Red Herring (21 page)
Authors: Jonothan Cullinane
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Contemporary Fiction
“Did you get overseas?”
“Reserved occupation,” said Baillie, with a smirk.
“Bad luck,” said Molloy.
“Oh, broke me heart,” said Baillie. “Anyway. This is a no-go area to members of the public.”
“A friend of mine lives here,” said Molloy. “A Miss O’Carolan.”
“She’s not home. She’s at Newton helping with enquiries.”
“Enquiries about what?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I would, yeah,” said Molloy.
“Well, then.”
Molloy opened his wallet and found a pound note.
“Oi, what’s this?” said the policeman, glancing at the money and then at the street and then at Molloy. “‘An attempt to unlawfully influence an authorised person in the conduct of his duties, being an offence under section 62 of the Crimes Act’? Surely not? Not Johnny Molloy, the war hero?”
“That’s pretty clever, Rat. For a bloke who was in Third Technical for three years.”
“The brothers had it in for me, the pervs.” He folded the note and put it in the pocket of his tunic. “And by the way, no one calls me Rat anymore.”
“What do they call you?”
“Russell, of course,” said Baillie. “Which is my name, as you bloody know.”
“Is it really?” said Molloy. “I always thought Rat was your name.”
“Ah bullshit you did,” said Baillie. “Hey, you’re a cobber of Sergeant Toomey’s, aren’t you?”
“I know him,” said Molloy.
“The blimmin’ gaming squad,” said Baillie, shaking his head. “That’s the story.” He rubbed the tips of his fingers together. “Bookies paying you to look the other way. All sorts of sheilas. Bugger this walking the beat for a joke. You couldn’t put in a word, could you? Tell him we were cobbers at school sorta thing?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good on ya,” said Baillie. He lowered his voice and hooked his thumb in the direction of the house. “It’s a Special Branch matter. They sent us round to watch her place and I got the short end. Stuck here for the rest of me shift.”
Molloy looked up at the cloudless sky. “She’s going to be a scorcher.”
“Good day to be outside in a serge uniform, you mean?” said Baillie. “Thanks.”
In the billiard room of the Northern Club, David Henderson was doing the
Punch
cryptic crossword, a glass of sherry and some plain biscuits on a side table next to his armchair. Two men played snooker on table four, talking quietly now and then amongst the clacking of balls and the occasional rattle of the bridge. A steward was restocking the bar at the other end of the room. There was the faint sound of a radio coming from somewhere.
Walsh sat down opposite him, creating a slow burst of air from leather cushions.
“Walsh,” said Henderson, looking up from the magazine. “Eight letters. ‘A vessel at sea or stuck on the bar’. Starts with ‘s’.”
“‘Stuck on the bar’?” said Walsh. He tapped his chin. “Try ‘schooner’.”
“Very good,” said Henderson, filling in the squares with his pen.
“I talked to our bold Prime Minister,” said Walsh.
“And?”
“Useless. He thinks he can charm the wharfies.”
Henderson made a dismissive noise. “Ah, yes,” he said. “The famous Holland charm. And the Emergency Regulations?”
“He thinks they’ll lead to anarchy.”
“Lead
to anarchy? Isn’t that what we’ve already got?”
The steward arrived.
“Sherry?” said Henderson.
Walsh shook his head.
“No thank you, Locke,” said Henderson. “And could you do something about that blasted radio?”
“Certainly, sir,” said the steward, backing away.
“Have you talked to your friend Parker?” said Henderson.
“I did,” said Walsh. “He poked round in his store of Party maxims until he found one that justified stabbing his cobbers in the back.”
“No shortage there I should imagine.”
Henderson glanced at the men playing snooker, made sure the steward was tied up.
“Well? What now?”
“Almost ready for kick-off.”
“Can you be more specific?”
Walsh looked at him. “Eight letters, starts with ‘t’,” he said. “‘Root worm, ruined later.’”
“What’s that? An anagram?” said Henderson, writing down the clue. He looked up. “Tomorrow?”
“A few minutes after midday. Will you be there for Sid’s address?”
“Have to miss it, I’m afraid,” said Henderson. “Sailing down to Waiheke first thing. Longstanding engagement. We’re lunching at Connell’s Bay.”
“A better place to be,” said Walsh, standing.
Henderson picked up his sherry. His hands were shaking slightly. He spilled a drop on his tie.
Molloy walked down the side of Pat Toomey’s house. Brigid was hanging out the washing, covered in billowing sheets. He coughed. She cried out and turned suddenly and then looked away, but not before he saw the bruise on her cheek.
“Hell, Brigid,” he said. “What happened to you?”
“It’s nothing,” she said, back towards him. “I’m clumsy, that’s all.”
“Has Pat seen it?”
Brigid said nothing.
“Is he home?” said Molloy.
“Johnny, please.”
“I need to talk to him. About something else.”
“He’s at the station,” said Brigid. “You could ring him on the telephone if you like. We’ve got one in the hallway.”
Molloy telephoned the Newton Police Station and asked for Sergeant Toomey.
“Are you there?” said Toomey, after a minute.
“It’s me, Pat,” said Molloy. “Johnny Molloy.”
“Hello, Johnny.”
“There was a girl taken in for questioning this morning,” said Molloy. “Her name is Caitlin O’Carolan.”
“There was,” said Toomey. “What’s your interest in this unfortunate young woman? Is she a friend of yours?”
“Well, that. And a client. Sort of.”
“Sort of,” said Toomey. “Not the ideal person to have as either, just at the moment. She’s a fellow traveller, Johnny, a Red. Very slippery customers. Not that I need to tell you.”
“Is she still there?”
“She was released on her own recognisance about half an hour ago,” said Toomey. “Her father’s some big Epsom doctor. Arrived with Frank Haig, the lawyer. A real anarchist, this friend of yours.”
“She’s young, Pat.”
“Not that young,” said Toomey. “If you get my meaning.”
“Why was she picked up?”
“We received a tip-off,” said Toomey. “Anonymous, of course. Someone on the telephone. That’s the way it’s done nowadays. The muffled phone call has replaced the poisoned letter.”
“Any idea who?”
“Middle-aged or older male, according to the sheet. That’s all we’ve got.”
“What did he say?” said Molloy, knowing who it was.
“That she was a Party member with connections to the Waterside Workers’ Union. Red rag to a bull just at the moment. What’s your interest? I thought you’d put all that Communist business behind you.”
“Once a Catholic sort of thing, I suppose, Pat. You know how it is.”
“You should keep your head down, Johnny,” said Toomey. “With things the way they are.”
“Thanks for the advice. Hey, Pat, that’s quite a shiner Brigid’s sporting.”
“She enjoys a tipple,” said Toomey, after a moment. “Between you and me.”
Molloy took the stairs beside Progressive Books two at a time and stormed down the hallway.
“Parker, you gutless bastard,” he shouted. “Get out here.”
The door flew open. Parker dropped into a boxer’s stance, shoulders hunched, fists around his face, weight on the left leg, right heel off the floor. He had been a pretty handy fighter in his day, losing on points to Jimmy Hegarty at the Theatre Royal in Taumaranui, Hegarty’s last amateur fight. He’d never been any great shakes as a scientific performer, but he always went straight at his opponent, fearless.
“Yeah, come on, have a go, ya class traitor,” said Parker, unhooking his glasses and flinging them onto the bed. “I’ll give you the hiding I should have given you ten years ago.”
Molloy moved towards Parker and feinted a jab. Parker slipped and threw a right. Molloy turned and caught the punch on his shoulder, and then came under Parker’s arm with a hook that caught the wiry Commo in the ribs. Parker made a
hunnh
sound and moved backwards, catching his breath.
“Sting a bit?” said Molloy. “Shit hot.”
They circled each other.
“You sold her out, didn’t you?” said Molloy. “Following Walsh’s orders, you rotten bastard. Who’s next on the auction block? The wharfies?”
“You’re
lecturing
me
, you turncoat?” said Parker. He threw a sudden right that caught Molloy on the cheek and knocked him back against the kitchen table. He stepped in, shoulders coiled for the king hit, but Molloy weaved and wrapped him in a clinch.
“I’d sit down with the flamin’ Devil himself if it was in the best interests of the proletariat,” Parker hissed into Molloy’s ear as they danced on the spot.
Molloy turned abruptly and shook Parker off, lowered his shoulder, jabbed with his left and threw an overhand right that hit Parker on the nose and sent him crashing backwards onto the bed.
Parker pulled himself up, shaking his head. Blood dripped onto the floor. He put out a hand. “Pax for a tick, all right?” he said, breathing heavily. He touched his nose delicately. “Think you broke the bastard.”
“Why did you do it?” said Molloy, keeping his fists in a loose position.
“Why?” Parker dabbed at his nose with the back of his hand. “Caitlin’s a useful idiot. A pretty one, certainly, and sexually progressive which, y’know, shit, good on her, but a dilettante. It suited Walsh to get rid of her and was no particular loss to me.”
“That’s it, is it? Walsh says ‘jump’, you say ‘how high?’”
“Oh get stuffed, Molloy.” Blood and snot were now bubbling in Parker’s nose like soup. “You know me better than that! I won’t allow the wharfies’ lunatic action to destroy the Party. You think I’ve spent me whole life fighting for a fair go for the working man in labour camps and shearing sheds and factories and railway yards and wharves and hydro schemes and every other bloody thing way to buggery up the backa beyond, no plonk, no women, everything I owned in a swag or left-luggage, in and out of clink, battened by Specials and farmers and policemen and fascists of every stripe, you
think I’ve done all that just to sit there and watch a mug like Barnes pour everything I’ve fought for since I was a little fella,
everything,
just pour it down the gurgler? Fuck that for a joke.” He gently squeezed his bloody nose. “If giving Caitlin the boot was part of the price that had to be paid, then so flamin’ what? In the schema of historical materialism, she’s small potatoes.”
“Go to hell,” said Molloy.
“I’ll see you there,” said Parker, nostrils now stuck together, his voice taking on a nasal quality, like Michael Joseph Savage on the radio.
It was mid-afternoon. Molloy hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He stopped at the cake shop next to Progressive Books and bought two dried-out sausage rolls and ate them on the footpath, and then called in to the Shamrock for a glass of beer. His cheek burned from Parker’s punch. Caitlin had been sacked from the
Star.
Furst had left the country. Parker and Walsh were collaborators. Collaborating on what? Where did O’Flynn fit in to all of this? Molloy finished his beer and walked to his office. He went up in the lift to the fourth floor and got out. There was a figure waiting in the shadows. Caitlin. She threw herself into his arms, bursting into tears.
“Oh, Johnny,” she said. “Someone informed on me to the
Star.
I was given the sack this morning.”
“I know. It was Parker.”
Caitlin looked as though she’d been hit.
“Gets you, doesn’t it?” he said, unlocking his office door.
“But why would he do that?” she said.
Molloy shrugged. “For the good of the Party,” he said. “He’s thrown his lot in with Walsh. A temporary and pragmatic reaction sorta thing.” Molloy opened a drawer in his desk and took out a bottle of brandy. There was an inch left. He halved it and slid a glass across the desk to Caitlin.
“But Walsh barely knows me from Adam,” said Caitlin.
“He knows you know about O’Flynn, though,” said Molloy. “And that you’re a reporter. Better to have you out of the picture.” He shook two cigarettes from a pack and offered her one.
“You’ve talked to Vince?” said Caitlin, leaning into the match.
“I went round to his flat. We had a barney.”
“Did you give him a hiding?”
“A bit of a one.”
“Good. He was forever trying to put his grubby hands on me, now I think about it. Didn’t seem terribly fraternal, I must say.”
The telephone rang. Molloy picked up the receiver. “Are you there?”
There was a clanging sound as two pennies dropped into a slot.
“Is that bold Molloy, the private investigator?” said an echoing Irish voice.
“It is,” said Molloy. “Who’s this?”
“The name’s Frank O’Flynn,” said the voice. “Well, it is at the moment. I understand you’ve been looking for me.”
“I understand you drowned.”
“As your man said, miracles happen to those who believe. We need to have a wee talk, the two of us.”
“Suits me,” said Molloy. “When?”
“Tonight.”
“Where?”
“Number 2 Shed in the Lighter Basin,” said O’Flynn. “You know it?”
“I do,” said Molloy. “Up from the Municipal Baths.”
“Seven o’clock. Come by yourself.”
The telephone went dead.
“Well, well,” said Molloy, slowly returning the receiver to its cradle.
“O’Flynn?”
Molloy looked at his watch. “He wants to meet me on the waterfront tonight.”
“Will those two hoodlums of Walsh’s be there?”
“I hope so,” said Molloy, standing.
There was a rectangle of worn carpet on the office floor. Molloy rolled it out of the way and opened his pocketknife. He prised up a short length of floorboard. In the gap between the joists was a shoebox. Molloy lifted it out and took off the lid. Wrapped in a faded Afrika Korps pennant eaten by silverfish and stained with gun oil was
Oberst i.G.
Egon Turtz’s 9 mm semi-automatic Luger.
