A Kind of Drowning, page 15
Hunt changed into his running gear, then preened in front of the full length mirror and finally checked his nostrils. Bouncing out into the lobby, he pressed for the elevator to the underground car park. The sunlight burned through the sunglasses, searing his retinas. He worried a hangnail with his teeth and felt the time lag through the elevator’s slow descent.
He wasn’t expecting the burly man with a face like a butcher’s dog.
If he could have hit the shut button he would have, only Crowe was already in the elevator. Crowe pressed the Close Door button without breaking eye contact.
“Who the fuck are you?” asked Hunt, reaching for the emergency alarm button.
“I’ve a few questions, Hunt,” said Crowe, gripping Hunt’s hand and wrenched it back on the wrist, twisting it away from the control panel.
“Contact my people, get out of my face” said Hunt pulling his hand free.
“I know what you did on Inishcarrig.” said Crowe.
“What are you taking about?” replied Hunt evasively.
He tried to push past Crowe.
Crowe slammed him up against the wall.
“I know you were out there with the Cosgrave gang. I want to find out what happened to Thea Farrell.”
It was a crude gambit. He wasn’t in the mood to deal in any clever verbal jousting. He smacked Hunt open-handed across the face,
“I had nothing to do with, I swear,” said Hunt.
“You’ve seen one of these before,” said Crowe. He flashed his badge in front of Hunt. It was the one thing he had kept all this time. The one thing he wouldn’t hand over to Internal Affairs, claiming that during his breakdown, he had tossed it into the Liffey. To remove this badge would have erased his identity.
“This is my national police credential, Ephraim Hunt. Thea Farrell. I believe she was the victim of a crime. It is my belief you were involved in that said crime,”
He pressed the metal badge into the side of Hunt’s face.
“I’m telling you; you’re talking to the wrong fella. It was those…animals…the twins,” stammered Hunt.
“And you,”
“No,” gasped Hunt.
Crowe put the badge wallet away and held up his phone in front of Hunt,
“I saw you land and take off from the island of Inishcarrig. I requested this information as part of an ongoing Garda investigation, it tallies with my sighting of you. This is a screenshot of your helicopter’s flight plan submitted to the IAA. On the plan there’s another passenger; Casey Clarke. Bet she’d love to know her boyfriend attacked a special needs girl with a bunch of thugs. Would love to see what a stand-up kind of guy you are, with all your charity stuff ‘n all. I’ve evidence linking the island to drug smuggling and your involvement in it. And your connection to a criminal known to the gardai, living, and operating in Roscarrig just down the road from your second home in the town. Coincidence? I don’t believe in them. Catch my drift?”
Hunt’s prominent Adam’s apple danced up and down. The tinted lenses skewed from the slap magnified his disjointed terror. He started gulping for air, and the tears began to pinch at his eyes,
“How did you find me anyway?” he asked.
Crowe slapped him again. This time harder.
“Your Facebook page, sir,” said Crowe, “…and your housekeeper, a Ms. Gosia Sankiewicz at your residence, The Church House, in Roscarrig was very helpful with my enquiries. She informed me that you’re supposed to be on the Six-One News tonight. The Business This Week feature?”
“Yes and I’m going to be late, Garda…?”
“I’d make alternate arrangements, Hunt,” said Crowe.
He scrolled to the next photo and held it up.
“Two jet skis. In your back garden. I saw an identical one being hitched to Fionn Cosgrave’s vehicle. He practically threw you under the bus. I barely had to nudge him,”
Hunt’s mercurial mind had slammed on the brakes. His mouth began to make fish movements.
“Nothing you have said proves anything,” he said.
“I found something on the island. A cigar tube, and guess what was in it?” said Crowe.
Hunt’s expression loosened as if every bolt holding it had unwound a turn.
“Yep, a US Dollar bill,” said Crowe.
He let the sentence hang.
“Granules of grade A cocaine. So my prints will be eliminated by the Crime technicians, which leaves…?” he gave Hunt a shove as a prompt. “Yours, I’ll wager,”
Hunt’s glasses tumbled off his nose. In the harsh metallic light, his skin was waxen and dark circles hung about his eyes. A life of excess was etched into his taut features,
“Yes, probably,” he whispered.
“Bet your prints are on Thea’s Nike too, its already at the crime lab,”
Hunt clenched his eyes shut, dropped his shoulders, and in the confined space, seemed to fold into himself. He remembered the shadows of the night. On the island with the three Teflon boys. The feral laughs of the pumped-up twins Fionn and Setanta.
“Giveitback, giveitbacktome, please…please”,
“That fucking shoe,” murmured Hunt, “I told them not to. They made a game of it - Piggy-in-the-middle. I told them to hand it back and stop taking the piss. They were playing rough. Too rough. All I remember is at the end there was a long scream. I have tried really fucking hard to forget that sound,”
As Hunt struggled to push the memory back into the furthest recesses of his mind. He began to sob.
The shrill wail that Hunt emitted jackhammered into Crowe’s prefrontal cortex. He was aching and tired; he needed to pop some Ibuprofen.
“Who?” asked Crowe, “who was playing rough?”
“The Cosgrave twins, Fionn and Setanata, they were making the hog sounds – you know, teasing her like, tossing her shoe?” said Hunt. Merely speaking unlocked his memory,
He reached deeper into the moments, trying to piece together what happened next. But it came up blank,
“I was in pain you see? We had everything in place - The deal was ‘done’. Norcott’s team was prepared to hand the island over. A cool one-hundred million revenue stream ready to be tapped into,” said Hunt.
“Then Desmond Cosgrave got wind of it?” said Crowe.
Hunt was sweating, his rank terror was filling up the narrow confines of the elevator space.
“They kidnapped me, threw me onto their boat and did this!” he said holding up a bandaged finger, “Cut the tip off with a chisel, a fucking wood chisel,”
The boat, a luxury forty foot, had slowed gradually, bumping along the swells towards an aged stone jetty.
“Now, you’re going to give me a guided tour of your island. Your Driftwood Golf Resort, yeah?” said Teflon D, “Silent partner, sport, yeah?”
Hunt had been in agony, cold and terrified. They had beaten him again on the journey back. Then threw him into the boot of their cat. Outside the penthouse, they tossed him out onto the pavement, before screeching out into the dawn. He had shut his mind down to that night, drawn a long black curtain across his memory. Staring at his patched-up finger, he noticed his hand had begun to shake uncontrollably.
Wracking with sobs, Hunt blurted, “On the way back in Teflon D’s boat I drank myself stupid, trying to numb the pain. Champagne, brandy, half a bottle of Powers. They threatened to hurt Casey. Rape her,” the Cosgraves’ laughter had come back in flashbacks through the last few days.
He didn’t even remember getting into bed.
Crowe fought every urge to start punching Hunt.
“Like I said, you’re a solid, stand-up guy, Hunt,” he said.
“They slung her,” said Hunt.
“What?” said Crowe.
“What’s her name, the piggy-in-the-middle. The retard,” said Hunt.
Crowe hoisted Hunt up off his feet, pressing him hard against the cold steel wall of the elevator.
“Thea Farrell was dredged up from the fucking sea,” yelled Crowe.
Struggling, Hunt turned away from Crowe’s glare, the twitching facial muscles and the bellowing mouth millimetres from his face. Then Crowe released Hunt. Crowe jabbed the Open Door button and the doors whispered open. He gave one glance back at the man crumpled and sobbing on the floor of an elevator in a luxury apartment complex, with a mixture of pity and loathing.
He walked back through the underground carpark towards the main street. Once he got a signal, he dialled 999. The rain was still teeming down, and people dashed through the puddles towards Connolly Railway Station. LUAS trams rumbled and hissed along their sleepers. Crowe buried himself deeper into his faded damp fleece waiting. The rain was unforgiving, and rivulets ran through his clothing. After a few minutes, a patrol car pulled in and two Gardai emerged festooned with the paraphernalia of leads and wires that led to ear pieces and two-way radios.
“Ephraim Hunt,” said Crowe displaying his badge, “I left him in the elevator. He’s all yours.”
As the police walked toward the complex an unmarked squad car pulled up. O’Suilleabháin leaned out of the passenger side. He stared at Crowe,
“Voice recorder might not be admissible,” admitted Crowe. He handed his phone over to O’Suilleabháin.
“You didn’t try anything stupid like a citizen’s arrest did you?” asked O’Suilleabháin.
“No. I’m going home now,” replied Crowe.
O’Suilleabháin turned the phone over in his hands, “This phone looks like you, Crowe, a heap o’ shite. I’ll hand it over to the tekkies. We have a forensics crew on the island looking for your girl’s Nike. Let’s hope for your sake, they find something. Want a lift anywhere?”
“Her name was Thea. And no, I don’t need a lift,” replied Crowe, tapping out a cigarette. He sparked it up.
Chief Superintendent Dáithí O’Suilleabháin regarded Crowe standing dishevelled in the rain with something close to pity,
“We got Cosgrave. Teflon is cooling his heels in Store Street Garda Station. But remember, the likes of him and Hunt get the very best legal,”
“Buy cheap, you get cheap,” said Crowe, “those K-Pop twins of his?”
“Gone. Got a 4.30am flight to Malaga yesterday. The Notorious Dubs have fucked off to see their mammy in Spain.”
“Blistering reaction times as usual,” said Crowe.
He turned away and set off for the railway station before O’Suilleabháin could get the last word in.
On the North bound inter-city out of Connolly, Crowe dozed in the empty carriage until it pulled into Roscarrig station. Checking his wrist, he remembered he didn’t have a watch. Patting his damp fleece, he remembered he no longer had a phone.
26
August
Crowe stared out at the sea. Inishcarrig was shrouded in a heavy mist. It was cold. Leaden clouds clung low to the horizon. Crowe pulled his woollen hat down and shrugged deeper into his fleece. Clodagh linked his arm and sidled in closer.
“So, are you sticking around?” she asked.
Derry Gallagher, fresh from his brush with the law, had extended the garret’s lease. The summer season had collapsed after the flu outbreak and if it were possible, Roscarrig had slipped further into morbid decline.
“The lease is until the end of the year, so yes, I might,” replied Crowe.
She prised another chip out of Crowe’s take-away bag spread out across his lap. The weather-beaten bench they were sitting on was flanked by a JCB standing idle. The town council had marked out an area to build a memorial to Thea. Local schoolkids had collected rocks along the strand and painted them in a rainbow of colours. They were scattered around the edge of the site.
“I’m not sure what will happen in the new year,” he said.
Quigley was dead. It had come as a shock to Crowe. Admitted with respiratory problems as a result of the Asian Flu, Quigley lingered for forty-eight hours before succumbing. Stage four cancer had eroded his capacity to fight the illness. He had died alone in an empty ICU hooked up to a ventilator. He had no next of kin. The Garda Press Office had distributed this notification internally. Liv Cutts had forwarded it to Crowe’s private Gmail. No-one to attend any services as a result of the emergency situation. No flowers, only cash donations to The Irish Cancer Society.
Crowe tapped out another B&H and lit it. The breeze whipped the smoke skywards.
“You know secondary smoke does just as much damage?” she said.
“You enjoy the odd drag,” he replied.
“Only when I was drinking,” she said.
“You were more fun then,” he said.
“Can you please blow it in the other direction, Crowe?”
“Helps me think,” replied Crowe.
She waved the cigarette smoke away,
“You can think elsewhere, Crowe – put that thing out,”
They saw Ned’s vessel ploughing the waves. The sea looked grey and treacherous,
“Were you out in that?” asked Crowe.
“This morning? Yes, it was exhilarating,” she said
“That’s one word for it,” replied Crowe.
“Baby steps on the road to recovery,” she said, “I’ve been sober for a month,”
“I thought it was just a phase,” said Crowe.
He stubbed out the cigarette on the iron armrest. The sparks and ashes were snatched by the breeze.
“What time is your meeting tomorrow?” she asked
“Ten,” replied Crowe.
He dug out the last crispy shards of chips and proffered them. Clodagh picked at a few and Crowe tossed the remainder down his throat. He gave a low long belch.
“Still know how to show a girl a good time,” she said.
“It’s how I roll,” he replied.
Crowe scrunched up the takeaway bag into a tight ball and lobbed it towards the bin. It glanced off the top and ricocheted wildly into the grass. With a sigh, he dusted off the crumbs and ambled over to the bag. A seagull strutted a few feet away from him eyeing the bag’s progress as the breeze caught and tumbled it.
Crowe binned the greasy bag and looked back. Clodagh had forgiven him for the dinner fiasco. As a form of apology, he cooked a spaghetti and invited her over for dinner. He hadn’t spilled or knocked anything over, so to him that was a result. And like Cinderella she had fled the garret before midnight. Since then, they seemed to have moved into a gradual parallel orbit. Yet something unresolved, something uncertain remained. They hadn’t moved on to sleeping together; Crowe sensed Clodagh was wrestling with an internal conflict. He didn’t want to push anything that could get wildly out of control.
They were happy with the uncomplicated companionship for now.
But nothing was ever uncomplicated.
He crooked an elbow. With a smile, Clodagh got up, linked his arm and they walked along.
“Thanks for lunch, even if it was out of a bag,” she said.
“My pleasure,” he replied.
For the past few weeks, he had noticed she was clear of eye and not masking the undertow of booze with gum. He admired her determination; he wasn’t brave enough yet.
They stopped to look at the mist clearing from the island, sending the temperature down. They walked in silence to the library. As she opened it up for the afternoon, Crowe said,
“Clodagh,”
She turned and looked at him.
“Alison and I have formally separated,” said Crowe.
“I see,” said Clodagh, “Well, as we’re going for full disclosure, I got you a little something,”
“Hardly worth celebrating,”
“Our timing is as impeccable as always,” she said.
From her bag she produced a small, gift-wrapped package. Crowe opened it out. Inside the wrapping was a fridge magnet. It was a pen and ink image of the Boogie-Woogie Café’s facade with a bold pink
‘Don’t worry, be happy’.
“You might want to actually put things in the fridge, so this should remind you,” she said.
Crowe leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. The bristles of his beard brushed gently against her skin,
“Have a good afternoon, and please, please, please keep torturing the old biddies,” he said.
“It’s what I do best,” she replied.
Crowe stuffed his hands into his jacket and walked. He walked past the Library, cutting across the carpark. Past the garage where the man behind the counter wore a surgical mask. Past the supermarket with the hanging flower pots and, avoiding the ankle-wrenching dip just outside Gallagher Estates. A sign in the door read ‘Closed for Lunch’, and Crowe smiled at the thought of Derry Gallagher regaling his fans at the Boogie-Woogie Café again about how he had brought down an underworld Kingpin.
The rain began to pummel down making his running shoes damp. He opened the door to the stairwell beside The Dragon Inn. He tramped up the staircase and turned his key in the lock. The cramped apartment had gradually absorbed his presence. He filled the kettle and reached for a jar of instant coffee. The smells from the Chinese and the cawing of hungry gulls made him close up the skylight and windows.
Crowe made an instant coffee and placing it on the table, reached into the shiny new suit carrier that was hanging up at the door. He took down the suit, removing the tags and opened out the shirt. Clodagh had helped him pick out both.
Crowe tried it on with the shoes.
They pinched at the little toe and cut into the heel.
But it would do.
In the corner of the room he had a black bin liner filled with his old clothes. Probably fit for an incinerator, a fleece, some Ts and his frayed cargo pants spilled out like an exotic potted plant. On the floor was a crumpled business card. He picked it up. Before tossing it into the bin, he turned it over. The text was faded from water, but the thin white cross and Abosede’s taxi contact number were clear,
