‘Well?’ she said.
‘Well what?’
‘Why would he write that?’
‘I’m guessing he wanted you to know he changed the TF. Like it says.’
She puffed out her cheeks. ‘What I’m asking,’ she said none too patiently, ‘is why he’d want to change it. Unless, y’know …’
‘Go on.’
‘Unless he knew something was going to happen. Or thought it might.’
‘Something like what?’
‘I don’t know.’
My stomach grumbled. ‘I don’t suppose there’s anything I could eat?’
‘Eat?’
I told her I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten, and thought longingly about the tea and toast I’d been promised in the hospital but which hadn’t arrived before I bolted for the emergency exit, making a mental note to write a letter to the Irish Times about the disgraceful state of the Irish health service. She gave a harsh kind of sigh but she rummaged around in the driver’s door pocket and came up with half a pack of Polo Mints. A thin ring of mint around a big fat nothing. The cosmos, I presumed, up to its old tricks. I’d have been better off eating the paper and foil wrapping.
‘This TF,’ I said around three mints tucked into my cheek. ‘That’s a trust fund, right?’
She nodded.
‘And you think Finn was pushed, or was pushed into jumping, because he changed this trust fund, or was trying to. And because you’re the beneficiary, you’re next for the old heave-ho. How am I doing so far?’
She stared straight ahead, chewing on her lower lip. Another nod.
‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ I said.
‘You don’t know Saoirse.’
‘True enough. Let me put it this way. How much is the trust fund worth?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Probably not north of half a million, though.’
‘Half a million?’
‘Look, I don’t know what your mother tells you about her finances, but between you and me, she’s struggling. Finn reckoned NAMA has everything, and the only reason she still has The Grange is that someone, probably Gillick, had the wit to sign it over to your mother personally before the hammer came down.’
‘But that can’t be.’
‘Well, it is. Why d’you think Finn was bailing out?’
‘Bailing …’
‘He didn’t tell you?’ She shook her head, her eyes searching mine. ‘Finn was leaving, Grainne. Moving to Cyprus. Setting up his own company, marrying Maria. He had an apartment complex development all planned as her wedding present.’ I wasn’t slapping her face anymore, I was stabbing her in the back. ‘I’m guessing he never mentioned that.’
‘No.’
‘Well buckle up, because here’s where it gets complicated. Finn reckoned he was selling the PA building to Gillick to pay for the Cyprus development. Your mother says that’s impossible, because the PA wasn’t in Finn’s name, although my guess is that it’s because NAMA owns it now. Anyway, she says the reason Gillick was with Finn that night, with her blessing, was to persuade him to kick Maria to touch.’
‘He wouldn’t do that.’
‘We’ll never know now, will we? Anyway,’ I gestured at the iPhone, ‘I’m guessing Finn was bullshitting Gillick about buying the PA building back from NAMA, at a rock-bottom price, telling him he’d need to kick some seed capital loose from the trust fund to do it. Except Finn had this development in Cyprus lined up.’
A gap opened on our left. She indicated and slipped into it, got off the bridge, drove in along Markievicz Road. ‘He could have told me,’ she said dully.
‘He did. He sent you the email.’
‘About Maria. Moving to Cyprus.’
‘I’m sure he would have, once the time was right. It was supposed to be a big surprise for Maria.’
She followed the one-way system until we were on Connaughton Road, the hospital just visible over the crest of the hill. I closed my eyes and pictured Ben prone in his bed and heard a kind of gulping laugh. I looked across at her. ‘Christ,’ she said, ‘I’d have loved to have seen her face.’ Defiant now, despite the tears on her cheeks.
‘It wasn’t pretty.’
She made the right turn down Lake Isle Road, heading for Thomas Street. ‘She knows?’
‘Yeah.’
‘But how …?’
‘I told her.’
‘Why the fuck would you tell her?’
‘She asked.’
‘And you betrayed his confidence. Just like that.’
‘It wasn’t that simple.’
‘She paid you, Harry. It’s not exactly rocket science.’
‘She hasn’t paid me a penny. And if you want the truth of it, it was Finn’s fault. He lied to me, told me he was selling the PA. Your mother said there was no way he could do that. Things kind of moved on from there.’
‘To where, exactly?’
I took a last drag on the Marlboro, popped it out the window. Got settled in the seat. I sympathised with her, I really did, but I couldn’t muster the strength to play along. It’s all black and white when you’re a teenager, all rights and wrongs, us and them. Takes a lot of excess energy to sustain that quality of idealism, or naivety, or stupidity, and I was just about wiped out, a long and fraught day to come.
‘If your mother wants you to know,’ I said, ‘she’ll tell you.’
A deft little snort. ‘Saoirse likes it when I don’t know anything.’
‘I’m sure she has your best interests at heart.’
‘Like she had Finn’s?’
‘Maybe she thought she did.’
‘She had a funny way of showing it.’
You’re funny when you try to be funny, dad …
We came off the bridge and turned left onto Kennedy Parade, out along the river.
‘Tell me about the gun,’ I said.
‘You’re so smart,’ she said, ‘you know everything, you tell me about the gun.’
We’d arrived at what they call an impasse and I was too tired to care about trying to get around it. We drove the next minute or so in silence until she pulled in at the gates of Weir’s Folly, zapped the gates. They sounded a dull thung as they jerked open, and she nosed into the half-empty car park. I had a good look around while she found a space close to the waterfront, a view clear up the river to the lake beyond, but all the cars were empty, no shady types peering from behind upside-down newspapers. No reason there should be. If I’d been Tohill, and staking out Finn’s apartment, I’d be inside with a good cup of coffee and the sports pages, waiting for fly Harry Rigby to step into my parlour.
I opened the car door and Grainne said, ‘The gun was my father’s. Finn took it with him when he left home, a kind of memento.’ She fumbled a couple of smokes from the pack, passed one across. I snapped the filter, took the light she offered. ‘I think it was supposed to be some kind of warning,’ she said. ‘Y’know, Don’t follow me, some shit like that. Finn wouldn’t talk about it.’
‘And this is when they became estranged.’
‘Estranged?’
‘That’s the word your mother used.’
She shook her head. ‘That’s just the way we are, Harry. Or were, anyway. We’d blow up, there’d be a massive row, then ten minutes later it was like it never happened.’
‘So what changed?’
‘Maria. Saoirse won’t even allow her name be said in the house. Says she’s a tramp whore slut.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘You like her, though.’
She shrugged. ‘She can be a bit up herself sometimes, a bit high maintenance, but yeah, she’s okay.’ She took a hit off the Marlboro, stared off up the river. ‘She was good for Finn, and that was good enough for me. I mean, you know him, right? Finn was a total flake before Maria came along. Don’t get me wrong, he was a pretty cool big brother, he’d let me stay over some nights when I was home on holidays, we’d drink beers, smoke a joint.’ She had a good long look at her reflection in the black polish of her thumbnail. ‘But it was like every night I stayed, there’d be a different girl. One night I got in and the girl got up and left straightaway and when I asked who she was, he couldn’t remember her name. He made a joke of it, but I’m pretty sure she was a prostitute. Jesus,’ she said, a bitter half-smile, ‘I’d love to see Saoirse’s face if I told her that.’