by Jo Spain
Blake put his head in his hands, unable or unwilling to say anything more.
The inspector stood up and followed Sara to the front door.
‘He’s falling apart,’ she choked, as Tom waited on the front step for Willie to come up the drive. ‘It’s all this pressure. He didn’t kill Ryan, Inspector. I keep telling you. Please, don’t push him any further.’
Tom felt sorry for this woman, clearly devastated by what was happening around her. But what could he say to make her feel better?
‘I just want everything back to normal,’ she added, her face a picture of torment and anguish.
So does Kathryn Finnegan, the inspector thought sadly. So does she.
*
‘You gave me the idea. When you were here and you wanted to go through Ryan’s things again. I knew you hadn’t found anything so I decided to look in some of our old hiding places.’
Kathryn Finnegan was wild-eyed, desperate.
‘Was it amongst his clothes?’ Tom asked. He was holding the letter she had given him, scanning its contents again.
‘No, mine. You see, I have this coat. Well . . . there’s a story. We’d only started dating, you see. I was leaving Ryan’s house to go home when it started lashing rain. I only had a light jacket so his mother gave me a loan of this old-fashioned, hideous raincoat.’ Kathryn laughed, her whole face aglow with the memory.
‘She was being kind, but I was young and fashionable and I’d have rather got soaked to the skin than let Ryan see me in that get-up. I had to put it on to please her and she started clapping her hands, saying it was gorgeous on me and I was to have it. So then I was in trouble, because I had to let her see me wearing it.
‘Ryan knew I was making a sacrifice for his mother. I mean, I can’t describe how awful this coat is – poo-brown with yellow stripes. Anyway, I was leaving his house in it one time and he slipped a little note in the pocket, telling me how much he loved me for wearing the coat. I found it when I got home. He did that every time I wore it. I was like Pavlov’s dog; I started to enjoy wearing the raincoat. Eventually, he talked his mother into buying me a new one for Christmas and he helped pick it out. Win-win. The old one is in the back of my wardrobe and every now and again he sticks a note in there for me. I mean . . . he used to.’
‘I understand. And that’s where he’d put the letter.’
‘Yes. In the pocket.’ A fresh wave of despair crossed her features, the realisation that this was the final note she would find there.
Tom looked at the single page in his hand. It was most definitely unlike the usual love notes Ryan would have hidden for his wife. It read:
Kathryn, my love,
I cannot believe I’m writing this. It’s absurd, like something from a film. Because if you are reading these words, it means I never got a chance to rip this letter up.
This week I told Aidan Blake that I would be forced to reveal secrets about him to the press, unless he rights a terrible wrong. We made a promise to the people of Ireland before the last election about taxing oil and gas finds. Aidan has reneged on that promise but is still trying to present what he’s doing as the right course. This is just one in a long line of broken commitments but I think it’s the worst.
I should have known he would do this. There are others pushing it, but he has the power to stop it. Aidan is not as perfect as he would have people believe, Kat. I have material to destroy him – photos of him at an orgy, drinking and taking drugs. And his indiscretions aren’t just in the past.
I’ve given him until tonight to do what I ask.
I’m sorry I haven’t told you about what has been going on, sweetheart. I couldn’t because I knew what you would say. You would have told me to stop and walk away. But I can’t.
When our beautiful little girl was born, I saw the world properly for the first time. I’ve always been passionate, Kat, you know that, but I have never felt so strongly that it’s my job to help ensure a better future for our child and for others like her. If I don’t, then why have I dedicated my life to politics?
I’m not pleased with myself. I wish I had better leverage over Aidan. But I know his head has been turned by the oil and gas industry and by men in the party with bad intentions, so I have to fight dirty. It’s the only language they understand. And I have to use the images. Nobody would believe me otherwise. Who doesn’t trust Aidan Blake, the good guy of Irish politics?
I’m playing a high-stakes game, my darling. The men Aidan moves with don’t let anybody stand in their way. I feel in my gut that I may be in danger. I don’t know if Aidan is capable of harming me himself. I don’t know what he’s capable of. I don’t know him at all, any more.
Kat, I love you and Beth more than life. Please understand why I have to do this and forgive me. I hope you never read this and when I hold you tight in bed later, you’ll be none the wiser. But if you do see this letter, something has happened to me and you need to go to the guards and show it to them. Don’t let the Party leadership get away with what they’re doing.
All my love,
Your Ryan.
‘Why?’ Kathryn sobbed, as Tom read the letter for a third time. ‘Why was he so stupid? I don’t forgive him. I’m furious with him. He could have just left it alone. If he thought what he was doing was dangerous enough to leave me a letter like that, if he thought that Beth risked losing her daddy, why didn’t he just stay clear of it all? It was just politics!’
Tom didn’t know what to say to her. He knew that when the woman calmed down and reflected, she, who knew her husband better than anyone, would understand why he acted the way he did. Maybe Ryan did think it was about making the world a better place for his child. Maybe, despite having written the letter, he didn’t fully understand the danger he was in.
‘Don’t you see?’ Kathryn beseeched, her voice rising. ‘Aidan Blake must have had him killed. Or killed him himself. That’s what Ryan says in the letter. That’s why I went to his house. I wanted to see it in his eyes. I’ve known that man for years; let him look me in the face and lie to me. He wouldn’t even open the door. That says something, doesn’t it? He’s guilty.’
‘Kathryn, you need to calm yourself,’ Tom said, his tone firm and reassuring. ‘We’re looking at every possible motive for Ryan’s murder and the fact he planned to blackmail Aidan Blake is already at the forefront of our investigation.’
Kathryn nodded.
‘Good. That’s good. Will you arrest him, then? Now you have this note?’
‘No, I can’t do that on the basis of a letter. Kathryn, you need to understand, there are other people involved who may have had cause to kill Ryan for wanting to blackmail Aidan. We’re looking at all of them. This letter just confirms for us what we already suspected.’
The woman looked like she intended to argue with him, but she couldn’t summon the energy to say anything else. She sank, deflated, back into her chair.
Tom sat there with her, quietly. He’d seen this in family members of murder victims before. They so desperately needed their loved ones’ killers to be found and brought to justice. And it was true, a certain measure of solace could be gleaned from that. But it changed nothing. The hunt for the murderer, the arrest, the trial – they all brought their own distractions, but none of it brought people back from the dead.
‘Kathryn, you can’t go to the Blake house like that again. Aidan’s wife was in the house when you called and was very distressed. He hasn’t been arrested for anything. You need to let me do my job.’
Her eyes flickered to the letter. Tom caught the glance.
‘And don’t do what Ryan planned, Kathryn. Don’t broadcast Aidan Blake’s secrets to the world. You know it’s not the way to achieve anything.’
She lowered her eyes.
‘I know,’ she said, her voice a whimper. ‘I think that’s what makes me so mad. How could Ryan stoop so low?’
Tom sighed.
‘I’m sure he didn’t want to expose Blake at all. He was just using
whatever method he could to persuade him to do the right thing.’
But in his head, he cursed Ryan Finnegan for his stupidity.
Chapter 24
Thursday Night, Denmark
Calle Lund was a man who got things done.
He wasn’t unlike the Irish man, Darragh McNally, in that regard. Or at least, that’s what Carl Madsen had thought. It transpired that ultimately, McNally really wasn’t that effective.
Madsen wasn’t a novice. He hadn’t relied solely on the party chair; he had made other contacts with the Irish government early on. Being the middle child had taught him some valuable lessons. The lessons he had learned in playing his siblings off against one another meant he generally got his way.
Except, in this instance, the people he’d chosen had all failed him.
Lund studied the notes in front of him, leaning over them like an examining doctor would a patient. His hair was thinning and one of the arms of his glasses was stuck on with Sellotape. He wore woollen-type brown trousers and a grandfatherly waistcoat, though he was only in his forties. Lund was generally an inoffensive looking man, yet Madsen knew his stratospheric IQ made him a formidable ally.
And he was Madsen’s man.
‘I don’t see how they can link these payments to you,’ Lund whispered huskily, looking up from the page briefly, then back down. He wasn’t good at eye contact. Even with people he knew well, like Madsen. Lund preferred to work on computers or through letters, not face to face. He’d suffered from recurrent bronchitis as a child and his vocal cords had never recovered. ‘What about the other man you have over there – have people seen you with him?’
Madsen considered carefully. They were meeting in his home office in his penthouse apartment in Ørestad. The Udforske vice-president didn’t want people to see Lund anywhere near company headquarters in Copenhagen.
The building they were in overlooked the canal in the centre of the modern development. It was a stunning city vista, one he could appreciate after the solitude of Donegal. Yet the Irish county seemed to have got under his skin. He longed for it.
‘Only at public events,’ he answered the other man’s question. ‘And I know I was careful with these payments. But I want to see McNally implicated in wrongdoing of some sort. The imbecile took our money and failed to deliver. It’s imploding over there.’
‘If they learn he was receiving bribes, he will tell them from where. You won’t be able to stay out of it. Udforske’s reputation will be tarnished and that’s what you want to avoid.’
Madsen sighed. It was so unlike him to make a mistake like this. Both the Irish men had seemed so . . . solid. He should have done better research. If he’d brought Calle Lund in from the start, this wouldn’t have happened. He wouldn’t have got embroiled with two such . . . disappointments.
‘There is only one thing you can do,’ Lund croaked.
Madsen sat up, eager to hear what the other man had. Were it not sufficient, he would have to resort to other means, to deal with McNally at least. It wasn’t a path Madsen wanted to take, but he’d already set the train in motion.
‘There is no paper trail connecting you to McNally. The police in Dublin will discover these payments and he will claim they are from you. You will deny it.’
Madsen shook his head, half amused, half annoyed.
‘Where will that get me? They mightn’t be able to prove it, but my name will have been dragged in and the company involved. Worse, Holm will get involved.’
Bernd Holm, the president of Udforske. Nowadays, he was more or less retired, happy to leave the running of the business in Madsen’s hands. But the old man valued his legacy and if he suspected his company was under threat because of Madsen’s screw-up, he’d come riding into the boardroom like John Wayne, all guns blazing. The only thing Holm was loyal to was money.
‘Your name is going to be dragged into this sorry affair no matter what you do, unless you want to discuss other options . . . more final options. You haven’t gone down that road yet, have you?’
Madsen said nothing. Lund looked up from the page momentarily and just as quickly looked down. There were some things he didn’t get involved in. He liked the slow, steady, sure approach to solving a problem. He’d never been comfortable with his boss’s volatile temperament.
‘In any case, I haven’t finished,’ he resumed. ‘Udforske is not the only company that will benefit from the law due to be processed through the Irish parliament. Name a company. One of your rivals.’
Madsen rubbed his jaw, staring at Lund, whose head was still bowed.
‘Karlstad oil,’ he said, throwing out the name of one of the Swedish energy giants.
‘What if there was a paper trail linking Karlstad to McNally’s payments?’ Lund said.
‘But he would just deny it, as would they. They would bring in their lawyers . . . Ah.’
Madsen had got it.
McNally’s word would mean nothing. And it didn’t matter what the guards thought. Ireland’s record on challenging corporate misdoings was diabolical. They still hadn’t investigated properly the State’s massive banking scandal from four years ago. Nobody in the State’s law enforcement agencies would have the gumption to take on Udforske for bribery, even if they knew for certain it had happened. What mattered was public opinion and maintaining the relationships with the Irish establishment that the company had nurtured.
And they didn’t have to prove Karlstad were guilty. Karlstad had to prove they were innocent – a task which would be made much more difficult once Lund’s specialist had finished with his false trail. And while everybody was discussing the Karlstad scandal . . .
‘You can call in the favours owed to you in Ireland,’ Lund said, completing Madsen’s thought. ‘You’ve done enough in your philanthrophic role. It’s time you drew on your currency. This will be a blip for Udforske. Nothing more.’
His boss nodded appreciatively. He would have to make a phone call. It seemed the other course of action he’d been considering wouldn’t be required after all. Hopefully, he wasn’t too late to stall it.
Good old Lund. Saving the day, as always.
Friday, Dublin
‘What is it?’
Tom looked up from his desk as Ray entered the office. He’d made the cardinal error of buying a newspaper on the way into work and was halfway through a devastatingly accurate article bemoaning the lack of progress by the guards in the Finnegan case.
Half of him was protesting that it had only been a week but the more analytical side knew they should have made a breakthrough by this stage if they were to have a hope of catching the killer. The colder the case got, the less likely it was they’d solve it. They hadn’t a shred of evidence against anybody they suspected – Blake, McNally, Madsen or Reid.
‘Darragh McNally’s bank account details. He received payments from an offshore bank account four times in the last year. Large sums. They started last September. I’ve a limited attention span when it comes to politics, but I’m pretty sure that’s when the last government imploded and the Reform Party soared in the polls.’
‘It was,’ Tom said. ‘The Troika was coming to town. It was obvious the Reform Party was headed for government. So, someone started buying McNally’s influence early. No guesses as to who.’
‘The offshore account belongs to a small bank in St Lucia.’
‘Can we link Carl Madsen to the payments?’
‘No. We’ll have to interview McNally and ask him.’
‘Let’s get him in. We should have done this yesterday; it went out of my head with everything else going on. He has a history of altercations with Ryan. He may have had debts and we know he was in receipt of money from somebody for something. If those funds were from Madsen to ensure the passage of this damned Bill, then McNally needed to make it happen. Send a squad car to pick him up.’
‘I already put the call through. They should be pulling up at his door any minute now. Aren’t we supposed to be interviewing those
remaining cabinet ministers later?’
‘Postpone them. I want to see McNally first.’
*
Tom had just finished reading the paper when his door burst open.
Ray’s face was thunderous.
If McNally had made a run for it . . .
Tom could feel his pulse quicken as he pushed the chair out from the desk.
‘Have they got him?’ he asked.
‘They’ve got him all right. We’re not going to be asking him any questions, though.’
‘Solicitor?’ Tom asked, but he already knew it was something far more serious.
‘Dead,’ his deputy replied. ‘They got no answer and his garage door was ajar so they opened it to see if his car was there. He was hanging from one of the beams.’
*
‘Death by hanging,’ Emmet sighed, shaking his head sadly. He’d opened the forensic seal on the garage and they were in the process of lowering the body.
‘Did somebody do it to him?’ Tom asked. ‘Or was it suicide?’ He’d taken a long look at the corpse and turned away, the sight too upsetting to stare at for any length of time.
Tom felt a pang of guilt at the thought that McNally had killed himself. He had seen that the man was on the edge. Was there something he could have said or done? But no – the inspector knew that if McNally was intent on suicide, there was little anybody could have done to stop him, short of attempting to have him sectioned.
‘You heard the pathologist: he seems fairly positive it was self-inflicted,’ Emmet replied. ‘He’s dead at least thirty-six hours, which would make the estimated time of death sometime during the early hours of Thursday morning. Our friend has all the signs of asphyxia and venous congestion. The rope is sufficiently thick and long and matches the ligature marks on his body. I made a preliminary examination and didn’t detect any other injuries. The pathologist has verified that. You can smell alcohol on his clothes, by the way. Unless somebody talked him into hanging himself . . .’