Shay cut the engine, silencing the radio.
Jig had only been released from custody the previous day. When Shay made his daily call to Hall, he told him about Jig. Then Shay hid the phone, in a ziplock bag, at the dry end of a gutter in his shed that wasn’t overlooked by neighbours.
In all the years before the shooting there was hardly ever direct phone contact with Hall. Shay went to the college most days for his course, which provided him with a cover for going to the place. Every Monday, at 1.30 p.m., after the morning classes, he went to the allotted room and Hall would be there. Shay couldn’t figure out the connection between the unit and the college, but Hall had free use of it and could go in and out without anyone noticing. It was a great cover for the meeting, Shay thought. Hall took notes in a hardback book during the meetings: the only record of their dealings and Shay’s connection with the force. Shay kept no records, nothing that could ever disclose anything about him. Hall, he was sure, kept that book ‘offside’, outside formal Garda records.
Shay got out and stepped past the rubbish and bicycles. He gave the door a good rap. Inside was the faint scuff of slippers on lino.
The door opened slowly. Jig’s ma gazed out, struggling to focus. She looked like she had swum up and down the canal and had swallowed half its contents.
‘Look who it is.’
‘There’s a match on today.’
She didn’t respond, just shuffled back down the hallway, leaving the door open. Shay followed her to the kitchen. There was some celebrity dining thing on the box. Jig sat at the kitchen table, his arms stretched out and his head lying sideways. Shay thought, just for a second, Jig’s face lightened on seeing him.
‘Hospital United today, Jig. Best get going.’
Jig slouched off his chair and passed him without a word and went up the stairs. Shay was about to follow.
‘What does be yer story?’
‘What?’ Shay replied, turning to face Jig’s ma. She seemed to have woken slightly and was lighting a cigarette.
‘Ya training Jig for the Premiership or something?’ She laughed, short and hard.
‘He’s got talent. I want him to stick at it, not like . . .’ Shay struggled for the right words, as out of nowhere Maggot came into his mind. He was just about to say his name when Ms Hunt stuck her neck out towards him, as if she smelled something.
‘Like who?’
‘Like other good young fellas that dropped out. Happens loads of times.’
‘Ya were about to say Maggot, weren’t ya, ya bollix?’
Shay stood there, waiting for her to bite off the side of his head. Instead she blinked and looked up to the ceiling. Shay figured a stray thought had entered her head. Her mouth opened and the cigarette hung between her fingers, smoking away. Feet thundered down the stairs, but the sound didn’t rouse her. Shay slipped away.
Outside, Shay opened the car door and got in. He glanced down the road at two boys, no older than four or five, who were clambering on top of a huge skip and flinging items off. Shay hit the ignition. The radio came back on.
‘And what about this story here about pipe bomb attacks on headshops, which have mushroomed across the country in the last two years . . .’
Shay glanced over at Jig as he entered.
‘How you feeling?’
No answer. The boy began to finger his phone.
‘Your ma, she looks . . .’
‘That mad bitch. She’s grand.’
‘Another crime story in the papers that caught my eye is the investigation into those awful, awful double murders of Garda Ciara Grant and ten-year-old Taylor Williams. Gardaí have released fifty people, arrested as part of that investigation . . .’
Shay looked at Jig. He was staring at the radio.
‘The story quotes garda sources as saying that the arrests were a massive shakedown of criminal gangs in the area. It says those arrested – which included children as young as ten, could you believe it – were detained for withholding information . . .’
Shay made a show of turning off the radio as the car pulled away.
‘Guards rough you up?’
Jig shook his head and looked out his window.
‘How you dealing with . . . what happened on the canal?’
‘I don’t know nothing,’ Jig shouted, swinging towards him. ‘I didn’t see nothing. Right.’
Shay flinched at the edge in the boy’s voice, the gleaming white of his eyes.
‘I meant Taylor,’ he said.
Jig sank into his seat, his eyes betraying confusion and, Shay thought, pain.
‘How you coping with that?’
Jig scratched at the side of his neck and looked down at his phone.
‘I saw you at her funeral the other day,’ Shay continued. ‘Must have been hard on you.’
Jig tapped at his phone and a game sprang to life.
‘Did Ghost get trials in England when he was thirteen?’
Shay was taken aback by the change of topic. But he grasped the opportunity.
‘Yeah. Before my time. Was a top-class centre back, by all accounts. Tall, wiry. Took no prisoners.’ Shay laughed. ‘No surprise.’
He could see Jig looking over at him, with what he sensed was a smile.
‘He could have gone to any of the big clubs in Dublin when he was young,’ Shay said. ‘He would have been a few years older than you. He was approached loads of times, but he stayed with us. All through, till thirteen, then got the trial with Arsenal.’
‘How’d he do?’
‘Good, for a while anyway.’
Shay had heard that when he hit fifteen, Ghost went a bit wild, drinking mainly, then coke. He got himself thrown out of the club. He transferred down the leagues, to Bournemouth, and played with them for a year or two.
‘Jig, it’s very hard to make it in England. Harder than ever now. Talent isn’t enough. You have got to have dedication, discipline. Not get distracted by . . . other things.’
‘He smack some guy?’ Jig asked. ‘Kill him?’
Shay had heard that Ghost did almost kill someone, glassed him in the head at a pub. He had to scarper after that and came home, rejoining his old club.
‘There might have been a scrap,’ he said, ‘but, I don’t know what happened really.’
Shay moved the conversation on.
‘He coached at the club before I joined. Your brother played under him, then me, before he gave it up.’
No response. Shay probed more.
‘You think Maggot will ever pick it back up?’ Shay asked. He knew he was pushing it.
Jig played away at some game on his phone.
‘Say it to him. See what he says.’
‘How the fuck am I supposed to say it to him?’
Shay didn’t rush in and let the silence settle.
‘Ya think Maggot was good?’ Jig asked.
Shay turned to him and nodded.
‘Yeah. A tough defensive midfielder. He could lay on beautiful passes too. But he couldn’t keep his cool. Why?’
‘Just wondering.’
‘Sure, bring him down sometime for a tap around.’
Shay turned a corner and swerved just in time to avoid a smouldering car.
‘If I ever see him again.’
Jig said it so softly that Shay wasn’t sure he heard him properly.
‘What?’
But Jig was out the door, clutching his bag, running off towards the pitch, disappearing behind the smoking wreck.