Oak and Stone

by Dave Duggan

  ‘They seek him here, they seek him there.’

  ‘They seek him everywhere.’

  I envisioned a further pair of balls I could usefully kick. Sharon read my mind.

  ‘Don’t even think of it, Rocky. You’ve already been over that ground and won’t get away with it again.’

  ‘You reckon I’ve come to the end of the road, Sharon?’

  ‘More of a fork to a side-road.’

  ‘Aye, down a dead-end track.’

  ‘I’d say they could put you in a convent with silent monks and nuns and you’d get them talking. Maybe more. Ms Lavery seems to have a notion of you. Did she get a bang on the head or what?’

  ‘She’s perfectly sane, Sharon. She’s up there with yourself, when it comes to suss.’

  ‘Thank you, kind sir. You’re still not moving in. May in Maydown. A new start, eh? I’ll go easy on you for the next wee while, so you can properly clear your desk. You won’t have to water my plants anymore …’

  ‘I never water …’

  ‘Exactly. So carry on and keep your head down. No more kicking. Balls. Kidneys. Or anywhere else.’

  More people came into the office. Hammy breezed through, all efficiency and command, no words of greeting or incitement to his staff.

  ‘Action man has entered the building,’ said Sharon. ‘Expect a flurry of documents and memos. You’ll have plenty of filing and paper-carrying until May Day at Maydown.’

  I got up, saying,

  ‘I need to talk to him about this.’

  Sharon snapped loudly enough for heads to turn in our direction.

  ‘Sit down, Eddie.’

  I heard Goss’ aside to Doherty.

  ‘Mammy’s not happy. The wee lad’s after wetting his pants again.’

  And Doherty’s reply.

  ‘Ah, poor Mammy. And all the training she done on him. I heard she’s getting fed up. Shur, it’ll be a relief to her when they put him in a home and cut the little thing off altogether.’

  ‘Sit down, Slevin,’ Sharon repeated, in a hiss. ‘Hammy won’t see you. When he handed me that paper, he said “Sharon, make sure he doesn’t cross my threshold between now and May. If he fucks about ‘til then, we’re fine with that.”’

  ‘What “we” is that then?’

  ‘Every “we” that matters. The entire Focused Response Group. A side-deal at the conference.’

  ‘They can’t do that, Sharon …’

  ‘Eddie, I was there. In and out, ears wide open. Eyes taking it all in. Hammy at the head of the table. The crowd from Gang Crime looking like the leftovers from a bank holiday weekend. A suit from Fraud. Your pal, Cosgrove. The CC herself at Hammy’s side, but she might as well have been in New Zealand. Two pin heads from Spooksville. And Hetherington. He had the phone traffic. Columns of figures, with luminous green strips shining across each, collating the calls and the people. Joining the dots between the woman in the field and the three fellas in the shed. They were both fires. So the Arson crowd insisted. They were there too, a man and a woman.’

  ‘Bullshit. She was blown up. Hetherington was at the big conference?’

  ‘He had the gold bars, see. He got the lead from your old mate, the good looking Traveller.’

  ‘Mick.’

  ‘Yeh, film-star Mick, your buddy.’

  ‘Haven’t seen him in ages. Months.’

  ‘He came round to talk to you. Must have been when you were still on leave, recovering from the woman thing.’

  Was Sharon referring to the bomb blast or to my relationship with Karen? She continued.

  ‘He spoke to Hetherington. He was back at his desk, patched up, being talked about for a medal. Talk that faded, once the deals were done.’

  ‘The crawling wee shite.’

  ‘Now, now. Whatever he got from the Traveller, he took to Hammy and, hey presto, they banged a few names and logs of intercepted phone calls together, thereby exciting the boys and girls in the Gangs’ Unit, who raided a couple of apartments in Belfast, got the Spaniards to do the same to a villa outside Fuengirola, which led to the main man, a Dub based in Amsterdam. They’ve been after him for five years.’

  ‘Hetherington cracked all that? With Mick’s info?’

  ‘Slevin, I’m giving you the edited highlights. Basically, it has moved on. The gangs will shuffle the decks, shoot each other for a season, go quiet, then go back to business, hard.’

  ‘Sharon,’ I said. ‘How … let me rephrase it. When did you become so cynical?’

  She looked at me for a long moment. Her brow furrowed and her eyebrows rose like two cormorants taking off above her crystalline eyes. I never noticed it before, but my own eyes were drawn to an amulet wrapped in three stands round her left wrist, tipped in a snake’s head, tailed in a silver point, an asp’s rear. She bounced the end of her ebony bob and replied,

  ‘Who said you get to ask the big questions? Still, it tops anything Hammy comes up with. “Sharon, can you get me that quarterly thing, the budget thing, you know, projections?” or that oaf, Doherty, “Hey, Sharon, line-dancing tonight, is it? A bit a’ threshing with an aul’ farmer, eh?” Karolina tries her best. “Can I buy you lunch, Sharon, you know and be friends?” God love her, she’s trying so hard.’

  ‘The immigrant’s burden. And you, Sharon, you have a future on the telly. Impressions. On one of those obscure, niche channels, nothing mainstream, mind. Or maybe voice overs on the radio? I think I got them all. Do you do Josh? Hetherington?’

  ‘I got cynical the day you joined us. I thought to meself, full of shite and badness and all as it was, at least the cops held the balance over the politicians. Now the politicians think they run the show and all that happened was the balance was tipped and the spooks grabbed the keys of the whole fairground.’

  ‘You don’t want me around the place, Sharon.’

  ‘No. You know what? You don’t like this place and you don’t want to be around here anyway.’

  ‘You’re not cynical, Sharon. I apologise. You’re smart. I don’t have long, do I?’

  ‘End of the month. Fresh start in May. Blossoms on the bough. Longer days. Sunshine in feeble dollops and rain in great plumps. Just take it handy ‘til then. Keep the head down.’

  It was good advice, so I immediately ignored it, re-read the redeployment memo, stuffed it into my pocket and went over to Hetherington, who, because his back was to the room didn’t register my presence until I clipped him on the side of the head and leaned over him.

  ‘That’s for being a sly boy and not telling me Mick was looking for me.’

  Sharon was beside me instantly and took a stance which told me that if I wanted to continue with two kidneys I should think carefully about my next move. Goss and Doherty were on their feet, prospects of a fight avid on their faces. Josh called ‘Ah, come on, Eddie’ and Karolina reached under her desk for her night-stick.

  ‘Ye can all calm down. I just need a wee word with my former partner, young Kenneth here. And, heh, don’t put Goss and Doherty there in charge of the whip-round for my leaving present. They’ll only rob you, the thieving bastards.’

  ‘I have nothing to say to you, Slevin,’ Hetherington said, as Goss boomed,

  ‘Leaving present? We’re paying Sharon to drop-kick your arse to Rockall.’

  I almost laughed at that. Karolina leaned over to Josh, who explained that Rockall is a contested rock in the North Atlantic. The room settled and I pulled up a chair beside Hetherington. Sharon hovered around me a little longer, until I convinced her with a ‘calm down’ palm press gesture and she went back to her seat. In any case, Hetherington was now turned towards me and fully alert.

  A sickly slime of bile rose up in my chest, as I wondered how I had ended up like this, hitting people and acting like a shit. It was time to get out, memo or no memo.

  ‘What
do you want, Slevin?’ Hetherington began.

  ‘A quiet word.’

  ‘Then keep your hands to yourself.’

  ‘Sorry. I preferred you when you were a docile young apprentice, not the high-flying cop you are now. It’s the company you’ve been keeping. Both of them. Dalzell. And Beresford.’

  ‘You know more about him than I do. All that stuff is right up your dark alley. The whole service is talking about your set-to in the street. They’re calling it the Clash of the Ice-Cream Cones.’

  ‘Good one, Kenneth. Good one. I don’t expect you’ll be minded to help a colleague of yours, one who has assisted your rise …’

  ‘Assisted my rise? Yeh, right. You practically blew me into the clouds.’

  ‘Not my fault. Could have been anyone working with me. Happened to be your privilege at the time. Remember Hammy put you with me.’

  ‘I told you we should wait. I told you to get back-up, but you ploughed on and nearly got us killed.’

  ‘You’ve seen the reports. What happened wasn’t personal to you…’

  ‘It was personal to you, Slevin.’

  ‘… or to that poor woman. She was the worst of all collateral. It was a broadcast to gangland. With a calling card left for me, maybe. A broadcast, yes, heard far and wide, which led to the incineration of the three messenger boys in the shed behind Campsie. But, you’re well across that, seeing as you solved the whole thing, with information that was meant for me.’

  ‘I didn’t solve it. I passed on a lead. The Gangs Unit took what I had, shut me out in the yard, made the arrests and got the bonuses.’

  ‘Ah. Hence, no medal for you. But you were at the big conference last week?’

  ‘For ten minutes. Like a party piece. I sang my songs as a warm up act for the Gangs Unit, then Hammy asked me to leave and everyone smirked. You’re all the same, Slevin. You don’t give a shit about anything, except your own backs. So, don’t blame me, if I start acting like that myself.’

  ‘Ah, Kenneth. Not the cynicism of the old timer. Please. I thought you’d never succumb to that. Listen, clear your conscience. Where’s the gun used to kill Anderson?’

  If I thought a sudden lurch might bounce him into an answer, I was completely wrong. He swivelled his chair, so he faced his desk once more and spoke out of the side of his mouth.

  ‘Not my case anymore. Ask Hammy.’

  ‘He’s not talking to me. What about Dalzell? Or Beresford?’

  I could see a sneer edge across his face, as he continued to talk sideways to me.

  ‘He’s another one. Treats me like a toy. You’re all users, Slevin. And I’m done being used. Last I heard, he was back in Manchester. When he wants you, he’ll come for you. Be ready, is all I can say.’

  I stood up and pushed my chair away. I managed to say ‘Thank you and good luck, Kenneth’, because I was genuinely saddened by Hetherington’s bitterness. Whatever Dalzell had done had left him hurt and alone. Worse than me. I didn’t pity him. I needed all my emotional reserves for myself.

  Goss mimed a violinist playing a lament, as Doherty intoned, like a broadcaster at the funeral of a politician.

  ‘Now the reconciliation is complete and the warring tribes commit to a peaceful future. Together? Doubtful. This is a solemn, yet happy hour – cocktails at half-price – as Slevin, the great bollocks of the West, parts from Kenneth, the half-man of the East, and peace returns to the office. Hallelujah!’

  Josh began to applaud slowly, but I stared him down. Karolina stashed her night stick.

  I walked back to my desk, in the alcove behind Sharon. She didn’t raise her head from the case papers she was collating, bundling and packing into files and then into an archive box.

  Dalzell’s card sat pristine and prominent as a newly minted first-class stamp on a brown envelope, in the right-hand corner of my desk. I reached for it, as I sat down and pulled out my phone. Then I remembered what Hetherington had said,

  ‘When he wants you, he’ll come for you.’

  And I decided to wait to see what May might bring.

  TWENTY EIGHT

  As the first of May approached, I grew vaguely optimistic. Hammy had a victory to celebrate. He’d won ground and could pass his success to the Gang Crime Unit and let them do the dirty work. He wouldn’t mind not getting his photo in the papers on this one. There was something unclean about the war between the gangs. And though Hetherington was wounded, he would recover. Hammy had put him in a box. I knew he wouldn’t go after the gun. All the bullet points, skeletons, fancy Italian shoes, marks on the neck, and who knew what about them, came to nothing. I expected Hetherington would leave Serious Crime as soon as he could. Maybe transfer out altogether.

  Cosgrove and his goons at IS had me where they wanted me. Behind a desk in a back-office. I knew they weren’t finished with me, but I didn’t have any idea of what they might do next. And Dalzell? If he had the gun, he’d come for me. So, full of the daredevil sap of May, I didn’t care.

  For my last day at the Serious Crime Team, Karolina and Josh organised buns and coffee from Fiorentini’s. I thanked them. Karolina passed me an envelope, with an apologetic smile. I pocketed it, thanked her and later passed a clothes shop voucher under the door of my next door flat. My neighbour had just lost his job.

  The only hand I shook was Sharon’s.

  ‘Good man, Eddie. If you ever need a reference, you know, just to say how good an intern you were, all you have to do is ask.’

  ‘Thanks, Sharon. I mean that. Thanks, Sharon.’

  ‘Josh is on about us all going for a drink after work. I don’t …’

  ‘Never worry, Sharon. That won’t happen.’

  ‘I always said you were the smartest. Too smart, maybe.’

  ‘Where’s Goss and Doherty?’

  ‘On that rape case. Victim No. 3 overnight.’

  ‘I hope they get the bastard.’

  ‘Amen to that. Here, enjoy the weekend. Bank holiday and all. You might catch a bit of the jazz festival, eh?’

  ‘Yeh. Then Maydown, first thing Tuesday.’

  ‘All new-fangled.’

  ‘Yeh. That desk is cleared. Do you want me to move it?’

  ‘No. No, don’t move it. I’ll be pushing Hammy for a replacement for you. Not likely to be as qualified, but I’ve gotten used to having an assistant. Someone in my corner, like you said.’

  ‘Good luck with that. And with everything.’

  I put out my hand and surprised her, but she recovered and clasped mine firmly in both of hers, the way a cleric does. Then I walked out of the office, without looking back, brushing crumbs from my jacket, as I took the flight of stairs down to the exit, for the last time. Karolina had asked what I planned to do for the weekend and I said ‘sleep’. If she had any ideas of getting me out to jazz gigs, the rebuff put her off.

  I went straight round to the riverside walk, found an empty bench and lit a cigarette. Two young mothers, one with a set of twins, pushed buggies and chatted as they passed. A man, with a dog as pointy-snouted as himself, limped in the other direction, his gaze angled to the river at all times. He reminded me of myself, never taking his eyes off the water.

  When I went to the flat, I stood in front of the window and stared at the river. The new glazing gleamed. It cost me a lot less than I expected. Maybe Dessie Crossan got me a discount. I made one final meal out of the lamb stew I’d been eating for the past two days, by thinning it into a soup, using vegetable stock fortified with soy sauce. I defrosted two granary rolls and broke them into a large ceramic basin of the soupy stew and set myself up at a window.

  The last morsels of tender lamb surprised me each time one of them found its way onto my spoon. I sucked soggy bread chunks, getting all the soy and the seeds out of them before swallowing the warming mush. It was the best of comfort food.

  I cross
ed my ankles and placed them on the sill, putting the empty bowl away from me. I was asleep in seconds and a familiar dream came:

  I run beside the river, barefoot on the grass, wearing shorts and no shirt. I laugh. I am seven or eight, skinny as an ash-plant. A woman runs after me, barefoot too, her hair streaming behind her. She wears jeans and a white t-shirt. She is not chasing me. We are running round each other, the way lambs do in Spring. I laugh and laugh. My mother, I feel it is my mother, though I don’t really know who she is, laughs too. She has a silver bough in her hand, not silver, a bough of hawthorn, rich with white blossoms swinging above her head. She comes close. I whimper and she swerves away again, trailing the hawthorn bough behind her. I run in the opposite direction, then, breathless, I stop to see where she is. I look around, but she isn’t there. There is a trail of white blossoms on the grass and I follow them to the river’s edge. More blossoms float on the water, but there is no sign of the bough or of the woman. I pick up some petals from the mud squelching around my toes. Fine, white porcelain they are, with the blood-colour of life showing in the red tints at their edges. I squeeze them in my hand, then toss them into the water. I look at my palm, as bloody now as a stigmata. I begin to cry.

  My phone sounding woke me up. It took me a scramble to locate it, in a pocket in my dark suede jacket, thrown over the sofa I was sprawled across. My sister, Ruby, sussed me immediately.

  ‘You still in your bed? You sound groggy. Bit of a leaving do last night was it, though you’re not really “leaving”? Or are you at work?’

  ‘Jesus, Ruby. I’m on me lunch. Having a doze and I just woke up.’

  ‘Ah, that’s right, no crimes get committed during lunch-hour.’

  ‘Not my game anymore. Filing clerk from now on.’

  ‘You alright about that?’

  ‘Not really. No choice.’

  ‘Have you been up to the grave?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mother’s grave. Have you seen the stone?’

  ‘I seen the picture you sent. It looks great. Thanks.’

  ‘You haven’t been up. Right. I’m taking Maisie up tomorrow. It’s the anniversary.’