The Judas Heart

by Ingrid Black

  The attempt at persuasion had turned into a plea now.

  His desperation was a pitiable sight.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “There’s nothing I can do for you now.”

  “It’s not Saxon you should be worried about, Mr Kaminski,” said Fitzgerald. “It’s me. Look at me. I’m a Detective Chief Superintendent with the murder squad of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. Do you honestly think I can just let you walk out of here, knowing that you may have information I need to locate a man that I urgently need to talk to? This isn’t just about you and Buck Randall anymore and what happened in New York, it’s about what’s happening right here, right now, outside that door, and what might happen in the future.”

  “If you don’t let me go,” said Kaminski, “you’ll never find him.”

  “Perhaps nor will you. That’s a risk we’ll both be taking - unless you come to your senses and realise that you have to share with us what you know. I know you’re afraid he’ll slip out between your fingers if we get involved, but that’s the last thing I can afford to let happen as well. You must see that. We have to give one another a break.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “Trust doesn’t come into it. This is simply a mutually beneficial arrangement. And the sooner you’re straight with us, the sooner you can start taking advantage of it.”

  In response, Kaminski closed his eyes, considering, silent, still. I caught Fitzgerald’s eye as we waited for an answer. She raised her eyebrows in a kind of shrug. She didn’t know which way this was going to go either. Kaminski had always been unpredictable.

  “OK,” he said eventually.

  His eyes opened and met hers piercingly.

  “You’ll tell us what you know?” she said.

  “I’ll tell you. And in return, you let me go.”

  “That’s the deal,” she said.

  Kaminski took a deep breath.

  “Buck Randall sent me another message,” he said. “It was slipped under my door when I came back to the hotel two nights ago. He was setting up a meeting.”

  “There was no note in your room,” said Fitzgerald, tapping a finger on the inventory of stuff from Kaminski’s hotel room that she’d been consulting earlier.

  “I had it with me when you arrested me at the cemetery.”

  Fitzgerald frowned.

  “Bring in the box of Mr Kaminski’s possessions that were taken from him when he arrived here tonight,” she said to the sergeant at the door. “I’m warning you,” she added to Kaminski when the other policeman had gone, “if you try anything clever, if you even think about double-crossing us or try to keep us in the dark in some way about what’s going on here, I’m going to have you put back immediately under arrest. And this time it won’t be for entering the country on a false passport, it’ll be as an accessory to murder. I’m just going to have to assume that you want this bastard to get away.”

  “I understand,” said Kaminski.

  The sergeant returned presently with the box and passed it to Fitzgerald’s outstretched hands. She began to sift through the contents. Not that there was much to sort. When he was brought in, Kaminski had been carrying a wallet with the usual assortment of credit cards and cash, some loose change, a cellphone, a book of matches from, of all places, the Mountain House Lodge in Aspen, Colorado, a flyer advertising some funfair that was opening later tonight down on Merrion Square West, a clipping from the newspaper about Marsha Reed’s murder, a packet of mints, a ballpoint pen, and a receipt for the headache pills I’d watched him buy when he was being followed the night before.

  “I’m not seeing any message here,” said Fitzgerald menacingly.

  Kaminski reached over and lifted out the flyer for the funfair.

  “This is the message,” he said. “Randall left it under my door. He means this is where I have to meet him.”

  Fitzgerald took the flyer, unfolded it, and read through it quickly, turning it over a couple of times to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything.

  “There’s no writing on it,” she said. “How do you know it’s a message from him?”

  “I put two and two together is how.”

  “What makes you so sure you haven’t come up with five?” I said.

  “Or a hundred and one,” said Fitzgerald.

  “Maybe everyone on your floor got one of these pushed under their door,” I added.

  “I asked,” said Kaminski. “They didn’t.”

  “Still seems a bit weak to me,” said Fitzgerald.

  “Listen,” said Kaminski. “I know this bastard. I’ve lived with him inside my head for months now. Trying to think like him. Trying to see the world as he sees it. That’s what we were taught, right, Saxon? You become one with the killer. That’s how you catch him. So when I say I know this came from Randall, you have to take my word for it.”

  “Very well,” said Fitzgerald. “I’ve got no choice. You’re doing no good to me taking up space here. You can go. You can make your date at the funfair. And we’ll be there too.”

  “Just make sure you don’t mess up,” he warned her.

  “It’s stopping you from messing up that this is all about,” she replied. “You don’t have to worry about us. Buck Randall won’t know we’re there.”

  He didn’t answer that.

  I guess trusting the local police was still a step too far for the former FBI man.

  “You’re not bullshitting us, are you, Kaminski?” I said quietly.

  He fixed me with a look of such bitterness that it almost made me gasp.

  “You’re the expert on everything,” he snapped. “You’re the one who always knows best. So you tell me, Special Agent. Can I be trusted? Is my word my bond?”

  “I honestly don’t know anymore,” I answered.

  “Honestly?” he echoed with a harsh laugh. “There’s an ironic word for a woman who’s just had someone she calls her friend arrested.”

  **********

  “At least I know now that I don’t have to worry about you two still harbouring feelings for one another,” said Fitzgerald as we watched from an upstairs window Kaminski crossing the yard of Dublin Castle below on his way back to freedom. “If looks could kill...”

  It had taken a while to get rid of Kaminski. As Fitzgerald had explained to him when he complained about how long it was taking, Dublin wasn’t some Third World dictatorship. You couldn’t just arrest and then un-arrest someone without finishing the paperwork.

  “Do you think he was telling the truth?” I asked her now, as Kaminski turned down Dame Street and disappeared from view.

  “You tell me. You know him better than I do. But I’m going to send someone round to personally babysit him until it’s time to go to the funfair. There’s not much more I can do than that. Letting him go was a risk I have to take. If it leads to Buck Randall, I’ll be a hero. If Kaminski’s leading us up the garden path, then I’ll look like a fool. That’s life.”

  We remained at the window, looking out as the rooftops began to lighten. Summer mornings came early, and by now it was well after five. The traffic had begun. At times it felt like it never stopped, not really. The streets still retained a film of wet from the overnight rain, but it would be gone by the time the sun had risen fully. A few hours of rain couldn’t stop the summer in its tracks. Already I thought I could detect its intensity rising steadily once more.

  “You should try get some sleep,” she said to me eventually.

  “What’s the point?” I said.

  “You’ll need to save your strength for tonight, if you intend to be there.”

  “At the fair?” I said. “Try keeping me away. I love funfairs. That’s where I first learned to drive, on the dodgem cars.”

  “So that’s why your insurance premiums are so high.”

  “What about you?” I asked her. “Don’t you need sleep anymore?”

  “I can’t. Not for a while yet,” she admitted. “I had a call last night after you left. It was
from Victor Solomon’s fiancé. Ex-fiancé, I should say. They’ve split up.”

  “Marsha’s friend told me,” I said. “What did she want?”

  “She didn’t want to talk over the phone,” said Fitzgerald. “She asked if I could go round to her place this morning at eight. So you see, there’s not much point in me trying to sleep.”

  “Oh well, sleep is overrated. We already waste enough of our lives in its grip as it is. One minute out of every three we ever live, we’re unconscious. Think of all the things we could be doing with that time instead. It’ll do us good to skip it for a night.”

  “You think so?” said Fitzgerald. “I’ve always thought it was the other two thirds we spend awake which were really wasted. I’d happily spend the rest of my life in bed.”

  “Mmm, me too, now you mention it.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Spoilsport.”

  “But since you’re so keen to defy the sandman,” she said, “why don’t you come along with me in the morning to interview the woman who narrowly escaped becoming Victor Solomon’s third wife? I’m sure if we get enough coffee inside us between now and eight o’clock, we might even be able to manage to look vaguely human by then.”

  “I wouldn’t bank on that,” I said, “but sure. Sounds fun.”

  “I’m not sure fun’s the first word I’d choose, but each to their own” She paused. “You know, I’m really glad you accepted Stella’s offer,” she went on. “It makes a difference knowing there’s another person here I can rely on. I just hope you’re not feeling too guilty about abandoning Kaminski. I don’t want you to think you’ve settled for second best.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “I know I made the right choice.”

  I trusted my voice to sound convincing. The truth was that I still wasn’t sure I’d made the right choice. Doing everything by the book didn’t come easy for me. I always wanted to cross that line and find out what life was like on the other side. Something about Kaminski’s intensity appealed to me, thrilled me.

  I recognised it as the echo of my own heart. If it hadn’t been for Fitzgerald, I’d be out there with him right now.

  Stalking the prey.

  Something in me sensed too that it would be better for us all if I was. Without me, there was nothing to hold Kaminski back and rein him in. No one to warn him when he went too far. Alone, the ferocity of his hatred for Buck Randall was unchecked and untamed. I dreaded to think what would happen if he finally caught up with him, and there was no one to stay his hand. How would I feel then about the decisions I’d made?

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  It was Seamus Dalton, of all people, who woke me, knocking thunderously on the door and barging his way into Fitzgerald’s office. I must have fallen into my own private nothingness sometime during those early hours, my head on her desk.

  So much for that jazz about time spent asleep being time wasted.

  I felt hot and disoriented for a moment, not knowing where I was or how I’d gotten there. It’s a common sensation. Oftentimes I can’t even remember on first waking whether I’m back home in Boston, and always feel a sort of longing skip inside me that it might be true, until the familiar contours of a room melt into shape. Hence Dalton found me at a disadvantage, bemused by sleep, and he looked at me with disgust as though he’d caught me doing something disreputable. He must’ve known I was there alone. He wouldn’t have forced his way so belligerently into Fitzgerald’s office if he’d expected her to be there too.

  He wouldn’t have dared.

  “What time is it?” I said, unfurling myself stiffly from the position in which I’d managed to arrange my limbs, and rubbing my face in an attempt to bring back some feeling to my cheekbones. My face must have looked at that moment like a rumpled bed sheet with an imprint of my sleeve pressed into the mould of my skin. Not a good look.

  I was glad there was no mirror to confirm my worst fears.

  “After eight,” Dalton barked. “Here.”

  If you could slam down a plastic cup onto a desk, Dalton did his best to do it. A little coffee spilled out over the rim and he cursed as the hot liquid burned his skin.

  He wiped his hand on the seat of his pants.

  “You’re bringing me coffee?” I looked at him suspiciously. “What is this – your belated contribution to International Women’s Day?”

  “It’s just a cup of coffee, don’t make a big issue out of it. Walsh bought it for you from the vending machine downstairs to help you wake up, then the Chief called him away. I was coming this way so he asked me to bring it up to you. He must think I’m your fucking housemaid or something. Feel free not to drink it.”

  “No, coffee’s good, er, thanks.”

  “You’ve got five minutes.”

  He was gone before the fact that I’d just thanked him for something really sank in.

  I wondered if this was some kind of peace offering.

  Peace offerings weren’t what I associated with Dalton.

  Five minutes? It must be time to go talk to Victor Solomon’s ex-fiancé. I lifted the coffee gingerly and sniffed at it. It smelt harmless enough, but I decided not to take my chances. I slid back the window and poured it out, making sure there was no one below first. Anything Dalton had been that close to should probably be filed under Best Avoided.

  The man himself wasn’t so easily avoided, however, because he was waiting in the lobby when I got downstairs. Looked like he was going too. Terrific.

  He grunted his second greeting of the morning, but we were mercifully spared the ordeal of trying to make conversation by the arrival of Patrick Walsh, shouldering his way through the front door, and coming to a halt when he saw us standing there.

  “The Chief’s waiting,” he said.

  “Whose car are we taking?” I asked.

  “The Chief said to take one out of the car pool, so I did.”

  “I’ll drive then,” said Dalton.

  “But I was going to -”

  “I said I’ll drive, son. I’d rather not put my life in the hands of someone who probably spent half the night banging some blonde bimbo he picked up in a nightclub.”

  “She was a redhead actually,” Walsh grinned at me as Dalton snatched the keys and pushed his way out of the lobby. “I met her in the bar after work. I don’t know what I’ve got, but whatever it is they all seem to want it. I need a stick to keep them away.”

  The door swung open again.

  “Are you two coming or not?” snapped Dalton.

  “There’s someone who really could do with getting laid,” said Walsh when the other detective had disappeared again. “Don’t suppose you want to volunteer, do you?”

  “You first,” I said. “I haven’t had my shots.”

  The car Walsh had picked out of the car pool was a silver Audi. Even when he was working, Walsh was obviously still looking to impress any passing female. Not that he’d expected to be on the back seat with me whilst Fitzgerald and Dalton sat up front.

  “Saxon,” said Fitzgerald brightly as I clicked my seatbelt into place. “Are we working you too hard? Dalton tells me you were sleeping when he went up to fetch you.”

  “That’s just what it looked like to the untrained eye,” I answered slickly.

  “Is that so?”

  Ellen Forwood lived in North Great George’s Street, a steep incline of Georgian terraces whose doorways alone made it a Mecca for architectural groupies. They were certainly impressive, each one flanked by pillars of marble and crowned with some elaborate shining fanlights above the door. This area of the city, together with Mountjoy Square to the east, had once been the hub of polite Dublin society until the money moved south of the river. Now these houses, where wealthy landed families had dwelt not so long ago, were mainly occupied by language schools, solicitors’ offices, art galleries, even a museum dedicated to the Dublin writer James Joyce, a writer so beloved of the locals that they drove him into exile during his lifetime and only decided they ado
red him after he died. The usual story.

  Previous years had seen heroic attempts at restoring the street and its surroundings to their former glory, and many of the houses remained in private hands. But there was something rather melancholy about their efforts when the general area around them was as dispiriting and rundown as ever, with a definite, dark criminal undertow to everyday life that meant most people still preferred to keep their distance. In that respect, it reminded me of the district where Marsha Reed had lived too. It took a certain nerve to live here.

  What did Ellen Forwood see in it? There were plenty of theatres in the surrounding streets that might have been one thing, not to mention the undoubted cultural cache of living in a street immortalised by a great writer. North Great George’s Street was still a name to conjure with in the kind of circles that Victor Solomon and company moved in.

  We pulled to a stop outside Ellen’s front door and Fitzgerald clambered out.

  Walsh and I followed.

  Dalton turned off the engine but stayed behind.

  I’d been right about the weather. The day was growing warm again, like the rain had been nothing but an implausible memory. There was a morning clatter in the air. A hum of traffic from the city’s main thoroughfare of O’Connell Street a couple hundred yards away beyond the high brown buildings, buses and cars on those endless journey to nowhere.

  When Fitzgerald lifted the doorknocker, carved into the shape of an animal’s golden head, and rapped the door with it, the sound rang out loudly in the enclosed street, the echo ricocheting from wall to wall.

  “Hello,” she said curiously to herself in the aftermath of silence.

  Hammering the knocker had made the door shiver and open inward slightly, like it had been left open accidentally by someone entering or leaving.

  “Ms Forwood?” she called into the gap that had appeared.

  There was no answer.

  “Ms Forwood, this is Detective Chief Superintendent Fitzgerald.”

  She knocked again, and the door opened wider, but this time the sound was on the inside of the house, almost like it was going from room to room, looking for an answer.