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

by Caimh McDonnell

  Bunny gave a smirk and raised his glass, draining the last of it.

  O’Rourke used the brief gap in conversation to look at his old friend. His face had become a hodge-podge of unhappy reds, a sure sign that his drinking hadn’t slowed down. He was long past the point where the body easily rebounded from ill treatment. He’d also put on a fair bit of weight, although he’d never been what could be traditionally considered athletic.

  “So,” said O’Rourke. “Enough of the flannel. Why’re you here?”

  “Paulie Mulchrone.”

  “That’s Jimmy Stewart’s case. Talk to him.”

  “Oh, I have, although he’s suspended now.”

  O’Rourke was taken off-guard by this. “What the hell for?”

  “Being a good copper. There’s not a lot of it about these days.”

  “I’ll make some calls in the morning. What do you care anyway?” O’Rourke looked at McGarry, his glass poised at his lips. “Since when’ve you and he been bosom buddies? I’d have thought he was a bit too ‘by the book’ for your tastes.”

  “Maybe I’m mellowing in my old age.”

  “Says the man who just broke into my house. This case has nothing to do with you, Bunny. A word to the wise, leave it go.”

  Bunny leaned forward, the mercurial intensity returning, and spoke in a low growl. “Mulchrone is one of my boys.”

  O’Rourke turned his eyes to heaven. “Oh, for feck sake, you and your precious hurling team. Aren’t you forgetting, he’s also the lad who made you look like an incompetent idiot back with the Nellis thing?”

  “I wouldn’t put it quite like that.”

  “Well, speaking as the fool who pulled all kinds of strings to get you on that team in the first place, I would.”

  “You owed me that,” said Bunny. “I might still be there if you’d stood by me.”

  “Bollocks, Bunny. Get off the cross, we need the wood.”

  The two men locked eyes. “Don’t bother with your wonky-eyed staring bullshit either. We go back way too far for that nonsense to work on me.”

  Bunny stood up unsteadily and started looking at the trophy cabinet in the corner. He opened it before O’Rourke could think of a reason to stop him.

  “That’s right,” said Bunny, a slight slur in his voice, “we go back a long way. I remember when you were a snivel-nosed little runt, fresh off the bus from Templemore. Like a lost child in the big city. Taught you everything you know, didn’t I?”

  “Ahh, you did alright. Some of those tricks took a long time to unlearn.”

  Bunny held up the statue O’Rourke had won in that trout fishing tournament two years ago, examining it like it was a fine work of art. “I took care of you though.”

  “And I’ve always taken care of you. Don’t forget, it’s thanks to me you have your cushy number. You’re the only Guard in the country who can go weeks without answering to anybody.”

  “I get results.”

  “Yeah, and let’s not forget the hassles some of those results cause.”

  Bunny put the statue down. “Speaking of results, Pauline McNair was an innocent civilian and now she’s dead.”

  “What’s your point, Bunny?”

  “Some gobshite went around today and tried to put the squeeze on Mulchrone’s lawyer, a pregnant woman.”

  “I repeat, what’s your point?”

  “Not forgetting the bomb, a fucking BOMB mind you, on the street where kiddies play.”

  “Again, what is your fucking point, Bunny?”

  “You’ve a leak.”

  “A possible leak. I’ve got people looking into it.”

  “I bet you do. Jimmy Stewart reckons it’s your PR woman. Veronica Doyle, is it?”

  “That’s a very serious allegation. Do you or DI Stewart have anything to back it up?”

  “You’d have to ask Jimmy that. She’s not the horse I’m backing.”

  “No?”

  “No,” said Bunny. He flicked the rim of a Waterford Crystal vase with his finger, the clear tone ringing out around the room. “That’d be you.”

  O’Rourke laughed. “Thanks for that, Bunny. I needed cheering up.”

  Bunny didn’t look up from his examination of the trophy cabinet. “She reports to you, I’m sure.”

  “Feck off home and sober up, Bunny. If you’re lucky, I’ll pretend this conversation never happened.”

  “I spent the day catching up on my reading. I went through all your old case files, Fintan. The O’Rourke greatest hits in your meteoric rise to power.” Bunny breathed onto the top of a golden golfer’s head and then gave it a polish with the sleeve of his jacket.

  “Do you like golf, Fintan? I recently took it up myself.”

  “Keep going the way you are, Bunny, and you’ll have a lot more time to practice.”

  Bunny put the trophy carefully back where he’d found it. “All those intelligence-led big collars. Your career got a few big bumps taking down Gerry Fallon’s rivals, did it not?”

  “We landed the odd blow on him too.”

  “Oh yeah, just enough to be smart, no doubt. You’ve got to land a few punches, if you’re going to throw the fight.”

  “I can’t believe I’m standing here listening to this paranoid conspiracy theory bollocks, from you of all people.”

  “So I’m wrong then?”

  “Dead wrong.” O’Rourke moved across, grabbed Bunny by the shoulder and swung him around, before shoving his finger into his face. “Whatever you were, you’re not that anymore. You’ve lost it, Bunny. I’ve been too soft on you for old times’ sake. That report from two years ago, saying you weren’t fit to serve? I was a bloody fool to get rid of it. I just count myself lucky that I realised that in time. Before you did something I can’t fix. You’ve two choices. Get yourself off the booze, or in two weeks’ time you’re off the force. Is that clear?”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Try me.”

  Bunny said nothing, but O’Rourke could see the shake in his hand as he rubbed it across his face. There was a hint of wetness in his eyes.

  “Have you got much else in your sad little life, bar the job, Bunny?”

  A silence stretched out between them. O’Rourke stepped back and stared at the drink-sodden husk of a man. Bunny McGarry had been something back in his day, but that day was long gone. His old friend was dead. Only this remained.

  Bunny looked down at the wooden varnished floor and glowered at it, as if offended by its presence.

  “Well?” said O’Rourke.

  After a long moment, the other man nodded. He seemed smaller now somehow. Beneath the drunken bravado and the reputation he’d so carefully cultivated lay a broken man. Pickled in bitterness and booze.

  O’Rourke exhaled loudly and walked over to his desk. He lifted the intricately carved wooden lid of the cigar box and withdrew one of the Cubans he’d got on last year’s trip to America. He clipped the end, picked up the lighter, and only then did he look back at Bunny.

  “I’m going out for a smoke. When I get back, you won’t be here. I’ll also never see you again. And if your name passes across my desk once – for any reason – that report that got lost will be found again. Clear?”

  Bunny nodded and turned towards the door. He opened it and, without looking back, left.

  O’Rourke opened the double doors to his balcony and stepped outside. There was a slight tremor in his hands as he lit the cigar. He could feel a tension headache building behind his right temple. Always when playing this game, there were trade-offs. This had been the week from hell. Fallon had him by the balls every which way. What’d he called it? Mutually assured destruction. This thing had been a disaster from the get go, but there was still a route out of it. He’d covered his tracks well, he’d thought. He certainly didn’t need Bunny, of all people, pulling the high and mighty routine. On the upside, the drunken sot didn’t have many friends left on the force. Back in his day, Bunny had been a sheer force of nature. But that was the old
Bunny. He’d been dirty in his way but he’d had a code. He’d been the one who’d first taught O’Rourke that the ends justified the means. Wasn’t that all he had done? Just on a bigger scale. Bunny’s problem was he couldn’t see the bigger picture. He’d never been able to see the bigger picture.

  O’Rourke took a deep drag on his cigar and looked out over the hills, down onto Dublin bay below. He could see lights out at sea, a late night ferry coming in no doubt. A thought occurred to him. He’d left the hurley behind…

  Then the world turned upside down.

  For a big man, Bunny could still move deceptively quietly. The first thing O’Rourke had felt was one hand on his back as the other grabbed his belt and heaved him over the side. He hung there in a terrible moment, looking down at the flowerbeds, three stories below, nothing more than vague outlines in the darkness. He watched his cigar tumble, sparks flying as it bounced off the wall, before disappearing into the darkness below. His hands scrabbled at the cornices, desperately trying to find something to grip onto. And he screamed. Good Christ did he scream. Not words, just terror. Full-throated terror. He wasn’t screaming to be heard, the house was too far away from the neighbours to raise any form of alarm. He was screaming out of sheer physical need.

  He managed to wrap his arms around one of the white marble balustrade columns and held on for dear life. A pair of strong arms were wrapped around his legs, dangling him over the side.

  A voice came from above, suddenly sounding a lot clearer than it had. “What’s wrong, Fintan? Suddenly at a loss for words?”

  “Fuck sake, Bunny, pull me up, now!!” O’Rourke had clamped his eyes shut, concentrating all his energies on hanging on.

  “Not until you tell me what I want to know.”

  “YOU’RE FUCKING MENTAL!”

  O’Rourke’s stomach lurched, as the arms above him adjusted their grip.

  “Sure, don’t we already know that? You’ve got your little report that says so. What was it again? Unstable, wasn’t it?”

  “Let me up and it’s gone. I swear.”

  “D’ye know, I didn’t want to believe it. I mean, I knew it was you from early doors, but I kept hoping. It was only when you threatened me that I knew for sure. What’s Fallon got on ye?”

  “Just – pull me up and we can talk.”

  “Ah but sure,” said Bunny, the sound of strain in his voice, “aren’t we talking now? And you’re much less of a condescending prick upside down. Now what’s Fallon hiding?”

  “Jesus, Bunny, cop yourself on. You’ve no idea what you’re dealing with.”

  “I know what you’re dealing with Fintan – Gravity. And she’s a mean auld whore. Now, Paulie Mulchrone?”

  “Why do you fucking care?”

  O’Rourke gave an involuntary yelp of terror as Bunny deliberately loosened his grip for a moment. He could feel his three-course meal from earlier rushing to leave him.

  “Because he… IS ONE OF MY BOYS!”

  “Alright, Bunny, you’ve made your point. I’ve seen this movie too. We both know you’re not really going to drop me, so drag me up while you still can, and we’ll talk this out.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It’s a good bluff but the joke’s over.”

  “Fair point,” said Bunny.

  And then he dropped him.

  Assistant Commissioner Fintan O’Rourke’s world was pain. If he moved any which way, agony surged through his whole body. He was vaguely aware of the damp soil that surrounded him, the fingers of his right hand were buried in it. There was the unmistakable smell of the horseshit that his wife put on the roses in the winter. She was mad keen to win some kind of award. He was surprised he could still smell. His nose was broken. The blood streaming down his face was making it hard to breath. He couldn’t move his left hand at all; he could feel bone sticking out of the skin of his forearm. His left knee also felt shot to hell and his right shoulder kept sending wave upon wave of sickening pain through him. He guessed a couple of ribs were gone as well. He could feel himself fading into sleep, his brain keen to remove itself from the body’s agony.

  A hand slapped him across the face.

  “Fintan!”

  His eyes flew open and the world spun around him, with the figure of Bunny McGarry looming over him at its centre.

  “You fucking lunatic,” rasped O’Rourke. “You’re a dead man.”

  “Of the two of us, you’re the one who looks in more immediate danger of that.”

  “You dropped me.”

  “I did. The secret to bluffing, I find, is not to do it. What’re ye whinging for? You’re still in a much better state than Pauline McNair.”

  “Fucking...”

  O’Rourke trailed off, feeling the world go out of focus again, tasting the blood and soil in his mouth. He got slapped in the face again.

  “Stay with me now. You’ve got to tell me what Fallon is hiding.”

  O’Rourke tried to laugh but the blood in his mouth only made it into a gurgle. “You already dropped me. Why the fuck would I tell you anything now?”

  “Ah,” said Bunny, “an excellent question.”

  Bunny stooped and picked something off the ground. It was O’Rourke’s cigar, still lit. He took a couple of deep puffs to reignite it fully before taking it from his lips and smiling down at him.

  “I dropped you once to prove I would. Now, you’re going to tell me everything I want to know. Otherwise… I’ll do it again, and I’d imagine the second time will really hurt.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  “Ouch!”

  “Stop squirming,” said Brigit.

  “I am squirming because you are basically rubbing acid into my head wound.” Paul winced and pulled his head forward so fast, he very nearly head-butted Dorothy’s kitchen table. “Seriously, is this necessary?”

  “What? That we disinfect your wound? That depends. Normally, how clean is the floor of a gents’ toilet?”

  Paul grumbled under his breath but straightened up to allow Brigit to finish killing him with kindness. He looked at his own reflection in the glass door leading out into the garden, and then at the intense look of concentration on Brigit’s face as she stared at the back of his head. She blew out of the side of her mouth to move a strand of her brown hair out of her field of vision. Then she looked up and noticed his reflection watching her. “What?”

  “Nothing,” said Paul, his cheeks reddening as he looked away. The kitchen wasn’t a mess but it certainly wasn’t clean. The plates from breakfast were soaking in the sink, and the couple of frying pans were still sitting on the stove. Dorothy didn’t keep a tidy home, she kept staff who did that for her and they apparently didn’t work Saturdays.

  “This should really have a couple of stiches in it, not to mention the concussion you’ve almost certainly got. You should be in hospital now.”

  “Because my last visit went so well. Besides, we didn’t go to all that trouble to finally getting a lead, a bona fida lead mind you, only to give ourselves up.”

  Paul was still buzzing from his stroke of genius/luck getting information out of Brophy like that. Alright, getting whacked on the back of the skull and a bit of a going over was not exactly part of the plan, but still, it’d worked. He’d done something, and something had worked. He was starting to get into this investigating lark. “So where is Bandon?”

  He could feel Brigit rummaging around in his hair, still unhappy with what she was seeing. He felt a little bit like a monkey being groomed.

  “It’s a town outside Cork, isn’t it? Although, are you sure he said Bandon?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You had got a knock on the head. Maybe he said Brendan?”

  “Brendan? Who the hell is Brendan?”

  “Well, exactly. Or maybe he said Brandon?”

  “What’d that be?”

  “It could be Fiachra Fallon’s new name in America. It’s a very yank name.”

  “Or maybe he said Branston,” said P
aul. “Y’know, because we’re in a pickle?”

  “I’m just saying —”

  Before Brigit could finish just saying, the kitchen door swung open and Dorothy walked in, wearing another of her fetching housecoats. Today’s featured an entire foxhunt, complete with horses and a pack of dogs. They’d been hoping to avoid seeing her until Paul’s latest injury had been dealt with. Her rheumy eyes behind her jam-jar glasses grew even larger with inquiry.

  “So, finally clocked him one, did you, dear?”

  “Gregory just had a bit of a fall,” said Brigit.

  “Of course he did, and I’m a monkey’s grandma.” Dorothy placed her plate of biscuit crumbs down on the counter. “Physical violence is not the answer.”

  “Quite right,” said Brigit.

  “Yes,” replied Dorothy, drawing her antique handgun from the pocket of her housecoat. “All you need to do is shove one of these in their face and say, ‘give it up, mothermucker’.”

  “Dorothy!”

  “Oh, do lighten up, dear. I’ve been watching that Sons of Anarchy. Tremendous! So who is up for a game of Monopoly?” Her eyes danced with excitement as she spoke: “And a takeaway! We could order from that nice Chinese place that…”

  A thought struck Paul, milliseconds before his scalp experienced a searing pain. “CHRIST!”

  Paul placed his hands on the table and tried to steady himself.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Brigit said. “Honestly, that’s it – fully cleaned and ready for bandaging now.”

  Paul glanced up to see Dorothy looking at him with large wet eyes of worry. “Honestly, I’m fine.”

  “He is,” assured Brigit. “Let me just finish this and then board games, grub and booze for all.”

  “Right ho.” Dorothy shuffled out of the door that led towards the front room.

  “Actually,” whispered Brigit, “No booze for you. Doctor’s orders.”

  Paul listened to the reassuring sound of the soft shush of Dorothy’s slippers on the thick carpeting in the next room.

  “She does worry about you, y’know.”

  “I worry about me too,” said Paul. “I’m averaging an injury every other day. There was something important I was going to say…”