Free Cold Eye of Heaven, The by Christine Dwyer Hickey Page B

who threw all the deliveries in the Liffey and pretended he’d been robbed. But the truth is, once gone, usually forgotten. Alright in ones or twos, for a drink at the bar or a bit of company walking up to the courts, but an annoying bunch of fuckers, by and large – much as he was himself at that age. The stupid jokes and young man’s swagger; Monday morning fartsand the stink of cheap aftershave; the countless umbrages and senseless cruelties; the know-alls and the know-fuck-alls – will he miss any of that? he wonders.
    Farley comes back to his own office and stands at the window. Outside on the quay, a shoal of passers-by. Across the road, a foreign-looking youngfella is huddled by the river wall, begging. It used only be the tinkers you’d see; Paddy the knacker, women with children shawled into tartan rugs – a little some-hin for the babbee, God’ll give you great luck – he will in his bollix, he often felt like saying. But you only ever see foreigners begging now. He doesn’t know why this should make him feel proud, but it does.
    Noreen, he will miss. He’d interviewed her himself, God knows how many years ago. A smiley little thing in a pink fluffy jumper, scratching her forearm. Just out of secretarial college and O so eager to please. Slowey had slagged him at the time about keeping his hands to himself. ‘Youngones love a bit tragedy,’ he had said, referring to the fact that he was a young widower, ‘so you keep your eyes
and
your hands on the job.’ But he’d known she’d be no distraction – not with the woman he had on his mind then, filling every inch and corner of it. A silent screeching siren, only he could hear.
    He looks down at Noreen’s desk, adorned with the toys of a middle-aged clerical typist: baubles and dangly toys, pictures. A framed photo of Clinton with her own face superimposed on it, so that it looks like her head is lying on his shoulder. A holiday postcard from her mother, now dead. A photo of her husband before he went gaga, a pitch-and-putt trophy in his hand. And hanging overhead the birdcage of course, a planted pot standing in place of the tailor’s parrot. Back in the hallway he throws a glance up the stairs. The tailor topped himself up there, on the second-floor landing. A Saturday afternoon, some time in the seventies. Summertime, because he can remember the sisters were away on holiday, and down here in the office they’d been getting the accounts in order for an audit; Slowey, Noreen, himself. It was the squawks of the parrot brought them upstairs. Slowey had cut the tailor down. Noreen rang forthe police. It had been clear from the room that the tailor had been living there. A filthy sleeping bag rolled into the corner. Scraps of cloth on a long table; fractions of unsewn suits all over the floor; a small primus stove on the window ledge; a bottle of curdled milk. When the guards left they went over to the Abbey Mooney for a drink; somewhere quiet, Slowey had said, where they wouldn’t run into anyone and have to make conversation. Best keep this to ourselves, they’d agreed, huddled together in a corner like abandoned children.
    The violence of the death had been what really upset Noreen. The fact that he should choose to die that way when he’d left no one behind him. ‘Why didn’t he just slip quietly away,’ she had said, ‘take sleeping tablets or something – you know? It’s like he was trying to punish someone. But who?’
    â€˜Himself maybe?’ Farley had suggested. And Noreen had covered her face in her hands.
    â€˜Or the parrot?’ Slowey said. And Noreen had taken her hands away. They’d looked at each other, shocked for a second and then suddenly they couldn’t seem to stop laughing.
    Farley looks across the hallway; two doors to two offices. The one on the right belongs to Frank. The other one was, at one time, intended for