Portrait in Death (In Death #16)(73)

***

While Eve tugged on the next line, Roarke walked down the streets of South Dublin. The area had once been as familiar to him as his own face. There'd been changes since his youth, plenty for the good.

The Urban Wars had crushed this part of the city, turned the projects into slums, and the streets into a battlefield. He remembered the aftermath only dimly. Most of it had been over and done before he'd been born.

But the consequences had lasted a generation.

Poverty and the thieves it bred still haunted this area. Hunger and the anger it fed lived here, day by day.

But it was coming back, slowly. The Irish knew all about wars, conflicts, hunger, and poverty. And they dealt with it, sang of it, wrote of it. And drank around it of an evening.

So, there was the Penny Pig. It had been a neighborhood pub when he'd been a boy and most of his neighbors were villains of one sort or the other.

He supposed it wouldn't be inaccurate to name him one of the villains.

It had been a haunt for him, and those he ran with. A place to go and have a pint and not worry about the cops coming in to roust you. There'd been a girl there he'd loved as much as he was able, and friends he'd valued.

All of them, dead and gone now, he thought as he stood outside the door. All but one. He'd come back to the Penny Pig, and the one friend alive from his boyhood. Maybe he'd find some of the answers.

He stepped inside, to the dark wood, the smokey light, the smell of beer and whiskey and cigarettes, and the sounds of rebel songs played low.

Brian was behind the bar, building a Guinness and holding a conversation with a man who looked to be older than dirt. There were a few at the low tables, drinking or having a sandwich. A miniscreen playing some Brit soap opera sat over the bar with the sound muted.

It was early in the day yet, but never too early to stop by a pub. If you wanted conversation, information, or just a sociable drink, where else would you go?

Roarke stepped up to the bar and waited for Brian to glance over.

And when he did, Brian's wide face creased in smiles. "Well now, here's himself come to grace my humble establishment once more. We'd break out the French champagne had we any."

"A pint of that'll do well enough."

"Do you see here, Mister O'Leary, sir, who we have among us today?"

The old man turned his head, and his rheumy eyes stared at Roarke out of a face as flat and thin as a plank. He lifted the pint Brian had just passed him, drank slow and deep.

"It's Roarke, is it, all grown up and fancy as a prince. Bit rougher around the edges, you were, when you came around to pinch wares from my shop down the street."

"You chased me out with a broom more than once."

"Aye, and it's no doubt your pockets were heavier when you lit out than when you came in."

"True enough. It's good to see you again, Mr. O'Leary."

"Got rich, didn't you?"

"I did, yes."

"So he'll pay for your pint as well as his own," Brian said and slid a pint down to Roarke.

"Happy to." Roarke took out a bill large enough to pay for a dozen pints, set it on the bar. "I need to speak with you, Brian, on a private matter."

Friends or not, the note disappeared into Brian's pocket. "Come back to the snug then." As he turned, he pounded a fist on the door behind the bar. "Johnny, get off your lazy arse and mind the bar."

He walked down to a small room at the end, opened the door for Roarke. "And where's Lieutenant Darling?"

"She's home."

"And well, is she?"

"She's well, thanks. Busy."

"Rounding up criminals, no doubt. You give her a kiss for me, and remind her when she's done with you, I'm waiting to make her mine."

He sat at one of the spindly chairs at the single table gracing the little room. Then grinned. "I'll be damned to hell and back, it's good to see you. Happier circumstances I hope, than the last."

"I haven't come to bury another friend."

"God bless him." Brian clicked the glass he'd brought with him against Roarke's. "To Mick then."

"To Mick, and the rest of them that's gone." He drank, then just stared into the foam.

"What's troubling your mind?"

"Long story."

"Since when haven't I had the time and the inclination to hear a long one? And when you're buying?"

"Do you remember when Meg Roarke left?"

Brian's eyebrows lowered, his lips pursed. "I remember she was here, then she was gone, and nobody was sorry to see the back of her."

"Do you have any recollection of... of someone else living with him-before she came. Do you remember anyone speaking of a young girl who was with him?"

"Seems to me there were a number of women who came and went. But before Meg? Can't say. Christ, Roarke, I'd've been in nappies, same as you."

"Your father knew him, and well. Did you never hear the name Siobhan Brody mentioned in your house, or around the neighborhood?"

"I don't remember, no. What's this about then?"

"She was my mother, Bri." It still caught in his throat. "I've learned Meg wasn't, and this young girl from Clare was." Roarke lifted his eyes. "The bastard killed her, Brian. He murdered her."