Slaughter's hound

22

More tubes, crisp sheets, muted beeps. A different room, another nurse, this one a pert blonde with a luscious overbite. Tohill leaned against the wall at the foot of the bed, hands jammed in his pockets, his face now looking like they’d just pulled the boot out of a canal.

‘Don’t mind the cop,’ I told the nurse. I felt sharp enough, even though I heard myself chewing tinfoil. ‘It’s what they call community policing. He’s just taking an interest.’

She flushed a little, averting her eyes as she fussed around, checking this, measuring that. My jaw still throbbed but the Dilaudid had bedded in. The pain was there, constant but tolerable.

I’d slept again. Long enough to allow them round up the donkey, take him away to some sanctuary in the hills. The nausea was gone and my vision had cleared, although the world was still shorter and narrower than God intended. ‘How’s Ben?’ I croaked.

The nurse glanced at Tohill. He blinked once. ‘No change,’ she said. ‘Stable but no change.’

‘I’m compatible?’

‘Already done,’ Tohill said. ‘They’ll be giving him a transfusion once they know it’s clean.’

‘You won’t find any booze in it,’ I said. ‘And even if you do, you’d have needed prior permission before it’ll stand up in court.’

He nodded, grim. ‘You nearly finished?’ he asked the nurse.

‘Nearly,’ she said. When she was done, she asked if I wanted a cup of tea, some toast.

‘Coffee’d be nice.’ But my heart was a cotton puff, so tea it was. The nurse left. Tohill locked the door, opened the window and produced a battered pack of Marlboro Lights, sparked us up.

‘Sorry about the kid,’ he said.

‘He’s not gone yet.’

The niceties observed, he jumped in. ‘Tell me again,’ he said, ‘how you weren’t boozing.’

‘We were rammed. Maybe it looks like a one-car deal to you, but we were rammed.’

‘By who?’

‘The fuck would I know? He came up from behind, hit me blindside.’

He had himself a drag while he thought about that. ‘Convenient,’ he said, ‘that the only person who can verify your story is in a coma.’

‘So we wait ’til he comes out of it.’

His stare was a deadpan ‘If’.

‘We found the stuff,’ he said. ‘I suppose you’ll be telling me the guy who rammed you planted it.’

‘What stuff?’

‘The coke,’ he said, patiently. ‘About ten grand’s worth, although we’ll work it up to fifty. Plenty enough to put you back where you belong.’

He wasn’t kidding. Given my record, ten grand worth of coke was enough to see me deported to the dark side of Jupiter. I took a long hit off the Marlboro while the prickles of cold sweat dried cold into my back. ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,’ I said.

‘Probably the bang on the head,’ he said. ‘Temporary amnesia. When you remember, be sure to let us know. Some of the boys are keen to know where it was going, who stumped up the ten grand. Unless it was all for personal use, hey?’ He winked, the grin that of a hyena with bad gas. Then he stubbed out his smoke in a kidney-shaped metal dish and took a pair of gloves from a side pocket. For one horrific moment I thought he was aiming for a cavity search, but instead he reached into his breast pocket, drew out a padded envelope. The cling-film had been unwrapped, hung loose. ‘Personally,’ he said, ‘I’m more interested in this.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You tell me. We found it on the back seat.’

‘Back seat?’

He stared, the bleak eyes tightening. Then he tossed the envelope onto the bed.

‘Try this,’ he said. ‘We have a one-car accident that looks like you lost control, probably as a result of your driving under the influence.’ He waved away my attempt at protest. ‘In the car we find a load of Class A, this in a car also containing your young son. Sordid, sure, but at least it’s open-and-shut. Except then we find this.’ He indicated the envelope. ‘So take a quick look inside before you start talking.’

‘First off, I know nothing about any Class A.’

‘So your prints won’t be all over the gear?’

‘Matter a fuck if they are, I was unconscious when it was found, or when you say it was. Who’s to say it wasn’t you had me fondle it? Reasonable doubt, Tohill. Especially when I’ve no previous for anything drug-related.’

‘You think that’ll stand up?’

‘You’re fishing, Tohill. And you’re gonna need a bigger boat.’

He shrugged that one off. ‘What about this?’ he said, nodding at the envelope.

‘I haven’t the faintest clue what’s in there. You can check with the cop at the PA, I went around there to feed Finn’s dog. I needed to piss, then the toilet wouldn’t flush, and when I looked inside the cistern I found that under a false bottom. I presumed it was his suicide note, so I brought it with me to give to his mother.’

‘A suicide note?’

‘I know, yeah. You wouldn’t be giving it to me now if it was a suicide note. But that’s what I thought it was at the time.’

‘Says you.’

‘Check with Saoirse Hamilton. She’ll confirm she asked me to find it.’

‘And you didn’t even take a sneaky peek inside?’

‘At a suicide note?’

He scratched his nose, then gestured at the envelope. My prints were already on the cling-film, so I opened the envelope. Inside was a passport that had been issued six months previously. Tucked inside its inner sleeve, folded neatly in half, were ten crisp, pink five-hundred euro notes. For a second I thought they were fakes. I’d never seen a five-hundred euro note before.

The passport bore Finn’s photograph, a signature that looked a lot like Finn’s writing and a date of birth that was Finn’s own. Oddly, the passport appeared to belong to one Philip Winston Byrne.

‘Tell me this,’ Tohill said. ‘What kind of suicide stashes a fake passport and five grand for a quick getaway? And while you’re at it, tell me some more about how you just so happened to be at the PA when he jumped.’

I stubbed my smoke and beckoned for another. The Marlboro tasted harsh and dry but I needed a little thinking time.

‘I’m presuming you had a warrant to search the car,’ I said. ‘Otherwise anything you found’ll be thrown out as inadmissible.’

‘Still with the legal shit.’ A lupine grin. ‘Your kid had to be cut out of the wreck and you’re worrying about procedure?’

‘The law’s the law.’

‘Not when it’s bent into knots by fuckers like you. And anyway, there was no search. The shit was just lying there.’

‘Says you.’

‘Says about ten cops and firemen, all of us with honest faces. So fuck your warrants and procedure. If you don’t play ball, right now, I’ll turn you out to the boys want you for the coke. And my best guess is, they’ll keep you just long enough to get whoever owns the gear wondering about what you’re telling them.’

‘I know nothing about any-’

‘Here’s how it is, Rigby.’ He ticked off on his fingers as he went. ‘We have you cold on trafficking Class A while transporting a minor in a vehicle you’re not insured to drive. And then,’ he nodded at the passport, the money, ‘there’s the incriminating evidence in what’s starting to look like a murder investigation.’

‘Circumstantial, and only because you want it to look that way. So you can screw Gillick and Hamilton Holdings.’

The heat was getting to him. He slipped out of his jacket, draped it on the bottom of the bed, leaned back against the wall. ‘Explain the fake passport,’ he said. ‘The five grand.’

‘You don’t know when Finn stashed them. Maybe he had plans and changed his mind.’

‘According to you, he had those kind of plans about twenty minutes before he went walkabout on the window ledge.’ He eased himself away from the wall, started pacing. Three strides to the window, a turn and three strides to the door. ‘See it my way,’ he said. ‘The first thing you do is bolt, leave the scene. Then you come in and make a false statement. Next thing we know you’re driving around with the guy’s fake passport and five grand in cash.’

‘I called it in,’ I said. ‘Gave the medic my number, went off to tell Finn’s mother. Then I came in, voluntarily, to make a statement. All the Good Samaritan shit. And that envelope was sealed. I didn’t open it because I thought it was Finn’s suicide note, I was giving it to his mother.’

He quit pacing, turned to face me. Open his arms wide, as if pleading. ‘That might even work,’ he said, ‘except for the kicker.’

‘What kicker?’

‘Your rep, Rigby. You’ve already put one guy away, your own brother.’

‘Try to use that in court and you’ll be laughed out of the building.’

‘It’s not what’s said, Rigby.’ The lupine grin now an incisor short of a howl. ‘It’s what’s known.’

I nodded. He folded his arms, triumphant.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Sorry what?’

‘For not playing along. I didn’t realise this was a CSI episode.’ I glanced up into the corners. ‘Where’s the cameras?’

‘Rigby,’ his teeth grinding, ‘what you don’t fucking realise is-’

‘Bullshit. Okay? Bullfuckingshit.’

‘You think? I say the word, you’re in a cell and-’

‘First off,’ I said, ‘you’re CAB. So any and all crap about murder or homicide or any of that shit, it won’t be your call. Two, if you had enough to put me in a cell I’d be there already. Three, it’s not what’s known, Tohill, it’s what you can prove. You take a case to the DPP on what’s known, you’ll be out on your arse so fast you won’t even bounce.’

‘You want to take that chance?’

‘I’m taking it. Because this is a game here, and you’re trying to push me into some corner where I have only one way out. Because it’s not me you want, it’s the Hamiltons and Gillick, or whoever they’re fronting for. And I’m fucked if I’ll be your boy.’

‘You’ll be fucked if you don’t.’

‘Then I’ll be fucked my way.’ That was the cue for a staring game, a little glowering. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t know what Finn told you about what he saw from the PA, but the man’s dead. That angle is dead. Close it down, start again.’

‘No problem, yeah. Hey, maybe we could even put that five grand there to the new budget.’

‘That’s what this is about? Budgets?’

‘We’re close is what this is about. And you need to pull your head out of your hole, have a look around. See how you can make this work for you.’

‘Make what work?’

‘Finn’s number is in your phone,’ he said patiently. ‘He rang you, you knew where he was, you knew he’d be alone. Then he goes out the window. You’re about to sign off on a false statement when Gillick arrives, walks you out. Then we find shit in your car makes it look like you’re trying to cover some tracks. Maybe your own, maybe Gillick’s, we don’t know.’

‘If you think I’m fronting for-’

‘We have your phone, Rigby. You want to tell me now who you were calling today or wait until we work it out ourselves?’

‘I’ll wait, thanks. Because you’ll need a warrant to go checking my phone records, and you’ll need a rock-solid reason to arrest me, besides what’s known, before you can get it. Meantime, I’ll have my phone back, cheers. Unless you’re looking to screw the investigation before it gets started.’

‘How about the coke, hey? You want that back too?’

‘For the last time, I know nothing about any coke.’ I held out my hand, palm down. ‘You want to go ahead and rap my knuckles right now, go ahead.’

From the way his fingers curled into his palm, it looked a lot like he was planning something a little more dramatic than a knuckle-rap or fist-bump. Except then he sat down heavily on the end of the bed, squeezed his eyes shut, dry-washed his face. He looked drained.

‘Okay,’ he said. He sounded almost normal. ‘Cards on the table. We think Gillick had Finn done. Maybe he did it, maybe he had you do it, and maybe you just happened to be there when it happened. Either way, it’s sweet for Gillick because you’re standing in the way and we can’t see around you. So here’s the thinking. Why not put you on the witness stand? Tell the world what we know, let it all fall out.’

‘I perjure myself or you frame me for Finn.’

‘You can go up there hostile if you want. But you might want to take a look at this first.’ He shifted his hip, took a small tinfoiled lump from his back pocket. Placed it on the sheet.

The old black hole opened up in my gut, started sucking. ‘What’s that supposed to be?’

‘It isn’t supposed to be anything. It’s hash. About two joints less than a ten-spot. Poxy slate, but still.’

‘So?’

‘We found it in the kid’s pocket, Rigby. Which means he was holding it for you or you were punting dope on to your kid.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Tell it to the tabloids.’ He laughed, sounding like a Ducati trapped between gears. ‘I’m thinking something along the lines of,’ he held up his hands, as if framing the headline, ‘“Coke Trafficking Killer Peddles Dope To Schoolboy Son”.’ He dropped the hands, wiped the grin, gave me the dead eye. ‘How d’you think that’ll read on his CV in ten years’ time?’