Paul had called the letting agent; they had been both insincere in their apologies and half-arsed in the assertion that something would be done about it as soon as possible. He had then popped in to see them in person, with Maggie in tow. They had suddenly become very sincere in their apology and entirely arsed about their desire to get the boiler fixed. Maggie may have been a massive pain, but she did have her uses.
When she had eventually come back from chasing off Kevin and Vincent Kelleher after their ill-judged attempt at flooding the van, she had proudly presented him with what looked a lot like the arse out of a pinstriped suit. He was guessing the Kellehers would be giving Maggie a wide berth from now on.
After their trip to the letting agents, Paul had intended to drop into Phelan’s for a pint and to enjoy their heating. He and Maggie had been just outside the door when he’d received the text from Phil, saying he needed to see Paul at the office right away. Paul had texted back that he wasn’t allowed in the office, but Phil had assured him that “the boss”, as he annoyingly called Brigit, wasn’t there. Phil had been very insistent, and Paul had the inkling that he might have had an idea. Phil’s ideas were a lot like children: they could be wonderful or a nightmare, but regardless, you couldn’t leave them on their own for very long, or bad things would happen. Despite the biting cold, and over Maggie’s protestations, Paul had diverted to the offices of MCM Investigations.
As Paul reached the door, Mr Wilkes from the architect’s office downstairs gave him a dirty look. The reason for this wasn’t hard to figure out. The theme tune to Titanic appeared to be blaring from the upstairs windows. Paul gave him an apologetic shrug as he pushed through the door and headed up.
Phil Nellis was standing in the middle of the room, which looked as though a tornado had just passed through it. Furniture was turned upside down, filing cabinets were emptied out and all of the computer equipment was piled in the corner. In the centre of the room, the A1 flipchart so beloved by Brigit stood on its easel.
“Jesus, Phil,” said Paul, loudly enough so that he could be heard over Celine Dion warbling away. “What on earth are you up to?”
“Hello, Paul. Just doing a bit of spring-cleaning. Rocking out to some tunes. You know how I love my music.”
Phil flipped over the first page to reveal a sheet on which he had scrawled, in big red pen, “PLAY ALONG. BOSS SAID TO SEND BACK SECURITY SYSTEM.”
“Right. Yeah,” said Paul. “Celine Dion is dreadful though.”
The boxes that had contained the six-grand security system, which Paul had to grudgingly admit may have been a mistake, were piled up in the opposite corner to the computers.
“I think Celine Dion is very underrated,” continued Phil, before flipping to the next page.
“MAN SAID I COULDN’T SEND BACK IF NOT BROKEN – SO I WAS IN PROCESS OF BREAKING IT.”
“I think she sounds like a goose being played like a set of bagpipes.”
Phil flipped the page again.
“BOSS SAID YOU WERE AN IDIOT FOR BUYING IT.”
Paul rolled his eyes. Only Phil would take the time to write that out. He rolled his finger to indicate Phil could move this along.
“That is very unfair,” said Phil, probably in defence of Celine.
Phil flipped the page again.
“ONE BOX HAD THIS IN IT.”
Phil reached his hand back onto the desk and picked up a Dictaphone. Paul looked at it, then down at Maggie, before looking back at Phil and shrugging.
Phil looked at the Dictaphone and then rolled his eyes. He put it down and picked up something else, holding it out for Paul to see. It was a piece of kit only slightly bigger than a Dictaphone, but a tad more sophisticated. The name on the side told him it was a Federation RX46 Surveillance Detector. To be honest, Paul didn’t actually remember buying it but, while he would never admit this, he had ordered the whole security system while a tad drunk.
“No!” said Paul, as the realisation hit. Then he tried to remember the last thing Phil had said in the fake conversation. “Bryan Adams is also from Canada.”
“Yes,” said Phil. “He is.” As he spoke, he held the RX46 up to the light in the ceiling. Paul could see the bar of lights on the front stretch from green to red. Phil nodded his head. He then moved across the room and put it down beside a plug socket. Again the lights filled up.
“Canada is home to over fifty-five thousand species of insects,” continued Phil.
Paul reached across for the marker and flipped onto the next page, which was blank. “WHY DID YOU NOT JUST TEXT ME THIS??”
Phil read it and took the pen out of Paul’s hand.
“Ehm, that’s a lot of insects,” said Paul, because he had to say something.
“Yes. Yes it is.”
Phil wrote under Paul’s note: “GOOD POINT!”
Paul resisted the urge to wallop him. Instead, he grabbed the pen back and scrawled another note. “THERE COULD BE CAMERAS TOO?!!”
Phil looked around the room, as if seeing it for the first time, his mouth gawping open. He then pointed at the flipchart, where he had already written “GOOD POINT!”
“Right,” said Paul. “I’m going around the corner for a bacon sandwich.”
Maggie barked, the conversation having finally moved onto something that interested her.
“I should probably stay here. The boss wanted me to do some filing.”
Paul clinched his fist and pointed at the door emphatically.
“But I can finish that later.”
Celine Dion finished singing about her heart going on, and the song restarted again. Paul guessed Phil must have had it on a loop. From the floor below, Paul heard the previously mild-mannered Mr Wilkes hit breaking point. “TURN THAT SHITE OFF!!!”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Bunny raised his face to the bright winter sun, low on the horizon, and took in a long, deep breath.
“Are you alright?” asked Paul.
“I’m grand, Paulie, thanks for coming to get me out. Sorry for the hassle.”
“No problem. So where are you off to now?”
He looked around them and then locked onto Neary’s pub opposite the station. “Pint?”
It had the same down-in-the-mouth decor that you could find in a hundred other places. It was a proper old fellas’ pub, with a telly up in the corner for the football and the implication of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, even though the ban meant smoking indoors hadn’t been a reality for years now. Two men in their seventies sat at opposite ends of the bar, both reading the same newspaper, in a race to see who could make it last longer.
Paul took his change and then walked back to the table, laying down his Heineken and Bunny’s Guinness. Bunny was engrossed in watching a wind-up toy chicken jerkily walk its way across the table.
“What’s that?” asked Paul.
“I found it in a box of cornflakes there a few weeks ago. I’ve had it in my pocket ever since. Keep meaning to give it to some kid but never managed to.”
Bunny lowered his head down to table level to watch the chicken moving towards him. “Look at the determined look on the little fella’s face though.”
“OK.”
Bunny sat back up. “Feel a bit sorry for him. He can’t sense the inevitability of his fate.” The wind-up chicken walked itself straight off the side of the table, snatched up by Bunny before it could fall to the ground. “Bit of a metaphor for life really, isn’t it?”
“Well, you’ve managed to make that child’s toy pretty depressing.”
“Sorry,” said Bunny, shoving the toy back into his coat pocket with an embarrassed smile before raising his pint glass with a slow reverence. “Cheers, Paulie. Down your leg.”
Paul took a sip of his own drink and placed it down. He fidgeted nervously. “So, ehm, what happened last night then, Bunny?”
“Ah, it was nothing. I had a few too many is all.”
“Right, course.” Paul picked up a beer mat and started slowly twirling it aro
und in his hands. “Only, that sergeant fella said you were, y’know…”
“No, I don’t. What did he say?”
Paul rubbed his left hand around the back of his neck. “Well, just that you were a bit, ehm… well, ‘unhinged’ was the word he used.”
Bunny shrugged. “Sure, you’d know better than anyone, Paulie, I was never the most hinged to begin with.”
“Yeah, but…”
“How’re things with you and Brigit?”
Paul took another sip of his pint, trying to catch up with the change of direction. “Well, y’know, it’s complicated.”
“Do ye love her?”
Paul nearly spilled his pint. “What? That’s a bit of a personal question, Bunny.”
“Do you love her?” he repeated.
“It’s not that simple.”
Bunny clamped his hand onto Paul’s upper arm, his eyes filled with an intensity that Paul had never seen. “Listen to me now, ye cloth-eared gobshite. It is exactly that simple. Take it from one who knows, it’s the only thing that matters. Everything else is just bullshit.”
“Jesus, Bunny, calm down.”
Bunny’s grip on his arm tightened. “I’m telling you, sort yourself out. Stop being an idiot and talk to the girl. Life gives you very few chances and, believe you me, if you mess this one up, you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it.”
“Relax, would ye? You’re hurting me.”
Bunny looked down at his hand and then immediately pulled it back, as if surprised to discover what it was up to. “Sorry, Paulie, sorry. It’s been a bit of a long night.”
Paul rubbed his arm. “Don’t worry about it. Although, seeing as we’re being brutally honest here – seriously, what the hell happened? Yer man said you lost the plot at some French woman.”
Bunny picked up his pint with one hand and scratched at his beard with the other. “Ah, it’s not… it’s not what it sounds like. I think, maybe… somebody might have been following me.”
“They probably were,” said Paul. “It’ll be the fecking Kelleher brothers, trying to get evidence of your… behaviour… for the case.”
“It’s not those eejits.”
“Seriously, I bet it is.”
“Is this the same Kellehers we’re talking about? I remember them as kids. They come from the Clanavale Estate. It was one of my first beats in Dublin. I remember young Vinny getting his head caught in the railings outside the post office one time and they’d to call the fire brigade to get him out. When they turned up, Kevin has his head stuck in the railings too. Apparently, he was taking the piss out of his brother and got stuck as well. Those Kellehers?”
“They’ve grown up now, Bunny. That Kevin Kelleher is a devious prick. They were involved in that thing, y’know, when Brigit’s arsehole of an ex took those pictures of me. They were the ones he hired to help him with that.”
“That was them?”
Paul realised he had never filled Bunny in on this. Bringing Bunny into a situation was very much the nuclear option and, angry as he had been, he’d tried to avoid it.
“Yes. That’s the reason for this ongoing thing between us.”
“Ah, right. Brigit mentioned something. I’ve not really been paying much attention. D’ye want me to go and sort them out?”
Paul’s face flushed. “Oh God, no – definitely don’t do that, Bunny. Promise me.”
“Alright, fair enough.”
“I was just saying, they’ll be trying to get evidence on you for this Harrison fella’s case, so them following you would make sense.”
Bunny finished taking a long swig of his pint and put it down. He looked around the bar and then lowered his voice. “I’m telling you, it’s not them. The Kellehers wouldn’t be smart enough.”
“You say that, but Phil just discovered they’re bugging our offices.”
“What?”
Paul nodded vigorously. “We’ve got this gizmo that checks for listening devices and that. Phil did a sweep and discovered the whole office is bugged.”
“Seriously?”
Paul nodded again. “I’m just trying to figure out if we can use it against them.”
“Hmmm. Yeah.” Bunny looked over Paul’s shoulder towards the frosted glass window.
“You alright?”
Bunny stood up suddenly. “I’ve to get a move on, Paulie. Thanks for your help with… y’know.”
“Sit down and relax, would ye? You’ve only had half your pint.”
Bunny shook his head. “No, I can’t. I’ve to…” He took two steps towards the door and stopped, then turned back. He extended his right hand towards Paul in a handshake.
Paul took it with a look of confusion. He noticed the swelling on the middle knuckle. “What happened to your—”
Bunny placed his hand on Paul’s shoulder and lowered his voice. “Paulie, I need you to promise me something.”
“Alright.”
“From here on out, whatever happens, I need you to stay away from me.”
“What?! Don’t be daft.”
He squeezed Paul’s shoulder.
“Please, promise me. Just know that, whatever happens, I did what I thought was right.”
“You’re scaring me now, Bunny.”
“Don’t worry about me. I need you to sort out this thing with the Kellehers, alright? Show ’em they’ve messed with the wrong company.”
“Don’t worry, Bunny, I’ll handle it.”
“Good man. I knew I could count on you.” Bunny gave Paul a pat on the shoulder. “You take care of yourself, and remember what I said about that girl. Sort it out.”
“Right. Yeah.”
Before Paul could think of anything else to say, Bunny had disappeared through the door and into the mid-morning hustle and bustle.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Brigit took a sip of her water and placed the glass back down. She looked around, checked nobody was looking and gave her blouse a quick scan. Italian had been a brave choice for lunch. As far as she was concerned, it was an entire national cuisine designed with the explicit intention of causing droppages. She had a quick scan of her boobs. No spaghetti, well done me. She had maintained the air of glamorous aloofness she was going for.
She felt guilty, nervous and annoyed. The reason she was annoyed was that she had no reason to feel guilty or nervous.
She was just out to lunch with a friend. Lunch was lunch. People ate lunch all the time. Dinner was the meal of flirtation and seduction, everyone knew that. Lunch was the meal of the casual catch-up. You had to eat something during the middle of the workday anyway – you might as well do it with someone else. It was essentially multitasking. Breakfast – well, if you were eating breakfast with an adult member of the opposite sex, it was one of three things: you had a tremendously high-powered job where the breakfast meeting was a thing; you were in a long-term relationship with that person and your schedules happen to match up; or you’d just had sex with that person. Having sex and not having breakfast seemed somehow vaguely slutty. Shit! Brigit noticed that her date – no, definitely not date, lunch partner – had just come out of the gents and was heading back to their table. She needed to stop thinking about sexy breakfast. She also needed to stop feeling guilty. She was single. There was no reason she couldn’t have lunch with a man. Again, lunch was only lunch and Anto Kelleher was just somebody she knew. Alright, he wouldn’t get kicked out of sexy breakfast in bed for leaving crumbs but that didn’t mean anything. Why on earth should she feel guilty about Paul? How long were you supposed to wait for a grown man to grow up?
Anto smiled at her. “Miss me?”
“That depends. Did you wash your hands? If not, I’m sending you back.”
“I did.”
“Then sit down.”
He did and he gave her a smile.
“You smile a lot. I don’t trust it.”
“Sorry, can’t I just be happy?”
She picked up her glass of water. “You’re unemployed.
You shouldn’t be that happy about anything.”
“Oh, I dunno. I’m thinking of becoming a tramp – like one of the good ones. You know, the ones with the tied hanky on a stick who go around whistling.”
“Well, you’ve got the beard for it.”
“Thanks. They always look so happy though, don’t they?”
“That’s because they don’t exist. You only ever see them on telly. You try wandering about Dublin whistling a happy tune at near freezing, you’ll quickly lose your hanky.”
Anto picked up his glass of water. “Ahhh, why’ve you got to go and step on my dreams? You heartless cow!”
He said it with a twinkle in his eye. He was very good at the twinkle.
Brigit cleared her throat and leaned forward slightly. “What are you going to do for work now?”
“I was thinking gigolo.”
“Is that one of those Italian string instruments?”
“No, it’s…” Anto stopped when he saw Brigit’s grin. “Oh, ha ha! Actually, I was just talking to a buddy of mine out in Clontarf. He’s got a painting business. Might be looking for somebody.”
“Would you be happy doing that?”
Anto shrugged. “Anything is better than working with my brothers. I couldn’t take another minute of that. Kevin has taken to leaving me threatening voicemails.”
“Really? Are you worried?”
Anto shrugged again. He wasn’t half bad at the shrugging either. “Ah, not really. It’s not like I was any good at the private detective business, and I’d no interest in any of their dodgier activities.” Anto leaned in closer. “Actually… I wanted to talk to you about that. I’ve been thinking. Kevin has a safe in his apartment. I know because I was there when he got it installed. He keeps certain files there. I think it’s where all the stuff about their dodgier clients is kept.”
Last Orders (The Dublin Trilogy Book 4) Page 20