gone next year and I don’t want things stirred up around the village in my last few months.’
‘I’m not being rude, but yeah, you’ll be gone. I’ll still be here. My career is my life and I don’t want any unsolveds marking it. The Lucchesis are fucking blow-ins. That man or his son – or both of them – look dodgy as fuck from where I’m standing.’
‘Where you’re standing, Richie, is at a funeral. Remember that and get a grip on yourself.’ He took a sip out of his tea. ‘If Joe Lucchesi is “dodgy” as you say, we still have to go about our job properly. And I’ll tell you one thing, I’d rather have an unsolved case than a wrongful conviction on my conscience. This is an investigation out of Waterford, anyway. Your future career is not going to be based on whether or not—’
‘But—’
‘Listen to me. You don’t listen. What matters in the long run is how you handle yourself and other people. You need to be patient. You can’t bully and push your way through. Remember, just by the job you’re doing, you’re starting off on the wrong foot with most people. There isn’t as much respect as there was in my day. When I was training in Templemore, one of the detectives said “If you walk down the street putting tickets on every car as you go, the whole town thinks you’re a bastard. If you walk down the street and don’t put a ticket on any car, the whole town thinks you’re a bastard.”’
‘So we’re bastards,’ said Richie. ‘End of story.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s up to us to try and make people see we’re not.’
‘Could you be bothered, though?’
‘I have been bothered and I’m proud of that,’ said Frank.
Anna crept down the stairs into Shaun’s bedroom. He lay on the bed in oversized jeans and a baseball shirt, his feet hanging over the end. He was asleep, his cheek red from the heat. His arm was stretched out on the pillow in the same pose she’d seen ever since he was a child. He was still a child, she thought. Tears slid down her cheeks. Shaun’s eyes opened slowly and he rolled onto his back. Anna saw it all happen in his face, that dreadful awakening when all the world seems so right and in seconds is all so wrong. His face fell. He sat up against the headboard, drew his knees to his chest and wept. Anna’s heart lurched. She walked over to the bed, sat beside him and pulled him into her arms. He broke down, every sob cutting through her. She rocked him back and forth, but said nothing. There was nothing she could say. A beautiful sixteen-year-old girl doesn’t belong in heaven, there was no happy release, there was no joyous, spiritual lesson to learn from this.
‘I love you,’ she simply whispered into his damp hair. ‘We love you, sweetheart.’
After a while, the sobbing slowed down and he said, ‘I don’t get it. I don’t get it. Why would…? Why would anyone? She’s so perfect, she—’ He wept again and for two hours Anna held him in her arms, stroking his hair, until he finally drifted off again and she lay his head gently onto the pillow.
She went into her bedroom and broke down herself as she pulled off her shirt, wet from his tears.
It was almost midnight and Danaher’s was still packed with people who had been there since the funeral or who had followed on after Martha’s house.
‘Good luck,’ said Ray as Joe left his bar stool for the outdoor toilet. It was only when he stood up that he felt the impact of the alcohol on his empty stomach. All he’d had that day was one sour milkshake he’d made himself in the morning, six painkillers, two LV8s and three pints.
The stall with the door was taken, so he walked into the other one, unzipping his fly, waiting for his body to relax. He rocked gently on his heels.
‘Guess I bagged the private one,’ he heard from the next stall.
‘I guess you did,’ said Joe, still waiting for something to happen.
‘You know, you could always…’
Joe prepared, as you do with a stranger, to laugh politely at whatever gag was about to be made.
‘…wait and come in here if you need to pinch one off. I’ll keep the seat warm.’
Joe felt trapped into following through on the polite laugh. His lower body was following through on nothing.
Then silence. He could hear scratching against the wood of the stall door. Then, ‘You’re not havin’ much luck in there, are you?’ The voice sounded closer, like it was coming from higher up the thin partition wall and muffled, like the cheek was pressed against it. Joe froze. Then he heard the door beside him creak open, scraping against the cement floor.
‘Top o’ the morning to you,’ came the voice.
Back in the bar, Ray heard the start-up screech and boom of Danaher’s tannoy system.
‘Could the owner of car registration number 92W 16573, please get out in that car park and get the damn thing out of the way,’ said Ed.
‘Jesus, you don’t have to eat the microphone,’ shouted Ray.
‘Shut up, you pup,’ said Ed into the microphone again. Ray got up, pulling his car keys out of his pocket.
‘And it’s your car,’ laughed Ed as Ray walked out the door.
‘Nice hair,’ said Ray to the man standing outside by his car. His hair was blond, short and spiked at the top, poker straight and long at the back.
‘This your car?’ said the man. ‘Then move it.’
‘Where’s the fire?’ said Ray, getting into his car. ‘And will your hairdresser be at the stake?’
‘Move your fuckin’ car,’ said the man, shifting from one foot to the other, his hands buried in his pockets, his head bowed.
Ray reversed out of his spot, leaving the van in front of it free to move.
‘Whoa, we’re halfway the-ere, oh-oh, livin’ on a pray-er,’ Ray sang on his way back towards the bar.
Suddenly a hand grabbed his shoulder from behind and spun him around. The two men hovered in front of each other, neither one committing. Ray took a step forward, but was pushed back hard. He made an awkward grab for the man’s jacket to steady himself, but it was too late. The man jumped into his van and sped out of the car park. Ray sat up, bewildered. Then something caught his eye. A small golden flash against the black tarmac.
Joe was back at the bar with a fresh pint.
‘What happened to you?’ asked Joe when he saw Ray.
‘Some fucking wacko in the car park. American, of course. Total weirdo. Mullet, check shirt, skintight jeans, big boots. Good lookin’ guy, but definitely nuts. Gave me a few digs for slagging his hair…’
‘Not the hair slagging. No! No! Help!’ said Hugh, raising his hands in faux terror.
‘I thought I was great,’ said Ray. ‘Anyway, look what he left behind. A bit of gay jewellery.’ He threw something onto the bar. Joe looked down and in an instant his chest felt like it would explode. He couldn’t speak. Everything slowed down. This was something he couldn’t understand. He looked again. He tried to work out how this was happening. In seconds, several theories came and went in his mind, none of them right. He grabbed the tiny object and ran for the door, knowing he was too late. He stopped in the doorway under the bare porch bulb and held it up to the light. He saw the familiar outline, the gold and maroon, the wings, the feathers, the hawk in flight, its pointed beak holding the tiniest specks of green paint scratched from the single stall door.
Joe rushed home and stood outside to catch his breath before he put his key in the door. The house was quiet. He went into the kitchen and saw Shaun sitting at the table, staring at the fridge through swollen eyes. A yellow taxi-cab magnet held a photo of him and Katie taken during the summer, his tanned face pressed up against her pale one. Their heads were tilted back and his face was screwed up trying to kiss her cheek. Joe walked over to him and put a hand gently on his shoulder. Shaun released the breath he had been holding in, got up and left the room.
Joe went into the den, sat at the desk and picked up the phone, punching in Danny’s direct line. He hung up halfway through. He turned on the computer, clicked on Safari and the Google homepage filled the screen. He typed in three words: hawk, pin, flight. He got hits on the Wright Brothers and Kitty Hawk, Black Hawks and pilot pins. He tried again, going for the literal: maroon, gold, hawk, pin. He saw sites on spotted hawks, maroon orioles and gold buffalo pins. He went more generic with Texas, hawk, pin, but just got hits for wrestling.com, a lapel pin website and a Texas Hawk Watches site. He wasn’t going to go further than the first page, but he clicked again on a wildlife
