The Dublin Trilogy Deluxe Part 3 (The Bunny McGarry Collection) by Caimh McDonnell

Author:Caimh McDonnell [McDonnell, Caimh]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFori Ink
Published: 2023-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Three

HUSBANDRY

“He’s in a ‘bit of a mood’.”

As far as DI O’Rourke knew, Carol Willis had been Commissioner Ferguson’s personal assistant since the days when the position was known as “secretary”. Come to that, she might even have been his PA since birth. Certainly, O’Rourke had never walked into the Commissioner’s outer office not to find her there. She had literally been there longer than a couple of the walls. Now that he thought of it, presumably the woman did take holidays and days off, but he’d never seen any evidence of this. There was every possibility that when the Commissioner shuffled off this mortal coil, she would be buried at the front of his tomb to manage his eternal schedule and prevent the unwashed and unworthy from gaining access.

This morning was, however, the first time Carol had been moved to warn O’Rourke that the Commissioner was in a “bit of a mood”. This was Commissioner Gareth Ferguson, the highly respected and beloved leader of An Garda Síochána. A man who could make veteran police officers tremble simply by staring at them for long enough. A man who had once, while questioning a junior officer about how a television presenter had somehow evaded a speeding ticket in exchange for an autograph, caused the unlucky sod to turn and run into the wall of his office. The mark beside the door was still visible today. Not only did the Commissioner not have the plaster repaired, he also placed an empty frame around it as a not-so-subtle warning to others who might incur his wrath.

O’Rourke forced a smile onto his face, thought again, and abandoned it as an unnecessarily provocative gesture. Best to look unhappy going in, as there was every chance that was how he would be coming out. He steeled himself, glanced over his shoulder at Carol, who gave him a worryingly encouraging nod, and knocked on the door.

“Come the hell in.”

A bit of a mood indeed.

O’Rourke entered the Commissioner’s office to find Ferguson sitting at his desk, staring morosely out the window beside him at the kind of unremarkable grey drizzly morning that Dublin does so well. His shoeless feet were up on the desk and, unusually, his tie was hanging loosely around his neck. While he was a large man in all senses of the word, he was never usually slovenly.

“Commissioner.”

Ferguson spoke without turning around. “Fintan, as an officer with your extensive experience in the field, how many times, give or take, do you think you’ve been lied to in your career?”

“Well…” started O’Rourke, trying desperately to buy himself some time to consider which supposed lie the Commissioner might have caught him out in. “It’s impossible to say. I’ve done an awful lot of interviews in my time and, as we all know, even the people who are innocent still manage to find stuff to lie about.”

O’Rourke braced himself for the counterpunch that didn’t come. Instead, the Commissioner nodded forlornly and pursed his lips.

“Indeed. And however many lies you have been told, we can double that number for me, given my advanced years.

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