Under Construction: A DI McNally Detective Thriller, page 2
Until, three years ago, he’d gone missing. With absolutely no trace as to where he went, and due to his growing popularity within the city, the search had been lengthy and costly, but to no avail. Nuala is convinced it was one of those same organisations he was trying so hard to keep in the past that took him out of their hair. Not liking that he was a threat to their party. Experience in covering their trail and keeping their nose, and hands, clean. The police too scared to investigate past the preliminaries when they were mentioned. The police in Northern Ireland have had bad reputations from way back in the height of the Troubles. Even today if there’s some form of riot, they have to sit tight and take petrol bomb after petrol bomb whilst they shelter in their fire-resistant land rovers, unable to retaliate in case they’re accused of police brutality.
That would open a brand-new can of worms. As will continuing to dig further into these organisation’s actions to find out what happened to Nuala’s poor husband. They never admitted it, but she knows that’s why. The last thing they, and the country, need is another civil war on their hands. They say the trouble is over, and it is to an extent, but there’s still spats on both sides of the River Foyle, which splits the city down the middle. Episodes of violence across the city every now and then further highlights that these people are still at large and dangerous.
“I know, pet. But sure, it’ll all be rubble in a few weeks anyway,” Nuala purses her lips as a tractor pulls out onto the main road, making her stamp on the brakes and bringing her down from 60 to 30.
The irony isn’t lost on Nuala as she becomes annoyed at potentially being stuck behind this arsehole in single lane traffic until she climbs the Glenshane Mountain in a dozen miles. The main road between Derry and Belfast, Northern Ireland’s two biggest cities, has been a headache in the making for over a decade, and the reason they’ve had to move out of their house. A new dual carriageway is in the works, promising a faster commute, but to the loss of many people’s homes and businesses on the Glenshane Road. They’ve known for years that they’d have to up and leave, but they sure as hell didn’t go quietly. Aaron, her husband, fought and fought, trying every avenue and three or four solicitors, but after he went missing, Nuala could hold them off no longer. The fact that they wanted to stay in case Aaron showed up again and would know where to find them wasn’t a justifiable argument in the government’s eyes. So, Nuala had had to settle with a compensation of the price of the house if they were to sell, plus an extra third on top of that
But that wasn’t enough. In her eyes, it was priceless. After all, it was Nuala’s father’s house, and his father’s before that, who helped build it from scratch. Her mother offered it to her and her little family after her husband, Nuala’s father, died, saying it was too big for her to fart around in on her own. Since Kealen showed no sign of moving back from Australia with his wains, it would’ve gone to waste.
Relieved to see the tractor veering left into an old country lane, Nuala pushes the car into fourth gear and gives it the welly as she crawls back to 60, just to be met with a 40 speed limit sign ahead, shortly followed with a men at work sign behind it. The sooner all this is done, the better, she thinks, growing agitated and checking the time on the clock on the dashboard. Even though there are talks it could take another few years.
They’re on their way to Belfast City Airport to drop Danielle off for her second year at university, the bulging suitcase with half her wardrobe fit to burst in the passenger seat beside Nuala. Newcastle, she chose, despite Nuala’s nagging that Coleraine was both closer and cheaper. What with only being less than an hour up the road and yet to be hit with the £9k student fees that the mainland adhered to. Nuala just hopes she’ll return after her studies, unlike Ritchie, her eldest son who had shipped off to Cardiff and got a job there even before his graduation. Now she’s lucky if he’s back at Christmas or an odd weekend during the year. They’d went to see him a few times, of course, but the Welsh accent gave her a migraine, she doesn’t know how he can stick it. But after having a fortnight-long argument a few months back with Michelle about having to continue her education and not having her laze about the house watching Netflix all day every day come September, they finally settled on the North West Regional College, or the Tech as the young ones call it, in the city. It seems she has no plans to fly the nest just yet.
Spoilt rotten, Nuala thinks as she looks back at her, mirroring her sister with both their attentions engrossed on their phones. They hadn’t had it easy, none of them had. Between Aaron’s disappearance and the intense search for months afterwards. Then, finally having to admit defeat that he was dead and try to move on, whilst battling with the government to keep their home. Now, they rent a lovely house in Altnagelvin, unable to find a good enough one to buy just yet and not wanting to settle for one they’d grow to resent and regret. For the first time in a few years, life is good.
Chapter Two:
The boisterous cheers of the lads follow the smash of the glass as the barmaid reaches down to retrieve the broken pieces, beetroot faced. Even more embarrassed that she must bypass their table to get to the kitchen, where she receives a few more wolf whistles and misogynistic jeers. As the door through to the kitchen swings shut behind her, Chris turns his head back to the table of friends and pints. It’s been a while since he’s been out with the boys, work taking its toll on him. Wanting to spend the weekends getting overtime rather than enjoy himself. Too physically exhausted to even cook when he finally crawls through his front door, the Dominos app telling him his pizza is out for delivery, never mind get a shower and go out on the piss.
“Your round,” Dave winks at him as he smacks his lips and slams his empty glass down on the table.
Rolling his eyes, Chris slugs from the table over to the bar, where the barman gives him a disgruntled look, obviously aware of how himself and his party treated his colleague.
“Give us five pints of Bud there, would ye hi?”
Nodding with pursed lips, he pulls a few shiny pint glasses out of the cupboard and lines them up in front of the tap. Chris can feel his brain swirling in his head as he steals another glance at the boys talking excitedly about the Liverpool match tomorrow night behind him. It had been too long. Sure he hadn’t even seen Travis since the Christmas night out, where they all adorned slimy jumpers brandishing laddish slogans like ‘tickle my xmas balls’ and ‘if found return to pub.’ He had got a right slagging when he’d landed with a snowman with makeshift eyes that goggled about when he walked. The only one left in Primark in his size as it seemed the entire city had the same idea as him. That had been a good night, just like tonight has been. He needs to make time for them more often.
“24 quid lad.”
Tapping his card off the contactless machine, he’s just trying to engineer how he’s going to lift all five pints at once when a girl leans over the bar beside him. Her blonde hair falls to just above her perky bum, which is fully on show in that short pink dress.
“Three double vodka and cokes and a blue WKD, please.”
He knows that voice. Turning towards her, he’s annoyed to see her looking the other way, hiding behind her hair. Intentional? Everything about her is familiar. Scanning her up and down as she brings a hand to her face, he nods towards her heart tattoo on her ankle, double chin on full show as he tries to place it.
“Steph?”
She looks back towards her table by the window, ignoring him, and he gazes around her. It has to be Steph. There’s Abbie and Georgia and Katie down at that table, eyes on their phones and wielding them in each other’s faces as they laugh along at some meme or video.
“Steph?” he tries again.
Jutting out her chin, she turns towards him, before widening her eyes in fake shock.
“Chris!” she elongates the ‘s’ at the end of his name, going in for a hug that’s more like a pat on the back, “didn’t see you there. How’s things?”
“Good, aye. Workin’ away,” he manages to just about supress his burp, “same shit, different day. What about ye?”
“Aye, we’re all just out for a girls’ night. Jimmy’s got the wain for the night, so we’re helping Georgia let her hair down for a change. She deserves it,” she spins towards Georgia who’s laughing away with a glass in her hand.
He stares at her gorgeous blonde locks and gets a whiff of her shampoo as she whips her head back towards him. He’d always admired her looks. But, oh, shit…
“What about you, who are you out with?”
He takes a step back to block her view, making a perfectly shaped eyebrow raise.
“Just some of the boys from back in the day, ye know? Dave… Travis… Jase…”
Her suspicions growing, she jolts a head over his shoulder before he can stop her and her brow creases. It doesn’t help that Jimmy bursts into a cackle just at that time.
“So, what’ve ye been up to? Uni and all or wha?”
“What?” she resumes her attention to him, before apologising to the barman who has finished up with their drinks. Pulling out her purse, she hands over a few notes. “Aye, grand. Workloads a bit shite like, but sure what do I expect studying psychology?”
Chris snorts.
“Aye you’re right, don’t know how ye could be at that. I’d have fallen asleep in one of the classes.”
“Lectures,” she corrects him with a fake smile, “right, well get you back to ‘the lads,’” she air quotes, “I’m sure I’ll see you again.”
“Jesus what’s taking ya so long, lad? Dyin’ a drooth here.”
Chris closes his eyes in embarrassment. He hopes that isn’t Jimmy. He glances over his shoulder and is relieved to see that it’s Jase.
“Awk, Jesus. Alright, Steph? Didn’t see ye there, how ye keepin’?”
Chris leans back to let Jase step into the conversation, both physically and theoretically, whilst trying his best not to cringe. Jase always had an unreciprocated fancy towards Steph. Steph looks at him now and he can tell she’s equally as disgusted with him now as she was back in their teen years.
“Grand, aye, Jason. And yourself?” she says while turning her back to him and lifting her drinks.
“The very best after seeing your sexy self,” Jase laughs before frowning at her departure.
“Anyway, nice speaking to you, Chris.”
“Er… Right, hi. Good luck.”
He resumes his attention to Jase, who lifts three pints at a time, his dirty fingers splashing around in one of the glasses.
“That one’s yours ye dirty bastard,” he nods towards his blackened fingers from the garage as they make their way back over to the table, “and wait till ye see this drama.”
“What drama?” Dave takes his pint from Chris’s hands and gulps down a few mouthfuls, “you cheesin’ with Steph again ya dirty heure, was her best friend not enough?”
Everyone laughs except Chris, his eyes fixed over towards the girls’ table as they all link heads, before Georgia jerks her head around towards them with as much subtlety as a bull in a china shop.
“Jimmy, where’s the wee man tonight?” Chris spits through gritted teeth.
Jimmy looks up from his pint and hiccups.
“My ma has him. Why?”
“Aw fuck, here we go boys,” Travis squirms in his seat as they see Georgia marching towards them.
Jimmy, still with his back to the scene, is none the wiser until she looms over him, arms crossed. Looking up from her shadow, the blood drains from his once beaming face. Now, he looks like he’s going to lose a few kneecaps.
“Alright, Geor-“
“Where the hell is William?”
“He’s grand, he’s with my ma. Calm do-“
“You barely ever spend time with your own son, Jimmy… And when you get a chance, you’re out with all your friends getting steamin’?”
“Look, Georgie, I spent all evening with him.”
“All evening?” she screeches, “I dropped him round after work about half 6, it’s not even 11 yet, Jimmy?”
“Well, sure he’s in his bed and all now anyway.”
The boys around him inhale awkwardly. Bad move.
“So, you think it’s okay to just come out drinking when he’s in his bed? Jimmy, I look after our son every day, how often do you even try to see him? It’s always me that has to ask you to fuckin’ babysit your own son when I want a night to myself.”
“Well, you still can have a night to yourself. We’re only stoppin’ here for one then we’re heading down Waterloo Place and doin’ a bar crawl.”
“Whilst your ma is looking after my son. And you’ll be hungover in the morning, so I take it you’re not going to get up at 5am to watch cartoons with him?”
“With any luck I’ll only be getting home by then,” Jimmy laughs and lifts his drink to his lips, looking around at his friends expectedly with a wink.
No one laughs. No one smirks. No one even looks up from their laps.
“Nice one, Jimmy. Still the pathetic little boy you always were.”
Georgia turns to leave but Jimmy grabs her wrist.
“Georgie, wait, will ya? Talk to me.”
“No!” she spins back around as Jimmy stands, waving his hands at her in an attempt to calm her down, the other tables are looking. “What else is there to talk about, Jimmy? Nothing in your life has changed, has it? I got fat, had to push a baby with your massive fuckin’ head out of me and now I look after him whilst tryin’ to hold down a job. I couldn’t go to uni in England or Scotland or whatever I had in front of me. And all for one stupid one-time fling with you, which I don’t even fuckin’ remember, shows how good you were.”
Jimmy leads a hysteric Georgia out to the stairs for a slither of privacy, although her wails echo around the bar. At once, the other three girls have fished their drinks and migrated over.
“Squeeze up,” Steph brings a chair over from a vacant surrounding table to beside Chris, “that was a bit of a shit show, wasn’t it?”
The girls have clearly come over to divide the boys’ attention from the ongoing argument that can still be heard petering through from the stairs.
“Aye, you’re right,” Chris laughs, “wouldn’t wanna be Jimmy’s balls at the minute.”
The group decide to leave them to it and chat and laugh about old times. They had gone to different schools, but had met through mutual friends, house parties and nights out. They talk about the time Jase got so drunk he passed out and pissed himself on Abbie’s sofa, everyone laughing along apart from the two in question. They discuss their other friends, who’s riding who and who has gone where for uni or where they ended up working.
Out of their bigger friendship group, the only people to have stayed in Derry are the nine in this bar. Everyone else went to uni in Belfast or the mainland, Katie’s twin Decky even moved to Australia when he decided chemical engineering just wasn’t for him. Dave is just finishing a story about the time he caught Abbie getting down and dirty with his cousin Bobby when Chris recollects what night he’s talking about.
“That’s the first night I met Danielle,” he mutters, more to himself than to the table.
Steph turns her head in his direction, but if anyone else heard him they haven’t acknowledged it. As Dave bursts into laughter and points to Travis, about to delve into another embarrassing story, Steph whispers in his ear.
“Do you still think about her?”
Chris moves his mouth to the side, thinking how honest to be with his ex-girlfriend’s best friend.
“Everyday.”
Chapter Three:
2016
_____
Squinting against the light shining through her window, Danielle yawns. She forgot to close her blinds when she got home last night. She doesn’t remember a lot, but the curtains lying useless either side of her window tells her as much. She shifts around to get more comfortable and finds Chris lying beside her, topless and snoring. She has an urge to cuddle into him and try to drift back to sleep, but something stops her. A niggling feeling in her head. Did they have a fight? God knows they’ve been having plenty the past few months.
Deciding she won’t be able to get back to sleep just yet, what with the morning light, and the fact she needs to pee, she exhales frustratedly before stepping out of the bed and thrusting the curtains over the window. The sliding noise makes Chris snort and stir, so Danielle pads out of the room and down the hall towards the bathroom before he wakes. Sitting on the toilet, she rests her elbows on her knees and her pounding head in her hands, urging flashbacks of last night to both go away as well as reveal themselves. Is she in the wrong? Even if she isn’t, Chris sure as hell won’t admit it. Stubborn ballbag.
She remembers something about Katie’s living room. Bitching to Dave about how annoying Chris is, maybe? But, why would she go off into a rant like that? And to Chris’s best mate of all people? Not that Dave is a certified gossip, but that’s sure going to get back to Chris’s ears. Did he do something? Something about… Oh, shit. What happened? She flushes the toilet and falls over to the sink, giving herself a look of disgust once she sees her dishevelled hair and smudged makeup from hours of crying, no doubt. Stepping out of the bathroom, she closes the door behind her and that’s when the memory floods back.
