Oak and Stone

by Dave Duggan

  ‘And the great god came to her. The randy bastard.’

  ‘Lugh of the Long Arm.’

  ‘The long arm, aye.’

  We were laughing again. This was better.

  ‘What did he say to her, to Dechtire?’

  ‘He said she would have his baby and that was why the fly went into her mouth.’

  ‘Out of the drink she had. I always check when I’m drinking after you told me that story. In case there’s a bluebottle in me glass.’

  ‘Or a wasp.’

  ‘No, your mother’s wasp wasn’t in a glass. It just flew in. Straight out of the air. She had the baby, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, Dechtire had the baby. Some people were suspicious, saying it was really the King’s baby, not the god’s.’

  ‘Lugh the Long Fella.’

  ‘So, when the baby came, the King married off the woman, Dechtire, to one of his warriors, Suailtim.’

  ‘That’s right. A handy fella to have about the place. The King could keep an eye on him and on the baby. We never had a brother. And I never knew who your father was. Or Ruby’s.’

  ‘A river god maybe?’

  ‘I have me doubts. River rat, more likely. Ye kep’ yer mother’s name. Slevin — like us. Flies and wasps in the mouth, that’s us.’

  Again the laughing dried up. I almost poured more tea, but I did need to get back. I ran my tongue around my mouth and tasted sandpaper.

  ‘Ruby was up with me last week. She brought a lemon cake, God bless her,’ said Auntie Maisie.

  ‘Sorry, I should have …’

  ‘Never you mind about that. Yeez need bring nothing onny yourselves.’

  ‘You took us in, Maisie. We should be kinder to you.’

  ‘I didn’t take ye in. Ye were already “in”. And when your mother left, we just carried on, the two of ye and me.’

  ‘Couldn’t have been as straightforward as that. I onny half remember …’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘ … and what I remember was, well, that I was a mad bastard.’

  ‘You had me heart broke, going up and down to the school, tryin’ to keep you in it. One of the teachers said you had a great head, but you hadn’t a clue where it was or what to do with it.’

  ‘Ah, come on, now, didn’t I get a great education, letters after me name and all?’

  ‘Aye, and twelve years in jail and near enough got killed I don’t know how many times. I was glad your mother never lived to see any of that.’

  ‘You must ask yourself sometimes, Auntie Maisie, I mean, what was all that about? Her going into the river an’ all.’

  ‘It wasn’t about the wasp she swallowed anyway. Or maybe it was. She was like she was from somewhere else, your mother.’

  ‘Like a fairy?’

  ‘Like a god. Or a God’s sister. Two-faced, like the river. Light and dark. Full and neap. I’d come in some days and she’d be sitting there, where you are, and such a look would be on her face, that I’d have to go out again, or go up to the room and change outta me work clothes. The heat off her’d come up through the floor boards. I’d wait until it cooled and I’d come down then. She’d be rattling pans and plates and cutlery and the dinner’d be put up to me everyday. That was the way we managed it. I went out to work, like I was a man. She looked after ye and kept the house. Like the wife. The fish she fed us. Shoals of it. Jesus.’

  ‘She abandoned us.’

  ‘Ruby said you were still caustic about it. Like a wean picking a scab on his knee, to keep it festering.’

  ‘Ruby sing you that one, eh? What about herself? She ran headlong into a marriage with an eejit, now she sings the blues upstairs in the pub where he works. She won’t ever get away from him.’

  ‘You’re the same as your mother. The aul’ light and dark. Leave Ruby alone. And don’t be codding yourself. You ran headlong too. Into bother and war and jail and now the cops, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Like you say. It’s a job. With a pension.’

  I was the wasp beating on the window pane, beating and beating the pane, as I’d done for years in this very room. I sensed a sudden rise in me. A fluid tide that was vascular and immanent, sourced in my toes, racing up my calves and thighs, then further on through the soft tissue of my trunk, until it pressed the flesh of my skull to bulging, leaving me exhausted. A heaving yawn followed it through my chest.

  My aunt was not tiring. She was red-faced too, but livid, not flaccid.

  ‘You told me that fly story when you were in jail. That’s when all the stories came out. Jesus, you used to be bursting to tell me. I asked about how you were getting along and how the other lads were getting along and all you wanted to tell me was about horses that turned into twins and children that turned into swans and that was only the half of it. You made me bring in the books, me arms were broke carrying the books, until the prison wised up and ye wised up inside and found a way a’ working it, with education and clothes and everything. Least you never did drugs.’

  ‘I remember you sitting opposite and asking me for another one. “Go on, tell me another story” you used to say.’

  ‘I was humouring you. Look, I loved the stories, because your eyes used to light up telling them. That’s why I asked you to tell me another one. I have no head for stories. That was your mother’s gift. I’m not even the singer, like Ruby, the one who tells other peoples’ stories. I’m the one keeps the hive clean, like the bee that’s never done working. Now you have yourself in the cops, you’re some kind of knight in shining armour, solving the crimes of the day. I’d say you’ll get a medal.’

  ‘Listen, Auntie Maisie, I know you don’t like the police …’

  ‘Never did. Never saw any reason for them. Only give ordinary people bother.’

  ‘And find out who killed who.’

  ‘You must be joking. No one found out who or what killed your mother.’

  ‘She killed herself,’ I almost shouted. ‘Come on now, Auntie Maisie. Enough of the craziness.’

  ‘Mind your mouth, you. And don’t be bringing your buddies round here again. Me and your mother had enough of the police. And the Army before them. They hounded our father and broke our mother’s heart. Here, take your cop things with you.’

  She got up from the table and went to the oak dresser. She picked up a buff-coloured cardboard folder, with the flap tucked in. A white sticker showed my name and phone number.

  ‘I was at the shop this morning and when I came back, this was on the carpet, scrunched over. I phoned you, ‘case it was urgent. Or private.’

  ‘I thought you …’

  ‘You thought what?’

  ‘It’s okay. Thanks. Thanks for phoning me. You didn’t see anyone on the street and you going up to the shop?’

  ‘Naw.’

  ‘Any cars? Strange cars?’

  ‘No. Nothing. Just the insurance man.’

  ‘The insurance man?’

  ‘Yeh. I think it was him. He doesn’t call to me. I have me life insurance with Hooper and White, up the town. Me father always dealt with them. A couple of the neighbours have the man calls still, usually of an evening.’

  ‘So this was about, what, ten o’clock in the morning?’

  ‘Yeh, maybe a bit before. I go up for the paper and to stretch the legs, after the children are well settled into the school. He was gone, agin I came back. And that was on the carpet. Maybe he put it in. I don’t know.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Big fella. Big coat. No call for it, that day.’

  ‘Hat?’

  ‘Yeh, like a horsey man’s one, onny black.’

  Dalzell. We were turtle and hare. He, the hare, was always a step or more ahead of me. I wasn’t sure I would outpace him.

  ‘Thanks, Auntie Maisie. It’s mine alright.’

&nbs
p; I lifted the flap and confirmed what I expected. It was empty. I held it away from my aunt and said,

  ‘All there. Perfect.’

  I was experiencing a strange desire not to disappoint her.

  ‘All there, is it?’ she asked. I knew, then, that she had peeked.

  ‘Yeh. Spot on.’

  ‘You need to watch yourself. Losing files like that. Whoever dropped it in done you a favour. Anonymous-like. It could have been the insurance man. When I see him again, I’ll tell him you got it.’

  ‘Do that. And tell him I’m delighted and grateful. And that I was asking for him.’

  The thump on the front door startled us and rattled china cups on the dresser.

  ‘The insurance man’s back.’

  Auntie Maisie, ignoring my quip, simply tutted and walked to the front door. I heard her open the door, then two voices, my Auntie’s the clearer, loudly and firmly asserting that no, the other person could not come in and yes, I was here and she would check if I wanted to come out.

  I felt fifteen again, enduring a spell of house arrest after a weekend of feral wandering and my friends were at the door, avid to have me among them once more because I was the daredevil most likely to lead them far enough astray to secure a chase from the cops.

  Out of the window I would go, buzzing like the wasp my aunt released. Onto a wheelie bin, onto the wall, into the back lane, over another wall and into gardens at the back of Orchard Row, running, panting, running, panting, laughing, running, laughing, panting until I bouldered over the kegs behind the Bowery Bar and vanished up Ferguson Street.

  Auntie Maisie came back.

  ‘One of yours. A wee girl. She can’t be more nor nineteen. She must a’ belted the door with her fucking baton. I said you were here. I done enough covering for you when you were on the run.’

  The door busted in. The footsteps thundering in the hall. My aunt screaming at them to get out. The window hooshed up. Fully dressed all the time, then out and away. The dinged wrists when I hit the yard. The wall. The wall. Over the wall. Breathe ripping through my chest like fire. Calls. Shouts. A shot.

  This time there was neither running, chasing, shouting nor gunfire. I walked down the dark hall-way to find a hatless and jacket-less PS(N) policewoman, Constable McLaren again, smiling like a tourism ad.

  ‘Detective Slevin. Great. Detective Goss’ thonder, lookin’ you. Sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Constable,’ I replied, then called back into the house. ‘I’m away. I’ll call back.’

  ‘Aye, right,’ came the reply.

  I pulled the front door behind me and walked into the street, in step behind the police constable, who said, ‘This way please, sir.’

  I felt like a man under arrest and twenty years younger, which put a defiant spring in my step.

  There was a police Land Rover double-parked beside a black saloon, which was half up on the kerb, beside the old factory railings. The backdoor of the Land Rover faced me and swung open as I arrived. I made to get in, but the police woman smiled and put her hand on my arm.

  ‘No, sir. The car.’

  ‘Oh, thank you. I’m not under arrest then?’

  ‘I couldn’t say, sir. DS Goss will know better.’

  There was a light guffaw from inside the Land Rover. The police woman climbed in and the door slammed shut. I imagined her laughing along with her colleagues. Seeing detectives in the middle of a work spat is always a treat for the uniforms. We’re like all work places. The uniforms enjoy a laugh when the bosses are caught in a cat fight. The Land Rover started up. Goss revved the saloon. I could have walked on, but even I know when to pull my horns in.

  I got in beside Goss. The Land Rover pulled off and began slowly descending the street. Goss performed a three point turn and followed. At the junction with Foyle Road, we turned left and I looked across to the wall where my mother went into the river, taking my childhood with her.

  I assumed we were going back to the station and that I’d be facing Hammy for a dressing down, with Goss, prancing about like a delighted puppy. I was wrong, because Goss – it almost burst out of him – eventually spoke.

  ‘I hope you’re carrying ID, you wanker, and don’t fuck me up anymore than you have already.’

  When I didn’t answer, he roared, ‘Well, are you?’

  I nodded.

  ‘We’re going international, for fuck’s sake and this teenage huff you’ve got going now will not wash. Will not wash one fucking bit.’

  We drove along the river-side and didn’t turn onto Strand Road, towards the police station. Instead we kept to the river-side where, in the distance, the Foyle Bridge stretched its arcing back. I knew, then, where we were going.

  ‘You know the hotel where the towel came from,’ I said.

  ‘The Island Castle,’ Goss growled.

  ‘Ah, the new one on Inch. Lovely spot for a wedding, I hear. Great photos up and down Lough Swilly. The bridal party hi-stepping along the sandy beach. Helipad. The complete deal.’

  ‘You won’t ever be getting married in it, Slevin. No woman’d be mad enough to take you on. Though you might get a man. If he was drunk enough.’

  ‘What about our drunk? What have you got?’

  ‘Ah, you’re interested now. All over the fucking thing, now you can smell the end of it. You couldn’t give a shit when you walked off this morning, sending me fucking messages like I was your boy and not telling anyone where you went a’ wandering.’

  ‘You found me anyway. Never any bother there.’

  ‘You’re making a fool of me, Slevin. Or trying hard. I had to get Communications to track you. Imagine the laugh they got out of that. DS Goss hasn’t a clue where his assistant is. I laid it on, Slevin, let me tell you. I said you were last seen puking your guts up at the crime scene and heading for the City Hotel. Or the river.’

  We were on the Buncrana Road by now, en route to the border. The protocol was that our Land Rover escort would hand us over to a PS(S) escort, once our ID had been checked. Our colleagues would accompany us for the duration of our stay in their jurisdiction. It happened all the time now. There was even talk of dropping the need for hand-over escorts. Cost-saving, as ever, was the primary driver in that discussion.

  Goss gripped the steering wheel like the guard rail on a runaway fairground ride. The Land Rover in front was going too slow for him. And I was gleefully doing his head in.

  ‘It’s a great lead. The towel. Gives you the full case, I’ll bet. You’ll close another one, Goss. You’re a marvel.’

  ‘I’ll deal with you, Slevin. Soon as this is over. You keep your mouth tight shut today and don’t attempt to fuck me up any more and I’ll maybe go easy on you. You trip me up one more time and I’ll see you done.’

  And that’s how I happened to cross the border with a colleague who threatened to have me killed and how I happened to be smiling like a fifteen year old who had managed to get a rise out of his Dad.

  TWELVE

  Not long after he returned from Manchester, Hetherington was driving us back to HQ after a routine follow-up visit on a case we’d just closed, when an urgent call came on the personal channel of my phone.

  ‘Help me, Eddie. Help me.’

  ‘Put on the siren,’ I shouted.

  ‘It’s okay …’

  ‘It’s not fucking okay. Put on the siren.’

  We were in an unmarked saloon. Hetherington was driving, now taking us up Shipquay Street, at pace. He put on the siren and cars pulled onto pavements. The message continued to pulse on my phone.

  ‘Help me, Eddie. Help me.’

  It was coming at regular intervals of seven seconds. It was an unknown number. I set the car’s tracker to the phone.

  ‘It’s a trap,’ said Hetherington.

  ‘Of course, it’s a trap. The whole bloody thing is a trap. St
raight through the Diamond. On up Bishop Street and head for the Letterkenny Road.’

  ‘Okay. Okay. Okay.’

  Hetherington had us at 90kph, as we passed the Court House. Ahead of us Bishop’s Gate opened. The god of the river Foyle, sculpted on the top of the arch, seemed to grin and say ‘you’ll never make it’. A van, coming towards us, braked just in time, as we screamed through the gate. I scrunched my shoulders in, expecting to hear stone scraping paint off metal. We careered through Bishop’s Gate and into open air. I glanced in the rear-view mirror to see the other river god, the Boyne, grinning in salutation.

  Hetherington stormed through the traffic lights at the Barrack Street junction and roared further along Bishop Street.

  Auntie Maisie’s house came to mind, as we passed the top of Ferguson’s Street, but did she even have a phone that could send repeat messages? The pulsing messages kept coming on my personal channel and blocking it.

  ‘At least, let’s get some back-up,’ Hetherington demanded, changing gear, as he flung the saloon into the junction with Foyle Road. Across the river, sombre in early morning Autumnal light, I could see the boathouse, shuttered and vacant. Beside it, river rescue vehicles were neatly parked and expectant.

  I contacted Communications on my work channel to send details of our actions, the GPS of our destination and a request for support. I included an ambulance.

  ‘Right here. Up Braehead Road. On up. Go on.’

  The message pulsed on my phone.

  ‘Help me, Eddie. Help me.’

  I shouted again.

  ‘Right here. Straight on. This is Creevagh Road. Left coming up. Left now. Here, here. Left, for fuck’s sake.’

  Hetherington slammed on the brakes. We both thrust forward like dancers in a chorus line. He found reverse, we screeched backwards, then zoomed up an earthen side-road in the direction of the river, below and in front of us. Round hills folded away on the opposite side, en route to becoming the sky mountains. Grey clouds banked about each other, cajoling each other towards rain.

  ‘Here. This is it. Stop here.’

  We were at a gate, red, rusty and half-pushed open. The car ticked and chugged, like a horse after a forceful gallop. There was a beat, then I made to get out.