The Wrong Kind of Blood (9 page)

“Her whole ‘I’m a sensitive soul on the edge’ bit. Sobbing and then being brave about it, she’s so lonely, she can’t take much more. She does it in Hennessy’s about once a month. Then she goes home with some dupe who’s given her a shoulder to cry on. It’s pathetic.”

“Sounds like it’s personal, Tommy,” I said.

Tommy flashed me a look of cold rage, then drained his glass and sat with his head down, breathing heavily through his nose.

“Tell me this: What’s the deal with that marriage? How did the most beautiful girl in Bayview end up with a bloated rich kid like Peter Dawson?”

Tommy held his left hand up and rubbed thumb against index and middle fingers.

“Makes the world go round,” he said. “Linda did the whole arty thing in her twenties. Tried to make a go of it as a painter, went out with mad beardy blokes, lived in dives, suffered for her art. She didn’t make it. After ten years, she thought, time to trade that dream in. And she was determined it was going to be a cash deal. So she went after Peter Dawson.”

“Surely she had a wider choice. Rich men form a queue for a woman like that.”

“Ah yeah, but she wanted to be sure, you know?”

“Sure of what?”

“Sure she wouldn’t fall in love with the guy. And with Peter, that was guaranteed, at least as far as she was concerned.”

“What kind of woman would want to guarantee herself a loveless marriage?”

“The kind of woman who doesn’t have an ounce of love in her,” Tommy said bitterly. “The kind of woman you should have nothing to do with, Ed. Steer clear, man, steer clear.”

The dope and the whiskey had proved no match for Tommy’s nerves: he was tapping his feet and nodding his head, as if the arrhythmic vibrations of his past were working their way through his bones. He was bound up with Linda and Peter in ways I didn’t know about yet, but there was no point in asking him straight out: Tommy would always tell a lie in preference to the truth, as much out of habit as strategy. Better to drop a hard fact and see if it caused a ripple.

“Tommy, do you know a local councillor name of Seosamh MacLiam?” I said.

Tommy gave me his thinking face, meaning either he was checking his dope-addled memory or he was stalling.

“Because they fished him out of the sea today.”

That did it. Tommy looked like someone had walked across his grave.

“Joey Williamson is dead?”

“I think that’s who Peter Dawson was due to meet the day he disappeared. Probably it was Williamson who called his mobile when he was with you in the High Tide.”

“Jesus. I don’t believe it.”

“Did you know him, Tommy?”

“Everyone knew him, he was… well, he was a councillor, but he was really sound, you know? Against the developers, the builders, he led the protests when they were going to build on that old Viking site in Castlehill. He was in favor of legalizing weed too.”

“What was Peter Dawson’s connection with him? I understand he wasn’t exactly Mr. Popular with the building trade.”

“I don’t know.”

“You weren’t really in the High Tide to sell Peter Dawson drugs, were you? What were you meeting him about, Tommy?”

He stood up and dragged his ruined leg halfway across the garden. The sky had clouded over now. It was clammy, and the midges were beginning to bite. Sweat glistened like sequins on Tommy Owens’s darkening face.

“What is this, Mr. Private Fucking Dick? Do you think I know where Peter is? What the fuck are all these questions for?”

The swear words rang out like chimes of menace in the hot suburban night.

“Keep your voice down. All I’m trying to do is establish the facts.”

“Well you don’t have to give me the third degree while you’re doing it,” Tommy said sulkily. “Fucking Gestapo tactics.” He was pouting like a thwarted boy, and I smiled in spite of myself.

“I haven’t pulled your fingernails off yet, have I?”

“Only a matter of time,” said Tommy, but he smiled too, and tossed his head like a dog, as if he was trying to shake his mood away.

His mobile rang — the ringtone was the eleven-note riff to Thin Lizzy’s “Whiskey in the Jar,” a record we played to death as schoolboys, proud they were the first Irish band to make it onto
Top of the Pops
— and he hobbled as far as the gate to answer it. When he came back, he wasn’t smiling anymore.

“That was Podge Halligan,” he said. “He wants to meet me tonight, in Hennessy’s. Bring the gun and everything.”

“Did he say why?”

“‘And we’ll take it from there.’ That’s all he said.”

“What do you think he meant? Is it a loyalty test, or does he want you to use the gun?”

“Maybe both,” Tommy said. Fear showed in his tiny eyes. “I can’t do it, Ed, I can’t… what am I gonna do?”

He sounded like he was going to burst into tears. I felt a surge of anger flood my brain: at Tommy Owens’s weakness, his inability or refusal to do anything to help himself, his complacent assumption that whatever lie he told or drug he sold, whatever act of small-time criminality he committed, everything would be fine — despite all the mounting evidence to the contrary.

The dark green Volvo gleamed in the sun. I walked around it, running my hand along the bodywork, tapping on the windows and opening and closing the hood, as if I were a prospective buyer, inspecting the car for flaws. Even if there had been any, short of a flat tire I wouldn’t have been able to spot them. The car had belonged to my father, had evidently been a source of pride to him, and on some level — a level way below thought — maybe I was trying to feel that pride too, feel some vibration, some distant echo of the man he was. But it was useless. I didn’t know enough about my father, and I didn’t know anything about cars, and all I ended up feeling was foolish on top of angry, like someone trying to look as if he knows what he’s doing and failing. Sweat pinpricked my brow and the roots of my hair.

“I’ve got to go,” I said. “Have you got the keys?”

“Do you want to drive it now?” Tommy said.

“No, I want to put it in a museum and charge admission. Have you got the keys?”

“They’re in the ignition.”

Of course they were. Being angry makes you behave like a fool, but realizing it doesn’t make you stop. I got in the Volvo and started the engine. Tommy came around to the driver’s window, eyebrows aloft in his anxious face.

“I’ll meet Podge Halligan for you, if you like,” I said.

“Oh God, man, would you?”

Tears actually did appear in his eyes, and he reached into the car and clutched my arm.

“Provided you tell me the truth: why did you meet Peter Dawson on Friday?”

Tommy exhaled slowly.

“To give him money.”

“Tommy, for fuck’s sake—”

“Not my money.”

“Who did it come from then?”

Tommy looked around him, then leaned in the window and spoke softly in my ear.

“George Halligan,” he said.

THE CLUTCH ON THE VOLVO WAS A BIT STIFF, AND THE
engine roared, and it rattled as I picked up speed, but it was a smooth ride, and I hit sixty for a short stretch coming along the coast road past Bayview. The sun had dropped behind the hill, and a fresh salt breeze gusted in off the paling sea. I passed the train station and pointed the car up the drive of the Bayview Hotel. A smart wedding was in full swing, and refugees from the dance floor, the men in disintegrating morning suits, the women in pristine charcoal and aubergine two-pieces, spilled out onto the terrace and sat smoking in the grounds. I parked the car and went to reception, where a TV was announcing the death of Seosamh MacLiam.

Before I left, Tommy Owens told me he assumed the money — a “bag of cash,” he called it — was some kind of sweetener from the Halligans to Peter Dawson — for what, he didn’t know, but the Halligans ran legitimate site security for builders all over the Southside, so it could have been a tender for future work in that line, or a bribe to help them keep the contract. He denied being a bagman for George Halligan, and said that was the only time he had made such a payoff. We agreed it made sense for him to lie low in Quarry Fields tonight.

I got a telephone directory, sat in the shade of an old eucalyptus to the rear of the hotel, ordered a pint of Guinness from a passing waitress and began to work my way through the list of councillors and council employees. It took a while, as there were several entries for most of the names. Three weren’t listed at all — Leo McSweeney, Angela Mackey, and the planning officer, James Kearney. Brian Joyce and Mary Rafferty weren’t at home, but I got office numbers to ring in the morning.

Excluding MacLiam/Williamson, that left eight calls. Local politicians the world over resent the fact that the national media doesn’t report their many opinions and activities in the detail they believe they deserve, or at all, so I identified myself as Sean O’Brien of the
Irish Times,
ringing to get their reactions to the death of their Seosamh MacLiam. The reactions in the first six cases were similar: shock, dismay, a brief tribute, its generosity proportional to the political persuasion of the speaker. In each case, I asked whether they felt MacLiam’s close relationship with Peter Dawson of Dawson Construction was unusual for an antidevelopment candidate; Noel Lavelle, Conor Gogan, Christine Kelly, Tom Farrelly, Eamonn Macdonald and Brendan Harvey all denied any knowledge of the relationship, with Lavelle and Harvey going on to say they’d be amazed if any such relationship existed: they had worked closely with MacLiam on many planning and rezoning appeals, and on the recent campaign to save the swimming pool; indeed, Lavelle said MacLiam was antibuilder “to a fault,” echoing Rory Dagg’s verdict.

The next call I made was to Eithne Wall, but someone had got to her first. She had rung the
Irish Times
and been told they had no reporter by the name of Sean O’Brien working for them. She said she had caller ID on her telephone, and she was going to report my mobile number to the Guards. I had blocked my number from showing on a caller ID display, but I hung up anyway. At least one of the first six councillors I had spoken to had something to lose. I needed to get to my last man before he was got at.

John O’Driscoll had a wavery, slightly camp Dublin accent, and a precise, formal manner, as if he were dictating to a secretary. He sounded nervous, so I decided to see if I could work out why.

“Sean O’Brien of the
Irish Times
here, Councillor O’Driscoll. We’re just wondering in the wake of Councillor MacLiam’s murder why your name keeps coming up, linked with Peter Dawson of Dawson Construction?”

There was a long pause.

“Councillor O’Driscoll?”

“I have always been happy to listen to the public when it comes to any planning and development decisions, and to act in the interests of the common good, and that remains the case in relation to Seafield Swimming Pool, Castlehill Golf Club, or indeed any other proposed development.”

I had found an empty file in Peter Dawson’s office marked “Golf Club.” I asked O’Driscoll why he had mentioned Castlehill Golf Club, but he was in mid-flow.

“I have no special connection with Peter Dawson. Nor had I any with Councillor MacLiam, whose tragic death is a blow to us all. My thoughts are with his wife and children at this sad time.”

I tried again.

“Councillor, could you expand on your remarks about Castlehill Golf Club?”

But O’Driscoll had hung up.

Carmel Donnelly (O’Rourke as was) gave me a hug, looked me up and down, grinned and said, “Jesus, Ed Loy, you look like shit.” She was a big-boned woman with wide, knowing eyes and full lips. Her face had a few lines now, her chestnut hair was threaded with gray, and her clothes were flecked with milk and children’s food, but she had a crooked, crinkle-eyed smile and a way of looking at you that made you feel like you’d missed your chance with her, but only just. Carmel and Dave had been together since they were sixteen; like Dave becoming a cop, it was one of those things you knew was meant to be.

“I’m sorry about your ma, Ed. Mine died last April. No one tells you how awful it’s going to be, doesn’t matter what age you are. For a year, I’d wake in the middle of the night and cry my way toward dawn. Dave had to sleep downstairs, he couldn’t handle it.”

Her eyes filled with tears. She raised her palms in the air, shook her head and smiled. There were kids’ paintings on the walls, holiday snaps in frames, the remnants of a meal on the table. In the divorce cases I’d worked, they always talked about “the family home” and they were almost always lying; the parents hadn’t had enough love, or luck, or guts, or whatever it is you need to create one. Dave and Carmel had managed it though. I looked at photographs of the children: three boys of about four, six and eight, and a little girl with a shock of fair curls.

“What age is the girl?”

“Sadie’s just two. You’ve not been tempted?”

I shrugged, and gave what I hoped looked like a wistful smile.

“Never too late, for men anyway,” Carmel said. “Although it gets much harder on the knees.”

There was a loud crash upstairs, followed by shouts of glee and howls of pain.

“I wouldn’t always recommend it but. Dave’s out back. I hope you have some good news for him; he told me you were behaving like a prick.”

Carmel swept upstairs to calm the mayhem that had erupted. I went out to the back garden, where Dave was having an argument with an eight-foot rosebush. As I approached, Dave freed the last root, picked the bush up and heaved it in my path. I went down fast and, after pricking my hands on the rosebush’s thorns, lay there beneath it.

“That’s for making a clown of me today, you bollocks you.”

“Are you happy now?” I shouted.

“No,” Dave said. “But at least I don’t look as fucking stupid as you do.”

He picked the massive rosebush off me and offered me his hand. I got up without his help and brushed petals and leaves from my clothes. Blood oozed from my torn hands. Dave was far from being a stupid man, but he had an amazingly stupid grin on his big open face.

“Fiona Reed take a dim view then, did she?” I said.