A Man With One of Those Faces (The Dublin Trilogy Book 1)

by Caimh McDonnell

  She breathed out, rolled her head around her neck and jiggled her arms, as if she was loosening herself up for a run at the long jump.

  “OK… right,” he said. “Where was I?”

  ”Giving me a tongue lashing.”

  She collapsed into the chair behind her, burying her head in the mattress near his feet, as spasms of body-shakingingly uncontrollable laughter overcame her.

  “Do not…”

  Damn her! Despite himself, Paul started laughing too. She looked up at him and, when their eyes met, the laughter redoubled. All the tension of the situation released itself into a wave of hysterics that would make no sense to anyone who wasn’t caught in its undertow. Brigit was so far gone, she was clutching at her chest, unable to breathe.

  The curtain at the bottom of the bed was pulled back and the head of Dr Sinha popped in. He was wearing that unsure smile of people everywhere when joining the hilarity of others, too late to understand where it came from.

  “Is everything OK, Mr Mulchrone?” he asked.

  “Yes, thank you, doctor.” Paul spoke through his laughter. “This is Nurse Conroy… she’s the one responsible for getting me stabbed.”

  Brigit, unable to speak, waved cheerfully at him from her seat.

  The doctor looked between the two, bewildered by the collective frenzy.

  “OK… well. I’m glad you are feeling better about things,” he said. “But if you could keep it down please. You’re disturbing the other patients.”

  Paul tried to raise his hands in apology. The stab of pain from his right shoulder helped slow the tide of laughter to a trickle.

  Brigit, for her part, was now pushing the heels of her hands into her eyes – the laughter having subsided to giddy jumping breathes.

  “Great, thank you,” Dr Sinha said and, with a slight shake of the head, he departed, pulling the curtain closed behind him.

  Paul’s eyes met Brigit’s across the calm air that now stretched between them.

  “I really am sorry,” she said.

  “For which bit?”

  “All of it.” She hesitated. “Especially the stabbing bit.”

  “Excellent. Well, I fully intend to come up with several different ways for you to make it up to me. You can start by delivering on that lift home you promised.”

  Chapter Five

  Paul clenched his eyes shut and prayed. He’d never been a religious man but circumstance can make believers of us all.

  He was dimly aware that Brigit was talking him through what’d happened at the hospice, between his less-than-fond farewell with Mr Brown and her rocking up at his bedside. Apparently, a patient having a coronary in the midst of an attempted homicide results in a real paperwork tsunami. Paul couldn’t concentrate on that though, as he was too focused on his own life. Specifically, how the driving abilities of Nurse Conroy were all but certain to bring it to an untimely end.

  “And then Dobson, the old battleaxe…” she said.

  A car horn squealed in protest behind them.

  “Feck sake!” she exclaimed. “Drivers in Dublin are always honking.”

  He couldn’t contain himself any longer. “No, they’re not,” he said. “Not unless you’re driving like a maniac!”

  She turned and gave him a look of outrage. “He came out of nowhere!”

  “He’d the right of way!” Paul pointed furiously with his left hand, the one not trapped in a sling. “You see the lights, right? The ones that are green and red, especially the red ones: they’re important. You do have them where you come from?”

  “It was orange!” she protested, whilst glaring at him. “And FYI – I learned to drive in Dublin, smartarse.”

  Another horn blared.

  “That wasn’t even meant for me.”

  “Course not,” he said, “but let’s just stay on the left-hand side of the road anyway.”

  All he’d done was throw fuel on the fires of outrage that Nurse Conroy seemed to have permanently simmering away. “This – is the typical male chauvinistic attitude about women drivers. That’s so typical…”

  “No it isn’t!” he interrupted. “There are many many fine women drivers in the world but none of them… are in this car.”

  It was the kind of dull dreary Friday morning that Dublin did so well. The sky was the colour of wet newspaper, and it seemed to be bleeding into the day, making everything look like a bad photocopy of itself. Every passing face had that stoic commuter’s grimace; marching ever forward, towards the promised land of the weekend. It was raining, the kind of fine misty rain that meant even if you had an umbrella, you’d reach your destination to discover you were still inexplicably wet. That was assuming, of course, you didn’t get mown down on the way there.

  “And by the way,” said Paul, “there’s also supposed to be a police car behind us – so y’know.”

  Brigit hadn’t been happy about Paul’s insistence on signing himself out of the hospital, but nowhere near as unhappy as the fresh faced Garda Danaher, who’d been tasked with ‘protecting him’. He’d got flustered when asked who he was ‘protecting’ Paul from, seeing as the only person who’d shown any serious intent to harm him was already dead. Admittedly, if he’d known what Brigit’s driving was like at that point, Paul would have re-evaluated that assessment. Somebody once said you know you’re getting old when the policemen start looking young, but Paul was pretty sure Garda Danaher would’ve looked young to anyone. He gave off the air of a young fella who’d borrowed his daddy’s uniform and was playing dress-up. There was a distinct aroma of Clearasil and terror about him. Paul guessed Danaher was the sort who had secretly longed his whole life to be blessed with a commanding presence, and was now gutted to find out it didn’t come with the uniform.

  There’d been a brief discussion of whether or not Paul was under arrest for anything, Brigit going into a spiel about Miranda Rights. Paul was pretty sure a lot of it had been gleaned from American cop shows. Officer Danaher appeared to be more intimidated by being spoken to by a member of the public in possession of breasts than he was her in-depth legal knowledge. The poor lad hadn’t known where to look but he kept looking there anyway. Paul ended up feeling bad for him, and so he gave him his address. He told him he was more than welcome to follow them and ‘protect’ him there if he liked. Officer Danaher nodded gratefully and went off to call his mummy to ask if it was OK.

  Brigit turned around fully in her seat to look behind them, presumably engaging in her head the autopilot her car definitely did not have. “I can’t see any police car.”

  Paul decided Officer Danaher must have stopped to deal with one of the three car crashes Brigit had definitely caused since they had left the hospital. Dr Sinha hadn’t been too put out by Paul’s departure, once he’d signed his Against Medical Advice form. Brigit had brought Paul’s coat with her from St Kilda’s staff room but he was still down a shirt and jacket due to the excessive bleeding he’d done earlier. Dr Sinha had supplied a T-shirt from the hospital’s lost and did-not-want-to-be-found box. It was leftover from a fun run apparently. Despite looking very hard, Paul had been unable to locate even the slightest glimmer of sarcasm in the doctor’s eyes as he had held out the yellow t-shirt proudly emblazoned with the slogan “I Beat Cancer”.

  Brigit threw the car around a corner whilst still in third gear, and a pedestrian narrowly avoided becoming a statistic. After a few more honks, a couple of hand gestures and an outright rejection of the concept of a one-way system – they finally made it to Richmond Gardens, where Paul lived.

  About five years ago Richmond Gardens and its surroundings had been one of those up-and-coming areas, but it had never quite made it all the way up. Instead, it had splattered hard against the wall between working class ghetto and middle-class paradise, and slid back down to earth. The delicatessen had gone back to being a chip shop and the ‘wine boutique’ was now an offy advertised by a drunken five-euro note.

  The street itself was a cul-de-sac of one-bedroom terraced ho
uses, backing onto the Grand Canal on Paul’s side. From the outside, they looked like they must be horribly cramped – mainly because they were. And towering over it all was Croke Park. The national stadium dominated the skyline like a futuristic spaceship that had landed amidst rows of terraced houses built at the beginning of the 20th Century.

  Brigit undid her seatbelt and reached behind her into the back seat to locate her handbag.

  “See? No problem. You worry over n…”

  She paused as she noticed the houses behind Paul slowly moving. Then she remembered the handbrake. Paul said nothing, in a way that left nothing unsaid.

  Brigit came around to the passenger side of the car because the door was a bit ‘tricky’ – by which she meant difficult to open due to traumatic bodywork damage. With a pained yowl of unhappy metal, it opened, and she helped Paul out. He was worried the noise would garner unwanted attention though. Mrs Corrie wasn’t a massive fan of having his crappy car permanently parked outside her house, and she wasn’t shy about sharing the sentiment. Thankfully there was no sign of the tell-tale curtain twitch. Maybe she’d finally gone off to complain to the council, as she’d repeatedly threatened to do.

  Paul had once considered getting a dog but the only ‘garden’ the houses had was an 8-foot by 6-foot paved area at the front, and he didn’t believe a dog should be kept in a smaller space than a convicted murderer. The rear of the house backed directly onto the canal, which, if nothing else, acted as a moat against the larcenous tendencies of the local urchins. So, no dog for Paul and instead his front garden was dominated by a great big bush. It was green and had leaves. He wasn’t exactly a keen horticulturalist. Every year or so, Paul had a fight with it when it poked him in the eye. He’d hack a couple of branches off with a carving knife and they’d scowl at each other for the following fortnight. This year’s barney was overdue. The bush was dominating the garden again, obscuring the view. That was why they got all the way to the gate before…

  “Now aren’t you two sweet?” Paul knew the voice without having to see its source. Sitting there on his front step, beaming up at him: Bunny McGarry.

  Chapter Six

  Paul’s heart sank when he heard that mocking Cork lilt float up from behind the garden wall. Not that it was a surprise. Bunny was always coming. He’d just hoped for a few hours’ kip before having to deal with him.

  Bunny McGarry sat on the front step, his large frame stretched out as he happily worked his way through a bag of croissants. He had a plastic knife and a couple of tiny tubs of spreadable butter. Brown flakes of pastry were liberally scattered down the front of his crumpled suit, his black sheepskin overcoat bunched around him to protect him from the morning chill. The hurling stick he brought everywhere with him stood propped up against the garden wall.

  “Well young Paulie, as I live and breathe.” His voice always carried a lilting edge of joyous mockery to it, like there was a joke in the offing but you weren’t being let in on it. His face was a shade of red you only generally found on a baboon’s arse – Paul could never tell if it was from a liking for the booze or the bubbling anger that lived just below the surface of the man, or both.

  Bunny had beady jet-black eyes that never looked in the same direction, thanks to the left one being lazy. It gave the disconcerting impression that one of them was keeping lookout while the other went about its nefarious business. He used it to his full advantage. Paul had heard people claim that they’d stared Bunny McGarry down but he’d never believed one of them. Bunny’s age was impossible to tell, he’d looked exactly the same for all the years Paul had known him. Logically, he must be hovering around fifty by now but that was in human years. They didn’t really apply to Bunny. He was like one of those Easter Island statues, if they were able to sneer.

  “Hello, Bunny.” Paul could feel what little energy he had flowing out of him. “I see you’ve got a nice little picnic on the go for yourself.”

  “Ahh, the best part of the morning, Paulie – fresh croissants straight from the bakery…”

  He held one up to his nose and breathed in its scent theatrically. “Fecking glorious.” He dropped the croissant back into the paper bag and started to stand. “The French may be a shower of cunts, but they can do bread.”

  “I didn’t think you got up this early in the morning,” Paul said.

  “Ohhh, Paulie,” he laughed. “I never sleep. You of all people should know that.”

  Once on his feet, Bunny moved forward to stand in his normal position. He had the unnerving habit of standing slightly too close to people when he talked. He lived in other people’s personal space. Six foot two, he carried weight, but in a powerful way. You could never be sure what the fat to muscle ratio was, but you’d be a fool to find out. Not least because Bunny not only fought dirty but he took a gleeful delight in doing so.

  Paul could still remember the incident from his youth when Gary Kearney, the ex-boxer, had confronted Bunny outside Phelan’s pub. Paul had been one of a group of young fellas who’d been playing ball nearby at the time. Alan Murphy had been in Paul’s class. Kearney had recently shacked up with Alan’s ma. A few months after Kearney moved in, Alan had started falling down stairs quite a lot, only they lived in a ground floor flat. Bunny had dropped over and had a long talk with Alan’s Ma about the situation, which Kearney had not appreciated. When Bunny had offered to settle it like gentlemen, Kearney couldn’t believe his luck. He’d gotten half way through taking his coat off, when Bunny pounced. Kearney never even got a punch off. When it was done, Bunny handed a roll of tightly wrapped coins he’d been holding in his hands to Alan, and told him to take the rest of the lads down to the shops for sweets. After that, Kearney moved out and Alan never fell down the stairs again. Kearney also spoke with a stammer for the rest of his life.

  Bunny noticed that the front of his suit was covered in flakes of croissant and turned his eyes to heaven. “Would you look at the state of me? I must apologise, I wasn’t expecting company of the female persuasion.”

  He patted himself down, popped one of the bigger flakes into his mouth and bowed courteously, extending his hand towards Brigit palm up. “M’lady!”

  Bunny left it a beat and then shot Paul a warning glance. “Now, Paulie boy — don’t be rude. Introduce me to the young lady.”

  Paul always felt tempted with Bunny to push back but, if experience had shown him anything, it was that the path of least resistance was always the way to go.

  “Bunny, this is Brigit Conroy.”

  He could feel Brigit looking back and forth between them, trying to figure out whether Bunny was friend or foe. She hesitated then extended her hand sheepishly. Bunny grasped it and shook it furiously: “Bunny McGarry at your service.”

  Brigit pulled it away before Bunny could go in for the creepy hand kiss. Bunny turned his movement into standing up, so smoothly the casual observer might not have noticed.

  “Nice to meet you,” said Brigit.

  “Well now, country girl – Sligo is it?”

  “Leitrim actually.”

  “Feck – Leitrim, God forsaken shithole that it is. Hasn’t produced a decent hurler in a decade. I’m not surprised you left, love. If all the men from there have the same aim as the hurling team, you’d have been ear-fucked to death by now.”

  Brigit’s mouth opened and closed a few times in the breeze. Bunny had that effect on people.

  “You can head off if you want now, sweetheart,” Bunny said. “Paulie and I have a lot of catching up to do.”

  “No, thank you,” she said firmly. “I think I’ll stay.”

  Bunny glanced at her briefly. “Ha, you can always tell a Leitrim girl, but you can’t tell her much. So how’ve you been, Paulie?”

  “Super, Bunny. How’s that hurling team of yours doing? I hear you got relegated again.”

  Stupid. He’d known it was as soon as he’d said it, but Bunny was getting under his skin more than usual.

  Bunny raised his eyebrows, as if acknowledg
ing that it had been noted and it would be returned to at a later date.

  “You’ve had an eventful couple of days, I hear. Killed a man.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Brigit chimed in, “and what business is it of yours anyway?”

  “I’m a very dear old friend of…”

  Just then, a Garda car rounded the corner and screeched to a halt.

  Bunny glanced briefly in its direction. “Oh dear, Paulie, I do hope you’re not in any trouble with the law?”

  Officer Danaher stumbled out of the car. He looked visibly relieved to see Paul. Clearly he had been dreading explaining how a crippled suspect had wandered away from right under his nose.

  “Good morning, Officer Danaher,” Paul said. “We did wonder where you’d got to.”

  “Yeah, sorry, I… “ He stopped as he took in the body language of the group, picking up on the tension. “Is everything OK?”

  “Oh, peachy,” said Bunny. “We’re just some old friends catching up.”

  “Actually,” said Brigit, a misplaced tone of victory in her voice. “This gentleman is making a nuisance of himself.”

  “Oh deary me, am I now?” asked Bunny, all mock innocence, “I do apologise.”

  Officer Danaher started to move forward.

  “Excuse me, sir…”

  “It’s not sir to you, sonny, it’s Detective Sergeant McGarry.”

  Danaher stopped, like he’d just ran into an invisible wall. His mouth must have been racing ahead of his brain, because even he sounded surprised when he said, “Do you have any ID?”

  Bunny snapped. “My ID will be my boot up your fecking arse in a minute, son. Are you out of Glasnevin?”

  Danaher, shell-shocked, nodded dumbly.

  “Then go tell Sergeant O’Brien that Bunny McGarry said he needs to keep his wee babies in their place.”

  Danaher took a step back, then one forward, then hovered – like a rabbit in the headlights.

  “Piss off,” said Bunny softly. “There’s a good lad.”