Oak and Stone
Page 24
‘Good afternoon, Constable McLaren. Very nice to see you again.’
‘Ah, you remembered.’
‘And I read your name tag. We last met at Halloween.’
‘Where you told me about throwing bangers off the walls at police officers. Now you’re pulling guns on us.’
‘Do you see gun in my hand, constable?’
‘It would help if you handed it over to us now, sir.’
Richard Arbuckle approached us, with the officer-in-charge.
‘This is all your idea then,’ I said. ‘A special for the press?’
‘For God’s sake, Slevin, catch yourself on. They told me you were bit rare, but I didn’t expect a full-scale nut job.’
‘Ah, that’s how you’re going to write it up. ‘Strain too much for renegade cop. Lost the head and had to be put down’. The old ‘rabid dog’ defence.’
‘Detective Slevin,’ Constable McLaren said, in a calm voice. ‘This is simply protocol. We received a call out to an officer bearing a gun, threatening a man. I’m asking you for that gun, so standard checks can be put in place, for when you’re debriefed.’
‘“Threatening a man.” That’s good. The man who got in the car and drove off? Do you know him, Constable?’
The officer-in-charge spoke.
‘Not our business, Detective Slevin. Go on and give us the gun and we can all get back to our jobs.’
I held my hands up, then very gingerly reached inside my jacket, removed my PS(N) ID badge and my gun and offered them to Constable McLaren.
‘All yours, Constable McLaren. Given in an act of trust, one police officer to another. You’ll see I’m looked after properly. The man who left in the car has his own gun, a modern Walther pistol. When I inquired about his licence, he ignored me.’
‘This is your only weapon?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I will submit to a body search here, if required.’
Constable McLaren exchanged glances with her officer in charge and with Arbuckle, then turned to me.
‘That will not be necessary, sir. Please retain your ID badge.’
She smiled at me and stepped back, letting me know that as far as she was concerned this was finished. If her two colleagues wanted to take it further they could. Their silence told me they’d had more than enough.
‘Now, Richard,’ I breathed out heavily. ‘As you seem to have called off the interview and this circus has run its course, I’ll make my way back to the station and have a conversation with my superior officer about the fascinating afternoon the Press Office laid on.’
I walked onto Clarendon Street and headed for the Police HQ, on Strand Road. Whatever conversation I hoped to have with DI Hamilton didn’t even get started. Hammy was in rant mode and tore into me immediately.
‘… I mean, look at you. A dog wouldn’t piss against you. You are unworthy. You’d try the patience of the Holy Prophet himself. You are a side-show and that’s where I’ll put you, to the one side. You have leave due. You are on it, one week, as of now, in lieu of suspension. There is a lifeline connecting you to the CC, but don’t be depending on that. She’s running out of rope herself. You’ve managed to get into a bust-up with the spooks and I have to pacify everyone, including the Police Federation. I tell you, it’s easier to dampen down the flames on that blasted warehouse fire. While you’re busy ploughing through your own trenches, full-scale gang-warfare is taking over the nightly news. One week to cool off. Stay away from here. Stay away from the spooks. Richard Arbuckle tells me I’ve a bill to cover for the kit you wrote off. He tells me the stuff you did to camera is unusable. The CC won’t like that. I need you offside, until I figure out what the full damage is and how I can limit it. You’ll return to desk duties. Hetherington will lead on the Anderson case. Give him everything you’ve got, meagre though it no doubt is. He can have Josh and Karolina. I’ll sit on them until they get something, be it hair or gun. Hair or gun, I’ll get something or I’ll get nothing and that nothing will be something, enough, it will be enough to shut the whole thing down, for as the Holy Prophet says “Patience is at the first stroke of the calamity”. And you’re way past the first stroke, Slevin. Way past. You need to …’
When I came back after the enforced leave, Hammy returned my gun to me, without the rant.
‘Bad and all as you are, we can’t have you going around gelded. I’d say if you needed a gun, you’d be able to put your hands on one, but let’s try to keep things vaguely official.’
If I thought getting my service weapon back meant life was returning to the way it had been, Hammy had other ideas.
‘I’m chaining you to the desk, Slevin. Appearances, you know. The Higher Ups demand it and we’re here to serve, after all.’
We were in a dark corner of the carpark below the main building. The weeping walls exhaled an odour of diesel and slimy rust. Police Land Rovers of dubious vintages, with little hope of redemption, sat comatose in moribund rows. Hammy had brought me there to explain the new order, out-of-sight of others. He staged us in a blind corner, deftly angled to the side of a lift shaft, beyond the view of the cameras.
‘There’s people want you drummed out, lad,’ he continued. ‘Not me. I prefer to have you inside, where we can keep an eye on you. But not too far inside, now.’
‘Dalzell wants me out, then?’
‘Dalzell? Never heard of him, except in your speculations. The suits in the Police Federation want rid of you. Never wanted you in the first place. I can’t say I blame them, though they’re not aware of your hidden charms, in the way I am. You see, Slevin, you’ve become a pawn in the old power play. For a while you had the run of the board as the CC’s knight, pulling fancy moves left and right, dodging about where no one could see where you were going to or where you were coming from. But after this bout, you’ve been down-graded. From knight to pawn.’
Telling me my new position in the squalid bowels of the building was clear evidence of that. And the new desk arrangement Hetherington created while I was on leave confirmed it. He clustered three desks and two trestle tables into a tight phalanx, anchored his new team, Karolina and Josh, either side of him, and braced a ravelin of laptops, files, folders, boxes, tomes and stationery items to his front.
‘While my colleague Hetherington is now upgraded to rook, castling about the place as the gay cavalier, laying siege to the dastardly criminals all across the board,’ I said.
‘Are you attempting to mock me, Slevin? Because if you are, it’s in very bad taste, not least because it is a very poor attempt. Remember I am still the King, and the Queen, though she favoured you once, has her own woes to consider and she’ll sacrifice you as sure as rivers flow into the sea and flesh climbs into the grave. Now, you’ll be under Sharon’s wing for a while – she’s not your boss, more your care-worker – and listen well to what she tells you and do her bidding, for her bidding is mine. The King, right. It shouldn’t be long before I get you back into active service and off my floor.’
‘I don’t want to leave Serious Crime, sir.’
‘Oho, we’re well past what you might want, Slevin. I’m saving your skin by an act of circumcision, if you’ll permit me the image.’
‘I wouldn’t mock you, sir.’
‘I know that. Not directly anyway. You may be buck-mad, but you’re not stupid.’
I returned to my new half-desk, barely enough surface for my two elbows, well tucked into the alcove behind Sharon’s desk. Did she pity me as she placed a list of administrative duties in front of me, ranging from filing to internal mail to watering her plants? I never lifted a watering can, but I complied with everything else. The board was reset.
Sniggering from Goss and Doherty’s desks was the early soundtrack to my first days back from ‘gardening leave’. They were ecstatic and pinned a sign to the edge of my desk. ‘Nursery Corner’. It lasted three days, then Karolina spotted
it, drew my attention to it and stuffed it in a bin. I thanked her with a nod and got on with my filing.
‘No, you’re not stupid, Slevin,’ Hammy concluded, in the basement. ‘But you are headstrong and foolish. And down-graded. So, expect to be elsewhere, in this building or maybe out at Maydown, in the next little while. Insha’Allah.’
TWENTY FOUR
I went in search of Ruby on St. Patrick’s Day, because I felt alone, like the last survivor in a lifeboat. I was near the end of whatever strength I had. Once again, Karen and me had let work, indifference and fear fester embarrassment between us. An easy message to set up a relaxed meeting wasn’t possible, so I sought out my sister. When the water is rising about you, you reach for blood.
A fresh spring day of squalls and bleary sunlight was coming to a tawdry end as I walked beside the river. A tricolour floated upriver in the black water, green band leading. The parade was long over. The floats and costumes were parked and stashed for another year. I’d allowed all that to go by. I had no need to wave my patriotism. I know who I am. Does anyone else know or care? Perhaps my sister.
Her phone was off. I tried a few pubs where I thought she might be. Finally, Jack, her ex, at the Castle Bar, said she had a new partner, a fella playing keyboards and trumpet. He said they had an early slot in the Anchor Bar.
I turned away from the river onto Water Street, walked across Newmarket Street and lit a fresh cigarette, as I climbed Market Street to the corner, where a clutch of smokers hugged the entrance to the Anchor.
I kept my head down as I shimmied through them, snibbing my cigarette, while inhaling the smoke around me. I felt a firm hand on my shoulder and a voice boomed in my ear.
‘The very man. Look who it is. The last of the die-hards and the first of the traitors, all in one.’
The hand gripped my shoulder and spun me around so that I stood in front of my former cell-mate, Big Mouth.
‘You’re here for the reunion, so. We didn’t expect you, but seeing as it’s the big day, why not? You’re an Irishman too, even if you are a sour one. How’s she cuttin’ anyway, Slevin?’
‘The best. The best,’ I said, removing his hand from my shoulder. The men and the women around us moved away or re-entered the bar. All except for Big Mouth and Pip Squeak, who had been standing behind him, as if Big Mouth was indeed Pip Squeak’s marionette. They’d both had a few drinks, but they weren’t drunk.
Pip Squeak grinned and addressed me in his familiar high-pitched tone.
‘The best, eh? Good to hear that, Edmund. Or is it Detective Edmund, I should be calling you now?’
Big Mouth moved to block my way to the entrance to the bar.
‘A reunion? Nobody told me,’ I said.
‘Ah, you mightn’t be on the list anymore. Let your membership lapse, ye see. Found another army to run with, leaving the old comrades behind,’ Pip Squeak whined.
‘You’re a fukken traitor, Slevin, that’s what you are.’
Big Mouth was more direct, though I knew from my time in jail with them that the two voices, the piping and the booming, both belonged to the small man.
Pip Squeak continued.
‘Easy now, big man. Happy times and happy memories, that’s what tonight is all about. You heard Dessie, in the bar.’
‘Aye, that’s for tonight, so. You might want everyone to forget, Slevin, but I don’t forget, boy.’
‘‘Course you don’t, Big Mouth. You’re an elephant, always was, and this wee shite is still pulling you round by the trunk. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll go into the bar and listen to the music. I hear it’s great.’
‘Aye, if you like that blues shite. I’m more of a good ballad man meself.’
‘You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t wait around to hear you murder “A Nation Once Again” once again, Pip Squeak. I heard you kill it often enough on the wings. And I heard that wasn’t the only singing you did.’
I was ready for the lumbering, round-the-houses punch Big Mouth threw. I bobbed under it easily and stepped towards the bar, pushing the door closed behind me and lying against it, holding it fast against the humping bulk of Big Mouth.
Ruby saw me and gave me a small wave. She was standing on the banquette to my immediate left, a microphone in her hand. She then sat on the windowsill behind her, as her partner played a solo on his trumpet, tweaking a sink plunger mute, in and out of the bell, sounding just like Sweets Edison. Ruby gave me a hand signal and mouthed ‘Five minutes’.
I moved away from the door as a party of four inched their way towards me. I slipped round them and they bamboozled Big Mouth back onto the street, oblivious to his ire. He could do nothing about their jollity and momentum. The packed bar reshuffled itself, with bodies moving left and right, changing seats, bumping round banquettes, swopping stools, exchanging positions on the stairs, allowing me to set myself against a slim pillar, from where I had a good view of the arc of seating occupied by Dessie Crossan and the reunion party. He pretended not to see me, but he knew exactly where I was.
The trumpet solo ended and Ruby stood on the banquette once more, feigning a wobble, before settling herself quickly, so she was framed by the window decorated with stained glass motifs of anchors, schooners and entwined hawsers, setting her firmly in a nineteen fifties gangster film on a quayside in the Caribbean.
‘Billy Peoples, folks. Billy Peoples, on trumpet. Thank you, Billy,’ she breathed, then the backing track and Billy’s deft keyboard chords picked up the main melody. People around me applauded. There were some jeers and whistles. Dessie Crossan clapped then stopped as Big Mouth and Pip Squeak bustled in and were reseated beside him. They scanned the crowd until they spotted me. Big Mouth began to get out of his seat, but Dessie stopped him and spoke firmly to Pip Squeak. I lip-read ‘Not here, for fuck’s sake’. I interpreted the words and the actions as ‘not now’, but not, ‘never’. I checked the gun in my shoulder holster and looked towards the bar, estimating I could, if I had to, crash past people, get down the side of the bar and make it to the rear service-exit before Big Mouth could make it to the pillar I now held as vantage.
Ruby brought the song to a gentle close, reprising the verse with a moody skat over Billy’s muted trumpet once more. The crowd clapped and called. There were a few cries of ‘more’, but the next act, two men and a woman with fiddles and a banjo, were already crowding into the corner space.
Ruby gestured to me to meet outside. I kept the crowd between me and Dessie Crossan’s company, as I left the bar. I moved through another group of smokers at the porch and crossed the narrow street. I set my back against the rough stone of the city walls. I had as much open field-of-fire in front of me as I could hope to command. Anybody who came out of the bar looking for me would be well-lit from behind. And facing directly at me.
Only Ruby came out, immediately lighting up a cigarette. She crossed the street, pulled a light silver shawl around the open shoulders of her black party dress and offered me a cigarette from the box in her diamanté clutch purse. I took one, saying
‘Sweets Edison. Straight out of Sweets Edison, your new man.’
‘Yep. And he does Chet Baker, as well. And pretty much anything you like on the keyboard.’
‘Can he sing?’
‘Yep. Decent baritone. He’ll take it down to a gravelly base, if he needs to.’
‘Jesus, Ruby. And he looks half-right. The full package.’
‘More than that. He’s divorced. No kids. And he’s not a bollocks.’
She took a pull on her cigarette and smiled.
‘You’re made,’ I said.
‘I’m thinking of giving up the clerical job. See how this goes. What about you? Any big plans?’
‘It’s good to see you, Ruby. I meant to, you know …’
‘I know. Work. How’s it going?’
‘Shite, to tell you the truth. I’ve mana
ged to get caught up in a mess of politics and spies.’
‘I thought you were, like, crime, Eddie. Straight forward stuff.’
‘So did I, but … it’s like I’m swimming and making no headway, because I can’t swim. How about you?’
‘We’ll see how things works out with Bill. It feels like time for a jump. No one’s getting any younger.’
‘How’s Auntie Maisie?’
‘Grand. Pains, like, but nothing serious. And her form’s good. She always asks about you, but she, well …’
‘She doesn’t expect me to come round. Ruby, every time I see her, I see Ma and it rips the guts outta me. Even if Maisie says nothing about her, I hear her everywhere.’
‘You still dreaming about her?’
‘I am. What’s worse, I’m dreaming about her in the daytime now.’
‘I’m going to put a wee stone on the grave. A marker. She deserves that. It’s been long enough. Jesus, we should a done it years ago.’
‘Okay, Ruby. If you think that’ll help …’
‘I don’t know if it’ll help, but it feels like the right thing to do. Close the door. Walk away. Leave her rest. I’m saying that to you, Eddie. Leave our mother rest.’
We paused then, concentrating on our cigarettes. Two young fellas, wearing floppy green leprechaun hats, arrived at the pub, holding each other up and laughing.
‘You still seeing that Karen Lavery?’ Ruby asked.
‘Aye, sort of. I’m seeing her. From a distance.’
‘You need to do something about that. She’s a good woman.’
‘She is that. I’m not sure I’m a good man.’
‘Get over yourself, Eddie. You’re no more nor less good than any man.’
I didn’t argue with her, but I could have asked ‘Then why are there two fellas in the pub there who want to kick the shite out of me?’ I couldn’t put a simple stone on any of that. There was no way to close the cavern that was my past. Figures seeped out of the cavern to wound me, some I knew, many I couldn’t even guess at. All of them malevolent as Medusa. Was my mother joining them?