Declan Burke - Slaughter's hound

You can tell when people use a phrase for the first time. The virgin words sound awkward, the tongue fumbling its way around syllables rough as broken teeth. Her face was turned up to mine, imploring. The fluffy robe had fallen away to reveal an expanse of decolletage, but it was the naked want in her eyes that made me avert my eyes. A raw and secret savagery.

‘Simon has my card,’ I said. ‘If you still feel this way tomorrow morning, then call me and we’ll talk about it again.’

I said it as gently as I knew how, but a dismissal is a dismissal and Saoirse Hamilton wasn’t practised at being gracious when denied.

‘Do you think it might be possible for a mother to ever stop wondering why her son would do such a thing, Mr Rigby?’ Each word was a scourge. ‘Can you honestly believe that one day will make any difference to how I feel?’

I considered that. ‘Gillick told you I did time,’ I said.

‘Yes, he did.’ A faint sneer. ‘And why.’

‘Then you’ll appreciate why I don’t want to be the one to raise false hopes. Goodnight, Mrs Hamilton.’

I felt like a toe-rag walking away. Still, a glass shattered against the frame as I opened the door, spraying me with Jack.

That helped.

You know you’ve arrived when a solicitor says you lack even a shred of human decency, by the shred being how lawyer types measure decency.

I was living that year on Castle Street, three floors up from a coffee shop, Early ’Til Latte, which was already open when Gillick finally dropped me off, the sky gunmetal grey, dawn cocking the hammer. On the second floor was the tiny landing where I’d once had an office. Back then I’d called myself a research consultant, but I was generally the only one who called. Now I lived on the floor above, under the eaves. One of Hamilton Holdings’ minions would have described it as a penthouse with potential, although less Joycean fabulists would call it disused attic storage. A single room of sloping ceilings with low wide windows facing east and west, the stairwell of the bare wooden stairs taking up most of the south wall. A one-ring gas stove in a corner, some books and CDs on the windowsills, a squat hurricane lamp on the floor beside the fold-down couch. No electricity, but I mostly worked nights, so that was okay too. The bathroom was in a closet off the landing below. The decor boasted flaking paint and patches of damp, the colour scheme canary yellow trimmed in blue. A family of mice nested in one corner and I did what I could to respect their privacy.

I was so tired unlocking the door that it took me three keys to realise it was already unlocked. I pushed on through.

‘Dutch?’

‘Out on the roof.’

Dutch ran The Cellars, the pub across the street. Sometimes after work he dropped by for a smoke to wind down before going home, a game of chess on my nights off. If I wasn’t there he’d let himself in, do the needful, head off again.

Unusual for him to stick around, though. He must have heard.

I ducked out through the east window onto the flat tar roof, where Dutch had unfolded the deckchair, got himself comfortable. From there the view was rooftops down as far as the river, then the bay opening up beyond Yeats’ Bridge. Benbulben a purple haze ten miles out. Dutch peered up at me, bleary-eyed.

‘Christ,’ he said, ‘what the fuck happened you?’

‘Finn Hamilton jumped off the PA.’

‘So I hear. Didn’t know he landed on you.’

‘Damn near did.’

I took a hit off the spliff he offered, ignoring the stale whiff of blood caking black under my nails. He nodded along while I filled him in, gloomy but unsurprised. He’d known Finn, had hosted his band once in The Cellars, the usual deal, the boys drinking free for as long as they played. Which didn’t exactly put a hole in Dutch’s pocket. Finn’s boys were a Rollerskate Skinny tribute band, or more accurately a tribute band playing the Horsedrawn Wishes album, a loose setup with his mate Paul on drums, a couple of the lads who jammed up in Dude McLynn’s on bass and rhythm, Johnny Burrows picking away, Finn taking the lead and vocals. That night they’d been bottled off after two songs, Dutch lobbing lemons from behind the bar. Spanners trapped in a spin-cycle, he reckoned, until I gave him the CD and he realised that was how they were supposed to sound, the Pistols trying on Beethoven’s Ninth. Dutch didn’t buy it. ‘So he’s put together this tribute band to play what you’re telling me is the greatest album of all time, except the real band went bust because they couldn’t play it live, couldn’t tour. Is that it?’

In a nutshell, pretty much.

That was Finn, though. Watching him up there that night on the non-existent stage, ducking bottles, putting all that effort into playing songs nobody knew or cared about, not giving a shit what the audience liked or thought it wanted — yeah, sure, he was a dilettante, self-indulgent. But you’d want to have a dead soul not to applaud the nobility of the gesture, the quixotic purity of it all.

And maybe that was the problem right there. That Finn had surrounded himself with people who’d encouraged his every extravagance, who’d clapped him up onto the stage knowing the whimsy could only end badly, or out onto those cliffs to watch him dive, cheering him all the way out onto that ledge nine storeys up.

‘And you’re feeling guilty enough to try,’ Dutch said when I told him Saoirse Hamilton wanted me to find Finn’s suicide note.

‘His sister says it’s traditional.’

‘Bullshit.’ He yawned and scratched at his skull stubble. ‘Say you were even psychic, you twigged to what he was planning. Okay, you could’ve stopped him. This one time.’

‘Once might have been enough.’

‘Don’t beat yourself up, Harry. There’s an epidemic out there, blokes jumping every day. And you know blokes, the first you’ll hear is the splat.’

‘They’re not fucking lemmings, Dutch. Every one of them has a good fucking reason to go.’

‘Reasons plural. It’s never just one thing.’

‘Sure, yeah. But I’d say if you went through every last one, money’d be an issue somewhere along the line. And whatever else Finn had going on, money wasn’t a problem.’

‘Harry,’ he said quietly, ‘the guy was a diagnosed schizo. I mean, that’s how you met him, right? All fucked up over his father, traumatised, he’s burning down everything that can’t run away.’

‘I told you that in confidence, Dutch.’

He looked pointedly over both shoulders. ‘Who else is here?’

‘Anyway, that was all a long time ago.’

‘So was the Big Bang, and we’re still dealing with that shit too. And the guy was smoking his head off, Harry. Not exactly what the doctor ordered, eh?’

‘You’re saying I enabled him.’

‘Fuck that . You didn’t sort him out, he’d have gone somewhere else.’

‘He didn’t, though, did he?’

‘Don’t do that, Harry. Seriously, can you hear yourself? You’re like a teenage girl.’ A mincing tone. ‘“Should I have known? Was I the reason he jumped?” You’ll be starting a fucking Facebook page for him next.’

‘Yeah, well, something sent him out that window.’

He exhaled a long draw and held out the spliff. ‘And you’re sure,’ he said, serious now, ‘it was something and not someone.’

‘I was the only one around.’

‘Far as you know. How long were you up there?’

‘In the studio? Twenty minutes. Maybe more.’

‘Plenty of time for Gillick, this Jimmy guy, to get around the back. Up the fire escape. Or anyone else, for that matter.’

‘Possible, yeah, except the cops didn’t find any sign of a struggle. Jimmy’s a big man but Finn’s tall, he wouldn’t have gone out that window easy. And anyway, why would Gillick want him gone? He’s the family solicitor, he’s horse-trading with Finn for the PA.’