Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #3)(22)
4
The rain had slackened off to a faint damp haze, but the clouds were getting denser and darker; there was more on the way. Ma was pressed up against the front-room window, sending out curiosity rays that practically burned my eyebrows off. When she saw me looking in her direction, she whipped up a J-cloth and started furiously cleaning the glass.
“Nicely done,” I said to Kevin. “I appreciate that.”
He shot me a quick sideways glance. “That was weird.”
His own big brother, the same one who used to nick crisps from the shop for him, in full cop mode. “Didn’t show,” I told him approvingly. “You worked it like a pro. You’ve got a knack for this, do you know that?”
He shrugged. “Now what?”
“I’m going to put this in my car before Matt Daly has a change of heart,” I said, balancing the case on one arm and giving Ma a wave and a big grin, “and then I’m going to go have a little chat with someone I used to know. Meanwhile, you’re going to wrangle Ma and Da for me.”
Kevin’s eyes widened in horror. “Ah, Jaysus, no. No way. She’ll still be raging about the breakfast.”
“Come on, Kev. Tighten up your jockstrap and take one for the team.”
“Team, my arse. You’re the one pissed her off to begin with, and now you want me to go back in there and take all the flak?”
His hair was sticking up with outrage. “Bingo,” I said. “I don’t want her hassling the Dalys, and I don’t want her spreading the word, at least not right away. All I need is an hour or so before she starts doing damage. Can you give me that?”
“What am I supposed to do if she starts heading out? Rugby-tackle her?”
“What’s your phone number?” I found my mobile, the one my boys and my informants use, and sent Kev a text that said HI. “There,” I said. “If Ma escapes, you just reply to that and I’ll come rugby-tackle her myself. Fair enough?”
“Fucking hell,” Kevin muttered, staring up at the window.
“Nice one,” I said, clapping him on the back. “You’re a trooper. I’ll meet you back here in an hour and I’ll get you a few pints tonight, how’s that?”
“I’ll need more than a few,” Kev said gloomily, and he squared up his shoulders and headed off to face the firing squad.
I stashed the suitcase safely in the boot of my car, ready to take to a lovely lady in the Technical Bureau whose home address I happened to know. A handful of ten-year-olds with underprivileged hair and no eyebrows were slouched on a wall, scoping out the cars and thinking wire hangers. All I needed was to come back and find that suitcase gone. I leaned my arse on the boot, labeled my Fingerprint Fifi envelopes, had a smoke, and stared our country’s future out of it until the situation was clear all round and they f*cked off to vandalize someone who wouldn’t come looking for them.
The Dalys’ flat had been the mirror image of ours; there was nowhere to stash a body, at least not long-term. If Rosie had died in that flat, then the Dalys had had two options. Assuming Mr. Daly was the proud owner of one serious set of cojones, which I didn’t rule out, he could have wrapped her up in something and carried her out the front door and away: into the river, onto some abandoned site, into the piggeries as per Shay’s charming suggestion. But, the Liberties being the Liberties, the odds were high that someone would have seen it, remembered it, and talked about it. Mr. Daly didn’t strike me as a gambling man.
The nongambler’s option was the back garden. Probably nowadays half the gardens had been dolled up with shrubs and decking and various wrought-iron doodads, but back then they were neglected and ragged: scrawny grass, dirt, boards and broken furniture and the odd wrecked bike. Nobody went out there except to use the toilet or, in summer, to hang washing; all the action was out front, in the street. It had been cold, but not cold enough to freeze the ground. An hour one night to start digging a grave, maybe another hour the next night to finish it, another the third night to fill it in. No one would spot you; the gardens didn’t have lighting, on dark nights you needed a torch just to find your way to the jacks. No one would hear you; the Harrison sisters were deaf as a pair of fence posts, the back windows of Veronica Crotty’s basement were boarded up to keep the heat in, everyone else’s windows would have been shut tight against the December cold. Cover the grave, during the days and when you were all finished, with a sheet of corrugated iron or an old table or whatever was lying around. No one would look twice.
I couldn’t get into that garden without a warrant, and I couldn’t get one of those without something that bore a passing resemblance to probable cause. I threw my smoke away and headed back to Faithful Place, to talk to Mandy Brophy.
Mandy was the first person who was unequivocally, unmistakably glad to see me. The scream out of her nearly lifted the roof off; I knew it would send my ma scurrying for the window again. “Francis Mackey! Jesus, Mary and holy Saint Joseph!” She pounced and caught me in a hug that left bruises. “You nearly gave me a heart attack; I never thought I’d see you around these parts again. What are you doing here?”
She was mammy-shaped these days, with mammy hair to match, but the dimples were still the same. “This and that,” I said, smiling back. “It seemed like a good moment to see how everyone was getting on.”