Hayden had his clothes back on. He stood outside the glass entrance to the Nautical Buoy. Should he go in? Should he succumb to the grape, the hops, the other one? Barley. Anyway, yes and no. Yes, he should go in. Why not? He could wallow in misery in company. No, he shouldn’t succumb. Why should he? It hadn’t done him any favours in the past. Same with me. Drank. Stopped. The end. Not much use if you’re writing a memoir about your personal battle with alcohol, though. Short book.
I realise I’m missing out on a potentially explosive scene here. The inner demon conflict. Hayden orders a pint. He sits struggling for what seems like years, but is in fact, let’s say three minutes, glancing at the seductive froth before, in a nail-biting build-up followed by an ultimately cathartic resolution, he pushes the pint away, a free man at last, and orders a hot chocolate instead. Subliminal message? There’s no inner demon with a hot chocolate, with or without marshmallows. But Hayden’s only problem with alcohol, post-Scrabster, had been Trace and her insistence that he had a problem with alcohol. He didn’t. He just had a problem with life. So in he went.
The place was Friday afternoon full. Several bar staff on the job. Voot O’Rooney had stopped singing about lunch and was now salivating, in the key of E♭, over Sweet Pork Belly with Crab Apple Jelly, neither of which was on the evening menu. And there, speaking of Trace, sat Trace. With Bram. Not to mention a large goblet of house white, as yet untouched. Hayden sidled over to the bar with his back turned, as far away as possible from Trace. But her voice carried.
‘Anyway, there I am, Bram, in the local library.’
‘I know, yeh.’ That was Bram. Hayden’s oldest friend in the world. Solicitous, caring, bus driver Bram.
‘When there on the Staff Picks table, I see it. Without a Trace. I think, that’s funny. My name’s Trace.’
‘I know, yeh.’
‘Says on the back it’s about this teen girl. Memoir type book, so I think why not? Get home. Large gin and it. Flick the book open. Top up the gin, least I think I do cos I’m totally lost to the world. I mean, it’s heartbreaking, Bram. My heart is literally breaking.’ She paused for a quick sob. ‘Turns out –’
Hayden tried to tune out as he sat on a barstool and waited for Declan to come over. He couldn’t deal with this level of misery on top of his own. But something made him listen on. The lure of a gripping narrative. Turns out what?
‘Turns out,’ she sniffed, ‘turns out I was Trace. My twelve-year-old daughter had written a memoir about a mum who’s never there. Who didn’t even know she had a daughter till she read the book. Because that’s what drink can do.’ She was weeping openly now. ‘But sometimes, just sometimes, Bram, it’s the only way out.’
‘Ah now,’ said Bram, empathetically. ‘Ah now.’
Hayden managed to catch Declan’s eye and ordered a sparkling water. It was just as he suspected. Trace was about to embrace the Nought Point Plan, and it may well have been his fault. He’d rejected her, after all. He felt bad about that. He also felt bad about killing his father, so he sank into a morose reverie and examined the bubbles in his drink. They seemed so… happy. Rising up. Reaching the surface. Bursting. Life was so simple for a bubble in a glass of sparkling water, but not, it seemed, for him. He turned away from the contemplation of bubbles and glanced around. The swing door opened discreetly. Enter Quilty.
Except, hold on, it wasn’t Quilty. It was the actor who played Quilty, out of character now but still dressed for the part. Hayden was fascinated. It was that guy from – oh, he couldn’t remember the film, but he was totally different in that. Ah. Got it. East Clintwood. Man rides into town riddled with corruption. Cleans it up. Everyone dead. Leaves. Brilliant. Wolfe Swift! That was it. Genius. The word was overused, but wow! And here he was, as himself. If it hadn’t been for the Quilty outfit, Hayden would never have recognised him. Double wow! It was weird looking at him as not Quilty, not drunk.
‘Half of lager shandy thanks, Declan.’
‘Coming up, Mr. Swift. Been away?’
‘You could say that, Declan. In a manner of speaking. Anyway, on to the next project. Short break and off we go again.’
‘Anything lined up?’
Wolfe Swift took an exploratory sip of his drink. ‘Couple of interesting offers, but I’m still on the lookout for the script that sings. Got one here as it happens.’ He produced a sheaf of papers from a briefcase. ‘Ah well, might as well take a quick gander.’
He sat at a nearby table and got stuck in. Declan turned to Hayden.
‘Tell me about it,’ he said.
‘Sorry?’
‘Come on, man,’ said Declan. ‘Shoot.’
Hayden was totally nonplussed. It was almost as if Declan could read his mind. Bit like Steve in London. Barman, philosopher, friend. He was even polishing a glass. There was something strangely comforting about Declan’s manner. It invited confidence, as if he had all the time in the world. Hayden’s defences fell.
‘Well now,’ he said, seemingly locked into the inevitability of it all. ‘Where exactly to start?’ He lifted his glass, killed a few bubbles, replaced the glass. ‘My Uncle Eddie was murdered. I set about finding out who did it. Of all the people in all the world, the murderer, or perp, was the last person I suspected.’ He swirled the bubbles round in his glass. ‘But perhaps I should begin at the beginning.’
Wolfe Swift, at his nearby table, overheard the opening gambit. There was something about the way Hayden said it. The truth of it, the passion, the poetry, the pain, that drew Swift in, his grey, lupine eyes trained on Hayden as he told his sorry tale. No detail spared. No minor character left out. No twist in the narrative omitted. And what a narrative! What a cast! At the centre, Eddie, this magnificent, towering, neglected artist, murdered in cold, if protracted, blood.
Then the big twist.
‘All that time hunting the killer in good faith and then, right at the bitter end, the unsuspecting detective unmasks – wait for it! – himself.’
An electrified pause. Declan shook his head in wonder. Hayden, drained by the intensity of the telling, felt a hand on his arm. Brannigan? Had the Detective Inspector finally worked it out? Had justice come to call?
He turned to face the owner of the hand. Wolfe Swift sat beside him on a barstool, riveted, his drink and script abandoned on the table. ‘This is brilliant,’ he said. ‘Have you told anyone else?’
Hayden was confused. He nodded at Declan. ‘I told him.’
‘Doesn’t count,’ said Wolfe, grinning at Declan. ‘He’s a barman. Silence of the confessional.’
A group of young men crashed through the swing doors and headed for the bar, hooting.
‘Hey fella, where you from?’
‘Termonfeckin!’
‘Yow!’
Wolfe Swift sighed audibly and fixed them with his piercing eyes. ‘Keep it down there, lads, okay? The adults are in.’
Hayden was elated. Great put-down. He could work with this man. The kiddies dropped their voices.
‘Sorry, Wolfe.’
‘You’re the man, yeh?’
‘Thanks, lads. Cheers.’ Wolfe turned back to Hayden. ‘Now listen. Top movie. The private dick who doesn’t know he’s the perp. But with soul.’
Hayden worked this through. Wolfe Swift was right. Two reasons.
• The private dick who doesn’t know he’s the perp. Great twist.
• Wolfe Swift was always right.
Hayden lit up. The dark cloud of depression lifted. He realised, with an energising internal jolt, that he’d been sitting on his big idea all along. He’d cracked it by living it. Huzzah! ‘Actually,’ he lied, ‘I’m halfway through the novel.’
Wolfe was energised too. He switched to work mode. ‘The novel is dead.27 Title?’
Hayden thought quickly. ‘Bad Blood.’
‘Like it. Listen, my people, your people.’
‘Bit of a problem there,’ said Hayden. ‘I’ve been so busy on this, I don’t have people.’ He got a brief flash of Rich. ‘Well, I have people, but the wrong people.’
Wolfe Swift patted his arm. ‘Trust me. When I’ve finished on the blower, you’ll have the right people. Plus, I can get you a pretty decent advance on the script. How’s that sound?’
‘Well,’ said Hayden, ‘you know what they say. Your right people, my right people.’
‘Good man. Thing is –’
‘Hayden.’
‘Wolfe. Shake.’ They shook. ‘Thing is, Hayden, I need this. And this needs me. Okay. Where can I reach you?’ Hayden gave him his number. Wolfe Swift sprang to his feet. ‘I’m on it.’
Hayden sat for a long moment, working this through. Wolfe Swift was right. It was the perfect story for our venal times. Man kills his father. Punishment? Success. Maybe this was Eddie from beyond the grave. His way of saying, ‘You did what you had to do.’ Yes. That was it. Eddie had lived by a simple mantra and now he’d passed it on to Hayden. The true artist is ruthless. Eddie forgave him. Better still, he applauded him. ‘You killed your own father. Now that takes guts. Well done, son. I’m proud of you.’ Hayden was quietly euphoric. Paternal approval. It doesn’t get better than that. He drained his glass and stood up. He had work to do.
He spotted Trace on his way out, sitting next to Bram in front of her still unsipped drink. He’d totally forgotten about her in the excitement of the moment, and maybe it was the whiff of impending success, or the lure of the attainable, or maybe it was because he’d overcome those demons, but it was Friday evening and his guard was down; an explosive mix, particularly in post-suicidal man. There was something about Trace as she sat there cradling her goblet. A touching vulnerability, allied to her obvious infatuation. It could have been an excess of bubbles, but Hayden felt gay and jocund in the old-fashioned sense of the words. He melted towards her. Maybe Trace, after all, was the woman for him.
Trace and Bram were deep in conversation.
Trace fingered her goblet nervously. ‘I wasn’t there for her.’
Bram looked even more puzzled than usual. ‘Where? Oh. Right. There. Right. There.’
He moved a hand across the table and slid her drink away. Their fingers touched. Magically.
‘The thing is, Trace,’ said Bram in that slightly put-on Dublinese that speaks to foreign women, hormonally, the world over. Something to do with sound waves, probably. ‘The thing is, Trace, you’ve got to surrender to a Higher Power.’
Trace’s hand moved slowly over his. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Really?’
Hayden had intended to ask Bram for a lift to the airport but decided to leave them to their love mist. He left the bar, as countless heroes of their own internal narrative have done before him, a man alone.
27 Now he tells me.