Little Criminals (29 page)

He stood up and ran towards the porch, seeing from the corner of his eye the two biddies half risen, startled. When he got outside he saw a Pajero pulling out of the car park. He saw it and at the same time he saw the broken window of his Land-Rover, the open door. He screamed something incoherent and ran towards the Pajero, saw it accelerating, pulling out into the street, speeding away. He stopped, moved back towards his car, hesitated as he realised he hadn’t got the number of the fleeing Pajero, started back towards the gate, then realised it was too late.

He ran to the Land-Rover. His mobile was gone from under the rear wheel. The two holdalls were gone from the back. He began to tap 999 on the Nokia from the church and saw that the numbers weren’t registering on the screen, the keys weren’t functioning. He made a sudden high-pitched noise.

‘Is everything all right?’

The man in the cassock was standing a few feet away, concerned but keeping his distance.

‘A phone,’ Justin said.

The man looked at the mobile in Justin’s trembling hand.

‘I can’t,’ Justin said, ‘it won’t—’

The man said, ‘This way,’ and led Justin back towards the church.

You’d have to feel sorry for the poor bitch. Lock an animal up for a few days and it’ll start whining. The hostage – what was it now, about five days? – was beginning to look like some kind of beaten thing.

Dolly Finn stood in the doorway of the hostage’s room for a couple of minutes and she wouldn’t turn round. Just lying there with her back to him. Silly wagon.

‘Come on, missus,’ he said again, ‘don’t be stupid.’

The sandwich and the glass of milk he’d left by the bedside an hour ago hadn’t been touched.

Dolly was alone in the house with the hostage. Frankie was in Dublin, hopefully getting his hands on the first chunk of money. This morning, the other two had driven into Wexford town for supplies.

Dolly went into the bedroom, around the other side of the bed, and looked down at her. She ignored him, continued to stare at the bedroom wall. He reached down to her and she erupted, jerking back towards the edge of the bed, staring up at him. She was staring like she might be able to burn away the woollen mask with her eyes.

‘You have to eat,’ he said.

‘You’re the one,’ she said, in a flat tone. ‘You’re the one who’ll kill me. If your boss says so.’

Dolly looked down at her. She said, ‘I can tell by the way you look at me. It’ll be you.’

He wanted to say,
Not necessarily
. They hadn’t come to a conclusion about who would do that, if it had to be done, which it probably wouldn’t. But her accusation was so starkly made that he felt a surge of resentment.
She had no good reason to say that
. She was judging him. Like he was darker than the others, more sinful.

To hell with it. Poor cow. Only to be expected
.

Dolly picked up the milk and the plate with the sandwich and left the room, locking it behind him.

He left the milk on the hall table and threw the sandwich in the bin outside the front door. He turned to go back inside, then stopped.

Looking out past the front gate, he could see a man – middle-aged, red striped sweatshirt, dark shorts and not a lot of hair – crossing the hump-backed bridge about fifty yards away. He was looking back towards Dolly as he walked.

Jesus fucking Christ
.

Dolly leaned forward, pulled the balaclava off his head and when he looked again the man was out of sight.

Dolly ran back into the house, dropped the plate on the hall table, knocking over the glass of milk. He pulled on his bomber jacket, took his knife from an inside pocket, and then he hurried out of the house and ran towards the road.

When Dolly Finn got back to the house, Martin Paxton and Brendan Sweetman had returned from Wexford town and were unloading groceries in the kitchen.

‘You left her alone?’

‘Ten minutes, couldn’t be helped.’

Dolly told them about the walker, the balaclava, about running out after him. ‘I can’t figure it. He was on the road, couldn’t have walked far. By the time I got out there – no sign of him. I ran maybe a hundred yards up the road, no sign.’

Brendan said, ‘Maybe he went into a house somewhere round here? Maybe he saw you coming, hid in the bushes.’

Dolly shook his head. ‘I checked, both sides of the road.’ He took off his jacket, hung it on the back of a chair.

Martin said, ‘Anyway, Jesus, Dolly, what were you going to do with him if you found him?’

Dolly shrugged.

Martin said, ‘Where would you hide the body? What would’ve happened when he didn’t come home, and his missus calls the cops and they start knocking on doors?’

Brendan said, ‘Maybe, looking at you from that distance, he didn’t notice anything wrong, y’know, thought the balaclava was a hat?’

Dolly shook his head. ‘It’s all over the radio, the papers. Then he sees someone in a balaclava.’

Martin said, ‘Not everyone pays attention to the news.’

Dolly was stroking his face, thumb and index finger running down the deep grooves alongside each side of his mouth. He shook his head.

Martin said, ‘We better decide what to do.’

Frankie Crowe kept to a steady fifty, bypassing Ashford. He was in no hurry. He’d dumped the Pajero within minutes of taking the holdalls full of money and picked up a Volvo that Milky had arranged to have stashed within walking distance. Beyond Arklow, he bought a cheese sandwich and a Coke at a garage shop. He drove on until he found a picnic area with a view. He sat in the car, eating, listening to music on the radio. After a few minutes another car pulled into the halt. Frankie screwed the cap shut on his Coke and put the bottle down on the passenger seat. He let his hand rest near the pistol tucked down alongside his seat. A woman and two kids got out of the car and sat at one of the picnic tables. The kids were boys, quarrelling noisily. The woman said something sharp but they kept on snarling. It was more pushing and pulling than fighting, but it was loud and unending. Frankie started the car and drove away.

After they’d tried twice to ring Frankie on his mobile, and failed to connect, Brendan Sweetman said he thought they should get out of Rosslare.

‘Safe side,’ he said.

Martin Paxton said, ‘We could be running for nothing. This character might have seen something from a distance. Or not. What’s the chances he’ll think twice about it, let alone go to the trouble of ringing the cops?’

Dolly Finn said, ‘It’s taking a chance, staying here.’

‘Whatever we do, this whole thing, we’re taking a chance. Where we going to go? Check into a hotel, bring the hostage in with the rest of the luggage?’

Brendan said, ‘Milky’s place. He’d find somewhere, put us up until he does.’

Martin shook his head. ‘Let’s not panic.’

After a moment, Dolly said, ‘Could have been the guy was daydreaming, never even saw me. Just, at the time—’

Martin said, ‘That far away, he sees a figure in the distance standing outside the front door, he’s going to notice the mask? I can’t see that.’

The three of them said nothing for a while. The edge seemed to have gone off Dolly’s anxiety.

Martin said, ‘Look, we’ve got the makings of a real belt-tightener. Are you on? Or do you want to dump it all in the bin, panic over nothing, and we spend the night in a ditch, eating Mars bars?’

Brendan said, ‘Fuck that.’

Dolly shrugged. ‘Go ahead. I’ll keep an eye out the front.’

It had been a week since Martin had eaten a proper meal and he whistled as he worked on this one. He made stuffing for the chicken, with breadcrumbs, herbs and butter, and he parboiled the potatoes and gave them a good shaking before putting them in the hot fat and sliding them into the oven. He prepared the carrots and sprouts. No booze, stick to Frankie’s rule. Just Ballygowan. He spent a while sitting at the front window with Dolly, the most interesting thing on view being a couple of old guys with red faces and bare white chests heading down towards the beach.

Martin had a shower and when he came out of the bathroom he went into the bedroom he shared with Brendan and found him bent over the bedside locker, snorting the remnants of a line of white powder.

‘Ah, Jesus, Brendan, for fuck sake.’

Brendan raised his head and said, ‘Don’t tell Frankie, OK?’ He bent over and hoovered up the last few white specks.

Martin sat down on the end of the bed and watched the fat man use the back of one hand to wipe his face. ‘You doing much of that?’

‘A bit. The last year or so.’

‘Not good. Last thing this situation needs is someone waving a shotgun and wired to the moon.’

‘I’m OK.’

Martin remembered the feeling.
I’m OK
. Never better. Strung out on whatever he could get his hands on, and feeling fucking great.

‘Just the coke?’

‘Mostly.’

For Martin it used to be coke, smack and weed when things were flush. Otherwise, a handful of whatever assortment of barbies he or his mates could stroke from a chemist shop.

Two years of it, before he knew what was happening. Wising up didn’t come suddenly, it came in flashes, like he was glimpsing himself every now and then in a shop window. No big eye-opener, just picking it up bit by bit, copping on he was sometimes a little less together than he felt. Something he said that didn’t come out right, a good idea that suddenly seemed more bother than it was worth, a day that started off going one way and he wasn’t sure how it came to end up somewhere else. Knowing eventually that too much time, too much effort – too much of everything – was going into the job of stoking himself up. And knowing that a day without the stuff was too rough to think about.

Martin sat on the bed beside Brendan. ‘It’s your business, but give it a miss until we’re in the clear.’

‘My business. Keep your mouth shut to Frankie, OK?’

Martin shrugged. ‘Your business.’

You come off it or you don’t. The way things were in the Joy back then, the trouble with Bomber Harris and all, Martin was so ragged he needed all the comfort he could get.

Then, Frankie came along at just the right time to dismantle Bomber.

‘Jesus Christ, Martin. Piece of shit like that.’ That was all Frankie said, the day before he paid a visit to Bomber Harris. Frankie and Martin had drifted apart since the Finglas days. Frankie got Joan pregnant, they paired off and he wasn’t around the scene so much, playing happy families and building a reputation with Jo-Jo Mackendrick. That time he arrived in the Joy, Bomber Harris playing Mr Big, Jesus Christ himself wouldn’t have been more welcome on the landing.

‘Piece of shit like that.’

Next thing, Bomber Harris was being carted off to the Mater, Frankie’s on report and he does a few weeks longer than scheduled.

Before he left the Joy, Martin got himself clean. It took a couple of months, and it wasn’t as ferocious as he thought it would be. There was a social worker with a half-assed detox programme, but for Martin it was something you either wanted to do or you didn’t. Live in shit long enough, maybe it gets so you don’t notice the smell. That time in the Joy, what he saw was not just the world of shit he’d ended up living in but the fact that it was possible to go somewhere else. Frankie Crowe had plans, he had a road map, and if Martin Paxton wasn’t at all certain where it was going, he knew what it was heading away from and that was what counted.

If Brendan was happy powdering his nose, fuck it, his business.

‘Have you been in to check on herself?’

Brendan nodded. ‘Asked her if she was hungry. Sulky as ever. Wouldn’t say a word.’

‘Wait’ll she hears what’s on the menu,’ Martin said. ‘Nothing like a good meal to cheer you up.’

They went into the kitchen and Martin took the chicken out of the oven while Brendan filled the glasses with Ballygowan. Martin was checking the potatoes when Dolly came in from the front room and said, ‘Shit, lads, I’m sorry.’

When Martin got to the front window and saw the two uniformed coppers getting out of the squad car he decided there was one last chance. Charm the fuckers. In their own minds, after all, the cops were most likely checking out the hallucinations of some local busybody. Give them a reason to believe.

Martin made a calming gesture to the other two and when the doorbell rang he took an oven glove in one hand and a dishcloth in the other and he went to open the door.

‘Everything all right, guard?’

The younger cop stayed halfway down the front path, like he knew this was a nothing job. The other one had enough years behind him to know that most of what he’d do before retirement would involve going through the motions.

You could see it in their faces. Around here, the biggest deal is when someone throws a brick at a pub window and the local politicians kick up a row and Dublin OKs a shitload of overtime to deal with the crime wave. So, when there’s stuff on the telly about a kidnap above in Dublin, naturally some old gobshite thought he taw a puttytat and the bluebottles have to put on their caps, straighten their ties and drag their arses down to check it out.