Denise Mina - Slip of the Knife

The smog of cigarette smoke made Paddy want to light up herself, if only to mask the smell. She took out her packet and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it with a match, inhaling halfheartedly, and thinking she probably looked shifty.

A row of men sitting at the bar turned to stare as she approached. She had thrown on clothes this morning, but she still felt wildly overdressed. They were all wearing T-shirts or sweatshirts under black leather jackets and denims that hung under their beer bellies. She nodded at them.

“Howareye?” she said, running the words together as the Irish did, meaning to be friendly.

Someone snorted cynically. She took a covering drag of her cigarette and felt foolish, stepping towards the rail. The barman was resting a half-poured pint of Guinness under the taps, patiently waiting for it to settle.

“Ah, hello, I’m looking for a guy called Brian?”

“No one called Brian here,” he said. Scottish with an Irish twang, an affectation members of her own family used sometimes.

“I spoke to him the other day. I have some photos of the gentleman he was telling me about.”

He looked her up and down. “And you are…? Detective Constable…? Detective Inspector…?”

Paddy held her hands out indignantly. “Do the polis take fat birds now? I’m five foot four, for fucksake.”

He shook his head and flicked the Guinness tap back on. “No one named Brian in here, love.”

“Well, when No-one-named-Brian gets here, tell him Paddy Meehan was in looking for him and I’ve got the photos to show him. He knows where I work.”

Wood screeched against stone as one of the lineup pushed his stool back, stepped off, and squared up to her.

Paddy guessed he would have been the pride of the pack once. Now, fat had gathered around his middle, and his round paunch, starting below two well-formed breasts, was vivid under his cheap white T-shirt. His black leather jacket was elasticated at the waist, drawing in where he spread out, showing off what would once have been fine legs. He stepped into the light and she saw that a tidy slice was missing from the top half of his ear.

Paddy half expected him to chase her to the door, but instead, he picked his pint up and flicked his index finger at her, beckoning her to follow him. She stubbed her cigarette out in a nearby ashtray and walked after him to the back of the bar.

The booth was set at ninety degrees from the room so no one could see into it from the floor. It was dark, dimly lit with a yellowed wall light, the heat from the bulb burning a brown oval on the plastic shade. The benches were worn wood, the table marked with water rings and cigarette burns. He slid along a seat, his paunch pressing against the fixed table, and nestled in the corner, resting one leg along the bench, motioning for her to sit opposite him.

“Nice of you to come in person.” His tongue slicked up the corner of his mouth like a sleepy lion’s. She knew his voice immediately. Brian Donaldson.

She took out her cigarettes and lit one, offered them to Donaldson but he refused, tipping his glass at her as if one weakness was enough. He was in his midforties and handsome beyond the scars. A square jaw, blue eyes and the manner of a man in charge. His face had wrinkled into the memory of a smile, tide marks around the eyes and mouth.

“Kevin Hatcher’s dead.” She didn’t want to tell him Kevin was injured. They might go to the hospital and finish the job.

He shook his head. “Who’s this?”

“Kevin Hatcher,” she repeated. “Hatcher and Terry Hewitt were working together on a book, about expats in New York.”

“Irish expats?”

“Scottish. They took photos of people, street portraits, and Terry wrote a little bit of text to go with them. A coffee-table book. A light thing really, an excuse so that they could go off on a trip to New York together.” She imagined Kevin and Terry eating peanuts on the plane, giggling together, and found herself tearful. “Two good guys. Now they’re both dead. I told you about the guy who came to my house? Michael Collins. Very threatening, said he spoke for your people.”

“He doesn’t.”

“You said you didn’t know him.”

“Neither I do, but I know who speaks for us.”

“I think you knew who I was talking about when I described him before, but I wanted to show you this.” She unrolled the photocopies. “I found him in the background of one of the portraits.”

Donaldson peered down at the grainy enlargement, flattened it and looked again.

Collins was laughing in perfect profile, and his glasses were perched on his nose.

“Is this the whole photo?”

“No, it’s an enlargement. That’s why it’s so grainy.”

“I was going to say, it’s not a very good photo of anyone.”

He sifted slowly through the other pictures.

Collins wasn’t as distinct in them-she wouldn’t have recognized him herself if his face hadn’t been emblazoned on her mind-but Donaldson didn’t seem to be looking at him anyway. She watched him examine the street, the buildings on either side, the fat man by the driver’s door, the car license plate, the slice of the black woman’s face at the edge of the photocopy.

Going back to the enlargement, he looked through all the pictures, one by one, stone faced. He pushed them across the table to her.

“Do you know him?”

“Never seen him before.” His tone was studiously flat, his eyes steady and expressionless.

“Yes you have.” She rolled the pictures up into a tight cylinder. “I’m not researching a story, Donaldson, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Journalists are always researching a story. They don’t wonder what time it is without researching a story.”

“This isn’t about a story.” She tapped the rolled-up sheets. “This cunt sent someone to my son’s school this morning. He’s been to my fucking house. I need to know what kind of threat he is.”

Donaldson’s expression didn’t waver. “We’ve all lost family.”

“You bastard.”

He blinked, lifted his glass, and swallowed three-quarters of a pint of Guinness, watching her over the rim. Placing his glass on the table, he did a clean sweep of his top lip with his tongue. Never once did his gaze waver. He was waiting for her to speak.

“If violence is a gamble…” she said carefully, “if it’s about who has the higher stake, remember that I’m talking about my son here.”

Donaldson stared through her, his fingertips turning the rim of the empty glass as white scum slid slowly down the inside.

“Do you hear me, Donaldson?”

“I can hear ye fine, girlie.”

She pointed across the table with the rolled-up sheets, leaned across at him, and poked him hard in his soft chest. “Tell your friend this and mark it well: neither you, nor he, nor the entire mustered armies of thugs who’ve hijacked the history of the Fenian Brotherhood of Ireland want to get between me and my young.”

Donaldson looked down at where she had prodded him and slowly raised his eyebrows in amusement, as if a threat from her was a joke.

Paddy could feel herself getting hot and angry; never a safe combination.

“Donaldson, for all I care you may be the king of the fucking Maze, you may have cut your own ear off in a bet-you might just be that fucking hard-but if there’s a whisper of a threat to my wean, I will find you and I will ruin you.”

She sat back and caught her breath, hoping she frightened him a little bit.

Donaldson smiled. “Miss Meehan, d’ye not think every wumman who’s ever lost a child thinks that? We’re all fighting for our children, they’re why we’re fighting.”

She stood up and leaned across the table, her nose an inch from his. “I’m not talking about the struggle. I’m talking about you. I’ll ruin you.”