Declan Hughes - The Price of Blood

He flashed his eyes at me, with the lubriciousness of someone who knows way more than he's telling.

"Anyway, coming out, I met Hopalong here, Mr. Fucking Sacristan, honest to fuck, I thought I was going to burst me shite laughing. So when he said Tyrrell had asked you down, I decided to stick around, added a little design feature to your car. I was gonna string it out awhile for you. You know, leave a dead cat on your doorstep, potshot through your living-room window. Just like a regular psycho. But it's too cold, and I couldn't be arsed, to be honest with you," Leo said.

"All because of Podge."

Leo shrugged.

"Did you know that, Tommy? Leo was after me because I helped get Podge sent away. You remember Podge, don't you Tommy?"

"No, Ed."

"Ah you do. Very well. Very very well, in fact."

"Stop, Ed."

"You know Tommy did a little work for Podge? A little courier work in the old import-export trade. And then they fell out, as fellows in that trade will. Over a gun. A Glock 17, in fact, this very model. And you know what Podge did to Tommy here?"

I could see the unease on Leo's face.

"He raped him, Leo. More than once, far as I could make out, although once would be enough for most of us. Did you know that? Or are they too scared to tell you just what kind of a maniac your kid brother is? It's not as if you don't really know."

Leo stared at the ground and shook his head. Maybe I imagined it, but I thought I saw shame in his face. I was probably wrong. I often imagine people are ashamed when they're just a little self-conscious, or indifferent, or plain bored. I could feel the anger rising like acid in my chest, singeing the back of my throat. Leo started to say something, very quietly. Then he cleared his throat and said it out loud.

"George didn't tell me that. But even if he had. Podge is my brother."

He looked up, his face a riot of opposing emotions: there was shame there, or at least embarrassment, and what looked like compassion for Tommy, but mostly there was defiance, the mark of the loyal blood code by which he lived. I had a certain respect for that. But I remembered Tommy after Podge had raped him, remembered the weeping shell of a man he became, and the anger within me erupted. Against my own best interests, against the interests of the case, against everything but the heat of the moment. I had my own blood code too, and sometimes I had to be true to it.

"Well, in every way it counts, Tommy's my brother, Leo," I said, and my hand was on the barrel of the Glock and I brought it up and smashed the butt against the bridge of Leo Halligan's nose, once, twice and again, just to make sure it was broken.

Ioffered to drive Leo to the A &E in St. Anthony's. He told me to fuck off, among other things, and made his way down the hill on foot. George Halligan lived on the other side of Castlehill, ten minutes' walk away. Tommy joined me on the trip to Jackie Tyrrell's house up among the pine forests off Tibradden Road. The M50 was quiet, and we made the journey in twenty silent minutes. The house, at the top of a gravel drive about half a mile above the road, was a Victorian Gothic detached redbrick-and-stone villa with stained-glass windows and a bell tower, set among bare oaks and elms; within view was the stone farmhouse with paddock and stables that served as the center of the riding school.

I asked Tommy if he wanted to come in. He said he'd wait in the car, "and keep an eye out." When I opened the car door, he put his hand briefly on my forearm, and went to say something and either couldn't form the words or thought the better of it, and looked me in the eye, and nodded: a Tommy Owens apology, or a Tommy Owens thank-you, or a conflation of the two.

"What's the story with Leo?" I said. "History there?"

Tommy flexed his narrow jaw and winced as if his teeth ached.

"It's nothing. I'll tell you about it later man."

"You've got to start acting in your own best interest, Tommy," I said, as sternly as I could. Tommy nodded gravely, but I could see he wasn't going to let it go.

"I could say the exact same for you man," he said finally.

The ensuing silence held for about ten seconds, and then we both burst out laughing.

The hall was of double height and featured the kind of Christmas tree you'd expect to find in some corporate HQ: maybe sixteen feet tall, it blazed with light amid the dark marble-floored room. The Brazilian servant (I always ask now: the Philippines and Brazil are the biggest suppliers of staff to the rich Irish, for reasons I don't pretend to understand: perhaps because they tend to be smaller, they don't have to be given rooms, but can sleep in cupboards or on shelves instead) led me up the stairs. I asked for a bathroom first, where I looked at the damage: an eye that was red and closing, and a bunch of welts and cuts across my face. I'd seen worse in the mirror. They'd be hilarious company tomorrow. I washed them with lavender-scented liquid soap and dabbed at them with towels soaked in hot water. The maid led me into a white reception room the size of the ground floor of my house; it didn't look particularly large in the context of Jackie Tyrrell's.

Jackie Tyrrell had changed into wide black silk trousers and a fitted black top with just enough cleavage and black lace on show to ensure I would pay attention. Good for her: a healthy dose of vanity was one of the vital signs of life, particularly in a woman. I joined her on a white couch with a weathered gilt wood finish that I recognized as being French and very expensive; there was a matching occasional table where she sat; the room was full of similar pieces in assorted configurations. Late Romantic orchestral music played through speakers I couldn't see.

Jackie knelt up on her knees beside me as I sat down. Her eyes were clearer than before, her manner softer, flirtier, almost kittenish; it was as if she had drunk herself, if not quite sober, then mellow.

"Your face, my God," she said.

"You should see the other girl's," I said.

"What happened?"

I shook my head.

"Lassie slaps. Handbags at ten paces," I said.

She looked at me for a moment, an appalled expression on her face, then agreed to see the funny side.

"Their nails, was it?" she said, in an effortless Dublin accent.

"Going for my eyes, they were."

"Fucking bitches. I hate those fucking bitches so I do."

She poured me a drink from a pitcher of iced liquid the color of tea; it had the warmth of tea but more of a kick.

"Sidecar," she said.

"Brandy, lemon juice…triple sec."

"Cointreau. Same difference. Sláinte ."

"Up."

I looked at Jackie as she drained the dregs of her glass and poured herself another. She couldn't drink like this every day, unless her face was a latex mask. I looked closer. No, it was the very moist, unlined skin of a woman in her early fifties: the folds around her throat showed the first signs of the next phase. Could Botox replenish your skin to such an extent if you regularly put away what she seemed capable of drinking? My face must have been an open book.

"This is a special occasion, Ed. I go for months without touching a drop. I assume that's what you're wondering? Why I don't have a face like a neon prune?"

"Forgive me."

"It's quite all right, I take the compliment whenever I can. Always take the compliment, girls. I do like to drink though, so I'm being a bit of a glutton today. Tonight. This morning."

"Good morning," I said.

"Nice morning," she said.

I drank up, and she refilled my glass. The music changed: low, brooding, ominous phrases filled the room.

"I know this," I said. " The Isle of the Dead ."

"Rachmaninov. You're not supposed to like Rachmaninov, you know."