On the Edge of the Loch: A Psychological Novel set in Ireland (30 page)

‘No, no. I’m just thrilled he’s out now. Alive. He spent the time reading, he told me. Nine years. Read hundreds of books. Exercised every day, stayed in good physical condition, which was smart. Millions of times I wished the whole thing was just a bad dream, that I’d wake up.’

For a moment they remained detached, as though captives of their own inexpressible thoughts.

‘Ready?’ Lenny asked supportively. ‘Let’s walk through Trinity, over the old cobblestones. I love it in there.’

‘But, your heels,’ Kate said.

‘I’ll be careful. It’ll be a trip down memory lane. My friend Emer and I, when we were students, we’d often hang out at Trinity’s art gallery, eavesdropping on what visitors were saying about my photography. Seems like aeons ago. I loved art, photography especially.’

Both women moved together through the gallery rooms, and finally through an island of Monets and out into the city.

* * *

It was 6pm, a grey overcast dulling the city. Mick Quilty shuffled along the narrow footpath of Anglesea Street, past the nineteenth-century facades of the Stock Exchange and brass-plated solicitors’ offices. Just before reaching Focus Agency he cried out with the exhaustion of a returning warrior.

‘Fucking brutal hard it was, I’m telling you. But I got Gussie for you, I found him, I did.’

‘Two hours, Mick! Two fucking hours!’ Tony said. ‘It’s after six.’

‘Yeah, look, I know, but he wasn’t nowhere. And I told you I’d do me best to help you, and I did me best. He’s down doing the doors in Talbot Street. Down there – ’

‘Doing the doors – what’s that?’

‘Only way you get a good one. See, you get a flagon early and get in with a fella you know before the rakers and druggies start to come, and you lock in.’

‘He’s there now, in Talbot Street? And he knows Aidan Harper?’

‘He’s just after telling me himself, about ten or twenty minutes ago he told me. He forgot to tell me the door he does be in but that doesn’t matter, there’s only four good ones and I already know all them.’

‘You mean a store entrance, a doorway, for shelter?’

‘Yeah, I’ll show you. I’ll go over with you.’

‘No. Just tell me. What does this Gus, or Gussie, look like?’

The man’s face faded.

‘Mick! What’s he got on, what does he look like?’

‘I’ll hop over with you, show you how to get there. Be no bother.’

‘No. I know Talbot Street.’

‘I’ll just walk you far as the bridge, and I’ll – ’

‘No!’

‘Not sensible down that end on your own. Won’t know where y’are or where to go. Need a man like meself that knows them areas like the back of me hand.’

Tony’s head shook.

The man shrugged. ‘Anything happens to you, don’t say Mick Quilty wasn’t the man that warned you. I’ll be in Madigan’s, beside where the Pillar used to be, if you know Dublin. Don’t forget that.’

* * *

Tony scoured the length of Talbot Street, now peopled only by stragglers, and shop assistants fleeing the end of a busy Saturday. Once again he paced up and down, along an avenue of staleness and shabby metal shutters locked down over shop-fronts. None of the half-dozen un-shuttered entrances held any inhabitants, and no loiterers showed except two homeless men sharing a bagged bottle under the pigeon-painted bridge. No man in a big green army coat, wearing long grey whiskers, as Mick had described Gus. Beyond the bridge he wandered into Store Street, a featureless lane at the end of which was Busarus, Dublin’s central bus station. He was about to turn back toward Talbot Street when a sound seized him. He held his breath. Imagination, he thought, and longing. But then it sounded again, distinct, a voice, very near, from beyond the corner next to him. Couldn’t be! He hugged the wall, poked his head past the edge, and pulled back. Lenny and Kate! Twenty feet away. Approaching. Almost upon him. No time. No escape. He ruffled his hair, dropped into a squat, collar up, head buried. The click-clacks grew louder. They were laughing, talking, just feet from him, now upon him, in front of him, passing, passing, past. He peeked through his fingers. There was Kate, half-glancing back. And Lenny, blond, blue jeans, hip jacket, tall, shopping bags on arm; Kate shorter, grey skirt, Aran cardigan. They crossed the narrow street to a white Audi, linking each other.

It made sense, he felt: they’d met earlier at Busarus, left the car and went shopping in the city. It was now 7.10pm, which meant they’d spent the whole day together. As they drove off, Kate’s eyes glanced back once again but his face was still hidden. The Audi turned toward the quays. He got to his feet, hurried back to the vacuity and litter of Talbot Street.

Just then it occurred to him. Mick had said there were four good ones, meaning they were not obvious. Fuck it, that was it! He’d wasted too much time. Being able to get in behind what looked like a closed shutter, secure it down, stay concealed, that’s what made them good. That’s what he’d missed, which meant four could probably be pulled open from the outside. But which four? Mick said he’d be in Madigan’s, waiting. The crafty little bastard was there now, Tony thought, sure that he’d be needed.

But he didn’t need Mick. Not yet anyway. Yank up really hard on every shutter, he figured. Fifty, maybe sixty. Try them all. No quitting now. He’d find the man he’d come for, the man who would lead him to Aidan Harper. Not one doubt about that. Work down one side, up the other. Whatever it took he had it to give.

Just over an hour later he had tried to force all but the last few shutters. Not one had budged. Not a sound or a voice was discernable inside any of them. A patrolling police car made him fade occasionally into shadows or inconspicuous strolling. Now, in a night becoming chillier by the minute, he was nearing the end. At the corner, behind piles of swept-up litter, just two shutters remained.

He squatted down at the first, his back to the latted metal, poked his fingers underneath, and pushed up hard with his legs. It groaned, then gave. Only an inch. But this time there was no clack of steel against steel. Stuck, jammed maybe, but not locked like the others. He tried again. This time crunching something, a stick maybe. And it gave.

Still facing toward the street, he dropped down. ‘Gus, you in there?’ he shouted into echoey space. He waited. Nothing sounded. Then, from inside, came a scrape. ‘Gus, I’m a friend. I’m coming in. Okay?’

He raised the shutter, ducked underneath, pushed it back down. Instantly, he caught the scent of humans, a sensibility nine years of incarceration had gifted him. He readied his fighting brain. Wisps of yellow street light leaked in through slits near the top of the shutter. To his left and right glassed-in mannequins posed in women’s clothing. Straight ahead he sensed only an endless passage, and nothing but darkness.

‘Gus. Gus, I want to talk to you,’ he called out. ‘I’m a friend. Mick Quilty’s friend.’ Only hollow echoes came back. He shuffled his feet, faked his advance, stayed alert, listening. Nothing stirred. Nothing sprang. He started forward quietly, reached to where the passage turned to the right. The stench of urine stung his nostrils. ‘Gus, you there?’

A clatter of noise erupted. He broke into a stance, adrenaline pumping. Another eruption. It was coming from behind him; the shutter rattling violently. Voices outside, on the street, loud, swearing, someone or something crashing repeatedly against the metal, an argument, a man saying the cash was short, he was a lying bollox, he’d get a bullet in his head if he didn’t cough up fifty-eight quid; he had two days, till three o’clock on Monday, if he didn’t get it he’d be in the morgue by four. Then came a final hard thump against the shutter and it was over.

He edged nearer again to where the passage turned, crouched low, peered into the darkness. And he froze. Two eyes were staring at him. Two catchlights. Then four, dead still in this tomb-like chamber, all watching him.

‘Gus, that you?’ he asked. Then a lighter lit, and shapes began to form. Two men. One with what looked like a scraggy beard, in a bulky coat. The other rounder, also heavily wrapped.

‘Gus, I’m a friend. I’m looking for a guy. Mick said you’d know him. I’ll make it worth your while.’

The bearded man cleared his throat. ‘You’re that Yank. I know about you.’

‘That’s right. You’ll help me?’

‘I can’t do nothing for nobody,’ the man said with a phlegmy growl.

‘We don’t bother nobody, mister,’ the smaller said, tipping back his bottle. ‘Don’t we not, Fergus?’

‘Listen, Gus, I’ll get you a hamburger and coffee. How about that?’

‘Few bob’s better.’ The man’s waxy fingers put the lighter to a small candle. ‘Who’re you looking for?’

‘Lanky fella, about six foot, English guy, Aidan Harper.’

‘Know nobody by that name,’ he said, then turned to his partner. ‘You, Victor?’

‘You’re the man, Fergus, that does know fellas. Don’t know no one meself, except me and you.’

‘Kinda grey and black hair,’ Tony said. ‘Could be long, in a ponytail.’

‘Where does he be?’

‘He used to run a place for addicts. methadone clinic, maybe, something like that. Mick said you’d know him.’

‘Druggie fuckers. Me and Victor steer clear of fuckers like that.’

‘All bolloxes. Telling you, mister, mad lulas they are,’ Victor said. ‘That’s me own personal opinion anyhow. Right, Fergus?’

‘This guy’s a Brit, probably talks like a snob, maybe walks funny.’

‘Only one English fella around here, that’s not his name.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Cyril something. Don’t know.’

‘Tall, around forty, greyish hair, has a limp?’

‘Said you’d have a few bob for me?’

‘Take me to this guy. If it’s him, I’ll look after you.’

‘It’s him. Has a gammy leg. But his name’s Cyril. Tell you that.’

‘Fergus is never wrong, mister.’ Victor’s regard swung to his companion. ‘Tell him, Fergus. How you were the head foreman in Guinness’s before them fuckers thrun you out. Tell him about when you used to make the stout.’

‘Quit it, Victor, fuck sake, will you,’ Gus said.

‘You don’t want a meal?’ Tony asked. Neither man reacted. ‘How about fish-and-chips, for both of you. How’s that?’

Victor shifted noisily on the cardboard, gazing into Gus’s bearded visage. Still, neither man answered.

‘Okay, a fiver in cash,’ Tony said. ‘Five quid?’

‘I get the fiver now; that’s the deal.’ Gus’s words triggered a smile in Victor.

‘How far is it, to this Cyril guy?’

‘Gardiner Lane. It’s a kip. Up the road. But I’m telling you, I’ll show you it, that’s the deal; I don’t go near it.’

‘Yeah,’ Victor added. ‘Pack of skinheads. Not one of them working-men like meself and Fergus.’

‘Gus, tell me this,’ Tony said. ‘How sure are you that it’s him, and that he’s there?’

‘Me word. Don’t know if he’s there. That enough?’

Ten minutes later, three blocks away, Gus pointed to two dilapidated buildings, adjoining tenements standing alone in darkness alleviated only by the glow of a solitary street lamp, with mountains of demolition rubble on either side.

Tony took in the scene. A wasteland. He pressed a five-pound note into Gus’s hand. ‘You never saw me,’ he said, dropping two one-pound coins into the same hand. ‘Now go.’

Gus stared back, as though perceiving something unstated.

‘What?’ Tony said.

‘I was a fighter, once, in me day. Don’t drop your guard, champ. Or the fuckers’ll get you. Hear me? Never.’

Their stares engaged for another moment, until Tony’s nod conceded a brotherhood, unspeakable as it could only be. Then Gus retreated, see-sawing into the night, bulked out by his coats, outermost the string-tied, brass-buttoned long green of the Irish Army.

* * *

He paced back and forth over a strip of waste-ground, monitoring the lane and both tenements. One house had boards nailed across its Georgian doorway. The second seemed in use. To the rear, blocks of red-brick flats dangled washing from lines stretched across balconies.

This was no Aranroe, no Arizona, he thought, more the Newark he’d known, and the penitentiary. The clamour of traffic and headlights shielded his presence from four men loitering on the steps of the tenements. Fifteen minutes passed, a light rain began falling; the men had not moved. He’d wait no longer, he decided. He was ready to deal with this final obstacle. But what exactly would he do here, he asked. Force Aidan out of Ireland? Warn him that over meant over, that Lenny would never again be available? If that didn’t work, there was a surer solution. He was ready to fight for a life that was only a dream through nine years in shit-and-piss cells. And if he felt himself shaking now, needing that bit more to fire up, get his power revved, it was only because he’d let himself relax too long. Because normality of a kind had lulled him, Lenny and Cilla, particularly, and the other real people he’d met. At his core, though, certain parts of him hadn’t changed, he told himself. Still the guy who’d held his own inside, earned respect in the pit, who’d put pervert Shift Commander Yablonski in the nailed-shut box he deserved; that’s who he could still be, if he had to, the fighter who dropped Rip Wundt on his two-hundred-and-fifty-pound ass with one shot. That’s who he was. Anto MacNeill. Psyching up for what he had to do.

The tangle inside him abated. All that was left, he told himself, was to give himself the go-ahead. He stretched high up on his toes, reaching, flexing. And in that instant it came. The uncertainty was over. He drilled his heel into the ground, rubbed damp black earth into his hands and fingers. He was wired now, back on mission, counting down.

* * *

Now settled into an oversize sofa with Lenny close by, Kate brooded, as though reluctant to continue the story she had begun in the gallery.

‘The fight turned into a disaster,’ she said eventually, ‘and I could not do a thing to stop it.’ The Spanish kid, when he knew he couldn’t win, reached inside his jacket, pulled out a long knife, a switchblade, and started waving it around, just like you see in films. I kept trying to run, to get between them, but someone – I never found out who – was holding me back. All the time, I was screaming at them to be sensible, shouting to people to call the police. I was powerless. And everyone just stared. No noise, no sound. I remember watching Anto back away from the knife each time it swiped at him. I could tell he was waiting for his chance. In my head I was seeing him dying there, bleeding to death. I could barely get a breath. My mouth was wide open but I was getting no oxygen, and my heart was racing. The kid kept making sweeps with the knife, across and up and down, and he lunged it over and over at Anto’s face, but Anto was quick; he danced away every time, then suddenly he’d jump in and punch the kid really hard, two or three punches together.