The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley (17 page)

10:40 a.m.

R
ichie walked out of his mother's brown roughcast house up in Drimnagh and stopped to give the old woman a hug.

“Thanks for the tea, Ma,” he said, kissing the top of her gray head. Richie had been gone from his mother's house for a good fifteen years, but that didn't stop him from visiting the old woman twice a week for a feed. His mother's was the only house on Rafters Road that had never been robbed, due to everyone in the robbing business knowing well they'd end up in a six-foot box if they even dared peer through the old woman's window. She was like royalty on that street and loved her son all the more for giving her the protection and security she enjoyed, though nobody got a bigger kick out of the fear his name instilled than Richie himself.

Walking down Mourne Road towards Paddy's, Richie slipped a cigarette between his lips and sparked it. Watching the house numbers climb the high one hundreds, he couldn't help marveling at the stupidity of this crazy undertaker or how easy it was going to be to pull him in, and when he got to thinking of what Vincent was going to do to Paddy, the smile on Richie's face crept downward with a strange kind of malevolent pride as images of ritualistic torture flipped over in his mind.

There were only a few houses on Mourne Road with garages, and Richie knew them all. At the end of a terraced block, he stopped outside a house with a light blue door and matching garage, and smiled at the fact that Paddy's neighbor had a clear run through to his back garden, making for ridiculously easy access. Richie hopped over the sidewall into Paddy's garden and had the back door picked and opened in under a minute. Closing the door behind him, he took a long pull on his smoke, checking out Paddy's kitchen, and paused to let out a pitiful snigger when he noticed the Mickey Mouse clock on the wall. He put his cigarette out on the floor and moved through the washhouse into the garage before flicking on the light. There in front of him was the sparkling smoking gun. He took a dozen pictures of the car with his phone, went back into the kitchen for another smoke, and sat down at Paddy's table to select the best photograph to send, which, as soon as he had it, he sent directly to Vincent's phone.

11:15 a.m.

A
fter the two coffins had been lowered into the grave—Michael's first, then Lucy's—the priest went through the prayers with a hundred artists huddled around him. I'd positioned myself just behind the large pile of dirt on the border of the next row of graves, allowing the widest possible view of the space around me. I couldn't see anyone watching me, but that didn't mean a thing. For all I knew, Vincent had known all along and had been playing me like the scorpion played the frog and was only now beginning to sink his sting in. Brigid stayed at the grave after the priest had finished while the mourners dispersed, and let her attention settle on me. As much as I felt pulled to her, I stayed where I was. This only made Brigid break away from the aging artists intent on minding her, and come to my side, making my heart skip as the arm of her coat brushed against me.

“I'm having people back to the house for some lunch. Can you come?” She seemed so vulnerable, as if she could collapse in a wailing heap at any moment, and I desperately wanted to make even the smallest gesture to comfort her, but I kept my hands clasped behind my back and flashed a pained smile.

“Can't. More funerals to attend.”

“I missed you after you left this morning,” she said, her longing for me evident to anyone who cared to look closer. I wanted to squeeze her hand, but I didn't dare. I couldn't take any chances now. Brevity was the name of the game.

“I missed you, too. I'll call you later on,” I said. I let the warmth reach my eyes briefly and I winked at her. She hesitated slightly before leaning in and tenderly kissing my cheek, her scent sending my head into a spin.

“Talk to you later,” she said a little wistfully, and moved back to her friends. I watched them walk away from the grave, wondering to myself whether that was the last kiss we'd ever know now that I was effectively a hunted man. I adjusted my bowler hat and turned on my heels, keeping my head down until I was in my car and headed back to the city.

—

I REALIZED
I was in so far over my head that my only choice was to carry on. Back at the office, I stepped up into the loft and sat down on the bier, surrounded by a legion of leering coffins. What advice would my father give me now? If he were there on the loft with me and fully abreast of the lie I was living, he'd probably place his hand on my shoulder and hang his head to join me in my shame. I could hear the words coming out of his mouth: “The chickens are coming home to roost.” I was a dead man.

Christy arrived at the top of the stairs with his bowler hat and overcoat on.

“There you are. Are you right?” he said.

“He knows,” I said plainly.

“Who knows?”

“Cullen. He's wide.”

“How is he wide?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“Then how do you know he knows?” said Christy.

“I've been followed around town all morning.”

“By who?”

“I don't know, Christy, a lot of motorbikes, for a start.”

“A lot of motorbikes, in the courier capital of Europe?” he said, as if he were feeding back nonsense.

“And then by six men in Haddington Road church who looked well out of place. I'm being watched and they're making no secret of it.”

“Are you being watched now?” said Christy.

“Come on, do you think I'm making this up?”

“I think you're being paranoid,” said Christy, matter-of-factly.

“I may be many things, but paranoid isn't one of them.”

“Then where are they now, Paddy? How come I can't see them? I'm after buying a bottle of milk across the road, and there wasn't a soul anywhere. Sure he's giving you tips on horses, for fuck's sake. He doesn't know a thing about it.”

“Christy . . .” I said, beginning to feel exasperated.

“Relax,” he said. “You're letting your imagination run riot with you. Now come on, we've to get over there.”

If ever I wanted to be delusional, this was the time. It was painfully clear to me that my secret was no secret anymore, but the only way to find out for sure was to look into Vincent's eyes. Then I'd know for certain.

—

I STOOD WAITING
on the curb outside the Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough Street, feeling like I was on the end of a wavering plank. Cullen didn't get to where he was in life by letting people get away from him. His reputation for thoroughness was legendary; I knew I was no match for him. He'd snap me in two without a second thought if he decided to. My guilt was reason enough, but presenting myself to him as an innocent on top of it was enough to incite him to wipe out my whole family, if I had one. And standing there, waiting for the limousines to roll up with a possible window into my fate, I felt blessed that I didn't. Christy was in the sacristy, handing over the church offering to the sacristan, so I was alone when the first limo pulled up beside me at two minutes to the hour. I opened the doors and stood aside. Sean Scully was the first to get out, immediately followed by Richie and Matser. They made their way up the steps, buttoning their suits closed, each one of them ignoring me completely, not giving me as much as a glance.

Then Vincent stepped out. I stood there, three feet away from him, with my hands gripped together behind my back, waiting for him to look at me so I'd know. He stopped briefly to pick a bit of breakfast out of his teeth, then walked by me as if he hadn't even seen me, continuing up the steps until he'd disappeared inside the cathedral. Never before had I been so blatantly snubbed.

The other four limousines pulled in behind the first while I stood, numb, rooted to the ground, watching the drivers open the doors for their passengers. It was while these mourners were making their way up the steps that I noticed Chris O'Donoghue moving swiftly past them into the cathedral. If I'd needed confirmation that my head was on the block, then here it was. A man who'd demonstrated such warmth and kindness to me only the day before practically skipping up the steps to avoid me. If I'd had leprosy, they'd have given me no wider a berth.

I sat in the back of the first limo alone, feeling a dreadful sinking sensation in my stomach. Christy opened the door and sat in beside me.

“Well?” he said.

“Well what?”

“Are you still being watched?”

“Worse. I'm being blanked. By them all. Even Cullen. Even Chris O'Donoghue, who yesterday had his arms wrapped around me, slapping my back, ran up the steps so he wouldn't have to talk to me.”

“When was that?” said Christy.

“Just now, a few minutes ago.”

Christy checked his watch.

“A few minutes ago, Paddy, the Mass had already started. He was probably concerned with getting inside.”

“Just a nod, Christy, that's all I was looking for.”

“I wish you could hear yourself. Back at the yard, you were complaining that you were getting too much eyeball, now you're not getting enough. Paranoia, Paddy, it has you. You're home and fucking dry, man.”

Trying to convince Christy was pointless.

“Sure what could I do, anyway?” I said. “If Cullen wants to kill me, then who am I to stop him?” I straightened up and resigned myself to my fate. “I'm dead.”

“Do me a favor,” said Christy, with his reasonable face on. “Come inside and let me be the judge of that.”

With six priests and four altar boys on the altar, you'd be forgiven for thinking the Archbishop himself had died. In Italy, the Pope had excommunicated the Mafia, but in Dublin, the treatment of their Irish equivalent was a different affair. When it came to the Gospel, the priest read the passage from Luke about the Good Thief; and in the eulogy, brief though it was, he heaped praise on Donal for the charity work he'd done over the years for the youth in Dolphin House, Fatima Mansions, and Teresa's Gardens in Dublin 8. There was nothing mentioned about the heinous nature of the countless crimes he'd been convicted of, never mind the myriad others he'd walked away from. But I suppose the Church was no stranger to honoring crooks: It had been sheltering far worse for centuries.

Looking at the collected heads around the church was like viewing a rogues' gallery made flesh. And as Fauré's
Requiem
played throughout the Mass, with a chamber orchestra brought in especially for the occasion, I couldn't help feel that this was, in a strange sort of way, my Requiem Mass. And Gabriel Fauré's music the soundtrack to my demise.

There were people crying around the church, but nobody was more demonstrative in their grief than Donal's wife. The poor woman wailed throughout the Mass, tucked away behind Vincent's crew, relegated to the third pew.

As the soprano scaled the aria “Pie Jesu” in Latin, I waited in the wings of the packed cathedral with Christy and the five limo drivers while the priests went through the closing prayers in front of the casket. For the duration of the Mass, we were paid no attention whatsoever, which only augmented Christy's reluctance to believe me. At twenty-five past the hour, Frank joined us and waited with us for our cue to step out, upon which I led the men to genuflect before turning the casket around on its trolley.

I needed to look into Vincent's eyes. There was the tiniest possibility that Christy was right. I paused in front of Vincent and leaned in for a word. He had his head bowed like a wounded emperor and his focus trained firmly on the floor. He had every chance to look up at me—it was the natural thing to do—instead, Sean reached his head out from the pew behind.

“All right?” he said quietly.

“Would you like to carry Donal out?” I said.

“No. You do it,” he said flatly.

I wasted no time in getting the drivers in place and the casket raised to shoulder height before carrying it down the aisle with them behind the priests, ahead of the family.

Outside, I stood at the back of the hearse with Frank while the crowd mingled, and not a single member of Cullen's crew came near either one of us, or anyone else in the firm. I could forget about looking into Vincent's eyes. He probably never wanted to see me again and would have me done away with by people I'd never met. Maybe I wouldn't even see it coming and be woken by a bullet to the back of the head.

It was going on half past one when I drove the hearse through the front gates of Mount Jerome Cemetery. Once inside, everything slowed right down while the superintendent took over. Mount Jerome ran like a well-choreographed ballet. Its crematorium was the busiest in the country, and the cemetery itself, which was probably the prettiest, dated back to the early nineteenth century. The funeral traffic was conducted by the cemetery superintendents, who all wore morning suits and top hats. They met each hearse at the gate and, carrying their silver-topped ebony canes, led the cortège to its designated grave while the mourners walked behind the hearse and limos. I could see in the side mirror that Matser, Richie, and Sean were out of their limo and walking right behind me, only now they didn't seem to mind watching me so much. Every time I checked the mirror, I could see Richie looking in at me, deadpan.

Once we reached the grave, the gravediggers stepped aside to let me pass them and then knocked on the side for me to stop. Usually, all I'd have to do was open the back of the hearse, as it was the gravediggers who lowered the coffin into the grave—they even unloaded the flowers from the hearse while the priest readied himself for the final prayers—but today, I let them open the back. I wasn't getting out of that hearse for anybody.

On a funeral like Cullen's, it'd also be normal for the hearse driver to wait until the prayers were finished before driving off, but I'd had enough. I'd left the engine running so as not to draw any undue attention to myself while sloping off. And once the last wreath was laid on the green mat beside the grave, that's exactly what I did.

—

CHRISTY WAS WALKING
up the yard towards the back office when I pulled up beside him. I got out of the hearse, feeling rattled and scared. With Donal in the ground now, it was business as usual for Vincent, and I was expecting to see him or members of his crew driving through the gates at any moment. Christy smiled like he hadn't a care in the world.

“No bullets in you, no?”

“Don't be starting with me, Christy. Did you not see him at the top of the church? Don't tell me he wasn't giving me a vibe.”

“A sad vibe, Paddy, the man is in mourning.”

“I can't believe you're blind to this . . .”

“If Vincent Cullen wanted you dead, you wouldn't know a thing about it. I'm telling you, you're clear. Your guilt is playing havoc with your conscience, that's what's happening.”

Before I could answer, the door was opened by Frank, who stepped out, holding a bit of paper.

“Can you both go up to the South Circular Road to Deirdre Hennesy, who's dead in the house? There'll be no one there to greet you. Bring her back here in a Last Supper oak. Closed coffin, going to the church tonight. The key is under the stone Buddha outside the back door,” he said, and handed me the address. “Take Eamonn with you, he's in the embalming room.”

We headed up to Hennesy's house, which was only ten minutes up the road, with the coffin loaded behind us. There was no point in talking about Cullen anymore, not to Christy or anyone else. All the talking in the world couldn't save me now. I was deeply embedded in a fat cake of lies, and I'd been deluding myself all week, both with the Cullen situation and with Brigid, that I could operate outside the consequences of my deeds. I felt ashamed of myself for taking the road I'd gone down with Vincent, and though real feelings had developed between Brigid and me, the color of my soul had been darkening as the week went on. And deep down I knew it.