He called Sean. "It"s gonna be a piece of p.i.s.s," he said.
"That"s right, just jinx it why don"t you," Sean said.
"Any blowback yet?"
"None."
"When do you think they"re going to find them?"
"I don"t know. We could call it in. But why would we."
"Aye, we"re not doing that."
"So you"re going to give this scheme a go?"
"Aye."
"I don"t need to say it, do I?"
"No, once bitten and all that."
"You should have put something in his drink."
"Amateur hour. Patience is all you need."
"Call me if there"s trouble."
"I won t."
He hung up.
He got out of the car. His heart was racing. Adrenalin pumping. He wasn"t going to do anything for at least thirty minutes, but Ivan had clearly gotten under his skin, spooked him.
He lit a match. The phosphorous ignited with a white flare, fire kicking staccato backwards along the wood pulp and turning yellow as it cooled. He watched it, oddly fascinated. The damp air caught the smell of burning and smothered it in the stagnant earthy smells of the wet evening. With only a few seconds left in the match he pressed the hand-rolled joint reluctantly into the flame. It was his last one and it was too late now even to get a packet of ciggies. In a few seconds the cannabis was already dissolving in his blood. His hand stopped shaking, his head cleared, his eyes learned how to focus again. The match dropped out of his hands taking a long second to fall and die in the black leaves that had collected in the gutter. He crushed what was left under the heel of his shoe and took another drag on the Virginia tobacco, mixed with a touch of Moroccan hash.
Ivan"s hotel room was still dark.
A breeze was blowing off Lough Erne.
Nice place Enniskillen.
All traces of the big IRA bombing in "89 were long since gone.
Nice place. But cold.
There was a pub on the other side of the car park which had a lot of empty seats. Some in the window.
And he felt cold inside too.
He wished just once he could have a real conversation with Sean, instead of business or blather. He wished again there was someone he could talk to, who would listen to the thoughts he overheard himself thinking.
But there was no one.
"It"s the path you"ve chosen, ya eejit," he said and spat.
Keeping his eye on the window he walked to the lake sh.o.r.e.
His stomach was rumbling.
He hadn"t eaten in a day and his head still hurt from the beating.
Oil and beer cans were jigging in and out between the tied-up boats. It was quiet, the yachts making the only music, clanging those familiar halyards and shaking their booms into discordant notes which resonated uncomfortably off the water. He grimaced, even with the dope mellowing him it was irritating - like a hundred school kids playing some warped modernist triangle symphony. Sort of thing you"d see on BBC4.
A kid came by. A short sleekit looking boy with freckles. Mouth open and closing. Clearly itching for a convo. Either that or a poofter. Nah, there weren"t any poofters in Fermanagh or if there were they kept b.l.o.o.d.y quiet about it, poor sods.
The kid sidled.
Stood there.
"Evening," he said finally, in a cautious country voice.
Killian said nothing.
"Is that gra.s.s you"ve got in your f.a.g?" the kid asked.
"What are you, a peeler?" Killian asked.
The kid laughed. "No, but you are, or something," he said.
Killian liked that. "How long have you been watching me?"
"Since the hotel bar," the kid said. "Who are you after? I couldn"t tell which one. Was it the c.h.i.n.k? Are you gonna lift him?"
"I"m not a cop. It"s a divorce case. Most tedious f.u.c.king thing in the world," Killian said.
The wean"s face fell.
Killian was freezing and hungry. "Hey, you want to earn twenty quid?" he asked.
"Aye."
Killian pointed at the hotel. "Keep an eye on that second floor for me, if a light comes on, come in the pub and get me. Okay? Think you can handle it?"
"What about the joint?"
Killian threw it in Lough Erne. "Stunts your growth, doesn"t it?" Killian said.
The pub was called The Boatsman"s Arms. Enniskillen saw a lot of pleasure traffic between lower and upper Lough Erne and all the way over to the Ulster ca.n.a.l and the Irish internal waterways. Narrowboating was a popular holiday for some people. Other people even lived on their barges, travelling from place to place. Of course they never got called tinkers or gyppos or pikeys.
"What are you having?" the barman asked.
They had two taps. Guinness and Harp.
"Guinness, I suppose," Killian said. "And do you have any food?"
The barman nodded. He was about fifty with a moustache that curled at the edges. Killian was a wee bit worried that he might be a "character" and a talker. He still needed to concentrate on the window.
"Nuke ya a shepherds pie, aye?" the barman asked.
"That would hit the spot," Killian agreed.
He sat in the window seat where he could see Ivan"s hotel room. The barman disappeared into a back room. It would be okay. Between him and the kid Ivan would have to be sharp. And that wean might come in useful for part two of the plan if he was what Killian thought he was.
The Guinness and the pie came together. The black stuff was well poured: black to the brim, the head above the gla.s.s, no f.u.c.king trace of a shamrock.
He sipped the pint, drowning everything out in the hoppy taste of the black liquid.
"Five even," the barman said.
Killian gave him a fiver.
The pub was empty now. Killian wondered when closing time was.
"How long have I got to eat this?" he asked.
"Ach, you"re okay," the barman said and went back to the counter to clean gla.s.ses. Killian started on the pie. Pretty good. Meaty, warm.
"It"s all right is it?" the barman wondered.
"Aye, it hits the spot," Killian said.
"The wee woman makes it, so she does. So where are you off to, if you don"t mind me asking?" the barman asked.
"Sligo," Killian said off the top of his head.
"Oh aye? Lovely there. Go there a lot?"
"No."
Killian finished the pie and the pint.
No light had come on in the hotel room. No light was going to come on. Ivan had spent all day driving and then all evening drinking.
He had about six or seven hours...
"Toilet?" he asked and was pointed to the left. He walked through the public bar to the bathroom at the back. It was really only a wall with a metal trough at the bottom, angling into a ditch that ran outside. There were big holes in the whitewashed walls that he could see out of, and a hole in the felt ceiling through which he could see the sky. Clouds were moving silently across the constellations like vast alien ships. He pulled down his fly and p.i.s.sed into the soap ball stuck in the bottom of the drain. It fizzed and bubbled and he shook the last of the yellow urine onto the soap and pulled up his fly again. There was no water for the washbasin so he wiped his hands on the back of his black jeans.
The graffiti here was a time warp back to the nineties: Up the IRA, f.u.c.k the IRA, f.u.c.k The Pope, f.u.c.k The Queen, UVF, UDA, INLA, PIRA, CIRA, No Pope Here, with the occasional Man United, Liverpool and there in a corner: Tinkers Out!
They"d never grow out of that would they?
He looked at his watch.
11.20.
Ivan had been down for nearly an hour.
Suddenly his legs gave way. Heart hammering, breath shallow. He leaned up against the wall and pinched the top of his nose. It was a panic attack, not a heart attack. "f.u.c.k," he said and slammed his fist hard in the whitewash. Plaster crumbling under the blow. "What"s all this about, Killian? Tinkers out? The dead woman? Tangling with a big boy like Ivan?"
Through a hole in the outer wall he could see the car park and the lough beyond. It was pitch black beyond the arc light. Like a friggin" coal mine. Like the friggin" grave. He focused on the dark until his breathing was normal.
"Okay now, is that it?" he asked himself.
Apparently it was. He took his car key and scratched a line through the graffiti about the tinkers, digging it until it was illegible.
He bent down to look in the piece of gla.s.s that was almost a mirror but with the tain sc.r.a.ped to a few flakes. He was like a ghost in the gla.s.s.
He walked back out into the lounge and said goodnight to the barman.
He found the kid in the car park and gave him twenty quid.
"Thanks, mister," the kid said.
"You want to earn a hundred more?" Killian asked.
"Aye!"
"I need a car."
The kid didn"t baulk but merely asked, "What"s the matter with yours? Or is that nicked too?"
"No, it"s not nicked. It"s mine, but it"s been fitted with a tracking device by the guy upstairs. He"s a rival investigator and we"re both on the same divorce case. It sounds exciting but it"s not. It"s a fairly common practice."
The kid looked at him. Killian had pegged him as a sleekit wee so-and- so, probably joyriding since he was about thirteen. Of course he could get the car himself, but it had been a while and it would take time.
"Aye, I can get you a car, easy," the kid said, "but it"ll cost ya more than a hundred quid."
"How much?"
"Let"s say five."
"Let"s say two."
"Two-fifty."
"Two."
"Aye, okay. What sort do you want? It"s Enniskillen so you"re not going to get a Porsche."