Are You Watching Me

by Sinéad Crowley

  His phone pinged again and Flynn’s grin widened as he read Diarmaid’s riff on the word long. Chancer.

  Then he thought for a moment and texted back.

  Ah, go on, then. Only the one, mind you.

  This time the response was even faster. Flynn read it, coloured and put the phone down on the desk.

  And picked it up again almost immediately. Sure, what the hell.

  X

  Well, Diarmaid had said it first. It seemed only polite to respond. Only the one, mind you.

  Then he turned off the phone and addressed himself to the monitor again.

  *

  Twenty-nine calls. Not bad at all. Most of them would almost certainly be useless, but it was a respectable haul. More than the usual amount, anyway, and they’d come in faster than usual too. A very decent result for a half-hour’s work, and she knew the super agreed. You’d swear, grinned Claire to herself, that he’d put a bit of extra effort into the press conference. Or something.

  ‘Anything leap out at you?’

  ‘A couple are worth chasing. Few loo-lahs in there as well.’

  ‘Ah, sure, that goes without saying.’

  Garda Gerry Whyte was a quiet young fella, but Claire trusted his judgement and she took the sheaves of paper he handed her without further comment. She settled herself at her desk and began to read, dismissing most of the information without a second glance.

  Wrong month. Wrong county. Believed Eugene Cannon to be her ex-husband. Wished Superintendent Quigley could be her current husband.

  Oh, here was one. A man thought he’d sat next to Eugene Cannon on a bus going to Dun Laoghaire the week before he was killed. Claire put that to one side and then marvelled at people who remembered stuff like that. She herself would be pushed to remember what she’d had for dinner two nights ago. Work stuff, fine – that was pretty much always buzzing around in the corner of her brain – but not other stuff. You had to have a bit of a weird streak, she reckoned, to keep your eyes open all the time, to remember random strangers who walked past you, car drivers behaving strangely on the road. Fact of the matter was, it was the people her mother referred to as ‘nosy parkers’ who made the best witnesses. And the guards would be lost without them.

  Stifling a yawn, she continued to flick through the typewritten sheets. One caller had claimed the killings were linked to the ongoing situation in the Middle East. Well, it made a change from the North, Claire supposed. Two people were sure they had seen Eugene Cannon begging in the city centre in the weeks before his death. Claire put those to one side; they had the smell of truth off them, alright. Another caller claimed he’d seen Cannon get into a screaming row with another man in the middle of Supermacs, which would be brilliant if the incident hadn’t happened the day after his body had been found.

  A man had phoned claiming he’d killed Eugene Cannon. With a poisoned dart, apparently. Ah, God love him. Still, he’d have to be phoned back. And referred on to another, more suitable, organisation, probably.

  She blinked and rubbed her eyes. It was all needle-in-haystack stuff, the usual feeling of all of the information being matted, messed up, unclear. But at least it felt like they were doing something. She was knackered, though; she’d been up twice the night before with a snot-nosed Anna, and, after the week he’d had, she hadn’t had the heart to wake Matt when it came to his turn. Reminded of their last row, she took a quick look at her phone: turned on and fully charged. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again. Poor Anna, though. Red-eyed and wet-nosed that morning, her daughter was clearly in the early stages of another bloody cold and had grizzled miserably when handed over to her ever-cheery minder. It would have been nice to have kept her home, thrown a duvet over the two of them, watched some daytime TV. But there wasn’t a hope of that happening today.

  As if it felt her scrutiny, her phone buzzed. Oh, please, no – but it wasn’t the crèche number, just a text from Dean Evans, that young fella from Ireland 24.

  Any update on Mannion/Cannon? Tnx. D.

  Claire deleted it without answering. Dean Evans was becoming a bit of a pest, actually. There was a time he’d been good about not calling her, not using her personal number unless he really needed it. But now he was texting most days, and ringing as well, looking for an update, a heads-up or God knows what else. Fair enough, he was a friend of Liz Cafferky’s, probably worried about her as well as trying to get a jump on the story, but that didn’t give him any right to expect information before anyone else. And it had been cheeky of him, putting Eugene Cannon’s name out there before they’d officially released it. Not a huge deal, not something she’d bother complaining about. But she’d noted it, and would hold off on the helpful hints for the time being.

  Garda Whyte put another couple of pages on her table. More calls. A woman wanting to know if Tom Carthy was single. What were they, a dating agency? A man saying he had information but would only talk to Liz Cafferky, in person. Well, he could whistle for that. Jesus, did people have nothing better to do with their time? Claire rubbed her eyes again. She’d give her right arm for a coffee – not machine muck, but a proper hot vanilla latte or, better still, a white chocolate mocha, a large one. And a copy of the new Vogue. Ah, focus, Boyle.

  A woman had phoned to say she thought her teenage daughter was dating Eugene Cannon, and could the guards do anything about it? She seemed to have missed the part of the story about him being dead. A man had complained that his car had been broken into six times and didn’t the cops have anything better to do than looking after old men who had one foot in the grave? Ouch. Claire slapped that one down on the ‘ignore’ pile and scowled at it. People were lovely, just adorable, sometimes. And in this job you got a full insight into human nature.

  God, even a cup of tea would do her at this stage. And a biscuit. A custard cream. Any method of getting sugar into her bloodstream. She lifted another piece of paper. Five more minutes and she’d be done for the evening. And then she read the details and all thoughts of a break disappeared. A call from a woman, claiming she had seen a man who answered to Cannon’s description coming out of Tír na nÓg the afternoon before he died. OK, that was fair enough. They knew he’d visited the centre that day, but it was nice to have it confirmed. Hang on a minute, though. He’d been involved in an altercation with a much younger man, Garda Whyte had written in small, careful handwriting. Now, that was far more interesting.

  *

  After five hours of snuffling dogs and shuffling elderly men, even Flynn’s enthusiasm was beginning to fade. He could have written a thesis on the front door of Tír na nÓg, he decided, described at length the precise part of the hedge the local cats used as a public toilet, and given a good guess as to the number of cracks in the path leading up to the front door. But he had seen nothing so far that seemed in any way connected with the death of Eugene Cannon or James Mannion. In fact, the only person he’d recognised had been Tom Carthy, who’d left the centre at around three and returned half an hour later clutching a plastic bag from a convenience store. Flynn used his superpowers of observation, and the zoom function, to deduce that Tom liked his milk low in fat. God, he was bored.

  He yawned. Five more minutes and then he’d call it a day. He’d have to freshen up a bit, anyway, or he’d never get his head together for the pint-not-date with Diarmaid later. X indeed. He yawned again and looked closer at the screen. There was Tom, putting something in a wheelie bin. He still couldn’t figure that chap out. What was he doing there? Clearly an intelligent man, a teacher – a fine-looking man too, in fairness to him. So why in God’s name was he spending his days surrounded by oul fellas? Spending his inheritance on them, too, according to himself. Flynn rolled the tape on. He watched Tom return to the building. Watched a bird land on the path. Watched the bird shit on the path. Watched a man walk up the path. He paused the tape. OK, this might be something. He hadn’t seen this dude before, anyway. The picture wasn’t great, but you could tell, even from this distance, that he was signifi
cantly younger than the usual Tír na nÓg client. What was he doing? Delivering something? No, he was moving far too slowly for that. In fact, you’d almost swear he was reluctant to be there at all.

  Philip Flynn watched as the man raised his hand, lowered it, and then repeated this action twice before finally knocking on the door. It opened. And the man on the path stepped back at just the right moment to allow Flynn to see Eugene Cannon on the other side.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  They found him on the number forty bus. Sometimes it really was that simple. Flynn wasn’t one of those guards who was sniffy about technology; after everything that happened in the Miriam Twohy case, he knew he couldn’t afford to be. He’d signed up for all the courses, took his passwords seriously, even got himself an anonymous Twitter account so he and his little egg could listen into online conversations. Philip Flynn knew his way around the web, alright. But sometimes, even in these days of I.P. addresses and mobile-phone triangulation, the deep web and Europol, sometimes it was still all about the basics, and the legwork. You were told a fella got on a bus, and you found the bus, and you found the fella.

  As soon as he’d realised the importance of what he was looking at, he’d shouted for Boyle, and the two of them had gone through the CCTV footage together. Within minutes they were sure that, yes, it had been Eugene Cannon who had answered the door to the man in the dark trousers and, yes, he had followed him down the path and exchanged what looked like heated words with him too.

  But the camera’s range only extended as far as the front gate, and that’s where Boyle’s caller came in – a woman who claimed to have witnessed a row between the two men, or men who looked very like them. She hadn’t wanted to tell them a thing; that much had been obvious as soon as she had opened the door.

  ‘My ma saw a bit about it on the news, said I should ring you.’

  She was probably around the same age as Boyle, Flynn thought, but looked older – well, harder, anyway. A small, wiry person, she was dressed in a white vest top and tight-fitting stonewashed jeans and, as she sucked deeply on her cigarette, the veins stood out on her pale, muscular arms.

  ‘She said that, on the telly, it said that anyone with information should contact you? But, actually, I’ve changed my mind; I don’t want to get involved.’

  She was nervous, Flynn realised, as she squinted at them through the smoke. Probably had good reason to be. It’d be nothing major – the lack of a television licence, maybe, or a kid who’d missed too many days off school – but he knew the type: people who didn’t want to go dragging the law in on top of themselves. People who didn’t see the Guardians of the Peace as their friends.

  Fact of the matter was, though, neither he nor Boyle gave a bollix if every stick of furniture in her place had fallen off the back of a lorry. They needed to hear what Amy Leahy had to say. Her home, just around the corner from Tír na nÓg, was spotless, apart from the stench of cigarette smoke that clung to the heavy velvet curtains, the sofa and even to the hair of the large Alsatian who wandered freely from room to room. As Flynn watched her, Miss Leahy patted the dog’s head absently and took another drag from her cigarette.

  ‘I mean, I’m not really sure it’s important at all, so . . .’ Flynn took another look around the room, trying and failing to come up with some way of convincing her to tell them her story. But that’s when Boyle jumped in, although jump, in this context, was totally the wrong word. Her voice was gentle, almost diffident, betraying none of the urgency Flynn knew she was feeling. Instead, she sounded almost uninterested as she settled herself back into the armchair.

  ‘It’s tough, isn’t it? Trying to remember what you did a few days ago. Jesus, I’m not sure what I had for breakfast this morning, never mind what I did yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Yeah.’ The woman’s eyes narrowed, but there didn’t seem to be any double meaning in the detective’s comment. ‘That’s what I told me ma. I mean, yeah, I told her Thursday night I seen two fellas arguing outside that centre, teer na nog, or whatever you call it . . .’

  She pronounced the name as in ‘eggnog’ and it took Flynn a moment to realise what she was talking about.

  ‘But I’m just not sure if I can be of any use to you at all.’

  You’re our only witness, so start remembering, is what Flynn knew Boyle wanted to say. But the detective simply leaned over and scratched the dog behind his ears. Her attitude towards this witness was one hundred and eighty degrees different from the one she’d adopted with Liz Cafferky, and it was fascinating for him to watch the gear change. Fascinating, and a reminder of how lucky he was to be able to learn from her. Not that he’d ever tell her that, of course.

  Boyle nodded again.

  ‘I know, I know. And, sure, it mightn’t mean anything, anyway. But, look, the boss likes us to follow up on every call.’

  She rolled her eyes and the woman smiled, for the first time.

  ‘Ah, yeah, I know what you mean. I work for a fella like that meself! Feckin’ eejit.’

  She gave a sudden cackle and Boyle grinned at her.

  ‘Ah, they’re all the same. So, look, maybe you could give me a dig-out, yeah? Have a think about that evening, whatever you saw. Anything you can remember.’

  The woman lit another cigarette from the butt of the last while Boyle kept talking in the same mild, measured tone.

  ‘And don’t worry about details or anything – anything you’re unsure about – just tell us whatever you remember; we’ll do the rest. You were coming home from work, I think you said on the phone?’

  ‘Yeah. OK. Well, I always come that way on a Thursday. Usually, I get the bus all the way down here, but Thursdays I do stop off at Tesco to get a few bits.’

  ‘So you had a few bags with you?’

  The woman’s face brightened. ‘Yeah, well, that’s why I remembered it. It was just starting to rain and I was walking along with me bags and, next thing, he comes barrelling out the gate and straight into me. Sent me flying and me bags went everywhere. Me milk just exploded and he stepped into me yoghurt – two cartons of it, the big ones. Went bleedin’ everywhere. And then the other fella ran through it too.’

  ‘The other fella?’

  Flynn couldn’t keep quiet any longer. ‘At what stage—?’

  A sideways glower from Claire and he fell silent again.

  ‘Well, he was coming after him, wasn’t he? Chasin’ him out the gate, like. I was kneeling down, at this stage, trying to grab me stuff, and then the big fella grabs the smaller fella and says . . . Hang on, now, till I see what he said . . .’

  She took another drag from the cigarette before continuing.

  ‘“Did he send you after me?” Something like that, anyway. The smaller fella is kind of half crying and he says, “No, no, I don’t know what you mean,” and the bigger guy says, “Was it the brother that sent you? Because I swear to fuck—”’

  Unsure how they’d take the expletive, she darted a quick look at the guards, but both nodded at her impatiently to continue.

  ‘He was a country fella, by the sounds of it, the big chap. He was ranting and raving and saying something about his brother and how, I don’t know, something like he’d come up here to get away from him? And the little fella was shittin’ it.’

  The dog came over again, startled by the rise in her voice, and whined, softly.

  ‘And the little fella says, “It’s not you! It’s Elizabeth. I just need to see Elizabeth.” Something like that, anyway, I was gathering up me stuff and trying to get away from them, to be honest.’

  Claire’s tone was so light, so delicate, she might have been asking for a drop of milk in her tea, but Flynn could hear the tension, taut as a violin string, that overlaid it: ‘And do you remember what he looked like? The smaller man – the little fella? You said he banged into you – did you get a good look at him at all?’

  ‘Black hair.’

  The woman released a long stream of smoke and stared through it, as if she could se
e him in the haze.

  ‘Kind of sweaty, if that makes sense? Really stressed-looking. About me own age, I suppose. Black slacks on him and shoes – he looked like a bar man or something. Like he was wearing a uniform. Old-fashioned clothes. And he looked like he was going to burst into tears.’

  ‘That’s brilliant, absolutely brilliant.’ Boyle’s voice was so soothing, she might have been reading a bedtime story. ‘And did he run off then or—?’

  ‘Yeah, he kept going down the road . . .’

  The woman’s voice trailed off, then she blinked suddenly and looked from one to the other, with surprise.

  ‘He got on the bus! Jesus, I’m only after remembering that now. He got on the bus at the end of the road. I remember, now, looking after him and thinking, You’re better off, son, not to have this fella after you. Yeah. He got on a bus. The other fella headed back into the house. That was it, then; I headed off to me ma’s.’

  The dog whined softly.

  ‘Didn’t even ask me was I OK, the big guy. Just turned around and headed back into the teernanogg place. Some of them country fuckers have no manners.’