Page 54 of Dublin's Danger Dancer

“She was very astute. Shrewd. She knew the craic without asking a single question. And...”

“And?” I ask.

“She also had eyes like a crow. Beady and mistrustful.”

“I see why you go to strip clubs.” I say forking a tender lump of carrot.

“Oh?” he asks, throwing back a gulp of white wine.

“Your date conversation is illuminating.”

“What part of Ireland was your mum from?”

“She wasn’t. She was from Lithuania.”

“Wow,” I say.

“She came over to marry my da when she was eighteen. He was thirty-one. She was a beauty pageant winner in Lithuania. She won the very first Miss Lithuania competition in the country. I wish I had a picture of her to show you at that age, but my da burnt them all after she died.”

I see tears prickle Liam’s eyes as he looks out through the trees to the place where he used to throw coins with his mother.

“I’m sorry.” I say rubbing the top of his hand.

“She’d have made you eat her beetroot soup and potato pancakes,” he laughed.

“To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.”

“Did you just make that up?”

“No. It’s a quote by Thomas Campbell, a Scottish poet. Don’t be too impressed, I like to have a few lines on hand for live’s most troubling moments. Comes in useful at the club.”

“Oh, so I’m just getting the Danger Darcy treatment outside of Lollipops?”

“And I didn’t charge you for it.”

He pulls me into his shoulder and drapes his arms around me. He kisses the top of my head. “You are growing on me like barnacles on a ship’s hull. “

“Should I take that as a compliment?” I ask, the sun’s rays warming my back.

“Yes. They are determined little buggers. It’s nearly impossible to get them off.”

After throwing back too much wine. Liam goes off to the toilet in the restaurant. I scamper inside, searching for a phone.

An American couple is seated in the window. I make a beeline for them. I lay down a thousand dirham note.

“I’ll give you a thousand dirham if you let me make one call from your phone?” I ask, my head practically swivelling in search of Liam.

“Who are you going to call?” asks the man, his moustache tickling beneath his nose.

“My mammy.” I lie.

“It must be serious. Here, take my phone,” says his wife.

I take the phone and step away from them dialling Fergus’s number.

“Fergus, it’s me. A 500kg shipment is coming in two days at the dockyards in washing machines. That’s why we didn’t find it. It’s hidden in their engines.”

“I need more.” he says. “How did you get this information?”

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