The Color of Blood (5 page)

“There’s nothing illegal about this. Not really. I mean, it’s not like dealing, is it?”

“Homemade porn for sale door to door? It’s a church fund-raiser. Tommy, who did you get these from?”

Tommy looked like the bold child he had never entirely stopped being. It wasn’t a good look on a man in his forties. But what he said took me aback.

“Brock Taylor.”

“Brock Taylor? The guy who owns the Woodpark Inn?”

“Yeah. That shook you, didn’t it?”

Brian Taylor — nicknamed Brock (the Irish for badger) because of the lock of naturally growing white hair that flared in the midst of his luxuriant black bouffant — led a gang out of the north inner city in the nineties that pulled three of the biggest bank and security van jobs the country had seen. There was no forensic evidence, no witnesses, and none of his gang would give evidence against him. And he did himself no harm by continually lobbing hefty checks at local charities. Eventually, the Criminal Assets Bureau confiscated half a dozen houses and two pubs from him because he had no explanation for how he had paid for them; although they were worth a total of 5 million, Taylor’s sole declared income for the period was 80 pounds a week in social welfare. But no one ever got to his bank accounts. He did eighteen months for intimidation of a witness, then came out, spent a few quiet years laundering all his remaining cash through two betting shops and an amusement arcade and watching the value of the properties he had managed to hold on to soar, then emerged suddenly, living in a house in Fitzwilliam Square and as the new owner of the Woodpark Inn, a sprawling “car park pub” that stood at the junction of Seafield, Castlehill and the once notorious Woodpark Estate. He’d been busy with his checkbook as well, to drug rehab and homeless centers, charities for sick and disabled children and so on, and a couple of tame journalists had been enlisted to build a Robin Hood antihero image: the hood with the heart of gold who only did what, let’s face it, we’d all do given a chance: take back some of the money the banks robbed from us over the years. As a result, and because he was a hail-fellow-well-met type of guy and because he seemed to lack entirely the whiff of cordite, he was being made welcome in all sorts of places you wouldn’t have expected before, including Seafield Rugby Club, whose grounds lay adjacent to Woodpark.

Tommy looked at me with a defiant smile.

“All right, you took me by surprise, well done. What’s Brock Taylor doing peddling amateur porn?”

He shook his head, his expression contracting into its usual pasty combination of suspicion and anxiety.

“I think he’s after Brady in some way. I don’t know how. He told me to take the DVDs, but to wait for the word before I started hawking them. Said if I sold any before that, he’d want to talk to me.”

“Did he mention Brady by name?”

“No. It was all, a certain party this, a certain party that.”

“And was there a deadline? A cutoff point, after which you could go ahead?”

“Tomorrow afternoon.”

I could hear him say it, but there was a reverberation, a kind of psychic echo to it, as if I had heard it many times before. As of course I had: not this specific detail, but the connection, the way on a case, nothing is accidental, everything forms a pattern, and what you thought you were looking for marks only the first step along the path. Tomorrow was Thursday; the deadline for Shane Howard to pay his daughters’ kidnappers the ransom was midday Thursday; now a porn movie directed by her ex-boyfriend was ready to flood onto the market after that time — if the ransom wasn’t paid? Or despite that?

Not the detail, but the connection.

“He did say, one of the places to sell was outside Castlehill College. Which is where David Brady went to school. So that maybe says there’s some kind of threat going on.”

“And how did he hook up with you?”

“You mean, me being such a fucking loser an’ all?”

“If the cap fits. What I meant was, Brock having his own boys to do the necessary.”

“I don’t know that he does. Or at least, not on the street, you know? He doesn’t want to be associated with any of that now. He’s a member of Seafield Rugby Club and the Castlehill Lions Club and the fund-raising committee to buy a new dialysis machine for St. Anthony’s and all this.”

“And it didn’t occur to you to wonder about the wisdom of working for Brock Taylor? Did you not learn your lesson with Podge Halligan?”

“Ed, nobody knows what Brock is up to. I mean, he never dealt drugs, he’s not robbing, he owns the pub and a few houses and apartments scattered around. That’s all he looks like he’s doing, property development.”

“And a little hard-core porn.”

“All right, I don’t know why he called me, and I didn’t expect him to be into all this.”

Tommy gestured disgustedly at the TV and his bag of DVDs.

“He said there was some kind of underage scene going on, and he was trying to get to the people behind it.”

“Child porn?”

“Not children, young teenagers. Thirteen, fourteen.”

“Your daughter’s age.”

“I’m not the only one with a daughter. So I thought, if that’s what’s going on, and if Brady’s involved, and if Brock is after him — for whatever reason — and he can’t get the evidence, and he wants to shame him around town, and there’s a few bob in it for me, why not?”

I looked at Tommy, who was lying about at least some of it, of course, but who had worked himself into believing that he had told the whole truth and nothing but. The problem was, it didn’t add up.

“Shane Howard told me David Brady was one of the most promising fullbacks in the country. What’s he doing still playing club rugby for Seafield? The best players are all professional now, why isn’t he playing for Leinster, or any of the Celtic League sides? And what’s he doing making hard-core porn films and… I mean, if he shot the photographs of Emily, we have to assume he’s in on the blackmail attempt as well.”

Tommy looked at me and shrugged.

“That’s where you’d earn your money, by doing your job. Boss.”

If he had grinned, I might have slapped him, but his face was a mask of earnest and diligent apprenticeship. I gathered the DVDs together and put them in a paper carrier bag.

“I hope you’re being straight with me, Tommy. Because this is serious business, and if you’re fucking around, I won’t take it lightly.”

“On the level man, on the level,” Tommy said, as usual looking far from. “I swear on my daughter, on Naomi man.”

And held my gaze, and I felt he understood how serious it was, and I knew if anything had meaning for him, it was his child, and I believed him.

We all make mistakes.

DAVID BRADY HAD AN ADDRESS IN THE SEAFIELD WATERFRONT
apartments. I stood outside the security door to the complex with my car keys in one hand and my phone in my ear, nodding and saying “absolutely” and “no problem” and “Monday at the latest” until a short man with his hair gelled into the spiky fin that for some reason was the current style of choice for young male estate agents appeared in the lobby, a sheaf of apartment specifications under his arm. The Waterfront had sold off the plans eighteen months before; now that the complex was finally open, half the apartments were on the market again as investors sold up for sixty or seventy grand more than they had paid. I pointed at the door, still nodding into the phone, and Spiky Fin, who I noticed had acne, and possibly short trousers, opened it and extended an apartment spec to me. I waved my keys at him, too busy by far, and slipped around to the elevators.

As the elevator rose, I inspected myself in the mirrored walls. I wore a black suit, a white shirt and black shoes. I wore a black overcoat in deference to the season. I had a black knit tie in my pocket, but it was rarely necessary these days. I had fallen into dressing like this partly by accident: I got off the plane from L.A. in a black suit and the airline promptly lost the rest of my luggage. I couldn’t think of anything else to wear, so I simply bought more of the same. It meant I rarely had trouble with a doorman, a maître d’ or a corporate PA, quite the opposite in fact. And if it also meant in certain situations I was a shade conspicuous, well, that can work to your advantage too, provided you don’t mind leading with your chin. After an October off the booze and working hard at the gym, I was a few pounds below fighting weight, loose-limbed and ready for action. I went for a reassuring smile. Then a look of reliable authority. Neither worked. The darkness in my eyes and the drawn clefts in my cheeks seemed to anticipate what I would find in David Brady’s apartment. I was trying to sell my reflection an impression of life, but it was no good. I was calling on death, and my face knew it before I did.

I knocked on the door and it gave against my fist; it had been left on the latch. The apartment was eight floors up and looked out over Seafield Harbour through one wall of glass; if the mist hadn’t been so thick, you’d have seen right across the bay to Howth; as it was, you could see about as much as David Brady, who was lying on his tiled kitchen floor with a halo of blood around his head and a Sabatier carving knife stuck in his chest. He had been stabbed a number of times in the stomach and chest, and the back of his head looked like it had been smashed repeatedly on the glazed terra-cotta tiles. I took a pair of surgical gloves from my coat pocket, put them on and gave the body a quick once-over. Brady’s flesh was still warm to the touch, even around the hands: there was no visible lividity, no evidence of early rigor in the eyelids or the jaw; he could have been killed ten minutes ago.

I looked at the photograph Jessica Howard had given me, of Emily and her boyfriend David Brady. It must have been after a match; Brady jubilant, red-faced and mud-smeared in a striped rugby shirt; Emily, all blond highlights and orange tan, gazing adoringly at her prince. My tongue felt swollen and dry in my mouth, and sweat suddenly sparked in my hair and on my brow. I crossed to the glass wall and slid the balcony door open and stepped out into the clammy cold air. Petrol fumes mingled with the salt tang from the sea; behind the roar of buses and trucks, a foghorn sounded, a dark bass note of mourning beneath the traffic’s metallic clamor.

I went back in and began to search the apartment. The living room/kitchen/dining area was one open-plan space; off the kitchen ran a short passage with doors to a small bathroom and the only bedroom. Neither of the porn shoots had taken place here. There was a white G5 iMac on a desk in the living room. I booted it up and went into the bedroom. There were two televisions; the one in the bedroom was cabled for PlayStation, and games lay in piles on the floor. There were other gadgets: Game Boys and mp3 players, and a mini hi-fi system on the ledge behind the bed; no sign of camera equipment. There was nothing else of interest, except to note that David Brady had a mirror on the ceiling over his bed and a bunch of sex toys and a stack of porn DVDs in his bedside locker. A man who brought his work home with him.

None of the porn was homemade; the DVD collection outside was all store-bought, action adventures and teen comedies, horror and sports. There didn’t appear to be any books in the apartment at all. I sat in front of the computer and searched for any file containing the words “emily,” “howard,” “threesome” or “porn.” As I did, I heard sirens outside. There was a folder with some photographs of Emily as she used to look; that was all. I tried searching for Brian Taylor under his own name and the nickname “Brock” — nothing. I opened Entourage and sorted the “Sent Items” folder by “Attachments” — and finally came up with it. It was called “emho” and it had been sent as an attachment to the e-mail address “[email protected].” There was nothing in the subject line or body of the mail to indicate who it was being sent to. I found the original “emho” and opened it. Inside were the photographs of Emily’s threesome. I gave the rest of the room a quick trawl to see if there was anything I had missed. The sirens reached a crescendo and stopped. I looked out quickly over the balcony. Two white Garda cars with blue and yellow markings were outside. I didn’t have much time. I deleted the e-mail, then deleted the contents of the Deleted Items folder, trashed the “emho” folder, emptied the trash and shut the Mac down. I finished back at David Brady’s body for one last look. He had patch pockets on his shirt, but they were soaked in blood; the pockets to his low-slung jeans were easier to get to; one had a handful of change, which was no use; the other had a mobile phone, which was. The light by the side of the elevator showed the Guards were on the fourth floor; I reckoned there’d be four of them, two in the lift, a uniform to watch the foyer, another for the fire stairs; I jammed the apartment door wide open and made it to the stairs as the elevator left seven. There was no sign of a Guard on eight or seven; I flashed a look over the balcony and saw him about a third of the way up; I went down to six and ducked inside. I summoned the elevator and went down to the first floor, then got off, sent it down, and made for the stairs again. The Guard above me had vanished: checking one of the upper floors, I guessed. On the ground floor, I took a squint through the small window into the foyer. The uniform, a blonde with hair cropped short and long legs, was looking into the empty lift. She looked toward the fire door and I pulled back. I didn’t want to go through the back exit into the yard in case it tripped the alarms. I looked back: the elevator doors were closing, the uniform presumably inside. I kept my head down and pushed fast through the door and along the foyer onto the street.

I sat on a stool in the Anchor bar for a while going through the text messages on David Brady’s phone and savoring my first alcohol in a month. Strictly speaking, I should have waited until midnight, but since I had never before interfered with and altered a crime scene, or tampered with and stolen vital evidence, I figured I was entitled to an early drink. Two actually, a double Jameson and a pint of Guinness. The Anchor was its usual hushed, devotional lunchtime self. No food was served, or even contemplated; men did their dreaming and praying over pints and shorts, working their newspapers like beads; Silent John, the barman, kept a gruff distance. Hard to blame him: the Anchor was full of people who started drinking at ten thirty in the morning; when I wasn’t working, I was sometimes one of them; why would a barman want to be friends with a bunch of alcoholics? On the other hand, why run a pub like the Anchor if you didn’t want to spend your life among drunks?