East of Innocence (8 page)

‘Right.’

Jimmy takes a swig, looks at me. ‘Shit, ain’t it?’ He grins, slightly nervously; though he’s talking with me who has no vested interest, mocking any decision Halliday has okayed is dangerously seditious.

‘I’m nearly forty,’ I tell Jimmy. ‘What do I know?’

‘Tell me about it. I need someone like Debbie meself, keep me young.’ He casts a speculative look at the available candidates in the bar, comes up empty, turns back to me. ‘You seeing anybody?’

I think of Sophie, gone from my life now as if she had never existed. ‘Nah. More trouble than it’s worth.’

A man from the group Jimmy left is jerking his head in our direction. Jimmy notices, rolling his eyes at me but making sure his back is turned so the man cannot see. ‘Gotta go.’ He puts his hand on my arm, gives it a squeeze, says honestly, ‘Good seeing you, Danny.’ He swaggers off to the group and I watch him go wondering at the decisions we make at a young age and how they trap us for life; me and my schooling, Jimmy and his early immersion in the local underworld.

I talk to some more people I know, my status as lawyer not causing any suspicion in this gathering of men who habitually live on the wrong side of the law. In this social stratum, lawyers are seen as neutral entities, their allegiances to either side, crooked or straight, merely a matter of which is willing to pay the most. I consider myself a basically honest man; but out here I am a long way away from the black-and-white certainties of law school, and my day-to-day work often reflects that. Cash deals off the books for house purchases, properties put in the names of geriatric Alzheimer’s grandparents babbling to themselves obliviously in nursing homes; I am upholding no cherished ideals. I often ask myself whether I am on a slippery slope. I like to believe that I am not, that my moral underpinnings are
still strong. But I am also aware that, so far, they have not been seriously tested.

Debbie recognises me, I don’t know how; but, living in the goldfish bowl of my town, everybody knows somebody who knows somebody. I am passing her, heading for the exit and home, when she calls my name. She is alone, texting on her phone, bored. She must be eight, nine years younger than me; she is dressed, even for this place, in an outfit that suggests an equal lack of taste and modesty. I already know, from conversations I have had tonight, that she was a dancer at one of Halliday’s gentlemen’s clubs, the current euphemistic term for a dark room with an expensive bar and a pole in the middle. She caught his eye and it did not take much persuading to tempt her off the stage and into his mansion where she took her place next to him in bed, still warm from the departed body of wife number four.

‘Hello, Debs,’ I say. ‘It’s been a while. Surprised you remember me.’

‘You ain’t changed so much,’ she says. She has the uninterested vacuous eyes of somebody who is not only ignorant but who believes that having a vanishingly small frame of reference is in itself a strength, something to be proud of. ‘Besides, I used to fancy you, didn’t I.’

I do not know what to say in response. I smile down at her; despite her being near enough my age to make a relationship unremarkable, I cannot help but treat her in an avuncular fashion. She is still just a girl.

‘You’re like a lawyer now, intcha?’

‘Yes.’ Again I am stuck for anything more. Everything she says is a statement, a brash declaration that smothers
any answer. Debbie is looking back at her phone. I am about to say goodbye when she looks up again.

‘Ask you a question?’

‘’Course.’

‘How comes they let that boyfriend out when he must’ve killed that girl?’

‘Who?’

‘Rosie O’Shaughnessy. They nicked her boyfriend but now they’ve let him go. Says here.’ She holds up her phone, which is connected to a news site. ‘On bail.’

‘They can only keep him so long without charging him. They can’t have enough evidence. They still haven’t found a body, have they? No evidence of any crime.’ Like Halliday, I cannot help thinking. Connor and O’Dwyer; no bodies, no case.

She looks at me blankly for a second, two, three. ‘She weren’t that much younger than me, you know.’ I nod, do not reply. She was about a decade younger than Debbie but it would be unkind to point this out. I notice her eyes focus on something behind my shoulder, something she’s not entirely happy to see. I hear an abrupt voice. ‘Know you, son?’

I turn to see Vincent Halliday, a man with a face over which the skin is stretched tight, his bone structure underneath creating ugly lumps around his cheekbones and eye sockets, his jawbone easily visible. His skin is shiny and smooth and seems thin, his hair is cut close to his scalp. He is shorter than me and stands back on his heels, his chin thrust forward. His eyes dart about, from Debbie to me and back again.

‘Vince, this is Danny. Frankie’s boy.’

Halliday doesn’t react, keeps looking at the two of us, waiting for more. He reminds me of a snake; he could strike at any time.

‘Yeah, Frankie Connell. You know. This is Daniel, his son. The lawyer.’ Debbie looks at me. ‘I think he’s going senile.’

Halliday turns to her, doesn’t say anything but the sparkle dies in her eyes like she’s received bad news. He turns back to me.

‘Yeah, I know Frank. Bit of a mug but no harm to him. You his boy, are you?’ He speaks quickly, as if he can’t wait to get to the end of his sentence, move on. Tension runs through him like a pulse. He looks at me, challenging me to be quick with my answer. I take my time to respond. I am no admirer of my father but I can no more let this calculated insult go unanswered than I can close my eyes and vanish.

‘I think your daughter’s ready to go home,’ I say. I regret saying the words even as I speak them and experience a dizzy feeling as if I’m taking a leap off a cliff into a deep black gaping unknown. Halliday’s jaw tightens and his eyes flick all over my face, as if looking for some physical clue as to why I’ve just said something so utterly suicidal. I think he is going to go for me, his body tensed for attack; then he masters himself and the moment passes. He smiles distractedly, turns, chins two men towards him.

‘This man’s just leaving,’ he says to them. He looks at me. ‘Go on, piss off. We’ll meet again.’

‘I hope so,’ I say. ‘I want to talk to you about Billy Morrison.’

‘Who?’ he says.

‘You know who he is,’ I say. ‘Otherwise, why would you want to have him killed?’

10

I AM AT
home and drinking a beer in my living room, trying not to think about what I have just done, what I have just said. The news on the television is talking about the missing girl and I try to gain perspective on my situation by imagining the pain and fear her parents must be experiencing right now, but I cannot shake the sense of menace that seems to lurk all around me.

My telephone rings and I do not wish to pick it up, do not want to invite further problems into my life right now; but it does not stop ringing and eventually I cross to the counter and answer it.

‘Danny?’

‘Gabe.’

‘Yeah, Danny, spot of bother. Wondered if you could bail me out. Sorry to have to ask.’

His voice is imprecise, a little too loud, not the disciplined delivery he learned in the Army where not a word was wasted. He has been drinking.

‘As in, the legal sense of provide money to secure your release?’

‘That sense, yeah.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Station on Main Road.’

I know it; I have spent more time there, waiting for clients and, on occasion, my father, than I care to remember. ‘Be there in ten. You kill anyone?’

‘Don’t think so. Nearly, but not quite.’

At the custody desk, I speak with a young woman behind glass who would be pretty if not for the expression of weary suspicion she wears like it’s part of the uniform. I explain who I am, that I am representing my client, a Mr Gabriel McBride. She taps some keys on her computer, tells me to take a seat, she’ll try to find the officer in charge. I sit down on a moulded plastic chair and read the notices on the wall opposite, posters advising on how to deal with domestic abuse, what to do if you witness suspicious behaviour that could be linked, in some tenuous fashion, to terrorism, the number to call.

An old couple are across from me, sitting slumped in an attitude of defeat. The man’s phone rings, he answers, tells whoever is on the other end that Dean’s been picked up again, that they’ve been waiting for hours to see him. The man on the other end, who I guess is Dean’s father, swears fluently and audibly down the phone; the gist of his tirade is that his son, Dean, is a cunt and if he thinks he’s coming down to get him out he can fucking well think again. The old man catches me watching and tells Dean’s father to hold on, he’ll go outside, calm down, son, don’t get excited. But, watching the collapse of the old woman’s shoulders, I
suspect that this is a road they’ve been down many times before and that Dean’s story will have, ultimately, an unhappy ending. Some people are not destined to be saved.

Clearly, my status as lawyer wields more clout than that of two pensioners with a troubled grandson; the woman at the desk calls my name, shows me to a door behind which is waiting a uniformed sergeant, a good-humoured man in his late-forties, perhaps early-fifties, short hair and a trim moustache and broken veins on his cheeks. The woman buzzes me through.

‘Mr Connell?’

‘And you are?’

‘Sergeant Hicklin. Follow me please.’

Sergeant Hicklin has an amused glint in his eye, which immediately tells me that, whatever it is Gabe has done, it is not too serious. ‘Know your client well?’ he asks over his shoulder as I follow him down a neon-lit corridor.

‘Well enough.’

He opens a blue door, a card on it reading
Interview Room 4
. He holds it open, waits for me to pass, follows me in.

‘Sit down. Young Mr McBride is on his way.’

I sit down at a wooden table, tape player on one side. The walls of the room are some kind of textured concrete, pale mottled green. Hicklin passes me, sits opposite, facing the door.

‘What’s he done?’

Sergeant Hicklin examines my face, looking for I don’t know what. ‘Where’d he learn to fight?’

‘Iraq, Afghanistan, Aldershot, take your pick.’

Hicklin nods. ‘Know him well, right? Friend of yours.’

‘Let’s keep this on a professional footing.’ This man is nobody’s fool; he has already guessed that our relationship goes deeper than simply lawyer–client.

‘As you like.’ Hicklin leans back in his chair, looks me over. ‘Well, professionally speaking, your client, Mr Gabriel Bruce-bloody-Lee McBride has, tonight, started a small war of his own, outside Liquid nightclub.’

‘Doesn’t sound like him.’

‘No?’

‘He’s a soldier, not a hooligan.’

‘Ex-soldier. Yes, well. At the moment I’ve got two confirmed hospital cases, and numerous cuts and bruises. A lot of pissed-off people. Two or three fairly impressed bouncers.’

‘I’ll give you ten to one he didn’t start it.’

Hicklin picks up a pen, holds it between two hands, nods. ‘And I wouldn’t take those odds. Because I’d agree. Got a witness, see. Tells me a group of lads found it amusing he was missing a leg. They’d been drinking, thought they’d have some fun with him. You can probably guess the rest.’

The Gabe I know, trained though he is in numerous, creative methods of disabling opponents, would have let any insult ride. Things would not have escalated into a brawl; he would have walked away. But, not for the first time this week, I have to question just how well I know Gabe nowadays.

‘I’ll be honest, I’d hate to see what he’s capable of on two legs. I watched the CCTV.’ Hicklin chuckles. ‘The whole nick watched it. Could have sold tickets. Man’s an overnight celebrity.’

There’s a twinkle in Hicklin’s eye and I instinctively know he is on Gabe’s side; that here is a policeman who goes by his experience and gut rather than the book. I relax.

‘So he banged a few heads together,’ I say. ‘Got that established. You going to charge him?’

Hicklin nods, gets down to business. ‘We’ve got the witness. We’ve had a look at your friend’s war record. We’ve got no axe to grind. My youngest is in the Paratroopers.’

‘Which leaves us where?’

‘We’ll bind him over, if you’ll agree to keep an eye on him. Keep him out of trouble.’

There’s a knock on the door.

‘Ah, that must be Rambo now,’ says Sergeant Hicklin.

Apart from a minute sway, Gabe looks as fresh and sober as if he’s appearing for a job interview. He grins at me, nods to Sergeant Hicklin. Behind him is a young constable with the come-on swagger of the young and power happy. Gabe pauses in the doorway and the constable shoves him from behind. I get up from my chair.

‘Tell your constable he touches my client once more and I’ll be filing a complaint before his shift is finished.’

Hicklin sighs. ‘Sit down, sit down. Constable Dawson here’s got a lot to learn. Hormones, the latter stages of puberty. I apologise on his behalf. Happy?’

I sit down, push out a chair for Gabe.

‘I’ll stand,’ he says.