Islandbridge (9 page)

“Something to do with a motorbike stolen?”

Kelly looked at the night pressing in on the window and then made a face.

“I don't know now,” said Cullen. “But he sounds like he's had a few.”

Kelly Tippexed the misspelling in “altercation” and blew on it, before he reached for the extension. Again he tried to remember: there had been the crash over near that pub, what was it, Healey's, but it was a van and a car.

He checked the clock again and jabbed at the glowing button.

“Garda Kelly?” he said.

“Yes, Garda Kelly.”

The voice was a man's, a smoker's wheeze layered on a weary, Dublin drawl.

“Who is this?”

“You don't know me?”

Kelly felt himself go still, balancing at the front of the chair. He dug his elbows into the desk.

“Well? Open your mouth and say something.”

“Yes.”

He had almost made it, Kelly thought. In fifteen more minutes, he'd have been on his way home. A cup of tea, a bite of a sandwich, Eimear still awake maybe, after her twentieth trip to the toilet.

He stared at his incident book splayed out on the desk in front of him: Rynn knew his shift tonight. He had probably picked this time, exactly. He looked around the station. Cullen was scribbling something in a notepad and then turning back to the typewriter. Being new, he took pains to get everything perfect in his reports, and even had a dictionary in his locker. Fahy, the duty sergeant, was on his phone extension, smiling lazily about something and murmuring every now and then.

“Hey!”

Rynn's sudden growl startled Kelly.

“Are you awake there?” Rynn growled. “I'm expecting more than a ‘yeah.' Okay?”

Kelly brought the phone to the near edge of his desk, and he turned aside.

“What?”

“What do you mean ‘what'?”

“Well, I didn't expect–”

“–No, you didn't expect. Of course you didn't
expect
.”

The words that cut off his were cut off in turn by a cough.

“You think I'm blind, is it?” Rynn went on, hoarsely. “Is that what you think?”

“Look,” Kelly began, but he lost track as the panic took hold.

Rynn said nothing. Kelly's nails dug harder into his palm.

“I'm at work,” he said.

“Well aren't you great.”

“I can– you can . . .”

“Go on. What can you do? Or are you going to tell me what I can do?”

“No. I meant now's not a good time.”

It might have been humour more than mockery that he heard in Rynn's snort now.

“It never is, is it? What do you want?”

“I don't know what you mean. I don't want anything.”

“I said: what do you want. What do you want from me? Or are you going to give me something, is that it? Jesus, wouldn't that be something now.”

“Nothing,” said Kelly. “I don't want anything from you. I don't.”

“‘Sell' then. What do you want to sell?”

“No. That was never, I mean, that'd never happen.”

“Listen to me, Kelly. Whatever you could offer me I wouldn't want. Do you get that?”

He wondered how well Rynn could hold his drink. Maybe it was some drug, some sedative, they'd put him on.

“Yes.”

“But that's wrong. No, no it's wrong. I'll tell you what I want, yeah, I will. Are you listening?”

He thought of Rynn's grey face from the church door that morning last week. It was like a dead man's really, the solid, squat bulk of him in a coat that could never suit him, and his whole body slack and sagging.

“Tell me why you were there. That's what I want. Tell me that.”

Kelly's hand reached for the button to drop the call.

“Revenge, was it? To make sure, maybe?”

“No.”

“Did you want to see him? To put a curse on him, was it, you Garda bastard? Was it?”

“No. I wouldn't.”

“You would,” said Rynn in a strangely calm voice. “You would if you could. Don't you think you have me codded, not one bit. Did you go there just to laugh at me, because if you did, you have to answer for that. Yes, you do.”

“That's not it,” Kelly said. “No.”

“I lose my own son? And the other one, you, got to walk away? Because I took a chance on you?”

“No,” Kelly said. Rynn did not seem to have heard him.

“So you can finish your little cop thing there, and go home and do the garden or something, or wash the bleeding car– Is that the way it is?”

“I have a baby coming.”

Immediately he heard his own words, Kelly recoiled.

“What did you just say?”

“No, nothing, I was thinking of something else.”

“A baby, I heard you say baby.”

“No. I meant something else. No.”

In the quiet at Rynn's end, Kelly imagined him pouring more whiskey.

“He's gone,” said Rynn. “But you're not. You wanted to rub it in on me.”

“No, I wouldn't.”

“You wanted your revenge. You wanted to get back at him, at me.”

“I would never do that. I'm not that kind of person. I'm not.”

Rynn didn't speak for several moments.

“You're scared,” he murmured. “Aren't you?”

Kelly leaned further over the desk pressing his elbows down harder.

“You are,” Rynn said. “And so you should be. I'll tell you why. Are you listening to me?”

“Yes.”

“You better be. 'Cause I do want something now. Oh yes I do. I never expected one thing out of you, not a thing. And I never said nothing to you after that. You got an envelope – and don't say you didn't – and your wedding, and your little house and what have you. But that wasn't good enough for you, was it?”

“I only went to– I was just curious,” Kelly said.

“You were curious? Jesus.”

“I don't know why I went, I don't. I really don't. Look, I've been having problems ever since then. I mean, it's been hard.”

“Don't you start telling me about hard times. My son's dead.”

“There's things going on, stress, that sort of thing. I've been learning a bit. It's the subconscious, I think.”

“What in the name of Jesus are you on about? Are you mad, or something?”

Kelly's neck ached from the tension. He watched Cullen stretch again.

“I'm not sleeping right,” he said. “So my thinking is off. That's all it was. But I'll be getting better. It was a mistake going, look, I don't know why I went. It wasn't what you think, what you said, I mean.”

“You want me to feel sorry for you or something? Is that your game here?”

“No, no. I'm just saying, I'm in no position to, you know.”

“To . . . ? To do something for me? For the man who saved your neck? How do I know you didn't rat on me for what happened back then, what is it now, only four months . . . it's like a million years ago. Anyway, how do I know you didn't?”

“I didn't,” said Kelly. “I wouldn't, I swear.”

“You swear, do you? What about your priest in confession, whatever your crowd do. What about that?”

“No. I mean I wouldn't. And now, well, it's gone by.”

“What are you saying ‘gone by'? It's too late to rat on me just because my son isn't here?”

“I mean there's no point. That's all I mean.”

Rynn seemed to consider this.

“Well, you're starting to make sense a bit,” said Rynn. “Just a tiny bit, mind you.”

Kelly lowered his voice again.

“I didn't mean any harm there at the church,” he said.

“So you say,” said Rynn. “So you say. But those are only words.”

“It's true.”

“Now look. You have to realize something here. You have to see my position here. Jesus Christ, I can't believe I'm talking to a Guard like this, explaining things. This is madness. But I have a bad feeling that somebody's trying to rub my face in it here.”

“I wouldn't–”

“–You keep on saying the same thing: ‘I wouldn't, I didn't, I couldn't.' Let me tell you something, copper: you would if you could get away with it. All of you cops would. You hate me, us, all my people. You're jealous of us. You'd love to see us go down. Don't lie to me, I'm not an iijit?”

But staring now at the marks on the desk, the bottle of Tippex, his incident book, Kelly realized then that he had decided something. It had happened in an instant. He understood that he had made this decision long before tonight. It was just that he hadn't even admitted it to himself. It wasn't relief that flooded into him, no, but some feeling of clarity.

Yes, he'd work at anything. Toronto was nice he'd heard, but only go to a big city. Somewhere near the mountains and the sea, Vancouver? So much space – and the North, where hardly anyone lived?

“You get what I'm saying to you?”

“I do.”

“Good. I want an address. Can you do that for me?”

“I don't know.”

“Well try. And try hard. I'm trying to get in touch with someone but I've lost his address. So his sister would have it but she moved a few weeks ago herself. They're half-knackers, to be honest. Him, he's like a fart in a bottle, always running around, but I know he gets in touch with her. So I don't have time or energy to be running around. Write down her name.”

Kelly wanted to say something. He watched his own hand scribble the name. Lorraine Smith.

“I know, I know,” he heard Rynn say. The voice seemed to come from a great distance to him now. He loosened his grip on the telephone and took a deep breath, and then another. “There's tons of Smiths, I know. That's why I'm asking you, see. She had some connection with people in Arklow or some place. Knackers, the half of them, I think. I used to know her oul lad but he's otherwise occupied this past while.”

“I don't think I can do this,” he said.

“That's a load of bollocks. Just go to that new computer thing you have there somewhere and do it.”

“There's a log of who uses it. There's requisitions and everything. I can't.”

“Did I ask you the ins-and-outs of the thing? No I didn't. And let me tell you something else now. I want you to think long and hard about this. I'm not asking you to do impossible things. That's not my way. That'd be stupid to do that. You said stress, didn't you, pressure and all of that? Well, I'm not thick. I know all about that. People do mad things under stress. I'm going to tell you something now and you're hardly going to believe it, so you're not.”

Rynn seemed to gather himself before going on. Kelly kept his eyes on the desktop but his mind was trying to piece together images from maps and travel brochures, and from the pictures he had formed from listening to people's descriptions.

The Rockies were so high they had snow all year long. They were different from Americans too, the people there, not loud or full of themselves, or that. There had been a bunch of them years ago, hitchhikers, in that pub there in Clifden.

“I'm going to consider what you done at the church as a good thing. Do you hear that?”

“Yes.”

“I don't think you know what a big step that is. Do you have a clue, even?”

“I do.”

“I'm going to think of it as a show of respect. Not as some kind of savage thing, a revenge thing.”

Rynn paused then and waited. Kelly thought he heard some liquid swishing around.

“I bet you think I'm losing it,” Rynn said then. “Don't you?”

“No, I don't.”

“You wouldn't tell me anyway, would you? But just think back for a minute how this conversation started, and then tell me it's not some kind of a miracle. I mean, I don't believe in that shite, don't get me wrong, okay? But it started out me wanting to nail you for that, for showing up. But I always had that doubt, wondering if maybe you didn't mean any harm. D'you get that, did you?”

These were the first slurred words, Kelly realized.

“Yes,” he replied. “I think I do.”

“Nobody asked for any of this to happen, okay? But there's something between us, yes there is. I don't know what it is. I don't believe in this fortune-telling crap, no way. But there we are. So there. Did you ever think you'd hear someone on my side of the fence talk to a Guard like that, did you?”

“No. I suppose not.”

“Well, I'm telling you. I know myself. I don't have much schooling, but I know stuff. So I'm saying this: you save me time finding Lorraine Smith, and I'll push things your way. No, no, no – I can hear you thinking I'm trying to buy you off – it's not that. It's not. Not at all. I'm saying that I'll look after you, yes I will. In some shape or form. Okay? I'm going to just leave it with you for now. I don't want to hear from you saying you can't, and it's impossible, or whatever. Lorraine Smith, used to be in Walkinstown. Lorraine Smith.”

Kelly's thoughts swarmed, and words skittered into nowhere. He definitely heard a glass, or ice at Rynn's end now. He listened harder and heard a sigh.

“Look,” he said, but stopped. Rynn had hung up.

Kelly put down the receiver. Things went on around him, as though nothing had happened or changed. He heard the stutter of the typewriter still, and saw the piece of tongue Cullen held between his teeth in his efforts to concentrate.

Everything looked faded and tinted a pale grey by the fluorescent lights. Fahjy was off the phone himself, and he groaned and swore as he stood. After a stretch that lifted one shirt tail right up from his belt, he began that tuneless whistling he did with his tongue at the roof of his mouth. The happy man finishing his shift, just as he Declan Kelly should be.

He heard his breath and felt a band around his forehead, tightening, pushing.

Fahy turned up the radio traffic to hear something about a motorbike accident. He turned away, heard a Guard talk a little breathlessly about some pub called Tracy's, a falling-down fight they'd need a wagon for three of them.