The Going Rate (44 page)

He knew he had to do something now. He switched his mobile back on and waited for the Unlock prompt. He couldn't go back into the bedroom for a change of clothes. His shoulder bag was by the door, though. He opened the washer/dryer, and pulled the clothes out onto the floor. It didn't matter now. There was a T-shirt, and the white dress shirt, and knickers. It took him a few turnovers of the clotheslines to find a second sock.

His fingers didn't seem to be working so well. He thumbed his way slowly to the Recent Calls. There it was, Murph's number. Though he had expected it, the shock surged through his chest and down his limbs. He switched off the mobile again.

He looked in his wallet, and checked that he had the two tenners and the twenty that he had yesterday. Movement in the window brought his eye over. It was himself, his face shadowed by the flaring light coming up from the table lamp. The row had actually happened. Aisling might be awake right now, about to cry out.

He had no plan. It was a few hours yet before the city would come to life proper, and he could figure out what to do. He would wait until he had a spot somewhere in the city centre, and then phone Cully. So things had gotten out of hand, and someone had been hurt.

Cully's two arms up in the air, like a dancer, stomping.

He clenched his eyes as tight as he could. Colours came and went quickly. He opened his eyes, and tiptoed to the door. There were gloves and a folded-up umbrella in the shoulder bag. Fanning paused, and considered the laptop again. It would be an impediment. He folded the shirt as best he could, and slid it into the bag, along with the phone.

The door squeaked, he remembered, but only after it was about halfway opened. He squeezed the handle hard and opened the door, working his way around it before it had swung too wide. He turned the key before he pulled the door behind him.

Chapter 44

T
HE HALOES AROUND THE STREET LAMPS
seemed to pulsate as Fanning walked through the muggy air. He heard no traffic, but there was a low, background hum to everything. A cat walked back into a driveway, pulling its shadow with it under a car. The car windscreens reflected any light in filigree; the tiny on-off lights of their burglar alarm lights put him in mind of dragonflies. A dull shine from the roadway kept pace with Fanning, fading and then strengthening as he went from light to light. The electricity transformer at the end of the avenue buzzed as it always had, from the first time he had noticed it when they had moved in.

He began to listen to his own footsteps, and the shoulder strap rubbing against his jacket. Soon, he felt a rhythm set in. The nausea had disappeared, but in its place was a numbness. He should be panicking, he knew. It both satisfied him and unnerved him that he was not. Other than to get away from the flat, and to head into the city centre, he could still not come up with any plan. He thought of Bus Áras, and the long-distance buses that'd be lined up there soon, idling as though raring to be on their way out of Dublin and headed for every corner of Ireland.

Aisling was actually fascinated by trains. She had been thrilled as much as scared when they had watched the DART rumble by at Merrion Gates. She had twisted around in the buggy, he remembered, reaching frantically for him when the level-crossing gates descended and the tracks began to tick and hum with the weight of the approaching train. And then she had surprised him by pushing him away. She had caught sight of the train, and was captivated. Was that peculiar for a girl? It was just sexist to think like that.

He wondered if she were awake now. He saw her in Bríd's arms, and Bríd rubbing her back to console her. Was Bríd thinking what he was thinking now: what the hell had happened? How had this come upon them so suddenly? And did she too wonder if this was it, and that there was no going back? What was said was said, and it had been brewing for a while? She'd be right to say that, Fanning knew, and now a week ago – a day ago even – seemed to him an impossible distance.

A small van sped by on Bird Avenue. He looked at his watch: a quarter to four. There'd be some light by six, he hoped. He passed the shops, glancing through the shutters at their dim, yellowed interiors. This was the newsagent's with all the crap that attracted Aisling, the one place he avoided when he had her with him. Three or four sessions of tears were enough: she'd want things he knew he'd have to refuse her – the sweets, the cheap, crappy toys and baubles pouring in from China.

He was by the window when he sensed more than saw a small flicker on the glass behind him. When he looked across the road, there was only the bus shelter in its dome of light. He moved on, but the panic had set his heart racing. He thought about legging it over through the campus at Belfield. Between the buildings and the acres of playing fields and trees, here'd be no end of places to lie low until it got bright. One of the cafeterias might open early, even, and the coffee there would have to be pretty vile for him not to buy it. With a bit of daylight and a dose of caffeine, things would be clearer. But there'd be a hell of a lot of phoning to be done to even get a start on sorting out this mess.

Fanning swore quietly: his mobile had been losing its charge.

He took it out of his jacket pocket and switched it on; stopped after a few more paces, waited for the battery indicator to show up. There was only a quarter left. His thumb found the power button again, but he hesitated. If Bríd were trying to reach him, if she had realized what she was doing to him. … He keyed in the password, and pocketed the phone again. A taxi passed on its way out of town.

He crossed the Goatstown Road and set his mind on the half-hour or so it was going to take him to get into town. Soon his stride returned, and a jittery alertness that had replaced the panic took over. Everyone, every married couple, had gone through this and worse, he decided. It was just that they didn't talk about it. The dark night of the soul, he could call it.

He felt the familiar reflexes returning to him then, the urge to make something of this disaster. A short film – not like Bergman stuff, that godawful Cries and Whispers – about a crisis between a man and a woman, and a child involved. The ground has been shifting under this couple. Because of that comfortable cowardice that sets in a marriage, neither acknowledges it. They have invested too much in it, they've made too many deals, and compromises. They have hacked off too much of the people they would have been. Somewhere deep in their minds each knows the truth: that though to want to walk away from one another, it would only remind them – unbearably – of what they have lost. Fault Lines – there was the working title right there. And, he could work in the newcomer-to-Ireland angle, the catalyst that gets it started: she works in an office where a new employee is a refugee, and she meets the woman's husband. She falls for him. But it's nobody's fault, it's just the humdrum pain of being alive, and there are no answers. Unflinching, that would be the word.

Breen would see it, and would jump at it.

This was crazy. He was doing his escapist thing again, like he had done since he was a kid.

He sped up. He felt the soft slap of his shoulder bag against the small of his back, a reminder of his student days. There was a light on upstairs in one of the houses coming up to the traffic lights, and a shadow passed against the blinds. Hearing a baby yowl, he slowed to listen, and then resumed his stride.

He had some excuse for giving that idiot a few kicks, that Polish guy. The way he had been carrying on, the language out of him! And then, pulling a knife on him? Anyone with a brain would have high-tailed it out of there of course: called the Guards right away. But that was cocaine, he supposed, the belief that you could do pretty well anything. The guy was probably stoned already. How else would he have had the nerve to walk up to a parked car and ask for dope?

Fanning skipped across the road and gained the footpath on the far side. Another taxi drifted by. He thought to the hours ahead, and the dawn that would slink in so unspectacularly under all this cloud. There was nothing much heroic about this, was there. He thought of the narrow road with the hedges that met the main road, the nearest the bus would get to the farm. Aisling thought the sheep were pets they kept forever there, just like the farm cats.

He almost missed the short ping of a message. The strange compulsion that he mocked in others exerted its hold on Fanning too however, and he quickly found his way to the short, misspelled message: outisde ur place call me NOW.

Chapter 45

M
INOGUE
'
S DREAM ABOUT A PHONE RINGING
interrupted by Kathleen. In a sleepy voice that gave way to alarm, she said: “That's our phone.”

He was wide awake in a moment, up on his elbow. Ash-grey morning light. It was just gone six. He saw the fright on Kathleen's face, and he began to calculate what time it was with Daithi Minogue, resident of California, USA. Ten o'clock, was that a dangerous time over there?

He did not consider clothes, but made his way hurriedly to the stairs, steeling himself. Freeways full of impatient people, short-tempered people with guns, drugs, earthquakes, serial killers and drifters, and people going postal, and wildfires.

The answering machine had taken over, but had just started the announcement.

“Ignore that thing,” he said into the receiver. “It'll be over in a few seconds. Stay on the line. I'm listening.”

The other person hadn't hung up.

“Daithi? Cathy? Just wait for it to finish. I'm here.”

“Jaysus,” came the voice in a low, exasperated growl after the tone. “Bad enough I have to listen to you, but two of you – and at the same time? Too much. Too much, I'm telling you.”

“Tommy. What the hell is this? It's six o'clock in the morning. I hit the sack at three. I'm far from happy about this.”

“Have you heard of mobile phones?”

“They keep you at work twenty-four hours a day. Those things?”

“I was going to leave a message.”

“Make it a good one, will you. I have a message ready for you here. But I'll wait until I hear yours.”

“Take a powder there, boss,” said Malone. “You had three hours that I didn't have. Here's what I do have: Murph, you know about. If it's Murph, that is. The bit of toast they found in the boot of his car up in the Pine Forest. So you won't be talking to Murph.”

“Got that. Move on.”

“Listen to you. I'm doing your work for you here. I expect a cut of that paycheque of yours, you know.”

“Settle for a wedding present – but only if you lift the ban, and let me go to the wedding.”

“That's another matter. Here's the goods then: I got this message from a woman the name of Bríd O Connor. It was waiting on me when I checked in the office late. Trying to get in touch with me yesterday, but had a bit of an issue tracking me down.”

“I don't know the name.”

“Wife of one Dermot Fanning. Now you know her?”

“Your ticket to stardom, okay. But what's this about?”

“Listen, I'm telling you. You know the routine in our place, about routing calls and that. If we're out on a job, stuff just has to wait its turn. No interruptions. There's a gatekeeper, Alec Dowling, a Sergeant. He handles stuff, decides if we get a contact. Anyway. That's why I only picked this up late, I should say early this morning. She's in a state. Husband did a bunk, and she can't get ahold of him.”

“Okay. Look, Tommy, I haven't done a jigsaw puzzle since I was a child.”

“Did they have them then?”

“Proceed. I'll save my bad words for when I meet you in person.”

“She and the hubby had a big row the other night. Out he walks, and she hasn't seen him since.”

“Unusual?”

“Yep. According to her. Oh sure, the artsy-fartsy lifestyle and all, but she's a teacher. Says she to me, ‘We're a very normal couple, I want you to know.'”

“The point, Tommy, the point. I'm on a low battery here, man.”

“Point is he's missing, and she says he had been doing some odd things before he, um, took his leave of her.”

“Odd. Isn't that what filmy, artisty people do?”

“She says he came home with a cut on his leg, and he was manky, and out of it.”

“Like I said about that crowd?”

“Will you stop hopping the ball on me for a minute there? Fanning was doing research on gangs here in Dublin. Hanging out with them.”

“Got fond of it maybe?”

“She says she thinks he was stoned the other night. That that's the only way she can account for him losing his rag with her. Mild-mannered, wouldn't hurt a fly, says she.”

Minogue broke his gaze on the rings of the new cooker.

“Okay,” he said. “I'm getting it, sorry. It's Murph he was hanging out with.”

“Good. You saved me shouting at you there. Now I haven't got to the real story here. She left a message, said that Fanning had tried to call her that night – that morning actually. But she didn't answer the phone. She knew it was him, she said, and she was mad at him. He leaves a message on their machine, but it gets cut off. She doesn't know why, but she remembers him talking about getting a new mobile, or something about a battery. So she thinks the phone died on him.”