Free The Wrong Kind of Blood by Declan Hughes Page B

you had to sit outside to get building permits.
    “That’s Jim Kearney, yeah, what about him?” Dagg said. I could hear the chattering of small children in the background.
    “Is he a local councillor?”
    “No. But he works for the council. He’s the planning officer.”
    “Could you… if I read a list of names to you, could you say whether they have any connection with Seafield County Council?”
    “Depends how long the list. I’m solo here with three kids under five.”
    I ran through the list, excluding Harvey and Lavelle.
    “Yeah, most of them are either councillors or council officers.”
    “What’s Seosamh MacLiam?”
    “An epic pain in the hole, that’s what he is. Antideveloper, antibuilder, anti-fucking anything that wasn’t built two hundred years ago. We’d all be living on the side of the road if it was left to the same Mr. Williamson. Only he wouldn’t want any roads either.”
    A crash sounded down the phone, then a piercing scream and child’s wailing.
    “Gotta go,” grunted Dagg, and broke the connection.
    Mr. Williamson? Seosamh MacLiam. Of course: MacLiam — Son of Liam — is the Irish for Williamson. And Seosamh is the Irish for Joseph. I’d been away so long I’d forgotten Ireland has a language of its own — even if most of the Irish prefer not to speak it. And Mrs. Williamson was his wife, now his widow, come to identify the body.
    Joseph Williamson.
    JW.
    Peter Dawson’s disappearance and the councillor’s death looked like they could be connected. It was time to talk to Tommy Owens.
     
     
    When I drove along Seafield Promenade, MacLiam/Williamson’s body had been strapped to a gurney and was being loaded into the back of a Garda medical vehicle. An RTE TV crew were filming, and as I passed, I saw D.I. Fiona Reed flipping a reporter’s microphone out of her face. I turned off the coast onto Eden Avenue — twenties and thirties villas hidden from the road by great sycamore, ash and horse chestnut trees, their branches aching with green in the evening sun. In Quarry Fields, kids played on skateboards, and in the drive to what I hadn’t yet gotten used to calling my house, wearing a pair of battered old combat trousers and a “Give ’Em Enough Rope”–era Clash T-shirt, Tommy Owens was wax-polishing the 1965 Volvo.
    When he saw me, he came close and spoke in a low, urgent voice.
    “Ed, the gun is gone. I checked the sideboard—”
    “It’s okay, Tommy, I’ve got it.”
    “You’ve got it with you? Or—”
    “I’m looking after it. Don’t worry.”
    Tommy looked up at me from beneath furrowed brows. I winked at him and turned back to the car.
    “Jesus, Tommy, are you done already?” I said. “Good work.”
    “Most of the work was done twenty years ago,” he said, a slow smile of pride spreading across his face. He made a long speech about pistons, rods and rings, camshafts and carburetors, bearings and bushings, transmission gaskets and seals. I nodded like I had a clue what he was talking about, and he said, “You haven’t a clue what I’m talking about, have you?”
    “No,” I said. “But if you give me the keys, I’ll be happy to drive the thing.”
    “It’s gonna need maintenance, Ed, and if it’s obvious you haven’t a notion, you’ll be ripped off, any garage’ll think, here comes some rich cunt with his weekend hobby, let’s make him pay.”
    “I’ll worry about that later, Tommy.”
    “Just be sure that you do. Anyway, there she is.”
    “Thanks.”
    I went into the house, picked up the Laphroaig, glasses, and a jug of iced water, and brought them outside. Tommy was sitting in the porch, rolling up a three-skinner, heating a small block of dope with a cigarette lighter and crumbling the edges into the tobacco. I sat beside him and poured a couple of drinks. A woman in her thirties came out of the house opposite with her two young children. At her gate, she looked across the road at us. I offered a smile and a wave, but she whipped