Blindside. Wilna Adriaanse

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СКАЧАТЬ answer, he touched her arm. “The two of us can sort out our differences another day. Now isn’t the time. Let’s say goodbye to him the way he would have wanted.”

      She nodded. “I appreciate your being here.”

      He cleared his throat and rapped on the bar counter. “Could we have some quiet for a moment, please?” He motioned at a few youngsters at the back of the room who had started talking again. “Shut up back there.” He turned to Ellie. “Mac, we don’t have words, and I don’t actually have the faintest idea what to say, except that it was a privilege to know him. And to work with him. With that man behind you, you never had to look over your shoulder. His death is a great loss to all of us. I suppose we could say that, given a choice, it was how he would have wanted to go, but that doesn’t make it any easier. It’s hard enough when any innocent person is taken out like that, but it’s doubly hard when it’s one of our own.” He stopped for a moment and when he spoke again his voice was thin. “To the Irishman.” He raised his glass.

      There was a loud “Hear, hear!” and then one of the younger men spoke. “Everything I know about police work I learnt from John McKenna.”

      “Hawu, man, he could chew your ear off if you fucked up,” a young black man said from the front of the room. “But he was straight as an arrow. You always knew where you stood with him.”

      “Remember that night we were going to raid that house in Bonteheuwel?” a colleague of many years joined in. “We worked on it for months, everything was in place, and then he got a feeling that something wasn’t right. Hell, the guys were furious.”

      “Yes, but we were more scared of the Irishman’s sixth sense than of the devil himself. No one fucked with it. None of the profiling textbooks come close to that man’s eye and instincts.”

      Ellie let them carry on. Allowed each one to reminisce and say his piece as they stood shoulder to shoulder. When they walked out of there they would take their private fears home with them, and the knowledge that it could have been them. Her own words stuck in her throat.

      She was exhausted and drank deeply from the glass Joe had put in her hand. She hadn’t eaten all day and felt the whisky drop straight into her stomach, where it burned.

      “What did he always say when he had his first glass in his hand?” someone called out to her.

      “May your glass be ever full, may the roof over your head be always strong, and may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead,” she called back, and everyone laughed.

      She raised her glass. “Here’s to you, old man. I hope you took the devil by surprise.”

      “Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling,” her dad’s cousin began to sing. Before long his four old friends had joined in and were belting out the words.

      When they got to the second verse, Ellie sang along.

      “And if you come, when all the flowers are dying, and I am dead, as dead I well may be, you’ll come and find the place where I am lying and kneel and say an ‘Ave’ there for me.”

      What a cliché, she thought. It wasn’t even one of her father’s favourite songs, yet gradually her voice petered out. When the last notes had faded away, she motioned to Joe. With her glass replenished, she made her way back to Ahmed.

      “Have you had something to drink, Brigadier?”

      He lifted his glass. “My wife says all this Coke is going to eat up my insides, but man cannot live on water alone. How’s your mother?”

      “As well as can be. Heaven knows what my dad was thinking, leaving me alone with her.”

      He shook his head. “Why do you sound so angry? It’s not like he had any say in the matter.”

      “I don’t want to be, but I can’t help it. Why was he there at all? He had trained his people well. Why couldn’t he trust them to put up a roadblock?”

      “If it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else.”

      The thought had crossed her mind, but she had quickly pushed it aside. If she pursued that line of thought, she’d have to offer up someone else’s life in exchange for his, and she knew, if she identified the person by name, she would never be able to look him in the eye again.

      Ahmed sighed. “You’re young. You still need to learn that sometimes you do things you can’t explain, but you know it’s the right decision at the time.”

      Ellie felt the whisky start taking the edge off the day. “Do you like lasagne?”

      He shook his head. “Not particularly.”

      “I was going to ask you to follow me home and take some with you. I wonder why everyone thinks of lasagne as comfort food.”

      Before she could continue, she felt someone kiss her neck. She didn’t turn around.

      “Sorry, babes, I couldn’t get away sooner. There was some trouble. Afternoon, Brigadier.”

      “Greyling.”

      Albert put his arm around Ellie’s shoulders and kissed her cheek. “I’m genuinely sorry. I tried …”

      “Hey, Greyling …” someone called from the bar before he could say anything more.

      “Yo, my bro, pass something along, man. I’m dying of thirst here,” he called back over her head.

      “Mac, leave the guy so he can come and have a drink with us.”

      Ellie motioned with her head. “Go.”

      He gave her a wide-eyed grin. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Can I bring you something? Brigadier, a refill?”

      “I must go.”

      “Babes?”

      Ellie shook her head. “I must get home too, before my mom kicks Vera and her husband out.”

      “Will I see you tonight?”

      “I don’t think so. We’ll talk later.”

      He put his hands on either side of her face and kissed her lips. “I’d really like to see you.”

      She and Ahmed walked out together. It was slow going – everyone wanted to say goodbye. Clive touched her shoulder in passing. Joe came out from behind the counter and hugged her briefly.

      “Hang in there, my girl. It will get better, but it’s going to be pretty crap for a while.”

      “Thanks. It helps to know what to expect.” She motioned with her hand. “Thanks for this. I’m sure he’s smiling, wherever he is.”

      “It’s a pleasure. I’ll miss the old bastard.”

      “Don’t let these drunk arses drive, and kick them out just now. Tomorrow their wives will be complaining to me,” Ahmed said as he shook Joe’s hand.

      “I will, Brigadier.”

      Outside, СКАЧАТЬ