The Wrong Kind of Blood by Declan Hughes

him off, forget about it. MacLiam’s whole deal was No Development: he was the comfortable classes’ darling. Woolly jumpers, traditional music, the bit of Gaeilge. And his legalize cannabis thing fitted with their ex-hippie image. No way would he want to risk blowing that.”
    “Maybe he needed the money.”
    “His wife is a trust-fund girl. Remember Jack Parland? ‘Ireland’s First Millionaire’?”
    The beaming man in the waxed jacket and tweed cap.
    “There’s a photograph of him and John Dawson on Peter’s desk,” I said.
    “Sure he was Dawson and all’s hero. Anyone who wanted to make a few bob out of property and didn’t mind the corners they cut looked up to Parland. He’s into all sorts now, banks, airlines, newspapers, everything. Anyway, Aileen is Parland’s youngest daughter. MacLiam didn’t need money.”
    “Was MacLiam dead before he went into the sea?”
    “They haven’t done the autopsy yet. He was bruised and battered, but that could have been the rocks. They don’t have a time of death either. Now, what else have you got?”
    I told him about the stolen files in Peter Dawson’s office, including the empty file marked “Golf Club,” and about John O’Driscoll’s automatic linking of Seosamh MacLiam and Dawson to the proposed development at Castlehill Golf Club. It sounded a little flimsy in the retelling, and Dave was openly skeptical.
    “An empty box file?”
    “All of his financial and phone records were cleaned out. And Linda said Peter doesn’t play golf.”
    “I’ve seen him in Bayview Golf Club many’s the time,” Dave said. “And I’m not saying local councillors aren’t bent, but there’s been so much scandal recently about money changing hands in return for votes and tribunals investigating planning corruption that councillors all over Dublin are running for cover. I’d be surprised if they were taking major backhanders in Seafield.”
    Dave shrugged.
    “Doesn’t sound like much yet, Ed.”
    “What time was Seosamh MacLiam reported missing?”
    “He wasn’t. But he didn’t come home on Friday night. His wife never heard from him again.”
    Same night as Peter Dawson. It had to be more than coincidence. Not that I believed in coincidence.
    On my way out, Carmel said I must come round soon for a spot of dinner. Dave grunted some unenthusiastic agreement. Then there was a loud crash from upstairs, followed by high-pitched cheers and squeals.
    “If those shaggers wake little Sadie…” said Dave, and he bounded into the house.
    “‘Little Sadie.’” Carmel smiled. “She has him wrapped around her finger. That girl’ll break his heart.”
    I muttered something about women wearing the trousers, and gave what I intended as a knowing grin, but something in my eyes must have betrayed me.
    “Ed? Are you all right?”
    “Ah, you know,” I said. “The funeral and everything.”
    I turned away and waved and made it to my car before Carmel could ask me any more. Because it wasn’t my mother’s funeral, but the funeral eighteen months before of my two-year-old, Lily: the tiny white coffin, the stricken face of my wife, the ashes vanishing onto the ocean, and nothing to make it right, nothing.
    That girl’ll break his heart.
     
     
    Night was falling as I drove down to Bayview. I took a left off Strand Street opposite the Catholic church, parked in Hennessy’s car park, walked in the back door of the pub and ordered a double Jameson with water on the side from a barman in a black Nirvana T-shirt with a shaved head and metal studs in his nose, cheek, eyebrow and tongue. The last time I had been in Hennessy’s I was still at school, I was going to university to become a doctor, I was learning about women, and how to drink, and talk, how to live, I had two parents and, even if I didn’t get along with one of them, it was nothing that couldn’t be solved or survived. I was looking forward to my life. Everything had changed in the years since. Hennessy’s