A Day in the Life of Louis Bloom

by Paul Charles

  ‘Did you have any business dealings with him?’

  Woyda appeared as though he was about to say something several times. He smiled at O’Carroll, not in a friendly way but more as a way of trying to unsettle or disarm her. Eventually he proved that his searching for an answer was just another ploy by saying ‘No’.

  ‘Did you see Louis Bloom on Thursday last?’

  Woyda removed a very small diary from his inside pocket. He flicked through several pages before declaring ‘No’.

  ‘What about the early hours of Friday morning?’ O’Carroll asked, trying a different approach.

  Woyda, who had returned his diary to the inside pocket, pulled it out again, and with very deliberate and exaggerated Marcel Marceau signature movements flicked through the pages one by one, licking his forefinger after each page before eventually declaring ‘No’.

  ‘Have you any information you can give us on Louis Bloom?’

  This time Woyda afforded himself a different smile; the smile of someone who thought that even if they hadn’t already won, they were certainly on the way to winning.

  ‘No,’ he replied, after his Cheshire grin had run its full course.

  O’Carroll visibly rolled her eyes as if she was about to give up. McCusker, right on cue, remembered something Joe Long, New York had said to him. ‘Do you have any business dealings with Francie Fitzgerald?’

  The detective’s ruse worked.

  ‘We’re developing his manse into a high-end country hotel.’

  ‘I thought that was Mr and Mrs Fitzgerald’s home?’ McCusker continued.

  ‘What can I tell you,’ Woyda replied, adopting a very superior attitude, ‘old money is not what it once was. There’s a recession, and owning one of those old houses is like having a large hole in the ground that you continuously have to pour money into.’

  Woyda had just broken his record for the duration of his replies.

  ‘Could you please tell us what you were doing between the hours of 21.00 last Thursday evening and 02.00 on Friday morning?’ McCusker asked.

  Noah Woyda looked like he was going for his diary again but instead he stood up, walked over to the phone, lifted it and said ‘Come in’. Once again, no please or thank you.

  Sammy returned to the room, looking a little less comfortable than his last visit.

  ‘Tell the officers what we were doing from 21.00 on Thursday night until 02.00 on Friday morning.’

  ‘We were driving around looking for poster sites in and out of the city.’

  ‘Did you meet or talk to anyone?’ McCusker asked.

  Sammy looked like he was about to answer when Woyda offered a very firm, ‘No.’

  ‘Was Mr Woyda in your company the entire time during those hours?’ McCusker continued.

  ‘Yes,’ Sammy replied.

  ‘Sammy, please write down your full name and address for me in my notebook?’ O’Carroll asked.

  Sammy looked to Woyda, who nodded “yes”, and Sammy did as bid.

  ‘Tell me this, Mr Woyda,’ McCusker began, as Sammy continued writing, ‘did you know that your wife had been sleeping with Louis B–’

  That was as far as McCusker got.

  Because right at that moment, he experienced first-hand the most controlled ballistic fit he’d ever witnessed.

  Woyda took his white china saucer and flung it into the fireplace with all his might, smashing it to smithereens. The half-filled matching cup wasn’t too far behind. These were the only outwards signs of displeasure Woyda displayed apart from his face, which was violently contorted, and his body, which physically shook with rage. He took some time to compose himself again. Eventually, when he was extremely calm and collected he said, ‘You come to my house, you accept my hospitality, you drink my coffee and you insult my wife in front of witnesses. I have to advise you, I will be making an official complaint to your seniors.’

  All the time he spoke, it was as though he was discussing the weather with his best friend.

  ‘If you were thinking of making that complaint with either Superintendent Wilson or Superintendent Landy, then I feel I should warn you, Sir, that both of them were fired from the force earlier this year when they were discovered trying to sell off PSNI assets for their own benefit. ’

  McCusker, nostrils busy twitching away, appeared to offer to shake hands with Noah Woyda as they were leaving. Woyda refused.

  ‘He’s in good company,’ McCusker claimed later in the car, as they drove back to the Customs House, ‘George Washington would never shake hands either.’

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  By the time McCusker and O’Carroll were back in Customs House, McCusker had missed Thomas Chada’s 4 o’clock phone call. According to DS Barr, Thomas Chada was very polite and apologetic. He left a message that he would call the detective again just after his midday class the following day.

  Also, Barr advised them that the CSI team might have discovered something in Louis Bloom’s rubbish bag – the rubbish bag that had been responsible for concluding the final day of the 20,000 (give or take) days in Louis Bloom’s life.

  ‘They wouldn’t comment on it any further,’ Barr stated for the record, ‘until they conclude their tests.’

  ‘Did they even give you a clue as to what it might be?’ McCusker asked, hoping he wasn’t sounding desperate.

  ‘I get the feeling that they didn’t want to tempt fate by spelling it out. However, it’s usually a positive sign when we get such a call.’

  ‘I doubt you were ever disappointed with what Santa Claus left you, Willie John,’ McCusker offered, ‘you’re my kind of man; your cup is always at least half full, isn’t it?’

  ‘Talking about praise, McCusker, I wonder how DI Nicholas Cage is getting on,’ O’Carroll asked.

  ‘The last I checked he was fine,’ McCusker replied, ‘nothing to report, happy with the relief shifts, but says he wants to ensure he remains the point person. He’s convinced that this is his big chance to make it into the movies.’

  ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God bless him – but not a lot,’ O’Carroll said, sighing.

  McCusker and O’Carroll seemed to hit the wall at the same time, running out of steam while DS Barr seemed to ride off into the sunset. He was one of those annoying types that towards the end of a marathon who, just as you’d expended all your energy trying to get past them in the home straight, would move into another gear when they sensed you at their shoulder, and fly off into the distance, showing that they had been toying with you all the time.

  The Portrush detective knew that to be able to enjoy and appreciate his day there certainly had to be those things he also resented having to do. Perfection only came with contrasts and compromise. He wished, though, that he could get to a stage where he could embrace everything, the way Willie John Barr seemed able to do.

  He mentioned this to O’Carroll as they were driving out towards Springwell Road, Bangor.

  ‘Aye, and he wishes he could be one of the Brownlee brothers. And I wish…’ She paused, and then changed topic mid-thought, as was her wont. ‘Actually, an early boyfriend’s family lived out on Springwell Road – a very well-to-do family.’

  ‘Really? And how did that go for you?’

  ‘The pranny claimed that I couldn’t get pregnant if we didn’t like each other,’ she announced, ‘and then, when I clearly wasn’t buying into that approach, he said if I’d like a 100 per cent guarantee, I should go on top, that–’

  ‘Ah jeez, Lily’ McCusker protested, ‘stop right there, please! TMFI!’

  * * *

  ‘Well, here we are – the home of the B&B.’ O’Carroll offered, as they pulled onto a small laneway off Springhill Road.

  ‘I thought they were going for more of an exclusive country house, high-end hotel, rather than a B&B?’ McCusker said, as he unfastened his seatbelt.

  ‘No, no, I didn’t mean the house. I meant the B&B – you know, the man with the beard-and-bun look,’ she said, sniggering. ‘I mean, if you�
�re a man and you’re going to grow your hair, then why hide your vitality in a spinster’s bun?’

  Mariana and Francie Fitzgerald both came to meet them in the forecourt. She looked much happier than he did to see the PSNI officers, but neither seemed any more comfortable in the other’s company than they’d been earlier at the Merchant Hotel.

  Their manse was indeed an impressive house, if looking a wee bit sorry for itself. McCusker figured Woyda’s idea of turning it into a country house hotel was most likely based on the availability of numerous stone outhouses about the property. The back of the house had a very generous-sized courtyard, which was completely surrounded by stone buildings, broken only by a double-gated carriage entrance, with more room for accommodation above.

  ‘We’d like to speak to Mrs Fitzgerald first, if that’s okay,’ O’Carroll started, as they were led in from the courtyard to a warm, family-style kitchen.

  ‘But of course,’ Mariana replied, in her whispery voice, without consulting her husband, ‘he can bring us some tea and scones.’

  In fact, much to McCusker’s annoyance, neither tea nor scones appeared, as Fitzgerald disappeared into some other part of the house.

  The inside of the house – a kitchen, through an antique-laden hallway, into a living room, and all generously peppered with various-sized paintings – showed signs of damp and was in a visible state of disrepair. McCusker felt the manse was going to need more than a facelift before it could be opened to the public.

  ‘What has happened since this morning?’ Mariana asked, as she, McCusker and O’Carroll took comfortable seats by the log burning fire. She seemed more comfortable now that her husband had peeled off.

  ‘Well, there are a couple of things we need to talk to you about,’ O’Carroll said.

  ‘Okay, Mariana is ready.’

  ‘When we interviewed you at the Merchant Hotel, you told us that you didn’t know where Murcia was,’ McCusker said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She was in your apartment all the time, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mariana admitted, ‘but she was absolutely petrified. Mariana just wanted to give her a bit of space and time to deal with losing Louis. I knew if we just gave her a little time, she’d be happy to talk to you.’

  ‘So when you told us you didn’t know where she was, you were lying to us,’ McCusker continued, softening up his accusation with a mellifluous voice.

  ‘There is an old Polish proverb, which says “a lie is only a lie if it’s malicious”,’ Mariana whispered back, equally sweetly.

  ‘You see our problem is, if you lie about that, malicious or not, what else might you be prepared to lie about?’

  ‘But surely you check out our alibi with Samantha?’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that – I meant maybe the details about how close you and Louis were?’

  ‘Ah, Mariana sees where you’re taking this, sir,’ she said, still appearing unconcerned. ‘If Louis were my lover, then perhaps that puts my husband in the frame?'

  ‘Perhaps,’ McCusker replied, but that hadn’t actually been what he meant.

  ‘Well, Francie has a solid alibi. What would be the point fibbing about an alibi while knowing it would take you a mere five minutes to check it and catch him out?’

  ‘There is that,’ McCusker agreed.

  ‘But maybe you could have also meant that if Louis were my ex-lover, and he was now with my best friend, Murcia, then perhaps I too would have a motive. And the motive would be jealousy.’

  ‘But, as you say, you’d still have an alibi.’

  ‘Exactly, Mariana would still have an alibi,’ she confirmed, as she flicked her long hair away from her shoulder.

  ‘Okay.’ McCusker decided to let this sit, for now at least, and move on. ‘Yesterday you seemed to move as though it caused you great pain to do so. You appear to be in the same position today.’

  She actually winced as McCusker made his observation.

  ‘Was that a question?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What exactly is your question, Mr McCusker?’

  ‘Have you been hurt recently?’ the detective asked, still circling the topic.

  O’Carroll simultaneously took the more direct approach, and jumped in feet first with, ‘Who beat you up, Mariana?’

  Mariana’s eyes immediately looked to the door, which was slightly behind her to her left, and the movement appeared to cause her even greater pain. She looked back at the detectives and laughed.

  ‘Who said Mariana was hurt? Could I not have been in a car accident, or fallen in the yard?’

  ‘Or walked into a door?’ McCusker added. ‘We don’t think so.’

  ‘Why did Noah Woyda beat y–’

  ‘Noah?!’ she gasped, as she looked back to the door.

  ‘It wasn’t Noah Woyda, was it? It was your husband who hit you, wasn’t it?’ O’Carroll suggested, in a whisper.

  Mariana Fitzgerald broke down, not from the humiliation of having been beaten by her husband, but through the continued pain of the hiding.

  Fitzgerald’s earlier reaction in the café, to McCusker’s bluff about his wife suffering at the hands – or fists, more like – of Woyda, now made so much more sense. He’d obviously thought that McCusker really believed Woyda had beaten his wife. He’d then wasted little time in spinning the facts to fit the story.

  ‘Please, just check where Francie is,’ Mariana pleaded with McCusker.

  O’Carroll blinked her eyes slowly, signalling she too felt this was a good idea. Maybe even trying to get across to her colleague that longer would be better.

  McCusker eventually found Fitzgerald in one of the outhouses off the courtyard. He was clearly not in the process of preparing tea or scones, but rather was studying plans spread out before him on a workbench. Fitzgerald appeared nervous when McCusker walked in on him.

  ‘I just wanted to advise you, Sir, that we’ll need you in about thirty minutes,’ McCusker offered. Before McCusker had fully closed the door again, Fitzgerald said, ‘No worries, I’m not going anywhere. Please shut the door properly after you, there’s a wild draft coming up the glen.’

  The detective stepped back into the courtyard and did as he was bid, and in a gesture of just how much he wanted to help keep the draught away from Mr Fitzgerald, he very quietly turned the large key sitting in the door lock.

  Ten minutes later he re-entered the sitting room, with a tray full of tea and nibbles he’d managed to rustle up.

  ‘Where was he?’ Mariana asked.

  ‘In the outhouse, working away on plans.’

  ‘Phew, really?’ Mariana seemed totally surprised at this. ‘He won’t come back in on us, will he?’

  ‘I can guarantee he won’t come in until I go fetch him,’ McCusker said, with a hint of a grin.

  ‘Mariana here was showing me the results of her beating,’ O’Carroll started. She was still shaking with anger, ‘I took photos on my mobile of each bruise – look, all of them can be hidden behind clothes. Very clever. I assured Mrs Fitzgerald that I’d keep the photos only as a record, but would be happy to use them if in the future she chooses to press any charges against her husband. I advised her not to talk any more to me about it until you returned to witness the conversation.’

  Mariana didn’t wait for a second prompt.

  ‘Noah Woyda had no need to beat me,’ she started, ‘he got my husband to do it for him. Woyda knew I would be in touch with Murcia. He wanted Francie to find out from me where Murcia was. I wouldn’t tell him.’

  ‘But did Francie not know Murcia was at your apartment?’

  ‘No. I told him, as I told you, that I didn’t know where she was. I also told him that I had left a message for her. Some she returned, some she didn’t. I told you the untruth not as a lie but as a way of protecting her. Were you to interview him, you might let it slip that she was at the apartment because you assumed that, as my husband, he would already know. Mariana apologises.’

  ‘We understand,
’ McCusker said.

  ‘Murcia was convinced that Noah would do something terrible to her if she didn’t return to his house. She was equally convinced that he might even do something worse to her if she did. Noah was putting on the pressure to find out where she was.’

  ‘But could Francie not just go and check out your apartment?’

  ‘He doesn’t have keys,’ Mariana admitted.

  ‘Sorry?’ O’Carroll said, in disbelief.

  ‘It is my private apartment. Mariana bought this apartment off plans with my own money,’ Mariana offered, by way of explanation. ‘My husband had no involvement in this apartment. The lease or, purchase agreement, as our friends in America would call it, is safely locked away in my safe deposit box. The apartment and the nest egg I told you about earlier are my independence. You can see, with the trouble Murcia is currently experiencing, just how important it is to have your independence.’

  ‘So Francie has no keys?’ O’Carroll said.

  ‘No, he rarely goes there, and only with me.’

  ‘Do you think Woyda knows about your apartment?’ McCusker asked.

  ‘I’d bet money on it, but he’s not going to go there, is he, with all the security and the cameras.’

  ‘So he was trying to get Francie to persuade you to tell him where Murcia was so that he could… what… go and get her?’ McCusker suggested.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then when Mariana refused, he told my husband to persuade me. Francie said I was making him into a, how you say, laughing stock. He said, Mr Noah said “She’s your wife, you’re the husband, and she has to do as you say and if she doesn’t, be a real husband – make her!”

  ‘And so Francie puffed himself up and said I’d better tell him where Murcia was or I’d regret it. He said a woman has to go back to her husband, that’s what marriages were all about: “in sickness and in heath, to love, honour and obey, YOUR HUSBAND!”’

  ‘I laughed at him, told him that he and Noah should realise that it’s 2018. He took a half-hearted swing at me, I brushed it off.