“You’re scaring me now, Bunny.”
Then he did something he had never done before. He hugged her, hard.
“I’ve got to go.”
“Bunny. Wait.”
He rushed past and was out the door before she could say another word.
She looked around the bar again. Goatee and his friends had departed and only a few tables were occupied. Brigit watched as the guy in the leather jacket was joined by a female friend. As they kissed hello, Brigit stared at the door Bunny had disappeared through, into a bitter Dublin night.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Detective Wilson pulled the car up in front of the hotel and put on the handbrake.
“Right so, I’ll pick you up at seven thirty in the morning.”
“Great,” said Agent Dove. “And Donnacha…” She’d never used his first name before; it sounded weird in her accent. “I want to thank you for your help today. I know I put you in an awkward position with your boss.”
“No problem.” He turned to look at her. She appeared to want to talk and it would be rude not to.
“No, you were really great. And thank you for not mentioning the gun.”
“Wait, you really have a gun?”
“No.” Then she winked. It could have been a ‘wink’ wink, or one of her array of ‘twitchy’ winks. Wilson had no idea.
“Seriously though, if you have a gun, I am going to have to—”
“The restaurant in the hotel is pretty good, how about I buy you a thank you dinner?”
If she was trying to throw him off balance to make him forget the gun thing, it was working. She was now beaming a disconcerting smile at him. She really did have enormous eyes. It was like looking into the eyes of one of those bunny rabbits that had make-up tested on it.
“Ehm, no, thanks. I’ve got a microwaveable dinner in the fridge and it goes off tonight.” Even as he said it, he was aware it sounded weird.
“Right. How about you just come up for a drink?”
“Ahh, I’m driving and y’know…”
“Just a quickie then.”
“Ah, I’d love to but, y’know, I’m a police officer. Wouldn’t look good, me sitting around in a hotel bar, drinking.” Again, that sounded odd – ‘Eskimo freaks out at the sight of snow’ odd.
Dove moved a little closer. “Well, you could come up to my room.”
Wilson licked his lips. He wasn’t trying to be sexy; his mouth was just very, very dry suddenly.
“Alcoholic!” He said it with the kind of fervour you’d normally expect from a shipwreck survivor who had spotted a plane. “Alcoholic,” he repeated, and then realised that he might need to say more than that. “I’m a recovering alcoholic, so, y’know, I have to stay away from the booze. The demon drink. The Devil’s thingy. I’m on those ten steps.”
“Twelve.”
“Yeah, not made the last two yet. One day at a time. Straight and narrow. Just say no. Like yer man on Grange Hill. Did you have that in America? Probably not. Doesn’t matter. Anyway, no drinkies for me. But thanks all the same.”
Wilson was aware he was babbling.
“OK,” said Dove. “How about you come up and don’t have a drink then?”
“Ehm. Like, y’mean…”
She placed her hand – her prosthetic hand – on his knee. “To be clear, Detective Wilson, I am offering you full-on, no-strings-attached, no-holds-barred, anything-goes, sweaty, dirty sex.”
“I have a girlfriend,” said a high reedy voice that Wilson was only dimly aware had come from him.
“That’s OK.”
“OK,” said Wilson, before adding, “Thank you,” because his mother had brought him up properly. The thought that Dove was about her age popped into his head and he really wished it hadn’t.
Dove’s face formed into a frown, which was a bit like watching a slow motion landslide. “I see. It’s the arm, isn’t it?”
Wilson didn’t think he could have felt more embarrassed, but there it was. “Oh God, no, definitely not. No, no, no. Love the arm, it’s a great arm. Dead sexy. Always, always been a big fan of technology. I have the latest iPhone.” His mouth now seemed to be working entirely independently to the rest of him. “I’ve also got one of those Alexa things in the bedroom, you can tell it what to do for you. Y’know, voice activated. Great bit of kit.”
“Do you like to be in control in the bedroom?”
He tried to laugh. It came out like a duck choking.
“Well then, you’ll be pleased to hear that this little beauty” – her left hand stroked the prosthetic right – “actually comes with a couple of attachments that’ll rock your world.” The prosthetic hand had now moved off his knee and was slowly making its way up his inner thigh.
Agent Dove started to blink. By the time she was halfway through it, Wilson was out the door of the car. He threw a wave over his shoulder and walked across the road, nearly getting run over by an irate cyclist for his trouble.
It was only when he was a good couple of hundred yards away that it occurred to him that he’d been driving the car he had just abandoned. He considered leaving it. The hotel would probably get upset. He could call a friend? Maybe he could report it stolen?
He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself.
After a minute, he returned to find the car empty, surrounded by three hotel employees.
“Sorry, lads,” said Wilson, producing his ID. “I was just, y’know, chasing a suspect.” Then he hopped in and drove quickly away. He had a long night of cringing in embarrassment ahead of him and he wanted to get going on it as quickly as possible.
Chapter Thirty
DSI Burns slurped a mouthful of tea and flipped over to page forty-six of an eighty-seven-page document that had seemingly been written with the express wish of breaking the reader’s will to live. She had the monthly budget meeting in an hour and she had long since realised the finance department’s penchant for burying significant budget alterations in the weeds of a report. Burns couldn’t categorically decide what it was that had pushed her into a career in law enforcement, but she was damn sure it hadn’t been a desire to see more spreadsheets.
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in.”
DS Moira Clarke popped her head around the door. “Got a second, boss?”
“Not really, but…” DSI Burns stopped herself and looked up properly. “Christ, sorry. Let’s start this conversation again and I’ll pretend to be an actual human being. How was your… niece’s wedding?”
“Aunt’s funeral.”
“Shit. Sorry.”
“It’s alright, you didn’t kill her.”
“Sorry for your loss.”
“Yeah. It’s tough. No idea what we’ll do for a source of casual racism at Christmas dinner this year.”
“Ah.”
“In her defence, she always made a fruitcake.”
“Oh, well that’s nice.”
“You didn’t have to eat it. Even harder to stomach than her politics. The dog got it out of the bin two years ago, ninety per cent sure that’s what killed him. I don’t know if you’ve ever had to cook a turkey while simultaneously digging a grave, but it is quite the festive treat, let me tell you.”
“OK. Well…” Burns looked down at her report.
“Right. Sorry, boss. I’m rambling. I just wanted a word about the Zayas case.”
“OK.”
“I had an idea yesterday, y’know, when we found out about this Simone Delamere woman.”
“Right.”
DS Moira Clarke looked embarrassed. Technically, she didn’t actually work cases. What she did was run the incident room, and she did so brilliantly. Unglamorous as it was, modern police work was all about resources and nobody handled them better than Moira Clarke. Apparently, there was some story behind why she didn’t go out into the field anymore, but Burns had never considered it her place to ask.
“Any ideas you have, Moira, fire away. I’m all ears.”
“Well, I thought that, y’know – my daughter, Vanya – big singer. Loves singing. Cannot stop the kid singing.”
“Right.”
“Drives her brother mad. Even when she’s doing her homework, she just can’t stop herself.”
Burns tried to remain patient. Clearly this was heading somewhere, although she couldn’t see where just yet. “And?”
“Well, if this woman was a singer in the States, even if she was trying to keep a low profile, she might still, y’know, get the urge.”
“Makes sense.”
“So I put up a thing on this jazz forum, y’know, where anoraks argue the toss with each other for hours on end about everything and anything.”
“And?”
“Someone remembered her. At least, I think so. Says a black woman called Simone used to sing in a bar called Charlie’s. The guy doesn’t know when, exactly, or—”
“Moira, you’re a bloody genius.” DSI Burns snatched up her phone. “Come in and sit down.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Wilson eased the car back into the space and turned off the engine. It had been an awkward drive over, although thankfully it had been mercifully short. This morning was the first time Agent Dove had been in his car since “the incident”, as neither of them was referring to it, because they both appeared to be denying anything had happened, or rather hadn’t. Dove had texted the next morning to say she was getting a cab into the office as she wanted to get an early start, and for the two days since then, there had always been some other reason for them to not need to travel together.
Wilson felt bad. He was a good-looking guy, after all, and he knew women went mental for the Irish accent. She may have misinterpreted his natural charisma for signals that he definitely hadn’t been sending.
Dove, for her part, had carried on like nothing had happened. One of the advantages of her plastic fantastic face was that it probably made hiding emotions easy, seeing as it severely limited the capacity to express them in the first place.
“OK then,” said Wilson, “just to remind you, as agreed, I take the lead here.”
Dove nodded. “Okey-dokey.”
Prior to their departure, DSI Burns had issued some very clear directives in this regard. Thankfully, Donal Martyn, the ferry guy, was recovering well, but she had been very clear that if another interviewee ended up in the hospital, there would be hell to pay. Agent Dove would only be allowed to attend the interview on the strict understanding that she did not speak. Dove had agreed to it – in that overly cheerful way she had that felt like sarcasm. It was impossible to be sure.
Wilson was nervous, as the investigation had spent the last few days on wild goose chases. Dove had followed up on the US side to see if they could get a DNA match on the unknown male who was buried with Zayas, but they had come up with nothing so far. They had tried all the big hotels in Dublin and Wicklow, hoping to find where Daniel Zayas might have stayed, under whatever pseudonym he had been using. It had proven impossible. The records were basic and the few members of staff who had been working at the same hotel eighteen years ago had, unsurprisingly, no recollection of a particular guest checking in or out. Similarly, all searches for Simone Delamere had proven fruitless. Black women may not be the norm in Ireland, but they were hardly so unprecedented an occurrence that people would remember her nearly two decades later.
That was until DS Moira Clarke had her brainwave. Wilson was slightly embarrassed; he should have thought of that.
It took them a few minutes to locate Charlie’s. The neon sign that pointed down the cobbled alleyway was turned off, making it almost unnoticeable. They descended down a few steps to an old battered door with three Chubb locks. It was closed but Wilson could hear music, incongruous upbeat dance music to be exact, blaring out.
He knocked on the door.
Then he knocked louder.
Then he pounded.
A tall blonde woman in a tracksuit, her hair pulled back in a bun so tight it looked painful, flung the door open and glowered at them. “What? We are closed. Can’t you see the sign?”
She pointed to a window where there was no sign and then wrinkled up her nose. “Who stole the fucking sign?”
Wilson took out his ID. “I’m Detective Donnacha Wilson, National Criminal Bureau of Investigation.”
The woman pulled a face like he had just exposed himself. “Ah, fuck this bullshit. That guy grabbed my ass, motherfucker. I gave him slap, no big deal. His nose was broken before he come in. I have witness.”
“We’re actually here to speak to the owner, a Mr Noel Graffoe.”
“Oh. You have search warrant?”
Wilson raised an eyebrow. “We don’t need a search warrant. We’re not searching the place. We just want to ask Mr Graffoe a few questions.”
She thought about it for a second and then stepped back. “Come in. I get Noel.”
Wilson took a seat at a table in the centre of the room. The whole place smelled heavily of disinfectant, but not enough that it felt clean. The furniture was mismatched and worn, the tiled floor stained in so many places that its original colour was tough to ascertain with any certainty. Beside the small bar was a tiny stage, almost entirely occupied by an immaculately well-maintained piano. You could see yourself in its shiny surface. It was the only thing that shone in the whole place. It probably looked even nicer with some mood lighting and when the music wasn’t what sounded like the Venga Boys having a mental breakdown.
As Wilson sat, Dove wandered around, looking at the various pictures of what Wilson assumed were famous jazz musicians. She didn’t strike Wilson as a natural jazz fan, but then, the idea of Dove doing anything “normal” was hard to fathom.
An elderly, white-haired man, wearing a cardigan, appeared from the door behind the bar, followed by the blonde in the tracksuit. As he walked towards them he twitched violently. “Yada, bollocks.”
Wilson wasn’t caught off guard by the Tourette’s. They had spent several hours that morning trying to find out as much as was humanly possible about the bar and its owner.
“Svetlana, turn that crap off will you?”
The blonde woman stood behind the bar and pouted. “I listen to your music.”
“Yada!” Twitch. “I pay you to.”
She reached across and begrudgingly silenced a phone that had been sitting on a set of speakers on the bar. She then proceeded to do a very unconvincing attempt at cleaning the bar while earwigging.
Wilson stood and extended his hand. “Detective Donnacha Wilson, and this is FBI Special Agent Alana Dove.”
Dove waved as she continued to move around the room, admiring the photographs.
“FBI? Really? Yada. You’re a long way from home.”
Dove said nothing in response. Noel and Wilson sat down on opposite sides of the table.
“Does she speak?”
Wilson gave him a smile. “I do most of the talking.”
“How enlightened. Yada! Mother! Mother! Motherfucker! What can I help you with?”
Wilson looked around. “This is a great place you’ve got. How long have you owned it?”
“Best part of thirty years. If you and the FBI are looking for somewhere to have your Christmas party, you’ve left it late.”
“Ha, no. We actually wanted to—”
“Yada. Sorry, does she sit down at all?”
Noel turned and looked pointedly at Dove, who smiled and moved across to sit beside Wilson.
“So,” continued Wilson. “I was wondering if you knew a woman called Simone Delamere?”
Noel’s face twitched vigorously, whatever that might mean. “Yada. No.”
“You sure? Black lady? American?”
Noel twitched again and then shook his head. “Nah. I’ve a terrible memory and I don’t normally work the bar.”
“Maybe this will help.” Wilson took the photograph of Simone Delamere out of his inside pocket and passed it across the table. Noel glanced at it. “Yada. Nope. Nothing
.”
“Right.”
Noel slid the picture back.
“The thing is, we have it on good authority that she worked here about eighteen years ago.”
“Nope.”
Wilson paused meaningfully as he looked at Graffoe. “Technically, I appreciate she might not have been ‘on the books’, as they say. We’re not worried about that.”
“What are you worried about?”
Wilson paused. “This is a murder investigation.”
“Yada. F— fff— fuck. Fuck. This woman is dead?”
Wilson paused. Graffoe was difficult to read for the exact opposite reason to Dove. Usually, micro-expressions could be interpreted to see if someone was lying or under undue stress. Dove had none; Graffoe had far too many.
“No. We have no reason to believe that Miss Delamere is dead. We just need to talk to her.”
“Sorry. Can’t help you.”
Wilson left another gap. “Mr Graffoe, do you want to take a few moments to reconsider your answers? I think you do know this woman. Like I said, this is part of a murder investigation. The sentences that can potentially be imposed for perverting the course of justice in this country are frankly draconian.”
Graffoe laughed. “Fuck off, sonny.”
“Also, using insulting language to a Garda office—”
“Yeah,” said Graffoe standing up. “Good luck making that stick on a Tourette’s sufferer. Membership has its privileges. Asshole! Asshole!” After he barked the last two words, Graffoe smiled. “I’m almost eighty with a prostate the size of your head and blood pressure that you normally only find in a fire hose. Don’t try and intimidate me, sunshine…”
“I wasn’t.”
“Sure you were. You want to talk to me, my lawyer is Louie Dockery. I assume you know the name?”
Wilson did. Everybody in law enforcement did.
“Lucky for me, he’s a big jazz fan. Word of advice, don’t try and intimidate somebody my age with prison. The idea of being in a small room with a toilet beside the bed is frankly heavenly. Now off you pop.”
Last Orders (The Dublin Trilogy Book 4) Page 18