The Mystery of Mercy Close (11 page)

I bitterly regretted that I didn’t know how to make the noises that people make when they’re putting the evil eye on you. I really should have paid more attention that time it had happened to me. (My refusal to buy the lucky heather from the scary-smiling lady in a patterned headscarf had brought forth a stream of nasty enchantment in a hypnotic, gutteral voice.)

Even as I was wondering if I should give it a go anyway, if I should just try to make some chanty, spell-like sounds and throw a scare into him, the charity bloke had turned his attention to someone else. From her short hair and neat little body, I thought at first it was a teenage boy, then I realized it was a woman, around the same age as me, and there was something about her that made me keep looking.

‘Hey,’ the guy crooned at her. ‘Your trainers are great!’

‘Really?’ the girl asked. ‘You think?’

‘I do think! Could we have a quick gab?’

I crept closer, people bumping into me and giving me a good tsk. But I barely noticed because I was so focused on the unfolding scene. Somehow I knew this girl was going to do something dramatic, perhaps kung-fu-kick the bloke or take his already obscenely low-slung jeans and give them a sharp tug so that they were suddenly down around his knees.

But even I wasn’t prepared for what she did: she flung herself at him and wrapped her arms tightly round him in a great big hug.

‘Your trainers are great too,’ she said.

‘Hey …’ He gave a shocked little laugh. ‘Thanks for that.’

‘And your hair …’ She took a fistful of his dreads and gave it a good hard tug. ‘Is it a wig?’

‘No … all mine.’ He wore an uneasy smile and tried to step back from her.

‘No, no, no.’ She tightened her hold. ‘You need a hug for being so sweet about my trainers.’ Her eyes were sparkling and twinkling with devilment.

‘Yeah, but …’

A small crowd had gathered and was gleaning great pleasure from his discomfort.

‘That’ll teach him,’ I heard someone say. ‘Him and his equals. Maybe they’ll think twice in future before pestering us.’

‘Pestering us?
Bullying
is what they do!’

‘That’s right,
bullying
,’ a third person agreed. ‘They’re bullies, there should be a law.’

The charity guy began to try to peel the girl’s arms off himself, but she clung like a monkey, and even I was starting to feel sorry for him by the time she eventually decided to free him. He hurried away up Grafton Street, plucking at his red Wheelchairs for Donkeys tabard, desperately trying to take it off.

‘Where are you going?’ she yelled after him. ‘I thought you were my friend!’

An impromptu bout of applause rippled through the observers and she laughed, a little proud, a little embarrassed. ‘Ah, no, stop.’

I waited until her admirers had dispersed, then I went up to her, the way you would in nursery school, and said, ‘I’m Helen.’ It was a blatant attempt at friendship.

She looked at me for a minute, coolly taking me all in, and obviously deciding she liked what she saw because she broke into a very pretty smile and said, ‘I’m Bronagh.’

I wasn’t sure what to do next. I wanted her as my friend but didn’t know how to go about it. I seemed to find it hard to make friends, proper friends, that is. For a lot of my life I’d had to make do with my family, inadequate though I found
them, simply because they couldn’t run away from me. For a long time my sister Anna had been my best friend, even though all I did was make fun of her, but then she legged it to New York and left a big hole in my life.

‘Are you doing anything right now?’ I asked Bronagh. ‘Would you like to go for a Diet Coke?’

She frowned, a little disquieted. ‘Are you a lezzer?’

‘No.’

‘Grand, so.’ Another great big smile from her. ‘A Diet Coke it is.’

I climbed the stairs and went into Mum and Dad’s ‘office’ (Claire’s old bedroom) and switched on the computer and the scanner. All my stuff – my work equipment and surveillance tools – was scattered randomly around the house, some in my bedroom, some in the dining room and some in here. Maybe when I’d organized it a bit better I’d feel more – hard to say the word, hard to even think it, it was so badly annoying, Shovel List annoying – I’d feel more
grounded
.

At least this house had broadband and wifi. A couple of years ago I’d bullied Mum and Dad into getting them and I was never so glad. I did a quick search for ‘Gloria’ and got a million Google hits, none of them useful. Did you know that Van Morrison sang a song called ‘Gloria’? Must have been before I was born.

I checked my emails. There was nothing back yet from the two I’d sent earlier, but it
was
the middle of the night. Something would come in the morning. No text either from John Joseph giving me Birdie Salaman’s number. That would come in the morning too.

Next I Photoshopped the picture of Wayne and Birdie, disappearing Birdie and making Wayne bald. It would be handy to have photos of what he actually looked like right now with the shaved head. Sadly it didn’t come out so great (his head had gone a slightly funny shape), but it would have to do. I’d print a few copies in the morning, when I’d connected my printer.

I had better luck with Birdie Salaman – there she was on Facebook. Being cagey, giving out no info, but there was a photo; it was definitely her. I dithered about sending a friend
request. Should I wait until John Joseph had given me her number? He might even be able to smooth the way for me. But I was so bad at patience that I sent the friend request anyway, I simply couldn’t stop myself.

While I was at it, I Facebooked Wayne. Even cagier than Birdie, he was, with not even a photo. I sent him a friend request too. Because you never know.

Then I rang his mobile; it was unlikely that he’d answer at this time in the morning, but once again you never know. But it was switched off and I didn’t leave a message.

Meanwhile I’d love an address for Birdie, a real-life address, not just a virtual one – in the unlikely event that John Joseph didn’t get back to me with her number. There were a couple of sites I could try. Then I had a brainwave: why didn’t I just look in the phonebook? The best ideas are always the simplest. My directory was buried in one of the several cardboard boxes I’d packed my life into, but there was bound to be one in this house.

I found it sharing a kitchen cupboard with dozens of cans of tinned pears and at least two hundred Club Milks – Mum and Dad seemed to be stockpiling for Armageddon – and within seconds I’d located Birdie and had an address
and
a landline for her.

She was living in Skerries, in North County Dublin, out by the sea. Nice. Maybe that was where the Abercrombie and Fitch-y photo had been taken. I was dying to ring her right now, but one sure-fire way to alienate someone is to call them at four in the morning.

One final search. I did a – perfectly legal – trawl through the Land Registry, and, unless he was hiding behind a company, Wayne didn’t own a second home, at least not in Ireland or the UK, so he wasn’t hiding out there.

There was nothing more I could do tonight; I’d have to go to bed. I plugged my phone into its charger and with it lying beside me – a friendly presence – I shut my eyes.

So. Artie Devlin. The first time I met him was a good while back, about eighteen months ago. I was working a matrimonial and struggling to make sense of a cheating husband’s complicated financial dealings when someone suggested I talk to Artie Devlin. ‘He’s in some high-level anti-fraud squad; he’d understand this multiple account scenario.’

I wasn’t really interested because I preferred to sort things out myself – what was the point of being a sole operator if I had to keep asking people for help?

A few days later his name cropped up again and I still paid it no heed because I didn’t believe in coincidences, I didn’t believe in fate, I didn’t believe in a benign universe with a master-plan.

Then he was mentioned for a third time, so I said, ‘Who the hell is this Artie Devlin that everyone keeps trying to foist on me?’ Apparently he was a policeman but – people were super-quick to reassure me – a far cry from the rasher-fattened rank and file. He worked for an elite anti-swindle squad with some innocuous name that belied the weightiness of its remit. He did hard sums and investigated big-style frauds, tax dodges and embezzlement, bringing high-net-worth, white-collar crims to justice.

He didn’t wear a uniform and he didn’t have a truncheon. Instead he followed paper trails, understood balance sheets and had an MA in taxation law.

‘He’s a great guy,’ I was told. And, more pertinently: ‘He’s very good-looking and really, really sexy.’

The general opinion was that he was a class bit of law enforcement, and of course, with so much respect and
admiration washing his way, I was put off him before I ever met him.

But the days passed and I still couldn’t get a grip of the cheating husband’s tangled financial set-up, so in the end I rang Mr Artie Devlin and said I was looking for a favour and he said he had an hour free the following Thursday.

We met at his workplace, which was not a police station or anything like it, but a big open-plan office filled with casually dressed types staring hard at screens of figures. Tomes on taxation law and other accoutrements of accountancy abounded, but these people (mostly men, I have to admit) were fit and muscular, sort of like accountancy Superheroes. (‘Send for SpreadSheet Boy!’) (‘If only Algorithm Guy could be here!’)

Artie had a glass-walled office in a corner. He was big and good-looking and reserved –
extremely
particular about the words he used to convey information, the way coppers are, even those without truncheons. Despite his professional air, there was something untamed about him, call it an edge, a potential wild side, or maybe he just hadn’t ironed his shirt.

He asked me if I’d like a coffee.

‘I don’t believe in hot drinks,’ I said. ‘And we’ve a lot to get through. Let’s go.’

He looked at me for a moment. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

I hefted my big file of documents on to his desk, and he patiently went through it and explained about off-shore banks and shadow account holders and other nefarious practices.

It was complicated stuff but after a while something clicked and I got it. Instantly I became a bit giddy. ‘So tell me,’ I said to Artie Devlin, ‘do you go to the Cayman Islands a lot?’

He looked up from the pages, fixed me with a blue, blue gaze and eventually – reluctantly – said, ‘I’ve been there once.’

‘Did you get a tan?’

After a pause he said, ‘No.’

I took a good long look at him. He didn’t have that terrible Irish colouring that never tans and instead just ups its freckle quotient (I speak as one who knows). On the contrary he had beautiful Swedish-style skin that goes an even golden colour. ‘Wasn’t it sunny?’ I asked.

‘I was working,’ he replied.

Then I was distracted by a photo on his desk. Three fair-haired children, who looked just like him.

‘Your nieces and nephew?’ I asked.

‘No, they’re my kids.’

It was a big surprise (category:
very
unpleasant) to find out he had children. No one had told me. And he didn’t look the part. The reverse. ‘You look a bit … Doctors Without Borders.’

He didn’t display a flicker of interest but I told him anyway. ‘You know what I mean: fond of adrenaline, like you’d be happier in a makeshift tent in a war-zone front line, amputating limbs by the light of a storm lantern, than in a suburb raising kids.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Never amputated a limb.’

There was a funny little silence and I was just working my way round to taking my leave when he became unexpectedly garrulous. ‘To be honest,’ he said, ‘I’ve always thought those Doctors Without Borders people must have a bit of a death wish.’

‘Really?’

‘Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing they’re doing, a very good thing, but what’s the problem with wanting to live in a suburb and raise kids?’

‘Lots,’ I said. ‘Oh, lots.’

‘No.’ He was quite insistent. ‘It’s got to be better than wanting to spend your life sewing people back together while bullets are whizzing over your head.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Yes.’ Frankly, between his chattiness and his forcefulness, I was suddenly and badly smitten.

‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘because I simply have to know. What’s the status between you and the mother of your children?’

‘We’re divorced.’

‘A recent split?’ I tried to sound sympathetic.

‘A few – two? – years ago now.’

‘Aaah. A good long while. Plenty of time for the wounds to heal.’

He looked at me, looked and looked and looked at me, and finally he shook his head slightly and gave a quiet little laugh.

I really, really, really, really fancied this Artie Devlin. I’d have liked forty-eight hours in a locked hotel room with him. But that was all. I didn’t want complications. I didn’t want agonized discussions at two in the morning about ‘making this thing work’. I didn’t want the needs of his children to matter as much as mine.

Because that’s what you got when you got a man with kids.

(A hard thing for any woman to admit, for fear we’ll sound selfish, and God forbid that a woman might be selfish.)

I’d limited my exposure to single fathers because I knew what they were like – worried about their children and their stability and how they couldn’t be introducing new girlfriends to them every five minutes. The sort of mindset that was no fun if you were in the market for commitment-free spontaneity.

And, of course, there was only one thing worse than a man who worried about upsetting his kids and that was a man who didn’t give a shit.

So I thanked Artie for his help, assured him that if I could ever repay the favour, I would and – with a little sadness – went on my way.

Over the next several weeks I had lots of cause to think of Artie. The explanations he’d given me turned out to be
extremely helpful because they unlocked my understanding of the case. Which meant I was able to tell my client how much money her cheating husband really had and she was able to front him up and get what she was entitled to. So basically it all worked out and it wouldn’t have happened without Artie Devlin.