The Rage (6 page)

Bob Tidey was involved in questioning Christy when he was brought to the station. When Christy’s father approached Tidey to put in a good word, Tidey’s Superintendent agreed there was no harm in that. ‘The son’s going to jail, no doubt about that, but he’s a pathetic little fucker.’

Trixie Dixon slammed the door of the washing machine. After he fiddled with the controls for a moment the thing made a noise like a 747 hurtling down a runway. Trixie and Tidey went outside. On the pitch, a dozen young hurlers were warming up, pucking a ball about, one lad crouched in a goalmouth, his hurley at the ready, a Spartan holding the pass.

Trixie said, ‘Will he be OK?’

‘He’ll do time.’

‘I know that, but there’s time and there’s time.’

‘Possession of a loaded gun – and no explanation. These days, gangs all over the headlines – judges don’t like to be seen to be soft on that kind of thing.’

‘You know that’s not Christy.’

Bob Tidey let it lie for a moment, then he said, ‘He tell you who the piece belonged to?’

‘You know I can’t say.’

‘Off the record – and you know I won’t fuck you over.’

Trixie began walking along the side of the pitch, watching the kids slashing at the ball, listening to them shout encouragement and derision at one another. The only others around, apart from the hurlers, were three old guys standing on the far touchline, shouting occasional advice. Trixie and Tidey had almost reached the halfway line before Trixie stopped and said, ‘Roly Blount.’

Tidey winced. ‘That’s bad.’

Roly was one of Frank Tucker’s nearest and dearest. Working from his base in the west of the city, Tucker had established outposts on both sides of the river, everything from armed robbery and protection to drugs and smuggled cigarettes. Anything that might be a danger to him or his outfit was simply removed. Christy Dixon had no option but to take the weight for the gun possession.

Trixie said nothing. After a while, they turned and walked back towards the clubhouse. Bob Tidey said, ‘There’s no happy ending to this, but let’s see what we can see, right?’

Carrying meat and vegetables bought in Moore Street, Vincent Naylor emerged from his local Spar with a carton of milk. The small cluster of shops – Spar, hairdresser’s, coffee shop, pharmacy – was set apart from the main retail area, on the other side of an almost empty car park. That was a shopper’s paradise. You could buy all you needed to build and furnish a house, stock the fridge, turn the garden into a botanic wonder and get your hair coloured for the house-warming party. Everything was spread out, all the shops huge, the paved areas twice the size they needed to be. Designed for relaxed shopping. The place had everything, including lots of
To Let
signs.

It was a long walk across a flat space towards the MacClenaghan building. Just six floors, but all the emptiness around it gave the impression of a majestic tower. The MacClenaghan was to be the first of a set of four apartment blocks – the only one completed. The hoarding around the intended site of the other blocks was shabby and broken, the foundations half finished. The flats in the MacClenaghan came furnished, fitted out with standard low-grade stuff – aimed at workers anxious to get on the property ladder, with not much left over after paying the mortgage. Then, just as the MacClenaghan went up, the property ladder turned to dust.

Vincent was breathing normally when he reached his fourth-floor apartment. The door was ajar, the lock broken. The lift had been disabled but Noel arranged for an electrician mate to hook up the apartment, so the sockets worked, the fridge and the shower. He bought a kettle and a microwave.

Vincent stashed the food, made an instant coffee and sat by the window. Taking his time, he counted the money he’d stolen. He liked this bit, not sure exactly how much it would amount to, but knowing it was a good handful – it was like opening a gift on his birthday.

It came to three hundred and eighty. Not bad.

Sitting here, a coffee within reach, some handy money, nice view – Vincent didn’t see how life could have worked out better, all things considered.

Vincent was the only one living in the block.

‘No point paying rent,’ Noel said. Two days before Vincent got out of the Joy, Noel broke the lock. Fourth floor – a good choice. Too far up for casual snoopers. He also paid a visit to a couple of junkies squatting in a flat two floors down. No electricity, no fridge or heater. That kind of thing wouldn’t do – a junkie gets cold and lights a fire in the middle of the living-room floor and dozes off. Vincent might go to sleep one night and never wake up.

‘It’s our flat – we’ve done things, fixed it up,’ the woman said.

Noel looked around – it was like someone had dumped the contents of a wheelie bin on the floor, then spread it around a bit.

‘Tell you what,’ Noel said. He held out a twenty-euro note.

‘No fucking way,’ the woman said. Her partner reached out and took the money, folded it and tucked it inside his shabby shoe. The woman stared a moment, then turned her back and looked out the window.

Vincent filled a closet with clothes and he was more or less ready to rock. Noel offered to get him a telly, but Vincent said it was all shit – he had his iPod. Noel got him a speaker dock so he could listen without earphones.

There was a balcony outside the window – just about deep enough for a potted plant. At night, Vincent liked to stand out there, looking across towards the Edwardstown housing estate, music playing loudly behind him. A six-floor building, sticking up into the sky, all shiny and new, at the edge of the low-rise estate. Gave him a Lord of the Manor feeling.

He didn’t use the lights at night, just candles – with the curtains closed. You never knew when a weary developer might come by to look up at his property and mourn the death of his ambitions. Besides, the flicker from the candles added to the magic of the place.

Three hundred and eighty euros – fair enough, for a few minutes’ work. It would do for walking-around money. All going well in the days to come, what he’d have was more like sitting-down-and-putting-your-feet-up money.

When Vincent Naylor got out of jail, Noel took him to see a man named Shay Harrison. Vincent gave him a big smile. ‘What’s the story, Shay?’

The security guy looked defeated. He’d mouthed off in the back of Tommo’s taxi, complaining about his job, Tommo provided his address, and it took Noel just days to suss out the basics. Married, four kids, a house in Ballybrack, an eight-year-old Fiat and a girlfriend several years younger than his wife.

They took him late at night, after he’d left his girlfriend’s flat. Liam Delaney and Kevin Broe brought him to a garage out in Stillorgan, owned by a cousin of Liam’s. Shay did his best to behave like the tough guy he was paid to be, but that stopped after a couple of hours with his hands tied behind his back.

Shay was a big man, muscle still holding under a layer of flab. He’d spent a lot of time working on a delicately trimmed hairy decoration on his chin – probably figured it would make his face look thinner. By the time Vincent and Noel got there the beard was flecked with beads of sweat.

No marks on the face, Vincent had told Liam and Kevin. He goes to work with marks on his face, it’s all over. It took no more than half a dozen punches to his stomach and kidneys before Shay was ready to cough. They gave him a few more, just because.

‘Tell him where you work, Shay.’

‘Protectica. I deliver cash.’

Vincent said, ‘Of course you do, old son.’

Vincent decided there was no need for any more physical stuff, just a threat followed by something Shay could use to claw back some pride.

The threat was very basic. ‘You probably know the best way out of this is to stay calm and do what we say. And probably you’re thinking that once you get out of here you make a phone call and when we make our move the cops are all over us. Or, after the job, the cops show you a line-up and you point a finger and we spend the next twenty Christmases in the Joy. Am I right, Shay?’

Shay said nothing, but his face said that was about right.

‘All I’m going to tell you, Shay, is we’ve got another place like this – much more isolated. You could scream your eyeballs out and no one would hear you, OK? We’ve got a machine there – they call it a wood chopper, you know the kind of thing I mean? One of those machines the gardeners use in the parks, to grind up branches and shit – a wood chopper.’

‘It’s called a wood chipper,’ Noel said.

‘It’s pretty old, to be honest, a bit rusty, but that’s not your problem. Your problem, Shay, is making sure you don’t say a word to anyone about any of this – ever. Not even when this is over and the cops are sniffing around everyone who works for Protectica. Say a word, one word – even if they’ve picked me up and I’m safely locked away in the Joy – that’s where you go, into the wood chopper, an inch at a time.’

‘I said I’ll do whatever you want.’

‘My guess is you’ll pass out by the time it gets to your ankles – that’s what happened, the couple of times we did it before. What I’m saying – by the time the machine gets to your balls the chances are you’ll be unconscious, so that won’t be so bad.’

Vincent gave Shay a moment to take that in, then he offered him a chance to see this in a positive light.

‘What you earn – I don’t know what you take home, but I’d say you could do with a bit of loose change, am I right?’

Shay said nothing.

‘It’s not like you’d ever steal it, we know that. But if some money showed up in the post – no account, no paper trail – I mean, that’s bound to come in handy. I’m not talking about a fortune, nothing that will change your life, get the cops excited. Your eldest girl – weddings don’t come cheap. She’s engaged, right? The older boy is already in Manchester – the way the job scene is these days, the other one might need to join him.’

Noel said, ‘The kid could maybe use a little help, rent and shit, for the first month or two.’

‘It’s not like it’s your money in the van, is it?’ Vincent said. ‘And those fuckers – the way they piss on people like us, it’s not like you owe them anything, is it?’

It got so Shay saw a big, big downside to pissing off Vincent – and a small benefit if he cooperated. And it helped that doing the sensible thing stuck a finger in the eye of the fat bastards who treated him like he ought to be grateful for a toytown wage.

‘But – look, I’m not on my own in the van, there’s two others. And there’s all sorts of—’

‘Not to worry, Shay – we need you for information. The van we hit, it won’t be yours, OK? No one’s going to connect you with this.’

Vincent cupped his hand behind Shay’s head and pulled him close. He spoke very quietly. ‘No more chat, my friend. Which is it to be, play or pay?’

When Shay began talking, with long answers to every question, they had to slow him down while Noel took notes.

Holly raised her head from the pillow, to see the time on the bedside clock.

‘Pushing midnight,’ she said. ‘You’d better go.’

Bob Tidey looked at his watch. ‘Twenty past eleven.’

‘She’ll be home soon,’ Holly said.

‘Jesus – we’re all adults.’

‘Still.’

He badly wanted to just lie here, to let himself drift off to sleep. All the tensions and worries of the day had been drained, his head was heavy and his whole body was melting into the bed.

‘Please, Bob.’

‘The fact that we’ve had sex has probably dawned on her – I mean, her very existence might be a clue.’

She didn’t reply and he knew there was no point arguing.

He sat up and felt the tiredness pulling him back towards the pillow. By the time he got dressed he was fully awake and resenting it. He took out his packet of Silk Cut and Holly said, ‘Not up here, please. She’ll smell the smoke. Downstairs.’

By the time Holly got dressed and came down to the kitchen, Bob Tidey had made two mugs of coffee and his cigarette was half smoked.

‘You working in the morning?’

Tidey nodded. ‘Back to court. You?’

Holly shook her head. ‘I’m down to two days a week. And they’ve let another six people go.’

‘You OK for money?’

‘I’m getting by.’

‘Just say—’

‘I know. Thanks.’

‘Anyway.’

Ten minutes later, when they heard the front door opening, she smiled and made a face at him. ‘Told you so.’

Grace was chirpy, pleased to see him.

‘Hi, Dad, still chasing villains?’

‘Anyone double-parks in my territory’s in big trouble.’

It was the kind of walking-on-eggshells atmosphere that came from everyone being careful to be considerate. After a while Tidey kissed them both goodnight and prepared to go home.

In the four years after Tidey and his wife split up he visited the house once every couple of months. He saw Grace and her brother Dylan as often as they had the time to spare – both in their late teens then, they were usually busy. By and by, they both moved out. In those four years, Tidey didn’t have anything with anyone else that lasted more than a couple of weeks. He had no idea of Holly’s life. One night, melancholy and a little drunk, she called and asked Tidey to drop by.