Trolls are quick to anger and slow to forgive, as the old expression goes. It’s also said the number one cause of death among trolls is Bigger Trolls. This may not be true, but troll clan wars through history have been vicious and bloody and personal in a way most human conflicts don’t compare to.
Even today, the Clan heavily dictates the lives of its members, and interaction between trolls of different clans is only undertaken with permission from the leaders and elders.
The Island of Ireland has been thoroughly subdivided into territories. The Red control the East and South-East, the Green rule in the North, the Blue and Brown together rule in the West and Midlands, and the White control the South. In ancient times they were all unified under the Silver Clan, but three hundred years ago the Silvers were deposed and their authority became ceremonial only. The Silver Clan was eventually eradicated about eighty years ago and the surviving members and their descendants were declared Grey.
So when the daughter of the Chief of the Red Clan rejected her father’s hand-picked suitor to elope with the grandson of the last Silver chief, you can imagine it caused a hell of a fuss.
Matt was surprisingly reasonable, once we assured him that nobody was asking to look into his business, or his other businesses, or his other other businesses. I couldn’t promise to call off Revenue, because I doubted even Sir Arthur’s powers when it came to tax inspectors, but I said we could certainly ask. We also had to guarantee no prosecution of whoever took the money if all of it could be recovered, but that was something Doran and Barrett had already agreed to when I explained the knotty relationships and general stubbornness of troll clans.
He took us down to another cabin which served as the truck dispatch office and ejected the crew with a slight tilt of his head towards the door. When we were alone, he took a seat before the computer and said, “The tracking chips should help. Should let us know where everyone was on Friday night.”
Cormac’s jaw dropped. “You chip your men?”
“Yeah, all trolls get chipped at the vet when they’re eight weeks old, the same time they get their distemper shot. Jesus, Vic, where’d you find this one?”
I had to laugh. “The trucks have GPS trackers. The men drive the trucks.”
Cormac looked abashed. “That makes more sense.”
“That’s one of the new fleet,” said Matt, pointing to the fuzzy motorway camera picture. “I have eight of them.”
“Funny how the raindrop on the lens obscures the license plate. Hell of a coincidence.”
“Funny indeed,” said Matt as he occupied himself with the computer.
“Matt, have you glamoured your truck license plates?”
“That would be expensive and possibly illegal.”
“That’s not a ‘no’.”
“OK, here’s all eight of them at twenty-two-hundred on Friday. Three of them were here, parked all weekend. I’m sure I saw them when I left for the evening, but we can confirm that with the CCTV. One was in Liverpool and one of them was in Holyhead. They’re nice trucks, but they’re not amphibious, so I think we can discount those two.”
“That leaves three.”
“Yup. Tommy has one. He’s helping with a warehouse relocation in Galway and was there all last week. He gets back tomorrow. And I let a couple of lads without their own cars at the moment take the other two home. Robin had one in Navan and James Ó’Báin had one in Rush.”
I knew Tommy. He was Matt’s oldest son and heir apparent. I didn’t know Robin quite as well, but I gathered he was Matt’s assistant here from the way he had escorted us to his office. “James Ó’Báin?” I asked. That name wasn’t familiar.
“Yeah, he married your cousin Katie last August. Moved up from Cork. Decent lad.”
Truth be told, Katie was a third-cousin at best, but it was all the same to Matt. I had a vague recollection of meeting her once or twice, and I’d heard some news about a wedding through the grapevine. It had been big news in the world of trolls. When two clans joined this way, there was a lot of networking going on. I hadn’t been invited, but when trolls of two different Clans gathered, it was probably wise to keep Greys out of the proceedings. “James is White Clan?”
“Some White Clan are decent lads. Even some from Cork. But see?” he gestured at the logs on the computer screen. “All eight accounted for. None near Dundalk at all.”
“So it was someone else in a cheap blood glamour driving a truck that looks exactly like one of yours? Could they have removed or tricked the GPS system? Seems to me if you can glamour your license plates to stop being tracked, you’d have some way to disable the GPS too.”
Matt thought about this for a while. He leaned back on his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin. Eventually, he said, “You need a special key. I’m the only one who has one.”
I knew I was treading on dangerous ground here. Matt would forgive just about anything, but he was famously irrational when it came to members of the Clan running side-operations without his permission. I pressed forwards regardless and asked, “What about Tommy?”
Matt glared angrily at me. “Tommy was in Galway.”
“I’m just saying - Tommy’s your son. He runs the place when you’re not here. If he wants to make a copy of the key when you’re away, who’s gonna stop him?”
Matt brought his fist down heavily on the keyboard with a smash. “He’s a good lad. He doesn’t fuck around behind my back.”
Cormac laid one hand on my shoulder. “We’ll talk to Robin and James,” he said diplomatically and took my elbow.
Matt was silent as he picked at the keyboard, lifting letters knocked loose by his punch and examining their undersides. Then he shoved the keyboard to one side with a rattle of spilled plastic and stood. It was strange seeing chagrin on a face I had always associated with strength and stoicism. “They’re both here now, so I’ll get you a space. And Tommy is back tomorrow night. I’ll have him visit your office.”
Cormac and I had decided not to tell any of the trio the details of the investigation until we had spoken to all of them at least once. We set up in the company break room while Robin and James were hunted down. The chairs were plastic and the cups were styrofoam but the tea was top-notch. Matt certainly knew what kept truck drivers and warehouse workers from demanding better working conditions.
I was sipping my second cup when the door opened and a man I had never seen before entered. He was phenomenally tall, at least 6’8”, and built like a scarecrow. He hesitated, half-in and half-out. “I was told someone wanted to speak to me? Gardaí?”
“Almost, but not quite,” I said as I beckoned him in and towards a chair. “Though we are here on their behalf. Just a few questions.”
He entered and folded himself a few times so he could fit into a chair.
“Could you remove your glamour, please?” Cormac asked as I busied myself with the kettle again.
James opened his mouth to ask something, but this wasn’t the first time Cormac and I had done this particular dance. “Tea?” I asked as I placed a cup in front of him. “Oh, the glamour’s just so we can see you properly. Helps build trust. Milk? Sugar?”
James swung his head towards me in confusion. But even as he asked for milk, he was fiddling with his watch-strap. As his watch came off, so did the lanky human appearance. Sitting before us was a Troll of similar height but a slightly broader build. I’d heard members of the White Clan were bigger than us, but I wasn’t really expecting this. He had normal human proportions, just on an increased scale, but the same grey skin and charcoal eyes of the Reds.
“That’s a nice glamour,” Cormac said, as he lifted the watch. “Heirloom?”
“It was my dad’s. Wedding present.”
“Oh, I heard you married Katie. Congratulations.” He looked to me and I added, “She’s a cousin of mine.” I retreated back a few feet. Cormac and I had found a ‘sweet spot’ for interviews, where I was far enough away that the suspect couldn’t keep both of us in view at the same time, but not so far away that our game was obvious.
“Where were you on Friday night?” interrupted Cormac.
James’s head whipped back and forward. “Eh, home?”
“You took a truck home?”
“What? Yeah. The car’s in for a service. Failed its NCT.”
“Matt let you take a truck?” I asked.
His head snapped back again.
“I mean, you’re new to the family,” I said. “That’s an expensive part of his business. He trusts you with it?”
“I suppose? I’ve seen him do it for others. I just asked and he said yes.”
“Do you have a key for the GPS?” asked Cormac.
“What key? Does it need a key? I thought it just works.” I almost felt a bit sorry for him at this point.
“Did you go anywhere else? Take a drive later in the evening?” I asked, taking a sip of my own tea. “A quick trip up the M1?”
“No? Friday we just stayed in.”
Cormac unfolded a piece of paper and studied it intently. “Says here, the truck GPS lost connection for four hours. Any idea how that happened?”
“The engine was off, maybe? I don’t know! What’s going on?”
Troll skin is about the toughest thing I know, but I could see James was about to jump clear out of his. We played Good-Troll-Bad-Wizard a little while longer before eventually giving him back his glamour and letting him go back to work.
“You know, we’ll need to speak to his wife.” Cormac said after he left. “She had access to the truck too.”
“You think she left her husband of six months asleep in their marital bed, stole his work vehicle, drove to Dundalk, stumbled on a crime scene, pocketed a bag of cash, then fled back to her sleeping husband? Or do you just want to meet more of my relatives?”
“This has been a fascinating insight into the mind of Victor Grey. I’m intrigued. I thought they hated you? They exiled your family.”
“They hate my dad. They exiled my mother, because she forced their hand, but Matt never stopped loving her. Me, they’re..." I sought for an appropriate word. "...ambivalent to.”
“So… Is there anything stopping them from asking you to join the clan?”
“Nothing but tradition and pride.”
Cormac hesitated before asking, “Would you join? If they asked?”
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t asked myself this question. A lot. I had never been able to answer it for myself, and I didn’t have to answer it for Comac because Robin entered the break room at that moment.
“You guys wanted to speak to me?” he asked, and made himself a cup of tea. He had a basic cheap glamour; the same sort worn by the security guard outside. I knew there was a large man in front of me, and I suspected he had red hair. But it was all vague impressions. If I wasn’t a troll and if Cormac hadn’t his ring of trueseeing, Robin would just be a face in a crowd of one.
“Yes,” said Cormac as he made a show of studying the sheet of paper. “We wanted to ask about the truck you took home this weekend. This says it was spotted some distance away from where it was supposed to be.”
Robin took a seat opposite Cormac and studied the paper upside-down. “It doesn’t say that. It says it was at my house in Navan all night.” He laughed heartily and downed half of his tea in one go.
“Could you take your glamour off?” I asked, as I took a seat at the same table.
Robin shrugged and removed a necklace from under his shirt.
Before us sat a squat troll. He was short by family standards, no more than 5’6”, but wide enough to make up the difference. He tucked the necklace away and leaned back in the chair. “So what are you fellas actually looking for?”
“We’re trying to pinpoint your truck’s movements over Friday night.”
“The missus was visiting her mother down in Enniscorthy. She dropped me off at work on Friday morning and then took the kids and the car. I borrowed truck seven and left here about five? Half five? Drove home. Left the truck parked outside and walked down to the local. Twohey’s. I left there, got a Chinese, and was home by about half ten. Saturday, I just painted the fence in my back garden, watched the football and got another takeaway.”
“And can anyone confirm this?”
“I was in Twohey’s for all of Friday evening. But well, the aul’ glamour makes things a bit difficult, doesn’t it? I’m sure if you ask five of them to describe me, you’ll get seven different descriptions. But the truck was at my house all night. I helped Matt and Tommy install the GPS trackers, and I didn’t get to keep a key. Only way I could remove it and leave it behind to go off for nefarious purposes,” and he waggled his fingers in one of those ‘nefarious purposes’ gestures, “would be to rip it out with an angle grinder.”
I leaned in slowly. “Did Tommy get to keep a key?”
Robin laughed again. “If you think I saw the prince go behind the back of the king, and am willing to rat him out, you must be fuckin’ loopy. More than my hide’s worth. So, no. I definitely did not see him pocket one of the keys needed to detach a GPS tracker.”
Later that evening a LUAS rattled by on the tracks above, gently shaking my flat, but I barely noticed it. I lay on my bed and let my mind run through the events of the day. I’d been avoiding my family for the last month, afraid to confront what I knew what must be coming.
Eventually, I moved from the bed to the sofa, where the coffee table had become my second workspace. It was piled high with photos and folders and hand-written notes. Every troll the Magistrate had sentenced. The chief of every clan and head of every family line. The leader of every gang. I had spent the last month assembling a who’s-who of troll ne’er-do-wells but it wasn’t getting me any closer to an idea of who would - or even could - pose a threat to Sir Arthur.
I picked a large folded sheet from the pile and unfurled it. It was covered by a spider-web chart of the Clancy Family Tree. Tommy was there, just a short distance from the centre, and I was able to locate Robin with a bit of hunting. I grunted in surprise when I realised our last common ancestor had died fighting Napoleon. It was easy to forget how deep the roots of troll family trees could burrow. Katie was easier to pinpoint, being only three or four generations removed, and I penciled in James Ó’Báin’s name next to hers.
Tommy was due to visit the following night and I still had no idea how to handle things. Was this investigation the spark that would light the powderkeg? Would I be better off letting sleeping dogs lie? Should I go full thumbscrews? Or was this entirely irrelevant, and the Magistrate was due to get run over by a troll driving a tram ten months from now? Or maybe the thing masquerading as Buckley had been a trickster-fae after all, and I’d spent the last four weeks chasing leads on absolutely nothing.
I carefully refolded the family tree into a ball with three or four well-placed smacks and tossed it back onto the table. Then I went back to lie on my bed, to stare at the roof and listen to the rattle of the trams rolling by. “Hell of a trick,” I told the ceiling.
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