by Declan Burke
“She married for the money?”
She threw me a disdainful one – sure, why else?
“I’m sure I wouldn’t know, detective.”
Herbie, coming in hard: “What about drugs?”
“Drugs?”
“Imelda got an early white Christmas, a St. Bernard dug her out of the drift in her living room. That kind of thing usual for Imelda?”
“Jesus, I wouldn’t think so. You’re sure you have the right –”
“We always have the right. You think Tony might have stabbed his wife?”
“No!” Bouncing back now. “And I don’t think –”
“That’s our job,” Herbie snapped, “the thinking. Could he have had it arranged?”
“How would I know?”
“Yes or no, here or in the station.”
“No.”
I pinched my nose again.
“Joan, we appreciate your co-operation and we realise that this must have come as a great shock.” She nodded, head down, milking it. “Can we ask you not to leave the jurisdiction without notifying us in advance?”
She came up fast, her eyes wide.
“Am I –? Does that mean –?”
“No ma’am, but we would appreciate it if you would stay in touch.” I paused. “Given the circumstances, we’re just concerned for everyone’s safety.”
She gaped, swallowed hard, and the sobs started welling up again. I made some comforting noises, patted her shoulder. We left. When the lift doors closed, Herbie glanced across, catching my eye.
“That’s our job,” he drawled, “the thinking.”
“You’re a fucking ham.”
We left the apartment building foyer separately, still buzzing on the mood.
5
Back at the office I flipped through the post – all bills – binning the first-timers. Rolled a smoke, mulling over the newspaper clipping Katie had left behind, wondering again why she might have left it. Saw a face, back row, top right – black piggy eyes in a sallow face that didn’t need a shave.
I got the old familiar feeling, stomach churning up concrete, hairs prickling on the back of my neck – the sensation I was being watched. I didn’t go for the .38 again. I sparked the smoke instead, popped another pill and rang the morgue, wondering if I should just book a slab and be done with it. I flipped a coin. It didn’t come down.
She was a dumb blonde, pushing fifty and pushing downhill and still dumb enough to want to be blonde. Skin the colour of vellum paper, sagging under the chin. Lips thin and just about pink, the nose narrow, the hair on her upper lip also dyed blonde. I wanted to ask how come blondes never got around to dyeing their eyebrows but her eyes were closed and the gash in her throat ran six inches east to west.
The morgue was chilly, sterile and white. Six floors of hospital hummed through to the basement but I could still hear the intern sweat. His eyes darted from Imelda Sheridan to the door, back again.
“They know who found her yet?”
He licked his lips, teeth protruding, a thin horsy face.
“How the fuck would I know?”
“You might have asked.”
“Why the fuck would I ask?”
“I don’t know – job the fuck satisfaction, maybe.”
He laughed a thin, high snort, a rat with sinus trouble. Dragged the sheet back across her face.
“Rack ‘em, stack ‘em, pack ‘em. They want more, they pay more.”
“More what – whizz?”
His face whitened, mouth slack and hanging open, lights on and nobody home.
“You need sleep,” I told him.
“What I need’s a gun.”
“Careful what you wish for, Chief. Any word on the pathologist’s prelim?”
“Lots of ‘em. Couple of pages worth.”
“Any of them worth repeating?”
“How the fuck –”
“Would you know? I was hoping you’d learnt to read since last time.”
He rubbed a hand across his buzz cut.
“Anyone finds out I let you in here –”
“I know, I’d have to tell them you plunder the cabinet and people are dying because you’ve got the whizz shakes. Dry your eyes.”
I headed for the door, looking back as he slid Imelda Sheridan’s slab home.
“You hear anything about the post-mortem, give me a bell.”
“How the fuck –”
I let the morgue door swish to.
I sipped at the coffee, thought some more about Katie. Wondering how her split ends were faring. A light bulb flared, fifteen watts. I dug out the Red Directory, thumbed through to Hairdressers and worked backwards alphabetically, on a whim.
“Hello, I’m ringing on behalf of Tony Sheridan. He’d like to cancel his wife’s styling appointment… I can, yes… No? Really? I’m sorry, I must have been given the wrong number… Pardon? Yes, of course I’ll pass that on… Sorry for taking up your time. Bye.”
Seven tries later, I hit pay dirt.
“Yes, well, I’m just making the arrangements, Mr Sheridan wouldn’t want to put anyone out… Sorry? Yes, that is just like him… I’ll certainly pass that on. You’re very kind. Who am I talking to? Sandra?”
Sandra was the kind of artist, she could overpaint a Botticelli with a Barbie cartoon and throw in highlights for free. She was a walking advertisement, snipped and buffed, bleached and tucked, her skin the colour of old toffee. Her face was sharp, plastic and angular, a shoulder-mounted credit card.
“That’s very kind, Sandra… Yes, she was. A lady, indeed… It was just a styling, wasn’t it? You’ll be compensated for the inconvenience, of course… Manicure too? A facial, of course… Yes, I understand, yes… Sorry? Yes, I’m sure Mr Sheridan realises that… Yes, of course I will. God bless. Bye.”
Tom Kilfeather wasn’t a bad cop but he’d forgotten the little he knew about women the day he got married. If Imelda Sheridan had been depressed, the way Kilfeather called it, the funk hadn’t been deep enough to stop her planning for the party season with a full makeover three days before Christmas. I rolled a smoke and treated myself to a stare at the far wall.
The big man came through the door like a rolling maul, planted his huge fists on the desk.
“If you don’t knock,” I pointed out, “it’s B&E. Technically speaking.”
He grinned, wide and evil.
“Technically speaking, I could give a fuck.” He stuck his face in mine, jabbed a thumb at his chest. His breath hadn’t freshened any since he ran me off Sheridan’s spread, and he was sweating like an old cheese. “Detective Brady. You, me, a little conversation.”
“By all means. It’s a dying art.”
He perched on the edge of the desk, stuck out his chin. A redundant gesture, the chin was already out the window and waiting for a break in traffic.
“Impersonating a garda will get you five to ten. The broken elbows are optional. Give me one reason why I don’t run you in right now.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Joan Hunter, Tony Sheridan’s ex-tart. You braced her this morning, said you were a cop.”
“Bullshit.”
“She’ll swear to it.”
“She’ll perjure herself.” I nodded at the sign on the door. “This is a research bureau. We do detective work. Not my fault if she jumped to the wrong conclusion.”
He grinned again, but not like he’d just remembered a punch line.
“Smart, eh? I like the smart ones, they don’t run so fast.” He scratched his stubble. “What’d she tell you?”
“Nothing you don’t already know.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“No.”
He considered that and let it slide.
“You’re the hack was up at Tony Sheridan’s this morning.”
“Correct.”
“Who do you work for?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m also a freelance journalist.”
“And when you click your fingers, I’ll quack like a duck.”
He flexed his fingers, grinned evil again, a fox spotting a snared rabbit. I tensed, ready to roll with it. He said: “Ever hear of the Official Secrets Act?”
“Of course. It’s right there in the book, next to Freedom of Information.”
I didn’t even see it coming. One second Brady was perched on the edge of the desk, the next the world was all fist. The vast paw stopped maybe an eighth of an inch from my face, no shakes, solid as granite.
“Crack one more. Just one. I’m begging you.”
I kept schtum. The fist disappeared. Brady sat back and sparked one up.
“Okay – this is the way we’re going to play it. I want to know –”
By then I was on my feet, surging forward, pushing the table up and out, Brady disappearing beneath it. He came up fast, knuckles white, face flushed. Found me scared, braced and ready. He came on, dipped a shoulder, I bought it – but he shimmied, feinted an uppercut and cracked a laugh.
“Alright, Rigby, sit down. Show’s over.”
I sat back in the chair. He righted the table one-handed.
“You don’t roll over, Rigby. I’ll respect that. So – I want you on-side but what can we do? The information is still void, there’s nowhere you can put it won’t get you ten years.”
“Why?”
“Can’t say, Rigby. It’s way too big. You’re out of your league.”
“Sheridan’s going down?”
“Sheridan who?”
We stared and smoked, Brady smirking.
“Look Brady, Tony Sheridan’s place turns into an abattoir, that’s big news. Plus – someone kitted her out like a suicide and threw in some coke. All the while Tony’s away, presumably screwing someone else. Put all that together, it’s bigger than Russia. And you want me to sit on it? That’s unethical and criminally fucking stupid, and I’m not criminally fucking stupid.”
His eyes narrowed. I didn’t blink.
“Okay, here’s the news – fuck Russia, this is off the scale, you can’t imagine. But what I’m willing to do is play it tight and keep you in touch. When it all taps out, I’ll hand the lot over, reports, forensics, the works.”
“That’s right, I forgot. I’m criminally fucking stupid.”
He shrugged.
“I’m a cop, yeah, but you can trust me. After I nail this one I want to see investigations, tribunals, the works.”
“You want it buried?”
He let that one slide.
“You’ll get the lot, Rigby, pink frilly bows and satin fucking kisses. Scratch my back and I’ll even help you put it together. Until then – it’s personal.”
“Imelda Sheridan is personal?”
“Indirectly. Bear with me.”
I weighed it up, factored Herbie into the equation. The fast money said run the piece, but the story said fuck the money and I always listened to the story. Besides, Brady was holding aces and was six-four to boot. I rolled a smoke.
“I scratch your back – how?”
“Your side is I need the local dope, the inside. If you’re any good, you’ll hear it and keep me posted. If you’re not, you won’t get the gig when it’s finished anyway. I want someone who’ll stitch this one tight. So, you hear anything I should know, you buzz me.”
He stood up, scrawled a number on the back of a card, flipped it across the desk.
“One more thing, Rigby – no one knows I’ve been here. The Gardai brace you, make like I’m Lord Lucan.”
“Working a little freelance yourself, hey Brady?”
“Something like that, yeah.” He blasted me the evil grin, full wattage. “Be seeing you, Rigby.”
He left, shoulders brushing the doorframe. I heard him again – ‘I’m a cop, yeah, but you can trust me.’ I laughed so hollow I heard it echo and went back to staring at the wall.
6
Conway rang as I was about to start checking out the near wall, just for a change of pace. I rang Herbie and gave him Helen Conway’s details.
“Looking for anything in particular?” he asked.
“Just the usual, much as you can get.”
“Sound – when’d you want it?”
“Yesterday.”
“Alright. I’ll buzz you later.”
I choked down the last of the coffee, thought about cleaning the office, and it was such a good idea I kept on thinking it, feet up on the desk, twitching the blinds.
It was Christmas week and the town belonged to the farmers. They lumbered up and down the streets, sailors on shore leave, grim and determined. Parcels stacked in elastic arms, necks craning around the piles. Tinny hymns drifted out of shop doorways. High above the streets the coloured lights danced a hanged man’s jig on the breeze.
I popped another pill. Three in one day was two too many but they were only twenty-five mill, summer breeze, and I need horse tranks to beat the festive funk. The light pills were another of the Doc’s bright ideas, to wean me off the tranks in time for New Year, sound advice from a man whose veins had more holes than it takes to fill the Albert Hall.
I took a deep breath and slapped myself hard across the face, followed it up with a right cross that didn’t quite connect. Closed my eyes, conjured up the face of a tow-headed thug, the hooded sleepy eyes, the chipped teeth, the guileless grin, the unruly mop of blonde hair. I factored in Christmas morning, a gleaming new bike and imagined the grin spreading across Ben’s face to adopt his ears.
The weight evaporated from my chest. I breathed out again, locked up the office and drove the five miles out of town to The Bridge.
I talked to the barman in the Members Bar, no apostrophe, dropped a few openers about Helen Conway, but the barman stayed polite, eyes fixed on my breast pocket, where it didn’t read Pringle. I sat in the bay window overlooking the eighteenth green, drinking coffee, chewing a plastic cheese-and-tomato toastie. The gale brewing up over the Atlantic was the colour of old gravy and the golfers leaned into the wind, three steps forward and two steps back.
Back in town I swung around by Clark’s Toyshop to pick up Ben’s bike. Added a couple of accessories, including a rubber bulb horn I knew he’d get a bang out of. It was almost three when I got back to the office. I stowed the bike behind the desk, checked the answering machine for the thrill of hearing my own voice and smoked for half-an-hour. Then I smoked some more and tried to make giraffes out of the cracks in the ceiling plaster. In the end I gave in, rang Conway to make an appointment.
“No can do,” he rasped. “I’m out of the office from four on. Business that can’t wait.”
“Perfect. Make sure your mobile is off too. I don’t want anyone contacting you.”
Conway lived about two miles north of town, the house only three drainpipes short of a mansion. It was a square, stolid affair, in the way Edwardian Protestants built their homes to reflect their personalities, with thick ivy on the redbrick gables, a white soft-top Merc at the end of the gravelled drive and a bedroom for every night of the week. Off in the distance a stooped gardener was raking the last leaves off a vast lawn and raking fast enough to be finished in time to weed the daffodils. I parked my battered Volkswagen Golf beside the steps that swept up to the front porch and started climbing. Mulling over the new expletive I’d learned when I told Conway I’d be calling on his beautiful wife.
His beautiful daughter opened the door. She was wearing a white-and-blue striped sweater and the baffling expression all seventeen-year-old girls wear, the one that suggests they’re simultaneously highly strung and bored to constipation. Her blonde hair was tied up in a ponytail and she had her mother’s nose, down which she looked at me, and her father’s manners.
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“Yes?”
“Mrs Conway?”
She had her father’s laugh, too.
“Mrs Conway is my mother. What do you want?”
“I’ve an appointment to see Mr Conway.”
“And who might you be?”
“I might be Calvin Klein but then I might just be wearing his Y-fronts. Get your mother.”
She chewed the inside of her lip, taken aback. I had to admit, she didn’t look the kind of girl who had to ask a question twice, if she ever had to ask a question at all. Seventeen-year-old blondes with wide blue eyes and hips unworthy of the name have all the answers already, cursed with intuition. She called back down the hallway, over her shoulder.
“Mother, there’s a gentleman at the door.”
Her timing was off but the punch line was good. Then Helen Conway pulled the door open wide and her daughter ceased to exist. Devoid of makeup, the soft lines either side of her eyes put me in mind of quotation marks. The simple black dress would have been appropriate at a millionaire’s wake. The thin string of pearls designed to enhance the gentle curves of her throat should have retired gracefully and long ago. Her hair was jet black, and if it was a dye-job her stylist was wasted, he should have been in Rome retouching the Sistine Chapel.
“Yes?”
Polite, frosty.
“How do you do?” I slipped her an ingratiating smile. “I have an appointment to see Mr Conway?”
“Mr Conway isn’t at home right now. Can I help you?”
“I do hope you can. My name is Bob Delaney.” I flourished a card that read Robert L. Delaney, Sales Representative, First Option Life Assurance.
“There must be some kind of mistake.”
She handed the card back. I waved it away, still smiling.
“Not at all. I spoke with Mr Conway yesterday, on the phone. He was very interested in discussing the possibility of realigning your current life assurance commitments owing to the significant cost reduction strategy we employ at First Option.”
“Is that a fact?” She sounded faintly bemused. The delightful Miss Conway snorted, turned on her heel, pounded up the stairs. I heard the muffled sound of a slammed door.