Declan Hughes - The Color of Blood

“No.”

I pulled the car up against the railed park on the south side of Fitzwilliam Square. My cheek was still burning, but when I put my hand to it, it came away dry; if it had stopped bleeding, it could knit together without stitches.

“Come on, Tommy. Don’t you think I didn’t see through that pantomime you were acting out tonight? How you just happened to take Darren Reilly to a lockup full of stolen cars you had worked on; how he looked at them like he’d had advance warning; how you tied his blindfold loosely enough on the way out and turned your back to lock the door, so he could have a quick look around to see where it was. Surprised you didn’t slip him a key while you were at it.”

“Ed, it wasn’t that way-”

“The second he was inside, he was gawping at a Merc, and he said, ‘This is what I’m talking about, Tommy.’ And you hitting him on the ear, you think that took me in? The truth, Tommy.”

“Darren Reilly…all right, I said I’d show him the cars, but…he’d know it wouldn’t be wise to go breaking into them. Because he’d know who owns them.”

“And who would that be?”

“Brock Taylor. I swear, I know I lied before, but I’m telling the truth now, Brock owns them, all over the city, it’s big business, hot cars, do them up, reconditioning, new plates, all this. I used to…years ago…the one in Woodpark was the first. Near where your da’s garage used to be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? What’s my da got to do with it?”

“When I worked for your da. Well, Brock used to work there too. That’s where he started, robbing cars. You remember-”

“I don’t remember, and I don’t care, Tommy. My father’s dead and gone, he has nothing to do with any of this.”

Tommy was ready to come back at me, but he thought better of it; he shook his head and grimaced.

“All right, all right. I’m sorry, Ed, I know I fucked up here, big-time.”

“What did you think was going on with Emily Howard? I mean, after the grief with your daughter, did you not stop to think about what the other women were going through?”

Tommy, shamefaced, made his best attempt at a shrug.

“I suppose I thought they were over eighteen. I wasn’t around for any of the filming.”

“You were just going to get your cut of the ransom money and pay the Reillys off.”

Tommy nodded.

“And then what? Hardcore pornography, blackmail, murder and then what? Live happily ever after?”

Tommy bit his lip. He looked as if he was about to cry.

“It was for my daughter, for Naomi. I’d nothing to do with the murder, Ed, you know I could never-”

“Don’t hide behind your daughter, Tommy. Naomi didn’t borrow money from thugs. Naomi didn’t force other women to have sex on camera. Get out of the car.”

“Ed?”

“You know where we are?”

Tommy looked around.

“Town somewhere. Near Baggot Street?”

“Fitzwilliam Square. You know who lives across the road?”

I pointed at one of the redbrick four-story Georgian houses across the street, their sash windows reducing in size as the floors reached the roof.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“No, I told you.”

“Your old friend Brock Taylor lives there. They had his house in the Irish Times property supplement, he’s a prominent resident of the square, apparently. Maybe he’ll be able to solve your problems. I can’t do it anymore, Tommy. By rights I should turn you in to the cops. You’re a liability I can’t afford. Give me your key. I want you out of the house. Out of my sight.”

“Please, Ed,” Tommy said. “The Reillys would have killed me-”

I pushed a fifty into his hand for cab fare and leant across him and opened his door, and when he didn’t move, I pushed him out. He threw his key in the window and limped across the street, and came briefly to a stop in front of Brock Taylor’s house, triggering a security light. For a moment he twisted and turned on the spot, like a moth drawn to the beam of a lamp. Then he shook himself loose, shook an angry two fingers my way, scuttled down a lane and vanished into the shadows.

I DROVE BACK ALONG THE COAST ROADS AND TRIED NOT to think about Brock Taylor and Tommy Owens and my father. By the time I pulled into my drive, I had succeeded: I was thinking about a cold Jameson and a warm bed when my phone rang. It was Shane Howard, and he didn’t sound good.

“I’m here,” he said. “The Guards will need to be called.”

“Why is that, Shane?” I said.

“Because Jessica…my wife is dead. I think she’s been stabbed. I’m here.”

“You think she’s been stabbed?”

“Yes. I need to call the Guards.”

“Just, before you do, Shane, tell me where ‘here’ is. Are you at home?”

“No. I’m at the…house. The show house. I don’t know the address. Somewhere in Bayview.”

Jessica Howard had been on her way to show a house when we parted. I rolled down the window. The night smelled of sulfur and the ooze of rotting leaves. I tossed the Reillys’ Sig Sauer into a holly bush at the side of my house, pulled out of the drive and headed south toward Bayview.

“All right Shane, look around the room, Jessica’s bag, there’ll be a prospectus, a leaflet with pictures of the house somewhere, can you have a look for that?”

I heard some background sounds, and then Shane’s voice again.

“I have it,” he said, his voice cracking. He made a long, low sound, a sigh, or a moan, then he said, “There’s hardly any blood. I’ll have to ask the Guards about that.”

“Just read out the address, Shane.”

He gave me the address of a house in a cul-de-sac off Rathdown Road.

“I’m nearly there, Shane; just sit tight till I reach you.”

“I have to call the Guards,” he said again.

“I’ll call them for you,” I said.

I owed Dave Donnelly a phone call anyway.

I parked on the road and walked carefully through the darkened cul-de-sac: nine detached seventies bungalows in a U shape set around a raised oval of well-maintained green space. The show house was fourth on the left. I didn’t have to count; Shane Howard had parked his Merc right up on the pavement, so the neighbors could take note of the registration; already someone had left a pink slip of paper beneath the windscreen. It read: This is not a public car park. Residents’ cars only. Please do not park here again.

The smart play would have been not to disturb the crime scene. But Shane was already in there. And besides, being a real estate agent was as smart a play as you could make in Dublin these days, and all it got Jessica Howard was dead. She lay on the maple floor of the large living room with two puncture wounds beneath her left breast. There was very little blood, the merest filigree on her blouse; rather more on her hands, where she must have tried to defend herself. Her legs were twisted and splayed, and her skirt was up around her thighs, but her stockings and underwear were intact; there were no obvious signs of sexual assault. Livid patches stretched across her chest and face; they were turning purple, which meant she probably had been dead for six hours or more. Around the time when Shane Howard claimed he had been rambling around the pine forest in Castlehill. I thought of Jessica Howard’s beautiful, sad face that morning. “I’m beyond therapy,” she had said. “I’m out the other side.”

“Where’s all her blood?” Shane said.

Last time I’d seen him, he’d been hunched in a ball on the floor in Rowan House; now he was sitting crouched on the steps that led from the hall down into the living room; it seemed like his great frame was buckling under the strain, like the earth was dragging him down.