Red Light (35 page)

Zakiyyah padded barefoot along the corridor to the bathroom. Before she closed the bedroom door behind her, the woman took the key out of the outside of the door and locked it from the inside, all the time keeping her gun pointing at Mister Dessie.

‘This is fecking ridiculous,’ said Mister Dessie. ‘I don’t know what we’ve all done to vex you so much, but we must be able to work something out.’

‘You could bring my younger sister back to life.’

‘What?’

‘My younger sister Nwaha. You and your friends, you took my younger sister and you made her a prostitute. You hurt her, but most of all, you shamed her, and she could not bear that shame, which was why she took her own life.’

‘I never even heard of any fecking Nwaha. You can’t blame me.’

‘She was a beautiful girl with tattoos of flowers on her hands. You made her do what you wanted to do to Zakiyyah. You made her swallow.’

‘Feck’s sake. That’s – that’s what sex is all about, isn’t it? Men shoot and women swallow. That’s what makes men men and women women.’

‘Well, you are soon going to find out what makes women women. This gun is small but it is loaded with a shotgun shell and when I shoot you, you will have nothing left between your legs but rags. You make jokes about women with rags. Now you can find out what it is like.’

Mister Dessie started to stand up but the woman straightened her arm to make it clear to him that she would pull the trigger if he tried to attack her, and he quickly sat down again.

‘What do you want, then?’ he asked her. He was beginning to sweat badly and the perspiration was sliding down his sides from under his arms.

‘I am
Rama Mala’ika
, which means Avenging Angel. I want revenge for my sister. You cannot make me believe that you do not remember her.’

‘Yes, well, maybe I do. Flowery tattoos on her hands. Yes. I didn’t know what her real name was. She was Desiray on the website. Look – I’m dead sorry that she killed herself. We try our best to look after the girls, like. Michael Gerrety insists on it. We put a roof over their heads and we feed them. They get protection from any punters who are langered, or abusive, or psychos. We supply them with condoms and we make sure that they get regular medical check-ups. There’s always going to be some girls who go on the game, that’s the way of the world. If you can’t stop them, at least take care of them, that’s Michael Gerrety’s motto.’

‘My sister Nwaha never wanted to be a prostitute. She wanted to be an artist.’

‘What more can I say to you? I’m sorry. I’ve heard that you accept compensation in Africa, don’t you, if somebody accidentally kills a member of your family, like runs them over or something? How about it? I can pay you. I can pay you thousands. I have cash on me now.’

The woman shook her head. ‘Life is not all about money, Mister Dessie. Whatever you think, people cannot be bought and sold.’

Mister Dessie found it impossible to read her expression. She was unnervingly beautiful, so beautiful that she hardly looked human – as if she had been carved out of ebony and then polished and polished until her skin shone. Her eyes were heavily lidded and her lips were slightly pouting, but her face gave absolutely nothing away. Nothing that he could understand, anyway.

‘I will take another part of your body, if you do not wish to lose your manhood. But you will have to give it to me voluntarily.’

‘Name of Jesus, what the feck are you talking about? What part of my body?’

‘Your left hand,’ she said.

Mister Dessie held up his left hand and stared at it as if he had never realized he had one. ‘My left hand? What? I don’t understand you.’

‘I want you to cut off your left hand and give it to me. If you do that, I will not turn you into a woman.’

Up until now, Mister Dessie hadn’t noticed the metal hacksaw handle protruding from the right-hand pocket of her leather waistcoat, but now she lifted it out and held it out to him.

‘You’re asking me to cut my own hand off? Serious?’

‘You do not have to. I can always shoot you now and get it over with. It depends how you wish to live the rest of your life. With only one hand, or as a eunuch. It is no worse than the choice that you offered my sister.

Mister Dessie looked at the hacksaw and licked his red rubbery lips.

‘I will give you five seconds to make up your mind,’ the woman told him. ‘One …’

‘How long’s he been in there now?’ asked Katie.

‘Over an hour,’ said Detective Horgan. He checked the clock on the instrument panel. ‘And … yes! … I’m happy to say that he’s overstayed his time on his parking meter by seven minutes. I can call traffic if you like and have them come around to give him a ticket.’

‘Don’t bother,’ said Katie. ‘I don’t want him to get any inkling at all that he’s under surveillance.’

‘Fancy a sweet, ma’am?’ said Detective Dooley, turning around to offer Katie an open bag of Emerald Caramels.

‘Not while I’m on duty.’

‘Oh.’

‘For goodness’ sake, I’m only joking. You can have one yourself. Those things always stick to my teeth.’

A patrol car pulled up close behind them and Garda Ronan Kelly climbed out and walked up to them. Katie put down her window and said, ‘So – what’s the story?’

‘Nothing much. A bunch of knackers were trying to hobble bottles of booze from Tesco’s and then putting up a fight about it when they were caught. Cautions, no arrests. Don’t want to be accused of discrimination against the Travelling community, do we? Thieving bastards.’

‘Mister Dessie hasn’t reappeared yet,’ said Katie.

Garda Kelly checked his watch. ‘That’s queer. This time of day he’s always on his rounds, collecting the takings. He usually spends no more than five minutes at each of the knocking shops, and then he’s straight back to Amber’s.’

Katie was tempted to say,
I’m glad you’re so well-acquainted with the daily routine of Michael Gerrety’s messenger-boy
, but she didn’t want Horgan and Dooley to catch any hint that Ronan Kelly and Billy Daly had been much friendlier to Mister Dessie than they should have been.

She climbed out of the back seat of the car and took Garda Kelly to one side, next to the courthouse steps. ‘Why don’t you give Mister Dessie a call, see what he’s up to? You can think of some reason, can’t you, like you’ll meet him for a drink later, something like that, because you’ve got something important to tell him.’

‘Supposing he says yes? What have I got that’s important to tell him?’

‘You can tell him that the body that was found in Mutton Lane was Bula. It hasn’t been confirmed yet officially, but I don’t mind him knowing. That’s if he hasn’t guessed already.’

Garda Kelly took out his mobile phone and rang Mister Dessie. He waited and waited, but there was no reply. He tried again, but this time Mister Dessie’s phone was switched off.

‘He’s not answering.’

‘He doesn’t know that you’ve been tracking his movements?’

‘No, I doubt that. We’ve been dead careful. And the times we’ve talked, he’s been sounding normal. Not suspicious, like. Billy was on the phone to him only this morning.’

Katie shaded her eyes to peer at the rust-coloured building across the street. All of the top floor windows were covered with net curtains, so it was impossible to see who was inside, or what they might be doing.

‘He still hasn’t come out,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ll go in and see what he’s up to.’

‘They’ll reck you, won’t they? Then you’ll have to explain what you’re doing there, and that’s going to let the cat out of the bag.’

‘Not necessarily. All I have to say to him is that I want to ask him a few questions about Bula. I don’t have to say anything about the Angel of Revenge being after him.’

She looked back across the street. ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘now that Molloy has pulled the plug on Operation Rocker, I’d like to take a lamp inside and see what kind of a set-up Michael Gerrety’s got in there. All of his brothels that I’ve seen so far are scruffy and smelly. So much for treating his sex workers like royalty.’

Garda Kelly said, ‘We’re keeping our side of the bargain, me and Billy.’

‘Yes, you are,’ said Katie, ‘and I appreciate it.’

‘If you collar this woman, like, and it’s because of our assistance, would you maybe see your way clear to forgetting our association with Mister Dessie?’

‘You mean, would I not report that you and Billy took bribes from Michael Gerrety?’

Garda Kelly looked away, down Washington Street. ‘That’s about the shape of it, yeah.’

‘I’ve told you that I’ll speak up on your behalf, and I will.’

‘But you’ll still report us?’

‘Mawakiya was prostituting thirteen-year-old girls, Ronan, and you and Billy knew it, and you took money to turn a blind eye. How can I possibly not report you?’

Garda Kelly looked back and stared at her, his thin lips tightly pursed. ‘Okay,’ he said, after a moment. ‘Message received and understood.’ Then he walked back to his patrol car.

Katie went back to Detectives Horgan and Moody. ‘I’m going to try to get inside,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you a shout if I run into any problems.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better if I went?’ asked Detective Horgan. ‘I could make out I was a punter.’

‘I think this needs a woman’s approach,’ said Katie. ‘Besides, I don’t trust you. You’d be playing the part of a punter with a bit too much enthusiasm.’

She crossed the street and went up to the brothel’s front door. She was about to ring the bell when a moped stopped at the kerb beside her and a Domino’s pizza delivery boy climbed off it. He took his bag of pizzas off the rack at the back of the moped and came straight up to the door and pressed the bell.

‘Who is it?’ asked a disembodied voice from the intercom.

‘Domino’s. Got your pizzas.’

The door buzzed open. The boy pushed his way inside and Katie followed him.

Mister Dessie held up the hacksaw and said, ‘I can’t.’

‘You can’t? Why?’ said the woman. ‘Are you afraid of the pain?’

‘It’s just not fecking natural to cut your own fecking hand off.’

‘Are you worried that you’re going to cry, like Bula cried, and ask for your mother? “Mama!” That’s what Bula said, “Mama, help me!”’

‘You leave my mother out of this,’ said Mister Dessie.

‘Oh, you think your mother would be proud of you? Look at you! Look at what you have become! You are fat, and you are ugly, and you have no soul! I wanted to make sure that you would not be accepted in heaven, but I think you have already done that yourself.’

‘I said to leave my mother out of this, didn’t I? My mother was a saint. Brought us up all on her own, all five of us.’

‘Do
you
have children?’

‘Not yet, no.’

‘Unless you cut off your hand, you will never be able to. I have counted to five and you have not yet started to cut, so I am going to shoot you between your legs.’

Mister Dessie laid his hand on the bedside table and then closed his eyes. ‘
Saint Anthony, consoler of all the afflicted, pray for me
,’ he whispered. ‘
Saint Anthony, whom the infant Jesus loved and honoured so much, pray for me. Amen
.’

‘Are you ready now?’ the woman asked him.

Without opening his eyes, he dragged the hacksaw across his wrist. It made a rasping sound as it tore through his skin and dark red blood welled up immediately.

‘Shit, Christ, shit, that hurts!’ he said, clenching his teeth. He sat there, panting, and at last he opened his eyes and looked at what he had done.

‘That hurts too much. I can’t do it. That hurts too fecking much.’

‘Here,’ said the woman. There was a dog-eared guidebook to Cork city on the window sill. She held it out in front of his face and said, ‘Bite on this. Then you won’t scream or cry out for mama.’

He stared at her with utter hatred, but she continued to hold out the guidebook as if she were prepared to wait all day. Eventually he leaned his head forward and gripped it in between his teeth.

‘Now,’ she said. ‘Be strong, Mister Dessie! You’re a strong man, aren’t you? Show me what you can do!’

Mister Dessie pulled the hacksaw back, and then pushed it forward. He was biting so hard on the guidebook that he almost bit right through it, and his eyes filled with tears. He stopped for a few seconds, his belly rising and falling as if he were bobbing in the sea. Suddenly, though, he seemed to be possessed by a terrible rage and he started to saw at his wrist with such fury that blood sprayed up the wallpaper and even spattered the window.

It took him less than half a minute to cut through his wrist. His hand dropped on to the carpet with a soft thud. He tossed the hacksaw to one side and fell back on to the bed, shaking, his amputated wrist held up in the air. He was smothered in blood and he was angrily tearing shreds of guidebook pages out of his mouth.

The women bent down and picked up the hacksaw. She wiped the handle on the curtains and then stood by the bed for a while, watching Mister Dessie waving his bloodied stump around and spitting out paper. Her expression was completely dispassionate, but her lips were moving slightly as if she, too, were saying a prayer – but a prayer of thanks.

It was then she heard a rapping at the door.

‘Mister Dessie? Mister Dessie, are you in there?’

Mairead turned to Katie and said, ‘I shouldn’t really be disturbing him.’

‘He won’t be asleep, will he?’

‘Well, no, but he’ll be likely giving Zakky a bit of a pep talk. She’s just started here, you know, and he’ll be showing her the ropes.’

‘The ropes? I bet he will. Do you want to give him another knock? I really need to talk to him.’

Mairead wrapped her gold robe tighter around herself as if she was going to need its protection when an angry Mister Dessie opened the door and demanded to know what she wanted. On the other hand, Katie had shown Mairead her ID after she had come upstairs behind the Domino’s delivery boy, and Mairead was equally afraid of her, and of Michael Gerrety, too. If Himself found out that she had let the Garda into the flat without a warrant, then she would be lucky if all she suffered was some bruises and her nipples twisted and a couple of broken ribs.