Cold Eye of Heaven, The by Christine Dwyer Hickey Page A

twice, then eases it like a letter into an envelope which he slips into his inside pocket. He notices then a shiny red seed of blood on the inside of his trigger finger. Closing the door behind him, he sucks it.
    Back in his own office Farley sits at his desk; his own little territory. His field of land. He has always loved the old-fashioned sense of importance about it, the insert of green baize, the weight of the drawers in his hand. They got it at an auction somewhere off the South Circular road – the Office of Public Works giving the stuff away, in their hurry to modernize the civil service. A relic from a non-disposable past – himself and Frank had nearly broken their backs getting it up the steps.
    Farley lifts his head and looks into the room, a lurch in his stomach that feels a bit like homesickness. He comes back to the stack of letters waiting for his signature; reports on summonses served, or failed to be served; files that need a final update before he passes them on to dopey Brendan who’ll frown at them for a while before thumping his stamp on them and passing the buck back over to Noreen. His eye catches on the last paragraph of the top letter… ‘let me just add that’s it’s been a pleasure doing business with your company over the years and that I retire safe in the knowledge that Slowey & Co. will continue to serve…’
    He throws his signature across the bottom of two letters but he can’t seem to sit still or concentrate for more than a few seconds. It’s like all this energy is squeezing through his veins and he’ll burst if he doesn’t get rid of it quick. After the long walk into work and the lack of sleep in anendless last night, he’d thought he’d be at least glad of a sit-down. A mixture of dread and excitement had kept him awake, like a kid at Christmas who knows where his ma has hidden the presents but still can’t help worrying that Santy won’t come. He stands again, arches his back, begins pacing the floor. At what point should he start giving out his own little presents that he’s bought for the staff? Cufflinks for the blokes, bracelets for the girls. Before the party? Or maybe just leave them here for them to open themselves when he’s already gone? A day from his childhood comes to him; the day after his first communion when he’d spent all his money on sweets for the boys in his class because he’d been the only Catholic in their little school and had felt bad for getting a day off and a new suit of clothes and the few bob of course, on top of everything else. And he remembers going around, the fat, holy face on him, handing out the sweets with a sanctimonious air, and then later getting battered by Jimmy Ball for his trouble and then getting another wallop from his mother when he got home because there’d been blood from his nose all over his good new suit. He glances at the bag of presents, the small individual cards he’s written, the messages and little jokes inside each one, that he’d tried to make personal. The cards no doubt that would be turfed into the bin in a day or two and he worries now that the presents will make him seem like some sort of a sap. He’s struggling with the notion of maybe hiding them away somewhere, not giving them out at all, when he hears Noreen pushing on the front door: a quarter to nine. Bang on the second. He listens to her fiddling around with the locks and knows he should go out and open it for her, because it’ll take a few goes before she realizes that somebody has already opened the door and that she’s in the process of locking herself back out again. But he’s too nervous suddenly; shy even. He stands at the window and watches the jig of her elbow, her clenched shoulders, the slight lopsided pull to her right shoulder. Her face. Even in profile it has the strain of her husband written all over it. The front door gives; Noreen steps