Finding the truth in fiction 

In fiction, the author can “really tell the truth”. So the literary greats have told us.

I didn’t set out with any such lofty ambitions in writing Black Water — but it does reflect why I felt fiction was the way to get out of me what had been festering inside.

I have covered the drugs area on a consistent basis for more than two decades and the crime and policing areas just a bit less than that.

From the outset, my work has often focused on the impact the drugs trade and gangs have had on communities, as well as families and individuals.

In terms of responses, I have seen everything from the mobilisation of working class communities demanding the State protect them and, in some cases, protecting themselves, the provision of treatment responses and the marshalling of policing and legal resources.

But issues such as drug-related debt, intimidation of communities and gang feuds have persisted and, as we have seen in the last two years, reached terrifying new heights.

Over the years, I have met many impressive and committed people, not least those who work in community organisations, drug projects and youth groups as well as people directly impacted by drugs and violence, in addition to detectives fighting the gangs.

These insights have been coupled with my experiences living in areas of Dublin that have been, to varying degrees and over time, blighted by the drugs trade and gangs.

These communities, already fractured by neglect, saw their social and policing supports hammered under austerity.

Journalism can do a great job in highlighting all these issues, but I felt it could be limited in presenting a fuller, deeper picture. It’s not that I was arrogant enough to believe I could tell “the truth”, whole and complete, but, maybe, I could try and immerse people in it, at least my perception of it, if only for a short while.

I had no plot in mind at the start. I only had characters and setting, the latter being a stretch of the Grand Canal and its environs.

The first character I had was of a boy, one that was out running wild on the streets, without structure or restraint. The kind you would not want living near you. The kind who was an easy recruit for local gangs.

I realised the reader would need reasons to care for this boy (his nickname is Jig), to be emotionally engaged in him, enough to be willing to read his story and enter his world.

And I needed someone (Shay) who would battle with the local gangsters to protect him and try and save him.

Of course, I needed a detective (Tara Crowe) who was also on the tail of the gang and the boy. With these three main characters, and a large cast of supporting characters, I tried to stitch in bigger issues, but not so much that it overwhelmed, or was clunky or contrived. The issues always had to be secondary, and natural to, the narrative.

The whole lot stewed and bubbled away, for years.

Black Water (published by Black and White) is after all a thriller, so the plots had to be repeatedly worked on, assembled and reassembled, dissected and patched up, polished and refined.

The story had to have pace, striking a balance between depth and description on one hand and tension and action on the other.

I sought to create a gritty environment, one that people could almost taste, but with characters that also pulled on their emotions.

There had to be enough humanity, tenderness and humour in the novel to keep the reader going. I wanted Black Water to be both authentic and thrilling. Fiction yes, but true too.

THE DARK STREETS OF DUBLIN

1.

Jig liked the word SNAP. The sound the wipers made when he ripped them off the car. And when he wrote the letters on the page, his tongue curled against his lips.

He took the path in jumps, inches from the canal’s black waters. But when he saw the swans, he stopped. They were clustered here and there, asleep, their long necks curled into their backs, their heads buried under layers of thick white feathers. Like little soft icebergs, lit up by streaks of yellow from overhead lights and the silver haze of the moon.

He had slipped out of his gaff no bother. When the bottle fell from his ma’s bed onto the floor, and the snorting started, that was the green light. He had kept on his tracksuit and runners so he was ready to go. He remembered to put on his gloves before taking the wipers and the note out from under his Man U pillow.

The canal was still. A gust of wind wrapped around Jig’s face, carrying a waft of roasted sweetness from the brewery. He checked the time on his phone: 2 a.m.

He ran, the wipers in his gloved hands and the note in his pocket.

He had a job to do for Ghost.

****

Mary heard a noise at the front door, then footsteps running off, light, like that of a child. She swung her arm to turn on the bedside lamp and knocked something over. Easing herself out, she placed the double picture frame back up, her eyes drawn towards the old photograph on the right. A fine big man, chest puffed out, a mop of black hair brushed to the side, eyes looking into the distance. It was her favourite of James.

She couldn’t help but glance at the photo next to it, taken years ago. Leo leaning forward, grabbing a friend’s head at his nineteenth birthday party, beaming a wide and wet smile.

Frozen images melted in her mind. James, sitting at the front window, watching and waiting for Leo to come home. James, on his deathbed in hospital, refusing to let the cancer hollow him out without seeing his son one last time. And Leo, when he did visit that time and looked for ten thousand euro.

‘Da, I need it, Da. They have a bullet for me . . .’

But James was lost in a nightmare world of pain and sweeping tides of morphine. Mary had roared at Leo to get out. It was the last time she heard from him. But not the last time she heard from the lowlifes who wanted their ten thousand euro.

She put on her slippers and reached for the dressing gown. At the tiny landing, she turned on the light for the bottom of the stairs and peered down. There were long black rods or something inside the door.

Instinctively she went to grab the railing, but stopped, remembering the top fitting had come out completely from the crumbling wall. She pressed her two hands against the walls either side and stepped down.

The black things were wipers. Her heart jumped.

Oh God, they must be from the car.

As she neared, she could see a piece of paper on the ground. A voice inside told her not to, but she picked it up, her hands shaking. She dragged a short breath.

SNAP. TALK TO COPS AGAIN UR NEK WIL B NXT.

Blood drained from her body. Her legs buckled.

As she fell, her head smacked against the edge of the hall table. The force of the blow twisted her head and shoulders around and she went crashing onto her back.

The note sailed into the air.

Her eyes fixed wide open, blinked once, then twice.

****

Jig ran his hand through the reeds. They were swaying and rustling now. He tingled at the sensation. The wind had grown teeth.

Lampposts rattled as he sprinted. The water was flowing stronger, spilling over the locks onto the chambers below. He wondered what Ghost would say about the job. He imagined bony fingers tossing his hair and Ghost saying, ‘Good job, little man.’ I’ll be in big time with Ghost now, I will.

A swan stirred. It unfurled its neck and shook its tail.

Jig knew from the brown feathers it was a young swan. That was what his granda had said. A cygnet, he’d told him, was what they were called. He thought he could see a sprout of white feathers. Jig stopped and stared for a moment.

Then he karate-kicked the air and ran.

2.

The blows rained down. White fists and red-raw knuckles crunching on bone. Shay shuddered at the pummelling to his arms and hands, tossed at his moans for mercy.

Noise was dragging him away from his dream.

Bang. Bang . . . Yang. Yang.

Shay peeled back the sheets and flexed his wrists. They often throbbed with the memories.

The intrusion was the scream of an alarm from outside.

He eased himself out of bed and shook his head, the racket aggravating his tinnitus. He stood up, his feet arcing at the touch of the cold floorboards. He loosened his tight boxers and stepped silently to the window. Opening a blind, he tried to pierce the darkness, but he couldn’t determine the source of the siren.

He curled back into bed behind Lisa, warmed his feet and fixed on her hair. For a moment he expected to see the ripples of long blonde curls. He moved to push them out of his face, away from his nose, like he used to, a few years ago. When his vision focused, it revealed short straight brown hair and a pale thin neck. He remembered the day she arrived home from the salon. He knew why she did it, but never brought it up. Nor did she.

The scumbag grabbed her hair and licked her neck, the fucking animal.

That, and what Shay did afterwards, had landed them here. To this life.

The sense of being fucked over, of being trapped, of trying and failing to get his life – their life – back, scratched at his skull and clawed at his stomach.

The walls and windows began to shudder. The Garda helicopter must be overhead, he thought.

Red lights flashed behind the blinds. He got up and looked out again; a fire tender was coming to a stop. Away to his right was the source of the noise: a car, now ablaze. Thick yellow flames curled into the night.

Ghost and his crew at work again, he thought.

He would see Ghost at the next match, as usual. The boys nearly shat their arses if he even looked at them, they held him in such awe.

I know what Ghost’s game is. Digging his nails into some of the boys. Like Jig.

He strained his neck to try and see the helicopter, it seemed that close. But then the vibrations subsided as it pulled away, towards the canal.

The noise from the car became more tortured, screeching one second, then receding. Two firemen pulled hoses, like long, bulbous snakes, and extinguished the flames with bursts of foam. Massive plumes of smoke puffed up.

Upright on the edge of the bed, he pulled at the skin under his eyes, then glanced down at the thin frame curled tight under the sheets.

He fretted over her reaction, once the sleeping tablet wore off.

****

“You see that?’ The morning light pained Shay’s eyes as he blinked them open.

Lisa had her back to him, hands pressed hard against her hips.

‘Yeah, a car went up on fire,’ he said, keeping his tone measured and slipping out of bed. ‘You were out for the count.’ He started at the sight of the smouldering shell, bare and black in the bright morning sunshine.

‘What a lovely thing to have on your doorstep,’ Lisa said, casting a look in his direction. ‘I bet you it will be there into next week before those useless lumps in the council remove it.’ She scrunched up her nose at the smell of molten metal which had infected the room. Shay knew she was being pulled down. His stomach tensed.

‘Brilliant,’ she said.

Shay watched three kids running from different directions to the car, whooping with delight. They circled the wreckage, kicking at it. Another boy, around six or so, emerged screaming, dragging a golf club behind him, the head of it scraping and slapping off the road. As he neared the car, he arced it up over his head and slammed it down on the bonnet, greeted by hoots.

Lisa recoiled at the noise, her face tightening.

‘Why car all burnt, Daddy?’ came a little voice from below.

Charlie had crept past them. Molly followed. They put their hands on the window sill and stood up on their tiptoes.

‘They’re bold boys,’ Molly scolded, pointing her finger at them, ‘they shouldn’t be doing that.’ Lisa turned her back on the window, and the kids. Shay saw the moistness in her eyes as she shuffled towards the door.

‘Listen, Lisa . . .’ Shay wanted to say something more, but couldn’t find the words. Lisa turned, her features tight against her pale skin.

‘What?’ she said.

Shay sensed the kids stiffen, looking up at them.

‘Well?’ she said. ‘What were you going to say? That we’ll be out of here soon?’ ‘We will, Lisa. It can’t be much longer, won’t.’ ‘Can’t or won’t? Which?’ Shay moved forward to hold her shoulder, to reassure her, but she shrugged him away. The kids jumped now at the banging outside. The hammering was getting more frantic.

‘You’ve been saying the same thing since we were dumped here,’ Lisa said. ‘A lot of our stuff is still in boxes. We’ve nothing up on the walls,’ she said, swinging her thin arms around. ‘We barely have any shelves. We’re half-living here.’ She paused. But he knew what was coming.

‘You said it’d be a year.’ ‘I know,’ Shay replied, his stomach clamping. ‘But what can I do? It’s not my fault.’ Her face strained again at the clang of metal on metal.

‘Isn’t it?’