“I wouldn’t have imagined wolf cubs would be that easy to come by,” I said.
“When you’ve the wealth and connections of the Fitzconors, Paddy, getting what you want can be very easy. But that’s where Easy Street ended for him. From there on in, he came up against headache after hurdle. It nearly proved impossible. Angus had believed that the reason there’d never been a successful cross between the two breeds was because the animals were natural enemies. A wolf would normally kill a fox on sight, and a fox would never knowingly cross a wolf’s path.
“He separated the male and female wolf cubs and put them with the fox kits and watched them grow. When the time came, the wolf bitch wouldn’t let the fox anywhere near her, nearly killed it at one stage; and the wolf successfully covered the vixen, but nothing came of it. But Angus kept at it, and even though he was getting nowhere, he still believed it possible. Then on a spring morning in ’92, the biggest, meanest-looking fox he’d ever seen came out of the woods and just stood there, staring at the wolf bitch caged in her pen. Angus called him Zulu because whatever it was about him, he had that wolf bitch hypnotized. He let her out and watched her vanish into the woods after the fox, only to return two days later, panting and pregnant. She gave birth two months later to five of the most beautiful little pups he’d ever seen.”
“That’s some story, Chris. How come I’ve never heard of them?”
“It doesn’t end there, Paddy. The offspring ended up being too highly strung. One in particular, which Angus described as the most demonic animal he’d ever encountered, killed another one of the cubs in a fight. After that, he had to intervene in their scraps. So to introduce a little street savvy to the mix, he added the Alsatian, a champion dog from a top breeder in Mělník in the Czech Republic. But take a look at something that’s always intrigued me. See Dechtire’s eyes? They’re the same as a fox’s. They’ve survived each cross, they’re serpentine.”
I looked into the dog’s eyes and noticed for the first time that they had vertical-slit pupils, like a cat’s.
Vincent arrived back with a garment bag and picked up his coffee from the tray.
Chris continued his story. “But the most remarkable thing about the dog turned out to be not its eyes, but its intelligence, along with how well it bonded with its master. The connection is nothing short of extraordinary.”
“So they’re bright,” I said.
“Beyond bright,” said Vincent. There was clearly much more to the story, but as interested as I was, I had a hearse to drive and was out of time.
“I’d love to stay longer, but I’ve got to go,” I said, picking up the plant Vincent had given me. He handed me the bag of clothes.
“Will you see his shoes in the coffin?” said Vincent.
“No, but I can still put them on him. It’s up to you.”
“Put them on him. Let’s have him fully dressed.”
Chris got up from the bench.
“I’ll walk you out, Paddy.”
As I moved away from the dog, she grunted urgently for my attention and succeeded in turning all three of our heads. She looked at me and licked her lips quickly, as if she wanted another scratch. I smiled and winked at her affectionately.
“Dechtire,” said Vincent, in a commanding tone, and she turned from me and moved to his side.
We left Vincent with the dog and headed for the hearse.
“So how much are you selling the pups for?” I asked him.
“A hundred grand, sterling.”
I smiled at him.
“Come off it.”
“We could probably charge double that and not meet the slightest resistance.”
“Who pays that kind of money for a dog?”
“Mainly Saudi princes and sheikhs, and people with money to burn, who, like yourself, have an affinity with dogs and an appreciation for the kind of bond I’m talking about. The potential is vast, Paddy.”
I opened the hearse and put in the clothes and plant.
“What do you mean, exactly?”
Chris leaned in close to the hearse, resting his arm on the roof, and changed his tone to conspiratorial.
“You know what kind of guys these are, right?” he said, with a backward nod.
“Of course.”
He lowered his voice even further. “Two years ago, Vincent and I were away on business together, so Donal was left in charge. Vincent had a warehouse over by the North Wall filled with electrical goods, that kind of thing, and had five rottweilers guarding it at nighttime. The old guy who looked after it used to drink in The Port Jester after work—rough house—he was a simple little guy who took pride in his work and used to talk in the pub about how secure the place was because of the dogs. Anyway, to prove a point or to just shut him up, one of the younger guys in the pub hopped over the gates one night with nothing but a spade in his hand and killed every one of the dogs, leaving them in a pool of blood. The warehouse was well monitored with cameras and Donal watched the footage a couple of times. One tough bastard the guy was, a total animal. Donal makes enquiries and finds out the guy’s into hard-core porn, so he gets information to the guy through his dealer that the warehouse is a distribution center for porn and snuff movies, and that a key to the place is kept hanging on a hook above the door in the outside jacks in the yard. It took nine days for the guy to come in, but he did come in. Now bear in mind Dechtire’s been with Donal all this time. He takes her everywhere with him—she was there with him the morning they found the dogs dead, she inspected it in detail along with Donal, and is with him each evening while he waits for your man, right?”
“Go on,” I told him.
“So, the night in question, Donal has Dechtire waiting in the toilet for your man, and come half one, the guy hops over the gate, walks down to the jacks, opens the door to get the key, and Dechtire springs out on top of him, pushes him to the ground, and bites the Adam’s apple out through his neck in a matter of seconds.”
“Killing him?”
“Stone dead. Now, as gruesome as it is, that’s not the extraordinary bit, Paddy. Here’s the thing: Donal had been in a fight in Limerick three months prior to the North Wall incident, which he ended by biting the Adam’s apple out of the guy’s throat, killing him. With Vincent out of the country, Dechtire spends her days and nights with Donal, during which time they bond and deal with the North Wall situation together. And that’s just one story.”
I was horrified but intrigued.
“So Donal showed her what to do?” I said.
“He did no such thing, Paddy. This is the connection and potential I’m talking about. Beginning to see the possibilities?”
I was enjoying the story about the dog as much as I was appreciative of the conviviality and trust between Chris and me, but before I could enjoy another moment of either, the thought of my forgotten hearse-driving duties drained the blood from my face. I checked my watch: 10:30.
“Oh, Christ,” I said.
NINETEEN
10:30 a.m.
There weren’t many things that annoyed Frank Gallagher, but hearses arriving late for funerals was at the top of the list. At twenty past ten, when Paddy hadn’t answered his phone, he’d begun to suspect things weren’t running as smoothly as he’d like, but now, standing outside the church at half past ten with no sign of a hearse, he was becoming furious.
He tried phoning the church to see if he could get anyone to go out to the altar and alert the priest to the problem so he could help by stretching the Mass a little, but nobody answered the phone. He’d have organized another hearse to come up in its place if there was one available, but it was a busy morning and they were flat out. They were just going to have to wait for Paddy.
Christy and Jack, who were with him, were no happier than Frank was. Nobody wanted to be left explaining to a grieving family surrounded by hundreds of mourners why the hea
rse hadn’t arrived.
The priest had just finished the Mass and was stepping down past the altar to stand by the coffin to say the closing prayers. The sacristan stood beside him, tending to the incense and holy water. These prayers seldom took more than five minutes, ten at the most. Frank prayed with every bit of faith he possessed that the priest would take it past the ten-minute mark, long enough for Paddy to pull up outside.
The generally accepted cue for the undertakers to walk to the top of the side aisles and stand in waiting was the priest’s starting of the closing prayers. Frank turned to his men, grim-faced.
“Right, we’re going to have to go up. We’ll take this as slowly as possible.”
Christy and Jack followed Frank up the left side of the church so slowly that hardly any of the mourners even noticed them moving. Christy, for his part, was extremely apprehensive about dealing with the Hayeses under such circumstances, but was more worried that Paddy had come unstuck with Cullen in some way, and played out all sorts of unwelcome scenarios in his head, his sunken cheeks the only outward sign of anxiety.
Once at the top of the aisle, the three men stood still with their hands clasped behind them and their faces drawn.
They’d hoped that one of the family would take to the podium to say a few words about the deceased’s short life, which would have added another five minutes and possibly saved them, but nothing of the sort happened.
The priest took the holy water from the sacristan and walked slowly around the coffin with the sprinkler, shaking the water onto it. He followed that by doing a similar ritual with the thurible, which he used to shake incense at the coffin with a practiced hand before passing it back to the sacristan and getting back to his prayer book.
“May the martyrs come to welcome you and may the angels lead you into Paradise and may you have eternal rest,” he said, before making the Sign of the Cross and turning off his mike. He stepped down off the altar and proceeded to walk past the coffin a few feet down the center aisle, stopping to wait for the coffin to be turned and wheeled down behind him.
As the organ music piped up to see them out of the church, Frank moved to the coffin much slower than he usually would with added dignity and piousness and took longer, too, in what appeared to be a heartfelt genuflection, emulated precisely by Christy and Jack. Then they turned the coffin around on its trolley so the feet were facing the priest. Just as the priest was about to continue towards the door, Frank moved to the family and took old Mrs. Hayes’s hands in his.
“Mrs. Hayes, would you like your sons to carry Dermot out on their shoulders?”
The old woman nodded her weeping head. Frank then turned to the sons and took his time about telling them what their mother had decided before guiding them out of the pew and placing them around the coffin according to their height: tallest at the back, shortest at the front. Once they all had their positions and the coffin was raised onto their shoulders, Frank gave the priest the nod to go on, following after him at a snail’s pace, flanked by Christy and Jack, whose eyes, along with Frank’s, were riveted on the space outside the open doors that was still horribly vacant.
As the Hayeses carried the coffin behind him, Frank mentally went through the route from Cullen’s house to the church to appease his tortured mind and fervently prayed Paddy was only moments away. Jesus, get him here, I’m begging you, roll that hearse up outside the doors, please, Lord, I implore you, let me see that hearse outside.
TWENTY
10:41 a.m.
I hadn’t stopped once since leaving Cullen’s house. Breaking five red traffic lights, driving on the wrong side of the road, and three times touching on 140 kph, I managed to squeeze the twenty-minute journey into an even eleven minutes. By the time I got to the church, I was sure I’d be pulling up to a mob of angry mourners, but as I approached the doors of the Romanesque monstrosity of a church, it was miraculously free of people. I slunk past the main doors as the coffin was being marched down the steps and inched to a stop as if it was as methodical a procedure as the tightly linked cogs in a clock keeping time. I killed the engine just as Frank turned the handle on the back door and opened it up for the coffin, which was slowly pushed up to a stop just behind my head.
I got out of the hearse only to be immediately met by Frank, who took a firm grip of my arm and led me around the corner to the side of the church, where he stopped short of pinning me to the wall.
“Are you trying to give me a fucking heart attack?” he said, barely able to contain his anger.
“Frank, I’m sorry. I couldn’t get away from Cullen.”
Frank was incredulous.
“I don’t give a shite who you were with, Paddy. You should have been here at ten past the fucking hour. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
“It was on silent. He’s a tricky bastard, Frank; he tells me when I can come and go. I’m sorry.”
He straightened his coat with a yank. “Don’t ever do that to me again,” he said with finality, and walked back around the corner. I gave it a minute before following after him, moving around to the back of the hearse, where Christy was placing the family wreath at the head of the coffin while Jack placed the other flowers on either side of the coffin. Christy raised his eyebrows at me while exhaling through puffed cheeks.
Before we could say a word to each other, our attention was seized by old Mrs. Hayes making her way up to Frank, who was standing on the other side of the hearse, collecting Mass cards from the occasional mourner.
“Mr. Gallagher,” she said. “I’ve rosary beads here. Is it possible to have them put in the coffin at this late stage?”
“Of course it is,” said Frank, his calm restored. “Have you them there? I’ll look after it myself.”
She handed him the beads.
“We’ll just have to take the coffin inside the church again.”
“Thanks very much,” she said, and moved back to her family. Christy was beside Frank in a matter of seconds, holding out his hand.
“I’ll look after that for you, Frank.”
“You can give me a hand,” said Frank, and then looked to Jack. “Keep an eye on things out here, Jack, we’re taking the coffin back inside for a minute.”
“Right you are,” said Jack.
Christy kept his hand held out, the panic coming alive in his eyes.
“Here, Frank, Paddy and I’ll look after that, you can stay out here.”
Frank ignored him. He moved to the back of the hearse and took out the spuds holding the coffin in place. I knew Frank well, and once he’d decided on something, he generally stuck to it like glue.
“Paddy,” he said. “Give us a hand getting this inside.”
Christy’s eyes were darting all over the place. I winked at him as we took a grip of either side of the coffin while Frank took the head. We carried it inside and placed it on the trolley and then wheeled it over to a quiet alcove. I took out my screwdriver, opened the four screws holding the lid down, and opened it a crack. I stretched my hand out to Frank.
“I’ll just slip them in,” I said.
Frank wasn’t in the mood to be challenged. “No, take the lid off the coffin.”
I took the lid off to reveal the dead old woman. Frank’s jaw dropped slowly open. Christy stood there looking awkward and ashamed, sinking lower in his shoes by the second. And I just waited. Frank brought his gaze up to mine.
“What the fuck is going on here?” he said, with contained righteous anger.
“We weren’t just sent the wrong body,” I said. “Kershaw’s cremated Dermot Hayes over there.”
“And whose decision was it to wing it?” said Frank, with scrutinizing eyes.
“It was mine,” said Christy, taking the proverbial bullet. Granted, it was his funeral, and because of that, he felt responsible, but it was the caliber of his friendship that informed his spurious confession.
“It was mine,” I said. “It was mine all the way.”
TWENTY-ONE
12:40 p.m.
The boardroom in Gallagher’s was a long room seldom used for anything but the storage of neglected ashes and the odd meeting Frank might have with his lawyer or accountant. I sat at the end of the long oak table by the boxes of ashes, looking at Christy through the film of dust on the antique mirror spanning the length of the wall. He didn’t want to talk to me. Having positioned himself half a table length from me with his face cupped in his hand, he was completely despondent, blaming himself for listening to me and veering from Frank’s code of rectitude at all times, at all costs.
If the Kershaw situation had happened in any other week, I probably wouldn’t have gone down the route of deceit, but the die had been cast with the Wright and Cullen situations, so I did it as much to validate and bolster the desperate measures I’d been forced to take as to keep the Hayeses from a tainted grieving process and Kershaw out of the soup. But this was little comfort to Christy with his job on the block and reputation tarnished.
“Christy . . .” I began.
He raised his hand to silence me without looking up and then let it drop in his lap.
“I feel like a bollocks,” I said.
“Don’t,” he said flatly. “I’ll be able to pick up some work with the embassies.”
I emptied my lungs. “What a monumental fuckup,” I said.
“The beads,” he said. “Those fucking rosary beads . . .”
Before I could respond, Frank came in, looking even more deflated than Christy, but with an anger on him. He dropped himself into the chair at the head of the table and looked at me like a betrayed and disappointed father.
“How much did you make on this, Paddy?”
I thought he knew me better than that, but then I suppose he thought he knew me better, too.
“You think I did what I did to make money?”
“Well, why else would you have done it? Surely you wouldn’t have hung me out to dry for nothing?”
The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley Page 12