The Family Jewels (The Dublin Trilogy Book 7) Read online

  THE FAMILY JEWELS

  CAIMH MCDONNELL

  CONTENTS

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Free Book

  Also by Caimh McDonnell

  The Stranger Times: C.K. McDonnell

  Eagle-Eyed Legends

  Copyright © 2022 by McFori Ink

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Caimh McDonnell

  Visit my website at www.WhiteHairedirishman.com

  First edition: December 2022

  ISBN: 978-1-912897-42-1

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Dear reader,

  Let me start this author’s note by wishing you and yours a very merry Christmas. I appreciate it may not be Christmas as you read it, but, for better or for worse, this is a Christmas book, so I strongly suggest you get onboard with that idea now.

  Previously, I have used these notes to apologise to North Americans for words being spelled the way my mother considers to be correct. I would now like to issue a further apology to Canadians, who, it turns out, insist they don’t spell things the same way as the rest of the people on that continent, and they greatly resent the implication. We have received emails. Remarkably polite emails.

  Now, I would like to use the rest of this note to issue a heartfelt apology to someone very close to me, namely – myself. You see, this book wasn’t supposed to exist. I was writing a novella. A fun, little adventure of about maybe 15,000 words to round out a year where, if I say so myself, I’d worked really hard. I’d sat in my office in the garden for sometimes hours a day, making nonsense up, which, for the purposes of this exercise, we’re calling a job. I was due a break from all that ‘work’. Instead, this monster developed free will and started rampaging through nearby villages. In other words, it decided it was a full-blown novel without consulting me first. The several months I spent writing it meant I missed out on as many as two trips to the gym, watching all those Netflix shows in foreign languages that everyone keeps telling me are great and, I dunno, being alone with my thoughts. I do have a sneaking suspicion that I have a lot fewer thoughts than I think I thought I had, but we will never know now.

  So, I hope you enjoy this book, as thanks to it I still can’t speak German, throw a pot or play ‘Hey Jude’ on the piano, or indeed any other songs. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to attempt to cancel my direct debit to the gym again, which will invariably end up with me signing up for spinning classes I will not be attending.

  Merry bloody Christmas,

  Caimh

  PROLOGUE

  Dave Farrell was a legend.

  He had the window of the Granada wound down so that the cold night air could whip through the car and keep him alert. Thin Lizzy was pumping out ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ on the stereo – the only song you could listen to on this drive through the Kerry mountains. This was living. To his left, a sheer rock face loomed over him as he whizzed past it in the crisp moonlight afforded by the cloudless sky. To his right, a low stone wall was all that separated him from a drive out into wide open space. You’d plummet to your death so quickly that you’d only be able to clamp your eyes shut and it would be over before you knew it.

  As far as Dave was concerned, being drunk was not the problem. At this time of night, you’d be a lunatic to drive this road sober. What was life without risk? So many people lived it like they thought that if they were careful enough, they could get out of it alive. Not Dave Farrell. That was what made him a true legend.

  Down into third – round the bend, floor it and then back up into fourth for the long stretch.

  He was coming from the Christmas do of his soon-to-be ex-employers, Reardon & Sons Engineering. First thing in the morning, he would drag himself out of bed to get in there and resign. He would not give the pricks the satisfaction of firing him. It was a matter of principle and Dave Farrell was a man of principle.

  It had not been a good week. For the last couple of years the Christmas party had been held at a hotel out in the middle of bloody nowhere because Sarah Reardon – who, despite the name, had run Reardon & Sons Engineering since her father’s retirement two years ago – knew the owner and had got a good deal. The woman was all about the pennies and the pounds. Alright, she had managed to turn the company’s finances around in short order, but the place was nowhere near as fun to work at as it once had been. Old man Reardon wasn’t perfect, but at least he’d known how to throw a decent bash.

  None of the reps had booked a hotel room for the night. Instead, they had relied on Christian Keith to be the designated driver. It was a great system that had worked well for the last couple of years – if you ignored Keith getting the hump when he had to wait around for everybody. Last year he had eventually left Jimmy Laughlin behind when Laughlin had been attempting to get off, and more, with sexy Sasha from Accounts. The idiot had subsequently tried to claim he had been successful, but big John Roberts had brought in a picture of Laughlin a week later, sleeping in an armchair in reception. The piss-taking had been year-long and merciless. Dave had taken particular delight in it, seeing as he and Jimmy were always battling it out for the top spot on the sales chart.

  The problem this year was that Christian Keith’s wife was up the duff, and even though she wasn’t due for another few weeks, Keith had pulled out of going to the party entirely, citing complications, and suddenly, they were all left without a lift home. Efforts had been made to turn Keith around on this, but no luck. Selfish sod. With no other options, the four lads had drawn lots to see who would be the designated driver, and Dave had lost. It was bullshit. He knew for a fact that Jimmy knew how to do card tricks, which meant he was good at that sleight-of-hand crap. They never should have let him be the one to pull the name out.

  Still, having resigned himself to having a terrible night, Dave had duly picked up the lads, driven them out to the venue and been at the mercy of the three of them as they spent the journey doing everything in their power to wind him up.

  He’d had a solitary glass of wine with dinner. Being stone-cold sober, he’d realised that Christian Keith had been right – the food there really was terrible. Even drowning the turkey in gravy did nothing to hide how dry it w
as. Then there had been the speeches. The interminable speeches. The bloody things went on for ever, and just when it looked as if they were finally coming in for a landing, up pops old man Reardon to give an unscheduled address.

  Renowned for being a man who has never met a drink he didn’t like, the whole room had braced itself for Reardon’s usual slurred ramble. In previous years, they’d run a book on how long he would go on for. Four years ago, Dave had won with his almost bang-on guess of twenty-two minutes. Against all previous form, this year the old man had gone for the unexpectedly short and sweet “you’re all brilliant” option followed by the rapturously received announcement of a free bar. That had been a surprise, especially for his daughter, judging by the face she had on her.

  Dave had heard that the two Reardons had got into a row in reception, once the poor mother had left after trying and failing to referee. Everyone else was three deep at the bar. The overwhelmed barman had tried to deal with the unexpected surge in demand as best he could, but eventually, they’d dragged in the receptionist to help out and told people to stop ordering cocktails as they slowed everything down too much.

  It was an unrestricted free bar. Shangri-La. Mark Smith from the warehouse had somehow acquired an expensive bottle of Tullamore Dew and had been wandering around, doling out shots. Of course, Dave had accepted one. Everyone knew he loved his whiskey. Alright, maybe it had been more than one. Himself and Mark were the only Leeds fans at the firm and they’d had a few while discussing their team’s trials and tribulations, but Dave was still the most sober man in the room.

  Then Jimmy had come over and started giving out to him. Whiny little goody two-shoes. Unlike some people you could mention, everyone knew that Dave Farrell could handle his drink. Jimmy wouldn’t let it go, and before he knew it, Dave was surrounded by him, Sean and Paschal, all giving him shit for being the designated driver and not staying teetotal. Paschal had kept banging on about how this close to Christmas they were bound to hit a Garda checkpoint on the way home.

  Trying to be the bigger man, Dave had offered to see if he could get them a room for the night, but apparently, the hotel was totally booked up. It would be alright, he assured them. He would stop drinking there and then, neck a couple of coffees, and he’d be fine. Jimmy would not let it go, though. Said he wouldn’t get into a car with Dave. Started making a big deal about how his uncle had died, like that had anything to do with anything. Eventually, enough was enough, and Dave had told him to go screw himself or, better yet, see if he could shack up with Sasha again.

  You couldn’t even really call it a fight, although people certainly had. Some pushing and shoving, followed by some grappling, and then they’d fallen over and broken a chair. They’d been split up and, seeing as it was made clear that nobody was getting in a car with Dave, he was no longer the designated driver. Then there’d been no reason not to drink, had there?

  After a while, it had become obvious that nobody wanted to talk to him, not even Mark from the warehouse, so Dave had decided to head off. Sarah Reardon and her husband had caught up with him in the car park and demanded the keys to the car. Dave had made it very clear that she wasn’t his ma, but she’d responded that she was his boss and, more importantly, it was a company car. He had tried to walk away, but her husband was a big fella who played football for the county back in the day, and he had taken the keys off Dave. Dave could have handled him, but there was no point. He’d stomped off, only to return five minutes later, to take the spare key from its hiding place under the back wheel arch and off he went. You had to get up early in the morning to outsmart Dave Farrell. It actually was early in the morning by that time, but the point still stood.

  He’d taken the mountain road because the Gardaí wouldn’t have bothered to put a checkpoint up here. Nobody wanted to spend a bitterly cold night just before Christmas standing on the side of a mountain while the wind ripped the skin off you.

  All the ridiculous hand-wringing – like he was going to plough into a school trip at 2am on the Ballaghbeama Pass. Well-behaved men seldom made history. Dave remembered hearing that somewhere. It made a lot of sense.

  He dropped back into third gear and smoothly guided the Granada around a hairpin bend. It was like being in your own rally. Tomorrow – well, later today – was the first day of the rest of Dave Farrell’s life. He’d get a new job. A better job. A job where they treated him with respect. He didn’t need Reardon & Sons. He didn’t need anybody.

  He did need a piss, though. There weren’t many places to stop here, but he was fairly sure there was a lay-by in a mile or two. Until then, he would just distract himself.

  He joined in with the chorus of ‘Whiskey in the Jar’ – “Mush-a ring dumb-a do dumb-a da, whack fall the daddy-o, whack fall the daddy-o, there’s whiskey in the jar-o.” What the hell did that mean? No idea. Great song, though. That’s what Dave was now – an outlaw. From now on, he was going to make his own rules and then break them, anyway.

  He needed a cigarette. He started flapping about with his left hand, trying to locate his fags on the passenger seat. He darted his eyes downwards. Where the hell were they? Where the …

  Dave’s granny had always bored him as a child with stories of how their family had its very own banshee. A woman in a white dress who could be seen wailing on the night a member of the family was going to die. He didn’t know how it was supposed to work. Did she just ring the doorbell and start screeching or did you get woken up in the middle of the night by some mad one screaming her lungs out in the back garden?

  His right foot slammed down on the brake before his brain could even begin to process what had appeared on the road before him. The woman, her long dark hair blowing in the wind, wore a shimmering white dress, which was picked out by the car’s headlights. She was standing in the middle of the road, waving her arms. As the Granada’s tyres screeched in protest, there was nowhere to turn – left was a guaranteed collision with sheer rock, right was a Thelma and Louise off into the great beyond. All Dave could do was hold down his right foot, keep the steering wheel steady and scream.

  The woman stood frozen in the headlights like a deer. Even as he ploughed towards the collision, a part of Dave’s brain noticed how stunningly beautiful she was – flowing dark hair, elfin features, olive skin and a glorious body. A glorious body that was about to go flying over the bonnet of a Ford Granada belonging to Reardon & Sons Engineering.

  Time slowed to a sickening crawl as the inevitable moment of impact approached. Dave could feel the pull as the back of the car fishtailed. He held on to the steering wheel and screwed his eyes shut. The roulette wheel was coming to a stop and the ball was bouncing onto zero.

  He could well have sat there indefinitely, unaware that the car had finally stopped, if his bladder had not decided that enough was enough and voided itself. Nothing brought you back to reality faster than the feeling of warm piss on the inside of your leg. His eyes flew open and there, impossibly, still standing in front of the car in the middle of the road, was the woman.

  Dave flung open the car door and stepped out onto the road. The bitter wind hit him like a bucket of cold water. He looked at the woman again, trying to get his head around the idea that she was both real and still alive. “What in the …”

  The car’s front bumper was less than an inch from her legs. She turned her head to look at Dave and he realised she was shaking like a leaf. He looked down at his own hand and saw that he was, too. He doubted either of them was doing so because of the cold.

  Dave clenched his fist. Now that the adrenaline was beginning to subside, he found himself gripped by anger. “What the fuck were you doing standing in the middle of the road?”

  She turned to look at him and her voice came out in a whisper, half lost in the wind. “Help me. Please help me. Help me.”

  Now that his own – or someone else’s – death wasn’t taking up all of his mental bandwidth, he vaguely realised that to his left was a parking area, where a silver estate was p
ulled up.

  Before he could respond, the woman collapsed to the ground.

  He rushed over and bent down. “Are you—” He yelped as a hand grabbed the back of his neck, pulled him to his feet and spun him around. “What the—”

  Firm hands shoved him back against his car. The man was a couple of inches shorter than Dave, with cropped brown hair, an attractive, boyish face and a full mouth that grinned at him in the moonlight. Whatever Dave had been about to say died on his lips as his eyes refocused on the object being held inches from his face. It was a knife.

  “Lovely evening for a drive, isn’t it?”

  Dave barely recognised his own voice as it came out so high and reedy. “I … I don’t want any trouble.”

  “That’s good to know. You see—” The man wrinkled his nose in disgust as the smell of Dave’s breath hit him. “Jesus.” He looked to his left, where Dave was dimly aware of the sound of another set of footsteps. Somebody else was there. “The stench of booze off this prick.”

  Dave felt the hand tighten around his throat as he watched the tip of the knife move a little bit closer.

  The man’s smile was gone now, replaced by a snarl. “That’s my woman over there and you nearly ran her over, ye drink-driving arsehole. People like you make me sick.”