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

by Caimh McDonnell

  She must have been looking in the window of the clothes shop for a while, because she noticed one of the assistants looking back at her from behind the counter. She was one of those women who looked like she could have been a model, but she was an inch too short and a mile too unhappy about it. Brigit made a show of closely examining one of the coats in the window. It did look nice. Eggshell white with a fake fur lining that looked warm against a winter’s chill. She had already bought a coat but she wasn’t sure yet if she liked it. In her experience, the mirrors in shops lied and could not be trusted. Only the one in her flat told the truth, harsh as it often was. This meant for someone who honestly hated shopping, she spent a lot of time bringing things back. She caught sight of the price tag on the coat in the window. All those nights playing poker with her brothers for 2ps really paid off, as she was able to keep the shock from her face. Three grand!? Whoever could pay that kind of money for a coat never needed to stand outdoors.

  The assistant advanced forward slightly, scenting the blood of commission in the water. Then Brigit saw her clocking the shopping bags she was carrying and the ‘new best friend’ smile tumbled from her lips. Nobody who’d been inside any of the stores Brigit had apparently visited had any business swimming in these waters. Brigit gave a massive smile back. Every time somebody wound her up, she liked to imagine the unhappy future life they’d have thanks to their crappy attitude. Enjoy your three marriages and your highly-strung nightmare children, ye stuck-up cow.

  Brigit turned, and after one last scan of her surroundings, headed in the direction of the park. She didn’t know what was going to happen next and she wasn’t at all sure she was doing the right thing. She also felt more alive than she had in years.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Paul sat forward on the bench, hugged himself and stamped his feet, doing the pointless things that people do when there’s no real way to warm yourself up. He’d taken refuge in one of the two identical Swiss Shelters that sat on either side of the park’s central circular green. The yellow ‘I Beat Cancer’ t-shirt was giving him precious little protection from the biting November wind. He cursed himself for wasting the few minutes he’d had before having to flee his home on sorting through DVDs, rather than doing practical stuff putting on some more clothes. At times like this, it was hard for him to run from the suspicion that he might be an idiot.

  He’d not really felt the chill on his walk down to St Stephen’s Green. Constantly checking he wasn’t being followed, coupled with the throbbing pain in his testicles from his earlier unhappy landing, had distracted him nicely. Now, the adrenaline rush had worn off, except for the tangy metallic taste it had left at the back of his throat. He was feeling cold, alone and testicularly sensitive.

  Stephen’s Green would have been rammed at this time on a summer’s day with young lovers and old strollers, wiling away the hours amidst the carefully corralled nature. On a dank November afternoon, however, it was more of a pedestrian throughway than anything else. Amidst the manicured lawns and painstakingly maintained flowerbeds, primed to burst into glorious colour in the summer months, business suits hurried by under dark winter coats. Everyone was on their way somewhere else. Everyone except the man on the run, and the old lady who was so in love with Jesus she just had to dance about it.

  She was in her seventies, well dressed, and with one of those helmet-like hairdos that look like it could withstand nuclear Armageddon unruffled. She also appeared to be considerably happier with her lot in life than any of the passers-by, who were subtly altering their trajectories to avoid her. She didn’t have any music, at least not that anyone else could hear. Still, there she was, dancing a one-woman conga line back and forth across the central path that traversed the park, seemingly oblivious to the world around her.

  “Hello.”

  Paul jumped as Brigit sat down on the bench beside him.

  “Jesus, you nearly scared the life out of me.”

  “For a man who thinks people are out to kill him, I’d have thought you’d be paying better attention.”

  “I don’t think people are trying to kill me, I know they are.” Paul pointed at his wounded shoulder to emphasise his point.

  “How is your arm?”

  “Fecking freezing, like the rest of me.”

  “How come…”

  “I left the house in a hurry.”

  Brigit started rummaging through her shopping.

  “Somebody’s had a productive day I see,” Paul said, referring to her bags.

  “Well, when you’ve been suspended from work and ungrateful gits are slamming doors in your face, all that’s left is to get the Christmas shopping done.”

  Paul looked down awkwardly.

  “I’m sorry about the…”

  “Shut up and put this on.”

  Brigit pushed a green jumper towards him. He spread it out on his knees to look at the design on the front. It featured the grinning face of a reindeer. Paul guessed the designer had been going for joyful for the creature’s expression and just over-shot horribly. A ‘here’s Johnny’ demented grin sat beneath wild eyes. It would have made a tremendous warning poster for the dangers of cocaine. This reindeer looked like he wanted to tell you about the incredible screenplay he was going to write and the amazing dude he’d just met in the toilets. Mind you, thought Paul – if on your one working day of the year you’ve to pull an all-nighter while travelling at supersonic speeds, dragging some fat drunken prick around the globe, you’d probably need a little pick-me-up too.

  “What on earth is this?” said Paul.

  Brigit looked embarrassed. “Last year, we had ‘Christmas jumper day’ at the hospice and I was criticised for apparently not ‘getting into the spirit of things’, so…”

  “You’re going to wear this, in front of fragile elderly patients? Why not go the whole hog and just throw some tinsel around a grim reaper costume?”

  “Are you’d saying you’d rather freeze? Because I’m happy to let you.”

  “No, no,” said Paul quickly, removing his sling and carefully sliding his wounded limb into the sleeve. Brigit watched him.

  “I just realised,” she said. “I’ve bought a stupid jumper for a job I no longer have.”

  “What?”

  “They suspended me this morning for breaking the rules on visitors. I’ve got to go in front of a disciplinary committee.”

  Paul tried to look sympathetic as he popped his head out of the top of the jumper.

  “Suspended isn’t the same as fired. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  Brigit made that throaty humming sound, the internationally recognised noise for ‘I seriously doubt it.’

  “How do I look?” asked Paul.

  “Like an idiot who isn’t going to die of hypothermia.”

  He gave her an exaggerated thumbs-up. “Result!”

  They sat in silence for a moment, looking around the park. Brigit pointed over at the old woman.

  “Is that the famous dancing lady?”

  “No. That old dear used to get down up on O’Connell Street. Besides, I’m almost certain she died a few years ago. Her name was Mary Dunne I think.”

  She’d been a Dublin institution. An ordinary looking old lady who year after year had danced about on a traffic island, waving a cross and name-checking Jesus with the frequency of a rapper at an awards show. You do anything for long enough and you become an institution. Paul had walked past her once while she’d been quietly waiting at a bus stop. It’d been weird. Like seeing a teacher out of school.

  “So who is that then?”

  “I dunno – some kind of weird tribute act.”

  “Hmmm,” said Brigit. “Maybe it’s reincarnation?”

  “Wouldn’t that really piss off a Catholic?”

  “Speaking of people coming back from the dead, it turns out our Mr Brown was in fact one Jackie ‘Grinner’ McNair.”

  “So you said. Who is that exactly?”

  “Have you ever heard of the Ra
punzel case from the 80s?”

  “Is that the one where the hostage ran off with the kidnapper?” said Paul. “Stockholm Syndrome and all that?”

  “Well, you’ve taken a lot of the romance out of it there but yes, that, more or less. Basically, rich dude’s young naïve trophy wife gets kidnapped, and falls in love with the kidnapper. They both give everything up to run away and be together.”

  “Hang on, was Brown or McNair or whatever… was he Romeo in this little fairytale?”

  “God, no.”

  “Good. He didn’t strike me as the romantic leading man type.”

  “He was the best mate slash accomplice.”

  “Are you telling me, people are trying to kill me because of something that happened before I was born?”

  “Possibly,” said Brigit before diving back into her bags. “I got you a present.”

  “Oh no, really. The jumper was more than enough. I feel bad, I didn’t get you anything.”

  “Don’t worry about it. There’s still plenty of shopping days left,” said Brigit as she handed him the paperback she’d finally located in her bags.

  “Hostage to Love,” he read. “The shocking true story behind the Rapunzel case. Wow – that is a dreadful title.”

  “Appalling; but, despite that, it was a bestseller. They’re supposed to be making it into a film. Colin Farrell is rumoured to be interested.”

  “Fuck a duck!”

  Paul flicked through to the photographs section in the middle. The first photo was a rather staid family portrait, of a young woman in her early twenties with long blonde hair, sitting in a chair, flanked by her rather severe looking parents.

  “That’s the Cranston family. Proper English toffs.”

  “They look it,” said Paul. “All three of them look like they’ve got sticks up their arses.”

  Paul pointed at the pretty girl. “Our Juliet I assume?”

  “Yeah. She was stunning,” said Brigit.

  “I suppose, if China doll Disney princess is your thing. I bet she was a hoot with a few cans of scrumpy in her though. Like the man said, it’s the quiet ones you’ve got to watch.”

  “Certainly turned out to be the case with her. By all accounts, Daddy Cranston wasn’t much fun to live with. The Rapunzel name for the case allegedly came from what the Cranstons’ staff called the daughter in private. She was kept all but locked away through her teenage years. Up until she married…”

  Brigit turned the page to reveal a picture of Daniel Kruger.

  “Jesus!” said Paul. “He’s like what’s his name from Batman, Twoface.”

  Kruger did have a facial disfigurement on the left side of his face. The picture was taken outdoors, Kruger appearing to be scowling at the camera.

  “Don’t be mean,” said Brigit. “His face got burnt in an accident when he was a kid if I remember correctly.”

  “Sorry, it’s just a bit… shocking. So hang on, he married whats-her-face Cranston?”

  “He did. Mind you, he only had her for just over a year. Which brings us to… the three amigos.” Brigit pointed at the picture on the far side of the book. It showed three young men, suited and booted as if at a wedding. Judging by the glassy drunken grins, a pretty good one too. Paul read the caption beneath. On the left, stood the oldest of the three men, who was also the tallest. Gerry Fallon was powerfully built, with a boxer’s nose. Even smiling, he seemed to carry an air of threat. He had the look of the classic alpha male. Everything about him said, ‘I can handle myself, and you don’t want to find out how well’. He had brown eyes and a cocky grin, like he was humouring you for now. You could see the family resemblance to the man he held in a playful headlock, but Fiachra Fallon made his older brother look like a very early rough sketch for what was to follow. Paul’s flag didn’t fly that way, but even a straight man could see Fiachra was a heartbreaker. He’d a Hollywood idol smile and that beautiful lost boy look about him that would have had women wanting to mother him and a lot more besides. The final member of the trio was McNair. What struck Paul initially was the sheer ordinariness of the man. It was odd to think that this young man had become the cadaver that had launched itself at him yesterday. There was no similarity there. It was as if, by the time Paul had crossed his path, the cancer had already taken away everything that made McNair the man he once was.

  He looked again at Fiachra Fallon.

  “So that’s Romeo then, is it?”

  “Yep,” said Brigit.

  “Feck it, I’d have run away with him myself,” said Paul.

  Brigit pointed at Gerry. “And that is Gerry Fallon, who covered up the young lovers’ escape, like all good big brothers should.”

  Paul shrugged. He’d have to take her word for it on that part. He closed the book.

  “Here’s the thing though,” said Brigit, pointing at the book, “according to that, Grinner McNair died thirty years ago.”

  “My perforated shoulder would beg to differ.”

  “Indeedy. He and Fiachra Farrell were supposed to have had a falling out on the fishing boat that was taking them, and Fiachra’s lady-love, out of the country. McNair, the story goes, wasn’t wild about the idea of being one lover’s tiff away from prison, not to mention losing all that money.”

  “Ah. Had he no sense of romance?”

  “Apparently not. Following a dramatic bit of fisty cuffs, Grinner fell into the North Atlantic.”

  “Shit the bed. There’s nothing like a happy ending.”

  “He drowned and the young lovers headed off into the sunset, and a new life together in America or Canada or Australia or Carlow. There’s been no end of sightings over the years.”

  “And they didn’t care about the money because…”

  “They had each other.”

  Paul mimed retching. Brigit ignored him.

  “So a man who was supposed to be dead, wasn’t – but he is now. Why is somebody trying to kill me over that?”

  Brigit had been trying to find a way around to this subject. She was hoping to figure out exactly how irrationally paranoid Paul had become.

  “Who do you think is trying to kill you?”

  “I’ve no idea who or why. I just got a phone call telling me to run.”

  “That was very sporting of them.”

  “It wasn’t from whoever is after me. It was a warning from somebody I know. Somebody who owed me a favour.”

  “Did McNair tell you anything before he…?”

  “Tried to kill me?” Paul finished. “No. It was mostly demented rambling. He thought I was the son of an old friend of his. He talked about having a daughter who he hasn’t seen for ages. I think he thought I was going to hurt her. Honest to God, he was off with the fairies. None of it made sense.”

  “He didn’t mention any locations or anything like that? Like where the young lovers might’ve skidaddled off to?”

  “Nothing I...” Paul racked his brain, trying to recall other fragments of the conversation he’d had with the dying old man. “He thought he knew my dad – and my uncle, that’s it. Nothing that’d be worth killing me over.”

  “Is it possible…” Brigit paused, trying to think of the right way to put this. “Is it possible, somebody was trying to wind you up about this whole thing? Like that copper that was sitting on your doorstep this morning.”

  “No, that’s not Bunny’s style. He doesn’t do jokes.”

  “Who is that guy?”

  Paul gave a mirthless laugh. “Believe me, we don’t have time for that story.”

  “OK well…”

  They both looked off into the distance as a silence bloomed between them, neither knowing what to say next.

  Brigit felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She’d been ignoring it for the last 30 minutes but now looking at it at least filled an awkward gap in the conversation. The number that flashed up was the same mobile she’d been seeing repeatedly for the last hour. That meant it was DI Stewart.

  “Hello?”

  “Mis
s Conroy, where are you?”

  “I’m… shopping.”

  “Did you not get my messages?”

  “Sorry, I’ve been…”

  “You need to head back to my office immediately.”

  “Right, well I’ll drop in again later.”

  “Now Miss Conroy.”

  “Why?”

  “There have been… developments.”

  “What kind of developments?”

  There was a pause at the other end of the line. Brigit looked at Paul.

  “Alright, if it’ll make you take this seriously. In the last few hours, McNair’s daughter has been killed and we’ve found a bomb under your friend Mr Mulchrone’s car. I don’t know what is going on, but your safety is my top priority. Please, come in.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Brigit hung the phone up and then stared at it, trying to process what she’d just been told. Paul looked at her.

  “What? What is it?” he asked.

  “Well… the good news is you’re not paranoid.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tyrion 4.12.AX4 – Secure server software

  Initialising private peer-to-peer communication

  Please wait………….. Initialised.

  RoyTheBoy07: Please give update.

  CerburusAX: target one has been successfully removed.

  RoyTheBoy07: And?

  CerburusAX: We had problem with target two. Not at location and backup failed.

  RoyTheBoy07: By ‘Backup’ do you mean the fucking big bomb you left under his car?

  CerburusAX: Not our usual methods but U gave us little time.