Bull. ‘It’s a funny time of day to check for lights on bikes.’
‘I didn’t think you’d be so slow on the uptake,’ said Bull. ‘As we don’t get much criminal behaviour, thanks be to God, twice a year we have a big push to generate some activity. Nothing spectacular to attract unwelcome attention, just a nice even figure to keep us ticking over. Do you follow?’
Macken nodded.
‘A big jump in the figures compared to six months ago will make it look like crime is running away from us.’
Bull paused to let that sink in, and then went on.
‘By the same token, any big fall and we’ll have somebody in Belfast asking questions about our detection rate. So what we’re aiming for is steady as she goes. Crime more or less the same as the last time. Nothing to rock the boat.’
‘I get you,’ said Macken. ‘But am I not part of this great effort then?’
‘Sure it wouldn’t be fair to have you spend this week doling out summonses to your fellow Romans for cycling without a light during daytime, and then expect them to be all pally with you the week after.
‘You’ll be sent over when we have sufficient numbers clocked up.’
‘Someone for them to blame,’ said Macken.
‘Ah no, they’ll be pleased to see you, so they will,’ disagreed Bull. ‘It’ll mean the rest of us are finished with them.’
*
The day was washed in grey. Not raining, just threatening. Macken’s mood was darker. He almost tripped again on the way out and grabbed the door frame. He narrowed his eyes at the cracked doorstep, as if sizing up an enemy. To his left, the street sloped gently down to the bridge. Macken turned right, towards the Protestant church on higher ground. He did not pass anyone as he walked round the far corner of the churchyard, where thick hedge grew over an old stone wall. Tree roots had burrowed beneath and spread under the road like veins on the back of an old woman’s hand, rippling the surface. A sign said, ‘Rectory of St Aidan’s, Church of Ireland’.
Macken took up position in a niche, where the wall was indented round a dead tree stump. Sheltered from view, he re-examined both pieces of paper he had slipped into his pocket.
First, the torn scrap from under his wardrobe. The words looked like a warning.
‘ if they knew the truth it would be the end for you Cedric ’
It looked like there was something missing from the start of the sentence. Macken could not tell if there were words missing from the end too.
It was clear who Cedric was, thought Macken. And that he was up to something he would not want the world to know about. But who wrote the note? Danny – his former room-mate? Macken didn’t want to think about Danny.
And the truth about what? Arguing over a girl? Unlikely. Danny had never shown much interest in them. But Cedric was definitely behaving as if he had something serious to hide.
Macken rubbed his cheek. Need to shave, he thought.
Of course, there’s the poaching, or whatever Cedric and Gracey were up to last night. They would get in trouble for that, right enough.
Definitely something shifty about Cedric, thought Macken. But then again, he considered, I could be reading too much into his bad attitude. Maybe he doesn’t like sharing a room. With a Catholic of all people.
The police force was not entirely composed of bigots, but it had its share. Christ, he thought, what more do they want from me? I’ve sworn loyalty. Even if you were to convert, they’d suspect you for being a turncoat.
However, if the written message was a warning, couldn’t it just as likely be a threat? Though you’d have to be a brave man to threaten a peeler, thought Macken. We don’t take kindly to it. Unless it was another peeler?
He rubbed his eyes. Too tired to think straight, he told himself. His speculation was getting a bit far-fetched. A way of not thinking about the true awfulness.
Danny. Dead. The little brother who he had left behind – thinking it was for the best. The little brother who had put on the uniform, put himself on the front line, put himself in harm’s way – to be just like Macken. The little brother he’d failed to protect. Had as good as denied his existence. The guilt was crippling. Deeper than the shame all Irish Catholics grow up with. Much more personal. No way to hide from it. Not when he’d been sent to Blackwatertown, following in Danny’s footsteps for a change.
Odd way for Cedric to talk about it though. Almost as though Danny hadn’t plugged himself, by accident or… or on purpose.
But not something you’d boast about, thought Macken. Unless you thought yourself untouchable.
I’m being pathetic, thought Macken. Trying to shift the blame onto anyone but myself. And anyway, I was sent here to keep out of trouble, not to stir things up. I ignored Danny easily enough while he was alive. Accidents happen. It’s my own guilt that’s making me grasp for a conspiracy.
Macken folded away the scrap and scanned the second piece of paper, the list of minor offences and fines.
*
This is something I can be angry about, he thought. It’s not the flags and the fuss and the drum-beating that’s the worst, though we’d all be better off without them. It’s the easy assumption that the price we have to pay for a humdrum, peaceful society is that, every so often, one lot gets to remind the other lot who’s in charge. The small, bitter pills, thought Macken, that we swallow to reassure our masters that they still rule the roost. So they can keep on ruling with a light touch.
It’d be nice if they could do their own dirty work without dragging me into it, he thought. Then Macken remembered that, for once, he was being left out of it. But it didn’t make him feel any happier.
‘Hello there, Constable.’
Macken looked up, startled, to find that a vicar had materialised before him.
‘You had me worried, lurking there, ready to pounce.’
The vicar was amidst a clutch of cyclists, whose number grew as more slowed and stopped. Apart from the vicar, they were all women. Macken was thrown to see Aoife among them. She gave him a look of mock severity, as if to say, ‘Not now, with all these ones around.’
‘Bracken isn’t it?’ The vicar was enjoying Macken’s discomfort. ‘I never forget a name.
‘Having forty winks, eh? Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with us, eh ladies?’ Macken felt flustered at the tittering and held up the page.
‘My mistake,’ continued the dog-collared comedian. ‘He was reading the paper, ladies. Following the form, were you? Is it gambling that’s your vice?
‘I daresay there’s not much work for you at this end of town anyway.’
Macken began paying proper attention.
