Book 1

General Introductions
Chapter 1

It was autumn.

Everything was going to die.

Avenues of tress, formerly green and bountiful, were losing their leaves. They were turning brown.

Soon they would be gone.

A withered nothing in the winter wind.

The morning, fresh as it was, hung uneasily in the air. It too would die, but then, that was only natural.

That was only natural.

Shrill, in over the Irish Sea, blew a light, graceless wind. It swirled and whirled and suddenly, as if by magic, it came to rest, somewhere near the feet of two Irish men who were awaiting the early morning in-bound train back to Dublin.

There names were William Burke and William Hare.

They were not related.

Silently, they stood still on the platform and a gentle mist hovered about them. The rain it seemed would not be long in coming. There were dirty grey clouds everywhere: big dirty grey clouds, drifting above them, making them feel inadequate. They both felt small, unwanted, as if they themselves were nothing. AS if they two would disappear, suddenly, as if by magic.

It was a enough normal feeling.

—Do you think it will rain?

The fat one looked up at the sky and then down at his hands. They were extremely large: weathered.

If winter comes.

Two crippled claws.

They were covered in grey and red veins. They were born of dirt and dust. They had the unwashed blood of many on them. They reminded him of his father. Or at least, he thought they did. The image of his father, his face I mean, floated in front him, momentarily. Like a dark light in the night.

—I’d say so.

—I’d say so too.

Then thin one nodded in approval and returned to his silent musings. He too was thinking of his father.

—I’d say so.

The fat one said this three or four times without explanation. His face showed no emotion. He was thinking about his life, about his wife, and about all the people he had killed. He wondered where they were now, in what realm, in what distant world. He tried to think of their faces, of what they looked like before they died, before they expired, but he could not.

He could not.

Everyone whom he had every killed had no eyes. That is, when he imagined them. For they certainly had eyes in reality, before they died, because he could recall that, diligently.

With dignity.

There eyes looking at him. His eyes looking at them. Last moments.

—Can’t say I like this town.

—Me neither.

—Nice pub though.

—Sure don’t you get them everywhere?

—Indeed.

—Pity about the owner.

—Sure won’t it get another?

—Indeed. All pubs need owners.

—As far as I’m concerned they can suck the wind out of my fat arse.

—Absolutely.

—Absofuckinglutely.

They agreed.

The fat one squeezed his hands again, tightly into two fists and took a deep, long, sonorous breath. He imagined the owner of the pub, lying face down, in a pool of his own blood.

Fat fucking bastard.

—He was only a cunt.

—A cunt indeed.

—He was only for money and what he could get out of you.

—Do you think?

—I fucking do.

The fat one looked away from himself and saw in the distance something approaching them, something coming. He gestured again to the thin one, nodding his head in the direction of the ticket office. It was a solemn action, befitting some noble type or sort; a gentleman perhpas.

—Would you look who it is?

—Sure wouldn’t you know?

They laughed a little to each other.

It was the station master.

He strode towards them, his legs briskly apart, moving in absolute tandem and unison.

The specimen of an absolute being. A monad. A.

—Good morning gentlemen.

He paused, inhaled, stopped.

—Tickets please!

He was an extremely upbeat man, with a slender, brown mustache. The constant misery and hubbub of his sordid life (the simple fact that he did not get paid enough to support his wife and child) did not affect him; it did not impinge upon the clarity and transparency of his domestic affairs. He was happy. He was oblivious to all, and even to that. Jovially, he greeted the men, as if they were his friends, though did not know them.

Cunt.

He had never seen them before but their faces reminded him of the sad faces he saw as a boy when up in Dublin with his father. Walking amid the slums, the cheap tenements.

Hand holding his hand.

Distant memories.

Held holding.

Father, I love you.

Dublin had such sad faces and most of its poorer inhabitants, he thought, where destined only for death. Either that or the poorhouse. It was, it seemed to him, not God's fault, it was someone else's.

There was nothing one could do anyway, nothing to be done.

—Have you your tickets sirs?

The fat one smiled.

—Fuck off.

This sentence took the station master slightly aback, but he resolved not to lower himself to its level, and he continued, still confident in his manner.

—Pardon me?

—Have you a hearing problem with those fucking trains?

The thin one sniggered, laughed a little.

Must be the noise.

—Gentlemen. I find your language most unsuitable. I find it unbecoming of the nation that we find ourselves in. Did others not die to establish it?

They thought about these things.

Of course they did.

—Then unsuitable it is. Then unsuitable it will be. What do you want me to do? Throw you out in front of a train so you can then find it suitable. Maybe that will help your ears?

The station master did not understand this sentence.

He found it unaccommodating.

First, he felt a hand around his throat, and then, he felt another hand, closed, grip his hair.

—Ahhhh!

They shook him a good shake, dangled and bangled him. Bounced him up and down. And up again, for sure! They gave him a few swift slaps to the side of the head and to his cheeks and to his neck.

Oh how heads move, they thought.

It all reminded them of Verdun, of the German shelling, and how all those bodies just broke up, heads sunken into chests, arms gone, stomachs turned inside out.

It was only after all which ensued (that is, the continual beating) that the station master relented, accepted their language, their misgivings, and offered his services to them.

It was very good of him.

To be sure.

Granted, he did not ask again for their tickets, though he knew, in his heart of hearts, that they had none, and that their journey would be at someone else’s expense, someone else’s cost.

It is the taxpayer, he would say to his wife on a regular basis, who is the unfortunate one. It is he who has to pay to the urchins that our fair island produces. This is the problem of our beloved free state: our Saorstát na hÉireann.

In reality, it was nothing of the sort.

We are looking for a man, said the thin one, a blind man.

—A blind man?

—Yes. I said a blind man.

—Do you know any?

—I know a few.

—That’s a start.

They thumped him again for effect, in order to try and get that last butt of remaining smartness out of him.

The reason for this inexplicable violence was completely lost on the station master. He could not comprehend it. Indeed, it was really dampening his spirits.

Little did he know.

Little did he know that Fat and Thin had been sent to Dalkey (from Dublin is must be said) to find one Darragh Mooney, a blind Drumcondra man who, it was believed (by those who counted) that he owed substantial sums of money (to those who also counted). They had not been particularly successful on this outing (that is not to say they would not be back, they would be), so it was, with great misgivings, that they killed the owner of the only good pub in town as an act of unnecessary aggression, in order to defy those who had defied them.

Think of him: lying on the floor, a black bag over his head, the last little breathes living his battered corpse.

They knew someone was hiding him. But they could not tell who. And this was wherein the difficulty lay.

Mooney was a whole story to himself but it is suffice to say here that he was not always blind and he had once played rugby for Leinster, as a boy, before going blind.

He was also large.

The punched the station master again and then kicked him twice for good measure.

Fat thought about the five techniques, but put them aside for the moment as he felt the situation was turning in their favour.

—We are only looking for only one.

—He is not from these parts.

—There are many here who are not from these parts.

They hit him for a third time, and then a fourth time, but held off on the fifth.

Easy now.

—Are they all blind?

—Perhaps.

To the sound of the oncoming train, the fat one dragged the station master over to the edge of the platform and dangled his head out over it, in line with the oncoming train.

Old trains are so slow.

It was not the great Atmospheric train, but it was as slow.

—Please.

—Please what?

—I have a wife and child.

—I am sorry for you. I too had both.

He laughed aloud. It was a throat and nasal laugh, the kind that signified the intent of some evil, some kind of mischievous deed that would bring no good to someone.

It was a laugh that his father had thought him, albeit indirectly.

It worked.

—I do not have the information you require. Please! For the love of Christ!

—Who?

By now the station master had tears in his the corners of his eyes. It was an awful sight. And the crowd that was gathering had begun to run amuck.

Bollox, said the thin one. Let's leave it. We're drawing a crowd.

They dragged him away from passing train, moments before it should have beheaded him.

The crowd looked on in awe; glad for the little excitement that would enlivened their grey and sordid lives.

—You are of no use to us.

—No use indeed.

A shrill cry announced the departure of the Dublin train.

—We must go.

—Indeed, we must.

The thin one let the station master drop, and left him lying there, crying, praying to Jesus.

Or something of that sort.

Urine flowed out evenly from the leg of his trousers and it gathered in a little pool before the foot of the fat one.

—My fucking shoe.

—Leave him!

It was with great regret that the fat one decided not to lift his foot and give the station master a taste of his own piss.

I would indeed. A foot. Into the face.

Bastard.

The crowd.

—Come on.

The fat one had one last look at the station master and then turned away from him and hurried towards the thin one who was already boarding the train.

They ascended the train and walked up the aisle to the top carriage and sat down.

—Tickets please.

They turned and saw another ticket man making his way towards them. He punched people’s tickets as he passed them, smiling and nodding, the morning light falling over his face.

They both laughed.

—Haha.

—Hahahaha.

The train pulled away slowly from the train station. It took them out of the town and into the leafy suburbs of South Dublin, towards Dún Laoghaire.

They stared out the train window.

—Are the suburbs not so leafy?

—They are. A listless willow in the mist. All the greens turning brown.

—It will soon be winter.

They looked out over Dublin Bay and saw the grey day that was rising. Maybe the sun would shine after all.

It would most likely not.

—Do you know what?

—What?

—If God call the light day and the darkness night, what did he call grey?

There was a moment’s silence.

—Hell, I presume.

—Indeed.

There was no laughter.

The train chugged along nosily, past Killiney bay, and away from Bray Head. It all looked so beautiful, from a distance, to the impassionate observer. Soon they would back in the city. Soon they would have to file their report. Soon they would have to say they found nothing.

Nothing at all.

Fuck it.