“You did, but that isn’t the reason. You see, as your boss, which I basically would be, there are strict rules on what I can and can’t ask you to do.”
Paul gave her a confused look.
“But as a woman you do not work for, I can mostly say whatever I like.”
“I suppose.”
“Like, for example, get your clothes off and get into that hot tub right now.”
“Yes, boss.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Fintan O’Rourke awoke with a start, his heart racing. On impulse, he reached out to the other side of the bed, before remembering that there was nobody there. He dragged in a deep breath before slowly releasing it. A nightmare, just another nightmare.
He closed his eyes again for an instant before sitting bolt upright.
If he was alone in the house, why could he hear music?
He stopped and listened, trying to settle his breathing. There was definitely music – Ella Fitzgerald, unless he was very much mistaken.
He sat on the side of the bed and slid his feet into his slippers, simultaneously picking up the golf club that sat by the nightstand.
He limped slowly towards the bedroom door. When he had been thrown off the balcony of his own study two years ago by a man he had considered a friend, he had broken both of his legs, among many other injuries. Despite the left one being a worse break, the right hadn’t healed as well. He now suffered from stabbing pains, particularly in the mornings, or if for some reason he had to get out of bed in the middle of the night.
He glanced at the bedside table: 11:46 pm. He’d gone to bed early because he hadn’t been able to think of a damn thing else to do.
He slowly opened the bedroom door.
The music was coming from his study, one floor up. A shiver of déjà vu ran down his spine. It couldn’t be. Could it?
He walked up the stairs slowly, the golf club clutched in his sweaty grip, his heartbeat pounding in his ears, giving an unwanted driving rhythm to Ella Fitzgerald crooning “They Can’t Take That Away from Me”. A murmur of conversation mingled below the music.
He took a deep breath and pushed open the door. He had known what to expect, yet at the same time, he couldn’t quite believe his eyes.
Bunny McGarry sat in the leather easy chair in front of the TV, his hurley sitting on his lap, his sheepskin overcoat slung over the arm of the chair. He raised a tumbler of O’Rourke’s own whiskey at him in toast. “Commissioner, up your arse.”
“What in the hell are you doing here?”
Bunny took a sip of the whiskey and looked at the glass as he spoke. “Oh, I think you know the answer to that.”
O’Rourke looked around the room. “Who were you talking to?”
Bunny shrugged. “Nobody.”
“First sign of madness.”
“Oh, I don’t think it was the first sign in my case.”
O’Rourke moved quickly across the room and snatched the half-empty bottle of whiskey from the table.
“I have to say, I’m not enjoying this dram as much as the last one I had here.”
“Tough. I’ve had to make some economies, what with not having a job anymore, thanks to you.” O’Rourke poured himself a generous measure and then put the bottle back on the drinks cabinet where it belonged.
“Oh, I think you’re giving me too much credit, Commissioner.”
O’Rourke threw back most of his drink in one gulp and felt it burn in his chest. “Stop calling me that.”
“Do they not let you keep the title after you retire?”
“Not when you retire like I did. How the fuck did you manage to get in here again? The supposedly sophisticated alarm system this house has was upgraded after your last visit.”
Bunny nodded. “Yeah, it was alright. I had to hit it several more times with my sophisticated stick to get by it this time.” Bunny patted the hurley on his lap.
O’Rourke seethed. He was going to string that yappy little sod from the security company up by the knackers this time.
Bunny took another sip of his whiskey as O’Rourke sat down behind his desk, taking the weight off his aching legs.
“I hope my visit won’t be disturbing your good lady wife?”
O’Rourke shook his head. “She’s moved out. Gone down to Kerry. The kids are spending Christmas with her.”
“Is that right? ’Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house, nothing was stirring, feck all.”
“Most amusing, Bunny. I’m sure you’ll be the belle of the ball in prison when I have you arrested for breaking and entering.”
“Ha, that’d be the least of my worries.”
O’Rourke leaned back in his chair. “Got yourself some other troubles, have you?”
“I think you know I do, Fintan. They dug up a couple of bodies in the Wicklow Mountains there last week.”
“I saw it on the news.”
“I’m sure you did. That’s when you sent that wallet into the Gardaí – anonymously, of course. You wouldn’t have been keen on explaining how you got hold of it.”
O’Rourke smirked. “For the record, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Save it. Like I’d really be wearing a wire for this. You can spare me listening to ye denying you were Gerry Fallon’s performing monkey for twenty years too.”
“None of that was ever proven.” O’Rourke’s smirk fell away, leaving only a bitter snarl.
“Thanks to Gerry Fallon not waking up from his coma yet, no, it hasn’t. Fingers crossed for a Christmas miracle on that score. Still, though, we had our little chat down on your lawn that night. I don’t know if you remember it? You weren’t at your best.”
“You nearly killed me. You should be in prison for that.”
“We could’ve been cellmates. Unfortunately, it was tricky for you to press charges without talking about the Fallon stuff in court, and your brief wasn’t too keen on that, I believe. They’d not enough evidence to convict you on the Fallon thing, but they obviously had more than enough for the Garda Síochána to be in a mad rush to find a window to shove you out of.” Bunny looked pointedly towards the door that led onto the balcony behind O’Rourke. “Sorry, Fintan, bad choice of words.”
“So, they’re after you for a double murder, are they? I hope you’re enjoying your last ever Christmas of freedom.”
“D’ye know,” said Bunny, ignoring O’Rourke’s last statement, “in a way, I always knew. Not about the Fallon thing, but when Gringo and those two other poor fools had the idea of ripping off Tommy Carter all those years ago, it never made that much sense to me. I mean, how were they going to get away with it? They had to have someone higher up, covering their tracks.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Bunny. DS Tim Spain was buried in 1999 as a hero, gunned down in the line of duty while assisting in the biggest drugs bust in the history of the state. I distinctly remember speaking at his funeral.”
Bunny’s hand flexed around the hurley. “Yeah, Fintan, you always talked a good game.”
O’Rourke leaned forward, warming to his subject. “This wallet you speak of though. Assuming that Gringo had it because he was with you up in the mountains where these two individuals were killed, I don’t know how you think I would have got hold of it. I mean, unless your closest, dearest friend betrayed you?”
Bunny gave O’Rourke a long look. “Gringo wasn’t a perfect man, not by any means, but he did the right thing in the end. More than can be said for you.”
“For a man wanted for a double murder, you’re rather preachy this evening.”
“Here’s the thing though, Fintan. You wanted your revenge on me, fine, I don’t really mind, but d’ye know what bothers me about you? For a smart man, you’re blind to collateral damage. Through your toadying for Gerry Fallon, innocent people got killed. I mean directly, not accounting for the death toll of the drugs he brought into the country.”
“Gerry Fallon has been out of the picture for quit
e some time, Bunny. I don’t know if you’ve seen the papers, but the drugs are still there. It’s like holding back the sea.”
Bunny shrugged. “That’s as may be. Perhaps that’s the difference between you and me, Fintan. You fought the fights you thought you could win; I fought the fights that needed to be fought.”
“Oh, spare me.”
“No, I won’t. When I leave here, d’ye know where I’m going? The Rock. Yeah, the place where we found Fallon had stashed his psycho little brother away. Do you know why? Because of Simone, a woman you never met. She was on the run from some gold-plated evil bastards. We killed two of them. I’m sure when the bodies turned up, it really was Christmas for you. On its own, the wallet was feck all – but with the bodies, jackpot!”
O’Rourke nodded as he held up his glass in a mock toast. “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.”
“And now that you’ve used that wallet to get me, you’re going to hurt her too. Another innocent for that list etched upon your dirty soul. Forces you don’t understand, I don’t understand, are moving now. They think they can get to her through me. I have to do whatever it takes to prevent that from happening.”
A moment of silence stretched out between them as O’Rourke knocked back the last of his drink.
“You’re wrong, you know. I did meet her. Simone. Nice girl. Gringo explained it all to me, you see. After the mess you’d made and then all that business on the beach, there was too much crap. Too many loose ends, waiting to trip us up. I knew I had to get her away from here. It was too dangerous. Something would come out and take us all down. I was protecting you, believe it or not.”
“My hole.”
“Alright.” O’Rourke gave a sad smile. “I was protecting myself too, of course. I spoke to her that night you were in the hospital, when she came to see you. I told her that I knew she was wanted for murder in the States and that you’d buried two bodies in the mountains. I said the only way I could protect you was if she was gone. Just so you know, she cried when she wrote that note.”
Bunny said nothing, staring at O’Rourke with unnerving intensity.
“She wanted me to give it to you – the note, I mean, but I said I couldn’t. I said you couldn’t know I knew, it would just further complicate things. I asked her if she wanted help to get out of the country but she didn’t. I dropped her back to a street in Rathmines and she disappeared. I still don’t know how. Do you?”
When Bunny spoke again, his voice was different. There was an icy cold to it. “You sent her away?”
O’Rourke pounded on the desk with his fist. “Wake up, you moron! I protected you! What? Did you think you could set up house together and play happy families? That nobody else would come looking for her? Or did you think you could ride off into the sunset? She was a murderer! Gringo was dead and I needed you here to help cover up the shit. And you did.”
“You ruined my life.”
“Oh, grow up. I saved it. For all the thanks it got me. We were friends.”
Bunny stood up. “The fuck we were. You used me, just like you use everybody.”
O’Rourke stood. “Screw you, you ingrate muck savage. Life isn’t as ludicrously simple as you seem to think it is. I tried to help you – now look at me! My wife wants to divorce me, my kids won’t speak to me. I’m a pariah. People I’ve known for years – decades – cross the street to avoid me. All because of you. You ruined my life!”
“Ara feck off, Fintan. You ruined your life. You took the money, you sold your soul. I’ve done a lot wrong, Christ knows, but I never did that. I never took money to look the other way.”
“Oh, so noble. Is that what you’d like carved on your gravestone?”
O’Rourke raised his right hand, in which was held a handgun.
“Interesting fact for you, Bunny, if you reach assistant commissioner level and you retire, even if you retire in disgrace while they’re still trying to figure a way to throw you in jail, you have the right to hold a firearm in the house for your personal protection. There’s a lot of bad people with grudges knocking about.”
“You going to shoot an unarmed man, Fintan?”
“No. I’m going to shoot a trespasser with a history of violence. Any last words?”
Bunny laughed. “D’ye know, Fintan, that’s something else that’s different between you and me. I don’t think I ever prized my own life as highly as you prize your fecking ego. Honestly, I’m not expecting to live through the night. You see, I’m the one route that anyone has to get to Simone. So I’m going to The Rock of all places, to finish this, because it has to happen somewhere and I want there to be no innocent parties around.”
“So you picked there for your elephant’s graveyard, did you?”
Bunny shrugged. “We’ve all got to go some time, somewhere. There. Here. What difference does it make? Ultimately, it’s all the same.”
O’Rourke tutted. “So defeatist, Bunny. You really have lost your edge. That, and letting me catch you cold like this.”
“Yeah, I’ve lost my edge.” Bunny looked down at the floor, as if saying a final prayer.
Then he looked back up. “Of course, I’m not the one who doesn’t know the difference between the weight of a loaded gun and an empty one.”
“What?”
Bunny reached his hand into his pocket and pulled something out.
He extended it before him and one by one let the bullets fall onto the wooden floorboards, each one thunking in turn.
“I just wanted to see you. Let you know that I know it was you. I also wanted you to know that by trying to get your revenge on me, you’ve put an innocent woman in danger. A good woman. That’s you though, isn’t it, Fintan? Not giving two shites about collateral damage.”
O’Rourke opened his mouth to say something but no words would come.
“Do you even remember why you became a guard? I mean, at some point you must have had some higher ideals, before your own greed and ambition ate you alive.”
O’Rourke stared at the tabletop in front of him, his teeth biting into his lower lip hard enough to draw blood.
He didn’t look up as, with a thunk, a final bullet landed on the table in front of him.
“That should be all you need.”
O’Rourke placed the gun down on the table and collapsed into the chair behind him.
He watched in silence as Bunny picked up his hurley and coat and left.
He also watched in silence as Bunny re-entered the room a few moments later, walked across to the drinks cabinet and snatched up the bottle of whiskey.
“And I’m taking this. Merry Christmas.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
“Jingle bells… snow is falling… something something… had a very shiny doo-dah… walking in a winter funderland.”
Brigit Conroy was a woman of many talents, but even she would admit that remembering song lyrics was not one of them. However, the radio in her car was broken, and all it got now was the fuzzy signal of a dance music station that sounded like roadworks, so she was entertaining herself with badly-remembered lyrics and butchered melodies. She was an absolute nightmare in a sing-song. In school, that old biddy Sister Riordan had made her stand at the back of the choir and mouth along so she wouldn’t put off the other girls. She actually had a decent singing voice, it just couldn’t stay on the straight and narrow of what the song was. In a way, it was not dissimilar to her driving.
She was on the N17. A car that had been behind her for a couple of miles overtook, the driver honking and gesturing. She waved happily. She was in too good a mood to have some impatient arsehole ruin it for her. The snow was coming down steadily now. It was going to be a white Christmas, something that was magical – as long as you were inside when it happened. The roads out this way weren’t great at the best of times and she couldn’t imagine roadside assistance would be that easy to come by. Still, she was less than an hour from Leitrim. All going well, she’d be in front of a blazing fire by 3am with a mulled wine
in hand. So far tonight everything had gone bloody brilliantly, and she was fully expecting her run of luck to continue.
“Christmas tree, you and me… ehm, K I S S I N G.” Brigit giggled to herself.
Just then her phone rang. She could see on the screen that it was Nora Stokes. The most valuable thing in Brigit’s car was the Bluetooth hands-free kit that she had installed last year because, although it may’ve come as a shock to other road users, she took safety very seriously.
She pressed the button.
“Nora, Nora, Nora. Merry Christmas! And a very merry Christmas it has been!”
“Yeah, hi, Bridge.”
“What are you doing ringing this late? Actually, forget that. Ask me what I’ve been up to tonight.”
“What?”
“I said, ask me what I’ve been up to tonight. There have been developments. Several developments. One of them happened in a hot tub.”
“Right. Glad to hear it. Thing is…”
Brigit started singing again. “When I get that feeling—”
“Brigit. Shut up.”
The tone of Nora’s voice stopped her stone dead. “OK.”
“I met with Bunny tonight. Well, last night now.”
“OK.”
“No, no, it isn’t. Nothing is OK.”
“Actually it is. The whole thing with Harrison has been—”
“Brigit!” Nora sounded really irritated now. “You need to shut up and listen to me, alright?”
“OK, sorry.”
“What I’m… I’m technically breaking attorney-client privilege here, alright. I’ve been going back and forward on this all night, so just shut up and listen.”
Brigit nodded at the phone, then realised that was stupid. “Right. Of course.”
“Bunny… confessed.”
“To the Harrison thing?”
“No, not that. Those two bodies they found up in the Wicklow Mountains last week. He confessed to killing them.”
“What?!”
“Yes. That’s not all though…”
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Last Orders (The Dublin Trilogy Book 4) Page 27