The Salesman

by Joseph O'Connor

  ‘I don’t want to let you go,’ I told her.

  She laughed softly and kissed me on the lips again, moving her tongue inside my mouth this time. ‘God, Billy Sweeney, where did I get you?’ she sighed, then pulled me close to her once more. I remember her hands in my hair.

  ‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah,’ she lilted, her lovely face tilted playfully to one side. Then she turned away, blew me a last kiss and walked quickly across the street and into her house.

  Two days later an envelope arrived for me. It was from your mother, a card she had bought to thank me for bringing her to the concert and a poem by Emily Dickinson, which, she told me, she had copied out of her Leaving Cert textbook.

  Wild nights – Wild Nights!

  Were I with thee

  Wild Nights should be

  Our luxury!

  Futile – the Winds –

  To a Heart in port –

  Done with the Compass –

  Done with the Chart!

  Rowing in Eden –

  Ah, the Sea!

  Might I but moor – Tonight –

  In Thee!

  ‘My heart is in your port, Billy Sweeney. And yours in mine. Aren’t we lucky?

  ‘I love you, always.

  ‘Grace.’

  Chapter Three

  The judge delayed the new trial for a month to give the police some time to find Donal Quinn. His description and photograph were broadcast on Crimeline, along with a short, computer-enhanced clip of slow-motion video from the robbery and an acted-out reconstruction of the minutes before and after. His picture was published in all the newspapers, hung on the walls of post offices and train stations up and down the country, and I believe in the North too. But by the beginning of last December he still had not been found.

  His escape and disappearance provoked a new surge of publicity about the case in the newspapers. ACCUSED IN STUDENT COMA CASE STILL AT LARGE was one of the headlines, under a photograph of you taken at your debs dance. SIX WEEKS AND NO SIGN OF ‘SYRINGE MAN’. What had happened seemed to capture people’s imagination. There were editorials, angry columns, protests from women’s groups, calls for action from the Rape Crisis Centre and the trade unions, statements from the Council for Civil Liberties, speeches in the Dáil. A delegation of women TDs and senators demanded an urgent meeting with the Minister for Justice. The detective in charge was transferred to another unit. Callers rang up late-night radio shows to tell the presenters how they felt about what had happened to that poor girl, how they simply could not understand how one of the animals who had done it had been let escape. As the date for the new trial approached they actually had problems down at the hospital because so many reporters turned up asking questions about you. The staff had to call in the guards more than once. When you were taken up to Belfast for the operation a whole fleet of cars followed, the reporters sticking their cameras and microphones out the windows and shouting at us to look at them; the same story when we brought you back down, except this time there was even a helicopter above us, hired by one of the English television companies. Back in Dublin they had to hire security guards at the hospital and post them round the clock on the door of the intensive care ward. I got letters of sympathy from people all over the country and a few from abroad. I even got a note from President Robinson.

  Late one night just before the hearing was due to start again, a reporter from one of the English tabloids called out to the house – he came right up the drive to the front door and banged on it – and asked if I had any photographs of you as a child which I could give him or sell him. He told me that he would be willing to pay very good money for a nice picture of you in a ballet tutu or on a horse, something like that. You with Father Christmas, maybe, what with the festive season coming up. His editor, he grinningly explained, would cream his jeans for a picture of you with Father Christmas. I looked at him and smiled. Then I opened my mouth and screamed at him. Just screamed, no words or anything, just let out a nice loud blood-curdling screech. You’d want to have seen him cantering down the driveway.

  The trial was resumed in the first week of December. On the first morning Seánie picked me up at the house and we drove in to the Four Courts together. All the way in he tried to make conversation about other subjects, how Lizzie was doing, how long now before she and Franklin would return to Australia, the friends they were staying with down in Wicklow, different bits and pieces of news on the car radio, various plans he had for the holiday. After a while I asked him to switch the radio off. I was afraid that there would be something about the case on Morning Ireland: if there was, I did not want to hear it. We drove on through the rush hour. Before long Seánie stopped talking, I suppose he had run out of things to say.

  The streets and shop windows were full of Christmas lights. There was a clown on Baggot Street Bridge handing out cans of Coca-Cola to people stuck in the traffic. At the side gate of Trinity College a choir was singing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’.

  The huge circular hall of the Four Courts was full of people. When we came through the front doors a murmur went around and everyone turned to look at us. Silence came down. I remember flashbulbs going off. I looked up at the dome; there were golden stars on it, beautiful perfect stars. A reporter came over and asked me how I felt on this difficult occasion.

  ‘Did you think that bloody question up by yourself, pal?’ Seánie snapped, and the guy opened and closed his beak a few times – I suppose he must have been surprised that a priest would talk like that. The reporter swallowed and blushed and said he was only trying to do his job. Seánie told him to fuck off and do it somewhere else unless he wanted to wake up with a crowd around him.

  I was surprised by how humane the guards were. I’d had plenty of dealings with guards in my drinking years and never liked them much. But that morning they were decent enough, I have to admit. They took us down to the basement of the Four Courts where there is a dreary little coffee shop the colour of a cancerous lung. There were soldiers at some of the tables. A couple of paper streamers had been strung along the ceiling and there was a nylon Christmas tree beside the cash register. I did not want to eat anything, but one of the guards, a kindly older man whose bent nose gave him the look of a retired prizefighter, kept telling me I should have a sandwich and a cup of tea, because it was going to be a long day.

  Before too long the new detective in charge of the case came in. He was a tall, chain-smoking, heavy-looking Dublin man who didn’t say too much. He had on a neatly pressed dark civilian suit, shiny black patent-leather shoes which seemed strange on his massive feet. He sat down at the table, nodded a gruff hello and lit a cigarette. There were one or two small last-minute details he wanted. He wrote down my answers in a thick notebook with yellow pages, sometimes letting ash fall on to the page and brushing it away with the back of his enormous hand. His eyes moved a lot, I noticed. Even though his head and his large body did not move too much, his eyes would flicker around and seem to take in everything.

  A good salesman learns to read people’s eyes.

  After a while he ran out of cigarettes and I offered him one of mine. He peered at it with a seemingly suspicious expression that might have made me laugh had the circumstance been different, before finally reaching out to accept it.

  ‘Fierce, the old coffin nails,’ he said, taking a light from Seánie.

  He took a deep drag. ‘The wife’s never done at me about jackin’ them in. Has the ear fairly worn off me, she does. Even got me to do the hypnosis there last year. But it didn’t work.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It wouldn’t work for me either.’

  He nodded. ‘Waste of time and money. But the women are never done talkin’, are they?’

  ‘That’s true enough,’ I said, wishing he’d just shut up and get back to his writing.

  Which he did. He wrote for another ten minutes or so, ignoring the noise around us. I remember feeling very tired. I would have loved to run out of the place and home, back to my
warm bed. Hopper and Liam turned up from the office, which was good of them, I must say. They sat down with us and had coffee. Hopper started talking too much, which is a thing he does when he’s nervous, but I noticed that the detective was not looking at him. He was staring at the doorway now, with a scowl on his face. ‘Shay,’ he said curtly to one of his men. I turned around to look at the door. A photographer was skulking there, trying to take pictures of us with one of those long lenses. ‘Listen,’ the detective hissed at the guard, ‘go and tell that fuckin’ rubberneck to make tracks, will you, Shay, before I have to go over there and break his face for him.’ The young guard leapt up and went to the photographer and threw him out.

  The detective looked at me. ‘Don’t worry about that waste of space,’ he said. ‘If he comes nosin’ around here again he’ll be carryin’ his balls home in a plastic bag.’

  He went back to his papers then, scribbling facts, checking forms and notebooks.

  A bell rang loudly on the coffee shop wall. The detective’s face darkened. ‘I suppose that’s starter’s orders,’ he said. ‘Are you right so?’

  We all went up to the courtroom: Seánie, myself, the lads from work, the detective and the guards. Lizzie and Franklin were in there already when we arrived. Dominic was standing down at the back with his parents and some of your college pals. The detective wanted to know who he was. I told him he was your boyfriend from university. For some reason he wrote his name down in a notebook.

  The press gallery was packed, some of the journalists were standing. The public benches were also completely full, except for a row of seats up near the front, on which someone had left pieces of paper with the word ‘Reserved’ scribbled on them. These were meant for us.

  We made our way up to the seats and sat down. The room was stiflingly hot, it smelt of sweat and wet dirty hair. The tipstaff came in, followed by the judge. There was a bit of bowing and scraping and then the three accused were led up the steps from the cells beneath the court. All four names were read out: Mathew Kelly of Plunkett Avenue, Dublin 1, Gerard Paul Davis of Mangan Terrace, Dublin 1, Eamon John Malone of no fixed abode, and Donal Michael Quinn of Michael Collins Buildings, Dublin 1.

  A young policeman went up to the witness box and took the oath. He had a quiet and nervous voice, he sounded as though he might have had a sore throat. His hand seemed to be shaking a little when he raised it and promised that he would tell the truth.

  The prosecution counsel asked him if he had been on duty on the night of an armed attack on a petrol station at Stillorgan Avenue. He licked his lips and said yes, he had, then he asked the judge if it would be in order for him to consult his notes. The judge nodded.

  The guard took out a notebook, flicked through it for a moment and began to read.

  ‘My Lord, Garda Con Healy and myself were on mobile patrol duty from Donnybrook station on the night of 19 August 1993, when we were called by radio to an incident at the Quasar Petrol Station at Stillorgan Avenue. This would have been just after midnight. When we arrived at that premises there was evidence of an attempted robbery in the shop area on the forecourt. A young woman had been violently attacked and was almost unconscious. The assistant manager, a Mr Seamus Lyons, was present and identified her as a Miss Maeve Sweeney of Glen Bolcain, Dalkey, County Dublin, an employee of his. He added that another of his part-time student employees, a Miss Sinead Dwyer, had seen a group of four youths hanging around on the forecourt in a suspicious manner on previous evenings.’

  ‘I object, my Lord,’ said one of the defence lawyers.

  The judge took off his glasses and peered down at him.

  ‘Yes, Mr Brennock?’ he sighed.

  ‘My Lord, that’s hearsay. The guard can only say what he himself found.’

  ‘Garda?’ said the judge.

  ‘I don’t understand, my Lord.’

  ‘You must only give your own evidence.’

  The policeman gaped around. ‘Who else’s evidence was I giving?’, he said anxiously.

  There was loud laughter in the press gallery.

  ‘Yes,’ the judge said, ‘thank you, ladies and gentlemen, I’m gratified that you’re all so amused. When you’ve finished in the playground you might try to remember that this is certainly no occasion for levity. And that the guard is doing his best for us after all.’

  The judge turned to the policeman. ‘Now, guard, disregard what you were or weren’t told and tell us only what you saw yourself. Was the injured party, Miss Sweeney, actually unconscious or not, for example? Would she have been capable of speech?’

  ‘Well yes, judge, but she was in a very bad way and severely injured.’ He raised his hand to his face. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘There was an awful lot of blood. She would have been in great pain, my Lord. There seemed to be deep wounds to the head and the upper chest and arms. The top she had on and the skirt were nearly torn off her. Her tights had been pulled down around her thighs.’

  ‘Right, Go on, then, guard.’

  He looked into his notebook again. ‘Well, there was evidence of a violent struggle and an attempted robbery. The cash register was lying on the floor and attempts had evidently been made to smash it open. Con – that’s Garda Healy, my Lord – immediately requested backup from the station. Two squad cars and an ambulance arrived shortly afterwards. In the intervening time I conducted a preliminary search of the crime scene. Underneath a retail display unit in the shop I found a hypodermic syringe full of blood. Garda Healy told me that this would be infected blood and would have been used by the criminals as a weapon. He said criminals with Aids were in the habit …’

  ‘I object to that’ shouted another solicitor.

  The judge put his hands to his face. More snuffles and giggles came from the press benches.

  ‘Well, my Lord, with respect, neither Garda Howard nor Garda Healy could possibly have personal knowledge of whether or not the blood in the syringe was infected. Nor even whether it was real blood or tomato juice. And they certainly couldn’t know who brought it into the shop. It’s hearsay again. I’m sure as a public servant the guard would have a good knowledge of the Irish language and would know the old expression ‘Dúirt bean liom go dúirt bean leí – a woman said to me that a woman said to her, et cetera.’

  The judge sighed. ‘All right, yes. But you know, really Mr Lynch, if we’re going to have all these objections we could be here until kingdom come.’

  ‘Yes, my Lord. Thank you. But I’m only thinking of my client’s rights, after all. My client’s rights are extremely important.’

  It was at that point that I got up and left the court.

  Chapter Four

  Around the time that the trial began again, I got into the habit of driving around late in the evenings. This was something I had begun to do in the period immediately following that dreadful night at the garage. In those first weeks and months of your absence from the house I would often discover myself lying awake at three or four in the morning, still half-waiting for you to come in from some party or nightclub, half-expecting to hear your voice and Dominic’s downstairs in the kitchen. I found the new silence disturbing and strange, it seemed to wrap itself around the house like a blanket. I would get up in the dead of night and make a sandwich or a pot of tea. Sometimes I would watch part of an old film on ITV or some terrible gameshow. I joined a video club in Dun Laoghaire which was open twenty-four hours, and sometimes I would drive down there and wander up and down the racks in the blueish light, with little enough idea of what I was doing or what exactly I was looking for. The girl who worked there must have thought I was insane. She was a student in UCD, she told me one night, doing an MA in ancient Irish history. Her name was Gráinne, her parents had named her after the legend of Diarmuid and Gráinne. I wondered what Cuchulain or Ferdia or any of those muscle-bound lads would have thought, if they could have seen us talking about them, there in the video store at three in the morning, the two of us sipping bitter black coffee out of styrofoam cups, while The Silence
of the Lambs played on the multi-screen behind the counter, Hannibal Lecter snarling into his hockey mask.

  There were times back then when I would drive around all night long. I found that I was gravitating back to the places we had gone, Grace and I together, when you and Lizzie were children and our lives had some kind of order and shape. I am thinking of Brittas Bay, Arklow and Enniskerry, the usual places to which Dubliners go, say, on a Sunday afternoon or a warm bank holiday, all in a convoy of a hundred thousand cars. But on those bitter autumn nights I would almost always be alone on the roads. I would often drive down to Glendalough, where I would park the car and look at the lake for a long time, and the bare trees and the round tower, so black and slim against the sky, which always seemed bright even on the moonless nights.

  As the trial started up for the second time, I found that I began to be attracted back to these places late at night. Sleep was out of the question. I would get up, climb into the car and simply drive. One night I drove up through the quiet and lonely roads to the Sally Gap, where I knew I could get the BBC World Service clearly because of the altitude. I remember sitting in the car, smoking, listening to the radio with its news of wars and revolutions, earthquakes and volcanoes, all in these exotic far-away places. I remember too that I thought that night about what had happened to you, and then about the terrible events that were taking place around the world, and that I tried to see if I could in some way connect these things. That seemed important, I did not know why then, and still do not now. I must have fallen asleep, because I remember that just before dawn a young policewoman on a motorbike woke me by shining her flashlight into the car. She looked very frightened. I think she thought I must be dead.

  I got out of the car feeling confused. She seemed relieved and offered me a cigarette. And then we simply talked for a while, as the sun came up red over the Sally Gap. She said that I looked like a person who had troubles. I told her that I was and explained about the trial. She knew about it, of course, and tried to be sympathetic as she encouraged me to go home and rest. There was not a lot more she could say.