The Murk Beneath

by L. D. Cunningham

  I remembered there was a film called Starman starring Jeff Bridges, but I didn’t know if it had been released before 1986 when my father’s body was found. And didn't Bowie sing about a “Starman”? That was much older than the film.

  I had to slow myself down – too many thoughts were racing around in my tired brain. All these years later and there had been a clue lying there in my mother's attic, tantalizingly out of sight. One other thought hit me just then, one that made my hands tremble. Dad had put the note in the book, probably to mark the page, just before he went off to meet his killer. I tried to remember if I had seen my father reading that day or the night before, but nothing came to me.

  I held the book in my hand and flicked through the rest of the pages. Nothing else dropped out. I held the book to my chest. It was a connection to Dad and for the first time since his death I could actually feel the connection to him. He’d read the same words, thumbed the same pages, very shortly before his death. It was the closest thing I had left to a touch of his hand.

  It was too much to take in so suddenly. My hands continued to tremble and my breathing erupted into something approaching an asthma attack. A flood of tears came. Not long afterwards, I slept a deep, dreamless sleep.

  4

  The Sum Total of Nothings

  I figured the best place to start the surveillance operation on O’Brien would be to stake out the distribution centre. I sat in my car, an old Fiat Uno with a nicotine-stained dashboard, and which had seen nearly as many miles as Apollo 11. It was a wet week, even for October. Chilly too. The damp made my ankles swell, so I'd not be leaving the car if I could help it.

  I was parked up near the post office in Churchfield with a good view of Druid Distribution. I left the engine running so that the battery wouldn't go dead as I listened to my Leftfield CD. I also kept the heater blowing to demist a windscreen that seemed to catch every cloudy gasp of my breath. I had O'Brien's car – a puke-coloured seven-series – in sight.

  I’d done some surveillance for the Guards. The advantage of that, though, was that you worked in shifts and in pairs. Usually an eight hour shift, occasionally a double. But you got some sleep, time to rest the eyes. And when you needed to go for a piss, your partner covered for you.

  It would be pot luck, I decided. I would cap my observations at twelve hours a day, less if I had something on, like my mother's birthday, which was coming up in a few days’ time. I would take breaks whenever I wanted. I didn't fancy pissing into Coke bottles or squatting behind bushes with cows gawking at my arse. If I missed something, well that was all well and good. The pay was grand, that was for sure, but I didn't even know which side I was working for. Never mind your good and evil shite, maybe one was as crooked as the other – two rotten eggs, Jordan and O'Brien.

  I didn't have a sense of what Martin O'Brien was about. Did he think like a criminal, or was he an amateur, even an innocent? Would he suspect he was being watched, or go about his business oblivious to the set of eyes that would be trained on his every move, assessing him, judging him, waiting for a slip? Did he have a heightened sense of awareness that would lead him to question every car that stayed in his rear-view mirror for longer than ten minutes?

  I thought about one time, about a year after I'd been made detective, when I had worked on a task force whose purpose was to take down a small drug gang. For close to four months we had been all over the boss. We took photos of him shovelling chips into his gob, pissing in doorways after the pub, scratching his arse, but nothing to tie him to anything even remotely illegal. In the end, it was half a day’s testimony in court by a snitch that brought him down.

  The gist of the whole thing, as I saw it, was that if the mark was careful enough, even paranoid enough, you would get nothing but a whole heap of frustration and piles. That was the nub of it, though – you were glued to that fecking car seat, your finger on the camera button, itching, twitching for some action to snap.

  I had been taught that it was the accumulation of it all – the routine, the meaningless things, the sum total of nothings which added up to something. I knew I might be in it for the long haul, so it was the routine I was going to begin with. That was the baseline. And it was only when you established the baseline that you began to see the deviations. These were the things to question, to follow up separately.

  I wondered if O'Brien would leave to pick up the kids from school. He had two of them according to the background file Jordan gave me: Liam, aged five, and Monica, aged seven. Would he grab a six pack of beer on the way home? Maybe pick up a whore for some quick head? I would follow him when he left work, take note of everything he did between then and when he got home. If he drove straight home, then that was fine; I would wait for long enough and assume he was in for the night, or O'Brien would leave and the tail would begin again.

  I waited, ready to roll when O'Brien did. Being in the car had its compensations compared to when I used to pace around the lot not a hundred yards away, the cold wind chapping my already weather-beaten skin. But sitting in the one spot made me stiff. I regularly flexed my toes to keep the circulation going. That deep vein thrombosis shite could kill, and with the blood pressure I had, even the tiniest clot would probably have stuck in my aorta or a lung, or wherever blood clots get stuck badly enough to kill you.

  I was on edge; not from anything to do with the job – which, after all, was a piece of cake – but from a desire to suck on a ciggy. There was one thing I knew would quell that craving, dampen it so that it was no worse than a hunger pang. That was a swig of the caramel-coloured nectar. And I craved that like nobody's business.

  It took three nights of bum-numbing drudgery before something of note happened. O'Brien left Druid Distribution in his BMW just after seven and drove straight home to his bungalow in Carrignavar, an upmarket area just a couple of miles outside the city limits. O'Brien drove up a freshly-tarmacked drive and I continued past.

  A couple of hundred yards down the road was the entrance to a field where there was enough space in off the road for me to park my Fiat and still have a good view of the entrance to O'Brien's home. I kept the motor running.

  A cow moseyed on over to the rusted gate to the field, seemed to give me the once over. From its expression, I thought it might be a better judge of character than I could ever be. It snorted, dripping mucus from its nostrils, and moseyed on back the way it had come. The judgement, it seemed, wasn’t favourable.

  My plan for the surveillance had been straightforward enough: sit in the car and see what happened, where O'Brien went. As a Guard I would have been given my orders and I would have followed them, because one slip could see everything thrown out of court. But I was my own man now.

  This was a one-time deal, I had decided. I would do this one thing for Jordan. No, scratch that, it was for myself. I had to be very clear on that. O'Brien was somehow implicated in me getting a seeing to up in Churchfield and if that was the case, I would find out why and how. And when I did, well, I wouldn't have to lift a finger. I would give the evidence to Jordan and the rest would take care of itself. All quite naturally. And there’s nothing more natural, in my order of things, than one crook taking out another.

  I had a digital camera with a half-decent optical zoom. Something I bought in Cash Converters for the job. I would photograph O’Brien as he came and went, focus on the registration plates of any visiting motors – all with an embedded time stamp so that I could easily place the photos on the wall chart I would maintain at home.

  It wasn't like what I snapped would see the inside of a courtroom – I hoped not, at any rate. If I needed a close-up, like really close up, then I would just have to get there without the power of a zoom lens. With legwork. Good old-fashioned legwork.

  The Leftfield CD looped back to the beginning for what might have been the fifth or sixth time. That was OK, though. It was that kind of music. It was real music, in my estimation. The fewer words the better. Words are for books. Music is all about the melody, the
lifting of the spirit. I wanted to feel the music somehow resonating with the nerve centres of my brain.

  Rain started to fall. I put the wipers on and turned up the volume. The music soothed me and I settled back into the seat.

  I woke up.

  “Fuck!”

  “Open Up …” came one of the rare lyrics of the Leftfield CD. The wipers screeched on dry glass.

  “Jesus Christ!” I said, my eyes all bleary.

  I was still in a brief post-sleep phase of figuring out if it was dawn or dusk. Dawn. I had slept straight through the night. The engine was still running – that was something, at least. I checked the fuel gauge. Almost empty.

  I had broken the cardinal rule of the tail: lose sight of the target for one moment and you break the chain – the chain that begins with the first moments of your shift and ends with the last. Between the beginning and the end, each blink of your eyes is a link in the chain. Close your eyes for long enough and you break the chain. And when you do, you might as well call it a day.

  I engaged first gear and crept towards the entrance to the O'Brien residence. No BMW.

  “Fucking Christ Jesus!”

  And this is where I not only second guessed, but third guessed myself. Had O'Brien left in the BMW? Had his wife taken it? There was also the question of when the BMW had left. Everything up to this point was for nought. I didn't even know when I had fallen asleep!

  And then O'Brien came out of the front door to fetch the morning paper.

  He was wearing a white woolly dressing gown and I could see his hair was wet. What also caught my attention was the pair of shiny legs that glistened like they might have been oiled. I sighed with relief. True enough, I had a blank timeline between when I fell asleep – whenever that was – and now. And I didn't know if O'Brien had gone out or if anyone had visited. But I could begin to trace that line again.

  I did a U-turn and parked back at the field again. Next time I would bring something with caffeine in it to help stay awake.

  The long shadows shortened as the sun lifted itself above a mound at the end of the field. Rising dew steam cast an eerie pall over the countryside. I looked at the petrol gauge again. There couldn't have been more than one-sixteenth of a tank left; enough to just about get me to the nearest petrol station in Blackpool. However, this was an old Fiat and you couldn't trust it to tell you the truth any more than a priest.

  I couldn't just keep the engine running. I thought about calling a halt and driving home with nothing more interesting to document than the sight of O'Brien in a fluffy gown and the useless fact that he probably waxed his legs. But that was the thing about surveillance – what seemed like something insignificant could turn out to be crucial later, so I would document it and at the very least it might give Jordan something to laugh about, maybe provide some entertainment value for the good money he was paying.

  I shifted in my seat and felt a dull ache reverberate from my coccyx. The springs were prodding through the seat cover as whatever sixteen-year-old foam there had been now offered about as much support as internal affairs gets from rank and file Gardaí.

  The decision is simple: get a cushion or get a new car. I breathed deeply and my nostrils, now more acute to smell since giving up the fags, registered the years of absorbed smoke and body odour. It was the smell of my life. It would be like scrapping a piece of my history. I'll just get a cushion.

  A passing bird sent a glob of shite splattering onto the windscreen and I wondered if maybe my luck was beginning to turn. Isn't that what people said? That being shat on by a bird was a sign of good luck?

  I took out the Leftfield CD – enough was enough after a dozen plays of it, good and all as it was. I had picked up a CD at a car boot sale in Kilcully that had a blurb describing it as space music, which I had to confess I knew nothing about. But where was the risk in spending two Euro? Or maybe there was a reason it was two Euro and at the bottom of a bin.

  The player swallowed the disc and nothing happened. At least, that was how it seemed for about two minutes until I realized that it was actually playing something that sounded like an old geezer wheezing through a pillow. Five minutes later and it sounded the same, so I put the Leftfield CD back in. I made a mental note to get more chillout CDs.

  A number of cars passed. Mostly expensive models – the kind that execs drive. I saw one approach in the rear-view mirror. An Avensis, maybe, but I couldn't be sure with the blinding headlamps. It pulled into the gap behind me and my heart stepped up a few beats. I instinctively put my hand over the gear stick and moved my foot to the clutch, ready to make a move.

  Someone got out of the car and I was just about to engage gear when I realized the someone had a uniform – it was a Guard.

  Sneaky fucks in their unmarked car, I thought as a second Guard got out of the passenger side.

  Despite the brightening dawn light, one of them was shining a torch at my car and it momentarily blinded me. I made a safe decision – I would make no move, invite no suspicion.

  One of the Guards came to the window and twirled a finger. It took an age to wind down the window. It tended to wobble from back to front when I did.

  “Morning, Guard,” I said without making eye contact.

  “What's your business around here, sir?” one of the Guards asked in a disinterested midlands voice.

  “Just taking a break. My eyes were getting a bit sleepy.”

  “Where have you come from?”

  “Limerick.”

  “And where are you going?”

  “Gerald Griffin Street.”

  “You took a bit of a detour, didn't you?”

  “I like the scenic route.”

  I could hear the Guard sniffle, but still I did not make eye contact. I could see just about to his shoulders.

  “Up here.”

  “Huh?”

  “I said, look up here, sir. And be quick about it.”

  I obliged and I could see that the Guard was young enough, maybe early thirties. I couldn't make out his rank in the dim light, but he sounded confident, maybe even a right ball breaker. I knew how this worked – the Guard was eyeing me up, making a snap judgement about my state of inebriation. A few months back and there would have been little doubt about it: I would have had a few snifters to keep warm, make the time pass quicker. I was OK now, though.

  The Guard seemed to be searching for more than just the wandering eyes of a drunk. There was the glint of recognition there and I wondered if I'd been rumbled.

  “Do I know you from somewhere?” the Guard said. “You look awful familiar.”

  “I was on Winning Streak a few weeks ago. Do you watch it?”

  One thing anybody could say about me – those who’ve known me long enough – is that I’m quick on the draw. The gap between the question and the lie, even utter bullshit, is almost imperceptible.

  “Now and again. On Winning Streak, eh? Maybe that's it.”

  The other Guard, a stocky woman with peering Clint Eastwood eyes, had spent her time pacing around the car, looking at the state of my lights and tyres, peeking in at the back seat for anything noteworthy. I didn't let it get to me; at least, I didn't let it show on my face. But I could feel my veins turning to wire.

  The Guard on my side of the car scratched at something on his cheek. “Did you win much?”

  I extended my arm out the window and patted the side of the door.

  “Well, I didn't win a new fecking car, did I?” I said with an intentionally gormless grin.

  Like I said, quick on the draw.

  The Guard almost let a smile cross his face, but restricted it to a crease.

  “Ah well, make sure you go for a decent holiday, anyway.”

  “Will do, Guard. I hear Iceland’s nice this time of year.”

  He seemed to ponder that bit of touristic advice for a moment.

  “I’d say it would be. Not too cold, not too dark. All right then. Be on your way. I wouldn't be hanging around here.”


  The Guard waved at his colleague and they went back to their car. They waited a few moments, perhaps recording the registration. They hadn't asked for my licence, so I doubted there would be any follow up. It was more suspicion than I needed, though, and there would be no second chances. I’d need to go into full covert mode, not be hanging around in plain sight.

  The Avensis pulled out and continued on towards Blackpool. I leaned back into the seat, stretched my arms over my head, and yawned. I would have to stick to the rules from there on. If I blew my cover, everything would be for nought and that would undoubtedly piss off Jordan. And I didn't quite know where I stood with Jordan.

  I was about to drive off when an SUV approached from in front of me, then pulled into O'Brien's gaff. The windows were tinted and not even the silhouette of a driver or passenger could be discerned. I grabbed for the camera and hit the power button. It beeped a farty little beep and took a couple of seconds to boot up, or get its arse in gear, whichever is the more appropriate technical term. It took too long. The car was gone and I couldn't make out the reg. Fecking new technology. My last camera, a good old-fashioned 35 mil, would have been ready for action – a bit like an old pro. Press the button, click, job done, reg in the bag. Now I had shag all.

  I thought about the next course of action. The Guards had asked me to skedaddle and there was every chance that they might double back, especially if they harboured even the slightest doubt. Or, perhaps more likely, were on the payroll of none other than my target.

  My head told me to get the hell out of there, life being too short and all that, but my gut was telling me that after three fruitless days this was not an opportunity to duck out of. It was that blue blood working its way round my brain. I decided to risk it. Sure, wasn't my gut getting bigger all the time anyway – it was bound to rule my head.