‘She’d probably cope,’ I said, ‘seeing as she reckoned Maria was screwing Finn for his money.’
Her lips thinned. ‘That’s just Saoirse,’ she said. ‘With her, it’s all about money. No one does anything for any other reason.’
I was sitting in a car park delaying a commissioned B amp;E to nab a gun and a laptop, so I stared wistfully up at the high moral ground and kept my trap shut.
‘I just wish she’d seen them together,’ Grainne said. ‘Last time I stayed over, the Easter break, we had a hoot trying to come up with Irish-Cypriot names for their kids.’
‘I think that was the issue,’ I said. ‘Your mother was worried Maria was taking him away.’
‘To Cyprus? It’s four fucking hours away.’
Flying time, sure. Ten if you factor in the security checks. I crushed the smoke, tempusfugiting onwards. ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I don’t suppose you know what this gun looks like?’
‘Small,’ she said. ‘Heavy.’
‘He showed you it?’
She shrugged. ‘He leaves it lying around.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Phil’s messy. You’ll see.’
‘There’s messy,’ I said, noting the present tense, ‘and there’s leaving a gun lying around.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘It’ll be right there,’ she said, deadpan, ‘in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet in his office.’
‘In plain sight.’
‘Sometimes I have X-ray vision.’
‘Did he keep the drawer locked?’
‘Of course.’
‘But he left the key where it could be found.’
She nodded. ‘Taped behind the U-bend under the kitchen sink.’
‘That’s careless.’
An impish grin. ‘Isn’t it, though?’
I opened the door, said, ‘Who’s Phil?’
She flushed. ‘Pardon?’
‘Phil. You just said, “Phil’s messy”.’
‘Did I?’
‘You did.’
‘Well, I meant Finn. Obviously.’
‘Obviously. An easy mistake to make, confusing the name of your dead brother.’
I waited. She stared straight ahead, apparently entranced by the sight of Lough Gill glistering beyond the burger wrappers trapped against the chain-link fence. When she realised I wasn’t going anywhere, she looked across at me, conceding.
‘His real name is Philip. When he was adopted, Saoirse changed his name to Finn. She reckoned Philip sounded too English.’ She shrugged. ‘So I call him Phil when we’re on our own.’
Still with the present tense. ‘I never knew he was adopted.’
‘No?’ Another shrug. ‘We both are. They couldn’t have kids, there was some issue with conceiving. Saoirse never wanted to get into the details.’
‘That’s a pity.’
She bridled. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. For them? Sorry. A stupid thing to say.’
It made sense of a few things, though. Maybe it meant the passport issued under the name of Philip Winston Byrne wasn’t a fake, for one. And maybe, if you’re built a certain way, it’s easier to feel estranged from an adopted child than from your own flesh and blood. But it still didn’t explain why Finn had stashed the passport in the cistern, five grand tucked inside.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘you stay here. I’ll go up and-’
‘No way.’ She opened the car door. I leaned across and grabbed her forearm with my right hand, pulled her back into the seat. She looked down at my hand, outraged. Which was ideal, because it meant she wasn’t watching what I was doing with my left.
‘Maria needs me,’ she said. ‘I’ve been ringing and ringing and she hasn’t picked up. She must be-’
‘Gone.’
‘Gone? Gone where?’
‘I don’t know. Back to Dublin. Cyprus, maybe.’
‘But why would she …?’
‘Why’d Finn send you an email? How come he didn’t just call, or arrange to meet so he could tell you about the trust fund himself?’
‘I don’t know. Why?’
‘I found a passport in his studio, Grainne. Hidden in the toilet cistern, five thousand euro inside.’
‘So?’
‘So it was a fake passport. Put that with the email, the trust fund being changed with a lawyer in Cyprus, and I’m guessing he was planning to duck out. Before anyone copped to the changes.’
‘And Maria?’
‘He’d hardly have left without her, would he? If it was me, I’d have sent her on ahead.’
‘But, but …’ In her confusion she sounded like a small outboard engine. ‘If that’s what he was planning, why would he …?’
‘I haven’t a clue. If you come up with a solid theory, be sure to tell the cops.’ I got out of the car, hunkered down. ‘You have the apartment’s phone number, right?’ She nodded, still dazed and processing the new information. ‘Good stuff. You keep sketch. If anyone shows up looking a bit shifty, ring twice and then hang up.’
I stood up. ‘Harry,’ she said. She sounded far away.
I leaned in. ‘What?’
‘I’ll pay you,’ she said. ‘Whatever she’s paying you to steal the laptop, I’ll pay it.’
‘Done deal. You have twenty grand cash handy, right?’
That got her focused again. ‘Twenty grand?’
‘Anyway, your mother wants me to try and find Finn’s suicide note. There’s a chance that’ll be on the laptop.’
Her chin up-jutted. ‘Maybe it will,’ she said. ‘And maybe if she was more worried about how Finn felt when he was alive she wouldn’t need to read any suicide notes now.’
‘I’d say what your mother needs right now is comfort. From her daughter, say.’
‘Mother doesn’t need people. People are just something else you buy.’
‘Like you just tried to buy me?’
She’d been poised ever since I’d pulled her back into the car. Now she struck, already gouging, but by then I’d slammed the door closed, so the black-polished nails made a rattling sound on the glass. I waggled a finger at her, then dangled the car keys, pushed the button that central-locked the doors. Then, ignoring the muffled screams and thumps, I hauled my weary bones towards the apartment block. Across the river, high on the hill above the tree-line, the hospital blazed as the early sun set its glass frontage aflame.
I wondered if Dee’s parents had arrived yet, and hoped they had. The vitriol bandied about when my name was mentioned might distract her from Ben’s condition, even for a minute or two.
The stab in my gut answered one question, at least.
No, it wouldn’t be any easier to become estranged from an adopted child.
Love, whatever the hell it might be, and wherever the hell it comes from, has nothing to do with flesh or blood.
29
Once upon a time Weir’s Folly had been pretty well secured. You needed a zapper to get past the car park gates, and tap a four-digit code into the pad beside the lobby doors to access the building itself. Once inside, getting to the lifts meant passing a booth manned by a concierge who doubled as a security guard, who’d ring ahead just to be sure you were expected.
These days, with the recession in full slump and burglaries on the up, they’d cut back on administration fees by letting the security guard go. Perverse, but there it is.
I went on up to the penthouse floor, which had its own lobby, bare but for a potted bamboo standing in one corner, its leaves crisp and turning brown. Not a good look for prospective customers, given that the penthouse suite was also home to Fine Arte Investments, but then, when business gets sluggish up at the high end of the market, the potted plants are always first to feel the pinch.
The alarm didn’t go off when I stepped inside, which suggested someone was home, a fact more or less confirmed by the sound of a humming shower, its splashes echoing down the narrow hall. Finn had split the penthouse into business and home, the hallway opening into a living room converted to a spacious reception area that had the feel of a gallery, with examples of Fine Arte’s wares, or reproductions of same, dotting the walls. The far wall was floor-length windows, or would have been had the curtains been drawn back. In the corner was a closed door on which was a small black plaque with the legend ‘Finn Hamilton, Fine Arte Investment’ embossed in gold.