The Rage (32 page)

‘And?’

‘I was having a jar, he came in – he’d already had a few. Said he was celebrating. He was delighted with himself.’

‘And?’

‘The long and the short of it – there’s a little prick named Vincent Naylor, he’s been causing trouble for the cops. His solicitor’s been negotiating with Tidey. They have a deal.’

‘Who’s the solicitor?

‘No idea – all Tidey said was they’re all patting themselves on the back. This fella Naylor wants to spill his guts.’

‘Means nothing to me.’

‘You have a fella works for you and Mr Tucker – his name is Mickey Kavanagh—’

‘I don’t know any Mickey Kavanagh.’

‘This cop, he says he’s reeling in Vincent Naylor. And, he says, that means he’s got the arm on Mickey Kavanagh. He’s already got him in a cell.’

Blount was silent for a moment, as though weighing things up. ‘We know about that. Mickey got into a fight last night – no big deal, he’ll walk.’

‘What Tidey says – it came out in bits and pieces – a while back this Vincent Naylor did a job for Mickey Kavanagh, killed someone. Now he’s in big trouble – they want him to roll over on Mickey, and he’s up for it. Tidey says what they’re hoping, they might even get Mickey to roll over and give them Mr Tucker.’

Roly Blount raised his right hand and held Trixie’s left cheek, gently. His thumb was half an inch below Trixie’s left eye. He moved closer, his face inches away. His touch was so tender he might have been cupping a delicate flower.

‘You fuck with me—’ Roly said.

‘I thought you’d want to know—’

‘—you won’t see me coming.’

‘I swear, Mr Blount.’

‘What’s the favour?’

‘I want you to leave him be. My son Christy – I don’t want him involved.’

Roly Blount looked at him for a moment, his hand still on Trixie’s cheek, his mouth working on the chewing gum. ‘Your boy did us a favour, kept his mouth shut. He gets work from me, all I’m doing is paying him back, that’s all.’

‘I know that, Mr Blount, and I’m grateful. But now – I’ve done you a favour, and you can do me a favour. Don’t do Christy any more favours.’

Blount let go of Trixie’s cheek. He nodded. ‘If that’s what you want – that’s OK by me. As long as you’re telling me the truth – this Mickey Kavanagh business.’

‘It’s what the copper told me.’

‘You talk to no one else about this, right?’

‘No one.’

‘You never came here, right?’

‘Never.’

‘Now, piss off.’

‘Thank you, Mr Blount.’

Liam Delaney let himself into the house at Rathfillan Terrace and called out, ‘Vincent?’

‘In here.’

Vincent was sitting in an armchair facing the living-room door.

‘What’s the story?’

‘I’m heading off tomorrow – I might need a favour.’

‘No problem.’

‘These people, they’ve got me flying out from Belfast airport. Bit of a nuisance, but they’ve done it that way before and they say it’s cool. And they’ve booked a ferry from Larne, just in case.’

Liam smiled. ‘Fucking volcanoes – a bit of dust in the air and the airlines take the day off.’

‘Either way, I’ll need a lift.’

‘No problem.’

‘You’re a star.’

‘That other thing you’re doing – all done?’

Vincent smiled. ‘One last loose end – tomorrow.’

‘All this trouble, you sure it’s worth the bother?’

‘Start something, you have to finish it.’

‘That’s that, then.’

Vincent said Liam should leave first, that Vincent would wait ten minutes.

Liam said, ‘What time you want to set off tomorrow?’

‘They’ll know tonight if the airports are going to be open – then, eleven o’clock in the morning, I have to go to Mass.’

‘Mass?’

‘Yeah, in the Pro-Cathedral. After that, I’m free and easy. Let’s say we meet here two o’clock.’

Bob Tidey lit a cigarette and after a couple of puffs he noticed he hadn’t finished the previous one, perched on the edge of his ashtray. He stubbed them both out and stood up. He’d long seen his apartment as perfectly matching his few needs, but today it seemed as small as a cell. He pulled on a jacket, pocketed his cigarettes and lighter and left the apartment. He’d been walking for ten minutes, going nowhere in particular, his stride a little longer than was comfortable, stretching himself just a little, when he got a text from Holly.

Tonight?

Tidey doubted he’d sleep much tonight, and he wouldn’t be up to conversation, or anything much else. He sent a text back, saying he’d be working tonight.

Roly Blount said, ‘It looks solid enough. Two people say this Naylor fella did a favour for Mickey Kavanagh – swatted a chancer who was skimming.’

Frank Tucker’s suit was better cut than Roly Blount’s, his face softer than his lieutenant’s.

‘You know him?’

‘By name. Small-time tosser.’

Roly was chewing gum faster than a football manager in injury time. Frank was as still as a painting.

Frank didn’t say anything for a moment. One thumb idly stroking the corner of his lips. ‘This whole thing – this Naylor kid, he’s in the cop’s pocket, and he maybe pulls Mickey in after him. This could go south
very
quickly.’

Roly said, ‘Mickey’s mouthpiece went in to see him. Mickey says the cop started the fight, set him up for arrest.’

‘We’re working blind. Get on the phone. You and Dermot and Stretch. I want to know where this Naylor fucker lives, who he lives with, who he works with, who his friends are – everything. Where he drinks, who he’s screwing on the side, which hand he wipes his arse with. And I want to know all that this evening.’

Vincent Naylor rolled off the bed and spent fifteen minutes washing the whore’s perfume away. When he came out of the shower she was still on the bed. He said, ‘You still here?’

She said, ‘You finished?’

‘Where you from? China?’ He began dressing.

She said no, and she said where she was from, but Vincent didn’t catch it. He’d already paid, but now she asked him for taxi fare and he said, ‘Sure,’ and gave her a twenty. He asked if he should walk her to the bus but she didn’t get the joke and said, ‘Not necessary.’

When she was gone he took the magazine out of the Bernardelli. He’d worked his way well into the sixteen shells, so he figured it was best to swap this one for the second magazine. After doing the bitch nun at the Pro-Cathedral he’d lose the Bernardelli – no way he could take it with him on the trip.

James Snead was considering whether it was too late to go out. Go to the pub, it’s noisy, crowded – by the time you start to get a buzz the staff are banging glasses on the counter and telling everyone it’s time they pissed off home. These days, more often than not, he preferred to have his own four walls around him.

The doorbell rang and when he opened up Detective Sergeant Tidey was standing there, taking a bottle of Jameson out of a paper bag. ‘I could do with company,’ Tidey said.

They were on their second drink when James said, ‘What kind of trouble are you in?’

Tidey just looked at him.

‘It’s all over your face.’

Tidey thought about saying something, then said, ‘Nothing more than usual – it’s a pressure job.’

‘Maybe you should have stuck with the Simon Community.’

‘Maybe.’

An hour later, Tidey was sitting on the floor, his back to the sofa. James Snead was in an armchair, there was a lot of air in the bottle and there were long silences between them.

‘This thing,’ James said, ‘you want to talk about it and you don’t want to talk about it, that right?’

‘I’d say you’ve put your finger on it.’

‘Something you’ve done?’

‘Something I’ve started – how it ends, that’s something else.’

‘Tell me this – can you do anything about it?’

‘The wheels are turning.’

‘That’s not what I asked. We know the wheels are turning. Can you stop them? Do you want to?’

‘It’s too late now.’

‘Then, what the hell – you don’t have a problem.’ James poured some more whiskey into both glasses. ‘You’ve done it, whatever it is. Now, all you have to do is live with it.’

Vincent Naylor finished his toast, refilled his coffee cup. It being shortly after ten o’clock on Sunday morning, the Kylemore Cafe on O’Connell Street wasn’t too busy. Vincent was sitting at a table beside the large window looking out onto North Earl Street. Outside in the bright sunlight, early-bird tourists were taking photographs of the James Joyce statue. First time he saw it, Vincent thought it was supposed to be Charlie Chaplin.

Take care of business, then meet Liam Delaney at the safe house at Rathfillan Terrace. They’d be out of Dublin shortly after two o’clock, on his way to Belfast – the airports were defying the volcano ash – and by this evening he’d be in Glasgow, just a short step from London and Michelle.

Vincent unfolded a wrinkled front page from the
Irish Daily Record
and flattened it on the table beside his plate.
ABUSE NUN IS SHOOT-OUT HERO
. Since it was published he’d stared at the photo of Maura Coady several times a day. With her short white hair and her stupid buck teeth, he’d have no bother spotting the bitch nun among the faithful plodding their way to the Pro-Cathedral this morning.

When Rose Cheney asked to be put through to room 327, the receptionist at Jurys Inn said, ‘That’s Miss Clark’s room?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Oh, she’s been gone a few minutes.’

‘Sorry?’

‘I was speaking to her not five minutes ago. She wasn’t sure of which way to go, so she asked me for directions. She’s on her way to the Pro-Cathedral – eleven o’clock Mass, she said.’

‘Shit.’

His mouth was dry, his hangover tolerable, but Bob Tidey awoke enveloped in a full-fledged cloud of dread.

Tidey had slept in James Snead’s spare room, the room that used to belong to James’s murdered grandson. James had long ago stripped the room of all personal belongings – no sign that Oliver had ever been there.

‘Either that, or turn the place into a shrine,’ James had said. The session ended when James shook the upturned Jameson bottle, to drain the last few drops.

Naylor
.

There was nothing more to do, no way of knowing what would happen or when. He felt like someone who’d bet his life on a horse race run at some undecided course, on some unspecified day. Last night’s drinking was a bad idea, but it wasn’t the only bad idea he’d had lately, and in the circumstances it was fitting. He tried to get his thoughts straight, to ask himself for the thousandth time if it was too late to stop this Mickey Kavanagh thing, if it was too dangerous, too reckless, too wicked – or would stopping it be worse? For the thousandth time, measuring his conscience against the circumstances, he decided there was no going back.

He was getting to his feet when his phone rang. His clothes were in a heap on the floor. He bent and groped in his pockets until he found it.

‘Yeah.’

‘Maura Coady’s on her way into the city centre,’ Rose Cheney said. ‘She left the hotel. She’s off to eleven o’clock Mass at the Pro-Cathedral.’

‘Christ sake.’

‘She should be OK – I mean, this Naylor guy, what are the chances he’s going to spot her on her way to Mass?’

‘He’s killing people. He’s been very good at it.’

‘And you want me to—’

Tidey was reaching for his trousers. ‘Meet me at the Pro-Cathedral.’

As he left the flat, unshaven and unwashed, he could hear James snoring. He found his car, started the engine and motored away. Five minutes later, at a traffic light, he reached into a pocket and realised he’d left his cigarettes behind.

After her toast and tea Maura Coady looked at Rose Cheney’s business card and thought about ringing her. It seemed over-fussy to bother the policewoman at home on a Sunday morning. Mr Tidey wanted her to stay in the hotel room, but that couldn’t include wanting her to miss Sunday Mass. The eleven o’clock Mass, the Latin version, with the high ceiling of the Pro-Cathedral echoing back the sounds coming up from the children of the Palestrina Choir. It wasn’t just about fulfilling her devotional duties. The solemn surroundings, the exotic language of the Latin Mass, the splendour of the choir, the beauty of it all, kept her spiritually recharged right through the following week.

Her watch said ten thirty, now – plenty of time, lovely sunny morning, the city looking splendid. She was on her way down along the quays, through a city centre she hadn’t seen in a long time. She wondered if there could be any more white stone, marble and glass left in the world, they’d used so much of it in Dublin these past few years.

Vincent Naylor left the Kylemore Cafe, unzipping the top of his shoulder bag. He walked down North Earl Street and turned into narrow, sunless Marlborough Street. He climbed the steps to the raised surround and stood beside the railings at the corner of Cathedral Street. From here, he could keep an eye on all three approaches to the church. If she came down from O’Connell Street, that might be a problem – the sightlines were difficult. But the old bitch – white hair, buck teeth – the queen of the kiddie-fiddlers, shouldn’t be too hard to spot. Things have a way of working out.