‘No probs,’ Fleas says. He slides off the sofa, hitches up his tracksuit bottoms and picks up his plate and mug. ‘I’ll get out of your hair, so.’
‘Leave that. I’ll do it.’ I was going to make another round of coffee, but it’s too late to say it now.
‘Ah, no. My mammy taught me to tidy up after meself.’ He heads into the kitchen. ‘Thanks for feeding me. You make a gorgeous fish-finger sambo, so you do.’
I follow him. He’s bent over the dishwasher, slotting his plate into place. ‘Here,’ he says, holding out his hand. ‘Give us that.’
I hand over my plate. ‘I’m glad you came,’ I say. ‘It’s good to see you.’
‘Same here. Yeah.’ Fleas slams the dishwasher and straightens up. ‘If I spot any of the lads acting a bit stressed, I’ll let you know – swear to God I’ll e-mail first, this time. Otherwise . . .’
I say, ‘Otherwise I’ll see you when I see you.’
Fleas gives me a grin and a quick, one-armed hug. His tough skinny arm and the smell of him – cheapo body spray, straight out of when I was fifteen – hit me with a blast of weakness that makes me glad he’s leaving. Then he switches off the motion-sensor light, unlocks the back door and is gone, over the wall, neat and silent as a fox. I lock the door behind him and wait, but he doesn’t text me.
Chapter 10
The next morning I lie in bed and think about staying there. I didn’t get a lot of sleep; after I rang my ma and told her about Aislinn’s mouthful of blood clots and smashed teeth (‘Huh’), I spent half the night leaping up to investigate random noises – in this weather, there were plenty of those – and the other half trying to lie still and trying to decide who deserves a punch in the gob more, Steve for coming up with the gang theory or me for actually going along with it. By six in the morning my body is one hard knot. I haven’t mitched off since school, but today I can’t remember why not. Two things stop me: if I don’t go to work, I’ll run till my legs give out and then sit at home driving myself mental; and if I don’t go to work, that’s one more day I’ll have to spend on this shitpile of a case.
I get into my running gear without turning on a light. Then I switch off the motion-sensor lights, slip out to my patio and go over the back wall. It’s dark, the flat drained dark that comes before dawn, when even the night things – foxes, bats, drunks and dangers – have finished their business and gone to sleep; even the wind has died down to an uneasy, feeble twitch. I move up the laneway without making a sound and flatten myself in shadows to peer around the corner and down the street. There’s no one hanging around at the top of my road; no one anywhere, in either direction, as far as I can see in the sick yellowish light. I go take a look down my road: no one there either.
Normally my run leaves me feeling like nothing but long muscles streaming with strength, able and beckoning for more, for anything, bring it on. That feeling is what gets me through my shift. Today the strength is nowhere. I’m lurching like a flabby first-timer; my legs drag like they’re wrapped in wet sandbags, my arms flop and my breathing can’t find a rhythm. I push harder, till my chest feels like it’s ripping and a thick red seethes up over my eyes. I hang onto a lamppost, doubled over, waiting for it to clear.
I make it home at a jog – some part of my head tells me that if I drop to a walk, I’m screwed in ways I can’t put my finger on. By the time I get back to my road, my legs have stopped shaking. The first layers of dark are starting to peel away, and windows are lighting up. There’s still no one there.
I told Fleas I’d get my locks and my alarm system looked at. I meant it at the time, but somewhere since then I’ve changed my mind. The guy casing my gaff is the only thing left in my week that has potential. If he sees locksmiths and alarm techs swarming over my house, he’ll know he’s been burned; he’ll find someone else to stalk, or get himself another hobby, or back off and wait a few weeks or months before he comes looking for me again. I need him now.
I take my shower, throw some cereal into me and head out for work. There’s still no one outside.
I make it to work without getting pulled over – even wankers take a while to gear up in the morning. Outside our building, in the strange unfocused mix of early light and thick halogens, McCann is leaning against the wall and having a smoke.
‘Howya,’ I say, without stopping. McCann lifts his chin, but he doesn’t bother talking, not that I expected him to.
He looks like shite. McCann isn’t slick to start with, not like Breslin; he’s one of those guys who always look like they’re fighting back their natural state of scruffiness – five o’clock shadow by noon, greying dark curls that won’t lie flat. Normally he wins the battle, because he obviously used to be good-looking not too long ago, before the jowls and the belly started loosening, and because everything he wears is always immaculate and ironed so smooth you could skate on it. This morning, though, he’s losing. The five o’clock shadow has turned into full-on stubble; his shirt is creased, there’s something brown and sticky on his jacket sleeve, and his eyebags are moving towards black eyes.
While me and Steve were sculpting our fancy twirly conspiracy theories, like a pair of mouth-breathers in an internet sinkhole, Breslin was telling the truth all along: McCann is in the missus’s bad books. He’s sleeping on the sofa and doing his own ironing. I could laugh, if the great big joke wasn’t on me.
I have my hand on the door when he says, ‘Conway.’
I stop in spite of myself. I want to hear, just for confirmation, what I already know he’s going to say. McCann is gonna drop me a nice juicy hint that him and Breslin are on the take.
‘Yeah,’ I say.
McCann has his head back against the wall, looking out at the winter-scrawny gardens, not at me. He says, ‘How’re you getting on with Breslin?’
‘Fine.’
‘He says good things about you.’
He does in his arse. ‘Nice to hear,’ I say.
‘He’s a good D, Breslin is. The best. Good to work with, too: he’ll look after you, whatever it takes. As long as you don’t fuck him about.’
‘McCann,’ I say. ‘I’m just doing my job. I’m not planning on fucking your pal about. OK?’
That gets one humourless twitch of his mouth. ‘You’d better not. He’s got enough on his mind already.’
And there it is. Took him all of twenty seconds. ‘Yeah? Like what?’
McCann shakes his head, one brief jerk. ‘Forget it. You don’t want to know.’