‘A fake?’
‘It’s that or he stole Philip Byrne’s passport, stuck his own mugshot inside.’
She flapped some eyelash so hard that a hurricane started to brew in Brazil. ‘But why would Finn need a fake passport?’
‘At a wild guess, I’d say he wanted to travel incognito.’ I swallowed off the last of the coffee, put the bowl down on the hardwood table. I’d resisted long enough but I hadn’t had a smoke in over eight hours, so I filched a menthol More, sparked it up with her dinky gold Cartier. It didn’t exactly taste like mint-roasted cowpat, but it was close.
‘Mrs Hamilton,’ I said, ‘let’s just accept at this point that when it comes to Finn and why he did what he did, I know nothing. What’s bugging me is that he stashed the passport where someone was bound to find it eventually.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t follow.’
‘That makes two of us. I’m just saying, you should mention that to the cops. They don’t seem to think it’s all that important.’
‘Why should they?’
‘Well,’ I exhaled hard, ‘mainly because they feature me for pushing Finn out the window. So I’d appreciate it if we could crack on with this job you have in mind, because there’s a good chance that I’m under arrest at the moment, technically speaking, and I don’t have a lot of time to play with.’
But I’d lost her at window, the full lips pursing into a cat’s-bum pucker. ‘How dare you,’ she began, but by then I was waving the More around to distract her, a Yoda-sized lightsaber.
‘I didn’t push anyone anywhere,’ I said, ‘and I don’t do poetry either. It’s late, I’m knackered, and I’ve more to worry about than whether Finn bit the big one or wafted off into the ether on angels’ downy wings. I’m here because you want me to do a job. So just tell me what it is and how much it pays and we’ll see how it goes from there.’
She bridled, quivered and damn near danced a Cuban hokey-cokey. ‘You haven’t the manners you were born with,’ she hissed.
‘True enough, but I’m guessing etiquette isn’t a prerequisite for this work you need done. So what is it you want?’
She simmered a while. I dunked the More in the coffee bowl. The fizz-spit seemed to bring her back. She sat forward and placed her own bowl on the table, flicked some silk and lace into a froth while she gathered her thoughts.
‘One prerequisite,’ she said, sounding starch, ‘would be an ability to actually deliver on your promise. Regardless of what it was you found in Finn’s studio, you singularly failed to bring it to me. As you said you would.’
‘Yeah, well, that had a lot to do with being rammed off the road and being hauled in by the cops. Next time I’ll be what they call forewarned, keep a weather eye out for the deus trying on his machina shit.’
‘Yes, the Guards. Why do you say you are technically under arrest?’
‘I said I might be, but I don’t know. The boys don’t believe I was rammed. So they’re thinking, a one-car accident, I was probably drink-driving, on drugs. Right now they’re waiting for the blood tests to come back.’
‘They didn’t breathalyse you?’
‘I was out for four hours, maybe more. And they’d have needed my permission to go poking around in my mouth.’
‘Should I ask if you were under the influence?’
‘Ask away. But time’s a-wasting.’
She took her time lighting another menthol and didn’t offer one across. I took one anyway, snapped off the filter, beckoned for the Cartier. When she handed it over I knew she was in deep schtuck. Desperate enough, at least, to take a one-eyed desperado into her confidence.
‘Finn had a laptop computer,’ she said. ‘It belongs to Hamilton Holdings. I’d like very much for it to be retrieved.’
‘From his apartment?’
She inclined her head.
‘What’s the catch?’ I said.
‘There is no catch.’
‘On a repo gig, there’s always a catch.’
‘Perhaps some people are more prone to being caught than others.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m one of the happy few.’
‘Then it’s just as well there is no catch in this particular instance.’
‘I take it we’re talking the same fee.’
An eyebrow ripped free of its Botox moorings. ‘Ten thousand euro? To retrieve a laptop?’
‘Sounds a bit excessive, I know, but if we’re talking break-and-enter, well, that’s illegal. And the cops don’t much like my face as it is.’
‘You won’t be breaking and entering.’ She reached into the side pocket of her robe and placed a key-ring on the table. There were two keys attached. ‘The apartment also belongs to Hamilton Holdings. Finn just lives there.’ She choked down a tiny hedgehog, compressed her lips. ‘Lived there.’
‘And you can’t send Simon because …’
‘My reasons are my own.’
‘The main one being, I’d imagine, that you don’t want Maria to know you have Finn’s laptop.’
Something Arctic seeped into the Aegean-blue eyes. ‘That would be one benefit, yes.’
‘So just to clarify. You’re not paying me to break in and steal, you’re paying me to make it look that way.’
‘Correct.’
‘Okay. What’re the other reasons?’
‘They are none of your business, Mr Rigby, and I’ll thank you to keep your impertinence in check.’
I grinned. ‘Impertinence, Mrs Hamilton, is a fundamental characteristic of the human condition. You should brush up on your Milton.’
Red spots appeared high over her cheekbones. Anger, I was guessing, turning the Botox to lava. ‘Ten thousand euro is a substantial sum, Mr Rigby. Will you provide the service required or not?’
‘Absolutely, yeah. Once I know I’m not someone’s stooge.’
‘But if you believe I am trying to manipulate you,’ she said tartly, ‘then how could I possibly convince you otherwise?’
‘A few questions should do it.’
‘You’re really in no position to-’
‘What, interrogate my betters? Sorry, but that lark went out with rack-rents and the slow boat to Van Diemen’s Land.’
I couldn’t tell if it was the rack-rents or Van Diemen’s Land but something cut where it counts. She executed a class of reclining flounce, then went through the old routine of rearranging the silk and lace. ‘What questions?’ she said.
I struggled up out of the leather recliner and went and sat on the balcony wall, a strategic move designed to occupy the high ground and force her to look up at me as she answered. A bad idea. The surf swirled and swushed around the black rocks far below, spraying up on the little boathouse perched out on the point. A dizzying fall even if you hadn’t given blood a couple of hours before, a one-eye perspective skewing your depth of vision.
‘First off,’ I said, squirming, ‘Gillick reckons you knew he was up in the PA with Finn before he jumped. True?’
‘Yes.’
‘On your behalf?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
She was still having trouble with my insubordinate attitude. The words came short, clipped and damn near pedicured. ‘Mr Gillick was there in his capacity as solicitor for Hamilton Holdings. He was authorised to employ whatever method he felt was appropriate to convince Finn he was making a mistake.’
‘Authorised by you.’
‘Yes.’
‘I thought you said Finn wasn’t entitled to sell the PA.’
‘He wasn’t.’
‘So what was his mistake?’
‘I think we both know the answer to that, Mr Rigby.’
‘Maria.’
She nodded.
‘So Gillick was there,’ I said, ‘to tell Finn dump Maria.’
‘Crudely put, but correct.’
‘Appropriate method. What does that mean?’
‘Exactly what it says.’
‘A bribe?’
‘It would certainly have been in Finn’s interests not to marry that woman.’
‘His financial interests.’
‘Among others.’
‘Such as?’
She looked away and down, to where she was rubbing the lacy hem between her fingers. ‘I believe you have a son, Mr Rigby.’
‘Go on.’
‘No doubt you want the best for him.’
‘Sure.’
‘Then surely you can appreciate why I felt the same way about Finn.’