He’d had enough of being lectured by the undeserving poor. He leaned back in his chair, crossed one flabby calf over the other, joined his hands on his paunch. ‘It is not my place, Mr Rigby, to question Mrs Hamilton’s motives. And now that she has commissioned you to provide a service, neither is it yours.’
‘You want me to remember my place.’
‘I want you to focus on what you are doing here.’
‘What I’m mainly doing here,’ I said, ‘is getting ready to put a bullet in your fat fucking face.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard.’
He had, but he’d heard it all before. The kind of defendants Gillick specialised in, that line was probably something of a negotiating tactic, an opening gambit to keep him on his toes. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand,’ he said.
‘I’d imagine the idea was for me to do the dirty bit, the break-and-enter, truck the laptop and young Grainne out here. Then Jimmy’d step in, swipe the Mac, turn me out. Where am I going to go, the cops?’
‘That’s a rather lurid leap to make, Mr Rigby.’
‘Meanwhile, you’re having a cosy chat with Grainne about the trust fund, the one-point-eight mil. Trying to persuade her that now is not the time to go making drastic decisions, that she’s a little fucked up, not thinking straight. Best to leave these things to the grown-ups, for now anyway. Am I anywhere close?’
‘I am the executor of Finn’s will, Mr Rigby. I would be derelict in my duty were I not to do my utmost to convince Grainne that certain decisions would not be in her best interests.’
‘The girl knows what she wants.’
‘She’s distraught, Mr Rigby. Bereaved. She and Finn were very close, you know.’
‘So she says. Close enough that he told her about the changes he made to the trust fund.’
The porcine little eyes glittered, as if he’d caught sight of a trove of truffles. ‘Is that a fact?’
‘I saw it myself.’
‘Did you, indeed?’ He sat forward and reached for the coffee and had himself a sip, the pinky finger shooting the moon. ‘And what else did you see?’
‘Not much.’
A wry smile. ‘Please, Mr Rigby. According to Jimmy you were in Finn’s apartment for approximately forty minutes. I can only assume that you found this information on the laptop.’
‘Assume again.’
‘Where else might you have seen it?’
‘That’s between me and Grainne.’
Another sip of Colombia’s finest. ‘I do hope,’ he said, ‘that you’re not taking advantage of that girl’s misfortune. It’s perfectly understandable that she’s angry right now, and disappointed, and seeking, in that unfortunate way people have, to strike out and cause others to feel a pain akin to her own. Mrs Hamilton wants only the best for Grainne, but that’s not always how-’
‘What Mrs Hamilton wants is the Mac.’
‘Well, yes, she does want her property returned. But in terms of the bigger picture, her instincts are to-’
‘And the gun.’
‘Gun?’
I reached around and untucked the.38, laid it on the table. A couple of chins wobbled as he slumped in the chair. From the expression in his eyes he was watching the trove of truffles being carted away. Then he heaved himself more or less vertical and reached for the gun.
I snaffled it back. More nodding, more chins a-wobble. A weariness to him now. ‘I can only assume,’ he said, ‘that this is why the price has jumped so exorbitantly.’
‘You’d want to rethink that whole assuming lark,’ I said. ‘It’s getting you nowhere fast. This,’ I pointed the gun at his face, ‘is here to kill you. Simple as that.’
This time I got through. Maybe it was staring down that little black hole, and maybe it was the way I said it, but he realised there was no negotiating involved, no tactics.
‘Mr Rigby,’ he said, ‘I must tell you that I’m not in any position to pay over any more money than has already been-’
‘Forget the fucking money, Gillick. This isn’t about money.’
Now he was truly at a loss. Eyes wide, mouth agape. I could almost hear the cogs whirring in the back of his head.
If it wasn’t about money, what could it possibly be?
It was fascinating to watch on a purely anthropological level. Gillick looked a lot like a squid that had found itself high and dry on a mountain peak with a sudden but somewhat vague understanding of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.
To confuse him further, I lobbed the bundle of notes at his face. Notes fluttered in the air, and his instinct was to reach and grab.
By then I was halfway across the desk, landing ankle-deep in a wobbly mess of chins. We hit the floor in a tangle of leather, chrome and flailing limbs. Being about a hundred pounds lighter and feeding off a murderous rage, I was first to my knees. Yanked the chair out of the way and cracked him flush on the mouth with the butt of the.38, followed up with a left cross to his right jaw that cracked the knuckle of my little finger. I heard myself yelp. Gillick flopped back, his eyes rolling up in their sockets.
By the time he came back I’d ripped the sash-cords off the blinds and got his hands bound behind his back. No mean feat when the knuckle of your little finger has swollen to the size of a decent conker.
I clenched my left fist, felt the pain shoot up into my elbow and ricochet off into the icy core.
‘How’d you know about Ben?’ I said.
He blinked, groggy, the eyes round and owlish. ‘Wha …?’
‘Jimmy said he heard from you that my boy was in hospital. How’d you know?’
The flattened prim beak leaked blood and a couple of teeth as he half-spat, said, ‘I don’t-’
‘Slow down. You’re not thinking.’
I got up and righted the chair. Put the gun on the desk and retrieved the crystal-cut ashtray, the cigar, from where they’d landed near the filing cabinet. Then I sat down on the chair. When the cigar was glowing I leaned in and exhaled in his face.
‘Cuban,’ I said. ‘Am I right?’
‘Rigby, I know nothing about your kid.’
‘You knew enough to know he was in hospital.’
‘It was on the news, for Chrissakes. The accident.’
‘The accident, maybe. Our names were strictly under wraps.’ I took a good pull on the cigar, got the tip glowing again. Held it close to his lower lip. His eyes flared and he twisted his head away, so I singed his earlobe instead. He squealed.
‘That’s so you know I’m serious. Every time you move, you get burnt. Okay?’
He nodded.
‘Jimmy told me,’ I said, ‘that he heard it from you. So that means you called it, or whoever called it told you. Which?’
He shook his head and half-shrugged, helpless. I scooched in close, placed the tip of the cigar half an inch from his chin. His head tilted back so that he was looking into my eyes.
‘Are you religious?’ I said.
‘No.’
‘Me neither. Lapsed Catholic. Still, the old learning dies hard.’ I tapped my eye-patch. ‘An eye for an eye and all that.’
‘But I don’t know-’
‘Gillick,’ I said gently, ‘there’s no cavalry coming. Jimmy’s fucked. So focus, man. It’s you and me, and I just lost my son. Which pretty much means I’ve got nothing left to live for. I don’t know, maybe that’ll pass, they say it does. But right now I don’t give a flying fuck what I do or who I do it to. Are we clear?’
We were, albeit a little too clear. Somewhere in there I’d lost him, taken away his last hope.
Do that, all you leave a man is his dignity.
The way his hands were tied it was physically impossible for him to square his shoulders. But it was there in his eyes. A sudden hardness behind the damp gleaming, as if he’d scraped through to bedrock.
‘Fuck you,’ he whispered. Then he spat a bloody gob.
He was nowhere as practised as Tohill. The gob flopped to one side, dribbled away down his cheek. I puffed on the cigar again. His jaw muscles tightened. There was pain in the post but his mind was a-swirl, drunk on dignity. Sweat glistening on his forehead.
‘Last chance,’ I said. ‘From here on in, there’s no rules.’