Page 2 of Dublin's Danger Dancer

“I know you think you’re invincible, but you’re made of skin and bone like the rest of us. A bullet can pierce a main artery on your body, like anyone else’s, so be bleedin’ careful. These are dangerous people, with or without your clothes on.”

“Careful Ferg, it almost sounds like you care about me.”

“I recommended you for this role. I believe in you.”

“Not too many orphans pass their sergeant exams.” I say winking.

He shoots me an icy glare.

“You’re also the one that told your boss that I might have gone rogue,” I add.

“I’m still not sure you haven’t,” he says.

“Come on. You know as well as I do that the implication I’m collaborating with O’Shaughnessy comes from the messages the bartender at Lollipops exchanged on my behalf. You know how it works at the club. We give out cards with a number on them and those numbers go to Kieran, and he messages the men, seduces them into tipping us more.”

“Don’t you think it would have been a good idea for you to have opted out of that particular service?” He asks.

“No, it would have raised suspicions among the girls and Kieran and made it harder for me to solicit trust,” I say.

“Well, you got their trust and opened yourself up to losing ours,” he says.

I throw my hands up."I’m out there day and night getting intel on these feckin’ bastards and you question my loyalty?"

“Your loyalty isn’t in question. It’s your ability to see the wood for the trees.” He exhales sharply. “You’ve become so ensconced in this role of stripper at Lollipops, it’s led to poor decision after poor decision. You said you had the trust of Vivian and look what happened there. Her entire ballet company was blown to pieces. My boss, the whole intel division, wants to know why our asset didn’t know Lucky was planning to blow up a bus full of students.”

“First off, I never told you I had the trust of Vivian Voxel. And second, Lucky, your target is dead and the girls and drugs coming into Ireland are doubling every single day. So what does that tell you?”

“It tells me his son is a shrewder businessman than we had him down for.”

“I’ve told you, I can break him. Every time I dance for him I have to stop him getting on his knees to beg me to have dinner with him. Honestly, it’s embarrassing. It would be a relief to say yes.”

“When you took this role, I told you the surest way to get yourself killed.”

“To sleep with the target. I remember. There’s nothing like talking about sex with a man who pretends to be my da, for an indelible mark on the brain.”

Fergus ignores my comment.

“Men like O’Shaughnessy are only going to wait so long before they,” he pauses, “before they force you to give them what they want. I don’t want you in that position. Because when you fight that feckin’ gobshite off, it will blow your cover and destroy two years of excellent detective work.”

“And if I don’t fight him off?”

“Are you off your head? You find O’Shaughnessy, scourge of Dublin’s under world attractive? His a murderer, a human trafficker and a feckin’ drug smuggler.”

“I’d rather have the ol’ fella outside who looks like Nanny McPhee penetrate me with his one tooth than touch O’Shaughnessy,” I say.

“Thank you for that extremely disturbing visual,” Ferg says, shaking his head. “You have a real way with words. If the Garda doesn’t work out for ya. You could always become a professional speaker.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I answer.

“But I mean it Ciara, are you really prepared to give your body to a human trafficking piece of shit like Liam O’Shaughnessy for intel?”

“There are ways around it.”

“I like a stall and twist as well as the next man, but eventually, a man like that is going to demand sex and you’ll be scarred for life if you have sex with that miscreant.”

“I’ll find another way.”

“That you will,” he says, his stomach bulging over the top of the ammunition belt he tightens around his hips. “Look, I know you’re more motivated than anyone else to get these bastards. O’Shaughnessy is the last known person to see your sister alive. And I know today is a hard day for you. It’s your sister’s anniversary. But for feck’s sake, get your head in the game today. I’ll be assessing your ability, psychologically, to go back into the field.”

---