Chapter 5: Old Friends
The next morning I had a bit of a lie-in. As the Guards were likely still at the Daisy Hill Hotel, I figured there was no rush getting back there. I went out for a full Irish and to peruse the papers to plan my next move, if I had one.
My tea went cold as I scanned, read, and then thoroughly re-read every page of the papers looking for any mention of what had happened at the Daisy Hill Hotel last night to warrant such a large number of Guards.
But there was nothing in any of the papers. Not a word! Not even a story about the Guards refusing to make any statements about what may or may not have happened. In fact the only crime related story was about the previous week’s fatal fire at a local office building that destroyed a surgery and an accountant agency, which was now officially being called ‘arson.’ There wasn’t even anything about someone going into the river last night. The size of the cover-up made me worried about what else was going on in the Irish Free State that the public wasn’t being told.
I forked half a rasher in my mouth and left a large bill on the table.
I arrived back at the Daisy Hill just as the last of the Guards were driving away. With the coast suddenly clear, I walked up the front steps and through the main doors.
Sitting at the front desk was a haggard looking former classmate. Róisín Grey’s blood-shot eyes said she’d been up all night, but her make-up looked freshly applied. The high, tight bun of raven black hair she’d worn since school was as secure as ever.
Róisín had married young and well to an hotelier named Sherman Grey. But the War for Independence had taken its toll on her husband’s hotel empire. By the time the Civil War had concluded there were only two hotels left: one in Derry where her husband worked and the Daisy Hill here in Galway. By all accounts, the new border was the best thing that ever happened to their marriage.
I paid for a room, claiming I needed a nap followed by a good night’s sleep due to all the racket my neighbors had been making lately. I even joked about praying there weren’t any musicians staying at the hotel.
“Not anymore,” Róisín said out the side of her mouth. “A number of guests have recently checked out early and you’ll be our only guest, for the time being.”
I’m sure she spotted my lie, but she likely assumed it was due to the impending eviction from my house. It was common knowledge and Róisín had never been one to miss out on a good piece of gossip. However, she politely let it slide without comment.
Once upstairs I walked straight past my room and paused beside the one door with a busted door frame.
I scanned the corridor. Satisfied that I was alone, I slipped Snuppa out of his holster, and thumbed off the safety. I pushed open the broken door and stepped inside.
The room was wrecked. The only piece of furniture still upright was an armchair, in which sat an armed man.
“Charles,” said the seated man, “I have been waiting.”
“All alone, with a gun in your hand,” I said pointing back with my own pistol.
Inspector Lynn S. de Burgh glanced down at the British Bull Dog revolver in his hand as if just noticing it. He stood up, tall and straight as a light post. He put his hands at his side, but still held the revolver.
Something about seeing Lynn, of all the Guards, got me thinking about my client, Miss Schrödinger. That nagging feeling I’d been having about her since she walked into my office was back. Only it was hard to concentrate with all the guns in the room.
“Please holster your weapon,” Lynn said. “Síle would never forgive us if we shot each other.”
With that, we both put the heaters away and shook hands.
“Speaking of,” I said, “how is my little sister?”
“Herself is doing well,” Lynn replied. “You should come by and say hello. She has been very concerned about you since Peg packed up Jeannie and left. How are things?”
“The same,” I said, “horrible. And yourself? What’s strange?”
“Oh, I am keeping busy. Solving crimes and what not,” Lynn said.
“Yeah, speaking of which . . .”
“Lay off the Schrödinger case,” Lynn said turning from bantering brother-in-law to hard-nosed Guard in a heartbeat.
“Whose room did you say this was? Should we leave, lest he return at any moment and . . .”
“Cut the crap, Charles. I just caught you breaking into Mr. Schrödinger’s room looking for him.”
“Assuming for the moment that you’re correct, could you tell me where . . .”
“A man matching Mr. Schrödinger’s description was seen going into the River Corrib at the Salmon Weir Bridge last night. There is no one for you to find. The case is closed.”
I made note of the fact that Lynn had cleverly avoided using the terms ‘jumped,’ ‘fell,’ or ‘pushed’ to describe how Schrödinger ended up in the river. He was trying to give me just enough information to get me to drop the case without telling me anything important.
“Is that why you shut down any news coverage about what went down here last night? Did you recover Schrödinger’s body? What aren’t you telling me?”
“Take it easy, Charles. I know how you can get, so I am not going to order you to do or not do anything. But as a personal favor to me, not as a Guard, but as your sister’s husband, the father of your nieces, and possibly your last friend . . . do not pick this scab.”
“Is that why you’ve been sitting in the dark, with a gun in your hand? To ask me favours?”
“Let us just say I was waiting for a ‘Prodigal Son’ to return home, but you’ll do.” Lynn headed to the door. “I am done waiting. Come with me. I will drive you back to the house. You can see Síle and the girls. They have not seen Uncle Chuck in a while.”
“No thanks,” I said. “I’m sure you picked over this place pretty good, but the least I can do for a paying client is to go through the motions.”
“There is nothing here but grief, Charles. Leave it be.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Don’t they say grief is good for the soul?”
“They are full of shite.”
“So you aren’t going to help me here?”
“Damn it, Charles! I’m an inspector with the Garda Síochána, not your personal security blanket.”
With that, Lynn walked to the door. He stopped with a hand on the handle and said over his shoulder, “Please be careful who you trust.” He left the door open as an invitation to follow, but he wasn’t going to force me.
Lynn was right. There was nothing left to discover in the room.
Knowing that the only business Róisín refused to gossip about was her own, I headed down the back stairs in the hope of finding a bribable chamber maid. What I found was Róisín in the kitchen, on the floor, unconscious.
A swollen gash at her temple told me this wasn’t a much needed nap.
I was entranced by a lock of her hair that had escaped her ever present bun. I couldn’t help but think that although I’d known her since my first day at school (playground games, physical education classes, ferry rides out to Inishmor for school trips, parish dances) that this was the first time I could ever recall Róisín’s hair being out of place. I was stuck with my head tilted like a befuddled puppy when I felt, more than heard or saw, the pantry door open behind me.
Cúigear rushed at me, shillelagh raised to strike.
I reached under my jacket for Snuppa and had just barely cleared leather when Cúigear knocked the pistol out of my hand. I watched it bounce once on the kitchen floor and skip under the table.
With Cúigear winding up for another swing, Bracing my hands, one each on the table and the counter, I kicked Cúigear in the gut with both legs. He doubled over and took several steps back, but he rushed at me again using his head as a battering ram.
His head slammed into my gut, forcing the wind from my lungs, and driving me back into a cabinet. Plates and dishes crashed down around us.
Both his arms wrapped around my waist, Cúigear still managed to block the knee I tried to ram into his chest. But the elbow I smashed between his shoulder blades landed with effect.
As he staggered back, I placed my hands on his shoulders to keep him from straightening up and tried again with my knee.
It fell short as Cúigear stood up and struck my chin with the back of his head. The blow threw me back into the cabinet again.
With all this noise I wondered if Lynn would be here in jig-time to help . . . not that I couldn’t be completely sure he wasn’t the one who let Cúigear off his leash.
Cúigear now held the shillelagh at either end and pressed it hard against my throat. I knew I only had moments to react before I was choked out.
I lifted my knee again. Cúigear must have thought I was trying a third time to knee him and he smirked at me. I smirked back and smashed my heel onto the top of his foot.
Cúigear’s smirk twisted into a grimace and he pulled back, hopping on one foot.
A quick left jab and solid right hook put Cúigear on his back. His eyes rolled in their sockets. My first thought was wanting to tell dad that his boxing lessons to me as a kid had paid off.
I reached under the table and retrieved Snuppa. The blow to the back on my head came just as I straightened up. Before I could reproach myself too harshly for being outflanked by a second sneak-attack my vision tunneled as the lights flickered and dimmed.