by S D Monaghan
It can’t be.
It is.
Ryan – not Gordon – shoulder-slouched against the wall, one boot pressed against the old wallpaper, his other knee bent forward. He smiled and said, ‘Howdy, T,’ just like he’d always called her.
‘You. Are. Dead,’ said Tara.
‘Alive and kick’n, T. Back from the grave. Kinda like... Actually – just like – our lord and saviour Jesus Christ.’
Tara took a moment to look at Ryan, confirming to herself that he was actually there, in the room, and not about to vanish back to the afterlife. She took in his expression: the liar’s lookalike states of innocence and deception. His cheek was bruised and there was a bloody gash across the side of his forehead. But he also seemed older than the last time she’d seen him – as if he had gained years rather than a few stressful days. She’d noticed him losing weight over the last few months and now that was suddenly very apparent. However, it didn’t suit him. Instead of making him thinner, it just made him look emptier.
Finally she said, ‘You’re alive! And you’re not hurt. Not really. Look at you!’
‘Yeah, now I’m fine. Though no thanks to your husband. He threw me out of a window, you know?’ Ryan turned to exhibit a shaved patch at the back of his head where a makeshift bandage had been placed. ‘If that cup slammed against your head hurts, imagine how I felt. Your bruise…’ He squinted over at her upper cheekbone. ‘Nothing but a hickey. Tell you this, T, as I lay there, not sure if I’m dying or just fuck’n paralysed, and feeling the clay against my head, seeing every pebble in the dirt and soil, wondering if anyone was going to come and get me, I decided one thing – I’m putting into my will that they’re not to lower me down into the earth till I’ve been dead at least three days. No exceptions.’
‘We’ve got to tell David,’ Tara said, her pulse banging along at the sight of the miracle before her; the living, breathing ticket that would collect on all her problems. ‘You need to get me out of here.’
‘Come on, T, you know that’s not going to happen. Just make yourself comfortable. Hey – does this bed remind you of my bedsit back in the day? Back when I was good enough?’
Tara’s mind was blowing up. He’s alive, but it isn’t over. Her thought processes were a stream of questions: Where’s Gordon? Where’s Christine? What are they all doing here? And all the why’s, why’s, why’s. But she couldn’t get one word out.
Ryan’s laugh was deep and spoke of cigarettes. ‘Calm down. Get it under control. If you stay alive, then the chances are I will, too.’
Tara stared into the brilliance of the ceiling light bulb. She forced her eyes wide as if the harsh glow could literally illuminate her mind. ‘You couldn’t have planned it. You couldn’t have known that David would follow us to the house that night and that he’d try to kill you. You couldn’t have planned to be thrown out of the fucking window. So, what happened – you and Gordon just leapt on the opportunity to blackmail us? Why? Because… Oh my god, because you need the money for Fenton?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘All of it for Fenton?’
‘All of it.’
‘Fenton told David you owed him over some drug deal. But we assumed it was fifty or maybe a hundred thousand. Not one point four million!’
‘It’s one and a half million actually. But I already have a hundred k. I need everything you have for the balance. Tara, I used to truly believe that the man I was scared of was not born yet. But then I met Fenton.’ Ryan had started off calm, but gradually his eyes widened, his speech quickening. ‘The last guy who disappointed him, Fenton bashed his head with a hammer. Put him down. In front of the guy’s wife and two daughters, in their own living room. Then he prised open the back of the skull with the claw part. I mean, can you imagine what it took to do that? The daughters were five and seven. They saw it all.’
‘And knowing this, you what? Decided to do a deal with him?’
Ryan walked over to the window, limping slightly. ‘Me? Jesus, the whole thing with Fenton was Christine’s idea. I’m a builder. I built myself up from a man-with-van to a thriving business. I work. I like to earn my crust. It’s the natural state of things.’
‘That’s what I said the moment I heard you’d got yourself into this mess. I said that you weren’t a gangster. You were never a thug.’
Resting his elbow on the sill, Ryan said, ‘Fuck’n right I’m not. But... Things went south in the bust. Way south. Our savings disappeared with the banks – Jesus, they bent us over one desk after another and fucked us every which way they could.’
Tara wanted to sit up, but she still felt woozy from Christine’s assault. Instead, she pulled herself backwards and rested her head against the wall. ‘Ryan, you roll with the bad in business. You know? Like everyone else has to?’
‘Rolling with the bad? Yeah – that would be easy.’ Ryan’s laugh was false, bitter. ‘That would be straightforward. But life isn’t like that for me and Christine. We’re not allowed to waltz through the years. That’s not in Christine’s DNA. She fucks up her life time and again and blames me, blames the weather, blames me again.’
‘Did it occur to you that you just weren’t capable of giving her what she wanted? What she needed?’ Tara pressed her hands against the mattress and finally managed to get herself into a sitting position, her legs stretched out before her.
‘You’ve met her twice. The second time, she smashed a mug over your head. You think you know her?’
Tara, blinded by the spotlight of Ryan’s full attention, remained silent.
‘Christine continued to push me into piling on the debt because she needs to spend. She doesn’t know how not to. And yeah, we should’ve split up back then, but we couldn’t afford to. And so we live separate lives in our big, flash, negative-equity house, where we scrape something together for the mortgage arrears. But one day Christine thought she’d found a way out. We could make an easy lump sum, divide it and split up.’
‘Yeah, I know this story too,’ Tara said, rubbing her head. ‘She used one of her clients to get to Fenton and make a deal, right?’
‘Client?’ Ryan crossed the room to the door and turned. ‘The kid was what? Fourteen? Can a fourteen-year-old be anyone’s client?’
Ryan began pacing, as if trying to iron out the remnants of his limp. ‘My wife’s meant to be some type of social worker! And she uses some slow kid to do a deal with his master? Jesus – that’s what I married.’
Nonchalantly, Tara scanned her immediate surroundings for a weapon. There was nothing but paint cans. ‘Fenton told David that you sold the drugs. Why would you do something as stupid as that? You’re not “street”.’
‘Fenton has it wrong.’
‘So just give them back to him.’
Ryan shouted, ‘They’re fuck’n gone.’
‘How?’
He stood still and ran a hand through his thick, sandy hair, but he may as well have been punching the wall. Clearly, the mere memory of what had happened set his adrenaline pumping. ‘After the truck crossed Eastern Europe where shit could go wrong, it ends up at the gates to civilisation, where there’s a charge on the border crossing by Syrian ’fugees. Mayhem. They climb all over the truck while it’s still moving. The driver panics and the truck topples. It lies there on its side for two days. At some stage during those forty-eight hours, the steel is stolen – and therefore the drugs are too.’ Ryan sighed, as if still not believing it.
For a moment, Tara thought he was about to cry, and almost felt sorry for him.
‘So, the only thing to do was jump town. When we were with each other at Lawrence Court – that was my goodbye to Dublin. I was splitting a few hours later on the morn’n ferry.’
Tara was thinking about the nearest paint can. She could make a dive on it and throw it through the window. Then she could scream.
‘You were just going to leave Christine to Fenton? How could you do that? You may hate her, but she doesn’t hate you. She slapped me in my own kitchen and
just broke a coffee mug over my head. Because of you, apparently. No one’s that good a fake.’
Ryan leaned against the wall and softly knocked the back of his head rhythmically against the exposed plasterboard. ‘Oh yeah? Christine is faker than fake.’ A glare of disdain crossed his features. ‘Anyway, I wasn’t leaving her behind. She knew I was going. She was running herself on Sunday night. But not with me. I’m sure she was good at pretending that she was in bits when she popped out to visit you yesterday. But she was just keeping up appearances. Making sure you didn’t suspect anything. Here’s a deep thing I came up with all on my own: she might’ve been taking her hatred of me out on you – you being the picture of every sane woman I’ve managed to have a second of pleasure with since the day I married that bitch. But the bottom line is that if I’d died on your patio, she wouldn’t have given a shit. As a married couple – no, as human beings capable of being in the same room as each other for more than five minutes – we were finished years ago.’
Tara moved to get up to her feet.
‘Stay – the fuck – down.’
Tara blinked slowly and stayed where she was, sitting against the wall. ‘And so once you survived the fall, your new master plan was to get David and me to pay off your debt?’
Ryan stepped forward to the end of the mattress, patting the bandage at the back of his head. ‘Not my master plan. I’ve no say in anything that’s going on. Never had. It’s Gordon’s. Once your husband nearly killed me, Gordon took over. Hate to say it, but I owe him my life. All this – me playing dead, the bank transfer, the blackmail – it’s all his. He came up with it, spur of the moment. He puts me into hiding in this shithole street he’s renovating, pretends to you and Dave that I’m dead, pretends to Fenton that I’m missing – and then we wait. We wait for the transfer. But you decided to be mental. Fuck you very much for that.’
For a moment, Ryan turned his back on her and Tara had a clear view of his shaved skull wound. Forget about breaking the window. She could get the small paint tin and smash it down onto his bandage. Tackle the problem at the core. ‘But why did Gordon arrive at Lawrence Court on Sunday night when he did? And why would he get involved in this – your mess? It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘We’re not going to talk about Gordon. OK?’
‘But I don’t understand!’ Despite Ryan’s previous order, Tara tried to stand on the mattress but only made it to her knees. ‘What is Gordon doing here? Why is he involved? How did he... But if he knew... What the fuck is going on?!’
‘Lie down!’
‘Just let me go, Ryan. It’s over now. This is all insane.’
Ryan’s expression had changed. The rising panic that had cast a damp, filmy sheen over his face had hardened into a calm glower. ‘Just give me my fuck’n money. That’s your role in this. That’s it. Nothing else. I need it today. I need it now.’
‘Ryan, this is not you. Whatever you’ve done, it’s not too late—’
‘It is too late!’ he shouted. Crossing the room, Ryan raised his foot, and with the flat of its sole, shoved her back down to the mattress. He then stomped up onto the plastic bed until he stood over the top half of her body. ‘I’m dead if I don’t sort this out. Christine’s dead, too. My time was up three days ago.’
Tara glanced over at the tin of paint. It was out of reach. ‘Tell the police. I won’t say anything about what you’ve done. Neither will David. Just leave us out of your mess.’ The words were bits of broken glass in her throat.
‘If the police find out what I did with Fenton, they’ll lock me up for a decade. And what would his guys do to me in there?’
There was now nothing available to Tara but words – so she used them. ‘Ryan, think for a minute. Even if the money is transferred and you give it to Fenton, you reckon it’ll be over then? After we go to the police, you’ll go to jail anyway. You’ll be done for robbery, for kidnapping. But it can all end without you hurting innocent people. It’s just a choice you have to make.’
Ryan’s boot pressed against Tara’s shoulder, forcing her onto her back. His knees then slammed onto the plastic on either side of her hips, the fulcrum of his weight pressing down on her groin. She gasped as her lungs emptied of air.
‘Let me spell it out. You were always going to discover that I’m alive. But if Fenton realises where I’ve got his money from, then he will have no choice but to make sure that you, Dave and your kid are dead in case you decide to do something insane like go to the cops. So I won’t tell him where the money came from, and you won’t go to the cops. Understand now? Am I making fuck’n English to you?’
Ryan yanked her hands above her head. Tara caught the gleam of metal before hearing the snick of the stainless steel bracelets as they ratcheted into place. He’d handcuffed her hands together, the chain passing behind the bedside assist bar, shackling her to the wall. Ryan continued, ‘Fenton just wants his money. He doesn’t care where it comes from – you, me, anyone. He gets his money: I live, you live. He gets his money and you go to the cops: I live – you die. It’s not really a choice, is it? So let’s do this the easy way and get me my money right fuck’n now.’
Tara stared up at him. Ryan was supposed to be dead – now he’s not. That was all that mattered. The fact was, no matter what he now said, she didn’t have to give him what he wanted. ‘Oh my god, I’d rather rip my eyes out and eat them before I’d give you my money. David would too. So you lose, you dumb, sad, stupid piece of shit. It’s over. So fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.’
Ryan’s bulk shifted and the fulcrum of his weight moved to the base of her stomach.
My child. ‘You’re hurting me. You’re hurting the baby.’
‘I’m not hurting you. Not yet.’ From his pocket, Ryan withdrew a box-cutter. Click by click, he exposed the blade.
Chapter Fifteen
David stared into the hole. It was about three feet deep. The travertine around the rim was splintered and cracked from the repeated blows that had rained down from the anger of the pickaxe. The loose soil and foundation mix had been shovelled out into a neat pile next to the lawn. Running through the centre of the hole was an orange sewage pipe, the core of its exposed portion blasted open as if something inside had hatched. Through that breach, crushed limestone had spilled into the pipe, effectively plugging the internal waste flow at that point.
‘I used to be a builder,’ the uniformed officer said. ‘Five years ago. And I’ve never seen such a complete shambles as that.’
David’s concentration remained focused into the hole, as if at any moment he’d spot a finger in the rubble, a shoe, a toe. He’s not there. He’s absolutely, one hundred per cent, not there. David stepped down into the hole and crouched, his fingers scraping against the loose soil, reassuring himself, proving Ryan’s absence to his own brain. Digging his fingers into the clay, he half-expected to touch clothing and rotting flesh. But there was nothing there but more clay.
‘Who’s your builders? Who did this?’ the uniform asked.
‘Ryan... Maximum Building Services.’
‘Judging by this mess, they need to do a refresher course on the basics of the screwdriver, never mind plumbing. I mean, just look at that...’
He was dead. I saw him. David pictured what he’d seen: Ryan, handsome Ryan, lying on his back over that very pipe, trying to lift his arm, the arm then falling lifeless to his side; a glaze forming on the blood across his lips, like sealing wax; his last breath, his eyes already with a thin, cloudy, filmy appearance. Wait. He couldn’t have seen that. David had been on the second floor. Ryan had been thirty feet below. I couldn’t have seen his eyes. His hand rising and falling, maybe... But not his eyes. David didn’t know what he’d seen, what he’d imagined.
The uniform observed the facade of the house as if looking into a great, glass pleasure-liner. ‘Incredible they did that, considering the quality of the rest of it.’
David batted away the compliment with a nod. There was definitely no corpse there. But Rya
n had landed in that hole, smashing the pipe and then... What? Gordon wouldn’t have moved the body. A body is heavy, and the risk involved would have been multiple times higher than burying Ryan where he lay. Had Ryan survived? Had Gordon helped him leave the house, and then… then had Bruno arrived in the morning and just filled in the patio like he was supposed to do?
David pictured Ryan arriving at his house three nights ago, waiting to meet his wife, strolling through the hallway that was soon to be Tara’s personal gallery. He saw him in the downstairs toilet, blasting yellow urine against the porcelain, shaking his cock dry, drops splattering across the maple wood floor. I’m going to find him. Wherever he is. Then I’ll beat him until he’s bleeding out of every hole.
Bruno spoke up: ‘Dave, I find that I am in some way responsible. I visit yesterday to apologise about football match, but your car not here so I leave it. Then meet your neighbour out on road. He ask to borrow pickaxe and shovel and rods from my van. Paid me one hundred euro. But I swear to you, Dave, he never said for what. Never.’
‘Don’t sweat the small stuff, Bruno.’
‘Then I call back today to collect them. His wife brings me in and says, “Thank god”, and “Stop him from getting himself arrested”. Only when I hear a ka-thunk and a ka-thunk coming through hedge do I realise that he is in your beautiful house destroying it. This time you and Tara’s car not there. So I call police. Straight away, Dave. I let them in with key you left for snagging jobs.’
‘I know, Bruno. Thanks.’
Shay’s wife was pacing back and forth on the other side of the hedge, muttering into a phone as if praying. She was recounting in a panicked voice everything that her husband had done that morning, presumably to one of her grown-up children; who, no doubt, was delighted to be on the other side of the planet.
The uniform asked, ‘So you’re what? A history teacher?’