It was one of the few fixed points of Inspector Martin Aitken’s life that holidays of all kinds were to be avoided if at all possible, and if not, got over quickly and with minimum fuss.
In the six years since his marriage had ended, Easter had been spent walking alone in the Kerry mountains, bank holiday weekends in London with his brother and sister-in-law, Saint Patrick’s Day in any place other than Ireland. As for Christmas, that had usually been four Seconal and a couple of amitriptyline, washed down with a mouthful of Night Nurse cough mixture, a heady seasonal cocktail that would wake you up smiling on December twenty-seventh with fewer brain cells than you had before but a measurable amount more tranquillity.
Why did you need your brain cells at Christmas anyway? Was there any time of year that was more fundamentally stupid? Ranjiv Singh was right about that much. Take your closest relations, their children, their pets, their smiling jealousies and antediluvian resentments, lock them all in a room with enough drink to satisfy a rugby team and then act surprised when disorder breaks out. As a policeman, he knew that Christmas meant problems. The murder rate went through the roof, assaults and batteries multiplied, spousal abuse flowered like love in the spring. Shoplifters, burglars, fraudsters, pimps and pickpockets all saw it as an opportunity for market dominance. It was a time of year that meant nothing but hassle: trouble with a Coke and fries to go.
Some of his colleagues liked the overtime. But Aitken saw Christmas as torture with tinsel, a cold turkey sandwich of misery and cant. This was a season when rules were forgotten, when sensible people did things that were extraordinary. Drink and sentiment were only part of it. The holiday fostered a regression to infantilism that Aitken saw as fundamentally unhealthy. Grown men going carolling, mature adults wassailing. People old enough to vote dressing up as elves. After a departmental booze-up one year, he had seen one of his own officers – a quiet, solid Limerick man who went purple when anyone spoke to him – drop his trousers and photocopy his penis while serenading his howling, inebriated colleagues with ‘Long Live the Rifles of the IRA’.
He drove around St Stephen’s Green, throwing a glance down a deserted Grafton Street. Bits of paper drifted on the air like scraggy birds. In the window of Laura Ashley the SALE signs were already displayed. A wino in a topcoat was shuffling along, lurching from one side of the street to the other like a sailor on the deck of a ship in a storm. The lights had been up since the day after Hallowe’en. They’d be still there at the end of January. One of these years they’d forget to take them down. That was the future for the prosperous new Dublin. Bloody Christmas all year round.
Christmas was when he and Valerie had married. And Christmas was the time their marriage had ended. Turning down Dawson Street he did a calculation. The day before yesterday would have been their twenty-fifth anniversary. In front of the Mansion House, a man was showing the outdoor crib to two laughing children. A hundred yards further along, outside St Anne’s church, choirboys in red soutanes were singing ‘Good King Wenceslas’. A memory floated up. He allowed it to come.
It was almost five months after Robbie’s death. Aitken and Valerie had been driving home from the station Christmas party. Neither of them had truly wanted to go, but each had lied about it, he understood later, thinking a lie was what the other had wanted.
As soon as they arrived, Aitken knew it had been a mistake to come. It was fancy dress, which he had forgotten; everyone in the room except himself and Valerie was dressed as a vicar or a tart. There was a loud disco and a wall of flashing lights, people were badly drunk; in that late and dangerous stage of drunkenness that suffuses a room with unease. His men were lurching in a ring on the dance floor, looking florid with lust, shirts open to the navel, arms around each other. The women officers were sitting in small groups at tables, smoking a lot and looking exhausted. The party had been strained; hardly anyone had talked to Aitken and Valerie. Those who did seemed either anxious or falsely casual; it was as though they didn’t know what to say. He had felt like a man walking around in a spotlight, people stared so hard as he moved through the room.
They had left as soon as they thought it polite. On the way home it had started to rain, suddenly the streets were sleek and wet. A Bob Dylan song was playing on the radio. The signal had been weak and the sound was crackling.
‘Martin,’ she said. ‘I want a separation.’
His first response was to laugh.
‘I mean it, Martin, love. I’ve thought it over.’
He had driven on in silence for a while, vaguely aware that he was concentrating too hard on the controls. His mind began slowly admitting the knowledge that however it turned out – and right now there was no way of knowing that – he would remember the conversation that was about to happen for the rest of his life.
‘Don’t you have anything to say, Martin?’
Even now, after all this time, he recalled that a small orange light on the panel behind the wheel had flickered on, and he hadn’t known what it meant. He had hit a few switches to see what would happen, but it had stayed on. Cursing, he had begun to talk about the light then, asked if Valerie had noticed the car acting up lately, talked about bringing it in for a service as soon as Christmas was over.
‘Listen to me, Martin. I’m leaving you.’
‘You’re upset, pet,’ he finally said. ‘You’re still a bit down about August, that’s all.’
The word ‘August’ was shorthand for the death of their son. Neither of them could mention it in any other way.
He had driven on through the damp streets. The midnight news came on, something about a weapons find in the North. In Westland Row two drunken girls in sodden ball gowns had waved and made thumbs-up signs as they passed. Distracted, he had swerved a little, before righting the car again.
‘Jesus,’ Valerie gasped, gripping his arm.
He clipped a dustbin, knocking it into the gutter.
‘Christ Almighty, would you mind your driving!’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You’re over the limit.’
‘I’m not over the limit, Valerie. I only had two beers.’
‘You’re over the bloody limit, Martin. You know it well.’
He remembered stopping at traffic lights on Merrion Square, a grid of white headlights moving across her face.
‘You had at least five beers, Martin. That’s not counting before we went out.’
‘You want to drive yourself, then?’
‘I’m over the limit too.’
‘Because you can fucking drive any time you want, Valerie. That’s fine with me. You want to do that? You’re such a fucking expert, why don’t you drive?’
She had turned to him then, her eyes bright with anger. ‘Don’t fucking talk to me like that, Martin. I’m not one of your men, all right?’
When the light went green he hadn’t moved. A taxi behind them had begun to honk.
‘Martin, for God’s sake, drive the car.’
Finally the taxi had pulled out and squealed past him, the driver leaning over to wave two fingers and bawl.
His heart was thudding as he eased the car forward. She was peering at the floor with her arms folded tightly.
‘It’s strange,’ he said, nodding at the dash, ‘I really don’t know why that light is on.’
‘I don’t want to talk about the light.’
‘Look . . . It’s August, Valerie. That’s all it is. You’re after being through a terrible time.’
‘Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.’
‘For God’s sake, pet. It’s Christmas Eve.’
‘I’m sorry to tell you now. But my mind’s made up.’
‘Let’s go somewhere and have a quiet drink, all right?’
‘I don’t want a bloody drink! OK? Does it ever cross your bloody mind that people might want to do more with their lives than drink?’
‘All right. Calm down. Let’s have a talk, then.’
‘It’s too late for talking.’
‘It’s only midnight, Valerie.’
‘I know the time, Martin. That isn’t what I meant.’
By now they were driving through Ringsend village. He pulled into the car park on Sandymount Strand. When he switched off the ignition the orange light stayed on. For a minute or two, the only sound was the soft, repeated, metallic click of the engine cooling down. He remembered strangely incongruous thoughts forming in his mind. How ugly the red and black tower of the Pigeon House suddenly seemed. How had they ever got permission to build something like that? All around them were cars in which couples were making out. Here in his own car, his marriage was ending.
‘Do you believe in Heaven, Martin?’
‘I don’t know if I do.’
‘Do you think that’s where he is now?’
‘I suppose I haven’t thought about that.’
She opened the glove box and closed it again. ‘I don’t know what kind of world it is any more. Where someone could hit a little boy with their car and just drive on like that. Without even stopping. Not even for a minute.’
‘Valerie, please.’
‘I mean, if I hit a dog I think I’d at least stop. Wouldn’t you?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I hope I would.’
She nodded. ‘Are you seeing another woman, Martin?’
He laughed with shock. ‘What are you on about? Of course I’m not.’
He remembered suddenly feeling very drunk, his jaw heavy, tongue too large.
‘You’re lying to me, Martin. I’m not a fool.’
‘I’m not lying, Valerie, I swear to Christ.’
‘One night last month you told me you were working. And you weren’t. I rang the station to ask for you and they hadn’t seen you all day.’
‘Well, so what? I was probably out on a case.’
‘I got Hughie to check the roster. Your shift ended at five.’
The truth was that lately he had taken to staying out all night. It was nothing he understood – or cared to try and understand – beyond a desire to be alone that was so deep it sometimes frightened him. He would remain in the pub until closing time, then drive out of town by the quiet, winding back roads he knew to be rarely patrolled, and head up into the Dublin mountains. He’d park the car and listen to the radio, looking down at the lights of the distant city and, beyond those, the twinkling lighthouses out in the bay.
‘I must have gone for a spin on my own, that’s all.’
‘And you lied to me about it?’
‘Well, I didn’t fucking realise you’d be checking up on me, did I?’
She flinched as though he had slapped her across the face. Her eyes filled with tears as she turned away. She bowed her head and started to weep, her chest softly heaving, her fingers covering her mouth and nose.
‘Don’t be crying, for Jesus’ sake.’
‘I wanted to hear your voice, that’s all.’ She took a tissue from her sleeve and wiped her eyes. ‘I was lonely. I missed you, Martin.’
‘I’m sorry, then,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s be friends.’
‘It’s all right for you.’ She pushed him away. ‘You’re out all day. Moping around in his room half the night. Talking in your sleep. Looking through his things. We haven’t made love in five months, Martin. What do you think that does to me? To have all the closeness taken away.’
‘Jesus, Valerie, he was my son too. Don’t you think I’m hurt as well?’
‘I know you’re hurt. And I’ve tried to make it better. But I can’t be married for the two of us any more.’
‘Come on, stop it.’
‘Telling me I want to forget him. In front of the girls like that.’ Fresh tears spilled over her eyelids, her face twisted with anguish. ‘How in Christ could you ever say that to me, Martin? When I brought the child into the world.’
‘It upset me when you threw his stuff out that time.’
A bitter sob convulsed her now. ‘God Almighty, Martin. Do you understand nothing?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It broke my heart to give away his things. I did it to stop you being hurt any more.’
He went to touch her, but she pulled away again.
‘I never know what you’re thinking now. You snap the head off the girls for nothing.’
‘I just don’t want them walking the roads at night.’
‘That’s a little brother they’ve lost. Is that really so hard for you to understand? Can you not go easy and give them a tender word sometimes?’
‘I do understand.’
‘You used to be such a gentle person, Martin. It’s what made me love you. And now it’s over.’
That was Christmas Eve, 1988. By New Year’s Day, Valerie and the girls were gone.
The separation hearing had been listed for March. Aitken had not recognised the marriage that had been described in the court. He had been cold, unfeeling, distant and controlling. His work had taken him away from the family. His drinking had made things very much worse. The death of their son had seemed to make things worse again. He was incapable, drifting, indecisive, lost. He was a man, said the barrister, who couldn’t tie a tie.
‘Irreconcilable differences’, it had said in Valerie’s affidavit. The moment Aitken saw those words written down, he had finally accepted that they must be true.
She didn’t turn up to hear the judgment. It came the morning after Saint Patrick’s Day. He’d been up all night on a stakeout in the city, watching a flat where it was suspected two IRA men were hiding. The courtroom was modern, with central heating and venetian blinds, empty except for a couple of lawyers. When the judge came in, he asked Valerie’s solicitor to stand.
‘There’s no hope of a reconciliation?’
‘No, my Lord.’
‘But surely with two teenagers to think about? Perhaps with counselling this could still be resolved happily.’
‘My client indicates not, my Lord.’
‘These are good caring people who had a cruel loss. Maybe all they need is a chance? Won’t you ask your client to give her husband another chance?’
‘With respect, my Lord, the position is that this marriage has become a work of fiction.’
And Aitken had found that an oddly appropriate way to put it. Because it had sometimes seemed to him that every marriage could be read in that way. Particularly a marriage in which a child had been lost. A certain streak of imagination was required to go on pulling off the trick, and that kind of artistry was something he knew by now he didn’t have. Valerie was right to perceive that about him. It simply wasn’t the way he was made.
The court had awarded custody of Julie to Valerie; Claire had turned eighteen that year and was too old for the court to say where she must live. She herself had made it clear in a meeting with the barristers that she wanted to stay with her mother. Aitken was given weekend visiting rights. The judge ordered regular psychiatric assessments, not only for Julie but for both parents also.
Once a month throughout 1989 Aitken had trooped along to the psychiatrist’s office. The doctor had a collection of coffee mugs on his bookshelf, one with the slogan stamped in black letters, ‘Do those voices you hear say anything about my fees?’ Another, his favourite, the only one Aitken ever saw him actually use, featured a Gary Larson cartoon of a crestfallen cow lying on a couch, while the frizzy-haired shrink in the foreground scribbled in his notebook, ‘Just Plain Crazy’.
Aitken hadn’t enjoyed his visits much. He had talked about his childhood, his relationships with his parents; once or twice he had touched on his drinking, but the psychiatrist never seemed too interested in that. He had put questions so startlingly personal that a criminal in an interrogation would punch you out for asking them. Aitken had done Rorschach tests, free-assocation word games, spontaneous role-plays based on scenarios from his adolescence. After a while he realised he was making things up, partly to keep the psychiatrist happy but also to feel he was getting value for money. Eighty-five pounds an hour for a guy who stirred his coffee with a screwdriver and looked like he secretly stirred it with his cock when all the patients had disappeared home.
At Pearse Street station, a stack of stolen bicycles lay in the lobby. WANTED posters of thugs and robbers covered the walls, photographs of people who had disappeared, warnings about pickpockets and the dangers of speeding.
In the office behind the counter, Hughie Tynan, the desk sergeant, was playing computer chess and munching on a sandwich. He peered up in mid-gulp and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
‘Holy moly. Good morrow, my liege.’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t expect you in today, boss. I’ve you down in the book for a week’s leave.’
‘Couldn’t keep away from your beauty, Huge. Any action?’
‘Methinks thou pullest me wire, goodly captain. We’d action right enough. Your man Doogan. Broke the gaff up a bit last night. Like Hiroshima in here it was.’
‘Bad little bastard. Where’s he now?’
‘Verily, we had to lurry him up to the Joy. Breaking the gaff up he was. Tried to start a fire in the cells.’
‘Fuck him anyway. Anything else?’
Tynan shrugged and looked at his ledger. ‘Few breaking and enterings. Ruction down in some kebab kip on Usher’s Quay after closing time, ten rounds, but not of Lord Queensberry’s rules. Shower of drunken Trinity lads sleeping it off inside. Theology students, if you don’t mind. One of them says he’s a prince from Nigeria.’
The chess machine bleeped. An acrid stench of disinfectant washed through the office. The sergeant scratched his balding head and slid a piece across the board.
‘Any enquiries come in on a missing person, Huge?’
The sergeant glanced in the ledger again. ‘Couple of outstandings. Nothing new. Why?’
‘You and Elvis,’ the sergeant said, reaching for his notebook and pen. ‘Would she have a sister for a lonely man?’
‘Her mother’d be more your style, Huge.’
‘Gimme the story, boss, and don’t be slaggin.’
‘What the fuck’s this? Bad humour are you?’
‘Noreen made a curry last night. Woke up with me arse like the Japanese flag.’
‘Merciful Christ but you’re only lovely.’
‘Do you want to gimme the details or not, boss? For we have not here a lasting city.’
‘From the day before yesterday when you were off. No name on her yet. Five seven or so. Hundred and ten, hundred and fifteen. Dark hair, shoulder length, streaks of grey. Forty-five to fifty. Might be an American tourist. Dropped out of her standing outside Busaras. She’s in a scratcher out in Michael’s if anyone asks.’
The sergeant nodded as he noted down the details. ‘Tell you what, boss. I could give a bell around the hotels, see if someone’s AWOL from a room.’
‘Do you know what it is, Huge? You’ve brains to burn.’