I stare over his shoulder at Elaine. She meets my eyes for the first time since she returned to the ward. I open my mouth to call out to her, but nothing comes out… I remain silent, my lips slightly ajar.
‘Gordon, your heart rate is fluctuating too much. I warned you time and—’ she says taking a step forward.
‘So you’re just gonna let me die?’
Elaine places a hand on Douglas’s shoulder and stares at me, her pity eyes wide.
‘I’m going to measure your rate at two p.m. again, Gordon. But… I mean, I don’t know what to say… if it’s not at a respectable level, it wouldn’t be wise for us to continue with the procedures. And this,’ she says, removing the phone from my lap, ‘isn’t going to help you maintain a consistent heart level, now is it?’
I swallow hard, then throw my head back onto the steel bedpost making a clang reverberate through the ward.
‘What is a respectable heart rate level?’ I ask in a sulky tone.
‘Well, in truth, Gordon, you haven’t been at a respectable level all morning, which is understandable given the circumstances,’ Douglas says. ‘Ideally your blood rate should be well below 100, but given the complications your heart is currently going through I would expect it to be about ten or twenty points higher – 120s maybe. Hitting the 150s is just not acceptable for me to carry out surgery on you.’
I turn my head to face him.
‘So what you’re telling me is…’ I crease my brow at him, prompting that he should finish my sentence.
‘Gordon, your bloods have got to be lowered significantly,’ Elaine butts in.
‘Gimme a number,’ I say.
Elaine and Douglas stare at each other.
‘If you maintain a level inside the 130s, we’re still taking a risk, but it’d be a risk we’d be willing to take for you,’ Douglas says.
I nod my head.
‘Okay, okay. I hear you. So what do you want me to do…? I’ll do whatever it is you suggest. I want to live. I’ve so much to live for. I can’t die not knowing what happened to Betsy.’
Douglas reaches out a hand to me, places it on my chest.
‘I know you will never forget your daughter, Gordon. But I need you to forget about the investigation into finding her today. The theatre is just emptying now and after it’s cleaned up it will be prepped for your surgeries. I’ll need you down there at three p.m., but only if you’re surgery-ready. Lie back in that bed, breathe deeply and consistently, all the while focusing on a positive outcome.’
He pushes firmer against my chest, guiding me to scoot down in the bed until my head is resting on the pillow again.
‘As I said to you countless time this morning, Gordon,’ Elaine says, stepping closer. ‘All you have to do is relax.’
She presses at the standby button of my phone again and then opens up my bedside drawer and places it inside.
‘And keep that phone turned off, huh?’
I stare up at them both, nod my head and offer a thin smile.
‘Whatever you say, guys. Honestly. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking this morning. Just – Jesus, Mr Douglas, Elaine – save my life. I beg you.’
Douglas almost sighs, as if my begging for life has burdened him somewhat. Then he places his hand back on my chest.
‘Elaine will check your rate in twenty minutes. If the results are in the 130s then I swear to you, not just on your life, but on mine too, that I will do all I can to keep you alive.’
13:40
Lenny
Lenny wrings his hat between both hands as he waits. He tries to rehearse in his mind what he’s going to say. He needs his story to have clarity, but he also needs to be swift. Time isn’t on his side. He stares at the large clock above the reception desk again. 13:40.
He’s muttering a ‘fuck sake’ to himself when he sees the group of journalists he’s been staring at flitter away from the huddle. Then he sighs with satisfaction when he notices the large spokes on the wheels turn. They’re coming his way.
‘Frank, I’m so grateful,’ Lenny says, pacing towards the wheelchair.
‘Over there,’ Frank nods, his voice gravelly and instantly intimidating.
Lenny points to a messy desk.
‘Here?’
Frank wheels by Lenny, positions himself into the desk and then points to an office chair sitting behind the large plant pot.
‘Grab that. You’ve got five minutes.’
Lenny wheels the chair towards the desk Frank is at, squelching his nose up at the untidiness of it. He thinks about mentioning the amount of paperwork piled up, just to break the ice, but doesn’t have time for small talk. Not today.
He parks his butt on the office chair, then stares at the back of the famous journalist’s head. He’s unsure whether Frank is ready to hear his story yet, but decides to offer it up nonetheless.
‘My name is Lenny Moon. I’m a Private Investigator. I got a call from Gordon Blake at about ten a.m. this morning. He’s in Tallaght Hospital; has to have make or break heart surgery at three this afternoon. Doctors are only giving him a fifty-fifty chance of making it out alive. He contacted me, begged me to do my very best to find out new information on Betsy before he goes under the knife. He doesn’t wanna die without doing all he can.’
‘Betsy Blake is dead.’ Frank’s voice sounds as if there are rusty cogs working it in the back of his throat; either that or he’s smoked thirty cigarettes a day for the past hundred years.
Lenny gulps.
‘Gordon Blake doesn’t think she is,’ he says, almost whispering.
Frank stretches his arm to reach for his mouse and then taps away at it. Lenny waits silently. And then waits some more.
‘That it?’ Frank says, turning to him.
‘Oh,’ Lenny says, shifting uncomfortably in the chair. ‘I eh… thought you were looking for something on the computer for me.’
Frank shakes his head. ‘Listen, I’m very busy today – is there anything else you have to add to your story?’
Lenny shifts again in the chair, lifting his left butt cheek before placing it back down, then does the same on his right side.
‘I spoke with Detective Ray De Brun today, he says—’
‘Ah, how is De Brun, haven’t spoken to him in years?’ Frank interrupts.
‘Eh… fine, yeah, fine,’ Lenny stutters, his eyes beginning to blink.
‘You okay, kid, want me to get you a glass of water?’
‘Fine, yeah I’m fine… the eh… oh the blinking, nah it’s just a tic I have. Have had it since the very first day I was bullied at secondary school.’
Frank kisses his own lips, then returns his focus to his computer screen. Lenny looks around the office, uncomfortable. He’s not sure whether or not to continue talking. He stares at the clock behind the receptionist and realises he just needs to get on with it.
‘Gordon has to have a eh… an abdominal aortic aneurysm and aortic valve replacement. His ticker is fucked, almost ripped apart.’
Frank reaches both hands to his wheels and manoeuvres his chair back, and then to the side, so that he’s face on with Lenny.
‘Thanks for the info, kid, but to be honest; it’s not much of a story. If he passes away, I’ll get in contact with the hospital and we’ll run a piece but y’know, we’ve got much more important matters to—’
‘Who were all of the suspects in the disappearance of Betsy Blake?’ Lenny bursts out, not giving Frank time to finish his dismissive sentence.
‘Huh?’ Frank grunts.
‘De Brun said there were initially four suspects. He questioned and then ruled out Gordon himself, then he questioned both Alan Keating and Barry Ward before ruling them out. Gordon himself thinks Jake Dewey may have had something to do with Betsy disappearing, but the cops were never interested in him. However, when I spoke to De Brun this morning, he alluded there was another suspect. I wanna know who it was.’
Frank clears the phlegm at the back of his throat, then slap
s both palms of his hands onto his knees.
‘Kid, nobody took Betsy Blake. Cops found a car seven years later that had Betsy’s DNA in it… and that DNA proved she was dead. I know the media – me in particular – reported that she was abducted for many years but the truth came out eventually. Ireland’s biggest ever kidnapping case was never even a kidnapping case to begin with. Now, I’m really sorry, but if you don’t have a story for me I’m gonna have to get back to stories I do have.’
Lenny stands, rings his hat in his hands again, visibly agitated.
‘Gordon Blake said he will pay me by leaving me his home in his will if I can make any breakthrough in Betsy’s case before he goes under the knife…’ Frank’s eyes flick upwards, meeting Lenny’s. ‘Gordon never knew there was any other suspects other than Keating and Ward. If you can tell me who the other suspect was I’ll give you all of the information on my investigation this morning, of all of my talks with Gordon. I’ll go on the record and you can write about it in your next column. Gordon Blake tried to find Betsy right up until his death, ended up leaving the PI who last worked on it his million euro home in his will – it’s a good story. And it’s exclusive to you.’
Keville holds a balled fist to his mouth, coughs twice into it; the sound of his raw chest almost grotesque.
‘He’s going to leave you his house?’
Lenny nods his head, almost too frantically.
‘Sit back down, kid,’ Frank says.
He spins his wheelchair back into his desk, reaches for his mouse again, rolls it around an oversized mouse mat and clicks on it repeatedly.
‘Jesus, is it that many?’ he mumbles to himself. ‘Wow, I wrote eighty-three stories on the Betsy Blake case over an eight-year period. Crazy.’
The excitement in Lenny’s stomach turns up a notch, adrenaline slowly pumping its way towards his heart. Frank’s playing along. He may well get the keys to that big house.
‘Lemme ask you this question for starters,’ Frank says. ‘Do you believe Betsy is dead, or are you singing from the same conspiracy hymn sheet as Gordon Blake?’
‘I eh…’ Lenny pauses. He wipes his brow with his hat. ‘If De Brun says she’s dead, I guess she’s dead. But I eh… my job is to just try to look into this a little further. If I can get information Gordon’s never heard before, it would mean the world to him.’
‘To you, you mean.’
‘And to me.’ Lenny nods his head. ‘Yep.’
Frank leans his head back, stares up at the ceiling of the open office. Then he interlocks his fingers and rests them on top of his rotund belly.
‘Betsy Blake was reported missing on the twenty-first of January 2002,’ he says. ‘I assumed, as soon as I found out that Gordon Blake had dodgy dealings with Alan Keating, that that scumbag had something to do with it. But as the days passed, I realised it couldn’t have been him. Keating’s a prick. A prick of the highest order – he’s the reason I’m in this wheelchair. But he’s no kidnapper. Gordon Blake didn’t realise that his falling out with Keating was insignificant to Keating. Keating had bigger fish to fry. Just because Gordon refused to launder parts of Keating’s cash was in no way reason for Keating to kidnap his daughter. So after the cops hit a roadblock, they looked into similar cases, see if they could form any link.’
Lenny’s eyes light up. He removes his left bum cheek from the seat, takes out his notebook from his back pocket, folds his legs and then rests the notebook on his left inner thigh. He pops his pen, begins to scribble as Frank, still looking up at the ceiling, continues.
‘There were zero other cases in Ireland. Young girls just don’t go missing, do they? Not on our little island. But there were two other cases that intrigued De Brun – both in Britain; one girl who went missing in England, one who went missing in Wales. Eh… lemme see…’
Frank looks down, repositions his wheelchair back into his desk and reaches for his mouse again. He hums as he clicks away.
‘Yeah – this case; a three-year-old, Sarah McClaire. She went missing from a park in Kings Heath, Birmingham in the summer of 2002, about five months after Betsy. The police were interested in that case because there was an associate of Gordon Blake who happened to be in both Birmingham when Sarah went missing and in Dublin when Betsy went missing.’
‘Who?’ Lenny snaps.
Frank turns around, offers a scowl to Lenny.
‘Hold on, I’m telling you about the two cases…. the other one was only of interest to De Brun because the names were similar. Elizabeth Taylor. Or Betsy Taylor as her parents called her. Same name, similar profile to Betsy Blake, but nothing in it.’
‘I think I remember that case,’ Lenny says.
‘Yeah, that got a lot of exposure because of her name. If you share the same name as a Hollywood celebrity, then you’re bound to stick in the mind of people. Sub editors had a field day making up headlines for Elizabeth Taylor.’
‘So, the only reason that was of interest to De Brun was because the name was the same?’
‘Yep,’ Frank says. ‘There was nothing in it, only the name coincidence. Turns out, it seems Tommy Saunders was responsible for Elizabeth Taylor’s abduction. No link to our Betsy at all.’
‘Tommy Saunders, the serial killer?’
‘That’s the one,’ Frank says, clicking at his mouse.
‘But what about the link with Sarah McClaire, who was the associate of Gordon’s who was also in Birmingham at the time she went missing?’
‘It’s not only that,’ Frank says. ‘This guy was also questioned in 1999 for possession of child pornography.’
Lenny’s mouth falls open. His eyes widen too.
‘No need to get too excited, Lenny. De Brun looked into him, all was innocent. Lots of people visit Birmingham and Dublin regularly; the two cities have major links. It’s hardly a coincidence.’
‘Who is it?’
‘Listen to what I’m saying to you, Lenny. This guy didn’t do it. Nobody did it. Betsy was knocked down by a car, was killed by accident and then—’
‘Who?’ Lenny says, his volume rising.
Frank shakes his head.
‘Guus Meyer – Gordon’s business partner.’
‘Woah – Guus Meyer is a paedophile and they just let him go?’
Frank closes his eyes shut, the lines on his face deepening.
‘You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, Lenny. I didn’t say anybody was a paedophile, did I? I said he was caught in possession of child pornography on his computer. The cops looked into it and let him go, so I assume it was very minimal at worst.’
‘I don’t believe this,’ Lenny says, standing up. He lightly curls his fist into a ball and punches dead air, adrenaline rising in his stomach. He’s done it!
‘And Gordon won’t have known this?’ he asks, shuffling his feet.
Frank shakes his head.
‘Because of the sensitive nature of the findings, what-with the kiddie porn and all, it wasn’t shared with anyone that Guus was a suspect in the Betsy Blake case. Listen, they brought him in, questioned him and let him go. So don’t go getting your hopes up that you are about to solve anything. You’re not gonna solve jack shit. I’m just letting you know who the fourth suspect was because your running around might make a good story on a slow news week.’
Lenny punches dead air again, in celebration. He really has done it. He’s managed to get information Gordon would never have known about. The million euro gaff is going to be his. Well… if Gordon doesn’t make it through his surgeries. Lenny spins in a circle, his mind racing.
‘So Guus Meyer is not only somebody who views child porn, but he happened to be in Birmingham when Sarah McClaire went missing and was in Dublin when Betsy Blake went missing?’
Frank holds a long blink… irritation evident on his face. He says nothing.
‘Where does Guus Meyer live?’ Lenny asks when he finally stops fidgeting.
‘Lenny, I told you our little chat was off the record. You can’t go
around accusing any—’
‘And I agreed. I won’t say you told me anything. I just want to speak to him.’
‘Well, the answer to your question is: I don’t know where Guus Meyer lives.’
Lenny sucks the dryness of the office air conditioning in as Frank turns back to his computer. He clicks at his mouse again, then types away.
‘I’m going to write this story, the story of Gordon’s investigation from his death bed, do you hear me?’ Frank says. ‘But I want to emphasise, I did not give you this information so you could go around accusing innocent people, I gave it to you because it will suit my story.’
‘Yeah, yeah, of course.’
‘Clontarf,’ Frank says.
Lenny’s eyes light up. He inches forward, to see what Frank has called up on his computer screen. Then reads it out loud over the journalist’s shoulder.
‘Number one Avery Place, just off the main Clontarf Road.’
He grips both sets of fingers around Frank’s shoulders.
‘You’re a legend, Keville.’
Eight years ago
Betsy
I have two new hobbies now. Two new favourite things to do. I still read. Lots. But I don’t read what Dod told me are called fiction books much anymore. I read non-fiction most of the time now. But my new favourite hobby is to look out the window in Dod’s bedroom. I see different things all the time. I ask him if we can look out the window instead of watching the TV. He agrees most of the time. Sometimes he lets me watch TV and look out the window afterwards. I like looking out the window because it gives me ideas to write my own books. Although, because I now like to read non-fiction I have started to write a book all about myself. I’m going to call it Betsy’s Basement. And it will have me, Dod and Bozy in it. I will write about what I do every day down here. It will be a bit like the books I read now.
Whatever Happened to Betsy Blake? Page 16
