Shay said, final as a slamming door, “He fell. That’s what happened.”
I said, “Let me tell you my story.” I took one of Shay’s smokes, poured myself another slug of his whiskey and leaned back into the shadows. “Once upon a time, long ago, there were three brothers, just like in a fairy tale. And late one night, the youngest one woke up and something was different: he had the bedroom to himself. Both his brothers were gone. It wasn’t a big deal, not at the time, but it was unusual enough that he remembered it the next morning, when only one brother had come home. The other one was gone for good—or anyway for twenty-two years.”
Shay’s face hadn’t changed; not a muscle moved. I said, “When the lost brother finally came home, he came looking for a dead girl, and he found her. That’s when the youngest one thought back and realized that he remembered the night she had died. It was the night both his brothers were missing. One of them had gone out to love her, that night. The other one had gone out to kill her.”
Shay said, “I already told you: I never meant to hurt her. And you think Kev was smart enough to put all that together? You must be joking me.”
The bitter snap in his voice said I wasn’t the only one biting down on my temper, which was good to know. I said, “It didn’t take a genius. And it wrecked the poor little bastard’s head, figuring it out. He didn’t want to believe it, did he? He just couldn’t stand to believe that his own brother had killed a girl. I’d say he spent his last day on this earth driving himself mental, trying to find some other explanation. He phoned me a dozen times, hoping I’d find one for him, or at least take the whole mess off his hands.”
“Is that what this is about? You feel guilty for not taking baby brother’s calls, so you’re looking for a way to put the blame on me?”
“I listened to your story. Now you let me finish mine. By Sunday evening, Kev’s head was melted. And, like you said, he wasn’t the brightest little pixie in the forest to start with. All he could think of to do was the straightforward thing, God help him, the honest thing: talk to you, man to man, and see what you had to say. And when you told him to meet you in Number Sixteen, the poor thick bastard walked right in. Tell me something, do you think he was adopted? Or just some kind of mutation?”
Shay said, “He was protected. That’s what he was. All his life.”
“Not last Sunday, he wasn’t. Last Sunday he was vulnerable as hell and he thought he was safe as houses. You gave him all that self-righteous bullshit about—what was it again?—family responsibility and a bedsit of your own, same as you gave me. But none of that meant anything to Kevin. All he knew was the facts, pure and simple: you killed Rosie Daly. And that was too much for him to handle. What did he say that got up your nose that badly? Was he planning on telling me, once he could get hold of me? Or did you even bother to find out, before you went ahead and killed him too?”
Shay shifted in his chair, a wild trapped move, cut off fast. He said, “You haven’t a notion, have you? Neither of yous ever did.”
“Then you go right ahead and clue me in. Educate me. For starters, how did you get him to stick his head out that window? That was a cute little trick; I’d love to hear how you worked it.”
“Who says I did?”
“Talk to me, Shay. I’m just dying of curiosity. Once you heard his skull smash open, did you hang about upstairs, or did you go straight out the back to shove that note in his pocket? Was he still moving when you got there? Moaning? Did he recognize you? Did he beg for help? Did you stand in that garden and watch him die?”
Shay was hunched over the table, shoulders braced and head down, like a man fighting a high wind. He said, low, “After you walked out, it took me twenty-two years to get my chance back. Twenty-two fucking years. Can you imagine what they’ve been like? All four of yous off living your lives, getting married, having kids, like normal people, happy as pigs in shite. And me here, here, fucking here—” His jaw clenched and his finger stabbed down on the table, over and over. “I could’ve had all that too. I could’ve—”
He got some of his control back, caught his breath in a great rasp and pulled hard on his smoke. His hands were shaking.
“Now I’ve got my chance back. It’s not too late. I’m still young enough; I can make that bike shop take off, buy a gaff, have a family of my own—I still get the women. No one’s going to throw that chance away. No one. Not this time. Not again.”
I said, “And Kevin was about to.”
Another breath like an animal hissing. “Every bloody time I get close to getting out, so close I can taste it, there’s one of my own brothers holding me down. I tried to tell him. He didn’t understand. Thick bloody fool, spoilt kid used to everything falling in his lap, didn’t have a clue—” He bit off the sentence, shook his head and jammed out his smoke viciously.
I said, “So it just happened. Again. You’re an unlucky fella, aren’t you?”
“Shit happens.”
“Maybe. I might even fall for that, if it wasn’t for one thing: that note. That didn’t suddenly occur to you after Kevin went out the window: gee, I know what would come in useful right now, that piece of paper that I’ve had hanging around for twenty-two years. You didn’t trundle off home to fetch it, take the risk of being seen coming out of Number Sixteen or going back in. You already had it on you. You had the whole thing planned.”
Shay’s eyes came up to meet mine and they were blazing blue, lit up with an incandescent hate that almost knocked me back in my chair. “You’ve got some neck, you little bastard, do you know that? Some fucking brass neck, getting all superior with me. Of all people.”
Slowly, in the corners, the shadows clotted into thick dark lumps. Shay said, “Did you think I’d forget, just because that would suit you?”
I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, you do. Calling me a murderer—”
“Here’s a little tip for you. If you don’t like being called a murderer, don’t kill people.”
“—when I know and you know: you’re no different. Big man, coming back here with your badge and your cop talk and your cop buddies—You can fool anyone you like, fool yourself, go right ahead, you don’t fool me. You’re the same as me. The exact same.”
“No I’m not. Here’s the difference: I’ve never murdered anyone. Is that too complex for you?”
“Because you’re such a good guy, yeah, such a saint? What a load of shite, you give me the sick—That’s not morals, that’s not holiness. The only reason you never murdered anyone is because your dick beat your brain. If you hadn’t been * whipped, you’d be a killer now.”
Silence, just the shadows seething and heaving in the corners and that telly gibbering mindlessly downstairs. There was a tiny terrible grin, like a spasm, on Shay’s mouth. For once in my life, I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say.
I was eighteen, he was nineteen. It was a Friday night and I was blowing my dole in the Blackbird, which was not where I wanted to be. I wanted to be out dancing with Rosie, but this was after Matt Daly had put the kibosh on his daughter going anywhere near Jimmy Mackey’s son. So I was loving Rosie in secret, having a harder time keeping it hidden every week, and bashing my head off walls like a trapped animal looking for a way to make something, anything, change. On nights when I couldn’t take it any more, I got as hammered as I could afford and then picked fights with guys bigger than me.
Everything was going to plan, I had just headed up to the bar for my sixth or seventh and was pulling over a bar stool to lean on while I waited to get served—the barman was down the other end, having an in-depth argument about racing—when a hand came in and whipped the stool out of reach.
Go on, Shay said, swinging a leg over the stool. Go home.
Fuck off. I went last night.
So? Go again. I went twice last weekend.
It’s your turn.
He’ll be home any minute. Go.
Make me.
Which would only get both of us thrown out. Shay eyed me for another second, checking whether I meant it; then he shot me a disgusted look, slid off the stool and threw back one more swallow of his pint. Under his breath, savagely, to no one: If we’d any balls between the pair of us, we wouldn’t put up with this shite . . .
I said, We’d get rid of him.