The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley (22 page)

“Do his kidneys first,” said the glass-eyed man.

“Shut it, Geno,” said Sean. I kept my eyes closed and waited for the plunge, knowing the climax of pain would last only minutes; a few minutes of torture and then I'd disconnect like I had in my bedroom on Monday night and with Dechtire in Terenure tonight. The cold steel point of the trocar dragged across my belly and stopped at the point of entry. I stopped breathing and rolled my eyes to the top of my head as I anticipated the agony.

A door closed in the office, shifting everyone's focus in an instant. It sounded like the back office.

“Vincent,” Christy called out, walking through the selection room. I opened my eyes to see everyone looking to the door, which was wide open.

“What the fuck!” said Sean, losing his patience.

Christy arrived at the door, looking pale but determined, and directed his attention at Vincent.

“The fuck do you want?” said Vincent.

“I'm not going without Paddy. You can kill me, too, but if you want the dog, you'll have to let the pair of us go.”

Sean pulled a gun from the back of his trousers and walked over to Christy and pressed it hard against his head.

“Fuck off out of here, you stupid baldy cunt,” said Sean, continuing to press it into Christy's forehead, trying to push him away.

“Shoot me then,” said Christy with a shaky voice, standing his ground. “I'm not leaving without Paddy.”

Vincent moved slowly away from me over to Christy, the trocar still in his hand.

“Put the gun away, Sean,” he said calmly. Sean put the gun back where he'd pulled it from but looked no happier about Christy's presence. I could see Christy's focus was on the trocar, and he looked like he was expecting to be stabbed with it. Every move Vincent made was controlled and measured, and when he spoke, he spoke slowly and deliberately.

“Christy, it's a brave thing you did coming back in here, but pointless. My will is stronger than yours, so if it means me killing you and finding my dog at a later stage, then so be it. Paddy Buckley dies tonight. You can fuck off now with your life intact, knowing you did what you could to save your so-called friend, but the truth is he doesn't deserve it.” Vincent was right next to Christy now and was slowly putting his arm around his neck. Christy looked back at Vincent like a defiant, beaten child. Vincent was holding the trocar in such a way that he could very effectively stab Christy with it at any moment, and his men all looked on like they were expecting him to.

“He doesn't deserve this, Vincent,” said Christy, trying to reason with the wrong man. “It was an accident. He didn't even see him.”

Vincent squeezed his arm around Christy's neck and pulled him close, lining the trocar up to point into Christy's left eye.

“It wasn't an accident taking the money though, was it?” he said in almost a whisper. Christy's fear diminished.

“Paddy didn't take any money.”

“I didn't take the money,” I said. Vincent turned around, lowering the trocar but keeping his hold on Christy, and looked right into my eyes.

“You took the twenty grand, Buckley,” he said.

“I never took a penny off him,” I said. Vincent's eyes became very black as he released his grip on Christy and looked up to Geno, the glass-eyed man, who shook his head and smiled.

“Geno,” said Sean, with revelatory darkness.

“Don't you fucking lie to Vincent Cullen!” said Geno, jabbing me hard in the neck.

“Geno,” said Vincent. “Look at me.” He looked at Vincent with the same smile, but he'd become nervous and shifty. Vincent kept moving closer, the trocar down by his leg now. Sean, Matser, and Richie were all looking at Geno, and I could feel Matser's grip loosening around my arms. Christy was cowering by the wall, focused, too, on Geno.

“Hang on a minute now,” said Geno.

“For what?” said Sean.

“Stay where you are, Gene,” said Vincent. “Now, just tell me once that you didn't lift the money.”

Geno swallowed hard and then, instead of saying anything, he pulled a gun from his belt and pointed it frantically at Vincent, then to Sean, who had his hands raised slightly, and back to Vincent.

“Back up!” he said, looking like he could shoot at any time. Both Matser and Richie had fully released their grip on me, and I stayed there, as still as a stone. Vincent kept moving towards Geno fearlessly.

“Put it down, Gene,” he said calmly.

Matser shifted his weight to block Vincent and went to slap the gun away, but Geno squeezed off a shot, getting Matser in the belly, dropping him. The sound was deafening.

“Matser!” said Richie, rushing to his side.

Sean pulled his gun out and pointed it at Geno, but Geno shot first, spinning Sean back to hit the wall. Sean brought his hand to his head to press against the blood above his ear, but he seemed fine.

Vincent kept moving fearlessly towards Geno, who backed towards the selection room door. Sean had his gun raised now and fired a shot into the selection room after Geno. And then both he and Vincent were gone in after him.

Matser groaned, doubled up on the floor. “Get him,” he whispered to Richie, who rushed in after the others. There were more shots fired and more shouting.

Christy straightened up and moved quickly to the door out to the yard and silently opened it with his keys. I rolled onto my right side with my ears ringing and slightly deafened from the shots. Christy pulled me up by my right arm, and as gently as he could, helped me down to my feet. Matser's back was to us and he was dealing with his own pain anyway, so we were able to hobble out into the yard unnoticed and make our way down towards the gate. As we passed by the opaque windows of the selection room, we could hear it all. The shots had stopped, and it sounded as if they'd disarmed Geno.

“Let's start with the kidneys, Gene,” said Vincent, sounding like an animal again. As we staggered out the gate, Geno's gurgled screams slowly subsided to soundless whimpering.

We made it to Christy's Renault on Clanbrassil Street and sat into it, neither of us having said a word to each other since we'd left the yard. We were stunned just to be alive, and I think we were both still expecting to see Sean or Vincent come storming around the corner at any moment.

“Are you all right?” said Christy.

“I can't really move my left arm, but yeah, I'm okay.”

“Let's get the fuck out of here.”

“I'm parked around by George's,” I said.

I was still getting my head around being alive. I'd resigned myself to death so completely that I hadn't figured on life beyond the embalming room, and by life I mean powered by a beating heart. Yet I was alive, and all because of Christy. Feeling so close to being reunited with Eva had spun me out, too. I'd taken the leap but had landed here, and Eva and I were to remain separated. But I wasn't out of Dublin yet.

We pulled up outside George's beside the Fiesta to see the dog sitting up and looking right at us.

“You've got the dog,” said Christy, surprised that Cullen had nailed it.

“Yeah,” I said, not so sure what kind of reception I'd get now that I was covered in blood and Cullen's scent.

“What kind of a dog is that?” said Christy.

“A special one,” I said, and got out of the car. Even covered in blood, I wasn't carrying a trace of fear, and I was abundantly grateful for the help she'd given me, however unwittingly. I unlocked the door and opened it. The dog jumped out and stood there on the path beside me, looking up like she was my dog. I crouched down as best I could and rubbed her chest with my good hand. She closed her eyes and groaned and made me smile for the first time since I'd been with Brigid.

“You're going to have to find your own way home, Dechtire,” I said, fully confident that she was up to the task—if ever I'd met an animal that could take care of itself even on the streets of Dublin, it was Dechtire. I gave her a final scratch on her snout and got in the car.

“Follow me,” I said to Christy, and closed the door. I drove up the street with Christy trailing behind me, while the dog stood along the roadside looking after us until we were gone around the corner.

—

I DIDN'T PARTICULARLY
like goodbyes, but parting with Christy after he'd just saved my life felt like a little funeral. A man who owed me nothing, who had willingly come face-to-face with the cruelest death and was ready to give up all that he had and die beside me on the small chance that we'd be freed together, had rendered me speechless and closer to tears than I'd like to admit.

We'd driven to a little strip of shops in Drumcondra on the other side of the city and bought a bottle of vodka from an off-license, which we used to soak my wound. The bleeding had largely stopped, but I'd been cut deep, so I had to keep my arm still to prevent it from opening, which we did by making a sling from strips torn from my ripped and bloodied shirt. For a bandage, I'd bought a Guinness T-shirt and another one to wear under my suit, and we'd bought takeaway coffees, which we sipped in silence in a car park under the neon sign of a Chinese restaurant.

Christy opened his coat and pulled out the money he'd wrapped in newspaper.

“I can't take that, Christy . . .”

“Fuck you, Buckley, you're taking it.”

“Christy . . .”

“Take the fucking thing,” he said, poking it at me. I took a hold of it, shaking my head.

“You're an awful man.” I opened up the paper. It was a few grand. “Christy, it's too much.”

“Better in your pocket, Paddy, than under my mattress. Yours to keep.”

“I'll never forget it,” I said, and lobbed it into my car. “Come here, I've one more favor to ask.”

“Shoot.”

“Swap coats?”

“Of course,” said Christy, slipping his off. Mine was saturated from being out with the dog. We exchanged them, and with nothing more to give each other, we fell silent. It was goodbye time.

“Well,” I said. “This is it.” Neither of us had properly digested what had happened over the last few days, but we'd undoubtedly remember little moments and beats in startling clarity as the days went by. And added to these moments were the myriad memories we'd shared over the years, which for Christy would be accessed daily when he'd visit the churches and hospitals and nursing homes of Dublin. As for me, I'd yet to make it out alive.

I wanted to hug him warmly, and with one arm, I could only give him half a hug, but I needn't have worried. Christy hugged me tight and ended it with a slap on the back.

“Get out of here,” he said. “How are you going to drive with that arm?”

“I'll manage. See you next time,” I said, and got into the car. And without another word, I drove away, leaving Christy standing there in my wet coat, waving goodbye.

6:05 a.m.

I
t had been a long night, most of which had been spent horizontal on top of the cabin of an articulated lorry. When Liam Conway had told me on Tuesday that he'd a truck going to the UK on Friday morning, I never imagined I'd be hitching a ride with it. I'd driven up to Louth after leaving Christy and watched two men load up the lorry with coffins and caskets at midnight. And afterwards, when they'd gone back into the warehouse, I dragged myself on top of the driver's cabin and tucked in tight to the fold of the aerodynamic fin, which gave me ample shelter. The warmth came from the money Christy had given me, which I used to line the inside pockets of my coat.

I'd known the Conways a long time and liked them. Liam's father had been making Saturday visits to Gallagher's yard since I was a teenager, and I'd regularly shared cups of tea with him, but to announce my intentions to them tonight was out of the question. The way out was to stow away.

Up until I'd been snared by Cullen in the yard, I'd been planning on catching the red-eye out of Knock, but now Cullen would have every airport in the land crawling with his men, so my only hope out was by ferry, and even that was unlikely. They'd been three steps ahead of me all along, but they'd more on their hands to deal with now than catching me. Matser was down, they'd Geno's remains to dispose of, and they'd the cops to evade, who would have been called by somebody after all the gunfire.

The hour-long drive down to Dublin Port nearly lulled me to sleep, but knowing I was playing out my last chance of escape had kept me conscious and focused. And now the truck was parked in a line along with a few hundred other vehicles waiting to board the ferry to Holyhead while the early morning light began to filter through the grayness of the clouds. I was floating between two worlds, the old and familiar Dublin behind me and the bastion of hope that was England on the other side of the sea.

The lure of England gave rise to my fantasies of Hampstead, but the urgent knocking on the driver's door below my feet put an end to them.

The driver lowered his window.

“Yeah?”

“Detectives Mangan and McMahon. What are you carrying?” It was the unmistakable sound of Sean Scully's voice, whose confident and determined manner would discourage anyone from asking for identification, although for all I could see he had some.

“Coffins,” said the driver.

Sean didn't miss a beat. “Open her up for me there,” he said. The driver hopped out.

“What are you looking for?” he said, taking them down towards the back.

“An escaped criminal,” said the other man with Scully, Chris O'Donoghue, who'd probably been pulled out of bed in the middle of the night by Cullen. And then they moved out of earshot.

The stress that came alive in me seemed to collect itself in my wound, which had paralyzed me again. If I'd been more mobile, I would have tried hopping down, but with my shoulder as bad as it was, I'd more than likely be caught and dragged away. I'd no choice but to stay put.

Of all Cullen's men, Scully was undoubtedly the most cunning and thorough, and after I eluded him earlier, he'd be more desperate than ever for my blood. And Chris O'Donoghue, who had more egg on his face than any of them, having paved the way in for me, had a lot of atoning to do for endorsing me in the first place. I was backed into a corner, so close to escape I could smell the sea, but that was just the irony of it. My number was up.

I heard the back doors of the truck close and their voices become audible again.

“He wouldn't be under there, would he?” said the driver.

Scully must have been on his back, underneath the body of the truck, checking every possible crevice. I only had moments left. My eyes locked on the entrance to my hiding place. Every sensation now became amplified by the horrible expectation of capture. My feet felt cold in my shoes. My hands clutched handfuls of coat. My head pressed against the fiberglass of the fin. The air was filled with smells of engines and oil and sea and brakes and rubber. The seagulls squawked above me. My heart pumped blood through my arteries and veins. And I held my breath.

And then in an instant, a hand gripped the side of the fin and Chris O'Donoghue's head rose to become level with mine, and our eyes met. And with the composure of a poker ace, he jumped back down.

“Nothing,” he said conclusively, and they moved on. In that tiny moment between us, he'd saluted our friendship by delivering my reprieve and astonishing me with his kindness. Instead of seeing a killer, he'd seen an innocent whose dealings with the Cullens were accidental and reactive. I breathed again and tasted the sweetest air I'd ever known. I relaxed on the cabin top, humbled and exalted by a man without whose grace I would have been ravaged and killed, and whose code of clemency had given me my freedom.

Four hours later, I walked out of the rent-a-car office in Holyhead a newborn baby. It was all behind me now: the funerals, Cullen, and my ramshackle existence. I'd been delivered from them all to a new life. And I was at the very beginning of it.

I turned the key in the rented Vauxhall Astra and headed for a place where I'd be offered shelter and understanding. And a lot more besides.