A Kind of Drowning, page 3
“Not enough to stop them throwing me under the bus,” replied Crowe.
“Grist to the mill for Mr-Páirc-Ui-Fucking-Chaoimh, O’Suilleabháin,” said Quigley, “He probably has one of his goon squad already lined up to replace you,”
“They can answer all the reporters’ questions in my inbox then. I appreciate the phone, Quigley” said Crowe, “mine was confiscated.”
“Internal Affairs are just being thorough, son. Have you seen a doctor yet?” asked Quigley.
“Yep. I was handed over to the tender mercies of the GOHS; full medical, bloods, the lot,” said Crowe
“Care to elaborate?” replied Quigley.
Cholesterol was off the chart, but whose wasn’t these days?
“No. I’m suffering from severe stress. Review after next hearing,” said Crowe.
“I read the papers, watched the news, heard the Garda Union chatter. What exactly did you do?” he asked.
“This went up a few days ago, you’ll love it,” said Crowe, “updated and pure Scorsese. Hand me your phone.”
A Google search brought the YouTube link up straight away. He handed it back to Quigley.
Quigley stared at the footage: Crowe landing the first punch, a haymaker followed by a succession of fast, hard jabs on the U-14s soccer coach. The same scene at various angles was jump-cut and spliced into a sequence showing not only Crowe bearing down on the smaller unconscious man in an ecstasy of rage, but also the expressions on the faces of the children on both teams.
Including Crowe’s son, Cathal. He stood; shoulders slumped. He had spent weeks perfecting his goal celebration, insisting that Crowe watch. Instead Cathal watched his father hammer into the man who had waved and complained that Cathal’s goal was off-side.
“You used your phone on the poor bastard,” said Quigley, “That was overkill.”
“Don’t remember any of it,” said Crowe,
“I don’t think yer man there will remember much after that battering,” said Quigley, “That has rehab stamped all over it.”
He handed back the phone.
“Meds?” he asked.
Crowe glanced at the closed toilet door. Quigley noticed it too.
“I don’t need them,” Crowe replied.
“You’ll have to play the game, son. Counselling, Occupational Health, the whole fucking shebang – who’s your Union Rep?”
“Harris. Phoenix Park.”
“That fucking pup?”. He shook his head. “You’re not the main reason I’m in town to be honest - do you know Desmond Cosgrave?”
He let the sentence hang.
“The Desmond Cosgrave? Teflon D?” replied Crowe. He tried to recall the criminal record, the details, “missing a thumb?”
“The same, lost it to a China man over an unpaid heroin bill,” said Quigley.
“Didn’t the Chinese dealer go missing?” replied Crowe. Somewhere at the back of his mind, in the shattered recesses, a touch paper fuse had been lit. An ember in a cavern.
Teflon D, a name created by the tabloids, a netherworld criminal moniker that was both flattering and damning. All of Teflon’s ilk were the same; five rings of fat neck supporting a bullet-shaped skull. All T-shirt, tattoos, Kevlar bullet-proof vest and black ADIDAS pants. Production line villainy.
“The guy’s a toe rag, what’s he doing out here?” continued Crowe.
“Pissed off some of the city gangs, I’m a messenger from The Park. Personal, like. He survived a gang attack three weeks ago; the family home was burned out. Two BMWs torched belonging to the sons, Setanta and Fionn; those faded glory boyband idiots turned narcotics dispensers. Poor old Teflon’s Merc, a high-performance government model shipped in from Latvia went up like a Roman candle. The story was in the papers?”
“I avoid the papers,” replied Crowe.
“The old guard are being taken out. You’ve seen it yourself; the new gangs are a different breed. Kevlar isn’t going to be much use to him. Explains why he’s out here.”
Quigley continued, “Wouldn’t want to be gasping for a cuppa?”
Crowe steadied himself against his chair and launched toward the sink. Everything felt like slow motion; he felt he was wading through treacle. As he began to fill the kettle, his right hand began to shake uncontrollably, and he dropped it. It bounced across the floor, spewing water. He stared at it blankly.
Quigley walked over and filled it. He handed it to Crowe who stared at the kettle as if for the first time. He sensed at that moment, most if not all of his functions were wired incorrectly. He felt useless. Then he remembered it needed plugging in.
Quigley was about to pass a remark, when he stared off into space for a minute, then let out a barrage of sudden loud sneezes. In reflex, he muffled them in the crook of his elbow,
“Fuckin’ flu coming on,” he said,
He ran the hot water tap, washing his hands vigorously. He dried his hands with a sheet of paper towel. He shook himself and was about to place a hand on Crowe’s shoulder, then stopped. He slotted his thumbs into the belt loops of his jeans instead; Superman’s dad laid low,
“It’s just a speed-bump, son. A pin prick in your life. None of this will matter in six months. Get some exercise, seriously, you look like shit. Breathe for fuck’s sake. Thanks for the tea by the way,”
“I haven’t made it yet.”
“Exactly, son.”
The door closed as silently as it had opened. The outer door clanged shut and the bruup of a car alarm drifted in through the windows. Crowe wondered how many more rubs he’d get off the lamp before Quigley would cut him loose to fend for himself. Sometimes small favours came at a heavy price. A friendship driven by misdirected brotherhood and loyalty.
The kettle came to a boil and Crowe shook himself as it switched off with a languid click.
4
YOU ARE A VALUABLE HUMAN BEING!
The web page pulsed an option, Crowe’s thumb hovered over the new smartphone’s screen. Beneath the banner a generic stock-shot of a man in a suit sitting in an office chair holding his head in his hands. A more accurate depiction would be an unkempt, overweight middle-aged man clad in boxers and in need of a shave. Not some well-groomed slightly concerned looking all-American stockbroker.
‘What triggered this crisis?’ said the voice at the end of the line. Her name was Patricia.
He had held off for a week, but after Quigley’s morning visit, Crowe decided to ring the support-line number on the bottom of the web page. Play the game. Show you’re willing to rehabilitate. A receptionist in soft tones had immediately directed him to Patricia once he’d given his name. Seems notoriety had its plusses, thought Crowe. They were now at Question 10 of 25 to ascertain whether he needed one-to-one counselling. Up to this point, each question, asked in a neutral tone, had a response range of one-to-five, to assess where his mind was – one was good, five was bad. So far, he had been hitting all the fives.
Q.10. The Trigger. Take your pick, he thought:
Christmas last year, standing in the rain-sodden carpark of a GAA club looking at a gangland victim who used to have a head now just bloodied meat from the business end of a semi-automatic. The defunct and ruined Kevlar vest cost twice as much as Crowe made in a month. The cheap stroller lying on its side amid the gore, a creche run cut horrifically short.
Or the homeless woman found dead behind a wheelie bin in the city, throat slashed with both breasts cut-off and missing; that cheery detail omitted from the press due to ‘on-going operational reasons’; subtext: a possible serial killer finding his raison d'être and everyone holding their breath waiting for Act 2.
How about the clown in the suburbs, whacked out on spice, using a claw hammer on his pretty girlfriend’s head for a few hours before turning himself in? Dublin Murder Metropolitan served up a fresh smorgasbord of chaos every day.
But Alison’s affair, that probably kick-started the spiral. Her sixteen-hour shifts as a midwife that put her into the orbit of a consultant who looked remarkably like ‘Mr. Concerned’ on the webpage. Shared medical crises had led to a ‘fling’ in her words. A fling that continued for nearly a year, leading to hissed exchanges and muttered recriminations while Cathal was at football training. Crowe took it on the chin. They had continued treading water in rostered work shifts, orbiting each other in sullen Catholic silence.
Alison had shown him the door. Suspension from duty was the final straw. Sixteen years of marriage sinking in front of him like the Titanic.
And the lifeboats were all at sea.
Cathal, the one bright spot in the marriage, had blanked him on the stairs lined with family photographs and wouldn’t make eye-contact. His headphones an audio cocoon to match his downward stare. Crowe had tried to talk to him, tried to get him to listen, to understand. Without thinking, Crowe had yanked the headphones off and stamped on them in fury. Sweat and spittle ran off his face and chin.
Cathal had stared back in wide eyed terror inching his way back up the stairs. Wide-eyed terror.
Alison had shielded him, placing herself between them. Hands held out in defence she stood on her tiptoes to eye Crowe,
“I’m changing the locks,” she had said in the cool, distant voice that Crowe knew as marital purgatory, “You can fuck off with yourself, now. You’re a lunatic, Crowe. Don’t pack. Just. Go!”
He thought about the ten unanswered texts to Alison and Cathal. Separation papers were probably migrating across Dublin, flocking with the circling lawsuits, seeking him slowly out.
“Question 10, not sure what triggered it, Patricia. Something stupid, truth be told. My son’s football team had suffered a losing streak, their first goal in ten games was disallowed. I snapped,” said Crowe.
Patricia remained silent. She let the pause drift. Crowe lit a B&H.
“Next question – Question 11 – just a yes-or-no. Do you smoke?” she asked. Must have ESP, he thought. He shook the BIC as it was beginning to gutter gas. He lobbed it toward the kitchen bin where the smoke alarm battery resided. It struck the metal like a gong.
“Recently quit,” replied Crowe
“Question 12 – Do you drink?”
“Yes. But only on weekends,” he said.
“How many units per week?” Patricia’s voice drifted; she was clearly jotting notes.
“Not sure, a few beers. Say, two pints?” he said.
“Anything else?”
“A bottle of wine, maybe over a weekend, no more than that, to be honest,” he said.
“Very good. Very good,” she said.
If Patricia had doubts, her voice hid them well.
“Now, may I ask, how much exercise do you take?” she asked.
“Just bought a bike,” he lied.
“Great. A bicycle is good, very good – how many kilometres a day, a week?” she seemed enthusiastic.
“Roughly two, maybe three?” said Crowe. The lie felt comfortable now.
On and on. Very good. Very good. Questions 13 through to 25 nearly an hour on the line. Diet, relaxation, and meditation – Patricia suggested several useful meditation apps. Yes, she concluded after totting up the final score, he needed a one-to-one, she’d set the wheels in motion and she gave him the log-in details and password for the site he was currently scrolling through.
One-to-one. He really hoped it wasn’t with deeply concerned Patricia.
Meditation – seriously?
Crowe rubbed his eyes. Turned off the phone. YOU ARE A VALUABLE PERSON. Bullshit.
He looked up at the clock, it was two in the afternoon. Crowe decided he needed a long walk. Get his bearings. Get out of the stagnant garret and get a feel for his surroundings. He located the lighter on the kitchen floor, shook the last of the fuel about and went to the window to light up. As he flicked the lighter he spied a movement in the courtyard.
It was that fox again. The one with the limp. It had appeared the morning before, snuffling and pulling on the bags when the Chinese had closed. It nosed around the takeaway’s bins on a second sortie. The ears twitched as it hobbled, each step placed with a lurch, a dip, and the grunt of new exertion carried on the breeze.
The fields beyond the town offered a sanctuary to bolt for with just the main street to cross and then a long side street of shuttered shops. The piled up rubbish bags offered the young animal camouflage in the shadows.
Somewhere on the main street a dog barked. The narrow alley leading to the courtyard echoed the forlorn timbre. The fox froze. Every nerve and sinew alert. It raised its snout, searching about the air, hard-wired to the innate knowledge of the breed. Food could be poisoned. Not every dog was a fellow kindred, thought Crowe. After a pause, the fox snuffled around the bins and detritus.
Crowe fished the greasy chip bag out of the pedal bin. A few limp pieces and the gnarled hardened ends lay at the bottom coated in vinegar and cold grease. Opening the window slowly, he eased the bag onto the ledge and let it drop into the courtyard. It gyrated on the breeze before landing slowly onto the ground. The fox froze.
Crowe carefully pulled the curtains, until they created a narrow line of sight. Between the green drapes, Crowe could see the courtyard sliced by a line of sunlight. It danced on the fox’s russet fur. Crowe held his breath watching. He made a kissing sound and the fox looked around and up at him. Crowe thought it could see his pallid face stitched to the unkempt moon-head skull peeking out through the dirty glass.
The animal’s muzzle gave a toothy grin as it surveyed the open swirling bag. It then selected the chips with delicate bites. Through the curtains and the insulated glass, Crowe thought he could see a raw wound above the dew claw as it pressed down on the bag. Crowe fretted that the wound might become infected. The fox picking up on his thoughts, bent low and tenderly licked around the paw. It didn’t yelp or whimper too much giving Crowe some hope.
“It does what it does, our ‘Vulpes vulpes’,” said Crowe to the shadows of the room, “It eats birds, and weasels, and not forgetting voles. Merciless to less sturdier chicken coops, ruthless in murder,”
He thought it could hear his voice, it was looking around, crouching and alert. Satisfied there was no imminent danger, it selected the best morsels from the bag.
“You see, Mr. Fox, my life right now is like a wave,” Crowe whispered, not wanting to spook it, “Like standing in the sea, waist-deep and a wave washes over you. Over your thighs, Fox. You get to your feet again, but the next wave hits you – here - chest height. You sort of stagger and then stand up, but the next wave, the next bastardfucking wave hits you in the face, washes you away. Lifts you off your feet. You feel like you’re drowning…”
The fox arched a leisurely downward stretch, gave its wound another tender lick, smacked its lips, and in a heartbeat was gone.
It was the children that you never forgot. Nothing in your training prepares you for that. Dealing with little dead bodies.
They must have spent hours building their fort, the two boys. A dolmen fort made of haystacks. It had been hot, mid-summer, and the neatly folded T-shirt of one of them had somehow survived, badly singed. Crowe had been twenty-three when he stood in the incinerated remains of a field staring down at the melted toy pistols with the caws of carrion birds wheeling overhead. He was sweating in his uniform. It was the teeth, the pearly white teeth gleaming out through the burnt, raw looking flesh that haunted him. The two bodies huddled and welded together in the saturated straw. In the distance, the sounds of the sluggish hoses being packed away into the fire engines drifted on the wind. Eight years old he found out later, these two little souls. Despite himself, he found himself tenderly checking their pulses, his fingers pressed into roasted flesh. Of course there was nothing, but still…
He had vomited. Spewed up his breakfast onto his highly polished boots. It mixed in with the chemicals and foam and Crowe heaved more times until there was nothing left.
It had been a gorse fire that had got out of control, the ancient tradition that fanned by the wind had turned the surrounding lands into a tinder box, leaping across fields, burning everything in its path. Crowe had always hoped the smoke had killed them, not the fire. He tried to force out the thoughts of their last moments when they realised no one was coming to save them. No cavalry on the way. But he couldn’t.
“Ulex Europaes, Gorse, fucking furze,” he muttered, wiping the tears away with the heel of his left hand. He clenched it into a fist, ashamed. Where had this come from? He didn’t know. It had risen deep within his chest, delivered in wracking gasps.
His father’s solution, when he returned home that night was to break the seal on a bottle of Powers whiskey – ‘Drink this it won’t help, but it’ll erase things for a while,’ he’d said. A Garda’s life at times needed full erasure. A wiping of the memories that never went away.
Crowe took a deep breath. The tears burned. He turned away from the curtains, stared into the gloom and let the burning tears fall.
He cried for an hour. Then pulling open the curtains allowed the sunlight in. The sunlight was cathartic, and he needed to walk. To escape the slowly enclosing walls.
5
There were two universal truths for Crowe; a newspaper was never worth buying and the only real facts in one could be found between the pages of the sports columns. If you wanted to read a newspaper for free, there was always your friendly neighbourhood turf accountant; they kept longer hours than the library. And, if you wanted to catch a villain, you had to frequent his likely haunts. In his experience, most criminals were gamblers, both calculating and reckless; crime was a game and they always thought they were winners. Criminals like race horses had form and this Teflon D character was notorious for the sport of kings.
Being cut off suddenly from society had its freedoms. Shorn of responsibilities, past the derelict bank and shuttered up businesses, Crowe stepped into the bookies. The first thing he did was grab a handful of the small biros. It was a habit of his, on his days on active duty when those small plastic ball-points would be thrown into the side panel of the patrol car. You could never have enough pens.
He decided to scan the newspapers pinned to the shop’s boards. It was late afternoon and the TVs blared their commentary to empty seats. He selected three meetings: each way on the favourites.
