Anthony smiled awkwardly. “She’s quite something.”
“You can say that again. You don’t have to…” Brigit looked at the other chair.
“Well, actually, if it’s OK with you?”
“Yeah. Sure. Fine. I mean… Christ we’re starting to sound like a Hugh Grant movie, just sit down.”
Anthony nodded and did so, giving Brigit an adorably embarrassed smile. He shifted nervously. “So, this is awkward.”
“You’re only noticing that now?”
“Yeah, I mean beyond the obvious.”
“And the fact that everyone in this bar is now watching us?”
“There’s that too, of course.”
“Well, everyone except for my soon-to-be-dead friend, who, from the mime I can see through the window, appears to be instructing a woman in her sixties on how to get a cat off a wardrobe with a mop.”
“Yeah. Look, could you stop talking for one sec.”
Brigit sat back in her chair. “Are you new to this? Because I’m pretty sure that’s a flirting no-no.”
He shifted nervously again. “I’m sorry, I just… I kind of followed you here.”
Brigit gave him a hard look. “Right. Again, bit of a flirting no-no there. I’m kinda glad people are watching us now.”
“No, you see, I’m Anto. Anthony Kelleher.”
Brigit thrust her hand into her bag. “I’ve got mace!”
Anto held his hands up. “Relax, I come in peace, I promise.”
“Oh yeah, you and your brothers are very peaceful – I’ve got an office covered in yellow paint to prove it.”
“Not my idea, I promise. None of it was my idea, and I’m fairly sure none of it was yours either.”
“Let’s not forget who started this whole thing – and how, you disgraceful shower of scumbags.”
Anto nodded. “That’s fair. For what it’s worth, that wasn’t me, and to be honest, I agree with you entirely. What they did to your friend was appalling and, believe me, if I’d known about it, I would have done everything in my power to stop it. I mean, drugging a man and then taking those pictures, that is absolutely disgusting. I’m here to apologise first and foremost, so if you just give me two minutes and take your hand off what I’m fairly sure is a can of deodorant, then I’ll be on my way.”
Brigit didn’t even look down. “Deodorant, yeah, and I’ve got a lighter too. You look rather flammable, ye big hairy lummocks. What are you doing following me?”
“I didn’t mean to… Look, I couldn’t come into your offices for obvious reasons, and over the phone this would sound like just another ploy in the never-ending cycle. Just give me sixty seconds. After that, if you still want to, feel free to set me on fire.”
“Don’t think I won’t.”
“I don’t doubt it. I’m going to take my hands down now, OK?”
Brigit nodded. As she did so, she glanced around the bar. Every last pair of eyes was on them. “D’ye mind? This is a private conversation.”
Everyone looked away for a fraction of a second and then resumed staring at them. Whatever this was, it had the distinct possibility of becoming a story.
“OK,” said Anto. “Again, let me reiterate, I’m sincerely sorry.”
“For which bit?”
“All of it. It’s childish nonsense. We both know how it started but, the reality is, if my brothers and your boyfriend—”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” Brigit felt herself blush again. Why on earth had she felt the need to point that out?
“Fair enough. Still though, this thing is ruining our business and I’m guessing yours too. I just wanted to approach you and see if we could talk about it like adults. If it’d be possible to get some kind of a truce so, y’know, I could flush the toilet in our office without checking for explosive ordnance first.”
As Nora made her way back into the bar, she passed Anthony on his way out. She hurried over to the table and sat down. “So, what happened there?”
“He’s Anthony Kelleher.”
“And?”
Brigit gave Nora a long look.
“Oh shit, right – sorry, mummy brain. As in, the other side in your little war. Did you tell him to bugger off?”
“Sort of.”
“Sort of? Why am I getting a whole Romeo and Juliet vibe here?”
“Don’t be daft. I threatened to set him on fire.”
“Men go for mad women. Fact!”
“Well,” said Brigit, casually holding up a piece of paper with a mobile number on it, “he did give me his number.”
“Dinner and dancing?”
“More like truce talks with him and his brothers.”
“Damn,” said Nora, snatching up her empty wine glass. “First date and already meeting the family, this is serious.” She held her glass above her head again. “Garçon, same again, we’re celebrating!”
Chapter Eleven
“I’m telling ye, lads, she was all over me. It was embarrassing. She was like a dog in heat.”
Horse leaned over the handlebars of his bike and favoured his audience with his most suggestive of wide grins. Tommy and Daz were loving it, but Karl, always fecking Karl, was pulling that face he did – smirking lanky bollocks.
“She didn’t seem that keen down the park,” said Karl.
“Yeah, well, she warmed up.”
“She told Janice that nothing happened.”
Horse flicked his long fringe out of his eyes. “That’s bullshit, right. We did it all – kinky stuff, the lot. Course she’s not saying, a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”
“You’re supposed to be the one who doesn’t tell, in that case.”
“Shut up, Karl. I was a lot of things, but I wasn’t gentle.”
Daz guffawed as Karl rolled his eyes. He was fast coming due a slap. Horse wasn’t going to take this kind of disrespect.
“Howerya, lads!”
Horse’s heart jumped into his throat, but he didn’t turn around. He didn’t need to in order to recognise the voice. He hadn’t done anything wrong, had he? At least nothing anybody would know about. His body made a decision before his mind got involved, and he hit the pedals of his bike hard, trying for a sprint start. He got up just enough momentum in the first couple of feet that when the hurling stick was jammed into the front wheel, he was sent hurtling over the handlebars.
The air expelled from his lungs with a whoof as he landed on the ground in front of the big wheelie bins that served the whole of the Dolphin House flats. Horse looked up into the mid-morning Dublin sky. There presumably was a sun up there somewhere, buried between the thick dark clouds, but it was unlikely to be putting in an appearance anytime soon. Certainly Horse’s future wasn’t looking sunny.
“Jesus, Horse, sorry about that. It appears that my hurley got tangled up in the spokes of your wheel there.”
Horse turned his head to the side. He could see Tommy and Karl legging it back into the flats for all they were worth, bleedin’ cowards – not that he could blame them. He didn’t want to be here either. He looked upwards again as the distinctive head of Bunny McGarry hove into view, looking down at him with mock concern.
“Ye don’t look well, Horse. Are ye off your feed?”
Horse liked to pretend that his nickname was due to his endowment in certain areas, but the reality was that it had started back in his schooldays. Horse was called Horse because, well, he resembled a horse. His teeth looked way too big for his head, giving him an unfortunate overbite. He had been a half back for the St Jude’s hurling team, if not exactly by choice. Bunny didn’t give you a choice.
“Who the fuck is this mad old prick?”
Horse winced at the sound of Daz’s voice. Daz had just moved into the area last year, which explained, if not excused, the error he was making. With a groan, Horse started to stand up. He noticed the wide smile on Bunny’s face as he favoured Daz with that patented McGarry stare. This was nothing but bad news.
“Shut up, Daz,” said Horse.
“Is this dude the feds?”
“The feds?” repeated Bunny. “Was this lad dropped as a baby or something? You’re in Ireland son, speak proper.”
“Not exactly,” said Horse, which was true. Bunny was not technically the Gardaí any more; he was, however, still very much Bunny. “Daz, you should head off, alright?”
Daz looked at Horse in disbelief. “What? I’m not having some mad old fart coming into my manor, disrespecting my crew.”
“Crew?” said Bunny. “Crew, is it? Are youse rowing the coxless fours now or something, Horse? This fella does look a tad on the cock-less side alright.” Bunny turned to face Daz. “Bunny McGarry at your service, sunshine. Now do yourself a favour and toddle off, I’d like a private word with the man called Horse.”
“And who’s gonna make me, ye wonky-eyed Cork prick?”
Thirty seconds later, Horse had his back to one of the large bins, with Bunny McGarry standing uncomfortably close to him. “Now, Horse, can you guess what my little visit is about?”
“It fecking stinks in here, let me out,” Daz shouted from inside the bin. Some people just didn’t know when to shut up.
“Keep it shut, ye donkey gobbler, and be thankful I put you in the food bin and not the one full of all the broken bottles.”
There was a moment’s silence, followed by another one. Apparently even Daz could learn his lesson if it was explained in clear enough terms. You could accuse Bunny of a lot of things, but understatement was not one of them.
“Now, do you know why I’m here, Horse?”
“Is this about Sharon? Because I didn’t say nothing. She’s lying.”
Bunny pursed his lips. Horse felt like an idiot. He’d forgotten one of the golden rules: never guess why Bunny might be angry. If you were wrong, he now had two reasons to be angry.
“No, this is not about Sharon, although…” He clattered Horse on the ear.
“Jesus, Bunny, what was that for?”
“I don’t know, but I’m guessing Sharon does. Do I need to repeat the little talk I gave you about respecting women?”
Horse looked downwards. “No, Bunny.”
“Good. No, I’m here because there’s a very nice lady up on the third floor there called Mrs Aweyeme. Nigerian lady. Got three kids, very well behaved. They seem to be getting an awful lot of hassle for some reason. Apparently one of the main villains of the piece has one of them floppy fringes and an equestrian bent to his facial features. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Horse?”
“They’re moving in here, Bunny. Taking over. This is our manor.”
“Yeah,” agreed Daz, from inside the bin.
Bunny booted the side of the bin – hard. “Ouch.”
“You shut up. And as for you…” Bunny moved in close enough that Horse could smell the Monster Munch on his breath. “Jesus, Horse, are you that stupid? They’re poor people, moving here looking for a better chance at life. The sheer stupidity of people who have feck all attacking other people who have feck all – it makes me want to scream.”
“They’re not from round here but.”
Bunny pointed at the bin. “Neither is that sack of shite. What’s the difference?”
“Well he’s, I mean…”
“I’m Irish.”
Bunny booted the bin again.
“I’m Irish,” Bunny repeated in a mocking voice. “Irish, as in the people who had feck all for generations and went to America, Australia, England, Canada – anywhere that’d have us, and a few places that wouldn’t, all because we wanted a better life. Are those the people of whom you speak?”
“That’s different.”
Bunny booted the bin so hard this time that he left a distinct imprint of his boot in it. “It’s the exact fecking same!” His roar had an edge of the really unhinged to it. Horse prayed that Daz had the sense to shut up, or else he’d soon be looking back on his time in the bin as the good old days.
Bunny looked directly into Horse’s eyes, giving him the full McGarry wonky-eyed stare. “You were a decent kid, Horse. Don’t grow up to be a pathetic excuse for a man, blaming your lot on everything and everybody but yourself. There are many reasons you might not get the life you hoped for, but believe you me, none of those reasons will be because a widow and her three kids moved into a flat on the third floor. Be a man, for Christ’s sake. Make something of yourself. You can start by hanging around with a better class of humanity than Captain Dim-in-the-Bin here, and apologising to this girl Sharon for whatever the hell you said, did or whatever. You’re one of my boys, Horse. I’d like to be proud of ye.”
Horse looked down at the ground, unable to make eye contact with Bunny.
“All you’re doing is fearing the different. Remember this – some day, you might meet the right woman or piss off the wrong man, and you’ll find yourself somewhere else in the world, and you’ll be the different. Remember how you treated these people now, because that’ll be how you or your kids or your kid’s kids will be treated. It’s a small world, and what goes around comes around.”
Horse remained staring at his feet. He rubbed a finger in his eye. “Yes, Bunny.”
“What was that? I’m going a bit deaf in my old age.”
Horse cleared his throat and spoke a little louder. “Yes, Bunny.”
“Good lad. Now, I’ve a question for you. Look at me.”
Horse looked up.
“Over my left shoulder there, do you know who that bloke in the baseball cap is?”
Horse glanced over Bunny’s shoulder. He’d no idea how Bunny had seen him, but there was a tall fella in a baseball cap leaning casually against the railings down by the shops.
“I don’t know him, Bunny.”
“He’s been watching us for the last few minutes.”
“Well, I mean, no offence, Bunny, but ye did just bung a lad into a bin. That’s the kinda thing that draws people’s attention.”
Bunny pursed his lips. “Yeah, I suppose.”
Horse looked over again. “He’s disappeared now, where’d he go?”
Bunny stepped back and glanced around. The man was nowhere to be seen. He shrugged and bent down to pick up his hurley, extracting it from the mangled remains of Horse’s front wheel.
“Right so, Horse, are we clear?”
“Yes, Bunny.”
“Good. I’ll be checking back in. Tell your ma I was asking for her.”
Horse nodded.
Bunny walloped the side of the bin with his hurley. “And as for you, welcome to the neighbourhood. We welcome any and all people who behave themselves and treat others with respect. What’s your name?”
“Daz.”
Bunny walloped the bin with the hurley again. “Proper name. What does your ma call ye?”
“Darren. Darren Yates.”
“Well, Mr Yates, I’ll be taking a personal interest in you from now on. I hope this little meeting has been of use to you as well.”
“You’re mental.”
Horse watched as Bunny stared over to his right, like he was looking at someone or something – but when he turned his head, there was nothing there.
“You might be right.”
Horse stood in silence as Bunny strode off, a slight limp to his gait.
“Can I get out yet?”
Saying nothing, Horse picked up his bike and walked away.
Chapter Twelve
Detective Superintendent Susan Burns hated swing doors. After the meeting she had just had, she really wanted to enter the office of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigations with a proper good slam, but the bloody swing doors made it impossible. She held in her hand the cup of coffee she’d brought into the meeting upstairs, now stone cold and still untouched. She’d been too busy fire-fighting to pause for a drink. The problem with dead coffee is that it’s hard to find somewhere to dispose of it. Facilities had removed all of the potted plants from this floor of the building, quite possibly for this very reason.
; “Where the hell is Rowe?”
Sergeant Moira Clarke looked up from her desk, like a woodland creature sensing that a bear was on the prowl. “He’s out at the Ranelagh thing, guv. Do you want him now?”
“Look at my face, Moira.”
Clarke snatched for her phone with a speed normally reserved for catching babies who had been accidentally dropped into volcanoes.
“And as for the rest of you” – DSI Burns raised her voice, so that every pair of eyes in the room were fixed on her – “Tinder, speed dating, websites, being introduced by friends, out drinking in a bar, in the supermarket – hell, even writing your phone number up on a toilet door – all of these are ways I am perfectly fine with you trying to acquire new romantic partners. Witnesses in one of my murder investigations, however, are entirely off limits. I would have thought that went without saying, but apparently not. If any of the rest of you fancy being Romeo and Juliet, do remember, they both die in the end.”
“Eh, boss?”
“Yes, Moira?”
“He says—”
“I have no interest in what Rowe has to say, I only want him here to shout at. This isn’t one of those times where avoiding the boss until she calms down is the smart play, this is one of those incidents where the longer I have to think about it, the worse it’ll get.”
“Right, just he says—”
Burns grabbed the receiver out of Clarke’s hand. “I’ll make it very simple, Alan. Either you’re standing in front of my desk in an hour or you’re cleaning out yours.”
She slammed the phone down before the voice at the end of the line could say anything else. She felt better for finally getting to slam something. “Thank you, Moira.” DSI Burns realised as she said the words that her angry tone didn’t match them at all. She was conscious that Clarke hadn’t done anything wrong, so tried to belatedly soften her delivery with a smile, but she hadn’t got it in her.
“Ehm, guv, on another front—”
DSI Burns turned on her heels and headed for her office. “Not now, Moira. I’ve got a fun phone call with HR coming up.”
Last Orders (The Dublin Trilogy Book 4) Page 8