Claire Kilroy - The Devil I Know

‘Here we are now,’ he repeated, and inserted an expectant pause to prompt me to respond. I knew that I was forgetting something, but it wasn’t my lines.

‘Yes, well,’ I said, fussing over the catch of my seat belt. What was it I’d been meaning to do?

Hickey nodded at the castle. ‘Bet it’s deadly in there.’

That was one word for it. The castle was crawling with the deadly members of my deceased family — the ancestors on whose chairs I sat, in whose bed I slept, at whose table I dined. They say the place has a ghost now and I have every reason to believe them.

‘Tapestries an stuff…?’ he nudged me.

Hickey didn’t strike me as the type who might harbour an interest in tapestries, still less know what one was.

‘I’d say they’re mad yokes,’ he speculated. ‘I never seen a real one…’

Mad yokes, yes, like the stolen Waterford chandelier. ‘I’m afraid we don’t have any genuine tapestries left,’ I said carefully. ‘The original hangings are long gone, replaced by replicas. Same with the paintings. Copies, the lot of them. The valuable stuff was sold off years ago. But keep that under your hat.’ This was not in fact the case. Hickey may have treated me like a blow-in, but I treated him like a thief.

‘Have youse a dungeon?’

I laughed as I climbed out. ‘Thanks for the lift, Dessie.’ I swung the door shut and patted the muddy roof. Off you pop now, like a good chap.

He leaned into the passenger seat and rolled down the window. ‘Ah, you’re grand,’ he said, ‘you’re very good but I won’t.’ I blinked at him in incomprehension. ‘I won’t come in for the cup a tea cause I’m up to me teeth, but I appreciate the offer, so I do. You’re a gent. I always said that about you. Always stood up for you, no matter what they accused you of. Mental psychopathic things. Dodgy satanic shit. Ah, not at all, I’d say: you have him all wrong. Bit up his own hole, I grant you that, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly. An as for his lovely manners! His dead mammy would of been proud.’

He hauled himself back into the driver’s seat and stepped on the accelerator. The keys. I had forgotten to retrieve the keys. ‘Hey!’ I shouted after him but he didn’t hear me. The setters did. They came belting around the corner in response, pebbles flying in their wake, ears tossed to the wind, for the fact of there being two of them seemed to egg the other on, turning every endeavour into a competition.

Halfway across the courtyard, the pair simultaneously about-turned and scrambled back to the arch at the same frenetic pace, having been summoned to heel by Father. I stood to attention when he appeared, awaiting one of his caustic remarks — Is that the company you keep now, I see you’ve found your level at last — but he simply walked past me as if I were dead to him, pausing briefly to note the skid marks that Hickey had carved in the gravel.

‘What happened to the pony?’

Stop. Poor Prince. The damage.

At the time, I did not envisage that I would remain in the country for more than a day or two, so I did what I believed was best for him under the circumstances, seeking to remove a fraction of pain from the world, to relieve an iota of suffering. I went inside and rang the vet and arranged to have him destroyed the following morning.

‘Mr St Lawrence, when did your directorship of Castle Holdings commence?’

The date is on the paperwork in front of you. Was it the following week perhaps? I am poor with numbers and getting worse with time but the good news is I left a paper trail. About a week after the expedition to Hilltop with Hickey, I pulled open the front door to encounter a blond man in blue overalls on his knees, a hammer in his hand. I had been wondering what the noise was. A toolbox was set out by his side, its tiers fully extended.

I stepped outside to see what he was up to. He was mounting a brass plaque to the door surround. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

The man nodded at the plaque to indicate that he was mounting a brass plaque to the door surround — yes yes, I could see that, I wasn’t blind. Father, by some small mercy, was out. A smart blue minivan was parked in his spot, Transylvanian Tradesmen printed on the side in livery matching the man’s overalls. I gestured at the plaque. ‘Who authorised this?’

The man returned to his work. Tap tap with his hammer, whir whir with his drill as if I weren’t there, an exemplar of the implacability of the Eastern European that confounds the Irish psyche to such a degree. Instead of embarking on long-drawn-out descriptions of the task at hand, followed by a rundown of potential pitfalls to unnerve the customer, concluding with a few horror stories to illustrate that the competition are cowboys and that the cost of labour is not as extortionate as it may at first have seemed, all the while angling for a cup of tea as any self-respecting Irish workman might, this man simply got on with it.

Castle Holdings read the italic lettering on the plaque, which was the name M. Deauville had chosen for the Irish branch of his company. Sorry, Fergus? Yes, apologies, my mistake. You are quite right: Castle Holdings was not a branch but a separate financial entity.

When the workman was gone I inspected the plaque. It was dappled with his fingerprints, fingerprints which I neglected to polish off, instead leaving them to set into the protective lacquer coating the metal, although it wasn’t the Romanian workman’s dirty fingerprints that were smeared all over that operation from the start.

The sound of another vehicle reached my ears. It was not the tinny rattle of Father’s old Polo, nor was it the return of the smart little van. A powerful engine was ascending the avenue. I turned to face the courtyard.

The vehicle seemed on the brink of appearing for a protracted period, but instead of rounding the corner it continued to grow louder. Louder and ever louder while I stood waiting to receive it. Finally, a motorbike appeared through the trees, the reflections of the leaves flickering upon its obsidian flank. The front fairing was bulky and clenched, the shoulders of a charging bull, but the tail was sleek and tapered, the sting of a wasp. The motorcycle made straight for me across the gravel as if this meeting were scheduled. I checked my watch. It was precisely three o’clock.

The biker dismounted, stiff and bowed in his creaking leathers, a warrior in armour, a medieval knight, one who had ridden for days to reach this place. He removed his gauntlet of a glove but not the helmet. The original Sir Tristram might have looked like this, I remember thinking. The original Sir Tristram, the real Sir Tristram, might have stood where this man stood now, regarding me as this man regarded me now, his black destrier panting behind him, ticking as its cylinders cooled. I wanted to see his face.

From the pannier, he produced a small device, the screen of which glowed elixir green. There was a stylus attached and I signed my name. The motorcyclist then offered an envelope and I looked at him, but his glossy black visor returned only my reflection in miniature, a crooked and contorted man. I did not like what I saw there. I accepted the envelope and thanked him.

He nodded by way of acknowledgement before mounting his motorcycle. I retreated inside and leaned against the door, anxious for him to be gone. The silence of the transaction had unnerved me. The silence of this transaction, and of subsequent transactions, because yes, it was the first of many. As you well know. That is why I have been summoned here. Isn’t it?