Smithy shrugged. “I make it a firm rule to keep out of other people’s love lives.”
“’Tis probably sensible. How did they meet, though?”
“I don’t think they have, technically.”
“How does that work?”
“Like I said, you’re asking the wrong man. They’re millennials, or whatever it’s called now. They do everything online.”
“Ara, Jesus,” said Bunny. “Ye don’t think he’s sending her pictures of his meat and two veg, do you? They do that now.”
Smithy shuddered. “No, I don’t. But thank you kindly for that mental image. Diller is a classy guy.”
“He is,” admitted Bunny.
“I mean … I don’t think he’d do that.”
“Should we ask him?” ventured Bunny.
“Well, you can if you’d—”
Smithy was interrupted by Bunny pushing the fake cigarette-lighter button that activated the intercom to the compartment in the back where Diller and Carlos Breida were currently working on their fourth jigsaw.
“Here, Diller. You’re not sending Zoya pictures of your Martha and the Vandellas, are you?”
There was a moment’s pause, followed by, “What?”
“Your wing-dang-doodle. Your sausage. Your anaconda down under. Y’know, your—”
“Please stop talking,” said Diller. “And no, I am not doing that.”
“Right,” said Bunny. “Fair play to you. Very sensible.” He paused. “Let me know if you need any romantic advice.”
“Absolutely,” said Diller. “You will be my first port of call for advice in the subtle art of seduction.”
“Grand,” said Bunny.
Smithy turned away to hide his smirk.
Just before Bunny took his finger off the button, Smithy heard Carlos saying, “What’s a …”
Bunny nodded to himself, satisfied. “Sounds like he’s got it under control.”
“You’re like an Irish Barry White, you know that?”
“Isn’t Barry White dead?” asked Bunny.
“Yes, but technically, so are you.”
“Fair point.”
Smithy rubbed a hand around his neck and slowly moved his head around to loosen it up a little. “Actually, can I ask … In all the confusion, I’m a little foggy. How does Carlos back there help your Simone situation again?”
“Sisters Bernadette and Assumpta got taken by some boyos from one of the cartels. Bernadette is the only person alive who might know where Simone is. They wanted Carlos, so …”
“Right,” said Smithy.
The awkward silence that followed stretched out for quite some time before Bunny broke it. “Ask the question.”
“It isn’t my place.”
“It most certainly is,” said Bunny. “You put your arse on the line to help me. Again. And thank you again, in case I haven’t mentioned it before now.”
“You have. And you’re welcome.”
“So, your question is?”
“The obvious one.”
Bunny nodded. “That being, are we really going to hand the nice simple lad in the back there over to some arseholes from a drug cartel so the Sisters can get their two members back, and I can finally find Simone before some dangerous people find her.”
“Yeah,” said Smithy.
Bunny shifted awkwardly in his seat. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
“OK,” said Smithy.
“I guess we’re going to have to figure that out.”
Bunny reached down into his bag. “In the meantime, I’ve got a treat for you.”
“No drinking and driving,” said Smithy. “I take that shit seriously.”
Bunny rolled his eyes. “Give me some feckin’ credit, would ye? I’d never do that.”
“OK, then,” said Smithy. “What is it?”
“Sister Dionne gave me these as a present. Don’t know where she got them.”
He pulled out a package with more of a flourish than Smithy felt the situation required.
Smithy looked at the road, then at the packet, then back at the road. “OK, I’ll bite. What the hell are Jaffa Cakes?”
“That, my friend, is a surprisingly complicated question. Strap in, this’ll take a while to explain.”
Also by Caimh McDonnell
The Dublin Trilogy
A Man With One of Those Faces (Book 1)
The Day That Never Comes (Book 2)
Angels in the Moonlight (Book 3/prequel)
Last Orders (Book 4)
McGarry Stateside (featuring Bunny McGarry)
Disaster Inc (Book 1)
I Have Sinned (Book 2)
The Quiet Man
The Final Game (MCM Investigations)
Welcome to Nowhere (Smithy and Diller)
And in January 2021 Caimh’s alter-ego C.K. McDonnell releases The Stranger Times – details on the next page.
Visit www.WhiteHairedIrishman.com to find out more.
The Stranger Times – C.K. McDonnell
There are dark forces at work in our world so thank God The Stranger Times is on hand to report them. A weekly newspaper dedicated to the weird and the wonderful (but mostly the weird), it is the go-to publication for the unexplained and inexplicable . . .
At least that’s their pitch. The reality is rather less auspicious. Their editor is a drunken, foul-tempered and foul-mouthed husk of a man who thinks little of the publication he edits. His staff are a ragtag group of misfits. And as for the assistant editor . . . well, that job is a revolving door – and it has just revolved to reveal Hannah Willis, who's got problems of her own.
When tragedy strikes in her first week on the job The Stranger Times is forced to do some serious investigating. What they discover leads to a shocking realisation: some of the stories they’d previously dismissed as nonsense are in fact terrifyingly real. Soon they come face-to-face with darker forces than they could ever have imagined.
The Stranger Times is the first book from C.K. McDonnell, the pen name of Caimh McDonnell. It combines his distinctive dark wit with his love of the weird and wonderful to deliver a joyous celebration of how truth really can be stranger than fiction. Available for pre-order in the UK and Ireland now.
Eagle-Eyed Legends
Ila Patlogan
Jakky Foster
James Keleher
Joan Barber
John Cooksey
JohnMichael Ayers
Linde Debor
Lynn Birmingham
Michelle Buenzli
Nick Kaayk
Paula Page
Rhonda Seegers
Ruth Fisher
Sherie Mik
Siobhan McCarthy
Sue Edwards
Terry Saeger
Thank you!
