by Joe McNally
‘It does matter. It matters a lot. I’m so sorry.’
‘Sonny, please! It’s not as though you missed my wedding or something. Forget it!’
‘I’ll make it up to you.’
‘There’s no need. I just wanted to be sure you were all right. How is Nina?’
He sighed. ‘Absent. That’s how Nina is.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry about that. I did my best.’
‘Don’t be sorry. She left before I even put the bet on, said she couldn’t take the pressure. And she hasn’t come back. A blessing in disguise, maybe.’
‘Have you and Nina split up?’
‘You’d have to ask Nina that.’
‘Oh, Sonny, I’m sorry. I know what she meant to you, what she means to you.’
‘We’re a sorry pair, Jo, you and me. All we’ve been tonight is sorry, sorry, sorry.’
She laughed. ‘I know. Better days ahead, eh?’
‘We can but hope.’
‘Do you know if Nina’s heard the news about Jonty Saroyan?’
‘What news?’
Mave told him. He said, ‘That’s grim. That is grim. I didn’t really know the guy, and for all that silly kidnapping stuff in the summer, I think he was harmless. Poor sod. How did he die?’
‘They don’t know yet. Or at least they haven’t told Eddie.’
‘How is Eddie?’
‘The same one-off he’s always been…always will be.’
‘He’s a good man.’
‘He is.’
‘Send him my salutations for the New Year.’
‘I’ll do that.’
Sonny stared at the faraway harbour lights, at the scythe blade shape the dark ocean gave to them. Mave said softly, ‘Why don’t you come home?’
‘Jo, if I knew where home was, I’d be there, believe me.’
‘Come and stay at the Shack. Rent-free. And we never close.’
He smiled sadly. ‘Thanks. You never know, the sea might carry me back there someday.’
‘Seriously…if things aren’t going to work out for you over there, well, you’re better around people who love you.’
Sonny cleared his throat. ‘There’s not much to you physically, Jo, but you’re a rock, and I love you.’
‘I love you too, and I’ll always be here for you. It’s important to me that you know that. Nothing’s changed.’
Sonny looked at the stars. ‘No, I suppose you’re right. Nothing’s changed. I thought it had. I thought it would. I believed we would be different. And you only have one life, don’t you? Better to have loved and lost and all that jazz.’
‘All that jazz…I miss your music.’
‘It’s been a long time since I played. A long time since I sang. I should have known from that alone, eh? They say actions speak louder than words. It kind of works out even more convincingly the other way round, doesn’t it?’
‘Come home.’
Sonny stood, and turned slowly on his heel, feeling like he was surveying the whole earth and all the sky. ‘I might just do that, Jolene. I might just do that.’
Mave called Eddie and told him about Sonny.
‘Poor sod. But at least he’s seen the light. Do you think he’ll come home?’
‘I do. I think if she stays away from him, he will. If she comes hip-wiggling back with some other scheme, well, I wouldn’t bet on anything.’
He said nothing.
‘Eddie?’
‘Sorry, Mave. I was trying to recall if I’d told Sonny about Marie and Kim. Did you ever say anything to him about them? Can you remember?’
‘I wouldn’t have discussed your past with anyone. It belongs to you.’
‘I’d never looked at it that way. Thanks. Did he ask where you were?’
‘No.’
‘If Sonny hasn’t seen Nina since New Year’s Eve, could she be here, in England?’
‘You thinking aloud or asking me a question?’
‘Sorry, Mave. I think I’m thinking aloud.’
‘Do you still believe she’s behind the break-in?’
‘Well it’s either her or Nic Buley.’
‘But not Broc Lisle?’
‘No. Not for my money. But you keep mentioning him.’
‘He’s the only one we know is here, in England, alive and well and functioning, and not in the best of jobs if he ever wants to be a millionaire. Why are you so certain he’s not in the frame here?’
‘Well, first, he’s not the type. I don’t think he is a money man. He’s a respect man. He’s a look-up-to-me man. He’s somebody who, in his own eyes at least, thinks he’s special and that he’s here on earth for a purpose.’
‘And second?’
‘He wouldn’t have left your place in a mess. In fact, but for the PC going missing, you wouldn’t have known he’d been there.’
‘You seem sure about that.’
‘I’ve made plenty mistakes, Mave, but I usually get people right. I’ve never found it hard to tell the good from the bad. Lisle’s one of the good guys.’
‘Would you be upset if I did some digging around anyway?’
‘Not at all. He’s in fighting with us now, after lying low for a while. I’d believed the BHA were just making the best of having the spotlight off them and on JCR. But they’ve thrown Lisle into it, hopefully to help Mac.’
‘So they’ve got their problems, and we’ve got ours…Or to be precise, I’ve got mine.’
‘We, Mave. You were right the first time. We.’
‘We. Me. You. Whoever…we’re in limbo. We can’t do anything, make any decisions, because we don’t know who we’re up against or what they’re going to do next.’
‘So we do the only thing we can, we wait. You’re safe. That’s the main thing. They can’t do anything with the programme without you, and they don’t know where you are.’
‘But they know where you are. And they know you’ll know where I am.’
Eddie smiled. ‘So they can bring it on, Mave. I’m ready.’
‘How can you be ready when you don’t know what you’ve got to be ready for?’
‘That’s the readiest you can get. Nothing ruled out. As long as you and Marie and Kim are safe, I’m happy.’
‘I hate waiting. I hate having nothing to do.’
‘Do that digging you mentioned. You’ve got your laptop, haven’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘See what you can find in the guts of the JCR communications system.’
‘I will.’
‘And give Marie and Kim my love.’
‘I will. He’s a fine boy, Eddie.’
‘He is. And I heard somewhere the child is the father of the man, so he should be okay.’
‘I love it when you talk philosophy to me!’
He laughed. ‘Go and do your digging. Spadeless digging. The best kind.’
‘Okay! I’m going, I’m going before you peel off into your Irish ploughman ancestors nostalgia wallow.’
‘Ha! Call me tomorrow.’
‘Okay.’
‘Just thinking about that, should we go back to the cheap throwaway phones for communications? Just to be on the safe side.’
‘Probably. I’ll get one today.’
‘Me too.’
59
Sonny was shouting at Nina and she was screaming at him, and, as in past rows, he felt his energy draining. Nina was capable of sustaining these verbal attacks at such high pitch that he had never managed to outlast her. He’d always given in. This time…this time, he had to make her see.
‘There is no more, Nina! It’s done! Gone! You’ve leached the life out of me and out of Jo, and you still don’t stop!’
‘I’m fighting for my child! My son! What would you do? I’ll never stop. You knew that at the start. I told you I’d do anything. Anything!’
‘And that anything includes selling your pendant, obviously.’
‘I told you, I didn’t sell it! I lost it. I lost it and I’ll find it.’
‘You sold it. That was for eternity. My gift to you that was supposed to remind you of everything we had, long after I’m dead. And you sold it.’ His voice was weakening. He moved away from her to sit on the bed.’
She was relentless, standing, hands on hips, feet apart, knees slightly bent as though waiting on the baseline of life to smash back the next aggressive service. And she saw him fade. A tactical change was needed.
She softened and moved toward him and hunkered to try and take his hand, but he balled it into a fist, and wouldn’t look at her.
‘Sonny. Sonny, Sonny, Sonny…how have we come to this? A new year…we should be closer to happiness, to finding Keki. I’m sorry for leaving on Tuesday. I couldn’t stand to be here, to wait and see Keki’s future resting on the back of that horse. And I’m so grateful for you taking it all over. So grateful. I just needed a few days on my own.’
Slowly he raised his head and looked at her. ‘On your own? Were you on your own, Nina? Maybe the pendant was ripped off you by whoever you were with. Maybe you sold yourself instead of the pendant.’
She stared at him and said quietly, ‘The same worm turns every time, eh? This is nothing to do with me selling anything, or asking you to ask Jo for more help…it’s that old devil called jealousy. Again. Again. Again. The insecurity that’s been with us since the start. That dread of yours that you couldn’t hold out against my generation. My generation of men.’
Sonny got up and turned his back on her and walked to the window.
‘That’s it. Turn. Walk. Stare out at the past and see if maybe the young Sonny Beltrami is out there. What would he have done?’
Sonny didn’t face her. He said. ‘Young Sonny would have walked away from this a long time ago. A long, long time ago.’
She straightened gracefully and went to stand beside him, the morning light showing the dull redness in the whites of his eyes. She said, ‘That’s the saddest thing I ever heard.’
She walked away, and opened the door to leave.
‘Jonty’s dead.’
She stopped, still holding the handle, the door half open. She turned, ‘What?’
‘Jonty’s dead. They found his body at Haydock racecourse.’
‘Choked on his own vomit? I always said that’s how it would end for him.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know how he died, but so comforting for his spirit to see how upset you are.’
‘How I feel about anybody in death depends on how they treated me in life.’
‘Ha! That’s encouraging. All Jonty did for you that I could ever see, was exactly what you told him to.’
‘And what about the time we spent together before you came on the scene? What would your all seeing eye know about that?’
He looked at her. ‘My all seeing eye would notice that the spots on the leopard had not changed.’
‘Fuck you, Sonny.’
Sonny began packing his gear in an old canvas holdall. If he could get away to the airport while the hurt still drove him, if he didn’t look back, he could make it all the way home.
He stopped just once, on the way out, to look in the mirror as he pulled on a beat-up sun hat. He didn’t need the protection it offered, not on this January day, but he thought he suited it. He smiled as he settled it at the right angle over his white hair. His tan had deepened enough for him to pass as a native. He tipped the hat at his reflection and wished himself luck.
60
While Kim and Marie slept, Mave had returned to habits of old. She was in the bedroom where Mrs. Malloy had died the year before. Even in the daytime, the dark surroundings and heavy curtains enclosed Mave in a way she found comforting.
This was the first time since helping Eddie with the Jimmy Sherrick case that she’d lost herself in the art of probing the security of an IT system. The tougher it was, the better she liked it. The defences of the BHA and JRC had been easy to crack, but she felt compensated by the richness of the content as she roved through it, an expert tracker in a digital world where the landscape was new but the signposts familiar.
Long before dawn, she had sent Eddie a secure message: “Much news on JCR. Ping me.”
Eddie saw the message at 6.30, as the first coffee of the day brewed and he wrapped the heavy black dressing gown around himself. He smiled, and poured the coffee then hit the secure connection link. Mave answered right away. ‘Morning.’
‘And to you, Miss Judge. A fruitful night?’
She looked at the webcam. ‘You been reading PG Wodehouse in bed, or something?’
He laughed. ‘You look well, Mave, back to your old self. Though it’s bloody dark there. Turn a light on, will you.’
‘No. I won’t. And you can’t make me because you’re on the other side of the country. So there!’
Eddie laughed again. ‘You’re miles better, Mave. I’m glad. What have you got?’
‘I have got a charming fellow called Major Aubrey Severson in bed, figuratively speaking, with your man Jordan Ivory.’
‘Do tell me more.’
‘The major is chairman of The Jockey Club, as you no doubt know, and from what I can find was the man behind this Jockey Club Bond that launched a couple of years ago.’
‘Behind it, meaning what, it was his idea?’
‘It was his idea, or so he claims, but he stayed behind it all the way through. Actively, I mean. There’s plenty documentation where he’s pushing and shoving and nagging and negotiating. Not typical behaviour for the chairman of any established company. Usually they’ll approve a project and let the management get on with it. Old Aubrey looks like he was on it full time.’
‘Go on.’
‘You’re familiar with this bond, right?’
‘I spoke to Mac about it. It was the reason I asked you to take a look.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I was trying to come up with a motive for these attacks. Whoever’s behind them wouldn’t be out to damage the company itself. A company doesn’t care one way or the other being, well, not alive, I suppose. You know what I mean…it has to be an attack on someone who’d lose out in some way if the company went bust. It has to be something to do with people, not companies.’
‘Well, you might well be right. The bond was set up to raise twenty-five million for investment, mostly to help build the new stand at Cheltenham.’
‘Correct.’
‘Anyone could apply. The annual interest rate to bondholders was five percent with some other goodies thrown in like free entry to tracks etcetera. Companies were invited to buy blocks, but were limited to a maximum of a hundred thousand pounds investment. Fifty-seven companies invested the maximum. Fifty of them are owned jointly by Major Aubrey Severson and Mister Jordan Ivory.’
Eddie drew a long breath. ‘You…are a genius.’
‘I…was astounded at how easy it was to get into their system. Breaking through the facade of the shell companies was marginally harder, but they were sloppy enough to use the same incorporation agent for all fifty companies.’
‘One of these Cayman Island dodges, or something?’
‘No. Canada. It’s actually a hell of a lot easier to find an agent who’ll ask no questions in the bigger, supposedly well regulated countries. Anyway, bottom line is that, between them the chairman of the Jockey Club and a large bookmaker of questionable morals have put five million sterling into a vehicle guaranteeing them five percent return with no perceived risk. At the time, at least.’
‘How many companies applied?’
‘There were a hundred and twenty eight submissions requesting the full hundred K. Ninety two were companies.’
‘So why did those two stop at fifty companies?’
‘Maybe that was all they had to invest, or all they wanted to invest.’
‘Okay. So who else found this out before you did? And why didn’t he just give it to the press if it’s some sort of vengeance mission?’
‘Well, I’m not certain, but it could be that the legal side of it has enou
gh gaps in it for them to wriggle through. It wasn’t a stock market transaction. The bonds have no tradable value. Inside information wouldn’t have mattered. The regulatory side probably consists of little more than caveat emptor. Besides, if your man wants to make these two sweat long and hard, he has the satisfaction of knowing they’re suffering financially, perhaps terminally from a financial viewpoint, and, he’s planted the seed with them that he knows what they’ve done.’
‘That answers one of the other questions in my mind, why did JCR react to this before everyone else? Why take on McCarthy at a comparatively early stage? Old Aubrey must have been shitting himself and Ivory would be squeezing him too.’
‘The big question for me is, how does a man, assuming our perp is male, come to terms with killing three people by way of doling out financial damage? Which leads on to why he then turns all the way around and begins warning tracks about potential accidents.’ Mave adopted a robotic voice, ‘Does not compute.’
‘Agreed. Two different people. It has to be.’
‘So where’s the killer gone, and has he finished killing?’
‘Well that depends a lot on how Jonty Saroyan died.’
‘Jeez! I’d forgotten about him. So it could be four murders?’
‘At least.’
‘What next, Edward?’
‘I think a meeting with Mac’s the best bet.’
‘You going to tell him everything?’
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘Want me to do anything else?’
‘See what you can find out about the galloping major, especially where his association with Ivory might have started.’
‘I’m on it!’
61
Sonny’s taxi dropped him in Abersoch as the afternoon light faded. The coastal winds cut at him as though they knew he was a deserter and that his time away had weakened him. He hunched against it and ducked into a charity shop where he bought an old Barbour waxed jacket. It was short in the sleeves but it tamed the wind.
His three-mile walk up onto the headland warmed him, and he wondered how long it would take to rebuild immunity to the British winter. Mave’s Shack was visible a long way off, but Sonny saw no lights. He assumed Mave had curtained the place off against the night.