by Declan Burke
‘I didn’t know he …’ She swallowed hard.
‘Well, he did.’ It was the first time I’d said it out loud, one of those moments when you realise you’ve been thinking something a long time and not really known you were thinking it. I should be dead.
I felt the crash coming on hard, this on top of damn all sleep and too much coffee, the concussion and the shock, and Ben, Christ, Ben in a coma. I laughed out loud, heard it thin and shivery. ‘It’s kind of weird, y’know? Like drowning witches in a pond. If I’d been in the cab, I’d be in the clear but dead. Except I wasn’t, so now I’m in the frame. Jesus,’ I said, ‘I never thought I’d need an alibi for someone’s suicide.’
She flinched, then glared across. ‘You’re a horrible human being.’
‘Keep your eyes on the road.’
‘Why would you even say such a thing?’
‘Because you’re asking all these bullshit questions so you won’t have to face the fact that Finn’s dead and gone and didn’t care enough about anyone to say goodbye before he went.’
I guess that one made us even. It wasn’t exactly a slap in the face, but she recoiled, her colour draining away, and then she flushed. I edged towards the door in case she reached and raked, but when she took a hand from the steering wheel it was to cup her mouth, perhaps to catch the single precious whimper that emerged.
‘Grainne,’ I said. I tried to soften my tone but it came out like a frog gargling gravel. ‘In the long run, it’s better if you deal with it sooner rather than later. Trust me.’
Her eyes were wet, hard and bright. For some reason I thought of Fiver in Watership Down. Then she ruined it with a sneer. ‘Oh yeah? Your only brother committed suicide?’
It wasn’t just the eyes. She had her mother’s way with the hired help, too.
‘Not exactly,’ I said. ‘I killed him.’
That bought me a nifty goldfish impression. ‘You …?’
‘Killed him. And watch the fucking road before you kill the rest of us.’
‘But why would you …?’
‘Doesn’t matter. What matters is I buried it when I should have been purging and now it’s too late. So my advice to you is to take yourself off to a dark room and have a good long think about how Finn’s gone. And I mean, forever. You know how you were hoping he’d be the one to link you up the aisle the day you get married? It’ll never happen now.’
‘Jesus,’ she whispered, ‘why are you saying these—’
‘Because it’s his fault it’ll never happen. Stop blaming yourself, start blaming him. Otherwise you’ll go daft.’
‘But—’
‘But nothing. Maybe, okay, he had his reasons. But whatever they were, they had nothing to do with you. So let it go, cry him into the ground, move on.’
‘You’re a cold fucking bastard.’
‘Yeah, well, someone has to be.’
We were on the long straight into town now, passing Bertie’s Pitch & Putt, which was just as well, because she jammed on and swerved onto the hard shoulder without so much as a glance in the rear-view. I reached over, knocked on the hazard lights. She sat with her shoulders hunched, knuckles white on the steering wheel, staring straight ahead without seeing much of anything at all. Not so much Fiver, now. More Bigwig. Or Woundwort, maybe.
I did a quick tally of the pros and cons of swiping another couple of Marlboros, decided against. Reached for the door handle.
‘Don’t get out,’ she said, still staring ahead, the words softly desperate, an old monk’s prayer.
‘Grainne …’
‘He didn’t do it. He didn’t jump.’
‘If that’s the way you need to—’
‘Just listen a second,’ she said quietly. ‘Listen, okay?’ And then the rocket fuel sparked in the back of her mind and she punched the steering wheel and suddenly she was screaming at the windscreen. ‘All I want is someone to fucking listen to me for once!’
I got the message.
In behind the pellucid eyes and layers of kohl and Arctic cool, the grief and the rage, Grainne Hamilton was very badly scared.
28
All the Hamilton women wanted me to read their personal correspondence. Maybe it was my manly baritone and sensitive poet’s eyes. Or maybe they were congenitally illiterate.
‘There,’ she said, handing across her iPhone.
Finn had set her up with the email address years ago, when she first went off to Kylemore Abbey Boarding School for Girls, so Grainne could bitch without worrying about Saoirse sneaking a peek. The mail I was looking at had the subject header, To Be or Not.
‘Shakespeare,’ she said.
‘Sure.’
‘As in, Will Shakespeare.’
‘Ah.’ I scrolled down to the body text, said, ‘Listen, we probably shouldn’t be parked on the side of the road. Looks odd.’
She drove like she walked, hunched forward ever so slightly around the shoulders, as if hunted, but for so long that it’d become a part of who she was.
A Gra, the email began, which was a cute touch, Gra being short for Grainne and the Irish for ‘my love’.
Quick one, just to let you know I’ve had to make changes to the TF. Can’t say too much now but you’ll understand – just didn’t want to do it without keeping you in the loop. ALL WILL BE REVEALED (LOL!). Seriously, you’ll love it when it all falls out – the Dragon will roast Gillick. God, I’d love to be there for that. Take pictures. Kodak moments!
Anyway, the update is lodged with Cenk Mehmet, 7C Mustafa Çağatay Cad., Girne (number below). And do me a solid – don’t mention this to Maria, not until you get the green light. Okay? I’ll take that as a promise …
Chat soon,
Love ‘n’ hugs,
F
I scrolled on down, but apart from the attachment, that was it. We were up on Hughes Bridge by then, the traffic building even at that early hour, Grainne edging along in first gear, her slim fingers a-tremble where they rested on the gear-stick. I put the phone down on the pile of CDs stacked behind the seats and claimed another Marlboro as my consultancy fee.
‘Well?’ she said.
‘Well what?’
‘Why would he write that?’
‘I’m guessing he wanted you to know he changed the TF. Like it says.’
She puffed out her cheeks. ‘What I’m asking,’ she said none too patiently, ‘is why he’d want to change it. Unless, y’know …’
‘Go on.’
‘Unless he knew something was going to happen. Or thought it might.’
‘Something like what?’
‘I don’t know.’
My stomach grumbled. ‘I don’t suppose there’s anything I could eat?’
‘Eat?’
I told her I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten, and thought longingly about the tea and toast I’d been promised in the hospital but which hadn’t arrived before I bolted for the emergency exit, making a mental note to write a letter to the Irish Times about the disgraceful state of the Irish health service. She gave a harsh kind of sigh but she rummaged around in the driver’s door pocket and came up with half a pack of Polo Mints. A thin ring of mint around a big fat nothing. The cosmos, I presumed, up to its old tricks. I’d have been better off eating the paper and foil wrapping.
‘This TF,’ I said around three mints tucked into my cheek. ‘That’s a trust fund, right?’
She nodded.
‘And you think Finn was pushed, or was pushed into jumping, because he changed this trust fund, or was trying to. And because you’re the beneficiary, you’re next for the old heave-ho. How am I doing so far?’
She stared straight ahead, chewing on her lower lip. Another nod.
‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ I said.
‘You don’t know Saoirse.’
‘True enough. Let me put it this way. How much is the trust fund worth?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Probably not north of half a million, though.’
‘Half a million?’
‘Look, I don’t know what your mother tells you about her finances, but between you and me, she’s struggling. Finn reckoned NAMA has everything, and the only reason she still has The Grange is that someone, probably Gillick, had the wit to sign it over to your mother personally before the hammer came down.’
‘But that can’t be.’
‘Well, it is. Why d’you think Finn was bailing out?’
‘Bailing …’
‘He didn’t tell you?’ She shook her head, her eyes searching mine. ‘Finn was leaving, Grainne. Moving to Cyprus. Setting up his own company, marrying Maria. He had an apartment complex development all planned as her wedding present.’ I wasn’t slapping her face anymore, I was stabbing her in the back. ‘I’m guessing he never mentioned that.’
‘No.’
‘Well buckle up, because here’s where it gets complicated. Finn reckoned he was selling the PA building to Gillick to pay for the Cyprus development. Your mother says that’s impossible, because the PA wasn’t in Finn’s name, although my guess is that it’s because NAMA owns it now. Anyway, she says the reason Gillick was with Finn that night, with her blessing, was to persuade him to kick Maria to touch.’
‘He wouldn’t do that.’
‘We’ll never know now, will we? Anyway,’ I gestured at the iPhone, ‘I’m guessing Finn was bullshitting Gillick about buying the PA building back from NAMA, at a rock-bottom price, telling him he’d need to kick some seed capital loose from the trust fund to do it. Except Finn had this development in Cyprus lined up.’
A gap opened on our left. She indicated and slipped into it, got off the bridge, drove in along Markievicz Road. ‘He could have told me,’ she said dully.
‘He did. He sent you the email.’
‘About Maria. Moving to Cyprus.’
‘I’m sure he would have, once the time was right. It was supposed to be a big surprise for Maria.’
She followed the one-way system until we were on Connaughton Road, the hospital just visible over the crest of the hill. I closed my eyes and pictured Ben prone in his bed and heard a kind of gulping laugh. I looked across at her. ‘Christ,’ she said, ‘I’d have loved to have seen her face.’ Defiant now, despite the tears on her cheeks.
‘It wasn’t pretty.’
She made the right turn down Lake Isle Road, heading for Thomas Street. ‘She knows?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But how …?’
‘I told her.’
‘Why the fuck would you tell her?’
‘She asked.’
‘And you betrayed his confidence. Just like that.’
‘It wasn’t that simple.’
‘She paid you, Harry. It’s not exactly rocket science.’
‘She hasn’t paid me a penny. And if you want the truth of it, it was Finn’s fault. He lied to me, told me he was selling the PA. Your mother said there was no way he could do that. Things kind of moved on from there.’
‘To where, exactly?’
I took a last drag on the Marlboro, popped it out the window. Got settled in the seat. I sympathised with her, I really did, but I couldn’t muster the strength to play along. It’s all black and white when you’re a teenager, all rights and wrongs, us and them. Takes a lot of excess energy to sustain that quality of idealism, or naivety, or stupidity, and I was just about wiped out, a long and fraught day to come.
‘If your mother wants you to know,’ I said, ‘she’ll tell you.’
A deft little snort. ‘Saoirse likes it when I don’t know anything.’
‘I’m sure she has your best interests at heart.’
‘Like she had Finn’s?’
‘Maybe she thought she did.’
‘She had a funny way of showing it.’
You’re funny when you try to be funny, dad …
We came off the bridge and turned left onto Kennedy Parade, out along the river.
‘Tell me about the gun,’ I said.
‘You’re so smart,’ she said, ‘you know everything, you tell me about the gun.’
We’d arrived at what they call an impasse and I was too tired to care about trying to get around it. We drove the next minute or so in silence until she pulled in at the gates of Weir’s Folly, zapped the gates. They sounded a dull thung as they jerked open, and she nosed into the half-empty car park. I had a good look around while she found a space close to the waterfront, a view clear up the river to the lake beyond, but all the cars were empty, no shady types peering from behind upside-down newspapers. No reason there should be. If I’d been Tohill, and staking out Finn’s apartment, I’d be inside with a good cup of coffee and the sports pages, waiting for fly Harry Rigby to step into my parlour.
I opened the car door and Grainne said, ‘The gun was my father’s. Finn took it with him when he left home, a kind of memento.’ She fumbled a couple of smokes from the pack, passed one across. I snapped the filter, took the light she offered. ‘I think it was supposed to be some kind of warning,’ she said. ‘Y’know, Don’t follow me, some shit like that. Finn wouldn’t talk about it.’
‘And this is when they became estranged.’
‘Estranged?’
‘That’s the word your mother used.’
She shook her head. ‘That’s just the way we are, Harry. Or were, anyway. We’d blow up, there’d be a massive row, then ten minutes later it was like it never happened.’
‘So what changed?’
‘Maria. Saoirse won’t even allow her name be said in the house. Says she’s a tramp whore slut.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘You like her, though.’
She shrugged. ‘She can be a bit up herself sometimes, a bit high maintenance, but yeah, she’s okay.’ She took a hit off the Marlboro, stared off up the river. ‘She was good for Finn, and that was good enough for me. I mean, you know him, right? Finn was a total flake before Maria came along. Don’t get me wrong, he was a pretty cool big brother, he’d let me stay over some nights when I was home on holidays, we’d drink beers, smoke a joint.’ She had a good long look at her reflection in the black polish of her thumbnail. ‘But it was like every night I stayed, there’d be a different girl. One night I got in and the girl got up and left straightaway and when I asked who she was, he couldn’t remember her name. He made a joke of it, but I’m pretty sure she was a prostitute. Jesus,’ she said, a bitter half-smile, ‘I’d love to see Saoirse’s face if I told her that.’
‘She’d probably cope,’ I said, ‘seeing as she reckoned Maria was screwing Finn for his money.’
Her lips thinned. ‘That’s just Saoirse,’ she said. ‘With her, it’s all about money. No one does anything for any other reason.’
I was sitting in a car park delaying a commissioned B&E to nab a gun and a laptop, so I stared wistfully up at the high moral ground and kept my trap shut.
‘I just wish she’d seen them together,’ Grainne said. ‘Last time I stayed over, the Easter break, we had a hoot trying to come up with Irish-Cypriot names for their kids.’
‘I think that was the issue,’ I said. ‘Your mother was worried Maria was taking him away.’
‘To Cyprus? It’s four fucking hours away.’
Flying time, sure. Ten if you factor in the security checks. I crushed the smoke, tempusfugiting onwards. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I don’t suppose you know what this gun looks like?’
‘Small,’ she said. ‘Heavy.’
‘He showed you it?’
She shrugged. ‘He leaves it lying around.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Phil’s messy. You’ll see.’
‘There’s messy,’ I said, noting the present tense, ‘and there’s leaving a gun lying around.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘It’ll be right there,’ she said, deadpan, ‘in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet in his office.’
‘In plain sight.’
‘Sometimes I have X-ray vision.’
‘Did he keep the drawer loc
ked?’
‘Of course.’
‘But he left the key where it could be found.’
She nodded. ‘Taped behind the U-bend under the kitchen sink.’
‘That’s careless.’
An impish grin. ‘Isn’t it, though?’
I opened the door, said, ‘Who’s Phil?’
She flushed. ‘Pardon?’
‘Phil. You just said, “Phil’s messy”.’
‘Did I?’
‘You did.’
‘Well, I meant Finn. Obviously.’
‘Obviously. An easy mistake to make, confusing the name of your dead brother.’
I waited. She stared straight ahead, apparently entranced by the sight of Lough Gill glistering beyond the burger wrappers trapped against the chain-link fence. When she realised I wasn’t going anywhere, she looked across at me, conceding.
‘His real name is Philip. When he was adopted, Saoirse changed his name to Finn. She reckoned Philip sounded too English.’ She shrugged. ‘So I call him Phil when we’re on our own.’
Still with the present tense. ‘I never knew he was adopted.’
‘No?’ Another shrug. ‘We both are. They couldn’t have kids, there was some issue with conceiving. Saoirse never wanted to get into the details.’
‘That’s a pity.’
She bridled. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. For them? Sorry. A stupid thing to say.’
It made sense of a few things, though. Maybe it meant the passport issued under the name of Philip Winston Byrne wasn’t a fake, for one. And maybe, if you’re built a certain way, it’s easier to feel estranged from an adopted child than from your own flesh and blood. But it still didn’t explain why Finn had stashed the passport in the cistern, five grand tucked inside.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘you stay here. I’ll go up and—’
‘No way.’ She opened the car door. I leaned across and grabbed her forearm with my right hand, pulled her back into the seat. She looked down at my hand, outraged. Which was ideal, because it meant she wasn’t watching what I was doing with my left.
