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

by Caimh McDonnell

  “Can you please whistle?” Paul tried to keep the panic from his voice as he watched the cat’s casual advance.

  “Are you taking the piss?”

  “Please – I’m begging you – whistle!”

  There was an achingly long moment of hesitation before the sound of whistling started emanating from Paul’s phone.

  He held it out in front of him. Chairman Meow stopped moving forward. She tilted her head and give him a quizzical look.

  Paul began inching forward, until the whistling stopped.

  “Keep going!” he shouted at the phone.

  “Any requests?”

  “Louder!”

  The whistling resumed, this time to the tune of The Cure song ‘Love cats.’

  Paul continued to shuffle slowly forward, Chairman Meow remained motionless – participants in the world’s slowest game of chicken. Their eyes locked – they were all of a foot away from each other now. Paul pointed the phone directly at her, like a crucifix to fend off evil. Brigit had now reached the middle eight of the song. She redoubled her efforts in a subconscious attempt to cover for not knowing that bit.

  There! Just the slightest twitch of a feline ear. Chairman Meow didn’t like it.

  Paul continued his painfully slow shuffle of feet.

  Then, as if she’d suddenly remembered a previous engagement, the cat darted off up the roof tiles and disappeared out of view.

  Paul realised he’d been holding his breath and let it out in a relieved sigh. He glanced back at the four feet he’d managed to move along the ledge. The hardest won territory since the battle of the Somme. (He’d found a series of World War I documentary DVDs in a three for a euro bin).

  He started moving more quickly, placing one foot in front of the other as fast as he dared, tightrope walking his way up the narrow strip. Paul put the phone back to his ear. “You can stop now.”

  “You’re weird.”

  “Fair point.”

  “Seriously,” said Brigit, “we need to talk. I found out some shocking stuff. Brown wasn’t really Brown, he was there under a false name.”

  Paul found the walking easier when he was distracted by the call. Like his body was a lot better at coping with stuff once his mind got the hell out of the way.

  “That might explain why somebody is trying to kill me,” he continued.

  “With a cat?”

  “No…”

  Paul thought about it but couldn’t think of a way to offer any further explanation of what had just happened.

  “Look, can we…” Paul paused to think. “Can you meet me in St Stephen’s Green in about 30 minutes?”

  “The park or the shopping centre?”

  “The park.”

  “Alright.”

  “Thanks.”

  He’d reached the end of the walkway.

  “But, do you not think you should go to the police?” Brigit asked.

  “No way. Hang on a sec.”

  He looked down at the graffiti-covered 8-foot tall wall that divided a couple of empty parking spaces beside the row of terraced houses from the canal. At the other end of the wall, lay the pedestrian bridge over the canal and freedom.

  With difficulty, Paul managed to slowly lower himself down to a sitting position on the roof, getting a soggy left arse cheek for his trouble, as it dipped into the black plastic guttering.

  “Hang on.”

  Paul slipped the phone into the pocket of his jeans, then awkwardly turned himself around. He braced himself with his left arm and started slowly lowering himself down – his feet scrabbling around, trying to find purchase on the wall below.

  He looked up to see Chairman Meow looking down at him. She’d gone from nowhere-to-be-seen to right in front of him, with no perceptible movement having taken place. She looked down at him, her smug satisfaction all too evident.

  The cat threw a clawed left hook at his defenseless face and, by instinct, Paul pulled away. His fast reactions saved him from the Chairman’s claws but only to throw him into the unwelcoming arms of gravity. He lost his grip on the roof and fell backwards. His feet fell on either side of the wall, leaving his body to land on top of it, testicles first. He hung there, captured in a perfect moment of exquisite slapstick agony. After a couple of pain-filled seconds, Madam Fate decided she hadn’t had nearly enough fun with him yet, and tipped him right – away from the canal – to tumble off the wall and land on his back on the pavement 8 feet below.

  The air left Paul’s lungs in one percussive heave.

  “Paul? Paul? What are you doing now – Paul?”

  With one hand he massaged his meat and recently mashed potatoes, while with the other he slowly withdrew the phone from his pocket.

  “Paul? Stop dicking about! Paul?”

  “I…”

  “Yes?”

  His voice sounded like it was coming from a long way away. “…really hate cats.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  DI Jimmy Stewart was in a thoroughly rotten mood.

  He slammed on the brakes as an over-sized black 4X4, that cost more than twice Wilson’s annual salary, pulled into the bus lane in front of them. Wilson was concentrating on keeping his face a mask of determined resolve, in an attempt to hide the fact that this was bloody brilliant. He’d been initially gutted when his offer to drive had been rebuffed, but he was glad it had been now. Stewart was livid about something and Wilson preferred his anger was directed at other road users rather than at him.

  “Wilson, have you got your gun?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Excellent. Then be a good lad and shoot this idiot.”

  This was Wilson’s first trip through Dublin in an unmarked car with the siren on. If it proved anything, it was that the only way to get through the rush hour traffic quickly enough to prevent a murder was to commit several yourself.

  An excited school kid in the back seat of the 4X4 was making finger guns out the window at them. At least he’d noticed they were police. His daddy seemed utterly oblivious. In fact, he looked positively outraged that the police felt they had more right to the bus lane than he did. Stewart sat on the horn and pointed the way back into the traffic jam that daddy had felt was meant for other people.

  The 4X4 nudged half of itself back into the right-hand lane, enough for Stewart to mount the kerb and get by.

  “Try it again.”

  Wilson dutifully pressed redial for the eighth time on the mobile number they had for Paul Mulchrone.

  “Still voicemail.”

  The bus in front of them made to slow down as it approached a crowded stop. Stewart laid on the horn again. The bus driver picked up on the none-too-subtle hint and sped back up. As their car passed, several commuters expressed their displeasure through the medium of mime. Wilson resisted the urge to give an apologetic wave.

  Five minutes and a good deal of industrial strength swearing later, Stewart pulled the car across traffic on the North Circular, around a corner and onto Richmond Gardens. It was a cramped looking cul-de-sac of terraced houses surrounded by a few streets of similar. Croke Park stadium loomed ominously in the background. Admittedly, it may only have appeared so to Wilson because he’d always hated GAA, and his dad had forced him to go along to matches anyway. Politics was politics.

  Stewart killed the siren and turned off the engine. The cul-de-sac looked positively serene, like it was wondering what all the fuss was about.

  “What number is he?”

  “Sixteen,” said Wilson, pointing at the house three doors from the corner.

  “OK, follow my lead. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut.”

  Wilson nodded and they exited the vehicle.

  When they reached the door, Stewart rang the bell. There was no sound of movement from inside. Wilson tried to look through the frosted glass but couldn’t see anything beyond blurred static shapes.

  Stewart pressed the bell again and raised his voice.

  “Mr Mulchrone, it’s the Gardai. Can you�
�”

  “Well it’s about time!”

  Wilson and Stewart turned around to look at the source of the voice. Behind them stood a woman who was in her 70s, a dressing gown and a very bad mood. She was glowering at them from a doorway across the street.

  “I’ve been ringing you for months about that gobshite’s car.”

  “Madam,” said Stewart. “We’re not here about a car. Can you go back inside please?”

  “Don’t you Madam me! This fecking monstrosity has been sitting here for months.” To emphasise her point, she stepped down onto the pavement and walloped the blue Ford Cortina sitting in front of her house with a rolled-up copy of The Evening Herald. The car had seen better days thought Wilson, but then so had that dressing gown.

  “Like I told that lesbian from the council,” she continued,” if it doesn’t move, it’s not a car, it’s a fecking eye sore.”

  “Madam,” Stewart said, “if that vehicle is someone else’s property, then please refrain from attacking it and go back inside.”

  She scrunched her face up like it was in the midst of eating itself.

  “Don’t you talk to me like that, I know my rights. My name is Theresa Corrie and I pay my taxes. He’d one of his useless mates round here earlier on trying to fix it, for all the fecking good it did. It’s still sitting here like a useless lump of… lump of…”

  The old woman looked around her, as if she’d temporarily put down the appropriate insult and now couldn’t find it.

  “Wilson,” Stewart whispered, “deal with this.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  Wilson started moving across the street, his hands outstretched, trying to remember his training on how to placate an irate member of the public. Behind him, he could hear Stewart repeatedly ringing Mulchrone’s doorbell, more out of frustration than hope.

  “Shite!!!” The old woman proudly proclaimed, having finally found the word she’d misplaced. The look of satisfaction on her face indicated she clearly felt her efforts to locate it had been worthwhile.

  “Sitting here like a lump of shite, lump of shite!” she repeated. To emphasise her point, she walloped the car with her paper on every word.

  “Please madam… ouch!” Wilson’s attempt to politely guide the woman back towards her front door, had earned him a wallop across the earhole with The Evening Herald.

  Stewart turned, and met the old woman’s glare with one of his own.

  “Right, love, that’s assault. We’re here as part of an ongoing murder inquiry and you’re in our way. Inside – right now, or I’m charging you with assaulting a police officer.”

  “Oh, oh – hark at him, Charlie big potatoes…”

  She looked around theatrically, playing to an audience that wasn’t there. Wilson looked between her and Stewart, unsure what to do.

  “Threatening me!” she continued. “Ha! Sure – you wouldn’t say boo to a black lad, but me – a kind-hearted pillar of the community, you’d throw me in jail for protecting myself from his sexual advances!”

  She pointed the rolled up newspaper at Wilson, who stepped back and looked sheepishly around him. A man in full sexual retreat.

  “Wait,” said Stewart, “what did you say?”

  “Sexual advances!” She hollered.

  “No, not… One of his useless mates…”

  Stewart dropped to his knees and peered under the car.

  The old battleaxe went back to walloping the bonnet to add emphasis to her every word. “It’s getting so honest decent people like me…”

  “MADAM!”

  She stopped, halted by Stewart’s tone of voice and by the fact he was now holding his gun in his hand. Wilson could feel his own mouth drop open in shock. He couldn’t remember all of his firearms training, but he was pretty sure this didn’t qualify as a proportionate response. The old duffer had finally lost it. He had been making weird remarks about being too old for this shit all week, and then giving Wilson peculiar looks.

  “Back away from the car now.”

  “Why should I?” She glowered at him defiantly.

  “Because,” Stewart spoke calmly and deliberately, “there’s a bomb under it.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Brigit stopped to look in a shop window, checking she hadn’t picked up a tail. She’d seen this on telly numerous times. You look in the refection and see if anyone is following you. It was proving trickier than she’d imagined. In a movie, the extras would all walk by in straight lines and some over-muscled Eastern European guy would stutter step, look around in confusion and give himself away. In reality, actual people were proving to be much messier than that. She’d never noticed before but on a cold winter’s day, pretty much everyone was wearing a long black overcoat. It looked like a hitman convention back there.

  She’d started doing the reflection trick after she’d realised the impracticalities of stopping at random to look subtly behind you. At one point, she thought she’d been quite clever, halting suddenly and taking out her phone as if looking at a map. This had given her the opportunity to take a good look at all the passers-by. She’d spent a couple of minutes checking out a tall middle-eastern looking woman standing outside Bewley’s Café. She had long legs and dyed blonde hair that ran to halfway down her back. Brigit had initially dismissed her as a threat but then admonished herself for falling prey to lazy sexism. Women could be hired thugs just as easily as men. In fact, they’d make a much less conspicuous tail, as she’d just proven.

  Brigit had turned away when the blonde had noticed her looking. When she glanced back, the woman was once again looking in her direction. Brigit’s pulse had raced but she’d tried to play it cool. After a couple of minutes it had dawned on her, from the blonde’s perspective, she was acting suspiciously too. There was a good chance they were stuck in that awkward little game where two people are simultaneously trying to see if the other is looking at them, without being seen themselves. Brigit had been just about certain that was what was happening when the blonde’s friend had turned up. She’d been pointed out and then both women had looked at her suspiciously. As Brigit had turned to make a hasty exit, she’d nearly floored one of those bloody moving statues. Instead she screamed, accidentally kicked his hat full of coins over and scampered off red-faced and mortified. Espionage was tougher than it looked.

  That regrettable incident had occurred down the north end of Grafton Street. She’d since zigzagged up and back around the various side streets and was now on Clarendon Street, opposite the Westbury Hotel. This was her last attempt to ‘check her six’ before she headed up and across into St Stephen’s Green.

  She would have been embarrassed to admit to anyone what she was doing, although it did feel justified. First there’d been the revelation of who Brown really was. Maybe she should have played it cool to that nice DI Stewart, but who hadn’t read Hostage to Love? Brigit was an obsessive fan of true crime. Most of her friends, if they read at all, generally went for tedious romance novels. The Rapunzel case was one of those rarities that combined the two. Usually, if the books she read featured any romance, it was over long before the dead bodies started showing up. Jackie ‘Grinner’ McNair reappearing was dramatic for several reasons; not least of which was that he supposedly died 30 years ago.

  After wrestling with her conscience for a shamefully small amount of time, she’d decided to ring Paul to tell him what she’d found out. She had promised to keep it to herself but, despite him slamming a door in her face, she did feel she owed Paul the truth for dragging him into whatever this was. She didn’t know what to make of his belief that someone was trying to kill him. On the one hand, he did seem a tad paranoid and secretive. On the other hand, last night someone had actually tried to kill him. She figured that she of all people had to cut the guy some slack on that front. That wasn’t to say the weirdness with the cat wasn’t a big red flag.

  Then there’d been the voicemail she’d received after she’d finished her call to Paul. It had been DI Stewart, telling her
to report back to his office at Garda HQ in the Phoenix Park immediately or, failing that, just to walk into the nearest police station and stay there until she heard from him. That’d put the wind right up her. She’d tried ringing Paul again but there’d been no answer. She pretended to herself that she had carefully considered her options, before deciding to go ahead with meeting him anyway.

  Which all led back to the rather embarrassing truth of her situation; She didn’t want to admit it to herself much less anyone else, but she was absolutely loving this!

  Her mam had often said that Brigit’s problem was she thought she was too good for an ordinary life, but she didn’t think that was fair. Brigit just felt that an ordinary life wasn’t good enough for anybody. It felt like she’d been born in the safest and most boring time in human history. Everywhere in the world had been discovered. Even outer space, it seemed, was full of, well, just boring old space. There had to be more. There had to be some adventure, some magic, left in the world.

  She’d desperately wanted to leave Ireland, to go out and see what life really had to offer. That was the reason behind nursing. Sure, it was no route to the high life, but there was probably an Irish nurse working in every damn country on the planet. She’d been all set to go a few years ago, an Australian contract lined up for as soon as she’d finished her training. Then mam had got sick and, well, that was that.

  She’d not resented having to do it, of course not. It was her mother. Taking care of her was the very least she could do. Maybe she resented having to be the responsible one. Her three brothers were big on ‘whatever it takes’ pronouncements but short on practical action. They’d each come and visit a different night of the week, and mam would insist on cooking them a dinner and making a fuss. Then they’d go back home, leaving a sink full of washing up. They’d given up an evening a week, Brigit had given up a whole new life. Then mam had slipped away on an infuriatingly sunny Tuesday and, amidst the tears and cups of tea, she’d noticed her father sitting quietly in the corner, the loneliest man in the world. She’d brought it up with her brothers but they’d been stupid enough to think that him saying he was fine meant he was actually fine. She’d taken the job in Dublin and felt guilty as hell doing even that. Still, she went home every week, quietly making sure that he was eating right and was properly supplied with clean pants. And she didn’t resent that either, how could she? What was it they said? Life is what happens when you’re making other plans.