A Terrible Beauty

'Foxy' was dressed as dapper as ever, in a dark green blazer and a camel waistcoat and a Hermcs necktie with stirrups on it. His minder Jerry was hunched in the opposite corner, cramming down a bowlful of French fries with so much tomato ketchup that it looked as if his fingers were smothered in blood.

Katie didn't even take off her raincoat. 'I need a favor,' she said.

'A favor?' said Eamonn. 'What kind of a favor could a fellow like me possibly do for a lady like yourself?'

'I have a little problem which I can't deal with in the usual way. There's no evidence, you see, and not much chance of finding any.'

'All right. This is nothing to do with those skeletons, is it?'

Katie shook her head. 'This is somebody who took something that didn't belong to him.'

'I see. A transgression which you know for a fact but which you couldn't prove in court, is that it?'

'Something like that.'

Eamonn sat back and systematically cracked his knuckles. 'What do you want me to do about it? And dare I ask what I might expect in return?'

'I want you to pay a visit to the party involved and tell him to soften his cough, that's all.'

'That doesn't sound too onerous. Who is it?'

'Dave MacSweeny. He helped himself to some building materials up at Mallow, but somebody else helped himself to the very same building materials and sold them on, and Dave MacSweeny's a little unhappy about it.'

'Well, he would be. Dave MacSweeny's not exactly a forgiving sort of fellow. Who was the somebody else who relieved him of his ill-gotten gains?'

'That doesn't concern you.'

Eamonn stared at her with his dead gray eyes. 'It concernsyou, though, doesn't it?'

'That's beside the point.' Katie wished her heart would stop banging so hard.

Eamonn had a long think. At the next table, Jerry was noisily sucking his fingers clean. After a while, Eamonn leaned forward and said, 'All right, you're on. I'll have a quiet word in Dave MacSweeny's ear myself. Is there anything specific you want me to say to him?'

'Just tell him to develop amnesia about the building materials and whoever it was that took them. If you like, you can tell him that Charlie Flynn sent you.'

'Charlie Flynn? You surprise me. I thought that Charlie Flynn would have been gently floating out to sea by now, or sinking in a bog on Little Island.'

'No, Charlie's still with us.'

'All right, then. How forceful do you want me to be?'

'Emphatic, that'll do.'

'No problem at all. I can be emphatic.'

'You'll be wanting something in return. I can have the dealing charges against Billy Phelan reduced to possession.'

Eamonn said, 'Hm. That's not much of a bargain.'

'Okay,' said Katie. 'I'll see if I can drop the charges altogether.'

'That's better. And maybe your people could leave my fellows alone for a while-stopping them and searching them wherever they go. They even stopped Jimmy Twomey when he was coming out of mass with his grandma.'

'I can probably ease off you for a month or so. But any more than that and my chief superintendent's going to start asking awkward questions.'

'Well, awkward questions. We can't have those, can we?'

Katie left Dan Lowery's and stepped out into dazzling, colorless sunshine. She felt nervous and sick, and she was almost tempted to go back and tell Eamonn Collins to forget that she had ever talked to him. But it was too late now. She was committed.

She drove back to Garda headquarters and somehow the city looked different-as if scene shifters had been at work during the night, changing the bridges around, and altering the streets, and rearranging the quays. And of course itwasdifferent, because she had changed her life forever, and there was no going back to the day before yesterday.

21

The phone rang at 7:05 on Sunday morning. Katie reached across to the nightstand and pulled the receiver back under the covers. 'Yes? Who is it?'

'Dermot O'Driscoll here, Katie. Have you seen the Sunday papers yet?'

'I've only just woken up.'

'Well, get yourself out of bed and buy yourself a copy of theSunday Times. Page three, you won't miss it. Then call me here at home.'

'Yes, sir.'