‘As I was saying, Gordy, I did my own investigation at the time; it didn’t pull up anything. But let me have another dig around for you today. Who d’ye think’s more likely to get you answers in what could be your final few hours: Alan Keating or little Lenny Moon? He’s not even an investigator, he’s a fucking insurance pussy. He rats out people who are making scam insurance claims. He has no chance of finding answers for you about Betsy.’
I nod my head, melt my face into a soft look. I felt, for years, that this cunt was responsible for Betsy’s disappearance, yet I’ve never been able to join up all the dots.
‘I know you’ve always suspected me and Barry, but – trust me, Gordy – we had nothin’ to do with Betsy goin’ missin’. And I know you know that deep down. You’ve always known it.’
I shift in my bed a little. It’s funny that he thinks I’d trust him to find answers for me. I wouldn’t trust him with a bucket of water if my balls were on fire. I suck in a breath through my nostrils, but remain silent. I just tilt my head to look at him, wait for him to talk.
‘I’ll get on to the cops; I have a few of them in my pocket. I’ll get all of the information they have on the investigation into Betsy’s disappearance and I’ll act on it for you, how about that?’
I shift again in the bed. I really don’t want to give this prick the satisfaction of my forgiveness. But what else can I do? I may be dead in a few hours time. The more people out there looking for my Betsy, the better, even if I do get a huge sense that he’s bullshitting. I know Keating definitely has some cops on his payroll, but not high-ranking detectives; not cops who’ll give him classified information about a seventeen-year-old case.
‘But sure the cops think she’s dead,’ I say, finally speaking up.
‘You know as well as I do that that was just a theory because they couldn’t close off the investigation, right?’
He looks up at me with puppy dog eyes, as if him going all coy will bridge my forgiveness. He can do that, can Alan Keating; transform from looking like Ireland’s most notorious gangster into looking like a cute old granddad. He has the most persuasive forms of seduction; the fucker can get anybody on his side. It’s why I was intrigued by his business proposition twenty years ago. But I don’t trust the fucker. I wonder what he’s after. Alan Keating doesn’t do anything unless there’s something in it for himself.
‘Why would you do this for me… after all the years I’ve insisted you had something to do with Betsy’s disappearance?’ I ask him.
‘I’ve always felt sorry for you, Gordy. For you and Michelle. I helped at the time, had my men look for Betsy. And I would’ve offered to help a lot more over the years only you went really cold on me. You made some outrageous claims to the cops about our dealings; almost got me into a lot of trouble.’
I shift again in the bed. I can’t get comfortable, not with this gurning prick in my room. But he’s right. I did rat him out; revealed all about his money funnels to Ray De Brun. I’m still not quite sure why it didn’t go much further. Keating covers his tracks too well, I guess. The small businesses he had set up under different names to filter his money through saved his bacon. That and the fact that I refused to become a witness for the state. I didn’t care about Keating’s money laundering then; the only thing that consumed my mind was finding Betsy.
‘Yeah… well I’m sorry about that, Keating, but y’know, I still don’t know who took Betsy and you were the only person at the time who had a problem with me… So I went on auto pilot, told the cops everything. I’d have done anything to find my daughter… still would.’
He places his hand on mine, much like Elaine did about half an hour ago.
‘I understand why you told the cops everything and I understand why you initially suspected me and Barry. But c’mon… still suspecting us today and having your little PI hang around our homes is crazy, Gordy. You need to believe me; I had nothing to do with Betsy going missing. I’m not that kinda gangster. You know that.’
He sits back down, his puppy dog eyes still on show. I don’t get why he’s being so nice to me. The fucker has always had intrigue pouring out of him.
‘Listen, our slate is clean. Let me help you investigate. What’ve you got to lose?’
I stare up at the stained ceiling of the ward, my mind racing in a million different directions.
‘You don’t do anything for nothing,’ I say.
His silence makes me turn to face him again. Then he shakes his head, removing the puppy-dog eyes; transforming from the cute old granddad back into the grinning gangster.
‘Just put the same offer you made to Lenny Moon on the table for me.’
I laugh. Should’ve known.
‘Ah, so you got out of Lenny just what I was offering him. You want my house.’
‘It’s a grand oul house,’ Keating says. He sucks his teeth as he says it too.
Then he takes a step towards me again. He doesn’t place his hand on top of mine this time. Instead he reaches for the pen on the bedside cabinet and then holds it towards me.
‘Rewrite your will, make me the benefactor of that house.’
Fourteen years ago
Betsy
‘It’s nice that, isn’t it?’
I don’t answer by talking. My mouth is too full. So I just rub my belly and smile at Dod. He smiles back at me.
‘I’ve more up in the kitchen. Think I’ll have one myself later.’
Dod’s sitting on the edge of my bed while I sit on my new chair. I love it. It’s all squishy and comfortable to sit in. I do a lot of my reading in this now, not in my bed like I used to. Though my bed is more comfortable than it’s ever been. Dod bought me loads of new things – a chair, a bed, shelves for all my books, lots of new books including loads of my favourites that he ripped up during that really angry night, magazines, colouring books, wallpaper. I forgot what wallpaper even was. When Dod put it up in my room I remembered I had some back in my Mummy and Daddy’s house. I had pink wallpaper then with my name Betsy written across it in white.
I tried not to feel bad when I thought about my old bedroom back at Mummy and Daddy’s house because Dod was being so nice to me and trying to make my bedroom all nice and fresh. The wallpaper he put up in here is yellow. Bright yellow. Yellow isn’t my favourite colour, but I still like it. Even though Dod has put loads of new things in my room, the room looks bigger. I have sixty-one books now. Amazing. My new favourite books are called Chronicles of Narnia. It’s seven different books all in a little box that Dod bought me.
He has been really nice ever since the angry night. I think that when I said I wanted to go to heaven that Dod felt really sad. That’s why he made my room more bright and beautiful and why he bought me loads of things. He buys me new things every day now. Today I got an ice cream. I’d never heard of an ice cream before, but it is delicious. It said on the wrapper that it was called Orange Split. I lick at the little stick, taking all of the cream off and then breathe. I think I ate all the ice cream without breathing.
‘Jaysus, ye milled all that.’
‘Milled?’
‘Yeah… like you ate it really fast, really quickly.’
‘Oh.’
I grab at my notebook and pen and write down the word ‘milled’ and then beside it write ‘to eat something really fast’.
I do this all the time if I am reading and don’t know a word. I’ll try to work it out for myself and if I can’t I’ll ask Dod when he pays me a visit. I love learning new words.
‘Can you get me another notebook, Dod, please?’
‘Ye running out of room on that one already?’
I flick through my notebook.
‘Not yet… but I want this one to be for new words but in a new notebook I would like to write my own story.’
‘A story? What’s your story going to be about?’
I look up at my ceiling. Even though the stone walls are now covered with wallpaper and my stone floor is mostly covered with an orange rug
, the ceiling is still stone. It’s still cold.
‘I might write it about you.’
‘Bout me?’
‘Yes. I think I might call it Dod’s Adventures.’ He smiles a little bit at me. ‘It would be about what you do when you are not in my room. What you do when you are up there.’
I just point up the steps, I don’t look up them. Dod hasn’t been angry Dod in ages – not since the really angry night – but I still don’t want to make him turn into angry Dod, so I don’t look up the steps.
Dod laughs a little bit.
‘And what do you think I get up to up there?’
I stare up at the cold ceiling again. I don’t want to mention my Mummy and Daddy because I know that is how good Dod can turn into angry Dod.
‘Eh… I remember from before I came here that there was a thing called television. I used to watch a show called Thomas the Tank Engine. It was about trains. I think you probably watch television when you are not here with me.’
I close my eyes a bit because I’m not sure if talking about what happened before I came here will turn him into angry Dod. He moves off the bed and comes near me. He gets down on his knees right beside me.
‘And what do you think I watch on the television?’
I can smell his breath. It’s the same all the time. It smells warm. Every time I smell it, it reminds me of the day he stole me away from Daddy.
I open my eyes and look at him. He is smiling. That is good.
‘Do you watch Thomas the Tank Engine?’
He laughs. Then he shakes his head.
‘I eh… don’t know. How many things are on television?’
‘Too many things.’
I laugh this time.
‘I don’t know, Betsy… I watch the news.’
‘The news?’
‘Yeah – it’s a television programme where somebody reads out what happened around the world every day.’
‘Wow.’
That sounds really good. Really, really good. I would love to watch the news. But I don’t say anything else to Dod. I can’t ask if I can go up there anymore. He’s afraid I will scream again even though I never would. My back hurt for so many weeks after that last time. I still don’t think my back is as good as it used to be. I read in a book once that somebody broke their bones. I think I might have broke a bone in my back. But Dod doesn’t let me see doctors or let doctors see me. Dod doesn’t let me see anyone. See anything.
‘You were on the news lots of times.’
I look at Dod.
‘Me?’
‘Yeah – lots of times. For lots of years.’
Dod stands up, puts his hand on my head and messes my hair like he does sometimes. Then he walks back up the steps.
‘I’m gonna go get me one of those Orange Splits.’
I turn around and watch as he goes up the steps and closes the door. Then I get out of my chair and crawl under my bed sheets to find my best friend.
‘Did you hear that, Bozy. We were on the television lots of times.’
12:40
Lenny
Lenny asked the taxi man to turn the radio off as soon as he got in the back seat. He needed all the headspace he has to think through his morning and is a typical man when it comes to multitasking; if Lenny needs to think, he needs to do so in silence. Right now, the only thing playing in his head is the vision of the will Gordon showed him when he was back at the hospital twenty minutes ago.
He stares at his phone.
‘I’m buyin’ a fuckin good phone from that grand,’ he mumbles, before eyeballing the rear-view mirror to see if the taxi man heard him.
‘Sorry?’ the taxi man says.
‘Ah nothing. Just this piece of shit phone. I need one of those with some internet on it. All it’s good for is making and taking calls.’
Lenny blinks rapidly, then his eyes widen. He clicks into his call history, sees the name ‘home’ and taps at it.
‘Hello.’
‘Sweetie, I need you to do me another favour,’ he says.
‘Go on.’ There was no sigh this time. Sally must be having a really good day.
‘Can you eh… can you check on Google what the requirement is for a will in Ireland?’
‘A will?’
‘Yeah – as in a will somebody leaves behind when they die.’
The line goes silent for a few seconds.
‘You planning on dying on me, Lenny?’
There’s a small hint of humour in Sally’s response; on any other day hearing his wife crack a tiny joke would overjoy Lenny, but he’s too distracted today.
‘Course not. Just a client of mine was asking and my phone is a piece of shit. I can’t get the information I need.’
‘Okay… lemme see,’ Sally says. Lenny can hear her tap away at the keyboard of their home computer. He eyeballs the rear-view mirror again, wonders what the poor taxi man must be thinking.
‘Jaysus, I’m just getting pictures of men called Will,’ Sally says.
Lenny fake laughs awkwardly, then rolls his eyes.
‘Ye know what, Sally, I have to get myself a good smart phone, I get caught out too many times when I need to find certain information.’
Lenny winces a little as he says this, his shoulders slumping in anticipation of his wife’s moan. But she doesn’t say anything at all, almost as if she didn’t hear what he’d just said.
‘Ah… hold on a second,’ she says. ‘Got it… ye ready?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘For your will to be valid in Ireland it needs to be handwritten and signed by you yourself, plus two witnesses.’
‘Okay… and?’
‘And that’s it… that’s all it says.’
‘Really?’
‘Well… it says that the witnesses must witness you signing it and that’s it.’
Lenny blows out his lips, allows himself a little smile. Gordon was right. The will he has written up in hospital would be valid.
He slows his breathing, doesn’t want to get over-excited, certainly not on the phone; he doesn’t want to disclose anything to Sally. Not yet anyway. If she got carried away by the hope of getting that house, she would crash hard if it didn’t come to fruition. And if she crashes hard, the unthinkable could happen. Lenny’s tried to rid their home of items Sally could use to kill herself, but it’s impossible for a home not to have knifes, not to have belts.
‘Okay, sweetie, thank you so much.’
‘That it?’
‘Yep, that’ll do for now. I’m so sorry I’ve had to bother you a couple of times today to do things for me.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Sally says. ‘I like hearing your voice. But Lenny…’
‘Yeah?’
‘Y’are in your shite getting one of those expensive smart phones. We just don’t have the money.’
Lenny rolls his eyes again, then blinks them rapidly.
‘Okay, sweetie,’ he says. ‘I love you. Speak soon.’
Lenny brings his cheap phone to his mouth after he has hung up, begins to gnaw on the edge of the rubber case again.
‘Fuckin hell,’ he mumbles. ‘A bleedin’ massive gaff for a few hours work.’
He tries to stem his excitement by wondering if he’s being played. Maybe this is all just one huge hoax. But he knows it’s not. It can’t be.
‘Y’know… that’s right. I only did my will there at the beginning of this year,’ says the taxi man. ‘I turned sixty-six in February – felt it was about time I finally put it all down on paper. I just went into a solicitor, wrote it all down and had him and his assistant sign it.’
‘It’s that easy?’
‘Yep… was surprised how easy it was meself. It doesn’t even have to be signed by a solicitor… anyone can do it.’
Lenny’s nose stiffens; his attempt at holding back the smile that’s threatening to spread across his face. Then he throws his head back to rest on the top of the seat and allows himself the daydream of living in a much bigger home. H
e wonders if a bigger place would take Sally out of her depression; perhaps being cooped up in their tiny terraced house in Springfield plays its part in dampening her mood. Or maybe he could sell the house, pocket the million so he doesn’t have to work. He lets the smile spread across his face and it remains that way until the satnav calls out to him; informing him he has arrived at his destination.
He sits upright, takes in the house they have pulled up outside. A bright yellow door, hanging baskets of flowers either side of it, the latest BMW 3 Series in the driveway. Michelle must’ve married well the second time round.
‘Nine euro, mate,’ the taxi man says.
Lenny continues to stare at the big house as he hands a ten euro note over the shoulder of the driver. As usual, he waits for the change before getting out of the car and strolling up the driveway.
He hasn’t yet decided how he’s going to approach this. The will occupied way too much of his thinking on the way over here. But the will is redundant should Lenny not get any original information out of Jake Dewey. He already assumes Jake has had nothing to do with Betsy’s disappearance, much like he felt that Keating and Barry didn’t have anything to do with it either. But maybe if he can get confirmation of that, it might be enough for Gordon to trigger their agreement.
As the taxi man pulls away, Lenny bides himself some thinking time by checking out the BMW. Maybe he could afford a car like this if he sells the million euro gaff. He nods, impressed by the cream leather interior. Just as he places both of his palms either side of his face to get closer to the driver’s window, a voice calls out.
‘Excuse me,’ she says.
Lenny, startled, places both of his hands towards the woman in apology. He instantly recognises her. Whereas Gordon looked different to the man who appeared at press conferences and in newspapers following Betsy’s disappearance, Michelle has barely changed. There are a few more lines round her eyes, but there’s no mistaking who she is.
The Tick-Tock Trilogy Box Set Page 34