A Day in the Life of Louis Bloom

by Paul Charles

  ‘Wow, that’s a new one on me,’ McCusker admitted.

  ‘Sophie also wanted me to tell you that she has the ticket stub for the Eric Bibb concert at the MAC and she can tell you the titles of the majority of the songs he played on Thursday evening.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  According to DS Barr’s research, Mr Noah Woyda was involved in all sorts businesses that turned over money. Money, as in real, old-fashioned, folding money. He wasn’t one to nurture and develop his enterprises. When they stopped producing fast cash he would asset-strip the business to the bones and dump the carcass with the highest bidder. This clearly hadn’t sat well with some of his partners, who came to discover that they weren’t really his equal, but rather would-be entrepreneurs still clinging to the dream that had got them thus far. When they found the paperwork to prove they were still legally binding partners with a say in their business, Noah Woyda wasn’t above intimidating them until they saw sense. In hindsight, none of his partners spoke favourably about Woyda in private. Most who discussed their dealings with him in public lived to regret it.

  His businesses ranged from escort services to coffee houses, taking in mini cabs, bakeries, public houses and hotels in between. Police had confirmed one of his hotels to be a high-class brothel. In that case, Woyda had avoided prosecution by producing, at the last moment, a lease, which he maintained put an acceptable legal distance between himself and the illicit enterprise. The last man standing in the firing line took the rap and the prison time, while all the time claiming that he was nothing more than Noah Woyda’s in-house manager. In a bid to earn his freedom, the “manager” had offered the PSNI what he claimed to be proof that Woyda was using the hotel as a means to catch politicians, lawyers, judges, accountants, dignitaries and celebrities “on camera” in extremely compromising positions. According to “the manager”, Woyda’s priority was not to blackmail his clients but to encourage them to keep using his premises and services. He’d then have them in his back pocket for a later date, when he needed to call in a favour. Apparently, you only had to check the launch-night guest lists for any of Woyda’s new projects to discover the names of those he’d caught on camera.

  However, “the manager” had a last-minute change of heart and had decided to withdraw his accusations, claiming they’d been nothing more than sour grapes on a deal that went bad. The hotel in question had allegedly cleaned up its act. But of course it hadn’t really. It had merely been redecorated, increased its official (and unofficial) rates, and become even more successful after all the publicity from the case. According to Woyda’s spin machine, he had well-advanced plans to open three other hotels in the chain: one more in Belfast, and one in both Derry and Dublin. It had also been reported, but never proven, that a PSNI senior infrequently checked into Woyda’s hotel. In PSNI circles the chain became known as S & C Hotels, as in Short & Curlies.

  Woyda, it transpired, always refused to be involved, either directly or indirectly, in drugs of any kind. In fact, anyone caught dealing or using on his premises received a full, sharp shock before being handed over “on a plate” to the PSNI. Apparently these actions had gained Woyda substantial Brownie points in certain PSNI stations. Noah Woyda’s file also maintained that he had no known paramilitary connections.

  He’d often flirted seriously with the letter of the law but was extremely careful about remaining on its correct side, and only once had he crossed the boundary. On that particular occasion, he was working without the safety net of a local powerful connection. He went down for three years and got off just after fourteen months. His file showed that he was a model prisoner, who was preoccupied with working out, behaved properly and always keen to help his fellow inmates. What the file didn’t show, but a friend of Larkin’s maintained, was that Woyda was flashing the cash on the inside and was absolutely living the life of Riley. The only inmates he was helping were “contacts” he was nurturing and cultivating for when he was released.

  It was unclear who did Woyda’s intimidating for him, or if in fact he did it himself. DS Barr assumed that if it was him, he’d have been in more trouble with the PSNI than had been recorded. Equally, he conceded that Woyda could have been relatively trouble-free due to his connections with judges, lawyers, police and politicians. Sometimes the likes of Woyda didn’t even have to have such connections; it was more than enough to just claim it.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  ‘On line 409, McCusker,’ O’Carroll said across their partner’s desk, ‘an American.’

  ‘Hello, I’m Joe Long, New York,’ the upbeat voice at the other end of the phone announced. O’Carroll had batted it over to McCusker, she later said, because initialled foreign secret services interfering in PSNI cases made her far too impatient.

  ‘Okay,’ McCusker replied, ‘how can I help you?’

  ‘I believe from the doll who put me over to you that you’re working the Louis Bloom case?’

  ‘That’s correct, how can I help you?’

  ‘It’s more how I can help you – meet me in the Lanyon Quad in ten minutes – hang on a second, yes, I’ve got you on my screen now. Okay good, I’ll recognise you. Password, Surf’s Up.’

  O’Carroll laughed at McCusker as he went off for his meet. ‘If you’re really lucky, it’s only DI Jarvis Cage getting his own back on you,’ she shouted after him. ‘Shit, I better check in and see how he’s doing.’

  Ten minutes later McCusker was walking through the front door of the Lanyon Building out into the Lanyon Quadrangle. He felt so privileged to be able to so. Well, truth be told, McCusker had a wee bit of a problem with the rectangle in question. The main problem – the only problem, really – was that it wasn’t all in fact the work of Sir Charles Lanyon, as half of the rectangle – on the left-hand side as you walked through the front door, aka the Peter Froggatt Centre, and the entire opposite end to the front door, the Administration Building – were modern carbuncles, which had somehow attached themselves to Lanyon’s perfection. Nonetheless, this was such a tranquil place to pause and sit – certainly with your back to that section which resembled a multi-storey cricket pavilion – so that it would cease to exist and you could view another elevation of the worthy jewel in Lanyon’s uncontested crown. McCusker wondered how a space with so many students, with their daily worries and pressures, criss-crossing it non-stop, could remain so tranquil. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to just sit here in the warmth of the sun, a pleasant autumnal sun, and enjoy this for the rest of the afternoon.

  ‘Surf’s Up,’ an American voice behind him called out. McCusker turned to be greeted by a man with his hand extended.

  ‘I’m Joe Long, New York. You must be McCusker. Do I call you Mc or Cusker?’ he said as he shook his hand firmly.

  ‘Great to meet you too, Sir,’ McCusker replied. ‘Do I call you Joe Long or New York?’

  If he was, as O’Carroll had suggested, a secret agent, he was more Tom Hanks than Sean Connery, the one and only true James Bond. It was just before lunchtime, yet Joe Long was dressed in a tuxedo, a starched-white shirt with black bow tie and black patent-leather shoes.

  ‘I can see in your eyes that you’re stressed over what they’ve done to the Lanyon Quad. Certainly it’s a bit of “Look what they’ve done to my song, Ma.” But listen, I’m reliably informed that somewhere in these hallowed buildings they discovered Charles Lanyon’s original plans for the complete rectangle and plans are afoot to bulldoze and rebuild. Be true to your school. So speak to me: what’s your interest in my Noah Woyda?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Woyda’s been on my radar for a while; hints of a bit of arms dealing, I’m led to believe. But I think he mentioned gun dealing just as a way of bigging himself up. The GCHQ facility – the watchful eye facility – picked up some static, chatter, that the PSNI is also interested in him. We believe he likes to pretend that he doesn’t know what he’s really doing, but we’re not so sure. So, speak to me: what’s the story? Please tell me he’s nothing mor
e than a wooze so I can get back to the two dolls I left in Tangiers; it’s a three-hour flight away and I promised them I’d be back for supper.’

  McCusker told Joe Long what he knew. Maybe it was just that the American had such an honest face.

  ‘Okay, we can leave him to you then. We hear you and your partner know what you’re doing. My only tip for you is this: find out where his money comes from. That’ll help you with your particular case.’

  Joe Long New York looked around nervously as if he’d just been spooked. ‘I’m out of here,’ he said, as he headed back to the safety of the crowded university shop.

  The last thing McCusker heard from him was ‘Surf’s Up!’

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  McCusker and O’Carroll met Noah Woyda on the doorstep of his grand house on Malone Road, south of Queens University. The property had been cleverly landscaped into the acre-and-a-quarter site to ensure no part of his home was visible from the Malone Road’s traffic. Although the house had double-doored garages on each side, two vehicles (a Merc 4x4 and an Alfa Romeo) were parked at the end of the curvy drive, very close to the front door where Woyda greeted them as they poured themselves out of O’Carroll’s Mégane.

  Woyda made no sign of inviting them into his stone-faced house. In fact, he was chomping at the bit like someone who needed to be on the move. He looked as happy as a bulldog that’d just eaten a wasp.

  ‘We’ve come to talk to you,’ O’Carroll said, as they both flashed their identity cards, ‘about Louis Bloom.’

  ‘Which nick are you from?’ Woyda asked, as he continuously sucked on a mint flavoured boiled sweet.

  ‘The Customs House,’ O’Carroll replied.

  ‘Is Superintendent Murray Wilson your gaffer?’

  ‘No, Superintendent Niall Larkin is our immediate boss.’

  ‘Don’t know him,’ he grunted, as McCusker thought that could only be a good thing. He made a mental note to check out which branch Superintendent Wilson was with. ‘I knew youse were coming through.’

  Woyda made a dogs dinner over pronouncing “youse” – the unique Ulster pluralised version of the singular “you” – showing that, no matter how hard he was trying to pretend otherwise, he was not from these parts.

  ‘Can we go inside?’ O’Carroll asked.

  ‘Look am… that’s not convenient just now – why don’t you ring my office and fix an appointment? The number is in the book under XTC Holdings UK.

  That’s not going to happen Mr Woyda,’ O’Carroll said firmly, ‘either we have a chat here or, I’m afraid, we’re going to have to ask you to accompany us to the Customs House for a more formal chat.’

  ‘Unfeckingbelievable,’ he hissed, ‘whatever happened to a man’s castle is his home?’

  Noah Woyda wore an expensive-looking grey three-piece suit, when, in McCusker’s opinion, a black one would have looked much better, since it would have shown the wrinkles less. He had a blue shirt with a pure-white collar, the top two buttons undone and exposing a hairy chest. Woyda’s footwear were a black canvas affair, more like outdoor bedroom slippers. He had darkish, dead eyes chiselled into his grey-black bushy eyebrows. Veins spread out like a spider’s web all over his red nose. His head and face were both clean-shaven but the monk’s shadow on his crown betrayed the fact he was bald apart from the “back and sides”. He was solid, but not overweight, and he looked like he still worked out a lot – he looked good for his probable early fifties.

  ‘You better come in then,’ he said, as he back-heeled the door open. When he spoke, there was a slight whistle through his teeth.

  Perhaps it was just the contrast from the cold, stone-wall exterior but inside his castle was certainly warmer, more inviting – homely even. A woman’s touch was in evidence, particularly around the entrance hall with the dramatic sweeping oak-wood staircase splitting it in half. It seemed as though Woyda had hijacked Elton John’s weekly supply of multi-coloured flowers and stuffed them all into this one space. Woyda positively beamed with pleasure as the detectives’ stood in obvious awe at the sight of his pile. ‘Is Gene Landy in the Customs House?’ Woyda asked.

  McCusker figured he was working his way through the list of people he could call on for favours, striking out on both occasions. He’d be out on the next negative call.

  ‘No, Sir,’ O’Carroll replied. ‘Your house is very beautiful – it’s a credit to you and your wife.’

  Maybe Woyda figured that out as well, because he seemed to completely change character and tact mid-stream.

  ‘Yeah, we were very lucky; we bought at the bottom of the market – you wouldn’t get a house with this amount of land for anything under 2 mill these days,’ he said, as he showed them into a smaller meet-and-greet reception room, with three packed bookcases and four more vases bursting with flowers. But pride of place went to a ginormous framed photograph of his wife Murcia, pulling off a Marilyn Monroe-lookalike pose 98 per cent successfully.

  McCusker played dumb. ‘You’re a fan then, Sir?’

  ‘I should be,’ he replied, with a louder than normal whistle, ‘she’s my wife!’

  He lifted a phone, ordered some tea, coffee and nibbles, and set it back down with neither a please or thank you.

  ‘Sorry, I thought it was Marilyn,’ McCusker said, because he felt he should, if only to hide the fact that they’d already spoken to the woman in the portrait.

  ‘Common mistake,’ Woyda laughed, ‘you can only tell the difference when you’re signing the cheques for her jewellery.’

  Meanwhile O’Carroll was browsing the bookcases in search of rare editions, only to find mostly large-format paperbacks.

  ‘I love a great book, don’t you?’ Woyda asked.

  ‘Of course,’ O’Carroll said as McCusker said, ‘Yes, me too. I’ve never been one for reading a book right, through,’ he continued glancing to O’Carroll before saying, ‘the only thing I get from reading a book right through in one sitting is a sore ar… rear end.’

  Woyda and O’Carroll were still laughing when the door to the room opened and a tray appeared. This in itself was not surprising for McCusker. What was surprising was the fact that it wasn’t a maid or a housekeeper who carried a tray but a red-faced Ulsterman who looked like he was down from the country for the day. He was dressed in one of the loudest jackets McCusker had ever seen. It was plastic in appearance, this particular one being a blue plastic zip-up number with a yellow, green and red trio of stripes that ran across the chest from armpit to armpit and circled around the back. It was the kind of jacket a film director chooses for a character because it creates immediate identity-cum-recognition. It was also the kind of jacket one would find in an unsolicited, unaddressed catalogue dropped through the letterbox, but one which nobody would ever buy – nobody, that was, apart from Woyda’s man-Friday here.

  ‘So how long have you been here?’

  ‘Did you hear that Sammy?’ Woyda replied, addressing his man-Friday rather than O’Carroll, ‘she’s asking how long we’ve been here.’

  Sammy grunted.

  ‘But we all know that she’d have checked my PSNI file long, long before she came here, so she knows all about me, chapter and verse, now doesn’t she?’ His eyes had a habit of indicating that his sentences were coming to an end before his voice did.

  Sammy grunted and darted off, looking as though he wanted no part of an argument with the PSNI. As McCusker watched him speed away, he thought clearly Woyda had no time for a housekeeper or maid betraying the secrets of his house, or castle, as he called it.

  Once again, in the matter of a split second, Noah Woyda’s mood swung back to the friendlier version of himself.

  ‘Right, you be mammy,’ he instructed O’Carroll, ‘we’ll play the parts,’ he continued, nodding at McCusker, ‘of the good children.’

  O’Carroll did as bid, and milked and sugared the tea for Woyda and the coffee for herself and McCusker.

  ‘Is your wife around?’ O’Carroll asked, joining in with Mc
Cusker’s earlier charade.

  Woyda studied her very carefully for close to a minute, all the while stirring his tea, until he eventually said, ‘She’s staying with friends just now. Look, I really am very busy at the moment; can we please get down to business?’

  O’Carroll took her time returning her cup to her saucer, and getting her pen ready for her notebook again.

  ‘We wanted to talk to you about Louis Bloom,’ O’Carroll started.

  Woyda muttered something that sounded like ‘Progress at last’.

  ‘You knew Louis Bloom?’

  Noah Woyda thought for a few seconds and replied, ‘I knew Louis Bloom.’

  ‘How did you know Louis Bloom?’

  ‘I was introduced to him by Mariana Fitzgerald, a friend of my wife’s,’ he offered, after consideration.

  ‘When was the last time you saw Louis Bloom?’

  Again a pause before, ‘The last time I saw Louis Bloom was at a fundraiser at Queen’s in September.’

  ‘Did you know him well?’

  ‘He wasn’t someone Sammy and I would go down the pub with,’ he eventually said with a snigger, following the longest time for consideration so far.

  ‘Did you have any business with him?’

  ‘None, that is apart from both of us contributing to a few of the same charities.’

  ‘Were you on any boards with him?’ O’Carroll continued in the hot-seat, looking like she was trying very hard not to betray her annoyance at Woyda’s continued attempts to slow the pace of the interview way down.

  To McCusker’s mind, it looked like Woyda had been well briefed by a solicitor who worked under the theory that the less you said, the less likely you were to incriminate yourself.

  ‘No,’ Woyda replied, after a very long break, confirming McCusker’s hunch.