I nodded. Had Tommy gone back into the hot car business? Had he ever left? Catching Tommy in a lie was as difficult as it had ever been, particularly since he often wasn’t sure himself, trusting in the one true faith of Make It Up As You Go Along.
Tommy got Darren Reilly out of the car. The journey had restored his spirits. He lifted the tarpaulin and inspected the navy hood of a Mercedes saloon with no license plates.
“This is what I’m talking about, Tommy.”
“No way, Darren,” Tommy said.
“Nothing you can do about it, when fuckin’ Wayne gets after yiz-”
“Fuckin’ Wayne is gonna need a doctor for his
“I meant, after, when you’re out and about. When you’re on your own man.”
“I wouldn’t be thinkin’ about after if I was you, Darren. Who says there’s gonna be an after?”
Darren laughed, a clattering football rattle of a laugh.
“What are you, hard men all of a sudden? Sure your man Loy there’s in with the cops so he is.”
“He may be, but I’m not.”
Tommy suddenly hit Darren Reilly a backhander across the ear. Reilly squealed, but I could see Tommy wince; the blow had hurt his hand, and he was trying not to show it; I winced myself at the sight of Tommy hitting anyone: violence had never been part of his rogue’s repertoire.
“Tommy,” I said, as sharp as I could make it. Tommy looked up guiltily and almost blushed, and I had to turn to hide my face; I thought I might burst out laughing. I walked to the doors at the far end of the lockup. Tommy followed me, trailing one eye back toward Reilly, who was rubbing his ear and swearing.
“What the fuck is going on here, Tommy? In a lockup, slapping people around? What are we, going to torture the guy?”
“He owes me money.”
“He owes you money how? Low-rent drug dealer skangin’ round the Woodpark Estate and he owes you money, and you unemployed and looking for work on the level, now how could that be?”
Tommy’s lower lip protruded from his reddened face, his brow all furrowed in a schoolboy frown. That was how it went with Tommy and me: first I had to be his older brother, then his father, then his headmaster. And having to be anybody’s headmaster was a bolt upright three A.M. nightmare at the best of times, and it never seemed to be the best of times anymore. My face smarted, and the blood was still flowing; I nudged Tommy in the ribs to start him talking.
“Those porno DVDs,” he said. “I got them from the Reillys.”
“Not Brock Taylor.”
“No. So anyway, I paid in advance.”
“Why did you tell me you got them from Brock Taylor?”
“’Cause I thought it would shut you up goin’ on about what a fuck-up I was if I was in with Brock. Anyway, a fiver each I gave the Reillys, reckoned I’d make ten, come out a grand ahead.”
“And Brock Taylor?”
“What about Brock Taylor? He has nothing to do with anything, I told you, I just…thought of him.”
“How did you ‘just’ happen to show up tonight? Right place, right time? You following me, or the Reillys there, or what?”
Tommy looked away, exhaled loudly through his nostrils, shook his head.
“Just coincidence, Ed. Thought I’d go up the Woodpark Inn for a pint. Came out, spotted you in the-”
“Come on, Tommy. At least the Brock Taylor lie had a certain amount of class.”
“I swear on my daughter’s life.”
“I don’t believe you. Tommy-”
“I was following the Reillys.”
“Thank you. Why?”
“I owe them money. Borrowed it for, just, you know. The usual.”
“And?”
“And I can’t afford to pay it back, and the interest is fuckin’ mounting, so I was trying to get something on them I could use.”
“What kind of thing? Use how? Catch them dealing coke, or loan-sharking, then threaten to give witness evidence to the Guards? Not your style. I don’t believe a word that’s coming out of your mouth, Tommy, not one fucking word.”
“I was hanging round the Woodpark, waitin’ there for them. The Reillys are in and out all night so they are. I didn’t know they were going to attack you, didn’t even know you were there.”
But I had stopped listening. My face was aching, and blood had seeped into my right eye, tearing it up. I spat on the handkerchief and wiped it clean. At least the flow of blood had subsided. I was cold and tired; I needed a drink and a hot shower and a decent night’s sleep and a case that didn’t involve first cousins fucking each other. Instead, here I was in a lockup with a torn face and my best friend the compulsive liar and a little scumbag called Darren Reilly, who had threatened me and pistol-whipped me and who was now leering through the window of a stolen Mercedes at himself, or at the image of his idealized self behind the wheel. I thought I’d better give Tommy some time to make up whatever it was he was going to say next. I walked up fast behind Reilly and grabbed him by the collar and tapped his face firmly against the car window a few, maybe half a dozen times and dragged him to the front of the lockup and pushed him at one of the aluminum doors. He saved himself any further damage by bracing his hands against the support struts on the door. There was blood on his face, and he was whimpering.
“All right, all right,” he said. “Fuck sake. What do you want?”
“Who told you to warn me off?”
Darren Reilly didn’t answer immediately, so I pulled him off-balance and stamped on his foot, near the ankle, hard. He screamed and fell to the ground and lay there moaning.
“Who told you to warn me off?” I said again.
“Sean Moon,” he said. “Jesus fuck!”
“Sean Moon? Don’t make a clown of me here, Darren.”
“I swear. Paid us an’ all. Like when we were minding the young ones.”
“What young ones?”
“The Howard kids.”
“Sean Moon paid you to mind Emily Howard and Jonathan O’Connor?”
“Sure. Brady organized it with him. We just done what we were told. Take the money and run.”
Reilly wiped some blood from his face and put a tentative hand to his nose. It didn’t look broken to me. Maybe I was losing my touch.
“So David Brady was in charge of it all then?”
“Moon isn’t the gobshite you think he is. Bit of a fucking brain, could’ve gone to Uni an’ all. Two of them working together, looked like to me. They organized the whole blackmail thing with your one’s oul’ fella, Howard.”
“They organized it?”
“Yeah. I think your one was in on it though. I didn’t care one way or the other. They paid us well, is all I know. Even if they wouldn’t let us watch the riding.”
“And who blackmailed Brady into making the porn in the first place?”
“Sorry? Lost me there man,” Darren Reilly said. He worked his foot around in a circle. “At least it’s not broken. I wouldn’t give much for your chances once Wayne gets his nose sorted out, he’s a tendency to bear a grudge, so he does.”
“David Brady was blackmailed into making the porn by someone whose daughter he had sex with when she was underage. Do you know who that was?”
“The dirty fucker. No, I don’t know.”
“I do,” a voice said.
When I turned around to look at Tommy, his head was bowed and he was shaking. He lifted his head and swung an unsteady finger at me, and I was taken aback to see tears in his eyes. He said something, but I couldn’t
