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According to the summary Gamshack would later leave with my answering service, he had a distinctly curious time when he visited Chill's Bar that evening. I hadn't anticipated any serious problems; Gumshoe would have had a lot of experience in hanging around in bars, sitting alone, nursing a beer, listening to the chatter and gently questioning any garrulous drunk he chanced upon.
Gently questioned by Gumshoe, the youngsters invariably professed ignorance about the history of Chill's Bar itself, confessing that they had worked here only a few months and giving the impression that nobody really expected to stay much longer than that. Not unusual in itself; in a big city bar, waiting staff would come and go frequently. Hoping to ingratiate himself with the regulars, Gumshoe found himself playing a game with pool balls and cues that he had not seen before. There was a table covered in green baize and with bumpers on three sides only but, instead of pockets, there were holes in the table itself, each associated with different scores, together with pegs which stood on defined spots and would negate your entire score if any were knocked over. Given his inexperience, it wasn't too hard for him to lose convincingly and repeatedly, foregoing small bets of money and beer. His opponents clapped him on the back when he lost, toasted him with their beer glasses, but would not be drawn into any conversation that did not involve sports. The noise level went up steadily, and it was clear that a lot of money was going over the bar. At various time during the evening, Gumshoe was approached by several ladies, singly and in small groups, and invited in lilting Irish accents to join them. He of course declined, after he had chatted for a while. Invariably, the ladies professed disappointment then left him alone. Gumshoe concluded that the bar was a very friendly place, but in a closed kind of way: a way which was intended to discover as much as possible about strangers without disclosing anything in return. The only thing that Gumshoe was able to pick up was a rumour that the place was up for sale and even that was from overhearing a snippet of a conversation from three tables away during a brief lull in the ambient noise. There was no sign of Nether. Whether this was because he was indeed following my advice and keeping a low profile, or that he actually wasn't there at all, Gumshoe couldn't tell. Even if he had not already known about Nether's residence, he would have suspected that there was some secret, something hidden from the public view in Chill's Bar. As the evening wore on, Gumshoe drank his beers as slowly as he thought he could get away with. There's always some loud-mouth drunk in any bar: some large-boned bore fond of the sound of his own voice and quick to anger should his unwilling audience have the temerity to disagree with him. Apparently the resident bore buttonholed Gumshoe as he approached the bar for his third drink, spouting some near-incomprehensible but evidently extreme political view as if it were self-evident truth. Gumshoe tried agreeing with the man, which just invited more of the same treatment, then politely attempted to change the subject, which the drunk just ignored. Finally, Gumshoe was forced to engage in debate with the man. This just made him angry, pushing his face right up to Gamshack's and threatening violence in a loud voice. With hindsight, Gumshoe through it was curious, in such a friendly bar, than nobody seemed inclined to intervene or even pay the slightest notice to the increasingly noisy altercation. Rather than getting into a fight, Gumshoe decided that discretion was the better part of valour and quickly left the bar, his last beer untouched. Being a professional sleuth, Gumshoe found a hidden spot across the road and watched from the outside for a while. Although the windows were small and his view restricted by the clutter of the bar, just for a moment he caught sight of the bar bore in conversation with several of the black-garbed staff, who clustered around him. They seem to have been congratulating him on a job well done.
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Chill's bar was busy but not packed when Gumshoe arrived, the buzz of chatter almost drowning the traditional piped music, but not so loud that it was impossible to have a conversation without shouting. The place seemed to run smoothly enough without Rosie's presence. The bartenders and waiting staff were uniformly young and fashionably dressed entirely in black, their shirts sporting the emblem of a well-known brand of Irish stout. They chatted cheerfully to the regulars, each other and occasional visitors; many were students taking part-time work to fund their studies and several were actually from various parts of Ireland.
Part 14