‘Knew what?’
‘About you.’
I got up and went to the doorway, retrieved the bag. ‘I wouldn’t think so, no. But even if he did, it wouldn’t have been the me part that bothered him.’
‘You’re saying, it’d be the me part.’
‘Let it go, Maria. Finn wasn’t the type to die of a broken heart.’
‘Something made him jump.’
‘It generally takes more than just one thing.’
‘Maybe so,’ she said. She hoisted the suitcase, shouldered past me in the doorway. ‘But maybe we were the one thing that pushed him over the edge.’
There was much weeping and falling upon necks when the sisterhood reunited, the Mini Cooper’s interior dripping humid with professions of undying solidarity. Most of them, as it happened, Grainne’s.
‘Okay,’ I said, getting in. ‘Miles to go before I sleep and so forth.’
Grainne extricated herself from the grapple-hold, knuckling tears up her nose. ‘Where to now?’ she said.
‘There’s a gun in there,’ I toed the green cotton bag, ‘and I don’t want to be around it any longer than I have to.’
‘You’re still doing it?’
‘I am.’
She twisted around to look back at Maria. ‘Did he tell you about Finn’s email?’
‘Now isn’t the time, Grainne,’ Maria said. She sounded like a bank’s answering machine. Metallic, disembodied, heedless.
‘But if we give Saoirse the laptop, she’ll know everything.’
‘She’s already guessed he was up to something hinky,’ I said. ‘The laptop’ll just confirm the details.’
‘I know that. But if we can keep it away from her long enough to-’
‘Who’s this “we”?’ I said. I glanced back at Maria. ‘Do you want to tell her, or will I?’
‘Tell me what?’
There was a very long moment when it could have gone either way, but then Maria blinked and looked away to Grainne. ‘Harry says Saoirse is making threats,’ she said.
‘Threats?’
‘So he says.’
‘What kind of threats?’
‘Your mother,’ I said, ‘isn’t in a good place right now. She blames Maria for Finn’s suicide and she’s looking for proof. So I’m suggesting we get the laptop to her straight away, let her burn out searching for some reason to blame Maria. While she’s busy, we get Maria somewhere safe until we can put her on a flight out of here.’
‘And in the meantime,’ Grainne sneered, ‘you get paid for bringing her the laptop.’
‘There’s that.’
‘Where’s this somewhere safe?’ Maria said.
‘Friend of mine. He’ll put you up for now.’ I nudged Grainne’s elbow. ‘Let’s go. Drive.’
‘But-’
‘I’ll put you out and make you walk.’
‘It’s best this way,’ Maria said from the rear. Dull, resigned.
Grainne’s jaw tightened, but she started the car. ‘What about the cops?’ she said.
‘The cops want me for a hold-all of coke. I’m guessing they’ll keep the road-blocks to a minimum.’
Grainne nosed out of the car park, turned right along Kennedy Parade.
‘This coke the cops want you for,’ Maria said. ‘Is that what Finn ordered?’
‘Different score.’
‘But the cops know you were there when he jumped.’
‘Yep.’
‘But they don’t think you pushed him.’
‘Some of them do.’
‘Are they right?’
‘Nope.’
The way Grainne had her ear cocked, she might well have been trying to tune in to a satellite orbiting Io.
‘You’re sure,’ Maria said.
‘I’m positive,’ I said. ‘I was there. If I was the one pushed him I’d have remembered by now. Especially when everyone keeps asking the same fucking question.’
‘Why,’ Grainne said, her voice strained, ‘would Harry want to push Finn?’
‘No reason,’ Maria said. ‘I’m just asking. No one’s telling me anything, so I’m asking.’
‘Fine by me,’ I said. ‘Only next time, before you open your mouth? Remember you’re drunk.’
‘Bite me.’
‘Fucking ingrate.’
‘Asshole.’
We kept it up all the way to Herb’s. My strategy was to distract Grainne from asking dangerous questions about why I might want Finn out of the picture. Maria’s ambition appeared to be to maximise her insults using the minimum of vowels.
Inside, I pointed Grainne at the downstairs bathroom and Maria towards the kitchen, the kettle and as much black coffee as her kidneys would bear. Some buttery toast for yours truly wouldn’t go amiss either.
Herb watched it all, appalled. Then he took me out to the kitchen.
‘The fuck’re you doing, Harry?’
‘She needs somewhere to stay for a few hours. Once we get a flight sorted, I’ll drop her down to Knock, put her on the plane.’
‘Now? Are you fucking mental?’
‘Getting that way.’ I dug out the makings I’d liberated from the coffee table at Finn’s, started rolling a smoke. ‘You wanted to see me,’ I said. ‘I’m here.’
‘What I wanted,’ Herb grated, ‘was for you to turn up with Toto’s coke, late being a hell of a lot better than never when it comes to Toto fucking McConnell. What I got was Finn’s tart pissed to the gills and some underage minge looks like Marilyn Manson with a hangover. And you,’ he gestured at the eye-patch, ‘looking like Jolly fucking Roger.’
‘Actually, the Jolly Roger was-’
‘I’ll fucking Jolly Roger you. Where’s the coke?’
‘The cops have it.’
‘The fucking cops? How the fuck?’
‘Well, I’m guessing here, but I’d say it happened when I was spark out after been run off the road, the car being swarmed by cops and firemen.’
‘Run off the road?’
‘Rammed, yeah.’
‘But who the fuck’d-’
‘Dunno. This guy in Galway, Moore. How well do you know him?’
‘I don’t, he’s Toto’s guy.’ He thought about that. ‘What’re you saying, the guy’s ripping off Toto?’
‘Could be. Only this way it looks like the rip-off’s coming at your end.’
He squinted at me. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means our boy in Galway handed over the coke, that’s all he knows. And all Toto knows is there’s no product. So that puts you and me in the middle, the cops holding the coke and needing names to join the dots.’
He took a half-step back, as if only now realising I was dangerously insane. ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘you’re not thinking of giving up Toto McConnell.’
I closed my eyes, the sun streaming warm into the kitchen, and for a split-second allowed myself to see it all laid out in a perfect daisy-chain. How I’d give up Herb for the coke, and he’d give up the McConnells, and we’d all live happily ever after in a pink palace in the clouds. A tidy little fantasy, sure, even as the iron weight in my gut reminded me I was only indulging it so I wouldn’t have to dwell on Ben lying still as a statue amid the crisp white sheets, a tangerine-size lump bleeding into his brain.
I tuned back in to Herb’s rant. ‘… how it looks on me, Toto’s thinking you’re playing both ends, laying side bets with the fucking cops.’
I let my eyes go dead. ‘Say that again?’
This time, when he took a full step back, he was under no illusions as to how dangerously insane I was feeling. He took a deep breath, let it out slow. ‘I’m just talking through the options here,’ he said.
‘Keep talking. Maybe you’ll end up in a bed beside Ben.’
‘What’s that, a threat? Jesus, Harry. You lose ten grand in product and you’re the one threatening me?’
‘Wise up, Herb. I’m not the one put Ben in that bed. And
you’re wasting your time talking to me. I was you,’ I said, ‘I’d get on the blower to Toto, feel him out. Because if it wasn’t Toto’s boys ran me off the road, then it’s someone else fucking around on his patch. And radio silence from your end might get him to thinking it’s you.’