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

by Caimh McDonnell

  Over the last seven years, four months and two weeks, Greevy’s speeches had gone from encouraging, to exasperated to openly hostile, before finally arriving at their current state of virtual non-existence. ‘This stipend was meant to be a temporary measure Mr Mulchrone, your great-aunt Fidelma never meant for you to live off it permanently.’ Which of course was exactly the point. What was it they said? Living is the best revenge. It certainly was for Paul. He was aware that he’d got himself into a staring match with a dead woman and he was unwilling to blink first.

  Paul looked around him. The only living souls in sight were an old man at the far side of the graveyard and the incongruous poodle yapping at his heels. Even from a distance, they didn’t fit. Paul wondered briefly if the dog had been the beloved pet of a dearly departed wife? Regardless, the dog was an inappropriate bundle of energy amongst the dead; perhaps it was just excited about being in the presence of all these bones?

  Paul turned back to the gravestone.

  “Humble angel?” he read. “You picked that inscription yourself ye daft old… You know as much about irony as you do about compassion.”

  There had been a time when Paul had wondered why he did this. Why he called to Fidelma’s grave every week. Not any more. Now he knew. It was to refill the anger. It was the thing that kept him going when he was wearing three jumpers indoors to save on the heating, or eating ‘whoops sticker’ potluck most every night, or spending six hours a week visiting the near dead to prove a point to one long-dead old battleaxe. John Lydon had it right, anger is an energy. He didn’t need approval. He didn’t need people. All he needed was the anger.

  He recited his own special weekly prayer:

  “You could’ve helped Ma, but you didn’t. You could’ve helped me but you didn’t. And then you think you can run my life from the grave? Fuck you.”

  On a couple of occasions previously he’d spit after he said it, but he didn’t do that anymore. It felt like it was only confirming exactly what Fidelma had thought of him. ‘The bastard son of a wanton hussy’ – that was what she had called him on the second and last time they had met. He’d discussed it with that psychiatrist they’d sent him to. He’d had a Mohawk that made him look like a white skinny Mr T and he’d told Paul that he was suffering from acute abandonment anxiety. Then the Health Service had transferred the shrink to Limerick. Unlike his great-aunt, Paul was intimately familiar with irony.

  Paul turned on his heels and started walking away into the cold November wind. He got two plots down before he turned back.

  “Oops sorry, nearly forgot,” Paul put his hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out the two slips. “There you go ye mad old bitch, six hours and five minutes of charity work, consider my moral fibre duly improved. See you next week.”

  He shoved the slips back into his pocket, before reaching down, snatching up the wreath and walking away.

  Janet Mulchrone 1968-2001

  Paul stared at the blank space under the name. He’d scrimped and saved for two years to get her a proper headstone and when it had come down to it, he’d not known what inscription to have. It’d felt too big, too complicated, too over-whelming. How did you sum up a life in a few words?

  The graves down this end were noticeably not as well maintained. Her pristine bed was conspicuous amongst the others, which were all over-run with weeds to various degrees. Last summer, he’d spent a day cleaning up the entire row. She’d have liked that. Perhaps it was time to do it again, when his shoulder was better.

  “Hiya mam, I’m fine. Don’t mind the sling, it’s just a… Well, it’s hard to explain. I kind of got caught up in something. I’ll sort it out. It’ll be grand. I did a favour for that nurse I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. It all got a bit stabby. I’m alright though, better than the other fella anyway.”

  He struggled over what to say next. He realised how stupid it was to not want to worry a dead woman. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to go into details. The memory of his mother’s smiling face flashed before him again. At least, he thought it was her. He didn’t have any photos. He tried hard to hold onto her memory but he was worried that other faces, other smiles, other eyes, were leaking in and polluting it. He’d attempted to learn how to draw when he was a teenager but he’d never come close to capturing it. He’d stopped when he noticed that the memory was starting to resemble the drawings, rather than vice versa. Every week he stood here and tried to refresh an ever-fading picture in his mind.

  He didn’t cry any more but not in the good way. It didn’t feel like healing. It felt like dying. The second of the two recurring dreams he had, was the stuff of pure nightmares. He’d wake in his bed and everything would appear normal until he pulled the sheets back. His toes would be a shade of granite grey. Try as he might, he couldn’t move them. And then he’d blink and his feet would be the same. He’d reach down to touch them and they’d be a smooth as marble and as cold as ice. As he pulled his fingers away, he’d notice they were stone now too. And so it would spread up his body. The dream always ended the same way. He’d be desperate to scream but unable to draw breath. And then he’d wake, covered in sweat.

  He bent down and carefully placed the purple wreath at the foot of the gravestone.

  “I’ll see ye next week Ma.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Is this a wind-up?”

  DI Jimmy Stewart and his now thoroughly foul mood had gone up to the sacred rooftop to enjoy some much-needed peace and quiet. Well that, and a cigarette he’d bummed off desk sergeant Clarke. The rooftop was dubbed sacred by the smokers on the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation as it allowed for an unobserved cheeky fag, while also giving a view of both the car park of Garda Headquarters and a couple of enclosures of Dublin Zoo next door. Admittedly, the view hadn’t been the same since they’d moved the giraffes, but it still beat the official smoking area hands-down. Between its location being downwind of the bins and within sight of the window of the Commissioner’s offices, the official enclosure was only inhabited by the slow-witted or fatally unambitious.

  There was a bite in the air that felt like snow might be coming. In a move that showed he either didn’t understand gravity or the extent of DI Stewart’s heartfelt dislike for him, Wilson had followed him up to the roof. The only thing cheering Stewart up was the image of assisting Wilson in taking a headfirst dive into the nice parking spaces below. He’d do it too – the long-suffering Mrs Stewart had informed him over breakfast that she’d signed them both up for a pottery class.

  “You’ve seriously never heard of Rapunzel?” continued DI Stewart.

  “The fairytale?”

  “Not the f…” Stewart could feel his eyelid starting to twitch. “The case! One of the most famous cases in Irish criminal history.”

  Wilson gave him a blank look that reminded Stewart of what it was like to have teenaged children.

  Stewart sighed before rolling out his most deliberately patronising tone. “The year was 1985 – Bono was into Jesus, Bob Geldof was into Africa and statues of the Virgin Mary were moving about so much you were doing well to catch one standing still. In the middle of all that, the shitstorm that was Rapunzel hit.”

  “To be fair, I wasn’t even born.”

  “You weren’t around for World War II either, but I assume the name Hitler rings a bell? What were you doing on that Criminology degree, just sitting around watching Silence of the Lambs over and over again?”

  “I’ve never even seen that film.”

  “What the… how’ve you… it’s an absolute classic! Were you hatched out of an egg six weeks ago or something?”

  They descended into a frosty silence as neither man looked at the other. A pigeon landed on the ledge between them, took a quick gander about and quickly decided that being anywhere else was a wise move.

  Stewart tossed the remains of his fag over the ledge and immediately regretted it. There was half a drag left in it and he didn’t have another one. He couldn’t buy a pack. If the lon
g-suffering Mrs Stewart found out he was smoking again, cancer would be way down the list of things likely to kill him.

  “So are you going to fill me in?” asked Wilson warily.

  Stewart considered it. The reality was, they were right in the middle of this thing now whether he liked it or not – and Wilson needed to at least know enough to know when he should shut the hell up, which was pretty much always as far as Stewart was concerned.

  “Alright kiddies, gather round for story time.” He pulled his overcoat closer around him and noticed Wilson hadn’t brought his. If he dragged this out long enough, the wintery conditions could do law enforcement a massive favour.

  “The biggest thing to remember about criminals is they’re mostly not that smart. In the 1970s – the IRA needed money to fund their blah blah blah, so they ripped off banks and post offices. The ordinary decent criminals saw this and they copied it, so the next thing you knew every gobshite who could cut two holes in a tea cosey thought he was John Dilinger.”

  “Who?”

  Stewart rolled his eyes and ignored the question. “So many banks were getting ripped off, they were having to open a separate queue for withdrawals at gunpoint. Gradually security got better, we got armed response units and surveillance. Some gurriers got gunned down and the whole bank robbing thing went the way of prog rock.”

  Stewart could see Wilson consider the prog rock question and reject it. Maybe there was hope for him yet.

  “Around rolled the 80s – shoulder pads, synth pop and the ’RA had a new game, kidnapping. You weren’t anybody back in them days until the provos had tried to kidnap you. And what the provos did…?”

  “The others followed.”

  “Exactly. Soon every wannabe gangster was stocking up on rope and masking tape, and every off-duty guard was coining it in protecting the rich and the famous. Actually, mainly the rich – you’d be an idiot to go after the famous. People would notice if Chris DeBurgh went missing. There’d be parties in the street.”

  “Who?”

  “Now on that one, you’re not missing much,” said Stewart. “So anyway, there’s plenty of high profile kidnappings; some we foil, some get screwed up, some go horribly wrong, but a lot just get paid off. Then along comes Sarah-Jane Kruger née Cranston, the new blushing bride of one Daniel Kruger. She is the only daughter and apple in the eye of daddy Cranston, Duke of Berkshire or some such – cousin and hunting buddy of HRH Lizzy Windsor herself. Daniel is heir to the Kruger fortune, a family with no shortage of money thanks to owning an honest-to-God goldmine in South Africa, but they’re low on kudos for the same reason. This being back when auld Nelson Mandela, God rest him, was still taking on all comers in the prison chess championships.”

  Wilson nodded his understanding – so at least he’d seen some movies.

  “Rumour has it the Cranston-Kruger nuptials weren’t the most romantically inspiring of affairs. The Cranstons were flat broke and needed the Kruger dirty money to keep living like the royalty they almost were. In exchange, Danny-boy Kruger gets to be Lord of whatever when the old fella eventually pops off to the big members-only golf club in the sky.”

  “Nice.”

  “He also gets a genuine Disney Princess for a bride to boot, and she is not exactly hard on the eye.”

  “Very nice.” Wilson threw in an attempt at a blokey eyebrow waggle that Stewart entirely ignored.

  “Yes, especially as he’s like... what ye call it…” Stewart held his hand over the left-hand side of his face.

  “Blind?”

  “No, not… like thingy – Andrew Lloyd Webber.” Stewart clicked his fingers in frustration at the words that wouldn’t come.

  Wilson face scrunched up in confusion. “He’s Andrew Lloyd Webber?”

  “No I mean… like the musical, the famous one… and if you say Cats, I will boot you off this roof.”

  “Phantom of the Opera?”

  “Yes!” Stewart threw his hands up in relief. “Thank you. He’s like the fella in that, you know – his face all messed up on one side.”

  “How’d that happen?”

  Stewart considered the question. “D’ye know, I can’t remember. I think it was something in his childhood, accident or something.”

  “That’s the rich for you,” said Wilson. “They think up more ways to mess up their kids by breakfast than the rest of us could come up with in a lifetime.”

  “What did your da do again?”

  It was Wilson’s turn to ignore a question. “So this bloke’s virgin bride gets swiped?”

  “Yeah,” said Stewart, “from their massive country estate down South somewhere, while hubby and his mates are out shooting half the local wildlife.”

  “So what happens?”

  “All hell breaks loose is what. They get a demand for three million in uncut diamonds.”

  Wilson whistled.

  “They’ve done their homework, Kruger can get that – given time. An exchange is set-up and…”

  “And what?”

  “Nothing. The kidnappers never show. No further communication either. Everybody blames everybody else. There’s rumours big Lizzy herself gets on the phone to make her displeasure known.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Oh, you’ve no idea. Keep in mind, a woman who is all but royalty has disappeared, and this is about the time of the Anglo-Irish agreement so everybody is trying to play nice. This shitstorm is a national embarrassment. All police holidays cancelled, over-time up the yazoo as the biggest manhunt in the history of the state is launched – aka Operation Rapunzel.”

  “Any leads?”

  “Oh yes, thousands. Crackpots are coming out of the woodwork and that’s before the half a mill reward is announced. People are taking their kids out of school to go play find the princess.”

  “I bet.”

  “After about a week, somebody finally notices that one Gerry Fallon, a young up-and-comer in the Dublin underworld is looking a little lonely because his brother Fiachra and his best mate Jackie ‘Grinner’ McNair have disappeared.”

  “Have they now?”

  “Yeah, according to Gerry the boys are on holidays, backpacking across Europe.”

  “Nicely untraceable.”

  “Indeed, although there’s no record of them leaving the country. They’ve been low-key up until this point but serious. McNair is mainly muscle; everybody knows Gerry is the brains of the outfit. Younger brother Fiachra, on the other hand, is the baby-faced beauty of the bunch, quite the hit with the ladies. The three of them were previously as tight as tight can be. Their mother raised the brothers McNair alone, their father having disappeared. There’s even a legend that says a 12 year old Gerry killed daddy with a wrought iron poker for putting his hands on their ma.”

  “Holy shit,” exclaimed Wilson. “Did he?”

  “Ah, who knows? Maybe he hopped a ferry. He wouldn’t be the first. Anyway,” said Stewart, “the days drag on and nothing more concrete comes up. The two boys stay disappeared, as does poor old Sarah-Jane Kruger-Cranston. Fiachra is known to have lived in Scotland for a while but all investigations over there lead nowhere too. In the absence of any real news, all kinds of rumours start to circulate: She was never kidnapped, something fishy happened at the exchange and the diamonds are now with some dodgy South Africans or…”

  Some dodgy Gardai, was the other rumour that even now, Stewart didn’t want to mention within an arse’s roar of this building. Some careers sank without trace on this one.

  “Then… another story emerges. Mizz Cranston was seen getting on a boat off the Kerry coast in the middle of the night in the company of the dashing young Fiachra Fallon, and she doesn’t look like any kind of prisoner.”

  “Noooo!”

  “Yeah. Young love’s fresh bloom and all that.”

  “And people buy that?”

  “Well, it’s looked into but so is every theory. There’s all kinds of pressure to get a result remember. Six months later, out comes the infamous Hos
tage to Love book…”

  “Awful title…”

  “You’re not wrong, but people lap it up. Tells the tale of a miserable princess sold into marital slavery and rescued by the handsome pauper, who kidnaps her and then steals her heart.”

  “A modern day fairytale.”

  “Yeah,” said Stewart. “Every few years there’s talk of a Hollywood film. Colin Farrell is supposed to be interested.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Kruger sues of course, which just makes the book an even bigger seller. He becomes a laughing stock and nobody has seen him since. The book makes us peelers look like the Keystone Cops too. In its version of events, Gerry Fallon risks all to get his beloved baby brother and his hostage come love-of-his-life out of the country while evading the entire Irish police force.”

  “Ahh, pass the tissues.”

  “This is the Gerry Fallon, mind you, the coldest of cold bastards. The one gangster above all others we’ve never got our hooks into. The guy that outran the Criminal Assets Bureau. Fuck it, scratch that – he lapped the fecking thing. They had to issue an apology when his name ended up in the paper. It was a joke. Everyone assumes these days that Gerry is free and clear on legit street. Making him untouchable by us poor simple Johnny Law types.”

  Stewart leaned back and looked up into the darkening winter sky.

  “Here’s the kicker though; in the book, Grinner McNair dies after he turns on Fiachra and decides he doesn’t want to give up a million quid so his buddy can get his end away. As of two hours ago we know that’s bollocks. He didn’t take a dive off a trawler in the North Atlantic. He was right there – in St Kilda’s for the last three weeks – Grinner bloody McNair! The man who knew what happened to Sarah-Jane Cranston. Not to mention being the one bloke who could very probably put Gerry Fallon behind bars.”