by Paul Charles
‘He laughed at me. He said, “You’ve been asking for a good hiding for years and now it’s time for Mariana to get what she deserves.” He changed before me, yes. He looked like he became physically charged. A bit like he does when he becomes amorous, but this was different. I got the feeling that it didn’t matter what I said or did, the devil was in his eye and he was going to beat me.
‘I started to run away from him. He tripped me up from behind. I fell badly on my hip. He jumped on top of me. He started to bombard me with punches; all below my shoulders and all above my waist. It was like someone had coached him on how to beat someone up without leaving any tell-tale marks.
‘My first fall onto my hip is what did the most damage. The bruises I hope will disappear but I am sure he has done more lasting damage to my hip and back.’
‘How did you get him to stop?’
‘Mariana pretended she passed out. I found his punches were less effective when I wasn’t tensed up in preparation for them. I relaxed and thought of playing with my father in our garden when I was young. I thought I was going to die and Mariana wanted to die with good thoughts. Francie must have thought I was unconscious, because he stopped.’
‘Then what happened?’ O’Carroll asked.
‘I pretended to come around again,’ she said, ‘for the first time since I met him, Francie looked like an old man. I got up to get away from him but I fell down again. My hip and back felt like they were broken. I told him to ring for an ambulance. He kept asking where Murcia was. He kept getting phone calls and he kept replying, “She won’t tell me”.’
‘Why was he doing Noah’s dirty work for him?’ McCusker asked.
‘Apparently Mr Noah had agreed to put up some money to help finance converting the manse into a top-of-the-range hotel. Francie needed the deal to go ahead. Mr Noah was clearly calling in a favour.’
‘But, sorry; I thought your husband was well off? McCusker said.
‘Just an illusion, Mr McCusker, nothing but an illusion,’ she claimed. ‘Around the time we married, he was very well-off with his family money, old money. But although he clearly had no idea how to make money, Francie certainly knew how to spend it. There was one hare-brained scheme after another. Non-stop. He was always coming back from these long, boozy lunches were he’d have met someone who just needed “a few grand” to start up one of these “can’t-fail companies”. Someone even sold him on the idea of running an Elton John concert here in our back garden. He parted with £25,000 for a feasibility study on how to best stage the concert. They spent ages working out where the stage would go, where the seats would go, where to get the PA and lights from, where to get the toilets from, where to sell the tickets, where to advertise the concert. I have to admit I was totally in on that one. We were to retain FAB rights.’
‘What’s FAB rights?’ McCusker asked, for it might be important to know.
‘Food and beverage, darling, food and beverage. Anyway, Francie said I could take charge of, and pocket the profits from that.’
‘And what happened?’
‘Everything was going great, the plans were all coming together. I believe that, including the £25,000 for the feasibility study; £20,000 advance to secure toilets, tents, stage, turnstiles; £20,000 advance to secure PA and lights; £5,000 advance to a social network guru; £5,000 advance to a production manager; £1,000 advance to a stage manager; £7,500 advance to solicitors; £6,000 advance to a firm of accountants to ensure we didn’t pay too much tax on our profits, we – or, should I say Francie – paid out around £90,000.’
‘Ninety grand!’ McCusker cried out involuntarily.
‘What happened?’ O’Carroll asked.
‘Oh, someone forgot to figure in Elton’s fee.’
‘And how much was that?’ McCusker asked.
‘Well, it seems our “well-connected fixer”, a contact of Francie’s from Cheltenham, never got that far. All he would tell us was that Elton’s people had already turned down £2 million for a similar event.’
‘And that was the end of it?’
‘No, it was decided to scale it back a bit for the first year, you know, not be quite so ambitious. What is the saying? Oh yes, “learn to creep before you try to walk”. Well, we eventually settled on a rave in the big lean-to out the back. We ended up selling 78 tickets and it was completely washed out.’
‘Unbelievable,’ McCusker said.
‘Then Francie said we had to sell my apartment to pay for the manse conversion. I said but “we” didn’t own my apartment: Mariana alone owned that. Anyway, he kept on about that for a couple of years and then eventually it appears that he persuaded Mr Noah to come in with him on making Mariana’s manse into a hotel, and they were plotting and scheming away, always sneaking away like two schoolboys behind the bike shed for a ciggy. At least Francie wasn’t bugging me any more about selling my apartment. Eventually Murcia left Mr Noah and initially Francie was very supportive of Mariana and Murcia, but then Mr Noah put pressure on Francie and Francie beat the crap out of Mariana. When I was at my meeting with you - at the Merchant Hotel and he stormed in on us - that was the first I’d seen him since he beat me. I refused to stay here. I left and went into Belfast. I’d just come back here about an hour ago to pick up some things. He started up again – not with the beating, just the shouting. He went berserk – just crazy - about how he had to find Murcia for Mr Noah or there would be hell to pay for everyone. He kept screaming that everything was at stake. So I ran out of the house to get away from him and that was when you drove up.’
‘I recommend you leave while we’re still here,’ O’Carroll advised her.
‘Don’t you worry, I’m out of here,’ she replied, touching her still-sore hip as she did so.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
‘He’s been out here a long while, McCusker,’ O’Carroll said, as they walked across the courtyard, ‘after what Mariana’s told us, are you sure he’s not just scarpered?’
‘As the bishop said to the actress, I took a precaution…’ he replied.
‘Oh jeez no, McCusker, please save those quips for the Antiques Roadshow,’ she mocked, in good humour.
‘I locked him in his office,’ McCusker said, as they reached the door and he turned the very large rusty key.
‘Oh okay, go on then, I will make an exception, but only in this one instance,’ she whispered to McCusker, as he turned the antique key and pulled open the door.
It turned out that Francie Fitzgerald was so engrossed in his plans that he wasn’t even aware he’d been detained at the PSNI’s pleasure.
‘Look, I’m sorry about earlier, when I ran out without paying,’ Fitzgerald said, addressing McCusker, ‘that was unforgivable of me. I really thought Mariana had a tab going at the Merchant and they’d just automatically add my sandwich to it. But on another matter, I really meant it when I said that if you wanted to talk to me again, it needs to be in the presence of my solicitor.’
‘This is about a different matter altogether,’ O’Carroll said, as she produced her warrant card. McCusker followed suit because he felt he should. ‘We’re here to talk to you about domestic violence.’
Francie Fitzgerald fell back down into the seat he’d just risen from as they walked into his office space.
‘We are led to believe that yesterday you beat Mrs Mariana Fitzgerald, contravening Act–’
‘I already told McCusker here that she walked into a door?’ Fitzgerald replied, when he’d managed to get some wind back in his sails.
‘Then her head would be bruised as well as the entirety of her upper torso,’ McCusker replied.
‘I’ve taken photographs,’ O’Carroll began, ‘it’s disgraceful, totally disgraceful. Holy Mary, Mother of God man, how could you do that to any woman, let alone your wife?’
‘I think you’ll find my wife will admit she was careless and walked into a door.’
‘I think you’ll find she won’t, besides which, there is another person involved,’ McCusker said.
> ‘A witness? There were no witnesses!’
‘I think you’ll find your correct answer just there, should have been: “There was nothing to witness”,’ McCusker said.
‘Gone are the days when you’ll get away with this kind of behaviour,’ O’Carroll offered, every single word betraying the utter contempt she had for this excuse of a man.
‘Is Mariana really going to press charges?’ Fitzgerald asked, visibly shocked.
McCusker and O’Carroll both just glared at him and shook their heads from side to side slowly.
‘Oh look, don’t give me that crap – you weren’t there, it was the heat of the moment. She was giving as good as she got. Do you want to keep this fair and take photographs of my bruises?’
It was O’Carroll’s experience that wife-beaters went into denial and usually always managed to find a way to rewire their brain to re-script the event. O’Carroll was having none of that with Fitzgerald.
‘Please – take off your top, sir,’ she said, as she pulled out her phone.
‘Sorry?’
‘You’ve just made a very serious charge, so we have to treat it as a complaint,’ O’Carroll continued. ‘We’d like to take photographs of your bruises.’
Of course, she knew there’d be no bruises, but she wanted to get it on record, so that he couldn’t make that claim again.
‘No – it’s my right to refuse.’
‘In which case we can arrest you and take you to the cells in the Customs House, where you’ll be given a full physical examination in front of your solicitor.’
Fitzgerald’s face was growing redder by the second.
‘The choice is yours, sir,’ O’Carroll said, after a few minutes of inactivity.
Fitzgerald slowly and reluctantly started to remove his black top, followed by a black short-sleeve T-shirt underneath.
Of course there were no marks or bruises about his person – nothing but flabby skin, in fact. O’Carroll snapped furiously away, though, capturing invaluable evidence; evidence that would hopefully loosen a tongue.
‘They must have worn off?’ he complained.
‘Your wife’s bruises haven’t worn off, Sir,’ O’Carroll stated.
‘Look,’ Fitzgerald started, focusing on McCusker, ‘you know how it is: things get out of hand, they egg you on, don’t they… one thing leads to another…’
‘We know exactly how it is, Mr Fitzgerald,’ McCusker replied, ‘that’s why the courts deal with it accordingly. That is of course when they’re allowed to; when the husband doesn’t contribute a very generous settlement in order to remind his wife she walked into a door. We’re hoping that such bribing eventually becomes illegal as well.’
‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Fitzgerald mumbled.
‘Sorry?’ O’Carroll said.
‘Look, we don’t have a pot to piss in,’ he admitted, ‘that’s why I tried to do a runner on paying for my bacon sandwich this morning. We’ve run out of money. I can’t even claim it’s a cash-flow issue, we’ve plain and simply run out of fecking money.’
‘But surely,’ McCusker started, looking around the premises. ‘But surely the manse is worth a lot?’
Fitzgerald studied both detectives in silence for a moment.
‘You just don’t understand, do you?’
McCusker wanted to say, “No we don’t understand, we’ve had to work all our lives to pay for our lives.” But he realised now wasn’t the time to be patronising and smug and antagonising a potential valuable witness.
‘It’s all gone…’
‘The manse?’ McCusker asked, seeking clarification.
‘Everything. The money my father bequeathed me, the manse, everything. I can’t get credit anywhere. Look at my clothes for heaven’s sake! Virgin fecking freebies!’
‘But this house, the manse?’
‘My wife is the only one of us with any assets. She owns the apartment in the city. It’s probably worth three-quarters of a mill. I’ve tried to persuade her to sell it. That would have been more than enough to pay for converting the manse and the outhouses to hotel accommodation and we’d still be left with a good few bob. Then we’d be set up for life. Eventually maybe we’d even be able to also have a getaway in Barbados. We could’ve had a very comfortable life. But it appears to me that what’s mine is ours, whereas what’s hers is most definitely hers. I also believe she’s got at least a quarter of a million squirreled away, but I’ve never been able to find it.’
McCusker couldn’t believe that this guy was actually trying to make out that his wife had caused all of his problems. No doubt that was the real reason he’d beaten her.
‘So anyway; I meet up with Noah Woyda, through Mariana and Murcia, and he’s big on the hotels and properties, and so I showed him my plans.’ Fitzgerald paused as he flicked through the actual plans on the A-frame pine trestle table in front of him. ‘Noah got it immediately. He was in – hook, line and sinker! So we did a deal. I would put up the property, he would put up the cash and we’d go 50/50 on it.’
Oah oh, McCusker thought as he felt the sting in the tail coming.
‘All was good, we signed the contract. The contract agreed with the details I mentioned earlier. I signed the freehold of the manse over to the company. For tax reasons it had to be a company Noah Woyda already owned. My share would be governed by a separate trust, and would be totally tax-free. Leanne Delacato, Woyda’s solicitor, took care of all the paperwork.’
‘Here comes the good bit,’ McCusker said to himself under his breath.
‘Things took a lot longer than I thought,’ Fitzgerald claimed, ‘I hate to have to admit all of this to you. Although Woyda was responsible for putting up the money for the building works, I was responsible for half of the start-up money for planning permission, solicitors, surveyors etc. I started to fall behind with my half. Can you believe, my wife had her apartment and nest egg all along and we were so close? All we needed was a couple of hundred grand maximum and we’d have been set for life.
‘Once Woyda saw that I didn’t have a pot to piss in, he immediately clicked into another gear, citing all these penalties I’d missed in the small print. He threatened me – said that if I didn’t produce my share of the start-up costs, then the project would fail and his company would own the manse. They’d have to sell it off to cover their losses on the investment.’
‘Was the manse in your name or jointly with Mariana?’ O’Carroll asked.
‘Our joint names, although I did have power of attorney to sign on our joint behalf.’
O’Carroll scribbled away in her book.
‘Does Mariana know you no longer own the manse? Does she know that she no longer owns it?’
‘No,’ Fitzgerald admitted.
O’Carroll made it perfectly clear she was also recording that answer in her book. McCusker wondered what language she was using that took a complete minute to write the word “no”.
‘When Murcia walked out on Woyda, he moved into another gear,’ Fitzgerald continued, appearing to brush his very recent revelation under the carpet. ‘He heard Mariana and I were helping her and all hell broke loose. He said he wanted that stopped immediately. He hinted that there may be a way to resurrect the manse hotel project, but only if I played ball. He wouldn’t spell it out, he just kept saying if I played ball he’d think about it and try to work something out.’
‘So you felt that if you spied on Murcia, you’d get back in Woyda’s good books?’ O’Carroll asked.
‘Well yes,’ he replied, sounding like someone who was thinking “at last, the PSNI get it, the penny has finally dropped”. He looked like he was searching O’Carroll’s eyes for even just the smallest sign of sympathy and on finding absolutely no forgiveness nor understanding he continued, ‘That’s probably why I really lost it with Mariana. I swear to you, I’d never laid a finger on her before, you can ask her.’
‘That’s never an acceptable excuse, Sir,’ O’Carroll replied, ‘you know you could have just
as easily killed her. As it is, I do believe you’ve done very serious damage to her back and hip.’
‘I was under so much pressure from Woyda,’ were his final words of justification.
‘I think Murcia and Mariana, and possibly yourself, could still be in danger over the next day or so,’ O’Carroll said, sternly. ‘It goes without saying that we expect you to have no contact whatsoever with Mr Woyda.’
‘I won’t, believe me I won’t.’
‘Do you think that Woyda had anything to do with Louis’ death?’ McCusker asked, as they were about to leave.
‘He’d too much to lose,’ Fitzgerald replied, breaking into a weak smile. ‘I was just thinking there that I’d be a much more likely suspect; I’ve got absolutely nothing to lose. Woyda has much too much going on in his life to risk that. Woyda is convinced that the batty brother Miles is to blame.’
As an afterthought, Fitzgerald felt it necessary to add, ‘Of course, I should point out, as you already know, that at the time of Louis Bloom’s demise I was in the company of my wife, and Samantha and her husband.’
* * *
‘Have you any regrets, McCusker?’ Grace O’Carroll asked when they were both in his favourite stage of undress later that evening. He had to sacrifice a few garments of his own to persuade her to lie on top of the sheets. It was such a small price to pay for his own personal Heaven.
McCusker, when it started to get serious with Grace, had sworn to himself that he was never going to take his work home with him into their “space”. Clearly Fitzgerald’s treatment of Mariana had greatly upset both he and DI O’Carroll, and he was obviously coming across a bit more pensive than usual, hence Grace’s question. He thought for a while longer, discreetly using his own silence to examine Grace once again in her natural beauty.
‘I have but two regrets in my life,’ he started, breaking the hallowed silence.
‘Only two?’
‘Yes, only two if you rule out George Best never leading Norn Iron into a World Cup final. Or Eddie Irvine being greeted by three, and only the three, replacement tires as he pulled into the pits in the Nürburgring, Germany, on Sunday September 26th, 1999. He was clearly in the lead at that point. But the Ferrari crew allowed McLaren’s Mika Häkkinen to pass Eddie in both the race and the F1 World Championship with their “misunderstanding”.’