The Rage (33 page)

Vincent was aware that his grief for Noel had changed. Not lessened, it was just different. There was still an ache every time he thought of his brother. Sometimes he saw or heard something and thought of telling Noel and there was a moment of dizzying loss – then the aching wave rolled over him, strong as ever.

What was new was the feeling of achievement. Instead of falling to pieces when Noel was murdered, he’d done what needed to be done. He’d rebalanced things. He’d shown his respect – he’d done what Noel would have done. He hoped that, wherever he was – however these things work out – Noel knew that.

And it was almost all done, now.

Bob Tidey came off the North Circular, driving down Summerhill in sparse traffic. He got through the lights, into Parnell Street, approaching the Asian and African shops. There were barriers across the street, a mechanical digger and a few men in work clothes, two yellow trucks off to one side – a diversion sign pointing towards Cumberland Street, on the left. Tidey wrenched the wheel, turned left and travelled ten yards, then ran the car up onto the pavement.

Tidey was out of his car, locking it – back into Parnell Street running. Less than a minute later he was turning left into Marlborough Street, the Pro-Cathedral in view.

Vincent stood on tiptoes. Making sure the bitch nun wasn’t among the small cluster of old biddies shuffling up the steps of the Pro-Cathedral. His phone vibrated in his pocket. As he thumbed the phone he glanced down Marlborough Street, one way and then the other, then he looked at the text.

Shit
.

Ten more minutes, max, he’d have had the bitch nun cooling on the pavement. The temptation was huge – hang on, do the job, then hurry to meet Liam.

Meeting
, the text said. Liam needed him at Rathfillan Terrace.

No one called a meeting for piddling reasons, and backing each other was too important to start messing with the drill. You get a text, go to the safe house.

Hurrying away, Vincent was thinking about options. Could be he’d come back to Dublin a month from now, take his time, enjoy showing the bitch the gun before doing her in her own house. Better still, Sunday in the Pro-Cathedral, not just an ordinary Mass – special productions for the Holy Joes. These things drag on. He might be able to deal with Liam’s problem and get back here before the Mass ended.

Bob Tidey’s breathing was stressed, he slowed to a walking pace. Up ahead, he could see Rose Cheney, one arm linked with Maura Coady’s. By the time he reached them he was just about able to talk without coughing.

Cheney was smiling. ‘Maura would like to stay, hear Mass, listen to the Palestrina Choir – she wants to know if that’s all right.’

‘Best not,’ Tidey said.

‘It’s almost started,’ Maura said. ‘What’s the harm?’

‘I’ll stay with her,’ Cheney said. ‘I’ll leave her back at the hotel.’

‘Please,’ Maura Coady said.

Tidey sighed. He looked at Cheney. ‘Go home – you’ve got a family, it’s Sunday. I’ll stay with her.’

Maura Coady took her rosary beads from her pocket.

Vincent Naylor closed the front door of the house at Rathfillan Terrace and said, ‘Hello?’ He went into the living room and there was a stranger sitting upright in the armchair facing the door, his face a mess. Vincent’s hand went into his shoulder bag, taking hold of the Bernardelli, and another man, coming in from the kitchen, pointed at Vincent and there was a muzzle flash and something very big hit Vincent in the chest. When his eyes opened he was lying on his back and the room smelled like a whole lot of fireworks had gone off. He didn’t know if he’d been out for two seconds or two hours. Apart from the stranger in the armchair, there were two men in the room – the man who’d shot him and a smaller guy, a man in his thirties with a bad case of acne.

Vincent levered himself into a sitting position, his back against the wall. He said, ‘There’s, look, when—’

Vincent could tell he’d been shot low down in the chest. No sucking sound, his lungs were all right, this was—

Vincent recognised the stranger in the armchair.

Liam Delaney, a piece of silver tape across his mouth, a large bloody mess where his right eye should have been. Liam was sitting upright, his feet tied together, more silver tape, and his hands were tucked behind him. Liam’s left eye was wide open, staring, his chest heaving, nose flaring. There was blood leaking from the silver tape across his mouth.

Vincent said, ‘This, it’s not—’

The taller of the two men picked up Vincent’s shoulder bag. He took out the Bernardelli, showed it to the acne man. The acne man took it and shot Liam in the forehead. Then he put the muzzle of the gun under Liam’s chin and when he squeezed the trigger the room vibrated with the noise. The taller man was standing over Vincent, leaning down. Vincent looked up into the dark muzzle of the man’s small silvery gun.

Maura Coady said, ‘The young voices, the ancient music, the beauty of it – if ever I have doubts, I think of that sound. It’s a foretaste of something beyond all this.’

They were in her room at Jurys Inn, Maura was sitting on the edge of the bed, drinking tea. Tidey was standing. She seemed thinner than ever, fragile, diminished.

‘It was lovely,’ Tidey said. ‘But I want you to stay here until we know there’s no more danger from this man. I know it’s boring, cooped up in the room, but this man somehow traced a policeman to his home and tried to kill him.’

Maura looked around the room. ‘I spent most of my life in a convent, Sergeant – this might be a little frightening, but it’s certainly not boring. Next Sunday morning, though, I’m afraid, I’ll insist again on my little choral treat.’

Tidey said, ‘Let’s take it a day at a time.’

She put her cup aside. ‘Thank you for everything.’ She stood up. Her face seemed paler, a rawness around the eyes. ‘I sometimes wonder – when I think about all the awful things that were done, the lives we destroyed – whether I’ve a right to ever take pleasure again in beauty and innocence.’

Tidey held her elbow. ‘What you did, it’s not all you are. And if there’s a way of getting through this world without doing something wrong – I don’t know about it.’

‘There are some wrongs that are worse than others.’

Out in the corridor, a couple of people were arguing loudly – something about a radio show.

Tidey said, ‘You confessed – you believe in absolution?’

After a moment, speaking slowly, being careful with her words, Maura said, ‘All my life I’ve believed in the sacrament of Confession, but I’ve always wondered if it wasn’t, well – a little convenient.’ Her smile was rueful and brief. ‘No one has a right to wipe the slate clean, except the people we harmed. And they’re out there somewhere, struggling to get on with their lives – our guilt is not their problem.’

‘There’s no redemption?’

‘And there shouldn’t be. There’s just living with it, I think. Owning up, and living with the things we do.’

Carefully placing his feet, Detective Inspector Martin Pollard entered the room and paused. He’d dealt with scenes like this in the past and he had a way of coping. He looked down, his eyes closed, and he emptied his mind, let his emotions settle. When he opened his eyes his demeanour was as detached and cold as he could make it. He took out his notebook and first did a rough diagram of the room. Technical had already been over the scene, but Pollard needed his own notes. When the diagram was done he flicked over the page and wrote quickly and neatly. He heard a noise and glanced up and there was a uniform looking into the room. Pollard shook his head and the uniform went away.

A couple of minutes later, Detective Sergeant Joan Tyler came in, stood just inside the doorway. ‘Bloody savages,’ she said.

Martin Pollard took his time finishing his notes, then he and Sergeant Tyler went outside to talk to Technical.

When they were finished eating, they lingered over what was left of the wine and Holly said, ‘You want the good news first, or the bad news?’

‘Christ,’ Bob Tidey said, ‘set me up, then knock me down.’

The restaurant was five minutes’ walk from Holly’s home. It was all it had to recommend it.

‘It’s about Grace.’

‘Pregnant?’

‘The good news is she’s got a job. Starts Monday week. The bad news – it’s in Leeds.’

A friend of Grace’s from UCD had a fledgling business there, funded by an uncle. She imported second-hand Japanese cars. Things were going well and she needed a bookkeeper.

Tidey said, ‘At least it’s not Australia or Canada.’

‘All the same, with Dylan in London – I always took it for granted the kids would live in their own country. Instead, it’s like the 1980s.’

‘It’s a hop and a skip to Leeds, and back.’

‘I suppose,’ Holly said. ‘There’s not much money in it, she says, but it’s work. She’s out celebrating tonight.’

‘Good for her.’

‘She’ll need help, she’ll have expenses starting off – rent, things like that.’

‘That’s what money’s for.’

They were halfway back to Holly’s place when Tidey’s phone rang.

‘Yeah?’

Martin Pollard said, ‘You heard about the shooting in Santry?’

‘It was on the radio – no names so far.’

‘Both victims shot twice in the head. One of them’s our lad. Naylor was done cleanly, the other guy looks like someone’s been using him for butchery practice.’

‘Jesus.’

Tidey stopped walking, stood in the street with the phone down by his side. He took a long breath.

Holly grabbed his arm and he shook his head. When he put the phone back to his ear, Pollard was in mid-sentence.

‘Sorry, I missed that.’

‘The second victim – his name’s Liam Delaney. We went to his place this evening. His sister was there, says she was visiting this morning and two men came for Delaney. He told her everything was fine, that he’d be back in a few hours. Told her she shouldn’t call the police.’

‘You got suspects?’

‘Naylor never worried much about who he pissed off. He might have been on anyone’s list.’

Tidey said, ‘Yeah.’

‘You’ll tell that old nun, let her know everything’s over, there’s nothing to worry about?’

‘I will, I will. Listen, thanks for calling.’

Holly said, ‘What is it?’

‘Work,’ he said, ‘just something at work.’

Bob Tidey leaned on the kitchen counter. He took the salt cellar and moved it a few inches to stand alongside the pepper grinder. He straightened the lid on the butter dish.

After the phone call, there had been no conversation on the walk back to Holly’s place. Now, she put an arm around his waist and pressed her face against his shoulder. ‘Talk when you can – or let it be, whichever.’

His voice was barely audible. ‘Later.’

‘I’ve done something.’

‘Can you say?’

‘No.’

They were in bed. He was lying on his back, her head resting on his arm. The sex had been brisk, and over quickly.

‘How bad?’

‘I’ve put people away for less.’

‘Is it a case?’

‘Just the way things came together.’

‘Bob—’

‘There was no right thing to do. But something had to be done.’ He said it like it was a mathematical formula he’d worked out.

‘It wasn’t – did you take something? What I mean is, was it crooked?’

‘I’ve never taken anything.’

‘Are you in trouble?’

He thought about that for a moment, then said, ‘No one can connect me to anything.’

‘Then—’

Tidey said nothing for a long time. Then he said, ‘I’m not who I set out to be – not any longer. And I don’t know where it goes from here.’

He came out of sleep abruptly, his breathing fast. He’d felt himself stepping off a cliff – plummeting feet first, then his upper body weight taking him over into a wild tumble, unable to get a fix on the sky or the earth, no control – then he was awake, Holly was sleeping beside him, the house was silent and Bob Tidey’s fingernails were digging into his palms.

He sat up, feet on the floor, poised on the edge of the bed, and heard again Martin Pollard’s words.

Naylor was done cleanly, the other guy looks like someone’s been using him for butchery practice
.

Tidey took a long, deep breath, held it and let it out slowly.

This was one of those extreme events that fills the mind. It takes time for things like that to find their proper size, to become one more piece in a messy, never-finished jigsaw. Hang on long enough to get perspective, Bob Tidey told himself, and anything can be endured.

‘Bob?’ Holly’s head was raised from the pillow.

‘It’s OK,’ Tidey said.

Holly turned, looked at the clock. ‘Nearly one o’clock.’

Tidey said, ‘I’d better go – is Grace—’

Holly moved in the bed, reached up and put a hand on his shoulder.