Eoin Colfer - Plugged

Groan. Word travels fast over the internet. Some tool in the army records department e-mailed my info to the FBI last year. Not so much as a court order and he shoots it across the pond.

‘I know what the file says. If you look at the end of that page, you’ll find it was a case of totally mistaken identity. I got an official apology, for Christ’s sake.’

Deacon ignores this, reading with great melodrama like she doesn’t already know what’s on the screen.

‘Company Sergeant Daniel McEvoy. Active service in the Lebanon .’ She says Lebanon with jazz hands, like it’s Disneyland. ‘Extremely dangerous individual. Trained in close-quarter combat. Expert knife man.’

‘I don’t like bazookas,’ I say, straight-faced. Luckily my file doesn’t mention sniper and marksman skills. I learned those on my own.

‘You’ve done some things, Daniel.’

‘Not murder.’

‘ Not murder ,’ she jeers, doing my accent. ‘Sez you. What are you, Daniel? Albanian?’

‘I’m Irish, American too. My mother was from Manhattan. It’s on the screen.’

She checks it. ‘Your mom moved to Ireland from New York? Isn’t that a little ass to mouth?’

Now she’s talking about my mother, it’s like we’re in the schoolyard. But it’s tactics, might even rile someone a little shorter in the tooth. I have to admit, this Deacon woman stirs shit good.

‘I think you mean ass backwards .’

I’m watching Goran through all this. The senior officer taking everything in, letting Deacon have her head, for now. This is their routine. Mother and tearaway daughter, I can see how it could work on a guilty person. Not that I ain’t a guilty person; I’m just not guilty of this.

What I want to do is cut through the bullshit, stop playing the game and really talk to these people.

‘Look,’ I say, palms up, which is body talk for trust me . ‘I liked Connie, loved her a little maybe. Can we skip the regulation back-and-forth and see if I can’t actually help out? Come on, I’m not right for this. Once upon a time I was a professional. Do you seriously think I would shoot Connie, then leave her not ten yards from where I’m sitting drinking coffee? How does that make sense?’

Goran nods slowly, accepting the truth of my argument.

Deacon believes it too, but she sticks to her role just in case I’m a better actor than she is. ‘How do we know what kind of psycho you are, Daniel? Maybe you didn’t get enough killing in the army. Maybe you want us to catch you.’

I’m staring at Goran now, head to one side. ‘Okay. I see what you’re doing. You’ve got nothing, so you’re shaking the tree.’

Deacon closes the laptop. ‘Shaking the tree? Is that some kind of racist comment, McEvoy?’

I do my best to ignore this accusation. ‘Ask me something relevant,’ I say to Detective Goran. ‘The clock is ticking. Your actual murderer is probably halfway across the GW bridge by now.’

Goran is not ready to share just yet and covers the file with her forearm. ‘This looks like a crime of opportunity, Mister McEvoy. Right place for him, wrong place for her. Some crackhead looking for bag money.’

It’s a theory, but not a great one. In Ireland we would say she was patting my bottom and closing the door behind me.

‘You’re in Cloisters, Detective. We’re not exactly overrun with crackheads. This is the roughest joint in town and I haven’t even seen a needle in a couple of years. How many crackheads you know can make a shot right between the eyes?’

Goran’s chin comes up. ‘You saw the wound, Daniel. How’d that happen?’

That was a little slip. Maybe it’s time to stop talking so fast.

‘I made it my business to see before the tape went on. Wanted to be sure it was Connie.’

‘Touch anything?’

‘Not one damn thing.’

Goran gives me a long look, searching my eyes for the lie, which she doesn’t find, or maybe she does find it and decides to give me a little rope to tie myself up with.

‘Take a walk, but not too far. I’ll be dialling your number.’

My shoulders sag. ‘You don’t want to ask me anything useful?’

‘You want to tell me something useful?’

I leave without saying another word.

I had a whole six months of sessions with Simon Moriarty before the medical discharge finally came through after my second tour. Twice a week I took a bus to his Dalkey practice and waved a cup of coffee under his nose until he rolled out of bed.

‘Come on, Sergeant,’ Moriarty said to me one day, with a grin that told me he knew a whole lot more about the world than I did. ‘Make it difficult for me. This is too easy, textbook stuff.’

I was lying on an oxblood leather sofa, feeling about as comfortable as a cat in the doghouse. Usually Simon lay on the sofa, but this was our last session and he was taking me to task.

‘I’m an open book, huh?’

‘A pane of glass, Sergeant. Trans-parent.’

‘Let me in on the secret, Doc. What’s my problem?’

Simon lit a thin cigar. ‘With Irish and Jews usually it’s the mother; with you it’s daddy dearest.’

I sat up, gave him a serious look. ‘Are you trying to tell me that having an abusive father leads to problems in later life? You must be some kind of genius.’

‘Hilarious, Sergeant. Hiding behind humour. Good tactic. How’s that been working out for you?’

Simon could be a pain in the arse, but he generally hit the nail on the head.

I lay down. ‘Not so good. Listen, Doc, everyone’s got problems, issues, whatever. You just get on with it, try to stay as calm as possible.’

Moriarty flicked ash from the front of his Ramones T-shirt. ‘That’s what we’re here to as-certain, Daniel. Can you stay calm? We can’t go releasing a trained murder machine into the big city if he can’t keep his talents to himself.’

‘Don’t worry about that. I’ve seen enough bloodshed.’

‘You have plans?’

‘I’m free on Tuesday and I know a nice bar.’

More ash-flicking. ‘Life plans, smartarse. With your tendencies, you need to be careful what kind of situations you put yourself in.’

‘Tendencies? You make me sound like a pervert.’

‘Here’s my theory, Daniel. You had a violent father who beat up on your mother, yourself and your baby brother, got the entire family, except you, killed drunk driving. So now you feel like you have to protect the defenceless. That’s why you joined up. Not to kill, to protect. The problem is that you also have difficulties with authority, father figures. So, you felt compelled to join the army, and you also felt compelled to clock your superiors. Do you see the conflict?’

I felt I had to defend myself. ‘My superior officer left three of his own men pinned down between Israeli troops and the militia and he refused to order any covering fire. Some people need to be clocked.’

Simon pretended to write something. ‘There are protocols for these things, Dan.’

‘I know. Fired upon twice, blah-blah-blah.’

‘So you broke protocol and once again drew fire on your own twenty by deciding to ignore the chain of command and providing some covering fire of your own.’

‘Twenty? That’s CB, not military.’

‘I’m reaching out; cut me some slack. So you break protocol, this time getting half a mortar shell up yer hole.’

‘It was a whole shell.’

Simon frowned. ‘A shell made specifically for holes?’

‘Whole with a silent w.’

‘Oh, I see. But my point stands: you felt compelled to protect.’

‘Compelled to protect. Got it. Where were you when I was signing up?’

‘Also you have the gambling addiction.’