The rain had slackened off to a faint damp haze, but the clouds were getting denser and darker; there was more on the way. Ma was pressed up against the front-room window, sending out curiosity rays that practically burned my eyebrows off. When she saw me looking in her direction, she whipped up a J-cloth and started furiously cleaning the glass.
“Nicely done,” I said to Kevin. “I appreciate that.”
He shot me a quick sideways glance. “That was weird.”
His own big brother, the same one who used to nick crisps from the shop for him, in full cop mode. “Didn’t show,” I told him approvingly. “You worked it like a pro. You’ve got a knack for this, do you know that?”
He shrugged. “Now what?”
“I’m going to put this in my car before Matt Daly has a change of heart,” I said, balancing the case on one arm and giving Ma a wave and a big grin, “and then I’m going to go have a little chat with someone I used to know. Meanwhile, you’re going to wrangle Ma and Da for me.”
Kevin’s eyes widened in horror. “Ah, Jaysus, no. No way. She’ll still be raging about the breakfast.”
“Come on, Kev. Tighten up your jockstrap and take one for the team.”
“Team, my arse. You’re the one pissed her off to begin with, and now you want me to go back in there and take all the flak?”
His hair was sticking up with outrage. “Bingo,” I said. “I don’t want her hassling the Dalys, and I don’t want her spreading the word, at least not right away. All I need is an hour or so before she starts doing damage. Can you give me that?”
“What am I supposed to do if she starts heading out? Rugby-tackle her?”
“What’s your phone number?” I found my mobile, the one my boys and my informants use, and sent Kev a text that said HI. “There,” I said. “If Ma escapes, you just reply to that and I’ll come rugby-tackle her myself. Fair enough?”
“Fucking hell,” Kevin muttered, staring up at the window.
“Nice one,” I said, clapping him on the back. “You’re a trooper. I’ll meet you back here in an hour and I’ll get you a few pints tonight, how’s that?”
“I’ll need more than a few,” Kev said gloomily, and he squared up his shoulders and headed off to face the firing squad.
I stashed the suitcase safely in the boot of my car, ready to take to a lovely lady in the Technical Bureau whose home address I happened to know. A handful of ten-year-olds with underprivileged hair and no eyebrows were slouched on a wall, scoping out the cars and thinking wire hangers. All I needed was to come back and find that suitcase gone. I leaned my arse on the boot, labeled my Fingerprint Fifi envelopes, had a smoke, and stared our country’s future out of it until the situation was clear all round and they fucked off to vandalize someone who wouldn’t come looking for them.
The Dalys’ flat had been the mirror image of ours; there was nowhere to stash a body, at least not long-term. If Rosie had died in that flat, then the Dalys had had two options. Assuming Mr. Daly was the proud owner of one serious set of cojones, which I didn’t rule out, he could have wrapped her up in something and carried her out the front door and away: into the river, onto some abandoned site, into the piggeries as per Shay’s charming suggestion. But, the Liberties being the Liberties, the odds were high that someone would have seen it, remembered it, and talked about it. Mr. Daly didn’t strike me as a gambling man.
The nongambler’s option was the back garden. Probably nowadays half the gardens had been dolled up with shrubs and decking and various wrought-iron doodads, but back then they were neglected and ragged: scrawny grass, dirt, boards and broken furniture and the odd wrecked bike. Nobody went out there except to use the toilet or, in summer, to hang washing; all the action was out front, in the street. It had been cold, but not cold enough to freeze the ground. An hour one night to start digging a grave, maybe another hour the next night to finish it, another the third night to fill it in. No one would spot you; the gardens didn’t have lighting, on dark nights you needed a torch just to find your way to the jacks. No one would hear you; the Harrison sisters were deaf as a pair of fence posts, the back windows of Veronica Crotty’s basement were boarded up to keep the heat in, everyone else’s windows would have been shut tight against the December cold. Cover the grave, during the days and when you were all finished, with a sheet of corrugated iron or an old table or whatever was lying around. No one would look twice.
I couldn’t get into that garden without a warrant, and I couldn’t get one of those without something that bore a passing resemblance to probable cause. I threw my smoke away and headed back to Faithful Place, to talk to Mandy Brophy.
Mandy was the first person who was unequivocally, unmistakably glad to see me. The scream out of her nearly lifted the roof off; I knew it would send my ma scurrying for the window again. “Francis Mackey! Jesus, Mary and holy Saint Joseph!” She pounced and caught me in a hug that left bruises. “You nearly gave me a heart attack; I never thought I’d see you around these parts again. What are you doing here?”
She was mammy-shaped these days, with mammy hair to match, but the dimples were still the same. “This and that,” I said, smiling back. “It seemed like a good moment to see how everyone was getting on.”
“About fecking time, is all I can say. Come in out of that. Here, yous”—two dark-haired, round-eyed little girls were sprawled on the front-room floor—“go on upstairs and play in your room, give me some peace while I talk to this fella here. Go on!” She shooed the girls out with her hands.
“They’re the image of you,” I said, nodding after them.
“They’re a pair of little wagons, so they are. They’ve me worn out, I’m not joking you. My ma says it’s my comeuppance, for all the times I put the heart crossways in her when I was a young one.” She whipped half-dressed dolls and sweet wrappers and broken crayons off the sofa. “And come here to me, I hear you’re in the Guards now. Very respectable, you’re after getting.”
She was holding the armful of toys and smiling up at me, but those black eyes were sharp and watchful: she was testing. “You’d think,” I said, dropping my head and giving her my finest bad-boy grin. “I grew up, is all. Same as yourself.”
She shrugged. “I’m the same as ever, sure. Look around you.”
“So am I. You can take the fella out of the Place…”
“But you can’t take the Place out of the fella.” Her eyes stayed wary for another second; then she nodded, a quick little snap, and pointed a Bratz’s foot at the sofa. “Sit down there now. You’ll have a cup of tea, yeah?”
And I was in. There’s no password more powerful than your past. “Ah, Jaysus, no. I’m only after my breakfast.”
Mandy tossed the toys into a pink plastic toy box and slammed the lid. “Are you sure? Then d’you mind if I fold the washing, while we’re talking? Before those two little madams come back and have the place turned upside down again.” She plumped down on the sofa next to me and pulled a washing basket closer. “Did you hear I married Ger Brophy? He’s a chef now. He always did love his food, Ger did.”
“Gordon Ramsay, yeah?” I said, and gave her a wicked grin. “Tell me something, does he bring his spatula home with him, in case you’re bold?”
Mandy squealed and smacked my wrist. “You dirty bastard. You are the same as ever, aren’t you? Ah, he’s no Gordon Ramsay, he’s at one of them new hotels up by the airport. He says it does be mostly families that missed their flights and businessmen looking to take their fancy women somewhere they won’t be snared; nobody minds about the food. One morning, I swear, he was that bored he put bananas in the breakfast fry-ups, just to see what would they do. No one said a fecking word.”
“They must’ve thought it was nouvelle cuisine. Fair play to Ger.”
“I don’t know what they thought it was, but all of them ate it. Egg and sausage and banana.”
I said, “Ger’s a sound man. You both did well there.”
She shook out a little pink sweatshirt with a snap. “Ah, sure, he’s all right. He’s a good laugh. It was always on the cards, anyway; when we told my ma we were engaged, she said she’d seen it coming since we were in diapers. Same as with…” A quick glance up. “Same as with most of the weddings round here.”
Back in the day, Mandy would have heard all about that suitcase by this time, complete with detailed gory speculation. The decayed grapevine, plus my man Kevin’s sterling work with Ma, meant that she wasn’t tense and she wasn’t being careful; just a little tactful, so as not to hurt my wounded feelings. I relaxed back into the sofa and enjoyed it while it lasted. I love messy homes, homes where a woman and kids have left their mark on every inch: sticky finger marks down the walls, trinkets and nests of pastel hair-gadgets on the mantelpiece, that smell of flowery things and ironing.
We shot the breeze for a while: her parents, my parents, various neighbors who had got married or had kids or moved out to the suburbs or developed intriguing health problems. Imelda was still around, a two-minute walk away on Hallows Lane, but something at the corners of Mandy’s mouth told me they didn’t see as much of each other any more, and I didn’t ask. Instead I made her laugh: get a woman laughing and you’re halfway to getting her talking. She still had the same round bubbly giggle that exploded out of her and made you want to laugh too.
It took ten minutes or so before Mandy asked, casually, “So tell us, d’you ever hear anything from Rosie?”
“Not a dicky bird,” I said, just as easily. “You?”
“Nothing. I thought…” That glance again. “I thought you might have, that’s all.”
I asked, “Did you know?”
Her eyes were down on the socks she was rolling, but her lashes flickered. “What d’you mean?”
“You and Rosie were close. I thought she might have told you.”
“That yous were eloping, like? Or that she…?”
“Either one.”
She shrugged. “Ah, Jaysus, Mandy,” I said, putting a humorous twist on it. “It’s been twenty-odd years. I can promise you, I’m not going to throw a wobbler because girls talk to each other. I only wondered.”
“I hadn’t a notion she was thinking of breaking it off. Honest to God, not a clue. I have to tell you, Francis, when I heard yous two weren’t together, I was only gobsmacked. I thought for definite you’d have been married, with half a dozen kids to put a stop to your gallop.”
“So you did know we were planning on heading off together.”
“Yous went off the same night, sure. Everyone figured.”
I grinned at her and shook my head. “‘Breaking it off,’ you said. You knew we were still seeing each other. We’d been keeping that under wraps for almost two years, or at least I thought we had been.”
After a moment Mandy made a wry little face at me and tossed the socks into the washing basket. “Smart-arse. It’s not that she was spilling her guts to us, or nothing—she never said a word, right up until… Did you and Rosie meet up for a few drinks, about a week before yous left? Somewhere in town, I think it was?”
O’Neill’s on Pearse Street, and all the college boys’ heads turning as Rosie made her way back to our table with a pint in each hand. She was the only girl I knew who drank pints, and she always stood her round. “Yeah,” I said. “We did.”
“That was what did it. See, she told her da she was going out with me and Imelda, but she never said it to us so we could cover for her, know what I mean? Like I said, she’d been keeping you very quiet; we hadn’t a notion. But that night the pair of us got home early enough, and Mr. Daly was watching out the window and he saw us come in, without Rosie. She didn’t get in till late.” Mandy dimpled up at me. “Yous must have had loads to talk about, did you?”
“Yeah,” I said. Good-night kiss pressed up against the wall of Trinity, my hands on her hips, pulling her close.
“Mr. Daly waited up for her, anyway. Rosie called round to me the next day—the Saturday, it was—and she said he went ballistic.”
And we were right back to big bad Mr. Daly again. “I bet he did,” I said.
“Me and Imelda asked her where she’d been, but she wouldn’t say. All she would say was that her da was livid. So we guessed she must’ve been meeting you.”
“I always wondered,” I said. “What the hell did Matt Daly have against me?”
Mandy blinked. “God, I wouldn’t have a clue. Himself and your old fella don’t get on; I’d say it might be that. Does it matter, sure? You’re not round here any more, you never see him…”
I said, “Rosie dumped me, Mandy. She dumped me flat on my arse, out of the clear blue sky, and I’ve never known why. If there’s an explanation, somewhere out there, I’d love to know what it is. I’d like to know if there was something, anything, I could’ve done to make things turn out different.”
I gave it plenty of the strong-but-suffering, and Mandy’s mouth went soft with sympathy. “Ah, Francis… Rosie never gave a tinker’s damn what her da thought of you. You know that.”
“Maybe not. But if she was worried about anything, or hiding something from me, or if she was scared of someone… How livid did he use to get with her, exactly?”
Mandy looked baffled or wary, I couldn’t tell which. “How d’you mean, like?”
“Mr. Daly had a temper,” I said. “When he first found out Rosie was seeing me, the whole Place heard him roaring. I always wondered if it stopped there, or if… well. If he used to hit her.”
Her hand went to her mouth. “Jaysus, Francis! Did she say something?”
“Not to me, but she wouldn’t have, not unless she wanted me punching her da’s lights out. I thought she might have talked to you and Imelda, though.”
“Ah, no. God, no. She never said a word about anything like that. I think she would’ve, but… you never know for definite, sure you don’t?” Mandy thought, smoothing a blue school-uniform tunic in her lap. “I’d say he never laid a finger on her,” she said, in the end. “And I’m not just saying that because you want to hear it, now. Half Mr. Daly’s problem was that he never copped that Rosie had grown up, d’you know what I mean? That Saturday when she called round to me, after he’d caught her coming home late—the three of us were meant to be going to the Apartments that night, and Rosie couldn’t go because, I’m not joking you, her da had taken her keys away. Like she was a kid, instead of a grown woman putting her wages on the table every week. He said he was locking the door at eleven sharp, and if she wasn’t in by then, she could sleep on the street—and you know yourself, by eleven the Apartments were only getting started. See what I mean? When he got annoyed with her, he didn’t give her the slaps; he sent her to sit in the corner, the way I’d do with one of my little young ones if she was bold.”
And just like that, Mr. Daly no longer had the spotlight all to himself, getting a search warrant for his garden was no longer top priority, and snuggling up in Mandy’s cozy little corner of domestic bliss wasn’t as much fun any more. If Rosie hadn’t come out the front door of her house, it didn’t have to be because she was dodging me, or because Daddy had caught her in the act and had a melodrama moment involving a blunt object. It could have been just because he had left her no choice. Front doors were locked at night; back doors had a bolt on the inside, so you could go to the jacks shed without needing a key or locking yourself out. Without her keys, it didn’t matter whether Rosie was running away from me or into my arms: she had had to go out the back door, over walls and down the gardens. The odds were spreading out, away from Number 3.
And the chances of pulling prints off that case were going down. If Rosie had known she was going to be monkeying around with garden walls, she would have hidden the case in advance, ready to pick up on her way out of town. If someone had got his hands on her, along the way, he might never even have known the suitcase existed.
Mandy was watching me, a little worried, trying to work out if I got what she meant. “Makes sense,” I said. “I can’t see Rosie taking well to being sent to the corner, though. Was she planning on trying something? Nicking her keys back from her da, maybe?”
“Not a thing. That’s what tipped us off something was up, sure. Me and Imelda said to her, ‘Fuck him, come out with us anyway, if he locks you out you can sleep here.’ But she said no, she wanted to keep him sweet. We said, ‘Why would you be arsed?’—like you said, it wasn’t her style. And Rosie said, ‘Sure, it’s not for much longer.’ That got our attention, all right. The pair of us dropped everything and jumped on her, wanting to know what she was on about, but she wouldn’t say. She acted like she just meant her da would give the keys back soon enough, but both of us knew it was more than that. We didn’t know what, exactly; just that something big was happening.”
“You didn’t try for more details? What she had planned, when, whether it was with me?”
“God, yeah. We went on at her for ages—I was poking her in the arm and all, and Imelda smacked her with a pillow, trying to make her talk— but she just ignored us till we gave up and went back to getting ready. She was… Jaysus.” Mandy laughed, a soft, startled little catch, under her breath; her brisk hands on the washing had slowed to a stop. “We were just through there, in that dining room—that used to be my room. I was the only one of us had my own room; we always met up there. Me and Imelda were doing our hair, backcombing away—God, the state of us, and the turquoise eye shadow, d’you remember? We thought we were the Bangles and Cyndi Lauper and Bananarama all rolled into one.”
“You were beautiful,” I said, and meant it. “All three of you. I’ve never seen prettier.”
She wrinkled her nose at me—“Flattery’ll get you nowhere”—but her eyes were still somewhere else. “We were slagging Rosie, asking her was she joining the nuns, telling her she’d look lovely in a habit and was it because she fancied Father McGrath… Rosie was lying on my bed, looking up at the ceiling and biting her nail—you know the way she used to do? Just the one fingernail?”
Right index fingernail; she bit at it when she was thinking hard. Those last couple of months, while we made our plans, she’d drawn blood a few times. “I remember,” I said.
“I was watching her, in the mirror on my dressing table. It was Rosie, I knew her since the lot of us were babas together, and all of a sudden she looked like a new person. Like she was older than us; like she was already halfway gone, somewhere else. I felt like we should give her something—a good-bye card, or a St. Christopher medal, maybe. Something for a safe journey.”
I asked, “Did you mention this to anyone?”
“No way,” Mandy said, fast, with a snap in her voice. “No way would I have squelt on her. You know better than that.”
She was sitting up straighter, starting to bristle. “I do, babe,” I said, smiling across at her. “I’m only double-checking, out of habit. Don’t mind me.”
“I talked to Imelda, all right. We both figured yous were eloping. We thought it was dead romantic-teenagers, you know yourself… But I never said a word to anyone else, not even after. We were on your side, Francis. We wanted yous to be happy.”
For one split second I felt like if I turned around I would see them, in the next room: three girls, restless on that edge where everything was just about to happen, sparking with turquoise and electricity and possibilities. “Thanks, honey,” I said. “I appreciate that.”
“I haven’t a clue why she changed her mind. I’d tell you if I did. The two of yous were perfect for each other; I thought for sure…”
Her voice trailed off. “Yeah,” I said. “So did I.”
Mandy said softly, “God, Francis…” Her hands were still holding the same little uniform tunic, not moving, and there was a long invincible current of sadness under her voice. “God, it’s an awful long time ago, isn’t it?”
The road was quiet, only the singsong murmur of one of the little girls explaining something to the other, upstairs, and the rush of wind sweeping a gust of fine rain past the windows. “It is,” I said. “I don’t know how it got to be so long.”
I didn’t tell her. Let my ma do it; she would enjoy every second. We hugged good-bye at the door and I kissed Mandy’s cheek and promised to call round again soon. She smelled of sweet safe things I hadn’t smelt in years, Pears soap and custard creams and cheap perfume.