Burton paused, allowing the question to drift away.
‘What are you so angry about, Joe?’
Lynch’s eyes moved from side to side, weighing up whether to speak, to tell Burton what he really thought.
‘It’s bullshit. All of it. A new dawn. A new day. A load of fucking crap. Stormont. Politicians chuckling for the cameras. Collecting their fat salaries. Meanwhile, the guys are out there running everything. Making sure. . well, making sure things run. And what are we doing, sitting here in your plush office, looking at the nice view, talking about Buddhists. . I haven’t seen too many frigging Buddhists walking the streets of Belfast.’
Lynch gestured to the window with his thumb. Burton sensed he was about to leave. He’d talked himself to the point of walking out, recovered that sense of indignation, of being wronged.
‘You used to like to work alone, Joe. Didn’t you?’
Lynch was taken aback by the change of subject.
‘Come again?’
‘It was people. People were the problem. They were a liability — even the ones on your side. They’d let you down. Lose their bottle. Not follow through. Sure it was fine, talking about it beforehand, but when push came to shove, there was only one person you could really rely on.’
Lynch sat quietly, listening.
‘And that’s not really changed. We can talk about Buddhists all day, but it’s not about them, Joe. It’s about you. You haven’t changed. You go days out there, not saying a single word to anyone. And why? Because they know you. Or at least you think they do. It’s in that look you get. Fear and respect. But mostly it’s fear. Yeah, they know you. So you sit in front of the TV, nothing but you and your memories, and no matter what you do, they keep coming back. You can’t make them go away. They don’t want to vanish.’
Lynch stared at Burton. He couldn’t acknowledge how close he was. It would be like giving something away, losing some control.
‘The past. It doesn’t just go away on its own,’ Burton said. ‘The memories — you’ve got to replace them with different ones. New ones. Better ones. And sometimes, it still won’t get rid of them altogether.’
‘So what are you supposed to replace them with?’
‘It’s not up to me, Joe. Only you can figure that out. But it’s going to involve other people. I can probably guarantee you that.’
There was a light knock on the door. The signal from the receptionist. They were five minutes beyond their time and Burton’s next appointment would be waiting outside.?100 an hour. It didn’t pay to keep people waiting.
FOURTEEN
It was Monday morning. Laganview was a week old. Ward drove across the Sydenham bypass and out of the city. The road skirted the coastline of Belfast Lough leading to Holywood, Cultra and eventually Bangor.
O’Neill still didn’t have an ID on his body. The forensics had come back and were as weak as they both feared. Wilson had reassigned the investigating team, leaving O’Neill on his own. Ward was a DI though and could do what he wanted. He was on his way to Cultra to visit William Spender, the MD of the developers behind Laganview. It was little more than a fishing expedition but Ward had history with Spender and thought, what the hell, it wasn’t as if O’Neill had a cell full of suspects.
Cultra was fifteen minutes along the south shore of Belfast Lough. Nineteenth-century mansions with large bay windows stared out to sea, turning their faces from the city up the coast. Ward imagined an Agatha Christie novel. Guilty butlers, billiard rooms, candlestick-holders. It wasn’t the kind of place where the PSNI spent much time.
He had called Spender the night before. The developer didn’t have time to meet him. The body was an inconvenience and had already cost a day’s work on site. Ward rolled his eyes. The richer people got, the less they wanted to play the helpful citizen. He was about to make Spender come in to Musgrave Street when the developer cut him short, saying he could see him early Monday morning. Ward didn’t read much into it. It confirmed what he remembered about Spender: the ego, the arrogance, the self-importance.
Spender Properties had been in the Belfast Telegraph a few years earlier over allegations of corruption. Nothing ever came of it though and the papers dropped the story after a few days. The North had a pretty visceral news diet. ‘Business Back-Hander’ v ‘Brutal Bomb Blast’. It wasn’t really a contest.
On Sunday Ward had called up one of his old contacts at the Telegraph. Stuart Colman was in his late fifties and had forgotten more about Belfast than most people would ever know, the police included. He was from York Street but had gone to London, ‘Dick Whittington style’, in the late seventies. He’d got a start with the Evening Standard and stayed a few years until his father died and he came home. Colman agreed to meet him in the Duke of York. When Ward asked about Spender, Colman clocked it straight away.
‘You’re on Laganview? I thought that was O’Neill?’
Colman was a dying breed. A real reporter. You didn’t have to spell things out. He knew most of Musgrave Street by face and never forgot a name. Ward thought he would have made a good detective.
‘Anything worth sharing with a humble, hard-working journalist?’
‘Nothing yet. But you’ll be the first to know.’
‘Since when did I start doing pro bono?’ Colman joked. ‘You were always a lousy first date, Ward. Not even a wee kiss, a bit of a fumble in the back row?’
‘Slowly does it now. Whatever happened to respecting a girl?’
‘I never had you as the prudish type. Anyway, how can I help the Police Service of Northern Ireland?’
‘Spender. You guys were looking at him a couple of years ago. It was over some fraud allegations. What do you know about him?’
‘Spender? He’s building the new Northern Ireland. At least, that’s what they say. He probably owns half the new builds going up round here. Started as a family of builders. His father was an apprentice bricklayer and worked his way up. Died when Spender was in his twenties and left the firm to his son. At that stage Spenders were building houses, one at a time type of thing. The son was ambitious though and wanted to expand. Within a few years they were doing housing developments. Small estates. First-time buyer stuff. Three bedrooms, a patch of grass out back.’
Colman stopped talking and drained the rest of his pint.
‘This is thirsty work.’
Ward took the hint and got in two more Guinness.
‘Spender’s ambition took the company in the right direction. Along came the Peace Process and when the price of property started soaring they were in the right place at the right time. Laganview’s just part of what they have on the go. They’re the main players in the redevelopment of the old gasworks at the bottom of the Ormeau Road. They did the Cathedral Quarter and are bidding to get part of the Titanic Quarter.’
‘Interesting,’ Ward said. ‘So what was the scoop back then?’