The Scrapper (2 page)

ANTHONY ‘SPARROW’ McCABE had a lump the size of a golf ball over his right eye. His left eyelid was swollen and looked particularly sore where the four stitches were. His top lip was puffed up beneath the dark brown moustache, and his cheekbones were every colour of the rainbow. Even so, it was obvious, thanks to the sparkling blue eyes and impish smile, that when the swelling and discolouration were gone, Eileen Coffey had the cutest-looking boyfriend in Snuggstown. It was not just because of his small frame that Anthony had earned the nickname Sparrow, but because of the animated way he moved when he spoke, like a tiny sparrow flitting from tree to tree. He was excited now, and looked more sparrow-like than ever, his words spilling from his mouth.

‘Please marry me, Eileen,’ Sparrow pleaded.

‘I will. Yeh know I will, Sparrow McCabe, but not yet. I will after the baby is born.’ She tried to calm him.

Sparrow glowed at the thought of his new baby. He smiled at Eileen as best he could, and laid his hand gently on her stomach. Her pregnancy wasn’t obvious, but he was sure
he could feel a tiny heartbeat. With small movements he began to rub her tummy. She looked down at his hand. His knuckles were swollen and purple, yet his touch was as light as an angel’s feather. He snuggled into her neck.

‘Next year when I’m European champion, Eileen, will yeh marry me then?’

‘I don’t care if you’re world champion as long as you’re you. My sparrow.’ Eileen put her arms gently around him. They lay there on the couch, in their own little world bordered by each other’s arms. Sparrow placed his other hand on Eileen’s knee and slowly began to move it along her thigh. He moved it sideways until he could now feel both thighs, one with his palm, one with the back of his hand. Gently Eileen pushed her thighs together, hugging Sparrow’s probing hand. Then the door burst open. In the door-frame stood both mothers, Dolly and Rita. It was Sparrow’s mother, Rita, who spoke:

‘Right then, lover boy. Let’s talk about this weddin’.’

As they came out of St Catherine’s church the bride and groom were aglow with joy. The wedding attire made the couple look rich and feel important, even if their size made them look as though they had just stepped off the top of the wedding cake. Eileen was startled by the amount of camera flashes, she hadn’t realised the extent of the press interest – and they
were
interested. For just two days before the wedding Lorenzo Menendez had finally announced that he would fight Sparrow for the European lightweight title. This
had already prompted headlines such as: ‘New groom will sweep clean’ or ‘Hitch the maiden, ditch the Spaniard’.

The wedding reception that followed was full of joy and laughter. Macker delivered a wonderful speech on behalf of the groom’s family, and was under strict orders that at no stage during the evening was his penis to be produced.

‘What are you goin’ to do?’ Macker had asked Rita that morning. ‘Stitch me fly up?’

‘No,’ Rita replied and produced a shiny stainless-steel kitchen knife. ‘But let me tell yeh this, if you take out your willie I’ll be takin’ out this,’ she waved the knife menacingly. ‘And then,’ she added, ‘your dreams will come true, your willie
will
touch the floor.’

Later that evening at the reception, when Rita and Dolly had a couple of drinks under their belts, Rita told Dolly the story of the confrontation that morning and both women howled with laughter. It was clear to everybody that whatever way the marriage went the mothers-in-law were going to be firm friends.

SIXTY-FOUR MILES AWAY on the same night that Sparrow and Eileen were celebrating their marriage, another ceremony was taking place. The venue was somewhat different; it was Templemore police training centre. Seventy-four graduates, their families, girlfriends, and in some cases wives, were partying and celebrating the culmination of three years’ hard training. The young men looked quite dashing in their full dress uniforms. Although drink was flowing freely, they were careful to be on their best behaviour because as usual the function was attended by the ‘brass’ of the police force. One young graduate, Kieran Clancy, stood leaning against a pillar watching the dancing and taking in the joy of the celebration. One hundred young men had joined this class three years ago and only seventy-four had made it through to the finish. Kieran had been placed top of the class.

‘Christ, I’m after losin’ a whore of a button!’

Kieran turned towards Michael Malone, the owner of the deep west-of-Ireland voice. The Galway man, with the close-cropped ginger hair, was in a flap.

‘You what?’ Kieran asked calmly.

‘I’m after losin’ a bloody button.’ Malone repeated his statement, sounding as if he had lost the crown jewels.

Kieran smiled, casually glanced around the room, then fixed his eyes on a spot and pointed. ‘There it is, there, look, just under that table.’

The other man beamed a smile. ‘Ah sweet Jaysus, Kieran, you’re amazing. Thanks a lot,’ and he rushed off to get the button.

Kieran Clancy’s mother had told him from a very early age that he had St Anthony’s gift, the gift of finding things. If anything were lost in their home in Dublin, Kieran’s mother would simply say, ‘Just wait till Kieran comes in from school and he’ll find it.’ And he usually did, although he regarded it as a ‘knack’ rather than a gift.

Confirmation of this knack of his came when he was about thirteen years of age, on a day out at the beach with his mother and father and some relations. Some of Kieran’s aunts and uncles were swimming while he was sitting on a towel on the sand with his mother, devouring sandwiches. Kieran’s Aunt Maeve returned from the water dripping wet and looking so cold that even her goose bumps had goose bumps. She was about to take a sandwich when she suddenly exclaimed, ‘Good Lord, my ring! I’ve lost my wedding ring!’

Kieran’s mother got Maeve to take Kieran and herself out to where she had been swimming. ‘It was about here,’ she told them, ‘but you can’t even see in the water it’s so clouded with sand.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Kieran’s mother said, and she simply nodded at Kieran. Kieran was now standing up to his thighs
in seawater. He bent over and dug his hands deep into the sand beneath the water; slowly he brought them up and, as the water washed the sand from his hands, there on his little finger was a gold wedding band.

‘I don’t believe it!’ shrieked Maeve. ‘You’re a marvel! Betty, that child definitely has St Anthony’s gift.’

When at eighteen years of age Kieran had announced to his mother that he wished to become a member of the Garda Síochána she showed little surprise, and her only comment was, ‘Well, with St Anthony’s gift you’ll probably make a great detective.’ Detective Kieran Clancy: he liked the sound of that.

Now Kieran stood there on his graduation night, a tiny smile on his face as those memories came floating back to him. He didn’t know he was being watched.

Moya Connolly had not planned to come to the graduation this evening. She had been on the verge of a tantrum, insisting she wasn’t attending yet another graduation ball with her father, the Police Commissioner. She was a beautiful girl and her father loved to show her off – with her red hair, pale skin and green eyes she looked the typical Irish colleen. But an Irish colleen without a boyfriend. For with fiery red hair came a fiery temper, and although many’s the man and boy had tried, none could tie her down. Exasperated, her father often said, ‘No man will pick Moya, ‘tis Moya will pick her own man.’

Unknown to her father, that very night Moya was making her choice. She looked Kieran Clancy over again and again: his blond hair, the high cheek bones and the strong chin. That mischievous glint in his eye.

Moya’s mother sat down beside her at the circular table, which still had the remains of the evening’s dinner scattered around it. ‘His name is Clancy, Kieran Clancy,’ she announced. ‘He comes from Rathfarnham. He’s twenty-three years of age and he wants to be a detective.’

Moya was stunned at first, then burst out laughing. ‘Oh Mum, you’re a tonic – you should have been in Intelligence.’

‘I often think I am, dear, and have been all my life.’

The two women laughed, then Moya became a little more serious. ‘He is nice, isn’t he, Mum?’

‘Gorgeous. And he graduated top of the class, just like your father.’ Both women were now looking at Kieran.

‘Oh Mum, I swore I’d never fall for a policeman.’

‘So did I, love.’ Again the two women laughed.

As they watched Kieran, Moya’s father approached him and began to speak to him.

‘What’s Dad doing?’ Moya wondered aloud.

‘He’s going to introduce him to us – I asked him to.’

‘Oh Mum, for heaven’s sake!’

They saw the two men chat, Kieran now out of his casual pose and standing erect, military-style. After a few moments the Commissioner raised his hand, indicated their table, and the two began to make their way towards Moya and her mother.

‘Good God, he’s bringing him over.’

‘Well, of course he is! What did you expect him to do – shout the introduction across the room? Just be calm, dear,
for goodness sake.’

Moya tried to be as casual as possible when the two men eventually reached the table. Kieran Clancy was even more attractive close up than he had been from a distance. He shook the Commissioner’s wife’s hand very formally and then turned to Moya. He took her hand in his, and was in the middle of saying ‘How do you do’ when his expression changed completely. Carmel Connolly looked at her husband and smiled. The Commissioner smiled back. They were both recalling a similar situation thirty years previously – and, surprisingly, the Commissioner blushed.

BY ANY STANDARDS, it was a beautiful house. Sheila Murtagh had convinced her husband Dennis to allow her to do all five bedrooms in different colours, although Dennis himself would have gone for plain white throughout, reflecting his keep-it-simple attitude, an attitude every bank manager needed. The Murtaghs had three children and three children’s bedrooms, although only two of them were being used, as the two boys shared bunk-beds in one of the rooms. They were sound asleep right now. In the other occupied bedroom was Deirdre, the Murtagh’s eldest child and only daughter. She was sixteen and had all the trappings of a sixteen-year-old’s lifestyle scattered around her room. Deirdre was in her room, but she wasn’t asleep. She would have found it very difficult to sleep in the position she was in, spread-eagled on the bed, face up, with an arm tied to each of the top bed posts and a leg tied to each of the bottom bed posts. Her eyes were tightly closed and across her mouth was a strip of surgical tape. She was breathing heavily through her nose and through the tape one could just hear her murmur, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace …’

Downstairs in one of the two carver chairs in the dining room sat Sheila Murtagh. Her legs were tied to the legs of the chair and her arms to the beautiful hand-carved arm rests. She too had surgical tape across her mouth, but unlike her daughter who was unscathed, Sheila had bruises and small cuts across her forehead and down the left side of her face. She seemed to be sleeping soundly, but actually she had passed out some fifteen minutes earlier from overwhelming fear.

Half-way down the hall, and through two french doors, was the main living room. On the pink velour couch and its matching armchairs sat three men, smoking and talking.

The two that sat on the couch were easily identifiable as brothers; they were Bubbles and Teddy Morgan. The Morgans were large men and had been inseparable since their early childhood. They had been in school together, they had been in borstal together, they went to parties together, and they had been in prison together. The two were a bit of an enigma, you see, for Bubbles had no capacity to think, so Teddy had to think for both of them, and Teddy had difficulty even in thinking for himself! Neither was married, nor had either a girlfriend, although Teddy had been in love for a short time with a girl called Eileen Coffey. Though this love was never reciprocated, Teddy always regarded Eileen as ‘his girl’. Unfortunately for Teddy, Eileen was getting married that day, which probably accounted for his grumpy humour, the brunt of which had been taken by Sheila Murtagh in the kitchen. Neither of the two men was speaking; instead they were completely focused on and listening to the third man in the room.

This was Simon Williams. In Snuggstown he was known as Simple Simon, not because Simon was retarded in any way – quite the opposite. Simon was a very intelligent, very sharp man. He’d got his nickname ‘Simple’ because that was the first word Simon used to solve any problem. If somebody ruffled Simon’s feathers, Simon’s answer would be, ‘Simple, break his legs.’

‘Some day I’m going to have a house like this boy’s.’ Simon spoke softly as he glanced around the room. ‘Yeh see, lads, it’s all about application. It’s not enough to think you want to do something, you have to go and do it. And people have to know that you’re that kind of man. They have to know that if you say you’re going to do something you will, without fail. That’s how you get respect, lads. You take the arse-hole who owns this house. If I walked into his office yesterday and talked to him about, let’s say, starting a new business, do you think he’d give me respect? I don’t think so. But two seconds after he walks through that door you watch the kind of respect we get.’

‘And will yeh still live in Snuggstown, Mr Williams?’ Although the conversation had moved on, Bubbles Morgan was still at the house stage.

‘You must be joking, Bubbles! I don’t want to
live
in Snuggstown, I just want to
own
it, and then I’ll live somewhere else.’

‘You will, Mr Williams, you will own it!’ Teddy knew the right things to say. Simon smiled slightly; he enjoyed adoration, albeit from fools. The beam of two headlights swung across the room as a car pulled into the driveway of the Murtagh home.

‘Aye, aye lads, here’s our man.’

‘Let’s hope he has the keys, Mr Williams,’ Teddy commented.

‘Oh he has the keys all right, if not he’ll find them – otherwise we’ll bash the door of the bank down with his daughter’s head.’

The other two men began to laugh and Simon had to shush them with a finger over his lips.

Dennis Murtagh climbed out of the car, slammed the door and went around to the boot from where he extracted his golf clubs. He used the brass Yale key to open the garage door, and he left the clubs just inside. It had been a tough game, he hadn’t played well and he was tired. He hoped to go straight to bed, and in the back of his mind prayed that his wife was not in the humour for a chat. As he walked across the driveway to the front door the exterior light was switched on by a motion sensor. He let himself into the outer hall, closed the door and double-locked it, then went through the french doors into the hallway itself. He stood for a moment with his mouth agape. Three bulky figures stood before him, their faces covered by stocking masks. One thing he noticed that would stick with him for the rest of his life was that the middle figure had a Trilby hat on over the stocking mask. The other two held pistols. In unison the three cried, ‘Surprise!’