Firewater Blues (The Dublin Trilogy Book 6), page 4
It was hard to tell, given Rosie wasn’t making eye contact with Bunny, but he thought she looked embarrassed.
“It does now,” she said. “I tried to ring it and it didn’t work, so I opened your door and fixed it.”
“You opened my door?”
“It’s actually quite easy to do with some very basic tools. I watched a video on the internet once, when I lost my keys.”
Bunny paused for a second while he replayed Rosie’s words in his head. “You broke into my house, fixed the doorbell, and then went back outside and rang it?”
Rosie gave the same almost robotic nod. “Yes. Technically, I didn’t fix it. It just needed a new battery.” She indicated the record bag she was wearing on her hip. “I always carry spare batteries with me.”
Bunny was flummoxed as he considered what the correct response to this admission might be. He settled for moving on. “So, why are you looking for me?”
Rosie stared down at her ripped jeans and Doc Martens. Then, as if remembering something that she had disciplined herself to do, she raised her eyes to Bunny’s shoulder. “Could we discuss that in private, please?”
Bunny looked behind her at the empty path. Seeing him do so, Rosie pointed to her right. “Your neighbour is standing behind her front door, listening to us.”
“I most certainly am not,” came the instant response from behind Cynthia Doyle’s front door. “As it happens, I’m doing some dusting. I’m not listening to anything.”
Bunny raised his voice slightly. “Howerya, Cynthia.”
“I’m grand. How’s yourself, Bunny? Do you want me to drop over some lasagne later?”
“I’ve actually got plans, but thanks for the offer.” Bunny stepped to one side and opened his door wider. “Come on in, Rosie. We can have a cuppa and a proper catch-up.”
Rosie took a step forward then hesitated. “Are you aware that you smell terrible?”
Bunny blushed. “Yes, sorry. I was working undercover and only got back a couple of hours ago. The immersion wasn’t on so I thought I’d wait until later for a shower.”
She gave that nod again. “Okay. If it was me, I would prefer if somebody told me.”
“Me too,” agreed Bunny. “Actually, I’ll nip up and have a quick shower while the kettle’s on.”
Rosie trudged past him and made her way down the hallway towards the kitchen. Before Bunny could close the front door, Cynthia Doyle was out of her house and leaning over the low garden wall. “Is that the girl off the telly?” she whispered.
Bunny was confused. “Who? Rosie? I doubt it.”
“It is,” insisted Cynthia. “I’m sure of it. She was on that political programme last week. You know, the one with what’s-his-name with the squint and all those revolving chairs. She got stuck into that awful minister. Yer man – that hairdo from Kildare. He thinks he’s JFK but has the brains of a bucket of KFC.”
Bunny peered down the hallway towards the door that Rosie Flint had just disappeared through. “I don’t think that was her, but I’ll ask.”
“I’m telling you it was. By the way, she’s right – you fecking stink.”
Eight minutes and a hasty shower later, Bunny placed a cup of tea on the kitchen table in front of Rosie and sat down opposite her. He was aware the smell hadn’t gone entirely – that would take a bath, minimum – but at least it had been beaten back to the point at which it would hopefully no longer be a topic of conversation.
“There you go, Rosie. Actually, before we get to your thing – have you been on telly recently?”
“Yes. I was on Question Time as the Head of SWIT.”
“What now?”
“SWIT. Sex Workers of Ireland Together. I set up the organisation two years ago to campaign for the rights of sex workers. There was also a lot of discussion about violence against women.”
Bunny nodded. “Fair play to you. I know it’s a subject close to your heart. How did it go?”
She looked down at the tabletop. “Okay. I was very well prepared. I’m good when I’m well prepared, and this was important.”
She didn’t need to explain why.
On those long nights spent driving Rosie around the city, she’d eventually opened up to him about her unfortunate family history. Her father had passed away from cancer a couple of months after she was born, and then, when Rosie had been thirteen, her mother had been murdered. As if that wasn’t bad enough, her murder had been at the hands of an ex-partner who she had reported to the police on numerous occasions. It had prompted a review at the time, which only rubbed salt in the wound as the gardaí was absolved of any blame. Incredibly, nobody found fault with a desk sergeant advising a woman with a broken jaw that maybe she and her ex should sit down with the parish priest, to see if they could save their relationship.
Rosie had been left alone to work her way through the foster-care system, with nothing but a burning hatred for the Garda Síochána to keep her warm. Luckily, she’d ended up with a brilliant pair of foster parents and she’d managed to get her life together. She’d gone to college on a full scholarship. In fact, there had been competition between universities to enrol her. Trinity had won, as it was closest to the flat off Parnell Square where Rosie and her mother had lived.
“So, Rosie, what’s all this about?”
Bunny’s guest rotated her cup of tea twice, then left it where it was. “I need you to find my boyfriend.”
“Why? Where’s he gone?”
“If I knew that, I would not need you to find him.” From anyone else, the response would have been decidedly sarcastic in tone, but from Rosie it was merely a statement of fact.
“Right. Why don’t you start at the beginning and explain what’s happened?”
Rosie fixed her eyes on the cup in front of her as she spoke. “Two nights ago, Mark was supposed to be coming round to my apartment but he never showed up. That is very unusual. He is very reliable. I tried ringing him and got no response. The next morning, I dropped over to his apartment and there was no answer. I … let myself in and he wasn’t there. I had never been there before but some furniture was smashed and there was blood on the floor.”
“Oh dear,” said Bunny.
“Yes. That is when I rang the gardaí again.”
“Again?”
Rosie pursed her lips. “Yes, I rang them the night before – when he didn’t turn up. They laughed at me.”
Bunny winced. Given her history, that was particularly unfortunate. “Ah. Right.”
She flicked her eyes up to meet Bunny’s briefly. “As I told them, he is very reliable.”
“I’m assuming they took it a lot more seriously when you told them about the blood?”
She shook her head. “Not really. Two gardaí came round to the apartment and took a statement. Then a detective showed up and he kept asking me questions about how I’d got in.”
“Really?”
“I explained to him like I explained to you – I had seen a video and it is actually pretty easy to do.”
“Ah, I see. You didn’t have a key to your boyfriend’s apartment?”
She shook her head again. “No. He said my place was a lot nicer and he preferred to come and see me there. I didn’t mind as I prefer to be at my place too.”
“Fair enough. What did this detective say about the blood?”
“They spoke to some neighbours but nobody heard any kind of disturbance. They also went to the building site where Mark told me he worked, but they didn’t know who he was. They said a Mark Smith had never worked there. They said the blood on its own could have lots of explanations. They suggested I keep trying to ring him or else I get a new boyfriend.”
“Feck off,” said Bunny. “They didn’t really say that?”
“I think the detective was trying to be funny.”
“Sounds like a right gobshite. What was the guy’s name?”
“Detective Tierney.”
Bunny resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Owen Tierney?”
Rosie’s eyes darted to Bunny’s for a moment before she looked away again and gave a quick bob of her head.
“Well, that figures. He’s a monumental prick. ’Tis hard to tell if he’s completely incompetent and a bit lazy, or incredibly lazy and only a little incompetent, but the results are the same. He’s an embarrassment to the uniform he inexplicably got out of. Him making detective is the eighth wonder of the world.”
“That is why I came looking for you. I need you to find Mark.”
Bunny was alarmed to see that Rosie’s eyes were spilling over with tears, causing her mascara to run.
“Ah, here now. No need for that.”
He twisted around in his chair and scanned the kitchen. There was no chance of a box of tissues but there might be some kitchen roll. When he turned back, Rosie had already produced a tissue from somewhere and was dabbing at her eyes.
“How long have you known Mark?”
“Almost six months.”
“How did you meet?”
“I saved him.”
“Excuse me?”
“It was outside Trinity. I’m a lecturer there now.”
“Really? Fair play to you.”
“Yes. I give lectures. I am good when I am well prepared.” Bunny noted her repetition of the words from earlier. As if it were a rote phrase by which she lived.
“And you saved him?”
“Yes. I was crossing the street, then I turned round and happened to notice him stepping in front of a motorbike. I grabbed him and pulled him out of the way. Without me, he could have been killed.” Rosie wasn’t bragging in any way. As far as she was concerned, she was simply imparting facts.
“And do you know much about him?”
Rosie shrugged and rotated her untouched cup of tea once more. “I thought I did. I am confused as to why the building site had never heard of him. I even went there with a picture and asked around, but nobody recognised him.” She pulled a photograph from the pocket of her jeans and held it out to Bunny. “The people there laughed at me too.”
Bunny took the image and looked at it. It was of a well-built man in his early thirties, with shoulder-length brown hair and an angry red mark on his neck, possibly from a burn. He had his arm around Rosie, but it was neither the Rosie Bunny had known in the past nor the one that sat before him now. He had never seen her smiling so broadly before. She looked so happy.
“Okay. If you want, I can make a few calls and talk to a couple of people. I’m on sabbatical from the force at the moment, but I’ll try to pull a few strings, see if I can get a better detective assigned to your case. Or, at the very least, get a boot put up the arse of the one you have got.”
Rosie reached across and grabbed his hand. “No. It has to be you, Bunny,” she insisted. “You’re the only one I trust. I need you to find him.”
Bunny was taken aback. He tried to pat her hand sympathetically, but she pulled it away.
“Listen, Rosie. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but there might not be a happy ending here. Sometimes people aren’t who they tell us they are.”
“Not Mark. Whatever’s happened, I need to know. He is in trouble.”
“But—”
“Do you know what it’s like to love somebody completely and one day, without any real explanation, they just disappear?”
She might as well have punched him in the solar plexus. For a moment, all the air left Bunny’s body and he closed his eyes, blindsided by a wave of emotion as a memory washed over him. He opened his eyes again to see Rosie staring straight at him.
He spoke in a soft voice. “As it happens, I do.”
“Then you have to help me.”
“Alright,” said Bunny. “Let me make some calls.”
Chapter Five
ANIMALS OF ALL KINDS
It was an established fact in certain areas of Dublin that it was impossible to stare down Bunny McGarry. Many had tried, none had succeeded. It looked as if that might soon change. Bunny wasn’t sure for how long this staring contest had been going on, but he was damn sure he was not going to look away first. A precedent could not be set.
“Hiya, Bunny,” came a familiar voice from behind him.
“Butch Cassidy, as I live and breathe,” he replied without looking round. “How’s it going?”
“Same old. Same old. Sorry I’m late. They had me sitting outside the court for three hours, waiting to testify, and then that dipshit of a prosecutor, Delaney, cuts a deal just before I was about to do my bit. I was up all last night practising my testimony. You know how I hate doing that.”
“This is why you have to beat a signed confession out of every suspect,” said Bunny. “It really cuts down on the admin.”
“It’s amazing they don’t have you training new recruits down in Templemore.”
“Well, I have offered.”
“Are you okay? I’ve been standing here for, like, a minute and you haven’t looked at me. Are we having a fight? I mean, it’s cool if we are, but you should really let me know.”
“If you must know, that cheeky little sod over there is staring me down, and I’m not going to let him win.”
“Are you referring to the ring-tailed lemur?”
“I am. ’Tis the principle of the thing.”
The lemur won an unexpected if well-deserved victory when Butch slapped Bunny soundly on the ear hole, forcing him to look away.
“Jesus, Butch!”
The diminutive yet dangerous figure of Pamela “Butch” Cassidy was looking up at him with a devilish grin. Behind her, a mother and three hyperactive children she was trying to corral were staring at them in utter horror.
“Mammy, that lady hit that man on the head.”
Bunny smiled and waved at the children to show no harm was done. “’Tis alright, kids. She’s a police officer. Violence is a necessary part of her job.”
“Bunny!” hissed Butch under her breath. “Don’t mind the silly man,” she called over to the family. “We’re only playing.”
The dirty look the mother shot the pair, as she hurried her children away in the direction of the lion enclosure, made it clear she did not find their antics amusing.
“Are you trying to get me thrown off the force?”
“Well, I could use somebody to hang around with during the day. They don’t half drag on.”
Butch entirely failed to keep the exasperation from her voice. “Well, stop pissing about and come back to work, then. Is this what you’re doing with your time? Mooching round Dublin Zoo, trying to get into fights with ring-tailed lemurs?”
“He started it.”
Bunny held out the massive bag of popcorn he was halfway through, but Butch waved it away.
“Why are we meeting here?”
“What do you mean?” replied Bunny, a tad defensively. “Not only is Dublin Zoo widely regarded as one of the finest zoos in the world, but it also happens to be across the road from your office. Seeing as you’re the one who asked to meet me, I think it’s a very considerate choice of location.”
“God, you’re an awful sensitive lump of a man, aren’t you? I actually meant the lemur enclosure. I’d have thought the gorillas would be more your speed?”
“Here, now – no slagging off the lemurs. They’re a good bunch. Also, they’re a matriarchal society, which I thought you’d appreciate.”
Butch nodded approvingly. “I’ve always thought they had a distinct air of intelligence about them.”
“Besides,” continued Bunny, “as it happens, I’m banned from the monkey and ape area. Grossly unfair. The little buggers can chuck poo around all day, but you dare to throw one back …” He bobbed his head in the opposite direction towards the reptile house. “Come on, let’s go see some lizards.”
“After being down at the courts all day, it feels like a bit of a busman’s holiday, but okay.”
They started walking slowly down the path, side by side. Around them, tourists sauntered along while parents chased after overexcited offspring, save for the occasional teenager moping in their wake.
Butch looked up at Bunny. “You look like shit by the way.”
“Thanks. I’m giving up sleeping entirely.”
“Nice. Suits you. Bit of heroin chic. Really brings out the massive bags under your eyes.”
“Is this how lesbians flirt?”
“With men? Yes.”
“So,” said Bunny, changing tack. “Do you want to get your bit out of the way first?”
“Alright, yes.” Butch sighed. “Rigger O’Rourke asked me to have a word with you. For such a smart bloke, he seems to cling on to the stupid idea that I might be able to talk you round.”
“If it’s such a waste of time, then why are you here?”
“Because for different reasons I want the same thing. Come on, Bunny. Stop pissing about and come back. The office is no craic without you and I’m sick of being lumped with Carlson all the time. I’m convinced Rigger keeps dumping me with him to punish me for not being able to convince you to come back. Look, I get it – you needed a break. But look at yourself. If you weren’t ready to come back, would you be chasing scumbags around Temple Bar in the middle of the night with a flaming hurly?”
“You heard about that?”
“Are you kidding? I’d estimate there are, at most, three guards in the entire country who haven’t heard about it. It’s quite the story. I imagine they had to pull in a few favours to stop the newspapers from giving a full account. Consider yourself lucky nobody had any photographs. Oh, and before I forget …”
Butch jabbed Bunny in the gut with enough force to render any point she was making not entirely playful.
“Ouch. What the feck was that for?”
“You’re pulling shit like that and you don’t call me? What the hell, Bunny? What would’ve happened if you’d needed back-up?”
Bunny rubbed his stomach. “You’ve a peculiar way of showing you care. Besides, I didn’t want to get you in trouble.”
“And I don’t want to see you re-enacting the cover of a Pink Floyd album. Next time you pull a stunt like that and don’t tell me beforehand, it’ll be me setting your stupid arse on fire.”
