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Oak and Stone

Page 25

by Dave Duggan


  ‘I see your old pal, Dessie Crossan, in there tonight,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Aye. Bit of a reunion. For the day that’s in it.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re still part of that set-up?’

  ‘Look, Ruby, I don’t know if I’m part of anything now. Did you ever feel the world was, I don’t know, shrinking around you, closing in a bit. Old things you thought were buried, flourishing in the air.’

  ‘Get out of the books, Eddie. Maybe not. Get out of the cops and go back to the books. You were better off when you were a professor.’

  ‘Aye, director of the school of mythology in His Majesty’s Prison.’

  ‘You should know better than any of us, then. We don’t ever get over the past. That’s why you’re still dreaming about Ma and I’m singing the blues. The past? All you can do is put a stone on it.’

  ‘I’ll send some money to your account. You do what you think is best.’

  ‘You want to say anything on it?’

  It wasn’t a moment to be glib, cute or funny. It wasn’t a moment to be humorous or to feign gravity. It wasn’t a moment to quote or to compose on the hoof. It was a moment to be quiet, cocooned from the low traffic growl, the bantering hubbub of the smokers and the first strains of a jig coming from the fiddles, reaching us in chunks as the bar door banged open and slammed shut with all the coming and going at the end of a festive day.

  ‘Keep it simple. Just put the marker on her grave. Maybe that’ll stop her calling to me.’

  ‘I’d better get back in. Give Bill a hand to finish up. You coming? The three of us could go for a drink or something.’

  ‘Naw, thanks, Ruby. I’ll head back, soon as I finish this. I only came out to stretch the legs.’

  ‘I’m glad you caught us. What do you think?’

  ‘Yeh, it works. Maybe not here on Paddy’s Day, but somewhere.’

  ‘That’s it. There’s always somewhere. I’ll give you a shout when I get the stone sorted. I’ll send you a photo, so you can see.’

  When I transferred money, I added a message.

  ‘Money for the stone and a dress, maybe.’

  A few days later a message came back.

  ‘Sorted. Me and Bill too. The money was put to good use.’

  She attached two photos. The marker stone was small and round, plain granite, with basic details chiselled in a clear font. The other photo showed her and Bill standing before a young oak tree, a clutch of daffodils radiant against her full-length mauve dress, a cerise cravat lighting up his dark zoot suit.

  Now, she touched my arm and crossed the street to re-enter the bar, as Dessie Crossan came out to a fanfare of banjo and crossed over to me.

  I came out for a fag.

  You don’t smoke.

  You think I don’t know that?

  What do you want?

  Just checking you’re happy with your new windows.

  Delighted.

  Only the young fella said you didn’t go with the bullet-proof

  glass.

  The triple glazing’ll do.

  Didn’t work last time.

  There won’t be a next time.

  No? You got that sorted then?

  Yes.

  You mightn’t be able to sort everything.

  I’ll be fine.

  Just because you think everyone’s out to …

  … I know. Doesn’t mean they’re not after you or that you’re

  not paranoid.

  You’d best head on now.

  Are you threatening me?

  I’m advising you. It’s an old comrades’ reunion, right?

  I didn’t renew my membership.

  We’re not like the cops, who dump you when you’re down.

  No, we kick the shite out of you and say we love you.

  You haven’t lost it. Yet.

  TWENTY FIVE

  I judged when Hammy and Sharon were comfortable, in their different ways, with my compliance. Then I went to see the man from La Toscana, on a bright morning, during a gap between April showers.

  I took a long way round, sweeping along the riverside walk as far as the double-decker bridge and then up Carlisle Road, so that I entered the old city by Ferryquay Gate. My destination was the Craft Village, a partially-successful attempt at retail and residential development with artisan shops, upstairs flats and a covered square. Flat 2b was above a café and reached by wooden steps fixed to a wall sprouting buddleia. I knocked crisply on the red door and it opened immediately. I was expected.

  The man who opened it was taller and older than me, with a tanned face, lined and etched in a way that should have been handsome, but, in his case, only made him seem lived-in. It was his eyes. Green, but so far back in his head as to be no more than black holes.

  ‘The detective, yes?’

  ‘Eddie Slevin, yes, that’s me.’

  I showed him my ID, but he barely glanced at it.

  ‘Come on in. Am I a suspect?’

  And so we were straight into it. I was the detective on the case, but he was the one asking the questions.

  ‘I have the kettle on. Tea or coffee? Or something herbal? Soft drink? Juice? Tea all right?’

  More questions from the chatterbox I judged to be a shy man, unsure of how to behave in company. Or perhaps he was simply edgy.

  The flat was tiny, a basic two room bedsit. He pointed me at a table and two chairs, then promptly joined me with a large teapot and cups on an ebony tray. There were framed photos of great trees and extensive tropical forests on the walls. A large, modern globe sat on a pedestal in the corner and, just like in my own flat, though smaller and tidier, there was a shelf of books, in this case mainly engineering, conservation and travel titles. There was a stack of large-format photographic books. Again, like my own flat, there were no obvious personal or family photos or mementos.

  ‘You’re investigating that footballer was killed? That’s what you said, right? Ages ago now, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Coming on a year, yeh.’

  ‘Do you take sugar?’

  We were both on tea. It was strong, dark and reassuring. With a good splash of milk, mine looked bronze. There were chocolate-covered biscuits in a packet. I dunked one and said,

  ‘You were the last person to speak to him, Todd Anderson, before he went missing.’

  ‘You still haven’t found anybody for it then?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I suppose it does take time. Yes, I was the last to see him. Your detectives told me that, when they talked to me. Was that a year ago? Can you believe how the days go? Yes, Todd Anderson. A lovely fella, I’d say. I heard he was a good footballer, but I couldn’t tell. Was he?’

  I stored the line about ‘my detectives’, smiling to myself that he thought I was Goss and Doherty’s boss and continued drinking tea and dunking biscuits with a man who made asking questions the rhythm of his life.

  ‘I went to a couple of games at the Brandywell Stadium, with my father, years ago. Then he died. I never got into it,’ he said. ‘Are you a football man? No? Probably no time. Police work, isn’t it? Full-time I’d say, that line. I pick and chose really, work, you know. Lucky to be able to do that. Freedom, you see. Everyone values their freedom, even though they’re scared of it. Freedom and taking it away. That’s your business, isn’t it, detective?’

  ‘I read the notes of your interview. They interviewed you and everyone at La Toscana that night. A number of people said you and Todd Anderson left together.’

  ‘And they’re right, but only in a meaningless, matter-of-fact way, the way two people step off a train together or walk out of queues at the pictures having bought tickets. More like we left at the same time, you know? We both finished, final dab of the cheek with the linen napkin – don’t want to be with walking about wit
h pesto di ruculo across your bake, do you? – headed for the coat racks, had a bit of banter with Lucia and Amelio and out the door.’

  ‘You weren’t sitting with him?’

  ‘Ah, no. We never sat together. Did we? No, I’m pretty certain we never did. He was a good bit younger than me, enjoying the food and the solitude, yeh solitude. I usually go there on a quiet night, early enough. Still do. You can get into a bit of habit, right? Of course the food’s very good, for a local restaurant, you know what I mean? Do you like Italian food, detective? Eddie? You can get Italian food everywhere now, but I expect you know that. I had very good Spaghetti alla Gricia recently. You ever have it? No? And not in Rome, as you might expect but in Douala. I was on a forest conservation job in south west Cameroon. Do you like Italian food? I imagine you do. What’s not to like?’

  I had no sense that he was trying to bamboozle or distract me. He simply rattled along as the only way he could manage being opposite me, across a tiny table he usually occupied on his own, under a framed hi-gloss image of a river curving through a rainforest, as a fisherman cuts chevrons into the still surface with a paddle.

  I changed tack.

  ‘Lovely tea. Thanks. I knew your brother, Gerald.’

  He poured us both refills of tea, then without speaking, he signalled his intention to freshen up the teapot. He returned promptly and tasted his own mug before adding a dribble from the milk carton.

  ‘I taught him to swim, Gerald,’ he said. ‘Do you have any skills? Swimming, like? Attributes? Capacities you’re proud of? Yes, swimming. I gave Gerald that. I swim near enough everyday myself, when I’m here. That’s why I asked you to come early. I’ll be in the pool at eleven, unless, of course, you detain me. You have no plans to detain me, have you?’

  He wasn’t joking and yet I felt he wasn’t really worried.

  ‘No. No plans to detain you.’

  ‘Yes. Our Gerald.’

  ‘I was at his funeral.’

  ‘I was … away. I was away a lot that time. In the rainforests. With Searwood and other logging companies. I still am, away, only on the other side now. Funny that, isn’t it? You could say I crossed over. Am I a traitor, Detective Slevin? A turncoat? I often ask myself that. My father never said, but I know it hurt him that I didn’t come home for Gerald. Or my mother. Did you go to your mother’s funeral?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t remember. I was young.’

  ‘Yes, memories. A blur. Not mine. Mine are vivid as a meteor shower, racing out of the dark. Intermittent, yes, but vivid when they come. Have you ever seen a meteor shower?’

  ‘Did you talk to Todd Anderson about them? Memories?’

  ‘No, not about memories. Or meteor showers. We didn’t talk, you know, beyond “lovely weather”, “aye go on, I’m finished with the parmesan”. That night, we walked out together, almost in step. It was a warm night. I had a jacket on, a light jacket, a bit like the one you’re wearing, sort of a Harrington, a mod thing I have for years. He was wearing a suit, I think. And good shoes, yes, great shoes. Yes, we walked out onto Carlisle Road. I turned right and climbed towards the Walls and the Diamond. He turned left, down towards the bridge, well, I don’t know where he went. He went to his death, didn’t he? I wonder did he know that was his direction of travel? Did he? Anymore than any of us know.’

  ‘And how did he seem to you, that night, as you walked out with him?’

  ‘Who can tell? The same? A quiet young man. Athletic. Well, why not, that was his job, right? He was paid to be athletic, wasn’t he? Calm. Yes, calm. You know, and free. I always thought of him as a free man.’

  ‘Did you ever see him with other people?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Quite a few times. I mean, he was a young man, so, as you’d expect, he dined with other young people, like himself. You know, fit and healthy people, jolly, but not rowdy, women and men, sometimes in groups, four or six. Occasionally with just one woman, but he seemed to like his own company the best. Yes, women and men, but mostly he’d be on his own, civil to the staff, to Lucia and Amelio, who he liked to talk to about football, Italian football. And shoes. I suppose your detectives talked to all his friends. What did they say about him? How did they think he seemed?’

  ‘Pretty much as you said. Calm.’

  ‘Yes, calm. That’s what I’d say about him. I would love to be so calm, wouldn’t you, detective? I guess he would just love to be alive. Do you believe in the after-life?’

  The sudden lurch wasn’t really a surprise.

  ‘As much as I believe in the before-life.’

  ‘Good answer, yes. Good answer. I’d be a bit the same. Two great black holes, either side of a flickering candle flame, more or less short, but short, no matter what. Short for Todd Anderson. Very short. And for our Gerald.’

  ‘I was one of the party who fired the volley over his coffin.’

  This time there was no tea to freshen up or mugs to refill, so the silence rested between us, until he stared directly at me and said,

  ‘You joined the following wave, then. There’s always something to be angry about, isn’t there? Something unfair and unjust. Something violent that breeds violence. Like in Gerald. I mean, he was my brother. I taught him to swim and all that, like, we grew up together. He was younger than me. You were younger than him and you followed on. I didn’t. Couldn’t. I mightn’t be a traitor, Detective Slevin, but could I be a coward? You joined the police. I thought you came round to tell me you’d made an arrest or that there was some other development in the Todd Anderson case. There isn’t, is there? Any developments?’

  ‘No, there isn’t. At least nothing very, I don’t know, nothing very hot.’

  ‘You thought I might be. Hot, in the way you mean for clues and leads, like the cops on the telly. I’m sorry, detective. I’m like the teapot. Fairly lukewarm, by now.’

  ‘Did Anderson ever mention anyone special? Anyone he might have been wary of? Anything he was worried about?’

  ‘You haven’t a clue, really, so you haven’t? It’s okay. Don’t mind me. I don’t either. Have a clue, I mean, so how could you? I didn’t really know him. We hardly spoke. Why would he tell me anything, especially something he was worried about? I didn’t know you were in Gerald’s firing party. I knew the other two. One’s Dessie Crossan, you probably know him. You must know him. He’s still around. You see him some times, don’t you? Todd Anderson was a free man, in the modern way of being free. He was guiltless, if you know what I mean?’

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t know him. That you didn’t speak.’

  ‘I knew this much. He was good-looking, fit and healthy, well-paid, well-liked, well-regarded, drove a fine car – I’m guessing – some kind of sporty saloon, used good hair products, knew his Italian shoes from his country clogs and never gave the slightest thought to how he could have all these things and be all these things and never once wonder how things could be just so, when millions of people are starving and the ocean levels keep rising and the global temperature climbs and bubbles like a cheap alcohol thermometer left in a sun-lounge on a scalding day in July. Do you think he ever worried about that? No. So he was calm. And free. Do you think Gerald was ever calm? Or free?’

  ‘No. Not in the way I think you mean.’

  ‘Well, he’s free now. Has been for some years. People think you get over things, but you don’t. Things get under you, which sounds like it should be the same thing, but it’s not. Under your skin. Under your eyelids. Under your fingernails. Under the layers of your brain you use to cover as much as you can, but under there it goes, then leaks and seeps out, like river water rising in the bilge of a small craft down there on the Foyle, bobbing on the tide, one surge short of submersion. Can you swim, Detective Slevin?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’d best learn. The floods are coming. They’re about our ankles already. Can you feel them?’

>   ‘You were away, when Todd Anderson’s body was found. When did you leave exactly?’

  ‘I told the detectives all this, the first time. I showed them itineraries, boarding passes, hotel bills.’

  I’d seen all that in the file. He’d been away for ten days, so he couldn’t have killed Todd Anderson, but I wanted to rule out the possibility that he could have set it up, paid for it and planned for it to happen when he was away.

  ‘I was back in Borneo,’ he continued. ‘First time in ages. Not logging, like before. Conserving. Finger in the dyke stuff, really. The big trees are almost gone. Meranti. Keruing. Seraya. Patches of them still under state control, as a form of museum. The past itself is a commodity, detective, called heritage. And the rain-forests are now heritage sites, what’s left of them. I advise on roads, access, the historical accuracy of the lay-out of representations of the logging camps. I consult and I advise on how we might keep the past in the past and even make some money from it, certainly how we might salve the anger of the local people, the forest dwellers, by giving them jobs as tour and museum guides, waiters and cooks in the food franchises, cleaners in the hotels and resorts. Sell them modernity and call it progress, even though we doubt it ourselves. You believe in progress, don’t you detective?’

  ‘Are you an angry man, Mr. Mahon?’

  ‘What a surprising question! Yes. I am angry. More confused than angry, which at my age, probably amounts to the same thing. You’re a bit younger than me, so you’re probably still fairly clear about your anger. And you’re probably comfortable with it, am I right?’

  ‘Did you and Todd Anderson have a relationship? Did you fall out?’

  He stood up then and went to the bookshelves. He pulled a slim, large format book of black and white photographs towards him and returned to stand over me. I braced myself, expecting him to hit me with it.

  ‘You’re neither confused nor angry, detective. You’re lost. And you know it, which makes it very hard for you. Page 28, the two-page spread.’

 

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