The Boxer's Dreams of Love

by philip boyle

  ‘ What?’ sneered the cop in a whiny feminine voice. ‘I’ll fucking tell you what. We were able to put our colleague in a plastic lunch box after you’d finished with him.’

  ‘I didn’t—’ Eddie started to say but the chair was pulled from under him. The lawyer leapt to his feet, breath frantic.

  ‘I really must protest,’ said the shiny suit and the cop was in his face before the lawyer had time to blink.

  ‘No, I must protest, Mr. legal representative to the scum of the earth. We all must protest at what happened to Alan Harding.’ He reached over the table and switched off the tape machine. ‘Interview terminated. We just want to have a little chat with our Irish friend here and then we can start the interview. Okay? I’m sure you’d like a wee break, a cup of tea, a cigarette? Eh?’

  ‘I don’t smoke,’ said the lawyer.

  ‘Well, start then.’

  Even Eddie was surprised to see his lawyer leave the room so meekly.

  ‘Now, Irish Eddie. Let’s have a little chat, off the record, all right?’

  ‘I have no intention of keeping anything from you. Or lying to you. Why would I? I came here willingly, didn’t I? I gave myself up to your men. They had no idea I was there. I didn’t kill Mr. Harding—’ The mention of the name brought an elbow to his ribs from one of the silent men in the room. ‘God, can’t you stop that? I said I’m going to tell you, didn’t I? Tell me if you don’t want to hear what I have to say. You all want a go at me. Go ahead. Let’s not waste any more time.’ He closed his eyes in anticipation. All he heard was the scraping of a chair. He opened his eyes to see the cop sitting down. His rage at least had abated somewhat. He asked the uniform at the door for a cup of coffee.

  His eyes still simmered with shimmering frustrated energy. Nowhere to put it. The coffee probably wasn’t a good idea, just fuel for the fire.

  ‘I’m Detective Andy Fairweather. I’m bein’ nice to you now, okay? Forgive my little outburst earlier. Need my coffee. Need a holiday in fact. From this place, from these moaning fuckers around me. Some people say we’re just civil servants but we’re not even that. We’re road sweepers. Well, the uniforms are, at least. And what they sweep up they bring in here. Dump all that fucking litter on my desk and I have to sift through it. So it comes in and I sort through the detritus and separate the bad from the really bad. Then I move it on to somewhere else, someone else. I see bodies, alive, dead, somewhere in between, rich, poor, drunk, all with sins on their poor souls. But when you see the body of a friend, Eddie. Someone you’ve worked with, drunk with, fallen out of bars with. When you see that person wrapped in plastic like a pound of butcher’s meat. Well, that’s somethin’ else, let me fucking tell you. Alan was a rare thing. Oh, I know we all say that about a dead man but it was true in this case. He may have been Irish but we soon got over that.’ Andy smiled at this, at Eddie, at his colleagues. ‘I mean, he did realize the error of his ways and left Ireland, didn’t he? Came to live in a decent fucking country.’ Andy’s coffee finally arrived and it was gone in one swallow which meant it was cold or the man had some constitution. ‘You see, Eddie, he came to get away from people like you. Thought there might have been a better class of criminal over here.’

  ‘I’m not a criminal,’ Eddie interjected quickly, angrily. Andy swatted his words away like a fly. Took a black notebook out of his jacket, opened it just for show.

  ‘You really are bad luck to be around, Eddie, aren’t you? We should be worried, lads, when we leave here. We’re all doomed no doubt. You just cursed, Eddie, that it? Frankie Noon, Scratch Brown, Alan Harding. All in contact with you, or knew you, had business with you and all dead soon after. After which you just conveniently up and run. And you’re just little Irish innocent.’

  ‘Scratch Brown? I don’t know anyone by that name.’

  ‘He held a gun to your face. Fired a gun that never went off, apparently. Pity, could have made things a lot easier. Saved us all a lot of trouble.’

  ‘I remember the gun. I have no idea who he was, why he held a gun to my face.’

  ‘No idea?’

  Eddie thought for a moment. He was still holding back, hesitating and he didn’t know why. Did he still think that he would save her life by keeping her story to himself? What sense did that make?

  ‘I didn’t know his name,’ Eddie began quietly. ‘But I think I know why he was threatening me. Maybe he wanted to more than threaten me, I don’t know. He looked like a teenager, like he was just playing at it.’

  ‘Believe me, he wasn’t,’ said Andy. ‘He was a teenager and he was the lowest of the low and probably didn’t realize what he was doing until he had that barrel cold against your face. Then he ends up dead on his own doorstep.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with that. I had no idea who he was. You think I tracked him down and killed him? What or who do you think I am? Your colleague, Mr. Harding, he knew that. You have his notes? I talked to him for hours. We also had a drink together. He didn’t believe I had anything to do with it. He would have arrested me, wouldn’t he? He came to see me in Edinburgh, then in Stirling. I admit I probably shouldn’t have left Edinburgh but I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. I’m not a criminal, Mr. Fairweather. I’m nobody.’

  ‘Then why, Eddie? What the fuck is going on here?’ Andy leaned back in the chair and Eddie was afraid it was going to snap under his weight.

  His colleagues left the room and apart from the uniformed sentry at the door, it was just Andy and Eddie.

  ‘I’m not a criminal. Never have been.’

  ‘Just a boxer.’

  ‘Just an ex-boxer. Ex-everything. Doorman, bouncer, forklift driver, postman, dishwasher.’

  ‘Why did you leave Dublin? Why did you come here?’ Eddie could see he was reading Harding’s notes.

  ‘I left because of a woman.’ (Because of two women.) Taste it, feel it, touch it but saying it was a whole different matter. ‘I came to Edinburgh to find someone. My girlfriend. Edie. Edie Johnson. She’s a singer, she travels a lot because of her work, goes where the work is. We always spent weeks apart.’

  ‘But you followed her this time? Don’t tell me it was love, couldn’t bear to be apart. Come on, Eddie. Help me here.’

  ‘Could I have a coffee?’ Eddie asked like a choirboy. Andy glanced over at the uniform at the door.

  ‘Another one for me as well, Trev. That’s a good lad.’

  Eddie hadn’t asked for sugar, or milk for that matter. He wondered whether there was any caffeine in the drink at all. He made a slow-burning drama out of drinking it, letting Fairweather make the next move. Andy looked down at his notes, or Harding’s maybe, more out of giving his thoughts more time to articulate themselves than from a need to find anything in particular among the scrawled passages.

  ‘The problem with prosecuting every crime, particularly murder, is motive.’

  ‘If you have no evidence,’ Eddie ventured.

  ‘Exactly. You’re brighter than you look, you know that. For an Irishman. Just kidding. Some of my best friends are Irish. Or were I should say. Whatever about evidence, or the lack of it, the motive in each case is written in twenty foot high neon letters.’

  ‘Please tell me what my motives were. I can’t wait to hear.’ Eddie hated the sarcasm in his own words, hated sarcasm in all forms.

  ‘Don’t you fuck with me, fella,’ said Andy with a quiet ferocity than sent a small shudder of fear across the table.

  ‘I didn’t kill them. I couldn’t—

  Andy scratched an ear, played with his nose again, rubbed the used fingers against the edge of the table.

  ‘Eddie, your story plays like a bad TV cop show. ’Cause nobody would believe it. You’re a fucking cliché. Ex-boxer, ex-whatever, washedup, struggling to find another outlet for all that aggression, all the punches, looking for something that can use the limited but effective skills you’ve learned. So you end up like the rest of them, standing at nightclub doors in black clothes and shaven heads, little bea
rds, hard looks and an earpiece. Frankie Noon owns a club, knows you, likes you, ’cause everyone likes you apparently. He gives you a job, that’s why they call him ‘Fair Frankie, ain’t it? He may be as bent as a fucking butcher’s dog, he may be selling little girls to rich men, he may be moving mountains of Motilo coke but hey, underneath it all, he’s just a decent bloke. So he gives you a chance, puts you on the door. So what happened, Eddie? What frightened you away, sent your sorry fucking arse over to our quiet little neck of the woods? Eh?’

  Eddie looked over at the uniform for a moment. Standing stony-faced, eyes and ears closed, there could be a killing going on and he’d stand stock still, just doing his job.

  ‘No use looking at Trev. He can’t help you. And if he tried he’d have to go through me and that would not be a pretty sight. Eh, Trev?’ A sliver of smile on the statue’s boyish face.

  ‘Where is the lawyer, shouldn’t he be here? I thought you couldn’t talk to me without him?’

  ‘The Italian? Believe me, Eddie, you’re better off without him. He’d end up getting you twenty years for a parking offence. Know why we call him the Italian? He’s so fucking corrupt that half of the scums in here should be representing him. He has peculiar tastes, you see, after work, at night. Thinks nobody knows where he goes and who he sees, what he sees. I wouldn’t want to shock a wee innocent like yourself but let’s just say that the neighborhood dogs get a little scared when the Italian is lurking around their patch. Now, Eddie, let’s get back to it. You’re working at this club for Fair Frankie, nice easy little job. Going home in the early hours to your wee flat, seeing and not seeing this lovely lass with the voice of an angel. And then what?’ Silence, Eddie thinking, searching for a way out of the place he had hoped to find. He had come to tell the story but the words wouldn’t come now.

  ‘And then what? And then what?’ Andy’s voice rising like an angry sea. He stood now, leaning over the table. ‘And then WHAT?’ Andy pushed the table aside, catching Eddie’s knee, forcing him to his feet. He scrambled to the back of the room, waiting for Andy to lurch forward and eat his prey. Trev was no longer immobile, his hands were by his side, his wide eyes swinging from Andy to Eddie, praying he wouldn’t have to make a decision.

  ‘All right Trev. No harm here. A bruised table, nothing more. Everything back to normal. It’s alright, Eddie, I ain’t gonna hurt you. I ain’t that stupid. Come on, help me with the table.’

  All back in place except the table rocked a little now.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ said Eddie. He could almost feel the rain again, the blinkered thoughts as he watched Sarah on her knees, he could almost feel the rising hand, ready to rain down.

  ‘Sarah Zinny,’ Eddie said softly, repeating the name after his story was told, averting his gaze from Fairweather’s, not wanting to see the disbelief. He was worried he was going to cry.

  ‘So you hit this girl. Sounds like she deserved it. And then what?’ ‘She was Stephen Zinny’s daughter.’

  ‘Zinny? Harding was asking about him.’

  He owned the club. And others apparently. Like Frankie I suppose.

  So—’ Eddie stopped.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Frankie brings me to his house. Gives me money. More money than

  I’d seen. And tells me to leave. That it would be advisable to get out of Dublin. I still had no idea who the girl was. The whole incident was on camera, that’s all I was told. And asked to leave.’

  ‘Then Edinburgh. Why, because she was there?’ Eddie stared in mystic silence at the policeman. No tale can be halftold or it’s no tale at all. It was the money, that’s what it was.

  ‘I went to Cork first, wasn’t really sure what I was going to do. Then I decided to try to find her. I wasn’t really sure she was in Edinburgh. Then the money was stolen, at the airport.’ This caught Andy’s attention, he stiffened, sat up in the chair.

  ‘They, whoever the fuck they were, knew I had it. Had followed me there. Took it. All the money in the world. Why give it to me and then take it away? I was doing what they said, why take it away?’

  ‘Because Frankie Noon gave it out of his own pockets. He wanted you out of there quickly. Before the others could find you. That’s what it was, Eddie. He must have liked you, our Frankie.’

  ‘So why would I kill him?’ pleaded Eddie.

  ‘Why indeed, Eddie? Why indeed.’ Andy Fairweather tapped the table with his pen, leaving little marks. Now even he was beginning to regret asking to hear this story. Pandora’s fucking box. And he knew this was only the beginning. ‘Let’s take a short break, eh? I won’t be long.’ Scraping his chair on the dull floor, heaving his weary body over to the door, desperate for escape.

  Eddie, in this bare, grey room, felt a heavy sigh leave his body. Trevor, at the door, was wax dummy still and stared at the wall across the room, hands behind his back, a boxer’s discipline written across his face. Eddie knew he wouldn’t talk, couldn’t tamper with evidence, and that’s what Eddie was. He thought how curious this was the first time he was in such a room, such a situation. A scene so familiar from countless TV shows that it was easy to believe you’d been there before. It was curious he hadn’t been in such a room given the life he’d led, the dim dark places his hands had led him. He’d appeared in court, as a witness, giving evidence, giving character references but he’d always kept himself clean. He was still pretty clean, certainly free of the sin of murder. And yet. He had played his part, set the ball in motion. Maybe he was the reason for it all. Might not have happened if not for him. If not for him they’d all be still alive. Didn’t matter how crazy this man Zinny was, and he was clearly that. His thoughts echoed off the scratched walls.

  Another lost woman, Linda, lovely Linda, pushing Eddie close to further infidelity, was surely in a room down the corridor. The colossal coincidence still rankled, confused his bitter mind. He would find out before he left.

  Trevor’s head couldn’t help but turn at the sound of weeping. Eddie sat with his head down, hands ripped together, and the tears fell freely. Before the constable could do anything there was a movement at the door and Andy had returned. He saw the look on Trevor’s face and looked himself down at the shaking form of Eddie Brogan. Broken.

  Andy placed a hand on Eddie’s shoulder and let him have as long as he needed.

  Touch it, feel it, see it. But none of it mattered until you told someone, shared the burden, allowed the unhappy release.

  Eddie finally realized that Andy was back in the seat across the table from him. Wiped an unbuttoned sleeve across his face.

  ‘There’s more,’ said Eddie. ‘Much more. More than I can understand. Or believe. And it’s the most important part of all. About her. About Edie.’

  ‘The boxer dreams of love, eh?’ asked Andy with a smile, then regretting it after seeing the look on Eddie’s face. A lot of things revolted Andy Fairweather but few if any scared him. In the aftermath of his last remark he had felt it for a fraction of a second. ‘Sorry,’ he rebuked himself. ‘Not funny, eh? I can understand that. I can. All that matters in the end ain’t it? I gotta tell you, Eddie, that’s some tale. More holes in the plot than an episode of Taggart and that’s saying something.’

  ‘It’s true,’ countered Eddie with a weak mouth.

  ‘Oh, I didn’t say I didn’t believe you. Truth stranger than fiction and all that. Okay. Okay.’ Andy was struggling with the direction ahead. He glanced at Trevor for he didn’t know what. In the past, Andy’s first thought would always have been Harding. Sip or two over a single malt, figure the world out. He looked back through his notes for want of anything better to do. He turned off the tape machine, glad it’s insistent whine had ended.

  ‘Okay,’ Andy said as he stood. ‘Show me.’ The hotel was doing winter’s trade in the early autumn. Two customers in the bar, old enough for the barman to wonder if either would make it out alive.

  The register showed Eddie and Edie existed alright. Eddie wanted to run his fingers over her name. One
night, the woman was performing at a function in the ballroom that night. Manager Stone cast an unwelcome glance at Eddie while answering Andy’s questions. He remembered Eddie, vaguely remembered the woman, most of all he remembered frantic, hungover, stinking Eddie the next morning claiming that she had disappeared and that the world must stop until she was found.

  ‘You didn’t believe him?’

  ‘I believe she wasn’t with him. The reason’s not for me to say.’ ‘The woman was seen leaving the hotel late that night.’

  ‘By a waitress who no longer works here I’m afraid.’

  ‘But you have her details? And you’d have it on CCTV?’ ‘Yes, I’d have her details. Not so sure about the other.’

  Andy’s initial intense energy had visibly subsided following fruitless

  searches through the anonymous bedroom and the ballroom now decorated ahead of an anniversary party. Whatever once had happened here had turned to dust and blown away in the wind. There were no reflections to be gleamed off such dull surfaces. They stood outside the hotel. Andy dismissed the two uniformed officers he had brought along just in case. In case of what he thought? He looked at his feet while Eddie looked across the road at the spot where the policemen had sat waiting for Linda. In his mind he had walked away, turned left or right and not straight ahead to give himself up.

  ‘Just one thing, Eddie,’ Andy was saying. ‘Why, after everything that has happened, you never came to us before? If you cared about her so much. If she’s sick.’

  Eddie wasn’t listening. He was replaying the scene back in his head. He’s walking to the car, convinced they’re waiting for him. He turns and sees the woman coming out of the apartment. Coming closer he recognizes her. It can’t be.

  ‘It can’t be,’ Eddie says out loud.

  ‘What?’ asks a puzzled Andy. Eddie starts to walk across the road, reconstructing the replay in his head. In the centre of the road Eddie looks back at Andy. ‘It can’t be a coincidence. It can’t be.’