Dead Man's Sins

by Caimh McDonnell

  “You’re the boss, boss.”

  “And Deccie …” Bunny held out his hand and gave Deccie a pointed look.

  His assistant manager pulled a face then handed him the extendable baton from his pocket.

  “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”

  So Much Trouble

  Bunny slipped into the room and closed the door behind him as quietly as he could. Angelina was asleep on the bed. Looking at her lying there, it struck him how small she was. There was a bandage over her left eye and a bit of swelling in evidence around it. One of her wrists was also bandaged, but he remembered that had been there on Monday.

  He moved across to stand beside the bed. He felt bad about waking her but time was of the essence; the guard on duty would eventually remember himself and return to his post, having given up on retrieving his collapsible baton and conferring upon Deccie the clip around the ear he so richly deserved.

  He placed his hand on Angelina’s forearm and shook it gently. “Angelina. Angelina.”

  Her eyes opened at half mast, groggy at first, but then they widened with surprise as she looked up and recognised him. “Bunny! What are you doing here?”

  “Sure,” he said, trying to give her a reassuring smile, “when I heard somebody was taking pot shots at little Angelina Quirke, of course I was going to come in and check she was OK.”

  She smiled up at him but winced and brought her hand to her forehead.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Yeah. It’s nothing too serious. I just walloped my head against the wall, I think, when Joe pushed me to the ground.”

  Bunny puffed out his cheeks. “Jesus, it was very lucky the big lad was there.”

  She repositioned herself to sit upright. “How did you get in here?” She squinted towards the door. “Wasn’t there a guard outside? I remember some guy … Yeah, he stuck his head in, said that Detective Inspector Marshall arsehole was on his way.”

  “So you’ve had the pleasure of making Tommy Marshall’s acquaintance, have you? What a delightful shit-sipping shandy-drinker he is.”

  “Didn’t seem like he was your biggest fan either. What’s the story there?”

  “I’m afraid we don’t have that kind of time. Listen, I don’t know what’s going on here at all, but I’m going to try and find out. OK?”

  Angelina nodded.

  “Have you any idea who would try and take a shot at you?”

  Angelina drew a ragged breath and looked away. “I’ve no idea. I mean … I guess Coop had a lot of enemies. The lawyer, Robinson, he pulled me aside after we spoke to Marshall. He made a big deal out of the fact that Coop’s business interests, with all these shell companies and what not, are all very convoluted. He said there wasn’t a will so, in the absence of that, everything has come to me.”

  “Oh. Congratulations, I guess.”

  “No,” she said, grabbing Bunny’s hand. “You don’t understand. Anybody who owed Coop money now technically owes it to me. I mean, if it’s all been legally signed and stuff, which, according to Robinson, the vast majority of Coop’s deals were. He might not have been popular, but apparently, most of what he did was legal.”

  “I see. But if you’re no longer in the picture …”

  “Then,” said Angelina, in a hoarse voice, “I guess everybody’s debts are written off. At least, that’s what they think. I don’t even want the bloody money.” She raised her hand to her mouth as she started to cry. “Oh Jesus, Bunny. I’m in so much trouble.”

  “Hey, come on now, none of that. I’ll make sure you’re OK.”

  “No. You don’t understand …”

  “Explain it to me, then. You know I’d always do anything I could to help you.”

  She looked up at Bunny and started to wipe the tears from her eyes. “You’re a good man, Bunny.” She laughed. “Last of the real cowboys.”

  “Look,” he said, “I know this is gonna sound mad, but trust me, OK?”

  “Always.”

  Bunny took a deep breath. “I have no idea why, but it looks like somebody’s trying to frame me for Coop’s murder.”

  Angelina’s mouth dropped open and she gawped at him in disbelief. “That’s … That’s impossible.”

  “It’s not. A —”

  The door behind him swung open and two men stood framed in the doorway. The look of shock on DS Paschal Burke’s face was nothing compared to the look of outrage on DI Marshall’s.

  Old Friends

  Bunny hadn’t seen Thomas “not Tom” Marshall in a good eight or nine years. It didn’t seem like the time had been particularly kind to him, but then again, maybe he wasn’t seeing him at his best. Incandescent with rage is rarely anybody’s finest look.

  The three guards had moved to the corridor outside Angelina Hannity’s hospital room. Bunny was smiling calmly in the face of Marshall’s fury, and poor old DS Paschal Burke was caught in the middle, looking like a man who would rather be anywhere else.

  “Give me one good reason,” barked Marshall, “why I shouldn’t arrest you right now for attempting to pervert the course of justice?”

  “What the feck are you on about?” asked Bunny, before turning to Burke. “Has he been drinking? Lunchtime piss-up, was it?”

  “What am I talking about?” said Marshall, in a voice loud enough to attract the attention of a group of onlookers, who were gathered at the other end of the hall, wondering what was going on. “You were just in there with one of the key witnesses to a murder investigation in which you’re a suspect.”

  “I’m being accused of murder?” Bunny threw out his hands in ostentatious shock. “This is news to me. Why have I not been told about this?” He jabbed a finger in the direction of the beleaguered Paschal Burke. “I got a phone call from you, Paschal, earlier this afternoon, asking me to come in to answer some questions regarding the investigation into the death of Coop Hannity, but at no point was it mentioned that I was a suspect.”

  “Yes,” said Marshall. “And I find it very interesting that you have not come in for that interview.”

  “I was more than happy to come in, but, given your unjust and ridiculous vendetta against me, Detective Inspector, I quite legitimately asked to exercise my right to have legal representation during this interview. And I’m glad I did, because apparently, I was being brought in under false pretences.”

  “Alright,” said Burke, looking back and forth between the two men. “Let’s everybody just calm down.”

  “So,” continued Marshall, “seeing as you’re available, would you like to answer a few questions now?”

  “After this revelation, I will be doing no such thing without proper legal representation. And again, to be absolutely clear, I will be thrilled to do so, just as soon as my poor lawyer is available. The man is at death’s door.”

  “Oh, give me a break,” said Marshall. “He has IBS.”

  “Indeed he does,” responded Bunny, “and that is a very serious complaint. As we speak, the poor fella is at home shitting blood, as you well know, seeing as you weren’t willing to take his word for it and sent an officer round to check on him earlier today.”

  Paschal Burke was looking particularly embarrassed. Bunny guessed it had been him who Marshall had instructed to verify Kofi’s condition.

  “Rest assured,” continued Bunny, “I’ll be bringing this matter to the attention of the Garda Representative Association. And I hope that Kofi Mensah, a highly respected lawyer in this town, will be bringing your attempts to intimidate him up to the Law Society. I don’t know how you do things down in Limerick, but in the big cities, like here and Cork, we show some respect for the law.”

  Bunny could feel Burke grow tense, as if he was preparing to intervene should Marshall try to take a swing. Wouldn’t that be a dream come true? The long-awaited scrap with Marshall and witnesses to verify that Bunny hadn’t swung first.

  Disappointingly, the detective inspector took a deep breath and managed to get his emotions under control. “I left
instructions that an officer was to be on guard outside of this room and to let nobody in except me. Where the hell is he?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” said Bunny. “I only just got here, after hearing that Angelina, who I have known for a very long time, was involved in a traumatic incident. I wanted to check she was OK, so I found the room, went in to see her, and then you turned up, screaming and shouting, and accusing me of murder.”

  “I did not accuse you of murder.”

  “Yes, you fecking did!”

  “Actually,” said DS Burke, “he didn’t.”

  Bunny nodded. “You’re right, Paschal. I stand corrected. He informed me I was a suspect, that he was bringing me in for an interview under false pretences, and then he accused me of trying to pervert the course of justice by dropping in to check up on an old friend. Is that your recollection of events, DS Burke?”

  Burke said nothing, but his eyes were pleading for a quick and painless death.

  “Fine,” said Marshall. “Just so we don’t have any other misunderstandings … As the lead officer in the investigation into the death of James Hannity, let me be crystal clear: you are to speak to no one involved, specifically any of the officers on my team, Mrs Hannity or anyone in the employ of the Hannity organisation or with even a tangential association with this case. And stay away from the Hannity house. Is that unambiguous enough for you?”

  “Absolutely,” said Bunny. “I just wish there had been some proper communication before this point. In particular, I’m concerned that Garda resources are being put into a wild goose chase, trying to pin something on me, for reasons I hope you’ll be happy to explain to the Garda Representative Association, Detective Inspector Marshall. Meanwhile, a murder is going unsolved. I look forward to coming in for an officially documented interview, just as soon as poor Mr Mensah is able to do so.”

  “Excellent,” said Marshall.

  Bunny slapped Marshall convivially on the shoulder. “Indeed it is. You’re looking good, Tommy. Almost didn’t recognise you with your trousers on.”

  As Bunny reached the end of the corridor on his way to the exit, Garda Sean Heffernan came puffing around the corner and nearly ran into him again.

  “Whoa. Go easy. I think somebody up there is looking for you, guard.”

  Heffernan’s face dropped as he looked up the hallway. “Oh shite.”

  “Yeah, that Marshall is quite the prick.” Bunny patted him on the arm and walked off. “By the way,” he called back over his shoulder, “I think you dropped something.”

  Heffernan turned around to see his extendable baton lying on the ground behind him.

  No Buses for Ages and Then …

  Bunny clapped his hands enthusiastically. “Alright, lads, bring it in, bring it in. That’s enough of a warm-up.”

  The St Jude’s Under-12s duly gathered around him on the sideline, their breath fogging under the floodlights in the sharp March air.

  “I see we have a good turnout for training this evening. Clearly the big news that I’m treating everybody to McDonald’s after Sunday’s match has got around. Jimmy Dolan, nice to see you’ve got over that debilitating ingrown toenail that sidelined you for the last three months.” This barb was met with a sarcastic cheer. “I’m only taking the piss, Jimmy. It’s great to see you. Welcome back. And,” Bunny continued, turning slightly to the man standing beside him, “seeing as we’re welcoming back some old friends, I should introduce a new one. This gentleman here is Richard Chaplin.”

  Bunny’s introduction elicited no response at all.

  “Howerya, lads,” said Richard. “Nice to be here. Bunny has told me great things. People call me Dick.”

  Bunny winched at the predicable sniggering. “Shut up. We’ll stick with Richard.”

  Richard was a cheerful-looking man in his forties. Short, pudgy and bald in the peculiar way that a person has masses of hair, none of which has reached the top of their head.

  Bunny favoured the team with a wide smile. “Richard is going to help out from time to time, and if, for any reason, I’m not around, he’ll take over as manager.”

  Until that moment, he’d always thought the phrase “you could hear a pin drop” was just hyperbole. He swore he could hear birds’ wings flapping a couple of hundred yards away.

  Ruairi Thomas was the first to speak. “Where the fuck are you going?”

  “Ruairi. What have I told you about swearing?” Bunny looked into the sea of concerned faces. “I’m not going anywhere, but, you know, just in case.”

  “In case of what?” asked Phil Nellis.

  “Just … Just … I might have to go away with work.”

  “But you’re not even working at the minute,” countered Phil. “You’re off because of that circumcision.”

  “For the last time, it’s a sabbatical – it’s not a Jewish thing, I don’t know where you all got that idea from. It just means you’re taking a break for a while.”

  “Are you going to be taking a break from us?” asked Paul Mulchrone, and Bunny felt a little piece of his heart break.

  “No, no. Nothing like that.”

  “But you reckon,” persisted Ruairi, “that you might be going away with the job you’re not currently doing? Are the Gardaí going to start policing other countries or something?”

  Bunny opened his mouth and closed it again. He hadn’t given this much thought beyond ringing Richard earlier in the day and convincing him to get on board with the idea. He was belatedly realising that he hadn’t prepared any kind of a cover story, and as interrogators went, the Spanish Inquisition had nothing on twenty confused twelve-year-olds.

  “Richard is just a contingency plan, should anything happen to me.”

  “What’s going to happen to you?” asked Phil.

  “Nothing, just … Look, lads, you’re taking this far too seriously. This is a ‘just in case’ kind of thing.” He gave a half-hearted laugh. “I mean, you never know, I could get run over by a bus tomorrow.”

  “A Dublin bus?” asked Phil. “How is that even possible? I’ve never seen one move fast enough to bruise you, never mind kill you.” The assertion was met with a murmur of agreement from the entire group. “In fact,” continued Phil, a lad not accustomed to having a lot of people agree with him, “the only way you could hurt yourself with one, is by running up the pavement and hurling yourself at the bleedin’ thing.”

  “It’s an expression, lads,” said Bunny, growing exasperated. “Just an expression.”

  “And besides,” chipped in Larry Dodds, “you told us not to talk to strange men. How is this bloke supposed to be the manager when we can’t even talk to him?”

  “But that’s exactly what we’re doing here,” said Bunny, waving a hand at the increasingly bemused Richard Chaplin. “I’m introducing you to him. That way, he’s not a stranger any more, is he?”

  “We don’t know anything about him,” said Phil.

  “Well, what do you want to know?”

  “Where’s he from?”

  Bunny turned to Richard, who cleared his throat. “I was born in Bray, but I’ve lived up in Phibsboro for the last fifteen years.”

  “What do you do for a living?” asked Ruairi.

  “As it happens,” said Richard, “I’m a bus driver.”

  A horrified gasp escaped from the group of boys and Bunny slapped his hand to his forehead.

  “Bunny,” said Phil while jabbing a finger at Richard, “is this fella going to run you over so he can take over the team?”

  “No,” responded Bunny, doing his best not to shout. “Look, I asked Richard to be here. He’s doing this as a favour to me. The whole getting-run-over-by-a-bus thing – that’s just an expression. Admittedly, and I’ll hold my hands up here, it’s a truly awful choice of expression, but I promise you, I’m not getting run over by a bus, driven by Richard or anybody else.”

  “Besides,” said Paul, “why is he coming in to be the manager if you’re gone when we already have an assistant ma
nager?” He indicated Deccie to emphasise his point.

  Deccie stood beside him, looking aghast. It was also dawning on Bunny that he hadn’t thought through the other part of this idea either.

  “It’s not like that,” he said quickly. “You know – you all know – Deccie is invaluable to this team, but he can’t be the manager.”

  “Why not?” asked Deccie. “What’s this Johnny-come-lately got that I haven’t got?”

  The sea of heads before him bobbed together as one.

  Bunny could not believe what he was seeing. “Need I remind you, lads, that two days ago you were all fit to lynch poor Deccie.”

  “Well,” said Ruairi, “he is a bit of a prick.”

  “Language, Ruairi!”

  “But,” continued Ruairi obstinately, “he’s our prick.”

  A cheer went up at Ruairi’s words.

  “OK, boys, I think you’re misunderstanding me here.”

  “We should have a vote,” said Deccie.

  “We are not having a vote,” said Bunny, before turning to Deccie. “And didn’t you say to me last week that you’d no faith in democracy? That voters were a bunch of sheep too easily fooled?”

  “I did,” said Deccie with a firm nod, “but I’ve never been the shepherd before.”

  Inspiration struck. “The minibus,” said Bunny, with enthusiasm typically only seen in shipwrecked sailors noticing a ship on the horizon. “The manager has to be able to drive the minibus!” He waved triumphantly at the increasingly alarmed Richard. “Richard, as previously discussed, is incredibly well qualified for that part of the job. It will literally be a busman’s holiday.”

  “What’s a—” started Phil Nellis, but Bunny cut him off.

  “Doesn’t matter. It’s just another one of those expressions that I need to remember not to use. The point is, great as he is, Deccie cannot drive the minibus.”

  “If we need a driver,” said Larry Dodds, “I’m willing to do it. And I do have relevant experience.”