Static Cling

by Gerald Hansen

Perhaps it was unethical, sinful even, to tell a disgraced woman of the home to come back only for her extra wage. And because she would make sure the bills got paid. And she would cook. And clean. And do the messages, the weekly shopping. And make nicer sandwiches for Paddy's dinner. But they were going to do it. For all of Fionnuala's faults, and there were many, many, many, she was a good housewife. Her housekeeping might have left something to be desired, but it was better than the mire Siofra had made the house.

  “I'm pressing her number now,” Paddy informed Maureen. She hovered over his left shoulder, staring down at the phone. She was holding her breath, yet sucking noises, Paddy guessed of suspense, were arising from her dentures.

  The phone rang. Paddy gripped it tightly. His knuckles were white. It rang. And rang again.

  And inside Trowel's bag the tones of “My Heart Goes On” trilled out. Sitting in the back seat of the getaway car, he dug around in the bag and shut it off.

  Paddy stared down at his phone. He reeled with disbelief.

  “What is it, love?” Maureen asked breathlessly. She was looking at the phone, but she didn't know what it was telling Paddy. She was a bit unsure as to how cell phones worked. They had no knobs to turn, so she didn't trust them. “What's happened?”

  “I kyanny believe it! Of all the...!”

  His face was stretched with rage. Maureen took a step back.

  “Y-ye're scaring me, love. What's happened!”

  “The ungrateful slag's hung up on me!”

  He flung the phone to the floor. He glared at it. He shuddered with fury.

  “If she thinks she's gonny get back into me bed now, she's got another think coming! Never, Maureen! That's when Fionnuala'll be coming back home. When flippin hell freezes over!”

  Maureen stared down at the phone on the floor and whimpered-wailed like one of the animals on her track suit caught in a trap. It would be burnt Brussels sprouts and lumpy spuds for tea again.

  * * *

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In the passenger seat of the patrol car, DI McLaughlin chomped down on a chip sodden with curry. They had stopped off at the fish and chip van in the city center. Also owned by Zoë Riddell. He wiped away the sauce that clung to his walrus-type mustache with the back of his hand.

  “So, what do we think?” he asked his partner, who was swigging down fizzy lemonade. DS D'Arcy placed her deep fried mushroom on the arm rest. She had taken a bite but would take no more. It wasn't a diet, more the taste. Her face had a sour look, and McLaughlin suspected it wasn't the lemonade or the mushroom that had put it there.

  “Well, as you're asking, I think that was one of the most...harrowing preliminary interviews I've taken part in,” she said. “It was very difficult for me.”

  McLaughlin couldn't look at her. “Aye, I must apologize for them crude comments that spilled outta the Flood woman's mouth. And I suppose it was that Siofra that started it all. I'm sorry.”

  D'Arcy shook her head sharply. “The mother's comments I could handle. I've dealt with that Fionnuala-woman type before—a bigot—and that I can handle. The wee girl, but, startled me a bit. But, no. It wasn't the insinuations. It was difficult for my eyes, I'm talking about. They kept shifting from the Flood one to the Scadden one as if they couldn't decide which of the two was the more unsightly, the hard-faced harridan with the bleached pony tails and the aubergine body shoved into kiddy clothes or the blue-ribbon-winning county fair hog dressed up as a human, and that human in a nurse's uniform.”

  McLaughlin smiled into his chips. The claws are out now. Rwoar! he thought wryly. But D'Arcy had conducted herself with remarkable professionalism during the 'interview,' such as it was, and that's what mattered: public perception of the PSNI. He was proud of her.

  “I was wondering more about the case itself,” he said. “But I'm sure you knew that.”

  “Aye. I just had to get that out.” She considered. “I'm not quite sure how the death, the fainting spell and the drunken stupor fit into it yet, but it's apparent we are dealing with, at least in part, a definite robbery. As if the nurse and that Flood woman would both leave their houses without cellphones or handbags! How could we be expected to believe that? Do they think we're daft? Silly Fenian cunts.”

  The inspector grunted and shifted his bulk. Back when she had been a lowly PC, McLaughlin had thought, with the things that came out of her mouth, there wasn't much PC about PC D'Arcy. And as a DS she was still the same.

  Their notebook pages were blank except for a shortlist of suspects, which perhaps was useful to D'Arcy, but useless to McLaughlin as he had known them all their lives. In the break room, they had been greeted with a wall of silence by Fionnuala Flood, Nurse Scadden and Siofra. For a person from the Moorside, to grass, to snitch on a fellow Catholic, was something you just didn't do. It was a community sin, a heinous act on par with abortion and a daily shampoo. Just as the British had erected Derry's city walls out of earth, lime and local stone four centuries before to fend off hoards of marauding vandals (and attacks from the Celtic peasantry!), so the women in Final Spinz, the victims of some as-yet-nameless crime, had formed a wall of silence, a solidarity of tight lips and crossed arms. To keep McLaughlin's prying nose, and those of his team, out of what they no doubt considered their own private business, their dirty laundry. Every question was met with an expression of affront, as if D'Arcy had demanded to riffle through their underwear drawers.

  “Ladies, I'll have youse know, this is now a murder investigation,” McLaughlin had walked in saying. “I expect yer full cooperation.”

  The renovation of Final Spinz had not reached the break room. A strip of florescent light stuttered from the ceiling as McLaughlin and D'Arcy entered, revealing the three po-faced suspect-victims in flashes of light like attractions in a fairground ghost train. The two women were puffing away on cigarette ends, leaning against the No Smoking sign. There was a table with a warped Formica top decorated with little star bursts, a wooden chair missing the slats of its back, a battered kettle sitting on a heating coil, several tea cups and mugs with brown cracks running down them, a few mangled hangers strewn about and a faded, torn Take That poster hanging from one piece of tape on the upper left corner. It was a promotional poster of their first album from 1990. The walls had once been painted a deep purple.

  “We never laid a finger on Mrs. Ming!” Fionnuala barked, reacting to the sight of an officer like a bull to a red flag. “She keeled over of her own accord!”

  “Aye, she just popped her clogs there in front of the counter before us all, like,” the nurse one said, while Fionnuala glanced down at her shoes, as if wondering whether or not the nurse were taking the piss out of her footwear. “And I'm a nurse, so I know what I'm on about.”

  “Me mammy called it in!” a young voice piped up.

  The inspector was surprised to see Siofra standing there in the blinking light. Did they have her working in the dry cleaners as well? Was there no adherence to child labor laws at Final Spinz?

  “Aye, so I did! I called it in!” barked the Flood woman, fiercely proud, as if she had just martyred herself. Which, DCI McLaughlin supposed, in her eyes, she had done. And speaking of her eyes, they were like twin barrels of a nail gun. I dare ye to drag me down to the cop shop! they seemed to be saying, while the triumphant smirk on her face seemed to be adding, ye kyanny do it, can ye? I called the crime in, so I did. As if that gave her a get out of jail free card!

  D'Arcy flipped open her notebook.

  “What's your name?” she asked, eyes boring into Fionnuala.

  “Is that a flimmin joke?” Fionnuala sputtered.

  “Fionnuala Flood,” McLaughlin told D'Arcy with a sigh.

  “Sure, ye interrogated me last year,” Fionnuala announced. “What's wrong with ye? Has consorting with a long line of bean-flicker bedmates addled yer memory processes of the people ye've come across in yer life?”

  McLaughlin saw D'Arcy's shoulders stiffen, but the officer retained an outward appearance of cr
isp calm.

  “And yours?” she asked Nurse Scadden.

  “Rose Adele Ivy Scadden.”

  Fionnuala snickered, and Siofra looked up at the nurse with new interest.

  “Clever clogs parents?” Fionnuala asked.

  “I take it you work here, Mrs. Flood?” McLaughlin asked Fionnuala.

  “Naw. I wear this for the feck of it.” With a roll of the eyes, Fionnuala tugged at the light blue and white striped work smock that seemed a size to small for her frame. The name tag dangled crookedly under her left breast. It was upside down.

  “How long have ye been employed here?”

  “Three months, if ye must know.”

  “And who else works with you?”

  “Anne Marie.”

  “Anne Marie...?”

  “O'Dell. Ye know, Frankie O'Dell from up Ineshowen Way's youngest.”

  “And where is she?”

  “Not here.”

  “Why?”

  “She's part time, just. Jammy sod. Works the days I'm off. Tuesdays and Sundays. I've to attend mass every Sunday, sure. I kyanny be working the Lord's day.” Jammy sod, lucky

  “And what time did ye start work today?”

  “The crack of bloody dawn. Eight.”

  “And where,” Fionnuala flinched as D'Arcy jumped in, “is your handbag?”

  Fionnuala clamped her hands around her chain-link belt as if it might be hanging there. Then her face turned dark and she snarled, “None of yer beeswax.”

  “And your mobile? And...have you no watch? Or earrings? No necklace or chain?”

  “What's all these flimmin bloody fashion questions?” Fionnuala was percolating with fury. “C'mere, why am I always damned to be the suspect to youse lot? The suspect and never the victim?”

  Indeed, many of the officers joked down at the station that the second chair in Interview Room #3, the chair with the one short leg that made it tilt a bit, was the Fionnuala Flood Chair.

  D'Arcy whipped around to Nurse Scadden.

  “And what about you, Ms. Scadden? Handbag? Mobile? A brooch? Ye've not even worn a watch today? Don't ye need it to...to, what is it you do with it? Measure the beats of the pulse? The heart?”

  Nurse Scadden opened and closed her mouth. And opened and closed it again. As McLaughlin looked on with what seemed almost like bemusement, D'Arcy bent towards Siofra.

  “And who is this little girl? Why are you here, dear?”

  Siofra looked up at the two police officers towering over her, and her eyes were filled with defiance. She screwed her lips into a pout, put her hands on her hips and shook her head. D'Arcy crouched down and smiled kindly at her. As if she were merely a child.

  “It's okay, dear. I know this must be terrible scary for you. There's no need to be afeared, though. We're here for to help you. Just answer my questions. What's your name?”

  D'Arcy made to place a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder, and even as the girl shrank back, Siofra barked out: “Keep them degenerate hands of yers, them pervy fingers, offa me innocent wee body!”

  Fionnuala joined in, pointing an accusing finger at the officer and bellowing out, her face turning to McLaughlin, then to Nurse Bryant as if to say...youse is both witnesses! “Grooming!” Fionnuala roared. “Of the next generation of lesbos! Getting them while they're young so they can add to their filthy, vulgar ranks! For to lead them to the dark side! Down the road of perdition! I'll have ye know,” she hissed into D'Arcy's now-startled face, “I've read all about it on the internet! All about yer sleekit methods!”

  “Mrs. Flood—! Siofra...!” an outraged McLaughlin yelled.

  “I'm her mammy!” Fionnuala roared. “Ye kyanny compel wanes to answer yer insidious questions without me consent. Plug yer ears, Siofra! Plug them now, I say!”

  But Fionnuala did it herself, clamping her monstrous hands around the girl's head, and humming some song—McLaughlin thought he recognized that one about rhythm being a dancer—so that, in the event the coppers did get a question out, Siofra wouldn't be able to hear it. D'Arcy, taken even more aback as the girl stuck her tongue out at her, looking as if she were swishing spittle around in her cheeks to spit it out at her, quickly stood up. She scribbled “Sheefra !!!” in her notebook.

  “And,” Fionnuala continued, “I don't want to hear nothing about the poor wee wane having been hauled down to the cop shop with some social worker ye've hired—some deluded bleeding heart commie lesbo consort of yer 'woman' there—to pose as her responsible adult. I'll have youse up at a tribunal for child abuse, I'm warning ye!”

  So that was the little girl, perhaps the only one of the three graced with common sense, out of their reach for the moment.

  McLaughlin harrumphed as he rolled his eyes.

  “I see ye're true to form today, Mrs. Flood,” he said. “Obstructing an investigation. Dare I say before ye...perverting the course of justice? I may as well take this opportunity to warn ye about contempt of court and all.”

  “Court? As a witness? When hell freezes over! Ye know the only contempt I have be's reserved especially for the likes of youse!”

  “Youse're not being accused of anything,” McLaughlin said with the patience of a saint. The trio's eyes nevertheless blazed with suspicion. “We're here to gather information, just.”

  “I don't know how many different ways we can tell ye,” Fionnuala fumed. “Nothing happened.”

  “If ye want to see the back of us, which I'm sure ye do, it would make sense to tell us what happened. Surely something happened. It's impossible that nothing happened. Something be's happening everywhere at all times, sure.”

  Fionnuala growled, then rearranged her smock a bit, then made a few more noises, then finally deigned to give the inspector what he wanted. She turned a bit towards him, to let D'Arcy know she was telling the Catholic and not the Protestant lesbian.

  “If ye absolutely must know.”

  “Aye, I do.”

  “That aul woman, Mrs. Ming, came into the shop for to get her tablecloth seen to—”

  “Ye've probably hauled it off in an evidence bag by now,” Nurse Scadden put in icily. “And it will never be seen again. Perfect for the spread at the Filth Christmas do, so it is.”

  “She had that lovely antique tablecloth, and a bag of manky overalls from her grand nephew or somesuch what had to be seen to and all. That's the smell in the shop. I can assure ye it don't always reek like that. Then this one came in,” Fionnuala nodded curtly at Nurse Scadden, “and jumped the queue to pick up her uniforms.”

  “Which I'm still waiting for!” Nurse Scadden checked her wrist, but her watch wasn't there. “Youse are gonny get me sacked, so youse are! Half an hour late for me shift already, so I'm are!”

  “And then Miss Chosen One staggered in. The paladic one. She hauled herself in through the door, then just passed out on them chairs. Surprised they could hold her weight. Though as the Virgin be's watching over her, maybe it doesn't be so odd.”

  “The Chosen—?”

  “Bridie McFee,” McLaughlin informed D'Arcy.

  “And then,” Fionnuala continued, “the lady of the manor herself swanned in. Mrs. Riddell.”

  “Why did Mrs. Riddell happen to—”

  Nurse Scadden cut in on D'Arcy, “Then the aul one clutched her chest—”

  “Wile strange gurgles came outta her mouth,” added Siofra. “And her face turned all different colors of the rainbow, like. Green and purple and yellow, I saw. And red and all.”

  “And then she collapsed,” Nurse Scadden said.

  “And then Mrs. Riddell followed suit,” Fionnuala said. “Musta been some sorta chain reaction.”

  “And that be's it!” Siofra said. “So youse can clear off now. Me mammy's gotta go to work, and that nurse and all.”

  “Outta the mouth of wanes. No more of them questions now!” Fionnuala agreed. “We've told youse all we know!”

  McLaughlin saw the anger on D'Arcy's face, the set of her jaw, her clenched fists, and
realized there was nothing more they would get out of the two women and the little girl for the moment. He made an executive decision.

  “Ta, ladies,” he said. “Ta for yer cooperation, like. Come away, D'Arcy.”

  D'Arcy looked at him in shock. McLaughlin pulled her to the side and whispered into her ear, “We're not getting anything more outta them stood here. We've to take them down to the station for a more official interview.”

  “But, sir—!”

  McLaughlin silenced her with a wave of his hand. He turned back to the three. The guilt was painfully obvious on all three faces. Their arms were folded across their chests. Their chins jutted out in rebellion. Their eyes glistened with the pride of bold-faced lies spat out to the PSNI. Their sinful behavior they would take care of at the next confession, and their souls would soon be clean.

  “Right, ladies,” he confirmed. “We're done here. For now.”

  He saw the disappointment at the final two words register in their eyes.

  “I'll arrange a formal interview down at the station for the three of you. Tomorrow at five.”

  “But me shift—!” Nurse Scadden wailed.

  “I'll take care of that for ye. I'll make sure ye don't get the sack,” McLaughlin said.

  Nurse Scadden sneered.

  “Don't think saving me job's gonny make me spill any...lies...about what happened here today!”

  “Och, sure, that wasn't my intention at all,” McLaughlin said. But it was. “We just need to take statements. It's a normal procedure.”

  And, after a vague threat from D'Arcy that they had better be at the station the next day at five, which made the three even more angry, McLaughlin and D'Arcy had left.

  “Cheerio,” McLaughlin had called out. Fionnuala had flipped him off behind his back.

  Now the police officers tossed their wrappers and leftovers out the window of the unmarked police car. McLaughlin used the edge of a matchbook to clear out bits of curried chip from between his teeth.

  “Now that we know the players,” D'Arcy told her boss, “we can speculate on the motives and work backwards to discover the crime.”