An Iron Rose by Peter Temple Read Free Book Online Page B

cook and sent the beers around. Flannery’s younger brother came in with the lovely and twice-widowed Yvonne and shouted the room. Things were good in trucking. Other rounds followed. In due course, Mick broke into ‘The Rose of Tralee’ and Flannery’s voice, shockingly deep from the compact frame, joined him. The air warmed, thickened, became a brew of beer fumes, breath, tobacco smoke, cooking smells from the kitchen. The windows cried tears of condensation and my shoulder was healed of all pain. It was after ten, whole body in neutral, when I decided against another drink. I was saying my farewells when Mick put his head close to me and said, ‘Moc, other day. That Ned thing we were discussin. Met the fella today, works on the gate at Kinross Hall. Says Ned was there a coupla days before. Before he—y’know.’
     
    I wandered out into the drizzle, cold night, black as Guinness, smell of deep and wet potato fields. The dog appeared and we found our way across the road. I stopped for a leak beside the sign that said Blacksmith, All Metalwork and Shoeing . Flannery had done it for me in pokerwork and it wasn’t going to get him a place in the Skills Olympics. Down the muddy lane the two of us went home, both happy to have a home. Homes are not easy to come by.
     

The sign saying Kinross Hall, Juvenile Training Centre directed you down a country road. Five kilometres further, another sign pointed at a long avenue of poplars. At the end of it, huge spear-pointed cast-iron gates were set in a bluestone wall fully three metres high. Above them, an ornate wrought-iron arch held the words Kinross Hall , the two words separated by a beautiful wrought-iron rose. Through them you could see a gravel driveway flanked by bare elms. An arrow on the gate took the eye to a button on the right-hand pillar. A sign said: RING.
    I got out of the vehicle, admired the craftsmanship of the iron rose on the arch, and pushed the button. After a few minutes, I rang again. Then a man in standard blue security guard uniform came walking down the drive—moon face, fat man’s walk, not in any hurry.
     
    ‘Yes,’ he said.
     
    ‘I’m trying to find about someone who was here about two weeks ago,’ I said.
     
    He didn’t say anything, just looked at the Land Rover and looked back at me blankly.
     
    ‘Bloke called Ned Lowey,’ I said.
     
    He nodded. ‘I heard about him. He was here. Hold on, tell you when.’ He went off to my right, out of sight. When he came back, he had a black and red ledger, open. He riffed though it, then said, ‘Tuesday 9 July, nine twenty am.’
     
    I said, ‘What was it about?’
     
    Still expressionless, he said, ‘Wouldn’t know, mate. Had an appointment with the director at nine-thirty am.’
     
    ‘How do you get to see the director?’
     
    ‘Ask. Want me to?’
     
    I nodded.
     
    ‘Name and purpose of visit.’
     
    I gave him my name and said, ‘Inquiry about Ned Lowey’s visit.’
     
    He wrote it in the book and went off again. He was away no more than two minutes. ‘Better put the dog in the cab,’ he said. ‘Park in front of the main building. Turn right as you go in the front door. Down the passage. There’s a sign says Director’s Office.’
     
    I opened the passenger window and whistled. The dog jumped onto the cab roof. His back legs appeared, scrambled their way over the windowsill, and then the whole animal dropped into the cab. The guard shook his head and opened the gate.
     
    No inmates were to be seen, only a man on a ride-on mower in the distance. The main building was stone, someone’s house once, a mixture of castle and Gothic cathedral with a hint of French chateau, set in immaculate parkland. It could have been an expensive country hotel but it had the feeling of all places of involuntary residence: the silence, the smell of disinfectant, the disciplined look of everything, the little extra chill in the air.
     
    The secretary was a pale, thin woman in her