by Joe McNally
‘It’s not silly. Perfectly understandable. I’ll ask the question when the time comes.’
‘You know what makes me happy over all this?’
I waited. Happy was a strange word to use.
‘That you’ve come through it without any damage, Eddie. I’ve been worrying about you since it all kicked off.’
‘I’m fine. I took no risks. And I had plenty help from a good friend of mine.’
He smiled softly. ‘You’re some man for passing the credit to somebody else.’
‘I haven’t done that much, honestly.’
He shook his head, still smiling. ‘You’ll be glad to be finished with it.’
‘I’ll hang in until I actually see a conviction.’
‘That shouldn’t take long, from what you tell me.’
I resisted saying what I felt, and I stood up. ‘No. You’re right. It shouldn’t.’
‘When it’s done, I’ll take you out for a bit of a knees up.’
‘I’ll look forward to it. Bring your fiddle.’
He rose and put a hand on my shoulder. ‘Oh, I’ve packed that in. I’m learning the bagpipes now.’
‘Hmm.’
‘I’m kidding.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘Safe home, Eddie.’
61
That night, we drank, Mave and I. Whiskey.
Her work was done.
She’d underestimated the Garda. The server for Shanahan’s PC was taken down within half an hour of her starting work on it. ‘There’s nothing more I can do, Eddie. Time to go home.’
‘I’ll miss you.’
‘Aww!’ she mocked.
‘I mean it. I’m not coming on to you, or anything. I’d miss you if you were a man too.’
‘I almost was, I think.’
‘Why are you so hung up about your looks?’
‘Because I’m a woman. Please don’t give me any skin deep or in the eye of the beholder stuff, will you?’
‘I won’t. I know almost nothing about you except that you’re a lot like me only ten times smarter. And I enjoy your company more than anyone else I’ve ever met.’
‘Well…me too.’
‘Come and see this. Bring your drink. Put a coat on.’
She decided against the coat, but followed me out to the garden and into the summer house. Sitting opposite her on the wraparound bench, I told her about it, how it was supposed to be my place of contemplation, of relaxation.
She shook her head slowly, glass at her lips. ‘You’ve told me all this before. You’re drunk.’
‘But you’ve never been in here! It’s different hearing about it when you’re sitting here.’
‘Freezing my arse off.’
‘Well, I just wanted you to know what my dreams were. Daft as they seem now.’
The light from the house window lit one side of her, halving her thin face. ‘We all kid ourselves, Eddie. The right brain makes excuses for what the left brain decides to do. Or is it the other way round?’ She held up her glass and stared at the whiskey, one ice cube glinting in the light. ‘I’m drunk too, I think.’
‘What about you, Mave? What do you want to do?’
She shrugged. ‘Finish my project. Keep my head inside the box.’
‘I thought you geniuses, or is it genii? Anyway, don’t you think outside the box?’
‘I think outside it, but live inside it. Otherwise I see things I don’t want to see.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘Life.’
She wouldn’t look at me.
‘What happened?’
Now she looked at me. ‘I happened.’
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m the daughter of the son of a preacher man.’
‘Songs again.’
She nodded, and drank. ‘Big part of my life, songs. How I got my name.’
‘You’re not going to make me guess through about fifty years of chart hits, are you?’
‘Jolene.’
‘As in, what do you call her, the one with the big knockers…?’
‘Dolly Parton.’
‘That’s her,’ I said.
‘You know the song, what it’s about?’
‘A wife begging some hussy not to take her man.’
‘Some beautiful hussy. Her stunningness described in every detail. My dad was a big country fan. Completely ignoring the fact that when I was born I looked like a slightly overweight prune stone, he decided to call me Jolene.’
‘It’s a nice name.’
‘Not for a girl with a face like mine. You heard of Janis Ian, the singer songwriter?’
‘Mmm, vaguely. I couldn’t tell you any of her songs.’
‘Check the lyrics in a song she wrote called At Seventeen. I was the girl in that song. Dad just got us mixed up.’
‘I’m sure you were always Jolene to him.’
‘I always was. Love is blind, right enough.’
‘When did he die?’
‘When I was fifteen. Electrocuted on stage when helping some shit country band set up their gear in some fucking Yorkshire backwater club. Fuckwits.’
‘How old was he?’
‘Thirty-nine. Just six years older than I am now, which I cannot get my head around.’
‘I’m the same age as you! When’s your birthday?’
She drank. ‘Yesterday.’
I put my drink down and stood. ‘Yesterday? Tell me you’re kidding!’
‘I’m kidding.’
‘Are you?’
‘No.’
‘It was your birthday yesterday, and you didn’t tell me!’
She glanced up at me. ‘What was I supposed to say, good morning, Eddie, it’s my birthday?’
‘You could have, well, hinted or something.’
She was smiling at my aggravation. ‘Oh, like. Guess what day it is today? Or, you’ll never believe who was born on this day thirty three years ago. All this apart, of course, from the fact that you were in Dublin.’
‘Aw shit! I feel awful now! You stuck here alone on your birthday.’
‘Well, I’d have been stuck alone on my birthday in my own shack in Wales. It makes no difference. Sit down and stop fussing like an old hen.’
I smiled and sat. ‘Next year, I’ll take you out.’
‘What, with a Kalashnikov or something while I’m not looking?’
‘Very funny, Maven.’
She watched me finish my drink. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘What for?’
‘For calling me Maven. I thought you’d take the piss and start calling me Jolene all the time.’
‘I will. Once I get used to it.’
‘You dare!’
‘I’m kidding. And I’m cold. Let’s go in and fill these up.’ My phone beeped. I checked my watch: 11.30. It was a text from Ishrat to say she had information if I wanted it now. I told Mave who it was and I called her, listening as I looked out on that yellow rectangle of light on the dark lawn: ‘Magultry was seventy three years old, a retired priest who was left a farm and almost four million Euro by a parishioner. He abandoned the priesthood at sixty three after accusations of child abuse dating back to the sixties. Lawyers for the Church managed to get a conviction against him quashed and he was quietly pensioned off to Roscommon. He returned to Dublin five years later when he got this inheritance. There were public campaigns against him, seeking retrials, but the campaigns fizzled out.
‘He settled to a reasonably quiet life. The only time he was seen out was when one of his two horses were running. We found no direct personal links between him and Miles Shanahan, but he owned shares in Nequitec to the value of quarter of a million Euro.’
‘When were the shares bought?’
‘July first, twenty-seven days before he died.’
‘Anything else?’
‘That’s all for now. Want them to keep digging?’
‘Please. Those public campaigns against him, can you find out who was driving them?’<
br />
‘I’m sure we can.’
‘Good. Thanks, Ishrat.’
‘My pleasure. Sorry to trouble you so late.’
‘No trouble.’
‘I hope to have more information for you tomorrow, at a more sociable time.’
‘Don’t worry about that. Call me anytime. If I’m not around, leave a voicemail.’
‘I will. Goodnight, Mister Malloy.’
‘Call me Eddie. You make me feel old.’
‘Goodnight.’
I turned to Mave. ‘You hear that?’
‘I did.’
‘Still heading home tomorrow?’
‘Can I sleep on it?’
‘Please do. I’ve got a very strong feeling the fat lady is still waiting in the wings.’
62
Unusually, Mave was still in her room when I left to ride out for Ben Tylutki. When I returned, she was sitting in the Snug, fully dressed, jacket too, watching the birds peck at the feeders I’d hung in the trees.
Her laptop wasn’t on the desk. Her bag was packed and strapped. She turned as I crossed the room and sat beside her. ‘Homeward bound?’
She smiled. ‘Who’s talking in song titles now?’
‘Why don’t you stay, just a little bit longer?’
She laughed, her eyes sparkling. ‘You’ll run out of songs before I run out of resolution.’
‘I know, I’m struggling already.’
‘It’s been good, Eddie, but I’m beginning to feel a bit useless now, and I don’t like that. The geeky stuff’s done, or at least, if it’s not, I can do as much at home as I can here.’
‘I don’t think Shanahan is the man, Mave. The big geek is still out there.’
‘I suspect you’re right. But the cops have closed down my only route to finding him. It’s down to you now. You should chuck it, too, but you won’t.’
‘Too close.’
‘It’s nothing to do with being close, Eddie. It’s your utter refusal to pull up once the race has started. You cannot stand to see something unfinished.’
‘I try. I’ve been kind of coaching myself as I get older to think more before getting involved.’
‘Good. That’s the key. If you don’t commit to starting, you don’t need to finish.’
‘Prevention being better than cure?’
‘Exactly.’
I watched her, She held my gaze, but pursed her lips. I said, ‘I’m not taking any more bookings after tomorrow. I’m going to Dublin after racing on Saturday. Why don’t you come with me?’
‘I’m nocturnal, remember? I don’t care for the light, especially limelight.’
‘You should be there with me, Mave. This project team the bookies have got working are going to cut through what’s left of this case in days, I’m sure of it. Nobody’s done more to get us this far than you. I want you to be there when we finally nail this guy.’
She turned in her seat to face me straight on. ‘This is the guy we talked about a couple of days back who could be twenty-seven, with an armoury in the attic?’
‘Or seventy. With just a big PC and a big IQ.’
‘Eddie, even if I wanted to, it would be stupid. We can’t be seen in public together if you’re serious about helping me with my project. I don’t want the authorities to even know I’m alive, especially the racing people or the bookies. I can’t afford to. I feel like my life’s invested in this, and I’m doing an Eddie Malloy…I ain’t giving up.’
I nodded, and watched her face until it was calm and she was looking at me. ‘I’ll miss you,’ I said.
She stood up. ‘No you won’t. You’re a solitary soul, like me. We’re happiest with our dreams, and nobody around to dent them.’
‘Hey, wait a minute!’ I stood and faced her. ‘I’ll have you know that I saw every one of your dreams since you’ve been here. They floated under your door and into my room and I lay there and watched them and didn’t put a single dent in any of them. Never even touched them.’
She laughed again and pushed me back down onto the couch. ‘Take me to the station, will you?’
‘Why don’t you wait until tonight and I’ll drive you home? I’d feel awful just dumping you at the station.’
‘Don’t be daft. I like riding on the train. Always did, since I was a kid. Come on,’ she picked up her bag.
‘Give me that.’
She handed it over.
I bought her a first class ticket. I’d bill it to the bookies. ‘Ping me tonight,’ I said as the train approached.
‘I will.’
‘Take care of yourself.’
‘I’ve been taking care of myself for years, Eddie.’
‘I know you have. But you look like a stiff breeze would down you.’
‘I bend in the wind. Stiff knees might down me, if I live long enough.’
‘You’ll be a zillionaire by then. You can change knees once a month.’
‘And you’ll be a millionaire once the system gets rolling full time.’
‘I wouldn’t have a clue what to do with it.’
The train pulled in. I kissed her. She kissed me. We waved to each other…that final gesture we make as though some invisible physical link remains stretched between two palms, broken only by the loss of eye contact.
I walked slowly to the car, trying to figure out if a heavy heart was meant as a counterweight to the sudden void in my gut. Every parting is a tiny death.
63
Forty eight hours from February, I thought, as I pulled out of the Plumpton car park. Dusk was stretching noticeably now on these late afternoon drives home. I’d returned voicemails before setting off, rejecting, as nicely as I could, three offers of rides early next week. One message was from Mac. When I called, he asked me to meet him on the way home in a pub near Lambourn.
Mac was waiting. He sat by the fire, hat on the table, half pint of Guinness to hand, one of the few in there not looking at his phone screen. I walked through the low buzz of conversation and sat across from Mac. ‘Bet you didn’t expect it to be this busy,’ I said.
‘It’s usually one man and a dog,’ he said, looking around.
‘Usually? When were you last in here?’
‘About three years ago.’
‘Say no more.’
Five minutes later, we were in Mac’s BMW in the corner of the dark car park. ‘What’s happening?’ I asked.
‘Shanahan denies ever meeting Enda Magultry or ever setting eyes on the horse Magultry left him. And he says those patents aren’t his.’
‘The patents for the implants?’
‘He says he stole the ideas for them from some kid who came to see him a couple of years ago.’
‘Nice man. What was the kid’s name?’
‘He can’t remember.’
I laughed. ‘When did he come up with this tale?’
‘Just after noon today. He said he’d been ashamed of doing it, that’s why he hadn’t mentioned it earlier.’
‘How did the police react?’
‘The same way as you did. They plan to make formal charges of murder against him in the next twenty four hours. His PC had all the evidence they need, even without the patents. What they don’t have is knowledge of where the horse is, or where the money is. There’s an offshore bank account in his name, but Shanahan says he can’t authorize access to it for the police because he didn’t open it.’
‘How long will it take them to get into it via the diplomatic route?’
‘Years?’
I turned toward him, but could see little detail in his face in the darkness. But I knew from his voice he was worried. I said, ‘You sound like you wish there was something to these protests of Shanahan’s?’
‘I could just do with a bit longer before everything’s made public. I want that horse found.’
‘Of course…once they announce charges, you’ll have to reveal the scam.’
‘But at least we’ll have been seen to do our jobs. Much different from the news getting out before
anyone had been caught.’
‘The “we” being the BHA?’
‘Oh, Eddie…I’ve got enough on my plate without a debate about who did what. Give me a break!’
‘Did I say anything?’
‘You were going to.’
I smiled. ‘Maybe I can buy you some time here, Mac. Can you get me a description of this kid who’s supposed to have had the ideas for the implants?’
‘Why?’
‘Do you want help or not?’
‘I need something to justify the request to Sara.’
‘If you think that one will take some justifying, try this. Ask her to ask the Garda to exhume the corpse of Enda Magultry and check it for implants. Tell her I think Miles Shanahan might be telling the truth.’
64
The house was strangely silent without Mave. She’d never made much noise, but I’d always known she was around. I sat on the couch where we’d talked this morning, trying to figure out why the gap her absence left felt like a brick was missing from the wall, and a cold wind was blowing through the hole.
She had fitted here.
I’d thought the house was perfect. All had seemed whole until Mave arrived. Something was missing now she’d gone.
I looked at the desk…the empty chair, still trying to work out how I felt. I wasn’t pining the way lovers do. This was a new feeling for me. I lay back, cradling my head in linked hands, thinking.
Mave fitted.
Nothing in my life had ever fitted. Nothing.
She had slotted into it, into a space I hadn’t known was there, and…fitted. So precise a fit that not an atom of space was left.
I went to my PC and pinged her. She answered in a mock robotic voice, ‘Normal service has been resumed.’
‘So I see. Including a webcam which points anywhere but your face,’
‘You’ve seen enough of that to last a lifetime.’
‘This house misses you. I miss you.’
‘Peas in a pod, Eddie, you and me.’
‘Long distance pod, now though.’
‘None the worse, for it, believe me.’