Headbanger

by Hugo Hamilton

  Coyne drove home along the seafront. Over the rasping sound of his own car, the tape deck was playing the blues. A brilliant red sky over Dublin had begun to fade away and it was getting dark. The red glow on the granite walls was gone and there was a pure white moon up in the shape of a half-masticated host. There was a hint of winter in the breeze, which swirled up dust and leaves and sweet wrappers together along the pavement.

  Coyne laughed to himself. It was the most inappropriate reaction to the day. But he felt light-headed and washed over by a kind of dangerous exuberance. He saw everything in black and white. It always came down to this – the two directions: top road or bottom road. You could blame the world or blame yourself. You could try and change the environment and the circumstances around you, or you could try and change yourself. Coyne was certain that he was right and they were all wrong. He would show them all one of these days.

  Carmel’s mother was at home, putting on her coat as soon as he arrived in the door.

  Your dinner is in the micro, she muttered.

  Chicken Chernobyl, Coyne muttered back.

  He felt like doing something outrageous. Like pulling down his trousers and exposing himself to her back; that ridiculous wide hairdo on her, the cloud of Lancôme and the chiffon scarf, for God’s sake. Tried the chiffon scarf test lately, Gran? Sorry, Baroness von Gogarty. He made a grimace at the back of her head, pretending to come up and open the door for her. But she caught him.

  I can see what you’re doing, she said, letting herself out instead. Spinning around on her hind legs to throw him a filthy look. He watched her walking out the driveway, waiting to see if she would allow herself one more vicious look back. Yes.

  Jennifer, one of the children, stood at the top of the stairs saying she couldn’t sleep. So he went upstairs and found them all awake, waiting for him to tell the stories. He was much better than Gran.

  She just tells girls’ stories, Jimmy said. And Coyne felt appreciated, knowing that he could re-invent the whole universe for his family audience at least. He was back once more in the bubble of his own home, laughing at arcane little jokes that no other family would understand. Insulated by the warmth of his own group as though the world depended on them to begin all over again.

  At other times, Coyne felt he had become his own audience entirely, watching himself on closed-circuit TV; a silent blue figure shifting around in a semi-detached house on a Dublin housing estate, carrying his children into bed, telling them bedtime stories about forsaken places under the sea.

  And then the underwater man with no eyelids brought the little pink fishes to a place where they could hide. He lived in a sunken ship where they would be safe. You see the mackerel were smart because they had white tummies and they swam up high where the shark couldn’t see them against the light. But the coloured fishes had to find a place to hide.

  The children were gathered all around him in one of the beds. Nuala hiding all her furry toys under Coyne’s arm, as if to act out the story. Jennifer holding her eyes open with her index fingers.

  And even though the underwater man had no ears, he could hear everything. Every tiny sound. He could hear a bubble bursting a hundred miles away. So he could hear the shark coming back.

  Coyne almost fell asleep himself when the story was over. Coyne the real father, tucking them in, rubbing his hand over his son’s forehead, stalling to pick up a sock near the door, walking down the stairs lightly. Coyne eating his dried-out dinner. Coyne stealing biscuits in his own home.

  Relaxing in front of the TV, he was still wearing his uniform, tie undone, watching the men of Papua New Guinea re-enact old tribal rituals. Above all else, he was concerned with extinction; the disappearance of legendary people. Last men belonging to ancient and pure civilisations which had clashed with modernity. Men and women like the Blasket Islanders.

  Half-lying across the opulent floral sofa which Carmel had picked out on the advice of Mrs Gogarty, he watched the warriors jumping around, preparing for battle. He was almost asleep again when he saw one of the men running towards him with a hatchet. He jumped up. Kicked the dinner plate on the floor with his foot thinking he was dealing with Perry again. He found the remote control and played it back again and again. The warrior wore nothing but a purple jacket and a felt hat. Chest bare. White curly hair. The braided jacket looked like part of a hotel porter’s uniform which had somehow become separated from the trousers. Maybe it came from some famous American Hotel, like the Waldorf Astoria, and made its way right out to Port Moresby, sold and resold, only to be worn in ceremonious battle with a painted face and bare painted legs underneath. The warrior’s white teeth bared as though he was smiling, waiting for a tip. The hatchet came up in the right hand, just like Perry.

  Suddenly Coyne thought everything he had done and said that day was entirely unbalanced. Out of control. The volume turned up too high. He had overdone it with Perry. Coyne had to get smart. He should try to be more cool. A balanced cop, calmly tracing the shite back to the arsehole it came from.

  It was Gordon Sitwell who held the door open for Carmel when she was going home. Her painting rolled up like a precious scroll in her hand, smiling like a child. But he was laughing to himself and shaking his head.

  Got a dash of paint on your nose, he said.

  Oh really, she said. But when she tried to wipe it off, he held up his hand as though she was about to rub away a secret sign.

  No, no. Leave it there, love. It’s proof that you were at your art classes and not in the pub.

  Adieu, he said, and then walked off briskly in the direction of the car park.

  When she got home, Coyne was already in bed, sitting up reading a magazine. Bare hairy arms outside the duvet. There was an explosion of talk; so much to catch up with. He exaggerated the chase, and the hatchet. Vowed he would get his revenge as though it was Carmel herself who had been placed in danger and he was expected to uphold a bond of chivalry on her behalf.

  She pinned her painting up on the dressing table and asked: what do you think?

  Good, he said.

  But Coyne was absolutely amazed. It was the sky he had come home with earlier on; the fading, yellow and red furnace which hung over the city that evening when he drove out along the coast road. The end of Coyne’s day, looking like an old bruise over Dublin Bay. Her painting contained such honesty, such complete understanding of Coyne’s mind that he felt he was looking into some kind of new mirror through which he could look back along the day and see everything radiating with burning violence, down to the wine-red glow along the side of the trees. Coyne was afraid to say it was brilliant. Angry that she could be so accurate. You didn’t fucking do that yourself; no way, he wanted to say.

  She got undressed, talking about the art class, still watching as if to make sure nobody would steal her painting. Slipped a giant T-shirt over her head and stood before him for a moment, a headless, naked woman struggling to come to the surface. Then she drew lines of white cream on her face and her elbows like a female warrior about to take part in a fertility ritual.

  Do you think the tree is muscular enough, she asked?

  Muscular. Yeah, I suppose so.

  But Carmel was unhappy that he could so easily dismiss her work.

  God bless you, Pat. You’re such a headbanger.

  I said it was muscular, didn’t I?

  You’re a philistine. She smiled cheerfully.

  Coyne mistrusted this new language. He stared at her until she got into bed and kissed him. He dutifully kissed her back, like a man tiptoeing around the intimacy of words. For a while they sat up in bed, Coyne reading, Carmel squinting at her own masterpiece. The voices from next door drifting softly in through the wall. Light switches being flicked. Water running. The Gillespies moving around and speaking to each other, asking final questions, offering final assurances, perhaps sitting up right there on the other side of the wall,
in the same position, back to back, like a mirror image of Pat and Carmel Coyne in their bed.

  Come on, Pat.

  Come on what?

  You never headbutt me any more.

  So Coyne got up and switched off the main light, while she turned over on her hands and knees. He pulled back the duvet, though he could see nothing and stumbled against the end of the bed. It was pitch black, and in that moment of blindness, the unspoken aim was that she would keep shifting around like a moving target, while he would score by crashing his head against her bottom. Again and again, bashing his skull like a young buffalo into her soft rump while her shrieks went out the window.

  Drummer Cunningham drove the Range Rover up to a small Corporation estate in the north of the city. He had left the dogs at home. There was a bit of business to settle with Brannigan. Like Coyne, he was dedicated to his work, beyond the call of duty. He had never once been out of the country and boasted about it as though it pointed to some extreme loyalty towards his own piece of turf. Leaving even for a short holiday to Ibiza would be a major act of betrayal, surrendering the sovereignty of his ground to others. He’d come back to find his territory and his followers subsumed into some other gang.

  Drummer usually wore a gold bracelet with his suit. He occasionally brought a set of rosary beads, just to mock his victims. Praying over them and blessing them before they were done in. The nickname, Drummer, had stuck to him from a long time back so that nobody really knew its origins, except his victims, who said they heard drums whenever they faced him. Otherwise, Berti Cunningham was ordinary in his taste for nightclubs and let on he was the king, holding a mobile phone, surrounded by a whole load of other boneheads in suits. Now Drummer had even bought a nightclub of his own.

  Coyne’s ex-Garda friend and mentor, Fred, had given him a lot of these details on the gang. All the stuff the Special Branch knew but could not prove in court. Fred was close to the source and in a position to pass on sensitive information to Coyne. Two men had been shot or beaten to death in Dublin in the past six weeks, both of them attributed to Drummer. It was clear that Drummer was trying to transform himself into a respectable nightclub owner while at the same time reasserting his authority over the underworld. There was nothing the law could do about it. But wait till Coyne started dealing with him. One of these days, Coyne would wipe the floor with that bum-fucking primate – stick him back in the serious offenders wing of Mountjoy zoo.

  Outside Dermot Brannigan’s home, two rookies from the Serious Crime Squad were keeping a vigil when Naomi Keegan came walking towards them. Her gold skirt, leather jacket and long legs drew their attention. She appeared to be dancing down along the pavement almost, and just as she got past the two detectives, she screamed. When they looked around they could see that she was being assaulted. A youth trying to take her bag. They jumped out of the car and ran towards her, but the youth had already disappeared without the bag, leaving the men there to try and comfort her.

  Around the back of Brannigan’s house, Drummer and his chief accountant were already dragging their victim down a laneway towards the blue Range Rover. Brannigan was trying desperately to shout for help but uttering no more than a minimal squeak under his gag. It was no use. He had been delivered up to Drummer’s court of justice. Brannigan was shittin’ bricks. Nervous as an albino rabbit staring into the eyes of a starving ferret. Obediently got into the Range Rover and found himself going for a little drive out to Brittas Bay, after they drove around to pick up Naomi and Mick again.

  She sat in the front seat listening to a Walkman all the way, occasionally slapping her hands on the dashboard in time to the music. Mick had taken over the wheel while Drummer and the Chief sat on either side of Brannigan in the back. Berti making the sign of the cross and taking out a luminous set of rosary beads. In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.

  Amen, said the Chief Accountant, laughing.

  Moments later, Berti almost broke his mobile phone, jabbing it into Brannigan’s groin because he wouldn’t answer his question. By the time they got out to Brittas Bay, Brannigan had sweated a gallon of crude oil out through his forehead and there was condensation all over the windows.

  At a boathouse, Drummer kicked his pleading victim around for a while until he got tired. Brannigan inhaled and tasted the sweet terror of his own blood as he swallowed. With the headlights of the car shining on him, they began to staple Brannigan to the door by his jacket. In crucified formation he hung in his clothes as the Chief Accountant whispered into his ear, telling him he was going to heaven and he would be well looked after up there, speaking with the gravitas of a liquidator to one of his doomed shareholders.

  You’re surplus to requirement, pal.

  And Brannigan kept looking at Drummer as though he hadn’t even heard Chief. Please, Berti, Jesus, please, he repeated, grimacing through his pink teeth like he’d been eating loads of raspberries. But Drummer just got tired of listening to this whining and told Chief to replace the piece of packing tape over his mouth. Then he went over to put some music on the car stereo.

  Come out and do your thing, he commanded. Naomi had hardly seen anything of what was going on because she was lost in her own narcotic fantasy.

  Berti, don’t ask me to do this, she said.

  But there was no way of refusing, so she got out and began to perform a sort of liturgical dance in front of Dermot Brannigan. Right there with the waves crashing in on the shore and the sand dunes all round shaped into smooth bellies and thighs behind them. A light breeze stirred the bristle of reeds. The car stereo blasted out across the deserted landscape with Chris de Burgh: Don’t pay the fucking ferryman – the most appropriate musical murder to emphasise the tackiness of life and death. Brannigan stared with open eyes at the girl swinging her hips with wonderful accuracy, pointing all the fluid narrative of her physical attributes at him in order to take away the pain of his imminent departure. He felt the self-pity of a dying man. Duped by desire. Legs, hips, breasts and smiles; the supreme icons of compassion, warmth and self-preservation dancing in front of him. A dance of mercy in which she began to uncover herself, bit by bit, turning to show glimpses of her body that made Brannigan wish he was already gone. It was like sex had become a rehearsal for death. She danced until he could see a strip of black pubic fur, which seemed to be stuck on at the top of her legs with velcro. Her discreet tattoo looked like she had Taiwan stamped on her right buttock. It entered Brannigan’s eyes and slipped into his unlocked mind along the secret passages of desire, sitting like a silent cat beside the furnace of his fear.

  That’s all they allowed him to see. He had tears in his eyes when they put a black refuse sack over his head. They stood around smoking and watching the sack moving in and out with his breath.

  Naomi pulled on her clothes again, but instead of getting back into the car, she walked out towards the sea as though she had done her life’s work and was now ready to depart herself. Chief had to run out and drag her back to the car at the last minute.

  You didn’t say you were going to kill him, she kept pleading on behalf of Brannigan as though the dance had turned her into a carnal companion.

  Drummer was ready for this and gave her a syringe. Put on the light inside the Range Rover and helped her to send the cool blast of smack into her arm. All the venom of Berti Cunningham’s law flooding into her veins. She slammed her head back against the side of the car. Her eyes rolled around her head.

  She’ll remember nothing, Drummer muttered and then went over to make sure his victim was nailed up properly. With a hammer and two large nails he crucified Brannigan one last time. Blood rolled down from the palms of his hands in long red lines along the flaky, light-blue door of the boathouse. There was no sound of pain, just Brannigan looking like a monk and a martyr, bowing his head all the time under the black plastic hood.

  Fuckin’ mouth, Chief said as though he was speaking for Drummer. As though th
e silence was too much and something had to be said in the presence of such violence. He won’t fucking talk again, that’s for sure. The next time he’ll talk is when he’s begging to be let into the big nightclub in the sky.

  Drummer laughed but said nothing.

  The words were surplus. They stood back and watched the bag moving in and out. Chief looking at Drummer and waiting to see if he should take the bag off again. But Drummer remained silent. The victim’s hooded head sank forward and the breathing stopped. Then they left.

  Brannigan’s body was found early in the morning. The Special Branch were all over the beach, combing the sand for clues, erecting Garda crime scene tape to keep possible onlookers away from the location of the murder. The discovery had been made by a group of early morning pony trekkers. A woman had to be sedated on account of the shock.

  Superintendent Molloy was pacing up and down, knowing that he had not only lost a valuable witness but that he was also, in a way, responsible for it. His personal war with the Drummer gang had come to a pitch. An incident room had already been set up at his own station at Irishtown. They were following a definite line of enquiry, they announced, but that was all bullshit. What they really needed was somebody tough like Coyne. Somebody who would sort out Drummer and his followers once and for all. People like Molloy and the Special Branch would be too scared even to put a parking ticket on his car, for fucksake.

  Coyne played with the children after breakfast, letting them jump down from tables and cupboards, catching them in his arms all morning. It was like bungee jumping for kids. Nuala was absolutely fearless. Threw herself off any surface down into the safety of Coyne’s embrace. They all trusted him, but Nuala went a step further and liked to throw herself backwards, with her eyes closed.