Sad Song. Vincent Banville

      Chapter One

      Blaine was all done up like a dog’s dinner. He was wearing his tan suit, with a lime-green shirt. A purple handkerchief flowed from the top pocket. His shoes were black and laced, his chin was shaved, his hair combed. He was neat, clean and well-shined. He was calling on one million pounds.

      More than a million, if the truth were told. James J. Carey was a “cute hoor” from the West of Ireland. He had started in the building trade in a small way. First a wheelbarrow. Then a pushcart. Then a lorry that wouldn’t start when it rained. In the 1960s he had moved to London. There he joined up with another Mayo man called McMullen. They laid tar in peoples’ driveways. They built sheds and cut corners whenever they could. The business went well. They began to make money. Then McMullen fell – or was he pushed? – into a giant cement mixer and became part of a pedestrian crossing in Earl’s Court.

      Carey married his widow and took over the running of the entire business. Things went so well that in the 1990s he was able to come back to Dublin and run his empire from there. Now he was one of the richest men in Ireland. When he sent for someone, that someone broke into a gallop to come and see him.

      So Blaine moved fast. Since he had set up as a private detective, work had been scarce. Before that he had been in insurance, but the job bored him. His hurling career with Wexford had not gone well either. Three All-Ireland finals and each of them lost. Also, his wife Annie had left him for a body-builder called Harold. It would be true to say that he was a bit down. But when the call had come from Carey, he thought he might soon see light at the end of the tunnel.

      It was a beautiful June day as he hurried along the quays. The smell from the Liffey was awful. The Carey building was huge, like a giant mushroom against the sky. Twelve steps up, swing doors. A porter with a stare like a red-hot poker. A girl who looked as if she had been shined all over sat behind a desk. Blaine spoke to her in hushed tones. She had nails long enough to slice a loaf of bread.

      “Mr Carey is expecting you?” she asked, as though she didn’t really believe him.

      “At sixteen minutes past the hour,” Blaine said. “I was told to be on time.”

      The girl pressed a button set into the desk. A minute went by, then another female, who could have been the girl’s twin, appeared.

      “Follow me,” she told Blaine, and led him down a corridor.

      At the end was a large double door. She pushed one side of it open and waved to Blaine to go in. He moved smartly inside and the door whispered softly shut behind him. If she locked it, he would need a sledge hammer to get back out again.

      Chapter Two

      The office was large enough to land a helicopter. Carey sat behind a desk that was about an acre in area. He had hair like steel wool. A tanned face. Eyes as cold as winter frost. And a small mouth as tight as a duck’s arse. His voice had a smoker’s edge to it when he spoke.

      “You’re Blaine?”

      “I was the last time I looked in a mirror.”

      Carey frowned.

      “Cut out the smart remarks. I want you to find my daughter Sam and bring her home.”

      “Sam?”

      “Her mother gave her the name Assumpta, but she hates it. So everyone calls her Sam.”

      “Johnny Cash had a song about a boy called Sue.”

      “What’s that got to do with anything?”

      “Just making conversation.”

      “You’re not here to make conversation. How long will it take you to find her?”

      “Depends on where she is.”

      “Last I heard she was living in a squat with a crowd of drop-outs. Here’s a photograph of her.”

      Carey poked the snap across his desk and Blaine had to hurry to catch it before it fell on the floor. It was a colour head-and-shoulders shot of an open-faced, cheerful-looking girl. She was in her late teens or early twenties.

      “Maybe I should talk to her mother,” Blaine suggested.

      “Her mother departed . . .”

      “She passed over to the other side?” Blaine asked, wondering if he should bless himself.

      “Only to the other side of Dublin. She divorced me a couple of years ago.”

      “Oh.”

      “The address of where she’s been living up to recently is on the back of the photo. Somewhere in Cabra.”

      “The mother?”

      “No, the daughter.”

      “Why don’t you go and bring her back yourself?”

      “I’m too busy. That’s why I hire people like you.”

      “I charge two-hundred-and-fifty a day. Plus expenses.”

      “See Sylvia on the way out. She’ll give you a cheque for five days’ work. That should be enough for a simple job like this.”

      “What if Sam doesn’t want to come home?”

      “Persuade her. Put a rope around her and drag her back if you have to. A daughter’s place is by her father’s side. Not living the life of a down-and-out.”

      Carey pressed a button – it was a great place for button pressing. The same girl who had shown Blaine in now appeared to show him out. She didn’t speak to him. Just marched ahead, while he followed along behind, admiring the sway of her bottom. It was worth watching.

      Chapter Three

      Blaine got in his car, an old Renault that used diesel and sounded like a tank. He drove to Cabra. He was looking for Number Thirteen, Feltrim Road. A girl with orange hair and vampire