Jackie again: “Bleeding machines, I wasn’t finished! Come here, I should’ve said right away, it’s not Da either, he’s the same as ever, no one’s dead or hurt or nothing, or anyway we’re all grand. Kevin’s a bit upset but I think that’s because he’s worried about how you’ll take it, he’s awful fond of you, you know, he still is. Now it might be nothing, Francis, I don’t want you losing the head, right, it could all be a joke, someone messing, that’s what we thought at first, although pretty shite joke if you ask me, excuse my language-”
“Daddy! How much exercise do you get?”
What the hell? “I’m a secret ballet dancer.”
“Noooo, seriously! How much?”
“Not enough.”
“-and sure, none of us have a clue what to be doing with it an’ anyway, so would you ever ring me as soon as you get this? Please, Francis. I’ll have my mobile in my hand, now.”
Click, beep, voice-mail babe. Looking back, I should have figured it out by that point, or at least I should have got the general idea. “Daddy? How much fruit and vegetables do you eat?”
“Truckloads.”
“You do not!”
“Some.”
The next three messages were more of the same, at half-hour intervals. By the last one, Jackie had reached the point where only small dogs could hear her.
“Daddy?”
“Give me a sec, sweetie.”
I took my mobile out on the balcony, above the dark river and the greasy orange lights and the running snarl of the traffic jams, and phoned Jackie. She answered on the first ring. “Francis? Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I’ve been going mental! Where were you?”
She had slowed down to about eighty miles an hour. “Picking up Holly. What the hell, Jackie?”
Background noise. Even after all that time, I knew the quick bite of Shay’s voice straight away. One note of my ma caught me right in the throat.
“Ah, God, Francis… Would you sit down for me, now? Or get yourself a glass of brandy, something like that?”
“Jackie, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I swear I’m going to come over there and strangle you.”
“Hang on, hold your horses…” A door closing. “Now,” Jackie said, into sudden quiet. “Right. D’you remember I was telling you a while back, some fella’s after buying up the three houses at the top of the Place? To turn into apartments?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s not doing the apartments after all, now everyone’s after getting all worried about property prices; he’s leaving the houses a while and see what happens. So he got the builders in to take out the fireplaces and the moldings and that, to sell-there’s people pay good money for those yokes, did you know that? mentallers-and they started today, on the one up on the corner. D’you remember, the derelict one?”
“Number Sixteen.”
“That’s the one. They were taking out the fireplaces, and up behind one of them they found a suitcase.”
Dramatic pause. Drugs? Guns? Cash? Jimmy Hoffa? “Fuck’s sake, Jackie. What?”
“It’s Rosie Daly’s, Francis. It’s her case.”
All the layers of traffic noise vanished, snapped right off. That orange glow across the sky turned feral and hungry as forest fire, blinding, out of control.
“No,” I said, “it’s not. I don’t know where the hell you got that, but it’s a load of my arse.”
“Ah, now, Francis-”
Concern and sympathy were pouring off her voice. If she’d been there, I think I would have punched her lights out. “‘Ah, now, Francis,’ nothing. You and Ma have yourselves worked up into some hysterical frenzy over sweet fuck-all, and now you want me to play along-”
“Listen to me, I know you’re-”
“Unless this is all some stunt to get me over there. Is that it, Jackie? Are you aiming for some big family reconciliation? Because I’m warning you now, this isn’t the fucking Hallmark Channel and that kind of game isn’t going to end well.”
“You big gobshite, you,” Jackie snapped. “Get a hold of yourself. What do you think I am? There’s a shirt in that case, a purple paisley yoke, Carmel recognizes it-”
I’d seen it on Rosie a hundred times, knew what the buttons felt like under my fingers. “Yeah, from every girl in this town in the eighties. Carmel ’d recognize Elvis walking down Grafton Street for a bit of gossip. I thought you had better sense, but apparently-”
“-and there’s a birth cert wrapped inside it. Rose Bernadette Daly.”
Which more or less killed that line of conversation. I found my smokes, leaned my elbows on the railing and took the longest drag of my life.
“Sorry,” Jackie said, softer. “For biting your head off. Francis?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah. Listen to me, Jackie. Do the Dalys know?”
“They’re not in. Nora moved out to Blanchardstown, I think it was, a few years back; Mr. Daly and Mrs. Daly go over to her on Friday nights, to see the baba. Mammy thinks she has the number somewhere, but-”
“Have you called the Guards?”
“Only you, sure.”
“Who else knows about this?”
“The builders, only. A couple of Polish young fellas, they are. When they finished up for the day they went across to Number Fifteen, to ask was there anyone they could give the case back to, but Number Fifteen’s students now, so they sent the Polish fellas down to Ma and Da.”
