James Benn - Evil for evil

Uncle Dan had taken a pint bottle from his coat and poured whiskey into their coffees. Nuno drank his, one hand on the wheel, eyes watching the water ahead. Dad and Uncle Dan touched their cups in a toast, nodded, and drank. Dad looked at me as if he'd forgotten I was there, and maybe he had.

"The night Frank was killed," he said, then stopped. I froze, waiting for him to speak again. I knew Uncle Frank, the oldest of the three brothers, had been killed in France during the war, but no one spoke about it. I can still hear the thrum of the motor, the sound of the bow hitting each wave, the thump, thump, thump as we moved through the water. If I breathe deep enough, I can smell the whiskey and coffee mingling with the salt air.

"The night Frank was killed," he said again, "it was raining. Hard. It was cold, and the clouds were so low the flares would get lost in them, and then burst into brightness when they came down. We brought him in from patrol and laid him out in a communications trench. We sat with him in the rain, the mud a foot thick all around us. Finally, the rain stopped and a breeze kicked up, sending those clouds back to Germany. When dawn came, it was beautiful, just like this. It was then I cried. What kind of joke was that, to follow death in the rain with golden sunlight?"

The next thing I knew, Uncle Dan had put a chipped mug in my hand, poured in a little coffee, followed by even less whiskey, and said, "To Frank." They clinked their mugs against mine, and I had the sense to drink and not make a face, being unused to both coffee and liquor. I hadn't understood what Dad was trying to say but that didn't matter. I was happy simply standing at their elbows, feeling the currents of emotion that ran beneath the surface, flowing along with them like a cod following its school, not understanding why, knowing it must.

"In the last war?" Grady asked, drawing me back to the present. It might have been the second time he said it.

"Yes. The last war for the English, as they'd say."

"The death of a brother is a terrible thing. I would not go against a word your father uttered. He had every right. But I tell you now, Billy Boyle, you look at that gorgeous sun drenching our green fields. That is for the living, it is. If each dawn were for the dead of the night before, it would be darkness forever. Now come inside and we'll have strong tea."

Grady's cottage was low ceilinged, the thick wooden beams dark with age. The floor was flat stones laid over dirt, and a peat fire burned low on an open hearth. A kettle hung over the fire, and other pots and a skillet stood to the side. Against the rear wall, a hand pump on a wooden counter was positioned over a bucket. Water to drink, peat to burn. Besides whiskey, what more does an Irishman need?

As Grady busied himself with the fire and the kettle, I sat in a worn but comfortable armchair near the hearth. The chair opposite looked like Grady's: It was leather, cracked and dry, with indentations in the seat and back that marked it as the owner's favorite. A wooden table, a bed at the far end of the room, some shelves, and a chest of drawers completed the interior.

Two pictures hung on the wall. One was religious, showing the way of the cross on the Via Dolorosa, where I had walked with Diana not too long ago. It looked like a print from a magazine, framed under glass, faded with time. Jesus with the crown of thorns, his head bloody, his body sagging under the weight of the cross. Next to it was a still life of a dead rabbit laid out alongside a copper pot, flecks of blood around its mouth under wide, dull eyes. I didn't know much about art but I knew these weren't to my taste.

"Here you go, just the thing, it is," Grady said as he pulled over a stool and set down a tray. I was surprised to see real china and a sugar bowl. "Ah, you expected a dirty mug, I can tell by the look in your eyes!"

"No, it's only-I didn't expect anything so nice-for me, I mean," I said, trying not to say anything stupid, and failing.

"Don't you worry now. These came from my mother, a wedding gift. I had sisters but they all died. Some before they were grown, the rest taken by the influenza. I never wed a wife myself, not that any offered themselves up," he said, pointedly not looking at his hands. "And I don't have much in the way of company, so it's a rare treat to use this. Take all the sugar you want, boy. It's rationed, sure, but the border isn't far, and enough makes its way here that we don't go without."

"Things always find a way, don't they?"

"What do you mean?"

"When we had Prohibition, people made their own beer, and plenty of liquor made it in from everywhere. You couldn't stop it."

"Ah, well, that was a silly thing to try, keeping folks from their drink, don't you think?"

"Well, as my dad said, we don't explain the laws, we just enforce them."

"Your father is a policeman too, like you?"

"Not like me. He's more cop than I'll ever be, a homicide detective. His brother, my uncle Dan, he's on the force too."

"All those Boyles on the police force in Boston? What a safe town it must be," he said, chuckling and blowing on his tea. "So tell me, what would your father or your uncle say about poor Pete being killed like that?"

"They always said when a murder seemed to make no sense, it had to be about love or money."

"Who loved Pete Brennan on this island, or in the whole world, for that matter?"

"He kept to himself," I said. "He didn't want to get close to anybody, he'd lost all his friends once. Pig was the closest thing he had to a friend."

"Aye. He rubbed that pig's belly 'til it shone, he did!" Grady laughed, then sighed, the small, sad sound you make as grief overwhelms a fond memory.

"So it was money. And I know who was getting ready to pay Pete off. Question is, who else knew?"

"Jenkins, you mean?" Grady said, a sly eye on me.

"How do you know?"

"Pete and I raised too many pints to have secrets. As you say, he made no friends of men he might have to watch die in battle. But he was friendly to me since I'm hard to kill, and no longer in the fight."

"Do you think Jenkins killed him?"

"Now, you know I don't have a high opinion of the man, even on his best days. But I won't say he isn't a smart fellow. Ignorant perhaps but smart, if you know what I mean. He's kept out of trouble, even though he runs the Red Hand, and that takes a bit of work up here," Grady said, tapping his head. "Would a smart man endanger all that by shooting an American soldier? That brings down a whole new set of troubles upon him, he who has everything worked out so well that the English and the IRA can't touch him. Why risk upsetting that applecart, I ask myself? Money? Maybe. I've never been cursed with it myself, so I can't say how it would make a man behave. More tea?"

"Sure," I said, holding out my cup. I stirred in some more contraband sugar and let the steam warm my face. What Grady said made sense. Would Jenkins endanger his position over a payoff? If he had, what did that mean?

"So what did that brute of an English sergeant want with you? Did he give you trouble?"

"No, he's just a chauffeur with a lousy attitude. I have to go up to Belfast tomorrow with him and another officer."

"Well, keep your wits about you, Billy Boyle. I did not like the looks of the man."

I nodded, drank my tea, and let the fire warm my feet. I looked at the pictures again, a dead rabbit and Jesus wearing a crown of thorns, and tried to remember what we had hanging on the walls of our house in South Boston. I was fairly certain there were no framed pictures of blood and death.

I'd arranged to meet Joe Patterson at the Lug o' the Tub at eleven o'clock. I parked my jeep next to his and knocked on the locked door. It was a few minutes before opening, but Tom let me in. Sergeant Patterson was at the bar, busy with a bowl of stew.