The Priest

by Gerard O'Donovan

  ‘Hizo la señal del Cristo.’ she said, almost too low for him to hear it, the voices of the others raised again now they were outside the room.

  ‘La señal del Cristo?’ he repeated, making sure he’d heard her correctly.

  ‘Sí, claro,’ she said, choking back tears. ‘Como un cura.’

  But before he could say anything else the nurse was back in the room, taking him by the elbow, insisting that he leave. He took a look back as he went, wanting to say goodbye, but Jesica had forgotten him already, another spasm of tears testimony that her focus was back again on the horror replaying itself inside her.

  ‘Like a priest!’ Brogan exclaimed. They were standing by the main hospital entrance. Mulcahy took a deep drag on his cigarette, relieved to be outdoors again.

  ‘That’s what she said to me,’ Mulcahy said. ‘Her exact words were: “He made the sign of the cross. Like a priest.”’

  It was a good half-hour since he’d left Jesica’s room. Down the corridor he’d found Brogan still trying to calm the indignant Spanish diplomat but clearly getting nowhere. Mulcahy introduced himself to the man, then asked Brogan if she minded him having a word with the guy in Spanish. Maybe it was surprise at being addressed in his own language, or maybe it was just Mulcahy’s equable presence towering over him, but First Secretary Ibañez calmed down rapidly after that. A couple of minutes later, he cracked a smile when Mulcahy alluded to a legendary Spanish joke about a doltish member of the Guardia Civil, while apologising for Cassidy’s short fuse. Ibañez even seemed to have forgotten the ache in his right arm by the time he shook Mulcahy’s hand and headed back towards the ward, an assurance having been brokered that no attempt would be made to interview Jesica again without an embassy official present.

  It wasn’t until they were outside, waiting for Cassidy to bring the car around, that Mulcahy got to tell Brogan what Jesica had said to him.

  ‘Jesus, that’s all we need,’ Brogan continued. ‘Why, in the name of God, would she say that? Was the guy wearing a dog collar or something?’

  Mulcahy shrugged. ‘You’ll have to ask her, next time.’

  ‘What do you think she meant? Do priests bless themselves any different to the rest of us?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Well, it can’t be because she doesn’t understand it, can it? I mean, she’s Spanish so she’s Catholic, right?’

  ‘I think we can safely assume that,’ Mulcahy said. ‘Her father’s famously right wing. In fact, he’s always being attacked for his links with the Church. And, like I told you, she said the cross and chain she was wearing around her neck is missing.’

  ‘It’s a strange thing for her to focus on, given all the other stuff this guy did to her, don’t you think?’

  ‘You’d know more than me about that, but maybe it’s of some… Oh, I don’t know.’ Mulcahy stopped, not wanting to speculate or get any more involved than he was already.

  ‘No, go on,’ Brogan prompted. ‘What were you going to say?’

  ‘Just that I remember reading a profile of Jesica’s father in El País or somewhere. I don’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure her mother died when she was very young and it was himself brought her up alone. Or as alone as you can get with the sort of lifestyle they lead. We’re talking real old Spanish aristocracy.’

  ‘All the less reason to worry about a cross and chain, then, you’d think?’ Brogan said.

  ‘Unless it had sentimental value. Maybe it was her mother’s – or maybe her father gave it to her. It must have had some special significance for her.’ He dropped the guttering cigarette beneath his foot and crushed it. ‘Anyway, I’m sure it’ll all come out in the end. What do you reckon your chances are?’

  Brogan brushed a strand of hair off her face. ‘Hard to say at this stage. It’s not exactly run-of-the-mill, is it? We won’t know anything until we get an idea of where she was and who she was with last night. And you never know what the guys from the Technical Bureau might turn up.’

  ‘What sort of sicko could do that, eh? She’s hardly more than a child.’

  Brogan scowled at him, but not unpleasantly. ‘Try working in Sex Crimes for a while, you’ll find there’s no shortage of sickos in Dublin.’

  He shook his head. ‘No thanks, I’ll stick to what I know.’

  Given half a bloody chance. Mulcahy looked at the sky again. The inviting azure of the early afternoon had gone, obliterated by a flat expanse of ashen cloud. And the wind had a hint of rain on it. Perhaps it wasn’t a good day for sailing, after all. A dark blue Mondeo rolled up beside them. Inside, Cassidy leaned over from the driver’s seat and pushed the passenger door open. In doing so he shot Mulcahy a sullen glare. He hadn’t been at all happy when Mulcahy had suggested he make another, more sincere apology to Ibañez. The ignorant fucker should be thanking him for saving him an appearance at a disciplinary hearing.

  Brogan glanced back as she climbed into the car. ‘Thanks, Mike – and sorry for spoiling your Sunday. I’ll let you know how we get on.’

  ‘Do that,’ he said, hoping she wouldn’t. ‘Good luck with it.’

  With a squeal of tyres, the car shot away. Mulcahy stared after it a moment. Cassidy was clearly an old-school thug of the first order, a bloody liability. He wondered how Brogan put up with him. Then he shook his head again, took his keys and cigarettes from his pocket, and headed towards the car park.

  3

  Siobhan Fallon swept up Stephen Street like a March wind, coat flapping open despite the steady drizzle, one arm deep in her shoulder bag, rummaging for her mobile phone. She was fifteen minutes late already. Ordinarily, she’d just blame the weather and flash a winning smile, which usually did the trick. But she liked this guy, and even if that didn’t work out there was always the chance of a story in it. She scrolled back through her recent calls and clicked on his number, but all she got was voicemail. There wasn’t much point in leaving a message now. She slipped the phone back into her bag and upped her pace. She was nearly there, anyway.

  Three minutes later she rounded the corner onto South Great George’s Street and saw the Long Hall across the road. The old Victorian pub had enjoyed a bit of a facelift since the last time she’d seen it, when a vast new office block was being built behind. For a while it had looked as if the whole street front would be demolished, and the Long Hall with it. Par for the course during the early days of the boom, when no inconvenient bit of Dublin’s heritage lasted longer than it took to stuff a planning officer’s pocket with cash. But somehow the Long Hall had made it through, a valiant survivor, doubtless still as decrepit as ever inside. She’d laughed when he suggested meeting her there. Not exactly the place to impress a girl.

  She pushed through the door and past the dark mahogany bar, her eyes trailing over the mad mishmash of mirrors and chandeliers, the wood-panelled walls bedecked with mottled old Chinese prints, the crazed fruit plasterwork on the ceiling. She spotted him straight off. He was sitting reading a paper at a table in the back room, long legs stretched out, a pint of stout hardly touched in front of him, jaw jutting towards the story, absorbed. A memory coursed through her of a time years before, when she’d seen him in a posture just like that, but without the paper, exhausted and thoughtful after leading a major drugs bust out in Clondalkin. Herself a rookie reporter and him already in a position that reeked of responsibility and power. The sense that washed from him then, of being in complete control, had gone through her like a charge – his calm, cool determination. And, though her own position had changed a great deal since, she felt shot through by exactly the same feeling now.

  Exactly the same.

  Mulcahy was about to check his watch when he looked up and there she was, framed by the dark wooden clock arch that divided the front and back bars, smiling at him, looking like the rain hadn’t dared touch her.

  ‘I’m really sorry I’m late,’ Siobhan said, a penitent smile lighting up her face. ‘I couldn’t find anywhere to park.’

&nbs
p; ‘That’s alright. It gave me a chance to catch up on the news.’ He folded his paper and started to get up, but she motioned him to stay where he was, shrugging off her coat, delving in her bag for her purse, refusing to let him go up to the bar for her.

  He sat back and took a long pull on his pint, watching her as she went, liking the way her black hair kinked and curled as it fell to her shoulders, the way her hips moved under the soft, hugging cotton of her skirt. The way she made the grouchy tosser of a barman beam at her just by asking him for a drink. Mulcahy had liked her from the moment his old pal Mark Hewson – nowadays a minor force in Dublin public-relations circles – had introduced her to him at a birthday bash a fortnight before. Because, despite the changed hairstyle and the passing of time, he immediately knew her – the memory rising like a ghost in his mind, something he’d never realised was there but which emerged fully formed and instantly recognisable. Siobhan Fallon, that reporter. The one who’d come out on a job with him that time, years ago, after he first got his own team – when he’d flummoxed even himself by bagging one of the biggest caches of smack ever seized in Dublin.

  He thought he saw it in her eyes, too, those amazing blue eyes, the surprise and delight at meeting again. For half an hour they’d battled the mad churn of the party, jostled by passing bodies, talking into each others’ ears, cheeks brushing casually like old friends, trading laughs. Then they were separated when a bunch of her friends turned up and dragged her away, and he didn’t see her again until later, when he caught her eye from across the room as she was leaving with them. She smiled, he waved, and that was it. Or so he thought. It had been on his mind to look her up. But a woman like that, he reckoned, had to be with someone already… until she called him a few days later. She’d got his number from Mark. Would he like to go for a drink? Straight out, no messing around – another thing to like about her.

  ‘You’d better put those away or you’ll have to arrest yourself,’ she said as she sat down, drink in hand, pointing at the pack of cigarettes he’d left on the table.

  ‘I thought I might need an excuse to get out of here quick,’ Mulcahy joked.

  ‘Well, be warned, I like a smoke myself now and again, so I’d have an excuse to come after you.’

  Her eyes hooked him with a flash of pale sapphire. It was the first thing he’d thought of when she called. That look.

  ‘I heard you on the radio this morning, talking about Gary Maloney,’ he said. ‘Sounds like you kicked up a storm with that one.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘It’s big alright. The nation’s favourite footie hero and all that. But it’ll be in all the other papers by tomorrow – won’t really be mine any more.’

  Mulcahy didn’t see why that would matter to her. For all that he thought cops and hacks had a lot in common, and could sometimes be pretty useful to one another, he’d never been much taken by the tabloid thing, all that goggling at other people’s indiscretions. How she’d go about finding a story like that, on the other hand, did interest him.

  ‘Oh, you know, sources, rumours,’ she replied. ‘You’re a detective, you know how all that stuff works. Half the job is knowing the right people, being in the right place to get the whisper. Other times they come to you. Jimmy X is pissed off with Johnny Y. He wants revenge, or his job. Or just the dosh. That’s how you fellas get most of your leads, isn’t it? Contacts, informants, general begrudgery.’

  She was right. People liked to believe what they saw on television, that for cops it was all about careful weighing and measuring of clues or, even more stupid, high-tech forensics. But the truth was that the majority of cases were cracked thanks to good old-fashioned treachery. More so in his usual area of operation, drugs, than anywhere else, because the stakes were astronomical and grassing up rivals to the police was just another weapon in the aspiring drug baron’s armoury. But however right she was, he didn’t want to let her off the hook that easily.

  ‘And do they ever expect anything from you?’ he asked. ‘In return, like?’

  She looked at him with a faint smile on her lips, like he’d caught her out in something, but said nothing for a moment or two, obviously weighing up something in her mind. Then she let her smile broaden further before replying.

  ‘It kind of depends on how big a favour they’ve done you. But like I said, I’m usually the one doing them the favour. Getting the story out, you know? That’s enough for most of them.’

  ‘So there’d be no question of you paying a source for this kind of story, then?’

  This time she was ready for him. ‘I’m afraid I couldn’t possibly comment on such a commercially sensitive subject,’ she said, grinning again. ‘Anyway, you know how fanatical us journalists are about protecting our sources.’

  He wasn’t sure whether she was teasing him or not. She knew full well that he wasn’t asking for details.

  ‘Speaking of which,’ she continued, taking a drink with one hand and making a small waving motion with the other, ‘I wanted to ask you something. You mentioned at the party that you’d been in Madrid with Europol for a while, and I was thinking maybe it might be worth writing a piece about international drug-trafficking, and where Ireland fits into the picture. I read a piece in one of the English papers claiming that more than half the hard drugs over there come in through Ireland. I mean, I knew it was a lot, but is it really that much?’

  Mulcahy’s spirits took a dive. It wasn’t so much the question, as the thought that a story might be all she wanted him for. Well, if he was going to be disappointed, he might as well let her know she would be, as well. He was no longer the great mine of stories he used to be.

  ‘Is that what you have me down for then – a potential source?’

  It came out harsher than he intended. Again, she held his gaze for a second or two, then laughed, embarrassed.

  ‘Jesus, I’ve hardly been sitting here five minutes and I’m giving you the third degree already. I’m sorry, Mulcahy. It’s the job, you know, honestly. I see somebody, I think, “Aha, a story”, and I jump straight in. I’m sorry. It’s force of habit. I thought we could…’

  She trailed off, staring down at her hands.

  ‘No, look,’ he stumbled. ‘Ah, forget it. I shouldn’t be so prickly. Maybe if we just steer clear of work for a bit, we’ll do fine.’

  She was looking at him again now, that glint of mischievous curiosity back in her eyes. He remembered how persuasive she’d been that time she convinced him to take her out on the raid. How he’d known he’d be up to his hairline in shit if anything went wrong, but he’d let her come anyway. And it turned into one of the most momentous nights of his life. That operation had been a career-maker for him. Her article let everyone know – not only his bosses but every jumped-up smack dealer on his patch – that there was a new not-to-be-fucked-with guy in town. And, when he looked back on it now, it was her that he thought of, there in the back seat of the car, swamped by a Garda stab vest, as high on the excitement of what was about to go down as any of his team. In that instant of memory, he changed his mind about her again.

  ‘Why don’t we go out for a smoke?’ he suggested, picking up his pack and lighter.

  ‘Good idea,’ she said. ‘Then we can start over again when we come back in.’

  The way he heard it, she might as well have been beside him in a hotel room, somewhere between desire and the cold light of day.

  Brogan looked at her watch as she perched on the edge of a cream leather sofa in the living room of one Mrs Edith Mannion. Everything was clinically clean and ordered. Kept perfect for the visitors who, Brogan suspected, rarely came to mess it up. It was getting late and, despite the prospect of making progress, she was beginning to flag now. This would have to be the last visit of the night. Even so, the thought of returning to her own home filled her with the usual formless dread. Aidan sitting on the sofa, staring at the television, beer in hand and nothing to say, the static hiss of the baby monitor like an accusing whisper in the corner.

&nb
sp; It had been a slow, frustrating evening, with little or no progress. By late afternoon they’d got in touch with Frank Harney, principal of the Dublin Summer Language School, where Jesica was enrolled on a four-week course. Given the circumstances, Harney hadn’t taken much persuading to curtail his Sunday family outing to the Wicklow mountains. A couple of hours later, looking anxious and uncomfortable in a khaki shirt, shorts and hiking boots, he met them at the school, which was situated on the upper floors of a Victorian building on Westmoreland Street.

  From his small office window, you could see the grey River Liffey cleaving the heart of the city in two at O’Connell Bridge, the iconic statue of the Liberator himself just beyond. Any other day, Brogan might have paused to admire the view, but she was focused on getting Harney to produce a list of the foreign students he thought Jesica might have gone out with the night before, and the details of the families they were lodging with. Then they’d started tracking the kids down, one by one. They’d already drawn a blank with the three they’d contacted so far. None of them had been with Jesica, but all three had mentioned the young girl currently staying with Mrs Mannion as being close to her.

  ‘You’d think we had shit on our shoes, the way she looked at us,’ Cassidy muttered from the armchair opposite. Mrs Mannion had indeed been less than welcoming. But Brogan could hardly blame the poor woman for being upset, the Gardai turning up on her doorstep in prim and proper Orpen Close, Stillorgan – at this hour on a Sunday night. Demanding to see a youngster she probably knew little or nothing about, who was only staying with her for the duration of a language course. God knows what awful suspicions were going through the woman’s mind.

  ‘Shush, would you,’ Brogan said. ‘That’s them coming now.’

  The door opened and in came Mrs Mannion, followed by a pretty, olive-skinned girl of sixteen or so. With long, sleek hair, an expensive-looking pink top, cream hipster jeans and immaculate white Reeboks, she was typical of the middle-class Spanish and Italian kids who flocked to Dublin in their thousands every summer, dispatched by parents desperate for them to improve their English skills. She, too, looked anxious. Brogan guessed their host must have attempted an inquisition of her own while escorting the girl downstairs.