Slaughter's hound

6

Sizzling flesh, burnt petrol, maybe even a whiff of sulphur. The stench of the Saturday night riots in Hell.

My guts bubbled and yawed. I stumbled across to the deepwater for a smoke, hands shaking so hard it took three goes to dig the makings out of my back pocket. Bear had stopped barking, although now and again I could hear him scraping, a low whine. I finally got a cigarette rolled, stuck my face in the smoke.

When my guts finally stopped sloshing around I rolled another smoke and went back to where he lay. Hunkered down, fingers clamped on my nose. Some words needed. It was a bit late for an Act of Contrition, and anyway Finn wasn’t the religious type, so I settled for something vaguely spiritual from Bell Jars Away.

‘I have thrown myself into your warm hold,’ I whispered, ‘where you bless away the shivering.’

No good reason to whisper, there being no one within half-a-mile to hear. But I didn’t trust my normal voice to work. Shuddering now, the quake taking its own sweet time to settle, aftershocks rumbling.

I kissed one knuckle and touched it to what remained of his left shoulder.

Not much, but it’d have to do.

I spent the eternity or so it took the ambulance to arrive looking for something that might do for a slim jim, this before it occurred to me to wonder if Finn might have left his Audi unlocked. He had. I was cursing him for a feckless fool, aloud, when I realised I was only doing it out loud because I knew there was no one around, never was, not that late down at the PA. I half-expected to find the keys in the ignition, but even Finn wasn’t that hopeless. Two minutes, some loosened wires and a couple of sparks later and I was mobile again. The Audi was badly scorched all along its left-hand side, the windows smoke-blackened, so they looked like they’d been given a botched tint job. But it would run.

When the paramedics arrived, and looked and winced, I identified Finn and told them what I’d seen. The guy in charge seemed competent, solid, so I drifted away. He heard the Audi’s door close and strolled over, knuckled the window. I rolled it down.

‘You okay to drive?’ he said.

‘Sound, yeah.’

‘Watch out for the delayed shock. If you start feeling sick, dizzy, tired, any way off, pull over straight away.’ He peered a little closer, taking in the singed eyebrows, the bloody hands dried black. ‘And you’ll be needing a stitch or two in those.’

‘I’ll do for now.’

‘You know you’re not supposed to leave until the cops get here.’

‘Someone should tell his folks.’

‘The cops’ll do that.’

‘Yeah, but it should be somebody who knew him.’

‘Fair enough, but they’ll have my balls if I don’t write down your reg.’

‘Work away. I’ll swing back this way when I’m done. If I don’t find them here, I’ll head in to the cop shop. Should take about an hour out and back.’

He tap-tapped the roof, straightening up. ‘Better you than me,’ he said, walking away.

He didn’t know the half of it. I pulled out of the PA yard and headed for town. Ten minutes later I was outside Weir’s Folly, the four-bed penthouse suite of which had balcony views of Yeats’ Bridge to the north and Lough Gill to the east, and was officially registered as the office address of Fine Arte Investments. Two of the bedrooms had been converted into actual office space, which left two-thirds of the penthouse for the director of Fine Arte Investments, aka Finn Hamilton, to call his own, rent-free. That perk was impressive enough, given that a four-bed penthouse in the heart of town could be pulling down anything up to fifteen hundred a month, but the office address allowed Finn to claim practically every aspect of its upkeep as a tax write-off.

Money buys money.

NAMA might have been across Hamilton Holdings like some Biblical plague, but there were no eviction notices pinned to the doors of Weir’s Folly. And I was pretty sure too that when I drove on out to The Grange, there’d be no For Sale signs to take the look off the place.

I buzzed on the bell again, still wondering how I’d begin. No matter how I started out it always fell apart when I got to the part where I said his name. Which was when Finn’s voice cut in, talking about family and kids, his plans for Cyprus. Then the flesh spitting on hot metal, that oily, rank whiff …

I buzzed a fourth time, but the place was dark and it was obvious Maria wasn’t home. I gave it another thirty seconds or so, then dug out my phone and dialled her number. It rang out, went to her answering machine.

‘Hi, this is Maria. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but if you leave your name, number and a short message, I’ll return your call as soon as I can. Thanks, bye.’

‘Maria, it’s Harry. Call me back whenever you get this. It’s, ah, it’s important.’

I hung up, wondering if she already knew. If she was in there with all the lights turned off, sitting in the darkness with her hands cradling her belly, staring blindly into the void where her future used to be.