Faithful Place (Dublin Murder Squad, #3)(51)

The laneway smelled of grease and piss. Somewhere a street or two away a couple of guys had started shouting at each other, no words, just hoarse mindless noise. Kevin shifted his weight against the wall. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’m glad you came back. It’s been good, hanging out. I mean, like, obviously not all the Rosie stuff and . . . you know. But I’m really glad we got to see each other again.”

“Like I said. I should care, but things don’t always pan out the way they should.”

Kevin said, “Because, I mean, family does matter to me. It always did. I didn’t say I wouldn’t die for them—you know, like Shay was going on about? I just didn’t like him trying to tell me what to think.”

I said, “And who would.” I took my hands off my face and raised my head an inch or two away from the wall, to see if the world had stabilized any. Nothing tilted too badly.

“It used to be simpler,” Kevin said. “Back when we were kids.”

“That’s definitely not how I remember it.”

“Well, I mean, God, it wasn’t simple, but . . . you know? At least we knew what we were supposed to do, even if doing it sometimes sucked. At least we knew. I think I miss that. You know what I mean?”

I said, “Kevin, my friend, I have to tell you, I really, truly do not.”

Kevin turned his head against the wall to look at me. The cold air and the booze had left him rosy-cheeked and dreamy; shivering a little, with his snappy haircut all bedraggled, he looked like a kid on an old-fashioned Christmas card. “Yeah,” he said, on a sigh. “OK. Probably not. It doesn’t matter.”

I detached myself carefully from the wall, keeping a hand on it just in case, but my knees held. I said, “Jackie shouldn’t be wandering around on her own. Go find her.”

He blinked at me. “Are you going to . . . I mean, will you wait here for us, yeah? I’ll be back in a sec.”

“No.”

“Oh.” He looked undecided. “What about, like, tomorrow?”

“What about it?”

“Are you gonna be around?”

“I doubt it.”

“How about . . . you know. Like, ever?”

He looked so f*cking young and lost, it killed me. I said, “Go find Jackie.”

I got my balance solid and started walking. After a few seconds I heard Kevin’s footsteps start up behind me, slowly, going the other way.





8

I got a few hours’ kip in my car—I was way too polluted for any taxi driver to touch me, but nowhere near polluted enough to think that knocking on my ma’s door would be a good idea. I woke up with my mouth tasting like something had died nastily in there, to the kind of chilly, heavy morning where the damp soaks straight through your bones. It took me about twenty minutes to disentangle the crick in my neck.

The streets were shining wet and empty, bells ringing for early Mass and nobody much paying attention. I found a depressing café full of depressed Eastern Europeans and got myself a nutritious breakfast: soggy muffins, a handful of aspirin and a bucket of coffee. When I figured I was probably under the limit, I drove home, threw the clothes I’d been wearing since Friday morning into the washing machine, threw myself into a very hot shower and considered my next move.

This case was, as far as I was concerned, over with an O the size of O’Connell Statue. Scorcher could have it all to himself and welcome. He might be an annoying little gobshite at the best of times, but for once his obsession with winning was on my side: sooner or later he would get Rosie justice, if it was there to be got. He would even update me on any major developments—not necessarily for altruistic reasons, but I didn’t give a damn. In less than a day and a half, I had had enough of my family to last me another twenty-two years. That morning in the shower, I would have bet my soul to Satan that nothing in this world could drag me back into Faithful Place.

I had just a few loose ends to tidy up, before I could throw this mess back into whichever circle of hell it had come from. I believe that “closure” is a steaming load of middle-class horseshite invented to pay for shrinks’ Jags, but all the same: I needed to know for sure if that had in fact been Rosie in that basement, I needed to know how she had died, and I needed to know if Scorcher and his boys had picked up any hint about where she had been going, that night, before someone stopped her. I had spent my whole adult life growing around a scar shaped like Rosie Daly’s absence. The thought of that lump of scar tissue vanishing had sent me so light-headed and off balance that I ended up doing gobsmackingly moronic things like getting hammered with my siblings, a concept that just two days earlier would have sent me running screaming for the hills. I felt it would be a good idea to get my bearings back before I did something dumb enough to end in amputation.

I found clean clothes, went out to the balcony, lit a smoke and rang Scorcher. “Frank,” he said, with a level of politeness that was carefully calibrated to let me know he wasn’t happy to hear from me. “What can I do for you?”

I put a sheepish grin in my voice. “I know you’re a busy man, Scorcher, but I was hoping you might do me a favor here.”

“I’d love to, old son, but I’m a little—”

Old son? “So I’ll cut to the chase,” I said. “My lovely squad buddy Yeates—you know him?”