by Jo Spain
Tom reflected on the conversation.
‘I’m not sure. The man’s not married, has no siblings, no remaining parent. He has dedicated his life to politics, so all his “friends” are probably colleagues and acquaintances. Who, of those he works with, attended his mother’s funeral? Nobody we’ve dealt with, that’s for sure. He lied for Blake on Friday night, but the minister didn’t even go down to support him.’
‘Blake was dealing with his own drama,’ Ray remarked.
The inspector sighed.
‘McNally is a middle-aged man with nothing to show for his life bar his career, which he doesn’t seem too satisfied with right now. But even with all of that, he seems disproportionately upset. If he finished with Madsen at 9.30 he could have gone straight over to LH2000 and found Ryan. Maybe he did more than lie for Blake. Send somebody around to his house tomorrow and we’ll catch up with him again in a day or two. Here, is that the way to the bar?’
‘I think so. Fancy a quick one?’
‘Hardehar. Let’s take a look.’
The Dáil bar was larger than the inspector would have guessed. Striped blue and beige couches lined the walls, facing dark oak tables. In the centre of the deep-pile royal blue carpet were several high tables and stools. On a busy night, with those tables populated, it would be difficult to have a full view of all the patrons.
Today, it was empty of customers, as the majority of Leinster House staff were still prohibited from entering the building. A lone employee stood on the far side of the counter, a pad and pen in hand for her stock-take.
‘I’m sorry, we’re closed,’ she called out.
‘Detective Inspector Tom Reynolds, Miss. This is Detective Sergeant Ray Lennon.’
‘Oh.’ She reached over the bar to shake their hands. She was in her late fifties, with streaked blonde hair tucked into a neat bun and large glasses. The skin on her face was covered by a thick layer of foundation, but the pockmarks of long-gone youthful acne were still apparent.
‘Sorry to barge in like this,’ Tom continued. ‘We’re still trying to establish a few facts in the Ryan Finnegan case. Are you the manager?’
‘I am,’ she said, sweeping a stray hair from her face, obviously pleased he’d correctly identified her position. ‘I was working. I’ve already been interviewed. I didn’t see anything, I’m afraid.’
‘That’s okay. Were you serving on Friday night?’
‘I was. We were unusually busy and I didn’t have a full complement of staff, so I mucked in.’
‘I see.’ Tom casually picked up a bar mat and folded it in half, then into quarters. ‘Did you happen to see Minister Blake come in that night?’
‘Yes. That is, I didn’t see him come in, but I saw him when he was here. His wife had come in earlier and was up the back there. He was looking for her. He ordered two sparkling waters and joined her.’
‘Do you remember what time that was?’
‘I think so. I served him at about 9.50. I remember because a few minutes earlier I’d looked at my watch, wondering when we could start shifting the crowd. They were a bit boisterous.’
‘I see. And Sara was up there?’ Tom nodded in the direction of steps at the rear of the bar.
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you,’ the inspector said, and he and Ray made their way over to that section.
They passed through open double doors to the lounge extension. A large marble fireplace dominated the top of the room.
Ray flopped down on one of the seats.
‘That’s five minutes later than Blake claimed,’ he said. ‘But he could have been in here for a few minutes before he went to the counter. You look lovely, by the way.’
Tom was staring at an almost floor-to-ceiling mirror in between the couches facing Ray.
‘What?’ he answered his deputy, distracted. ‘Listen, head over to that tunnel. I’ll be along in a minute.’
Ray lifted himself wearily from the chair and departed. Tom returned to the bar manager.
‘That emergency exit up there,’ he said, referring to the mirrored door he’d been examining. ‘Is it alarmed?’
The woman looked puzzled.
‘Of course. Why?’
‘If somebody came into the bar through that door, what would happen?’
‘All hell would break loose. People know not to use that door,’ she answered. ‘The alarm on it is like nothing you’ve ever heard.’
‘Who else was up in that section on Friday, do you recall?’
‘It was packed. I’m afraid I couldn’t remember all of them. Even the chief of security called in at one point. It felt like most of Leinster House was here on Friday. It may as well have been Budget night.’
*
Tom rejoined his deputy at the tunnel entrance.
‘What was that about? Ray asked.
Tom shrugged. ‘I had a hunch but it turned out to be nothing. Come on, let’s walk through.’
Forensics had removed the last of the crime scene equipment from the far end of the tunnel and the floor and statue where Ryan had been discovered were scrubbed clean of his blood. A large wreath had been left at the foot of the sculpture and the ushers had roped off the immediate area.
‘Those ministers Sara was looking for on Friday night,’ Tom said. ‘Did we follow up with them? They were with her when Blake says he arrived in the bar.’
‘Michael interviewed three of them. The others she was with are based outside Dublin but will be back up tomorrow, so we can set up meetings. Anyway, of the ones he talked to, two of them met Sara outside the Dáil chamber shortly after 9 p.m. Several others have confirmed she arrived in the bar at about 9.15 and stayed there. The other minister we spoke to entered the bar at 9.55 p.m. and tried to buy her a glass of wine but he said she was fuming with him and wouldn’t let him purchase any drink at all, just made him leave and go over to the ball.’
‘Did he mention her husband being with her?’
‘No. He told Michael she was alone. But Blake may have been up the back or something and the bar manager said herself she served him at 9.50.’
‘Hmm. Okay. There’s something else I want to you to check. Find out what Darragh McNally earns. He’s worked for the Reform Party all his life. There isn’t a lot of money swashing about when a party is in opposition and this is their first time in power in a long time. He’s a government appointee but there’s a cap on civil service wages under the Troika agreement. I’d guess he’s earning, what, one hundred grand a year? Max? Find out about that home his mother was in. He would have put her up in the best and paid for private health care all the way. I’d like to see if the sums add up. If he was an alcoholic up to five years ago, I doubt he was saving vast amounts of money, but maybe there was money in the family.’
‘I got the distinct feeling when we were talking with Madsen that his “man with the strings” was on the payroll,’ Ray said. ‘Maybe that’s what McNally was referring to when he said he’d done things.’
Tom nodded. ‘McNally might seem like a shell of a man now, but let’s say on Friday night he was faced with a crisis. He was taking bribes from Madsen – maybe he didn’t know that his mother would be dead within hours. She’s been ill a while; she might have stayed ill for a while longer. Ryan Finnegan was threatening to bring the whole house of cards down – make Blake change the Bill or expose him; either way, whatever McNally had promised Madsen wouldn’t be delivered. So, he’s a desperate man, forced to do a desperate thing. And now he’s wondering about the point of it all.’
‘Here’s the problem,’ Tom continued. ‘If McNally killed Ryan and is now regretting it, is his next step a confession? Or is it to punish Blake because he was forced to protect him? Because if there’s one thing I know, it’s that a man with nothing to lose is capable of anything.’
‘We’ll keep an eye on him,’ Ray said.
‘Another thing,’ Tom remarked, his forehead creased in concentration. ‘He said his mother ran a farm.’
�
��And?’
‘If he grew up on a farm, McNally knows how to handle a firearm.’
Wednesday
Tom had thought he was tired, but Kathryn Finnegan gave new meaning to the word. Barely five days had passed since her husband’s murder and she looked to have aged years. Her eyes were bloodshot and ringed with dark circles; her skin was deathly pale. She’d pulled the top half of her unwashed hair back into a small ponytail. The young mother stood in the centre of the sitting room, Beth straddling her hip, and looked as if she was close to collapsing under the weight of the small baby.
Her brother’s wife noticed it too and came to her aid.
‘Kathryn, let me take Beth. You talk to the inspector.’
The widow barely heard her sister-in-law and was startled to find herself suddenly relieved of the baby.
‘Oh. Thank you. Um, can I get you something, Inspector? You look as exhausted as I feel.’
Tom shook his head. His lack of sleep paled in this situation, though it was certainly taking a toll on his home life.
Louise had arrived back on Sunday night and, as predicted, immediately challenged Maria’s new routine for Cáit. Despite his daughter’s apparent success (a one-off, according to Louise), his wife had insisted they continue to put the baby into her cot in her own room at 8 p.m.
‘It will work eventually,’ she said, ignoring the dubious and mutinous looks from Tom and Maria respectively.
‘Please, sit down, Kathryn. How are you managing?’
She perched nervously on the edge of a chair, picking at the fabric on the armrest.
‘I can’t stop thinking about it. I bring Beth into bed with me and I lie awake staring at her, imagining Ryan lying on the other side. She’ll never have that now, will she? What if I’m not enough?’
‘Of course you are enough,’ Tom reassured her.
Kathryn shook her head.
‘I’m just meant to go on,’ she continued. ‘They tell me I have to be strong. For Beth’s sake. I have to keep going. But it feels like the world has stopped turning. Sometimes I forget and I walk into a room expecting Ryan to be there . . . His smell, his . . . energy, it’s still all over the house. Then I realise and it’s like a punch in the stomach, every time. How do people do this? How do you keep living?’
Tom swallowed. The woman’s grief was unbearable.
‘I can’t say I understand what you’re going through,’ he replied honestly. ‘I’ve never lost anybody so close. But I have seen this many times and I do know that it gets easier. You take one day at a time. And eventually, a long way from now, it won’t feel this bad.’
‘Do you know what happened yet?’ The question sparked some life in Kathryn.
Tom shook his head.
‘We’re following some strong lines of inquiry but no, we haven’t arrested anybody. That’s why I’m here. I’d like to look through Ryan’s belongings, if that’s okay with you. Get a better picture of him.’
‘Your officers went through his things on Saturday.’
‘I want to go over everything again. You only have the one shared computer, am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you gone through his possessions yourself? Diaries? Books and so on?’
‘He didn’t keep a diary. He had a calendar for work events on his phone. His books are all mixed in with mine. We shared the same tastes, even the political biographies. I . . . I haven’t been through his clothes.’
‘No,’ Tom said gently. ‘There’s time enough for that. If it’s not too much of an intrusion, may I look upstairs?’
She nodded, distracted.
He left her with Ray and climbed the stairs to the couple’s bedroom, taking in the family pictures hanging along the wall. Ryan and Kathryn, arms wrapped around each other, the waves of an anonymous beach lapping behind them. Their wedding day, him gazing at her adoringly while she looked shyly at the camera. Her hair longer and wavy, him sporting a beard and wearing glasses. Ryan, nose to nose with his new baby in a hospital ward, unaware the photo was being taken. Enraptured.
Photo after photo of a young man in the throes of life.
Tom paused on the last step and took a deep, sorrowful breath. Dealing with such loss, even somebody else’s, always affected him and these pictures felt particularly poignant.
The bedroom was a mess of discarded baby clothes and crumpled nightwear. Downstairs was being kept in order by the extended family, but Kathryn probably refused to let anybody past the door of this room. It was her sanctuary, the only private space she had left for her and Beth. Somewhere she could hide and cry amongst the most intimate memories of her husband, away from well-meaning sympathisers.
Tom rummaged through the clothes hanging in the wardrobe, searching the pockets. He checked the drawers on Ryan’s side of the bed. He knelt on the floor and looked under the bed, then under the mattress. He delved into the shoeboxes stacked on top of the wardrobe and found old bills, cards and pictures.
He scanned some cutouts of political articles with Ryan’s name on the byline. At a glance, they appeared to be well-written, compelling and admirable pieces. Picking through the fragments of the other man’s life, Tom felt like Ryan Finnegan was someone he would have liked.
The inspector sat with his head in his hands, frustration welling. This was the house of an ordinary man who, despite his high-profile job, seemed to be living a fairly ordinary life. Until he decided to blackmail his boss to make him change a piece of legislation that Ryan believed went against the national interest.
But who’d shot him because of it? Blake? McNally? Madsen? Had they missed or overlooked somebody who didn’t have an alibi? They didn’t have a complete list of everybody who was in the parliament complex that night. They were examining CCTV footage to see if the ushers had missed anybody. Tom knew that kind of painstaking manual evidence-gathering left room for human error.
Back downstairs, Tom found Ray playing with Beth on the floor. Kathryn wasn’t exactly smiling at their antics, but she didn’t look quite as forlorn as she had when they’d arrived.
‘Are your family looking after you well?’ the inspector asked. Something was nagging him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
She turned to him.
‘Yes. Too well. They won’t go home. I went out for a walk with Beth this morning, down to the church on the Strand where Ryan and I got married. It’s the first time since everything happened that I felt some peace. I need space and everybody keeps fussing over me. I know I should be grateful, but I just want my house back.’
Tom nodded, distracted. He knew now what had been niggling at him.
‘Kathryn, the car crash Ryan was in. What caused it?’
‘Someone came out of a side street and rammed into him when he was stopped at traffic lights then drove away from the scene. Why?’
Tom’s eyebrows furrowed.
Her jaw dropped.
‘You don’t think somebody tried to kill him that time?’
‘I don’t know. Nobody mentioned it was a hit-and-run before now. If I find anything out at all, I’ll let you know, okay? Ray.’
His deputy stood up from the baby, smiling ruefully.
‘She is very beautiful, Mrs Finnegan,’ he said.
Kathryn was still staring at Tom, her head spinning at this new possibility, but she acknowledged Ray’s compliment.
‘Thank you. She has Ryan’s eyes. Do you know when my husband’s body will be released? My brother is the only family member to have seen him since he died. When do I get to bury him? I just want to see him one more time.’
*
‘That’s the group shot there. Jesus, the effort it took to get everyone together for that. What’s the saying? “Don’t work with children or animals.” Well, they should add government ministers. Particularly drunken ones. Prima donnas, one and all.’
Laura and Michael were sitting with Hugh Masterson, the vice-CEO of Silent Voices, Sara Blake’s charity. Masterson had suggested meet
ing in the Grand Hotel, where the ball had been held on Friday night. On arrival, the detectives were escorted to one of the tables in the first-floor dining room overlooking Merrion Square. Hugh joined them minutes later.
‘You’ll spot me easy enough,’ he’d told Laura on the phone. ‘I’m a six-foot-four bearded hippie with a penchant for colourful shirts.’
He hadn’t lied. He strode into the high-class restaurant wearing ripped denims and a garish Hawaiian T-shirt. In the group photo they were now studying, Masterson was squeezed into a tux and looked distinctly uncomfortable.
Sara Blake stood beside him, tiny in comparison. She wore a tight-fitting, floor-length navy dress that covered her lithe body like a glove. Her general style was unremarkable compared to the other women in the frame, as though she were a minor guest and not the person running the show.
Laura was squinting at the faces in the various rows when Michael’s phone beeped. The text was from Tom, relaying the news that Ryan’s car crash had been a hit-and-run and requesting that Michael pull up the incident report. He showed the text to his colleague.
Laura nodded, immediately aware of the significance. If an earlier attempt had been made on Ryan’s life, maybe something had been overlooked at the time that might now give them a clue to his murderer’s identity.
‘How did Aidan Blake seem on the night of the ball?’ Laura asked Masterson. ‘Did you notice what time he left for Leinster House with his wife?’
‘Yes. They both left just before 9. The first course was being served, so nobody really noticed. Sara was hopping mad because she knew, and she was right, that our late guests were going to arrive still expecting to be fed. It wasn’t the type of food you reheat in the microwave. And the press wanted their group shot as soon as dinner was finished and before the speeches.
‘Anyway, I offered to go over with her, but Aidan was adamant. We were all surprised by that. He rarely helps her out with anything. Shane Morrison had been due to attend but didn’t make it – he would have assisted her normally. He’s good like that. But he was busy in the early part of the evening and then I guess they found Ryan and he couldn’t come over. Tea?’