The Drowned Detective by Neil Jordan

Author:Neil Jordan [Jordan, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Published: 2015-12-10T09:12:57+00:00

27

So there he was, dressed in a linen waistcoat and an immaculate pale-green shirt with short sleeves. So the cufflinks weren’t an issue, thank God. He was sitting by a scarred wooden bar in a room with bare brick walls and no glass in the windows. It was a style they had there: take a ruin and design a bar around it. He smiled when he saw me enter, and then looked behind me and smiled again, apologetically, as if to say here was his appointment, and any new acquaintance would have to wait. I assumed there was a woman behind me, or several; he was that kind of man, after all, to whom women came easily. But I wasn’t so indelicate as to turn; I would save that for later. I kept my jacket on and sat down beside him and asked him if it came to balaclavas, which colour would he wear.

Strange greeting, he said.

Strange times, I said.

Yes, I agree, he said. We’ll all be at it soon.

Killing? I asked.

Barricading. Burning tyres. First things first.

I was in Dubrovnik, I said, before the thing broke there. They would point across the bar at friends who would soon be cut-throat enemies. They would smile, shake hands.

I was making small talk and I wasn’t sure why. And he was good enough to stop me.

You’ve got to stop blaming her, he said. Blame me.

For what? I asked.

Aha, he said. That’s the thing, isn’t it?

Why are we even having this conversation?

He looked over my shoulder again. And this time I had to turn.

Do you think I want it? he asked softly.

There was a girl by a stool, at the bare brick wall. She looked like a student. She caught my eye and looked away.

Because, he was saying, she asked me to.

She asked you when?

Yesterday, he said. I met her by the river.

And so, I thought. I was wrong about that, too. How many more things could I be wrong about?

And if you want to hit me, he said, now is probably a good time.

And I could have, I suppose. I could have whacked him once and watched his head bounce off the scarred wooden bartop. By the time he brought it up again I could have had the Glock out and decorated the whole place with him. But it seemed strangely inappropriate. He looked sad and tired of the whole business.

She wanted to talk, he said. She missed you. She still misses you. She even wanted me to teach her how to say it my way.

How? I asked him.

Chybis mi, he said. And if it sounds flirtatious, it is only because I am that kind of man. The kind of man women want to flirt with, when they want it to mean nothing. I am the great nothing, the great vacuum. I listen and I nod and I smile in appreciation and every now and then it works for me, I get into their favour, but your wife, my good friend, was not one of those.

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