even check his email? For several moments, Fanning imagined Breen opening the email, but then rolling his eyes and deleting it. Fanning trying to generate some buzz. Fanning trying to show off. Fanning deluding himself.
Tomorrow for the email, he decided then.
He closed the lid of the laptop and waited for the sleep light to begin. Then he stood and stretched. He felt no real easing in the tightness at the small of his back, so he moved the chair to get to the rug. It smelled of food and mustiness when he tipped it with his nose, and did his first push-up. He tried to focus on his breathing and to ignore the yammering thoughts. That ache at the bottom of his chest was an adrenaline hangover. He still could not decide if this was from fear or excitement. He rested for a minute, staring up the table legs to the underside of the table, and the ceiling beyond. This Cully character didn’t just beat up people for kicks. And the guy with him…?
Fanning’s back was still tight. He rolled up and stood slowly, and he poised himself to do a bit of yoga. He focused on his breathing and started into a Greeting to the Sun, breathing loudly to try to still his mind better. It took him a minute or so to complete the routine, and he was soon back on the rug, as flat and still as he could. He listened to his blood coursing by, his own breath whistling slower in his nose. Calm settled on him then, and he could almost see in his mind’s eye the truth coming to rest like a leaf on a sunlit path. Cully was mocking him. He was also daring him. It was a test, Fanning saw, and that made it easy to decide.
Aisling groaned in her sleep. Fanning got up slowly and tiptoed to her room. She was inert, splayed out, with her mouth open. She swallowed and she frowned and she turned over. He lifted the edge of the blanket to her shoulder and watched her settle again. He parted the curtains on his way back to the kitchen. The white BMW was still there, far enough from the street lamp for its interior to remain dark. The hall door opened, and a key was pulled out of the lock. He stepped quickly out of Aisling’s room, glad to hear the familiar sound of Velcro being teased apart. Brid was panting. She pulled the safety vest over her head and sat heavily into a kitchen chair.
“God almighty,” she said, half-whispering. “I’m huffing and puffing tonight like an oul wan. Brutal.”
“It’s hard getting back into it.”
She glanced at him before she leaned down to get at her laces. Jogging was not his thing, never had been, he thought of saying.
“Well that’s it for me. A bath and bed. Feck marking for tonight.”
“Good. I want to borrow your phone.”
“Where’s yours?”
“Oh I have it but it might be on the blink. Just in case.”
She straightened up slowly.
With her flush cheeks and bright eyes, years had come off her.
“You’re going out?”
“Just for a while. A chance to meet with some people, research.”
“Fieldwork,” she said.
She was holding back, he knew. He felt bold.
“I’ll wake you up when I come home,” he said.
She raised her eyebrows, and seemed to weigh his words.
“Oh will you now,” she murmured.
He was able to hold her gaze, and even add a brazen touch to his own. She smiled cryptically.
“Only if I’m asleep,” she said.
He hadn’t expected that.
Murphy’s BMW smelled like an ashtray. Actually, it smelled more like the ashbin from years ago, the one Fanning’s grandmother had used. A hint of long used car-freshener only made things worse.
Cully waited for Fanning to pull the door closed. “Okay,” he said. “We’ll go for a little drive then, won’t we.”
“How about Murph?”
“Loaned it to me, he did.”
“So, it’s just us?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“Not until I get some answers from you.”
Cully lowered his hand from the key in the ignition and he looked over.
“Let’s start with how you found my house,” Fanning asked.
“You’re pissed off, aren’t you.”
“I don’t like you talking about my family. About my wife. That’s out of order. Big time.”
“Big time?”
“I’m serious. That can’t happen again.”
“Or?”
Fanning stared into the reflections of the street lamps in Cully’s eyes. His heart pounded harder.
“Leave my family out of this. Don’t hang around my place.”
Cully’s voice seemed tighter when he spoke now.
“Talking tough, are you. For a bookish type.”
“Where did that come from, ‘bookish type’?”
“You practising dialogue or something? Rehearsals already?”
“We need to be on the level here,” said Fanning. “This isn’t a game.”
Cully’s face creased in a grin. He rubbed his nose as he looked away.
“‘This isn’t a game,’ he tells me. Tells me.”
He turned back to Fanning.
“Are you the same fella I was with earlier on?”
“I’m not the one asked for your, whatever, services, am I?”
Cully didn’t answer. He turned the ignition instead, and gave the engine two short revs.
“How’d you know my place?”
“Whose car is this?” Cully asked.
“Murph? He told you?”
“It’s not hard to figure out. Phone directory? The Internet?”
He waited.
“Look,” he said to Fanning then. “We going or not?”
Fanning took a few moments before he put on his seat belt.
“Left, left again, then right for the Dundrum Road?”
“That’s it. Where are we going?”
“A sort of tour.”
“Where is ‘a sort of tour’?”
“Social, that’s all. Relaxing. R and R. No-one gets hurt.”
“R and R, why do you say that? I heard you say it before.”
“Just an expression, isn’t it.”
“Are you English? British?”
Cully smiled and he rubbed at his chin.
“This an interview?”
“Background.”
“Oh, I’m going to be a character in your thing?”
“You sound like a Dub but then you go Cockney a lot of the time.”
“Do I really? Do I?”
It was a perfect East End accent, Fanning had to admit.
“Watched too much Austin Powers,” said Cully. “Probably. Mis-spent youth and all that.”
“‘Youff,’” said Fanning. “That sort of thing.”
“You making fun of me?”
“What else did you do?”
“Cocky fella tonight, aren’t you. What are you on?”
“You don’t like questions, do you?”
“I don’t mind actually,” said Cully.
