Creature of the Night (6 page)

I thought it was sweat running down my face but
when I put up my hand to wipe it off it came away all
blood. I went up an alley and stopped beside a garage
door. There was a big lump just above my forehead and
a gaping cut on top of it. I must have hit my head in the
accident. I didn't remember. But I knew it wasn't too
bad. I'd had plenty worse.

What worried me more was my left shoulder. I must
have given that a belt as well. It didn't hurt much until I
tried to lift my arm, and then it stabbed at me and my
arm wouldn't go up any further.

Just for a minute I wished my ma was there, but I
stopped that. I was on my own now. I swore and kicked
the wall. It wasn't just the injuries that were pissing me
off. It was the whole stupid mess I was in.

I found a puddle and washed the blood off my face.
If I was with the lads, larking around, I would have left
it there to look cool, but I didn't want anybody noticing
me now. I walked in towards town for a while, but I
didn't really know where I was going, or why, or what I
would do when I got there.

I sat on a garden wall and took out my smokes. I
had two left. I lit one of them. I should never have let
Mick near that Skoda. I should have walked away from
it when I had the chance. This was bigger trouble than
I'd ever been in before. The cops would trace the car in
no time and link it to me. Robbing a few quid or a phone
was one thing. Robbing a car and driving to Dublin and
crashing into another car and beating up the driver was
something else altogether. They'd make room for me in
St Pat's for that, no matter how crowded it was.

I had to think. I had to figure out what to do. There
were some people waiting at a bus stop on the main road
so I waited with them and tried to slip past the driver
without paying. Some of them will let you away with it,
especially if there's a few of you, because it's more
trouble trying to get rid of you than it is to leave you on.
But this fella wasn't having it. He turned off the engine
and came back for me. I was cornered in the back of the
bus and he was a big fella. I tried to get past him by
jumping over the seats but my bad shoulder gave way
and I cracked my jaw on the back of the seat. He
grabbed me by the arm.

'Get off me!' I yelled at him. 'I'll have the law on
you, you fucking pervert!'

'You just try,' he said.

He was Polish or something. Funny accent. I
wriggled free and ran off the bus, and gave him the
finger as he drove past. He gave me a big toothy grin,
the faggot.

I walked on. At the next bus stop I thought of trying
again, but I didn't have the energy. I was beginning to feel
the lack of sleep and I was starving hungry as well.

I took out my phone and checked my credit. Three
euros. I phoned Fluke but after a few rings it cut out, and
when I tried again I got user unavailable. The bastard,
my own cousin, had turned off his phone on me.

I tried Beetle again, but there was still no answer. I
counted my money. I had the fiver I took from my ma
plus about four euro in change. I could pay to get on a
bus but if I did I couldn't buy fags and they were more
important. So I walked all the way into the centre of
town, and it's probably just as well I did because that
gave me the chance to come up with a story.

My nine euro bought me a packet of smokes, a pint of
milk and two bags of crisps. The paper shop was the
only one open in the centre of town. It was too early
for anything else. But the park was open in Stephen's
Green so I took my stuff over there and lay down
under a bush. I hardly put my head down before I was
asleep.

My phone woke me a couple of hours later, but it
was my ma so I didn't answer it. I went back to sleep,
and the next time it rang it was Fluke.

'Where are you, you little wanker?' he said.

'I'm in town,' I said. 'And don't call me a wanker,
you bollix.'

'You are a wanker,' he said. 'And the cops are looking
for you. What happened last night?'

'Mick lost the plot,' I said.

'He lost more than that,' Fluke said. 'The guards
caught him beating up some fella in Dalkey. He nearly
killed him. Probably would have if they hadn't got there
in time. And he was beside your Skoda.'

'He crashed it,' I said. 'And then when that other
fella came over he went mental.'

'What were you thinking of?' he said. 'Why did you
let him drive?'

'I couldn't stop him,' I said. 'And anyway, you let
him drive.'

'Not when he's like that, I don't,' Fluke said. 'I don't
go near him when he's like that. He'll get time for this,
Bobser. He'll get two years at least. More if the fella dies.'

Good, I thought, but I didn't say it. 'And will he?'
I said.

'He might. Punctured lung and head injuries. Mick
went ballistic, they said. Why did you go robbing a fucking
Skoda anyway? Heap of junk.'

'It was outside the door, that's why. And I came
home, like I said I would.'

'Listen, Bobby,' he said, coming the older cousin all
of a sudden. He did that sometimes. 'Your ma will never
stick it down there. She'll do her head in with no one to
talk to and that. Just give her a couple of weeks and
she'll be back with her tail between her legs. That's what
my ma says, anyway.'

'I don't care,' I said. 'I'm not going back.'

'Well what are you going to do then?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'I don't care.'

'My ma says you're to go to our place and she'll
sort it out.'

'Sort what out?'

'With the guards and everything. And then you can
get a bus back to Clare. Your ma's demented worrying
about you.'

I hung up on him and turned off my phone. Two
could play at that game.

My shoulder was worse – stiff and sore – and my
head was aching. I was hungry again as well, but I was
in no mood for robbing money. Not on my own. So I
robbed a burger and chips off a woman outside Supermac's
and ran round the corner with them and ate them
walking down Grafton Street under the noses of the
guards there.

The headache kept getting worse. By the middle of
the afternoon it was blinding me and I went into a pub
and asked the bartender for an aspirin and a glass of
water. He told me to fuck off so I picked up a stool and
threw it over the counter and smashed all the bottles on
his shelves for him. And then I ran again, dodging
through the back streets and over the river and along to
Moore Street.

But I was tired of running. It's different when you're
with the others and it's like a game and you all think
you're great, like in a war or something. It's not the same
when you're on your own and you don't feel well. I half
wished the guards would pick me up but they were all
standing around in the streets, looking useless.

But I was happier on the Northside. It was different
there. One of the street sellers gave me a couple of
aspirin and a bag of bruised apples to wash them down
with. I ate them walking up Dorset Street. I don't know
where I thought I was headed, but my legs took me in
that direction anyway, towards my own part of town.
And then when I got to Drumcondra, the guards finally
picked me up, and I got in the car without a word.

I knew the drill in the garda station. I'd been through it
enough times. My ma was too far away to come in and
I didn't give them Carmel's number. She was always
giving out about me to my ma, and she'd be delighted to
see me in here. But they weren't allowed to interview me
without an adult there so they had to bring in a social
worker. That took a bit of time to organize so they stuck
me in a cell for an hour or two. I caught up on a bit more
sleep, or at least, I tried to. Garda stations aren't the
quietest places in the world.

When the social worker arrived her hair was all
over the place like she had been out on her bike on a
windy day. It didn't bother me. I'd seen this one before.
She was often up around our flats. She would do fine.

There were two guards in the interview room. One
of them I knew from another time when I was picked up.
He sat through a long interview with me once when my
ma was there. I never said a word the whole time. I knew
what he thought of me but it was no harm that he knew
my history. It might even help me with my plan.

The other guard was older. He was the one who did
most of the talking. For the first while I played my old
game, shrugging my shoulders and saying nothing. They
asked me about the car and where I'd found it and why
I'd stolen it and where I got the key from and what
time I left for Dublin and what time I got here and why
I ran away. I gave them nothing, just stonewalled
completely until the older one said: 'How long have you
known Michael Kilroy?'

I squirmed in my chair and looked as uncomfortable
as I could.

'He's a friend of yours, right?'

I shrugged and said, 'Where is he?'

'He's locked up,' he said.

'Here?'

'Never mind where,' he said. 'You don't have very
good taste in friends, do you?'

I sat back in my chair and went back to stonewall
mode.

'This is very serious, Robert. This isn't like stealing
a phone or a handbag. Your friend Mick put a fella in
hospital last night.'

I wriggled again and crossed my arms and
uncrossed them again.

'He nearly killed him. Were you there? Did you see
it happen?'

'No,' I said.

'Where were you then?'

'I ran away.'

'He's a very dangerous fella, your Mick,' he said.
'We don't often see damage like that inflicted on a
person without the use of a weapon.'

'Will you put him away?' I said.

'You can bet your life we will,' he said.

'How long for?' I said.

'I'd lock him up for good if I had my way,' he said.
'But he'll probably get five or six years.'

I gripped the edges of my chair and tried to look
worried. Then I nodded towards the social worker
beside me.

'Can I talk to her? On my own, like?'

The two guards looked at each other and then they
said I could. They turned off the tape recorder and went
out and I said to the social worker, 'If I tell them about
Mick will it get back to him?'

'I can ask them that,' she said.

'I won't give evidence,' I said, and I chewed at my
fingernails. 'No way in the world I'm standing up in
court. It's more than my life's worth.'

'I'll tell them that as well.'

She went outside and I screwed up my face to stop
myself smiling. It was going great. Then they all trooped
back in again.

I pointed at the tape recorder. 'I don't want that on,'
I said.

'We have to turn it on,' the old guard said. 'But
it's only relevant to your case and not to Michael
Kilroy's.'

'You can't use it as evidence?'

'No.'

'Because I won't give evidence,' I said.

'We understand that.'

'You can't make me.'

'No. We can't,' he said.

I stopped and did some more wriggling around in
my chair. They waited. Eventually I said: 'Mick . . . Mick
made me do things.'

'What kind of things?'

'He made me rob stuff and that. Money. Phones. He
had to feed his habit. I didn't dare say no to him.'

'Why not?'

'You've seen what he's like!' I said. 'He's a
mentaller. He was scared of getting caught but he knew
I wouldn't get sent down for stuff because I was too
young. So he made me do all his dirty work for him. He
threatened me with all kinds of stuff if I didn't do it. And
then he'd buy drink and drugs and whatever he needed.'

'Where did he buy the drugs?'

'I don't know. Honest. I never bought any myself. I
had to give him everything I robbed.'

'Did you steal anything else for him? Apart from
phones and money?'

'Cars,' I said. 'Mick likes driving.'

'What cars? Where?'

I shook my head. 'I'm not saying. I don't even know
why they took me with them most of the time.'

'Who's they? Are there more of them?'

I went silent. I'd gone a bit far there. I'd said more
than I meant to.

'Your cousin Luke, is it?' the old guard said.

'No,' I said. 'I'm not saying. In any case the others
were never so bad. Mick was the worst. I been scared
shitless of him for the last few years.'

I was dying to know if they were buying it or not
but I didn't dare look them in the face. I just kept my
head down and chewed at my nails.

'That was why my ma took me away down the
country,' I said. 'I was always in trouble. And I couldn't
sleep at night for fear of what Mick would do to me.'

'So why did you come back in such a hurry?' the
other guard said. He sounded like he didn't believe me.
'And why did you meet up with Mick?'

'He made me!' I said. 'He told me I had to get a car
and come back and work for him again or he'd—'
I stopped.

'He'd what?' the old guard said.

I managed to squeeze a few tears from somewhere.
'He said he'd find us, wherever we went. He said he'd
mess up my ma's face.'

It worked. I got a ten-mile-long lecture about what
happened to lads like me if we didn't stick to the straight
and narrow and how hard it was to get your life back on
track if you got a bad start and how I was still young
enough to change my ways and make a go of it and if I
didn't it would be St Pat's for me next time and blah blah
blah. I put up with it, and tried to look innocent and
grateful, and I said I would make something of my life
now Mick was out of the way and couldn't force me to
work for him no more. Then they put me in a garda car
and drove me down to my ma in Clare. I slept nearly all
the way in the back. Best taxi service in the country.

They had a long talk with my ma when we got there
and I heard most of it through the thin floor in my room.
My ma kept saying, 'He's a good lad, really,' and
'There's no real harm in him,' and 'That's why I brought
him down here.' Stupid cow. As if bringing me down
here was going to change anything.

After they left I waited for my ma to tear into me
like she usually does, but it didn't happen.

'I never knew that, Bobby,' she said. 'About Mick
Kilroy. You should have told me. Why didn't you
tell me?'

I shrugged and tried not to laugh.

'But he's gone now. He won't bother you no more,'
she said. 'This is a new start now. Everything is going to
be different.'

For a second I almost believed her. Then the hole
where my future should have been gaped wide open
again.

I wished I hadn't slept so much in the garda car. I lay
awake for hours, listening to the night noises, inside and
out. There were rats or bats or something in the roof,
and every few minutes one of them went skittering
across the boards above my head. I kept thinking about
the little girl and how they murdered her. Did they
strangle her? Stab her? I kept getting this picture of her,
half cat, fighting for her life and screaming.

Something on soft feet went along beside the house
and knocked into the ash-can. It must have been the dog,
because I heard it come in through its flap and bump
around in the kitchen, and then it went out again, and
then I heard its claws on the kitchen floor and I wasn't
sure whether it was in or out or whether I was awake or
asleep, and then I dreamed that psycho Mick was out on
bail and running at the back door with an axe.