"Well," Cassie said. "Depending on your point of view."
"Shhh," I told her. "Just look at the pretty picture."
"Ah, you know what I mean," Sam said. "Nothing you wouldn't expect. Where it gets interesting is the land around the motorway. That was all agricultural land, too, up until late 1995. Then, bit by bit, over the next four years, it started getting bought up and rezoned, from agricultural to industrial and residential."
"By clairvoyants who knew where the motorway was going to be, five years before it was announced," I said.
"That's not actually that dodgy either," Sam said. "There was talk about a motorway coming into Dublin from the southwest-I've found newspaper articles-starting in about 1994, when the economic boom kicked in. I talked to a couple of surveyors, and they said this was the most obvious route for a motorway, because of topography and settlement patterns and a load of other things. I didn't understand the whole of it, but that's what they said. There's no reason why property developers couldn't have done the same thing-got wind of the motorway and hired surveyors to tell them where it was likely to go."
Neither of us said anything. Sam glanced from me to Cassie and flushed slightly. "I'm not being naïve. Yeah, they might have been tipped off by someone in government-but, then again, they might not. Either way, it's not something we can prove, and I don't think it means anything to our case." I tried not to smile. Sam is one of the most efficient detectives on the squad, but it was very sweet, somehow, how earnest he was about it all.
"Who bought the land?" Cassie asked, relenting.
Sam looked relieved. "A bunch of different companies. Most of them don't exist, not really; they're just holding companies, owned by other companies that are owned by other companies. That's what's been taking all my time-trying to find out who actually owns the bloody land. So far I've traced each buy back to one of three companies: Global Irish Industries, Futura Property Consultants and Dynamo Development. The blue bits here are Global, see; the green ones are Futura, and the red are Dynamo. I'm having a hell of a time finding out who's behind them, though. Two of them are registered in the Czech Republic, and Futura's in Hungary."
"Now that does sound dodgy," Cassie said. "By any definition."
"Sure," Sam said, "but it's most likely tax evasion. We can pass all this on to the Revenue, but I don't see how it can have anything to do with our case."
"Unless Devlin had found out about it and was using it to put pressure on someone," I said.
Cassie looked skeptical. "Found out how? And he would've told us."
"You never know. He's weird."
"You think everyone's weird. First Mark-"
"I'm only getting to the interesting bit," said Sam. I made a face at Cassie and turned towards the map before she could make one back. "So by March of 2000, when the motorway is announced, these three companies own almost all the land around this section of it. But four farmers had held out-those are the yellow bits. I tracked them down; they're in Louth now. They'd seen what way things were going, and they knew these buyers were offering pretty good prices, above the going rate for agricultural land; that was why everyone else had taken the money. They talked it over-they're all mates, these four-and decided to hold on to their land and see if they could work out what was going on. When the motorway plans were announced, obviously, they copped why these fellas wanted their land so badly: for industrial estates and residential developments, now that the motorway was going to make Knocknaree accessible. So these lads figured they'd get the land rezoned themselves, double or triple its value overnight. They applied to the county council for rezoning-one of them applied four times-and got refused, every time."
He tapped one of the yellow blocks, half full of tiny calligraphic notes. Cassie and I leaned forward to read them: M. Cleary, app rz ag-nd: 5/2000 ref, 11/2000 ref, 6/2001 ref, 1/2002 ref; sd M. Cleary-FPC 8/2002; rz ag-ind 10/2002.
Cassie took it in with a brief nod and leaned back on her hands, her eyes still on the map. "So they sold up," she said quietly.
"Yeah. For around the same price as the others got-good for agricultural land, but a long way under the going rate for industrial or residential. Maurice Cleary wanted to stay put, out of sheer bloody-mindedness as much as anything else-said he wasn't going to be forced off his land by any eejit in a suit-but he got a visit from some fella from one of the holding companies, who explained to him that they'd be building a pharmaceutical plant backing onto his farm and they couldn't guarantee that chemical waste wouldn't seep into the water and poison his cattle. He took it as a threat-I don't know whether he was right or not, but he sold up anyway. As soon as the Big Three bought the land-under various other names, but it all traces back to them-they applied for rezoning, and got it."
Cassie laughed, a small angry breath.
"Your Big Three had the county council in their pockets all the way," I said.
"Looks like."
"You've talked to the county councilors?"
"Ah, yeah. For all the good it did me. They were very polite and all, but they talked in circles. They could keep going for hours without giving me a single straight answer." I slid my eyes sideways and caught Cassie's covert, amused glance: Sam, living with a politician, should have been used to this by now. "They said the rezoning decisions were-hang on…" He flipped pages in his notebook. "'Our decisions were on all occasions intended to further the best interests of the community as a whole, as determined based upon the information made available to us at the relevant points in time, and were not impacted by any form of favoritism.' This wasn't part of a letter or anything; your man actually said that to me. In conversation, like." Cassie mimed sticking a finger down her throat.
"How much does it take to buy a county council?" I asked.
Sam shrugged. "For that many decisions, over that amount of time, it must have added up to a decent old figure. The Big Three had a lot of money sunk in that land, one way or another. They wouldn't have been best pleased at the idea of the motorway moving."
"How much damage would it actually do them?"
He pointed to two dotted lines, just cutting across the northwest corner of the map. "According to my surveyors, that's the nearest logical alternative route. That's the one Move the Motorway wants. It's a good two miles away, four or five in some places. The land to the north of the original route would still be accessible enough, but these lads all have plenty on the south side as well, and its value would go right down. I talked to a couple of estate agents, pretended I was interested in buying; they all said industrial land right on the motorway was worth up to twice as much as industrial land three miles off it. I haven't done the exact maths, but it could add up to millions in the difference."
"That'd be worth a few threatening phone calls," Cassie said softly.
"There are people," I said, "to whom that would be worth a few extra grand for a hit man."
Nobody said anything for a few moments. Outside, the drizzle was starting to clear; a watery shaft of sun fell across the map like a helicopter's searchlight, picked out a stretch of the river, rippling with delicate pen-strokes and shaded over with a dull red haze. Across the room, the floater manning the tip line was trying to get rid of someone too voluble to let him finish his sentences. Finally Cassie said, "But why Katy? Why not go after Jonathan?"