Forensic Songs Read online

  The sergeant nodded approvingly. ‘That’s what I thought, too, once upon a time. Farmers, firemen, dental hygienists, long-jump invigilators at community games – these are the sort of things you should see in a child’s face. But I never saw any of that. I saw something completely different. They’d come in the school gate with their little faces glowing and all I could see were things like … possession with intent to supply … conspiracy to defraud … public order offences … breaking and entering … ID theft … awful stuff like that. Plain as day those were the things I saw written across their faces. It took a toll on me. In the middle of my third year I went to the principal and told him about it. He was a kind man but he had no sympathy for me that day.

  “Those are the things you see,” he said. “Well, let me tell you what I see, the things I see before they’re even born. I see their parents, young couples out walking hand in hand and all I see between them are things like … mandatory sentencing … life plus ten years … both sentences running concurrently … if I’m lucky, I might see something like … community sanction.”

  ‘That startled me I’m telling you, that put me in my place. Imagine living with that, seeing that sort of thing day in, day out. It broke his health in the end, the poor man. He slumped onto his desk one afternoon and was carted off to hospital: a stroke. He lost all feeling down his left side and it was six months before he could walk again. A fine fresh-faced man, he had a daughter doing the Leaving Cert. the same year … Anyway, I didn’t need twice telling. I threw my hat at it towards the end of that year and joined the force and I wasn’t one bit sorry. You wouldn’t believe how dangerous children can be. You can’t turn your back on them …’

  They closed the door and stood out into the early night. The sergeant gazed up at the lintel.

  ‘We need to replace that bulb tomorrow or one of us will split ourselves coming out of here some night. That’s all we’d need.’

  They made their way across the gravel towards the sergeant’s car. The young guard opened the passenger door and was about to lower himself in when the sergeant placed his flask and lunchbox on the roof and stared across at him.

  ‘Eight weeks you said, that’s how long you’ve been here.’

  ‘Yes, eight weeks just gone.’

  The sergeant considered a moment and then went round the front of the car. He leaned back against the bonnet and folded his arms across his chest and appeared to stare out into the dark night beyond the road for a long moment.

  ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ the sergeant said softly. ‘We’ll release this gent tomorrow morning and we’ll put him under 24-hour surveillance – bugs, taps, intercepts, visual, audio, the whole shebang. And when we’ve done that we’ll open a file with his name on it and backdate the first entry to three months ago … that’s what we’ll do tomorrow.’ He turned to gaze at the young guard who now stood with one foot already in the car. The young guard blanched and stood back from the door. Callow and all as he was, he recognized the deception immediately. His first instinct was to protest. The word was out of his mouth before he could check it.

  ‘But …’

  ‘No buts,’ the sergeant said shortly, ‘you’re young, you don’t know the half of it. Take it from me, you don’t want to be drawing attention to yourself with something like this. You’ll get no thanks for it, mark my words. And I’m only two months away from retirement so I don’t want this hanging over me, either. This could go on for years – there will be an investigation, hearings, adjournments, appeals …’ A thin note of apprehension undercut his speech. ‘Up and down on that train three or four times a week.’ He grimaced at the prospect and shook his head ruefully. ‘No …’

  And now the young guard truly saw the gamble, what was wagered on it and what its full consequences might well be. And the prospect humbled him. He saw that in backdating the discovery of the anomaly by three months, the sergeant was taking full responsibility for it. And in the event that it turned out to be something more dangerous than an anomaly, the sergeant was gambling on the authorities letting sleeping dogs lie, not seeing the point of persecuting a retired man. And now … and now the issue … the whole moment was hopelessly blurred – there were too many options, things had been suggested, things proposed, and the young guard was no longer sure what he had agreed to or what he was complicit in. He gulped and raised a hand, then dropped it onto the roof of the car. ‘But someone like that, he might be capable of anything.’

  The sergeant nodded. ‘Yes, he might, and then again he might only be a glitch in the system.’ The sergeant studied the young guard. The lad had shown genuine acuteness throughout the investigation, a degree of thoroughness and clear reasoning he would not have credited him with. He made a mental note to stress all this in whatever report he might have to write. Also, despite a bookish nature that kept him unusually quiet, the young guard had proved to be easy company in the small barracks. But now the sergeant saw that he really was on the verge of tears and he was embarrassed for him. He could well sympathize. It had been a tough few days, certainly not the sort he would have wished for him at the beginning of his career. He turned and looked out into the gloom.

  ‘How far would you say from here to the other side of the road?’

  The young guard bent forward and squinted. The sharp night air had drawn the nervous flush from his face. He straightened up. ‘About forty yards, give or take a few.’

  ‘About that I’d say, forty yards. You know, if you were to leave your cap over there now I’d drop a fly into it from here.’ And with that, the sergeant stepped away from the car and planted his feet. He drew his forearms back across his chest and with his imaginary rod he cast out over the road. He spoke to himself.

  ‘I mightn’t do it the first time, but I’d do it the second.’

  And he drew his wrists once more behind his right shoulder and cast out again. And as he stood there watching him, the young guard was as certain as he would ever be that he was seeing someone lost in a moment of contentment.

  He watched him cast out again into the darkness while above them the sky closed over the earth, a night sky crossed with planes, satellites, unmanned drones …

  Christ, he’d always been thin, never a pick on him, but I’d never seen him looking as thin as he was at that moment, standing there in the kitchen with the grey hair hanging in his face and the rain dripping off him like a drowned dog. Not even the old anorak he was wearing could bulk him out to any size. And the little bony hands on him, as well – he’d started rolling a cigarette – I thought I could see all the missing years in the glossy sheen of his hands and the blue veins looping between his knuckles.

  And yet, in spite of his appearance, part of me couldn’t help but think that he looked well for a man I had thought dead these past seven years.

  ‘You weren’t always so short of talk,’ he said, licking the cigarette and placing it in the corner of his mouth. ‘Are you not glad to see me, Seaneen? Your older brother? It’s not that often I call now, is it?’

  He lit his fag, using that awkward stooping motion to bring the fag to the flame instead of the other way around. Small as the gesture was, it opened up a vein of bitter grievance that coursed through me like venom. He’s barely inside the door, I thought, and already he’s getting to me.

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ I heard myself say. It was not a good start.

  ‘It’s good to see you, too,’ he snorted, ‘how long has it been?’

  ‘Seven years,’ I said.

  ‘Seven years,’ he repeated wonderingly. ‘Where do they all go? It only seems like yesterday.’ He drew hard on the cigarette and thrust the tobacco and matches into the pocket of his anorak. He raised his face and took in the whole of the kitchen and then fixed his gaze on me and there we both stood, wordless and embarrassed and hopelessly at a loss with each other.

  ‘You need to get out of those clothes,’ I said, ‘you’ll catch your death in them.’

  He turned his b
ack to me and looked out the kitchen window. A bald patch on the top of his head glistened damp and shiny in the afternoon light. As he turned, the light flowed across his face, hollowing out the lines in his cheeks and along his jaw.

  ‘I’m tired,’ he said, dipping his forehead into the palm of his left hand and massaging his temples. ‘It’s been a long day; I think I’ll have a bit of a lie down.’ He bent to pick up the suitcase and I saw that it was as much as he could do to lift it. ‘Is there a bed above in the old house?’

  I took the key off the dresser and handed it to him.

  ‘There are blankets in the cupboard,’ I said as he passed through the door. ‘I’ll call you in a few hours.’

  ‘Don’t bother, leave it till tomorrow, we’ll talk tomorrow.’

  With his back turned, he raised his hand in a parting salute and left me standing in the silence of the kitchen once more. A small pool of water glistened on the tiles where he’d stood. Margaret entered from the hall, Jimmy draped over her shoulder.

  ‘I thought I heard voices,’ she said.

  I stared at the little pool of water on the floor. Had I not seen him leave with my own two eyes I might have thought that for the second time in his life, my older brother, Jimmy Cosgrave, had disappeared into thin air.

  They were a four-man team at the time, working out of a yard in Edmonton, covering north of the Thames in a Transit van: four men from the same parish, four men who’d grown up together, four men riding out the hard years of the eighties in the land of dope and Tories.

  After breakfast in the yard, they’d load up the tools and fill two barrels of diesel; then they’d hop into the van and head out to one of the gippos’ campsites in Lewisham or along the A13 near Dagenham. They’d pull in there on the campsite and wait and sure enough, after a few minutes, the green van would draw a crowd. The caravan doors would open and all these gippos would pour out, every one of them big bastards, arms like gorillas but sound enough if you kept the right side of them. One look at the green van and they’d know the craic.

  ‘What part, lads?’

  That’s how it was with gippos, always had to know who they were dealing with – the price of doing business with them. The lads would leave the talking to Jimmy.

  ‘A small village in the west, you wouldn’t know it.’

  ‘Tell me the name and I’ll know it.’

  ‘Louisburgh, south Mayo.’

  The big gippo nodded. ‘I know it well, many’s a bad roll of lino I sold in it. God’s Pocket, am I right?’

  ‘You know them all.’

  ‘I’d know less, what have you got?’

  The going rate at the time for a barrel of red diesel was thirty pounds. One of the lads would push it out the back of the van with his boot and a crowd of hardy-looking gasúrs would roll it away.

  ‘That’s one of Gaughan’s vans?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Out of Edmonton?’

  ‘The very place.’

  ‘Throw the keys under her tonight – there’ll be a tonne in it for you.’

  Jimmy guffawed and climbed into the van. ‘Will I fuck throw the keys under her tonight. I’ll be back for that empty tomorrow. We’ll talk again.’

  ‘Sound.’

  When I went up to the old house the following morning he was standing at the kitchen window, looking out across the yard. He motioned into the grey light.

  ‘A lot of changes,’ he said. ‘All the old sheds and the hen house gone. What’s that you’re putting up in the haggart?’

  ‘A slatted house, we should have the roof on in a couple of weeks.’

  ‘So the old man left a big lump behind him?’

  ‘The old man left very little behind him. Any penny he left goes to looking after herself. Are you going over to see her?’

  He ignored the question, turned his back and leaned into the narrow window, bracing himself on one flattened hand. ‘What time is it now?’ he asked.

  ‘After nine,’ I said, ‘half-nine.’

  ‘Half-nine,’ he repeated. He nodded out to where a van had pulled into the bottom of the yard. The doors opened and three men spilled out. Jimmy shook his head.

  ‘This is a strange time of day to be starting a job of work, half-nine.’

  ‘Leave them alone, don’t go down annoying them.’

  Jimmy laughed ruefully. ‘Those lads will break no harness by the look of them. Who are they, anyway, any of them local?’

  ‘They’re all local, one of them is your brother-in-law.’

  A broad look of surprise opened his face. ‘Which one?’

  ‘Frank Moran.’

  He shook his head. ‘That’s not telling me much; Morans are ten a penny in these parts, or at least they used to be.’

  ‘Frank Moran from Roy.’

  ‘One of the Lollies?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And they have a sister?’

  ‘Yes, her name is Margaret and she wants you down for dinner this evening.’

  It took him a moment or two to come to terms with this piece of news. ‘Sound,’ he said eventually. ‘I’ll change into my evening wear. I’m looking forward to it.’

  ‘Whatever you want. And by the way, there’ll be someone else at the table.’

  ‘A visitor?’

  ‘Not a visitor, our son, his name is Jimmy.’

  Thursday morning they’d drive to Archway and get the papers: two copies each of The Mayo News, the Western People and the Connaught Tribune. Then, another hour driving round looking for the manhole, Padraic calling out the directions to Sean from the A–Z.

  ‘Listen to this …’

  As usual, Jimmy had turned to the courts pages. He always got a great kick out of reading them. ‘Let’s see what the poor people are up to’ – that was his spake every time he opened the papers from home. Settling himself on a pile of overalls, he spread out his legs.

  ‘Listen to this,’ he began. ‘“Man Terrorizes Punters in Public House. Late-night drinkers in The Swan Tavern, Ballinrobe, had a lucky escape when local man, Thomas Shevlin, entered the public bar at twenty past ten on the night of March 21st with a chainsaw. Witnesses reported the defendant stood in the middle of the bar and fired up the chainsaw and then demanded drink. ‘I was only trying to get their attention your honour,’ the defendant said.”’

  Jimmy looked up. ‘Right enough, a two-stroke Husqvarna will get you plenty of attention in a pub.’

  ‘What did he get?’ Martin asked.

  Jimmy shifted his back against the metal panels. ‘Wait till you hear, this is the best part. “Justice Hannigan,” ’ – Jimmy raised his head and grinned over at Martin – ‘My old buttie, Justice Hannigan, who else? “Justice Hannigan deferred sentencing pending a psychiatric report. He ordered the defendant bound to the peace and his movements confined to within a two-mile radius of the town’s Telecom mast. Leave to travel would only be granted with documented proof of gainful employment.” ’

  Jimmy closed his eyes and bared his teeth in silent laughter, his shoulders bobbing. ‘Imagine that, Ballinrobe is now an open-air prison for that man.’

  ‘Gainful employment my arse,’ Padraic scoffed, ‘that man is rightly fucked.’

  Finding the manhole, they’d lift the cover and Jimmy would suit up to go down and pour diesel into the penstock. Martin and Sean would cordon off the hole with bollards and caution tape and Padraic would ready the tools in the back of the van. After two years working together they had the job down to a minimum of wordless movement and effort. That done and the van parked up, it was time for the bite of grub. They’d find the nearest pub and get the grub and the drink out of the gippos’ money and then settle down for a couple of hours, talking and smoking and reading till the place cleared and went quiet for the Holy Hour. That was when Jimmy would phone up the yard. He’d stand at the end of the bar with the public phone cradled between his neck and shoulder, his boot tapping the bottom of the wall. Their supervisor at the time was a lad called Gary Withe,
a cockney who didn’t know a whole lot about what they were doing but who left them alone and generally took them at their word.

  ‘I dunno,’ Jimmy would say in a worried tone, ‘two barrels of diesel have gone down but it’s not moving. When was it opened last?’

  Jimmy would stand nodding and then, after a moment, ‘ … well, if it’s twenty years ago it’s going to be a bastard to move, it’ll be rusted solid. We’ll need another few hours for the diesel to cut.’

  Another pause and then, ‘ … right so, see you tomorrow, Gary … sound.’

  That phone call had them clocked in for three hours’ overtime and that was when they did their day’s work.

  He settled quickly into a routine. He’d get up before eight o’clock and have a mug of tea at the kitchen table while he listened to the radio. Then he’d wash and shave and by the time he’d have all that done I’d have finished my jobs and I’d call in and have another mug of tea with him and we’d talk about whatever had been on the news that morning.

  He had aged something fierce; seeing him stripped of his old anorak for the first time startled me. All his sinewy muscle had wasted to a decrepit middle age that was frightening in a young man of thirty-five. And there was also a real cautiousness about all his movements, the way he walked and the laboured way he folded himself into a chair. Everything about him gave the impression of someone who had skipped over an essential period of their life and it was now a fact that the two calendar years between us stretched to a generation.

  And so far he had said nothing of the last seven years; shed no light whatsoever on how he had spent them or how they had passed. I asked him straight out but he waved his hand as if dismissing some piece of nonsense, giving me the impression that his past really was in the past and would remain there. So, whether those years had passed in sickness or in drink, in den or in dosshouse, I could not say. All I knew was that there was about him the ragged look of the prodigal who had savagely committed to his fate. I had an image of him during those years walking some London street with the fag cupped in the hand behind his back, walking with that high-stepping stride of his, the walk of a man whose feet had never lost the memory of wet land under them.