Eoin Miller 02 - Old Gold (26 page)

“What’s her name?”

“Rachel.”

“I’d like to see her.”

He nodded and left me alone with my thoughts and a phantom ticking clock.

Next time I opened my eyes, Rachel was perched on the edge of the bed, smiling at me. She had a backpack. She looked ready to travel.

“Where are you going?”

“Ireland. Mary still has family over there. I thought somebody should go and see them, as the police never will.”

“What will you tell them?”

“I don’t know, really. I was going to cross that bridge when I got to it.”

“Fair enough. I guess really it should be me that tells them, but since you’re volunteering for the job—”

She smiled again. It was better than a slap.

She put her hand on mine and squeezed gently.

“It was the right thing, what you did. You know that?”

“I’ve been trying not to think about it.”

“I mean, it won’t get you into heaven, but nothing does anymore. I just mean that bad things happened, and you were the one person who did something about it.” She paused, as if waiting for me to argue, then continued. “I’ve been thinking about it. My whole ‘you’ project. Do you remember what you said to me, at my place?”

“That nothing matters?”

“Yes. You said we live in a world where nothing we do matters. Which is just about the most depressing thing anyone’s ever said to me. And I go to AA meetings. Trust me when I say I’ve heard some depressing shite.”

We both laughed at that.

“But that’s the key, I think,” she said. “Right there. You’ve been too self-absorbed to see it. You talked about the old man in the rain, about your marriage. You missed the point. The old man didn’t die alone. He had someone watching over him.”

“I didn’t do a good job, though, did I?”

“What matters is what you did.”

She smiled. It was almost the last time I saw it.

“That’s it?”

“Yes. All that ever matters is what we do. And when you look at it like that, everything matters.”

I shook my head but didn’t say anything. I had music in my head for the first time since coming back to the world.

Deacon Blue, “Your Town.”

Hamell on Trial, “Confess Me.”

For the first time in a very long time, I felt alive.

She pulled a newspaper out of her bag and handed it to me and then set one of Dr. Guthrie’s letters on the bed between us.

“Wolves are doing well, by the way. Thought you might be interested.”

She kissed me on my forehead, touched my lips with her forefinger, and left.

I sat alone with my ghosts for a while.

Then I turned to the sports pages of the newspaper.

Almost dying was easy compared to almost living.

I was given a long lecture by my doctor, a young Pakistani man with a serious face. Bobby’s blade had fucked me up good. Part of my intestines had been removed and the hole spliced together like an electrical cable. The pain in my leg had something to do with muscles in my lower back, and along the way I’d tweaked my hamstring. The doctor said the limp might go in time.

The blood loss could have been enough to kill me. He told me that I was lucky Laura had got me to the hospital so fast and that the feeling of lethargy I was experiencing would last for a long time. He wanted to keep me in hospital for another three or four days, just to make sure I was improving.

I was prescribed what amounted to a medicine cabinet: drugs for my abdominal pain, drugs for my leg pain, water tablets to counteract the cheery side effects of a diet of painkillers.

The regulars at Posada chipped in to buy me a Chuck Ragan CD, with a note saying that it was exactly the kind of depressing male bollocks that I’d love. And they were right. Gaines sent me a card in which she again offered to hire me for the youth project. She said she was my new guardian
angel, making all my problems go away. I hadn’t realized the devil would be so good looking or the deal so easy to make.

On my last evening in the hospital, Laura finally visited.

“It’s good to see you’re OK,” she said. “Dr. Bassi has been great. I’m sure he’ll be by to go over it all with you again. Basically, Eoin, you’ve been very lucky.”

There had been a pain building in my stomach for the past hour, and the pills didn’t quite seem to be covering it.

“I feel lucky,” I said.

Laura walked around the bed to stand looking out of the window. I realized I hadn’t looked out the window yet.

“You’ll need to coach me for my statement,” I said. “Make sure I say all the things you want me to.”

“Yes.” She didn’t turn to look at me.

Neither of us said anything for a while.

“You knew everything, didn’t you? The whole thing: the drugs, Janas, Gav. You were going to play it all to get the promotion.”

She laughed, and I didn’t like it. It was a different laugh, harder and colder, than I’d heard from her before.

“It’s best forgotten.”

“And Bobby? Why isn’t he trying to save himself?”

“He’s not going to be doing much talking for a long time. He’s doing a fair amount of clicking and grunting, but he’s not talking so well.”

I refused to feel guilty about that. The fucker had been killing me.

“But he can write, type, and blink his bloody eyes,” I said. “So you got that statement.”

She smiled. “Yes. I’ve taken a written statement from him, and it backs up everything yours will say.” How had she gotten a statement out of Bobby that cleared me at his own expense? What was the leverage? What was really going on
here? Laura must have read my thoughts, as only she and my mother could.

“He needs protection. He’s going down for killing Gav Mann, and there’s bound to be payback from Gav’s big brother. He’s too scared to cross me at this point.”

I thought back to Veronica’s card, her making all my problems go away. Things were leading in a direction I didn’t want to go.

“Why are you protecting me, Laura?”

She opened her mouth, but no words came out at first. When they did, they were hushed and direct.

“Because I’m your wife.”

“Where is the notebook? I had it when Bobby attacked me, but it never made it to the hospital. Where is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.

She could lie to anyone in the world except me.

She blinked. Once. Twice. The message was there, unwritten. This was about more than promotion, more than her police career and the case of the century. She was dirtier than I had ever been.

“Was that the deal you made? You get the case, the press, and the promotion. Gaines gets the business? And what’s next? You’re knee-deep in it now. You’ll never get out.”

What a couple we made. She’d framed Bobby with one murder while I’d allowed him to get away with another. I’d handed Gav Mann over to Veronica Gaines to save my own skin and covered up Mary’s murder along the way. Laura had sold out to the Gaines family, giving them a monopoly over the drugs trade. We were both in over our heads. There are lies, damned lies, and marriages.

I closed my eyes.

“Congratulations on the promotion,” I said. “I want a divorce.”

She mumbled something before she left.

I couldn’t tell if it was “I love you” or “good-bye.”

“Let’s go and say a prayer for a boy
who couldn’t run as fast as I could.”

—Father Connolly

Pull up a chair.

Comfortable?

First thanks go out to the woman who made me into the man I am and who taught me never to sit down and shut up; thanks, Mum. And of course, I owe just as much to the woman who
keeps me
the man I am, my wife, Lisa-Marie.

I wouldn’t be a writer if my two grandfathers hadn’t made me into a storyteller, so for hours spent listening to them, talking to them, and trying to impress them, I owe Bill and Trevor. And for that matter, my grandmothers, who did everything else for us while we did all that. I owe my dad more than he’ll ever know, for being the man he is and for setting an example for me to follow, and I owe my father for whatever that connection is that means we understand each other sometimes in ways others don’t.

And my brother. I don’t need a reason to thank him other than he’s my brother.

Writing is a messed up and confusing road to walk by yourself. So I’m glad I’ve never had to. Allan Guthrie was the best Mr. Miyagi a young(ish) writer could have had. For taking a chance on me, for believing in this book, and for putting up with my insane e-mails, I owe way too many thanks to Stacia Decker.

For wise words, filthy jokes, and good suggestions, thanks go out to Ray Banks and Professor Steve Weddle. And for the best writer support network there is, thanks to all DSD’ers past, present, and honorary; Russel, Dave, McFet,
Joelle, Scott, Mike, Sandra, Brian, Bryon, JHJ, Chuck, Gerald, Dan, and the many readers who’ve made that site work. Thanks to Paul Montgomery and Dave Accampo, who aren’t DSD’ers but feel like they should be.

Still there?

Good, some important ones left.

Huge thanks go to Franz Nicolay and Maria Sonevytsky, for being open to me borrowing their words. Thanks to Joe Murray and the man known as “Rozza” for putting up with fact-checking and my many strange questions.

And last but not least, the people who’ve actually made this thing into a book that’s in your hands. Massive thanks to Andy B. for bringing me into the fold, to Jacque and Rory for helping me through the steps, and to both Kate C. and Renee J. for getting the book to stand on its own legs.

Photo by Lisa-Marie Ferla, 2012

A Black Country native, Jay Stringer was raised on pulp fiction, comic books, morgue humor, music, and films. He found inspiration for
Old Gold
in his UK homeland and the postindustrial region where he grew up. Currently living in Glasgow, he has been published in
The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime
, volumes 8 and 9, and considers his works to be pieces of “social pulp.” Alongside writing, Stringer has been a zookeeper, a bookseller, a video editor, and a call center lackey.
Old Gold
is his first novel.