by Jo Spain
Downstairs, Tom had found his daughter feeding his granddaughter in the kitchen, both of them well rested and happy, and his breakfast ready on the table.
‘How much does that hotel cost a night?’ Maria had asked. ‘We could put Mam up for another few days. Have Cáit sleeping twelve hours straight by the time she got home.’
Tom laughed, then immediately felt guilty, like he was betraying Louise.
‘You do want us helping you, don’t you?’ he asked. ‘If we’re interfering, you have to tell us.’
‘It’s fine, Dad. I know Mam only wants the best for me. Sometimes, though, I’d like to try things my way. I have to find my own feet. God knows, Cáit’s dad is never going to be much use, not when she’s this age, anyhow. He looks at her like she’s some kind of alien that might explode. I’m all she’s got. I’ll never be as perfect as Mam, but I’m not going to drop her on her head either.’
Tom wondered if he should tell his daughter about the time Louise had actually dropped Maria on her head. Not that it was intentional. She’d been changing her on the nappy table and turned away for a moment to get a fresh pack of wet wipes, unaware Maria had learned how to flip herself over. He’d arrived home from work that night to find Louise sobbing on the stairs, declaring that she was an unfit mother and insisting he take the baby away before she accidentally killed her. Maybe that was why his wife had taken to reading baby manuals for Cáit.
No, better not share that story. Louise wouldn’t thank him for it.
Linda drained her drink and slammed the glass down on the table.
‘That hit the spot!’ she laughed.
Tom had to smile.
The criminal psychologist was channelling an ageing Hollywood starlet this morning. A flimsy silk dressing gown was wrapped loosely around her body, held in place by a belt that kept threatening to unwind. Her wild hair was tucked up in a black headscarf, knotted like a turban with a brooch pinned at its front. She picked up a delicate silver cigarette holder, waving it like the costume accessory it was. When they’d knocked at her door, Linda had answered fresh from a shower, wearing only a towel. She’d told them she was going upstairs to slip into something more comfortable and came down ready for her next scene.
Every time Linda leaned forward, Ray almost broke his neck trying to avoid catching an eyeful. Tom kept his gaze at eye level and prayed there was something under the gown. He knew the psychologist was revelling in Ray’s discomfort, but even he found her attire off-putting.
‘As I said, I’m sorry to disturb you at home like this. But it’s important. How’s Geoff, by the way? Is he home?
‘My husband? You’re joking, right? He’s golfing. He’s a surgeon and it’s the weekend. It’s in his contract. No, it’s just plain old me.’
‘Ah, golf. I should have been doing that this weekend.’
Tom plonked himself on a stool beside the oval kitchen island.
The room was colossal and could easily have featured in a glossy magazine photo shoot. Even so, this house was nothing compared to Linda’s family abode. Tom had only ever read about the ancestral pile. Linda’s grandfather had made serious money in the States – doing what, nobody knew. The inspector had heard an unsubstantiated rumour about bootlegging. On his return to Ireland, the old man oversaw the construction of a sprawling mansion in South Wicklow.
The Gothic design of that stately home could not have been more different from Linda’s modern house and décor. Everything in this southside Dublin home was white or cream, from the marble floors and leather couches in the lounge to the bespoke kitchen they now occupied. It was all strangely at odds with the pyschologist’s colourful personality. It might have been her husband’s choice of interior and Linda wasn’t bothered, but Tom suspected it was yet another quirky layer to her complex personality.
‘I need to chat to you a little more about Aidan Blake. You mentioned you don’t like him. Why, exactly?’
‘Well, to start with, I have an issue with his politics.’
‘Nothing personal, then?’
‘I come from a family of politicians, Tom. It is personal.’
‘Right.’ The inspector clenched his jaw. He hated it when the psychologist sparred with him. She was too good at it. ‘Look, you started saying something yesterday about some legislation Aidan Blake is working on. Before we were disturbed by his arrival. You seemed nervous when he came in.’
‘Surely there’s something more exciting behind Ryan Finnegan’s death than the Natural Resources Bill?’ Linda was playing with him again.
‘You’re the one who brought it to my attention as a potential issue,’ he responded. ‘Ryan worked in politics and, as you say, it can get personal. So, humour me.’
The psychologist pursed her lips, then smiled faintly.
‘I’m passionate about the whole oil and gas business, you see. Taxing big oil and gas finds was one of daddy’s hobby horses. I grew up hearing him talk about it all the time. When you adore a man like that – and I worshipped my father – their view of the world seeps into you. I wish I’d paid better heed to his other opinions . . .’
‘Pardon?’
‘Never mind. I’m rambling. Anyway, his generation of politicians was so very different. Their parents had taken the State from being a colony to a sovereign entity and they believed we had the potential to be something as a nation. Daddy wasn’t even keen on us entering the European Union. Thought it was just swapping one foreign master for another. To be honest, I think he was also a bit of a xenophobe.’ Linda laughed. ‘The first time he saw a black man on O’Connell Street he nearly passed out.’
‘Relevance?’ Tom asked, his hands outstretched, pleading.
‘All right, keep your panties on. I’m giving you context. You see, it was a period when the body politic thought that Ireland could establish an economy based on its own resources, be they people or energy. We’re a small country but our offshore territories are huge. Do you know we’re estimated to have access to billions of barrels of oil and gas equivalents beneath our seas? That’s a few bob’s worth, Tom.’
‘I know all this, Linda. The estimates vary, but whatever is there is sizeable and the rights to it were more or less given away in the ’80s. We started talking yesterday about how Blake’s Bill was set to change that. Allegedly.’
‘Indeed. That’s the point. Blake might have had good intentions once. Even our esteemed Taoiseach used to make the right sounds about getting more from our natural resources. But cometh the power, cometh the greed. This government has been bought and sold. Their landmark Bill is restricted to future licence issuances, and it has one other significant omission – or inclusion, depending on your pedigree. Licences are time-limited and companies that wish to renew – and all the existing firms will – can do so with the conditions attached to their previous licences.
‘So, regardless of what percentages are written into Irish law for future oil and gas finds, big companies like Udforske, Scandi-oil, and so on can carry on pillaging our natural resources without paying the Irish state a cent more than they already do. And they pretty much have a monopoly on what’s there at the moment, so who’s going to enter the field with those advantages stacked against them?’
Tom and Ray exchanged a puzzled look.
‘Are you serious?’ the inspector asked.
‘Deadly. I’ve seen the Bill. It’s written into the appendices. Somebody from the opposition benches will spot it and there’ll be some uproar but the government will easily marginalise the most vocal opposition as the “loony left”. It has the majority needed to pass the legislation, anyway. The debate will be guillotined and the Bill signed into law.’
‘Guillotined?’ Ray asked.
‘Time limited and cut short,’ Linda explained, making a chopping motion with her hand. ‘Then, the spin machine will go into overdrive. The government will sell the law as a major victory for David against the energy Goliaths and a reversal of previous administration sell-outs. Already, the hy
pe around the legislation is being used as a tool to quash resistance to the activities of the drilling companies off the west coast. Those big protests about the safety of onshore piping are starting to lose numbers. Those who keep demonstrating will be vilified as hardline and subversive because most people will think that these big multinationals are going to be paying big bucks into the public purse.’
Tom’s brain was reeling.
‘I thought the Bill was still being drafted – how did you get a copy?’ Ray asked. ‘And if word is out, why hasn’t there been a wider reaction?’
‘The bulk of the Bill was written over the summer months. Most politicians disappear back to their constituencies for July, August and most of September. The appendices were only recently added and I just saw the Bill in the last couple of weeks. I have my sources. Don’t ask me to say any more.’
‘The public will go mad, though,’ Ray declared.
Linda shrugged.
‘Maybe. Maybe not. Most people still think, after years of being conditioned, that we should be grateful these companies are willing to take the financial risk and explore our seas for oil and gas. They think we should be grateful for the jobs when there’s a find. They haven’t a clue how much the country is sacrificing in potential income. And all this at a time when we’re being told we ordinary folk have to pay more taxes because Ireland is broke.’
Tom let the comment pass. Linda was anything but ordinary.
She picked up the cigarette holder and began to tap it on the table.
‘You asked me why I don’t like Aidan Blake. Well, here’s the main reason. He’s the man who’s going to sell this Bill for the government. He’s their ace card. Everybody loves Blake. He’s the future of politics, Mr Style-Over-Substance. There’s a reason he was put into that department and it was to make the unpalatable, palatable. Darragh McNally knew what he was doing with that one, the dastardly bastard.’
Tom mulled over what she’d told them, all sorts of questions springing to mind.
‘So, if what you say is true and Blake’s reputation was damaged, the whole Bill could fall.’
‘Of course what I’m saying is true, Tom. Don’t be so rude. What do you mean – if Blake’s reputation was damaged?’
‘I think somebody was trying to blackmail him.’
‘Like Ryan Finnegan?’ Linda probed.
Tom nodded. ‘Blake insists he wasn’t, but Ryan had damaging photos of Blake. We’ve been told Ryan disagreed with Aidan increasingly on political issues. Maybe this Bill was a step too far.’
‘I see. Very interesting.’
Linda turned to Ray.
‘What do you think, handsome? Do you think Blake would have shot Ryan rather than just accede to blackmail and change the Bill – if that’s what Ryan wanted him to do?’
‘I just can’t see it,’ Ray answered, blushing under her intense gaze. ‘Murder is usually the result of an emotion. Love, hate, revenge. Motives more . . . basic. And we don’t know everything about Ryan’s life yet.’
‘No,’ Tom answered. ‘But we do know where he was killed and that he had photos linked to Blake. There’s only one problem. Blake had already caved to somebody else’s blackmail.’ He expanded for Linda’s benefit. ‘The original holder of the photos was hitting him for cash. The minister has admitted to that. So why not give Ryan what he wanted?’
‘Personal cash is one thing,’ Linda remarked. ‘Telling somebody as ambitious as Blake how to do his job is quite another. Maybe it was a tipping point. Maybe he stood to lose a lot more if he acquiesced. I need coffee. Coffee, anybody?’
Tom and Ray nodded gratefully.
‘You boys really have your work cut out for you,’ Linda said, tossing a handful of coffee beans into a grinder. ‘Leinster House is a snake pit and politics breeds contempt.’
She hit the button on the machine and it whirred to life; the noise and aroma of the beans being crushed filled the kitchen.
‘It’s survival of the fittest in there,’ she hollered, over the racket. ‘And reputation really is everything. But this in an interesting one, Tom.’
He waited until the noise stopped to reply.
‘What do you mean?’
‘The way Ryan was killed. It’s unusual. It doesn’t have the hallmarks of a spurned lover. That’s normally something intimate and ferocious, like a stabbing. Or if he’d clashed with Aidan on this Bill business and tried to blackmail the minister, I would have expected strangulation or a punch-up that ended badly. But you’ve nothing like that. Your victim was targeted for assassination. Which means somebody very unemotionally and very professionally decided to take him out.
‘You’re dealing with one cool operator. And that’s going to make your job that bit harder.’
Chapter 11
Donegal
‘I can’t go up in that thing.’
‘Why not?’
‘I have a morbid fear of flying, Tom, and that’s in normal planes. Look at that. It’s a tin can. The wings are stuck on with Sellotape.’
‘If it’s your time, it’s your time.’
‘And if it’s the pilot’s time?’
Tom eventually coaxed Ray onto the aircraft, which, admittedly, was quite small. Now he was humming ‘I’m Leaving on a Jet Plane’ just to rub it in.
Ray kept his eyes closed for the whole flight from Dublin Airport to Donegal, trying to block out his boss. There was something different about Tom this morning. He was far too happy. Ray had barely slept. Two pints had failed to knock sense into him and he’d ended up lying awake in bed with uncomfortable images of Laura and her new boyfriend still running through his head.
The landing was so bumpy that the detective was green by the time the plane taxied to a halt.
‘We’re driving home,’ he snapped at Tom as he stormed towards the small terminal building.
A patrol car was waiting for them outside, two uniformed guards leaning casually against its side.
‘They didn’t have to send the entire Donegal division for us,’ the inspector greeted them, jocularly. ‘I’m DI Tom Reynolds. This is my sidekick, Robin.’
‘DS Ray Lennon,’ his deputy corrected, still irritable.
The first guard, young enough to be just out of training school, grinned as they shook hands, but his colleague maintained a dour frown. He adjusted the cap on his oversized head and straightened his jacket.
‘The sergeant would like you to drop by the station. As a courtesy call, like.’
Tom and Ray exchanged a knowing look.
The specialist murder team was often sent to other parts of the country to assist with investigations. Sometimes the local gardaí were glad to have the extra resources and would happily hand over the reins in a burdensome case. Some areas, though, received them with hostility, suspicious that the team was being sent out because the big boys up in Dublin didn’t rate the locals. Not every garda station appreciated the concept behind centralising talent in units like the National Bureau for Criminal Investigation.
‘We’re not here for any local matter,’ Ray barked, his ill humour happy to find another target. ‘We’re here to interview a witness connected to a Dublin case.’
The grumpy guard just shrugged, while the younger guy had the good grace to look embarrassed.
The inspector sighed and got into the back of the car.
‘After this, you can drive us to our witness’s house,’ he said, exerting some authority.
‘Well . . .’ Grumpy started.
‘No problem,’ the young chap interjected, showing some character.
‘Thank you. What are your names, by the way?’
‘I’m Gary Dillon. My colleague is Stephen McGettigan.’
The other guard grunted.
Grumpy will suffice, Tom thought.
They drove out towards the West Donegal coastal road.
Tom sat back and enjoyed the ride. He loved the northwestern county, a sparsely populated wilderness filled with all the beauty nature coul
d summon. No other place in Ireland could boast such an array of diverse, breathtaking landscapes. A traveller driving the length of Donegal could take in everything from bogs, loughs, forests and cloud-peaked mountains to scenic villages, mighty cliffs and isolated, unspoiled beaches.
The only downside was the capricious weather. It was often said that a visitor could enjoy all four seasons in a single day in Donegal. In a winter storm it could seem like the bleakest spot on earth; on a sunny summer’s day the most idyllic.
Tom had been visiting the county since he was a child. Every year, his family had packed the old VW van and braved country roads of varying states of repair to holiday with relatives who lived near Malin Head on the Inishowen Peninsula, Ireland’s most northerly point.
The inspector’s favourite memory was the annual trip they took to the secluded Kinnagoe Bay. Their vehicle would make the hair-raising descent down to the white sands and lapping blue sea, the resting place of the Armada ship La Trinidad Valencera, which sank there in 1588. His mother would throw down an old blanket and distribute sand-infused sandwiches, before yelling at them to be careful as they rushed, screaming with excitement, into the exhilaratingly cold Atlantic Ocean thinking they could hunt for treasure.
Ray stared out the window, blissfully ignorant of his boss’s nostalgic meanderings. His colour was only starting to return to normal.
‘I love cars,’ he said, confirming for Tom that the joyous look on his face had nothing to do with the Donegal scenery.
Houses began to dot the landscape, indicating they were nearing a population hub.
‘Better take the inland road,’ Grumpy instructed Gary. ‘The crusties are out again today.’
‘The what?’ Tom asked.
‘Crusties. Protestors. You’ll see them in a minute, but we’ll turn off so we don’t meet them.’
Sure enough, after a mile or so, they could hear the rising clamour of people chanting in protest. The car left the main road and began its ascent up a hill, giving its passengers a view of the scene below and the people gathered there. The crowd of roughly one hundred held placards and banners aloft outside a set of gates. Beyond the adjoining fencing Tom could see a building site running down to the sea. It was a bruise on the otherwise pristine coastline.