at the bar had not touched his pint because he couldn't stop staring at him.

It's a tin, a biscuit tin, he told her again. He'd written a letter and put it with the money, to prove he'd never used it. He told her again to go down to the shops, to the hairdressers that stayed open late, to just sit there. He heard the panic in her voice and told her again that he was on his way. She had known, she cried, that something had gone wrong, and why hadn't he told her, and now this was happening. Then she said that it couldn't be happening and that she never heard of these Rynns. She asked if he was drunk. He told her he'd packed their passports and papers in the car last night. Again he heard that sharp intake of breath that could only be her ready to burst into tears.

But how calm he felt, with this flow engulfing him. He'd never be back here, ever, and maybe never in Dublin itself. He thought of his parents. His first duty was to Eimear; the rest would be taken care of. It'd be bad, he knew, but that was okay. They'd get him out and they'd nail Rynn.

Eimear wanted to know what she was supposed to do about Breda who was supposed to drop in soon, and where were they going to go tonight if they couldn't be at home, and what about the arrangements and the baby. He told her there was no going back, that he'd burned his bridges now, that she needed to believe in him.

He didn't feel cruel telling her to stop her crying. He'd had no choice, he told her; things had come to a head. It could only get worse and worse until – well, that was his only mistake, saying that. Now she was almost hysterical. He told her to go now, not to wait. He told her he loved her. She was still talking when he hung up.

There was a glowing luminance from everything around him. Little sparkles and glints came to him from the glasses and the bottles. The barman was watching him, his towel still moving slowly and unnecessarily around a glass. The old man had settled his dentures, and his hand rested on the counter near the pint he hadn't yet touched. Kelly felt blood coursing through every part of his body stronger and stronger. He waited by the phone awhile, staring at it and the rubber bands and the pencil and the scraps of paper and the ashtray. He wanted to roar at the two men here, to frighten them, to laugh.

Okay, he heard himself say, and then a second time, actually shouting it enough for the barman to wince. Yes he'd had four glasses of whiskey and he was fairly flying on them now, but he was finally surfacing too, and bursting with strength and resolve. He crossed the floor, almost gliding toward the door, ready to kick anything and anyone out of his path, to take the doors off their hinges too.

The rush hour was in full swing when he stepped out of the pub. He looked over the roofs of the cars coming from the lights at KCR. There was no end to it, but fifteen minutes would do it. A feeble mustard-coloured dusk was settling in behind the bare twigs and branches by the walls. Across the road his Escort had been joined by other parked cars. He put one foot out on the road and looked back to the Terenure end of the road to be sure he'd have a gap that side too. A cyclist went by eighteen inches from him as he turned back, with a curse. He stepped back on the footpath, and took in a deep breath of the smoky diesel air all around him.

He waited, fighting back the impatience. Then he saw his chance far down the line of cars, with a lorry labouring under a small cloud of exhaust.

You're always a Guard, he remembered his da saying. Where would they put him up first, him and Eimear? He had done what he could. The money and the letter were waiting in the tin for when Rynn would pull that one. He imagined himself looking the Commissioner in the eye – or whoever this would lead to – and presenting the tin with the thousand quid in its three rubber bands, untouched. Never used, sir. I knew this day would come, I knew it. And the Commissioner would give one of those little smiles, and a nod.

But another thought came to Kelly then as his second foot found its way onto the roadway. What if they sent him back to Rynn to get more with a wiretap or something?

Rynn would know what was going on if they tried that: he'd have to persuade them that Rynn would know.

Where the hell did all this traffic come from? Wasn't there twenty percent unemployment or something like that? He remembered how fast Rynn's hand had shot out to poke him in the chest. He fought off thinking about Eimear, someone coming to the door.

“Ah come on, will you,” he called out to the cars.

He let a car go by and he skipped out. He crossed the middle of the road, and looked to see what room the bastard who'd parked the van behind his Escort had left him. Enough, but barely. The shrieks that could only be tires made him turn his head. Declan Kelly had a moment for his mind to protest that there should be lights on the dark mass rushing up at him.

Chapter 1

Summer 2005

T
HE DAY OF THE MIRACLE
, the African Miracle, started late enough for the man who was to soon be driven mad by telephone calls from all over the world. Mr. Joseph McCann, accountant, of Malahide, County Dublin, noted the nine o'clock mark of the fourth day of his holidays with a study of the light scum of soap on the back of his hands. It had been left by the draining water of the hand basin. He had installed said basin all by himself the day before.

The track changed on the stereo downstairs: “Angel of Harlem,” with the saxophones massed to lay it on heavy for the chorus. Brilliant, he thought: things only got better and better. He lifted his hands from the basin, spread out his fingers, and studied the cut he'd given himself yesterday. This was the first real holiday he enjoyed in a decade. He remembered his wife Anne's words, and he smiled before he murmured them.

“A man of simple pleasures, our Joey.”

“Easily pleased” was another expression. It too had sting to it, at first, but it passed.

He hadn't known how to take these at first. Though he took them as a slight, they were always hard to answer, and harder still to bite back about. Face it, he decided yet again, on this morning when the world was finally going right, and the prospect of a free day and all its promise lay before him: he had no real complaints. No whinging. They had a great marriage. So what were a few “Try something different” or “Change is good” or “Live a little”? You had to have a bit of static in life.

He studied a corner of the garden reflected from the mirror that faced the open bathroom window. The garden had finally come into its own this year, and it presented itself to him today as a blooming, sun-drenched work of art. It was as nice as the South of France, so it was. Some credit was due to Anne. It was she who had persuaded him to let it run a bit astray, and not to be trimming and mowing so much. That went with her interest in wildflowers and naturopathic stuff, he believed, and maybe even the yoga she liked so much now.

Such is life; yes indeed.

He bared his teeth and leaned in toward the mirror. The caps on his teeth had definitely been worth it. He wiped his hands and forearms and set the towel folded again on the railing. He had a real holiday facing him, time to himself. Why pay to rent someplace, or to stagger around Prague looking into shop windows, when you could be here in your own place, with all the toys?

A little shadow drifted over his cheer when he remembered how Anne had said she couldn't take the week off like she'd hoped. It was because they were so busy. Yet McCann couldn't help wondering if she preferred to go to work now while he was at home. Was it because he'd put his foot down – nicely, mind you – and said they should just stay home a week and enjoy the weather?

He had time to himself at last, and that's what the “real” in real holiday meant. Orla was at the kayaking camp until Sunday, loving it, and Kevin – not little Kev anymore but a grouchy sixteen-year-old slug – was off with his mates at the Gaeltacht in Connemara. It was less to learn Irish from the native speakers than it was to go to dances and do a bit of courting – if that's what they called it these days. Everyone knew that. But there was no Grand Theft Auto in the house where Kev was lodged. What's more, he had to be out of bed by eight. And there was somebody else making him do it!

Joey McCann looked at his profile in the mirror. He drew in his belly, and pulled the T-shirt tighter to his waist. The Gaeltacht, he reflected again, wasn't it hilarious that these days the kids actually wanted to go. He didn't think too hard about what Kev might be up to there. It'd be different if it were Orla, of course. God, the changes in Ireland in the past–

–Christ: there it was. He'd been right all along. He kept his eye on the mirror and he moved closer. It was right there on the top of his nose: that rogue hair again.

The hairs had started to sprout in odder places over the years. It wasn't much use asking why in the name of God, or evolution, or genes, why a man of forty-three would have a wiry red beard-hair growing from the tip of his nose.

He took out the shaver and started it. He drew the trimmer bit over his nose, and then he canted his head and squinted into the light to spot any more hairs on his ears. With the light behind them they showed up as glowing white wires. Ah – he might as well do a run over the sideburns while he was at it. There had to be grey hairs at this age, no big deal there.

Whether it was the shaver's buzzing resonance pushing into his cheekbone, or the noise of it trimming, it brought him back years, to the barbers where his father took him the first Wednesday of every month. His first memories were watching his da in the mirror down at the barber's. They didn't call them hairdressers then. Da always went in the chair after him, and young Joey would watch the proceedings, and listen to the banter. It was strange and almost mysterious, he recalled, almost like Mass in Lent. That was because he'd see in the chair before him a strange and yet-so-familiar man with a bristly neck, a man with Da's voice and words. Of course it was his da, but in that chair . . .? And it was always: “The usual Mickey: short back and sides. And don't draw any blood!”

McCann finished the left side and turned his head. He always had lists going on in his head. According to Anne, all accountants were born with lists and columns and rows imprinted into their brain. Ha ha. He bent down his ear, and eased the trimmer in over the sideburns and let his list unroll itself.

Price the blocks and preserved wood over at Woody's; Tesco for three bottles of Chilean red, meat for the kebabs, olives – who said men can't evolve, Anne, ha ha on you now. See about a tennis racquet for Orla and rent that DVD version of
Amelie
– either that or
LA Confidential
again – nearly forgot: check if that lawn furniture set is really on sale in Savanna, like Crowley said it was.

He looked down into the basin again. No, there was nothing more than the expected trimmings and flecks. But it wasn't his imagination: there had been something. He switched off the razor, and he focused on the mirror and looked around the garden again.

Whatever had flickered at the corner of his vision a few seconds ago had been followed by an odd noise. It was more of a vibration, actually. He wondered if a bird had flown into the window. It had happened often enough in the old house, flying smack dab into the upstairs one. Didn't some birds get drunk on berries, something on the Discovery Channel last month?

But the sound had stirred something more than curiosity in him. He turned and walked toward the open window where he stopped and listened. There was a drone of a plane coming in, or circling Dublin Airport a few miles to the west.

His list rolled again in his mind again: the Xbox magazine for Kev to put him in a biddable humour when he got back from Connemara. Wax for a proper job on the car: it really was time. Maybe go to the library, get books on making a patio.

His thoughts suddenly cleared. It had been something big. There had been a cracking sound too. Had it been a branch giving way, or swishing leaves? Maybe someone was working on the roof.

He looked hard at the tops of the trees by the lawn.The sound of the plane faded a little. The birds seemed to be chirping and chortling more. He pushed at the window and he saw the undersides of the shrubs, the exposed white sap where they had broken. There were gouges at the border by the one bit of lawn he'd kept.

Now McCann heard someone, an old person, a woman, talking louder. It must be Bridie Jennings, two houses down. Crazy Bridie, he murmured. Maybe something had happened to her husband, the diabetic. Someone was calling his name. It was Bridie for sure.