Adam shook his head with laughter. ‘He sold a Degas and I think a Picasso for her. She was involving galleries and dealers very close to home. Jason must have been shitting himself.’ Adam finally noticed that Jack was not laughing along with him. ‘You can go inside and make your call if you like. I won’t run.’
Jack stood up. ‘Come inside with me, please, Adam.’
‘Who’d win, do you think, Jack? If I resisted arrest.’
‘I’d win.’
Adam shrugged at Jack’s self-belief as though it was a façade. He was revelling in a confidence that Jack needed to challenge. Jack casually put his hand on his hip, letting his fingers slide into his back pocket and fish out a black cable tie which he always carried with him. Jack was just about to grab Adam unawares, cuff him and drag him indoors to call for backup when Adam spoke again. Deadly serious this time.
‘I’ve told you a lot of secrets today, Jack. But I’ve got one more. And after I’ve told you, you’re going to let me walk away.’
‘Really? That good, is it?’
‘It’s the only thing you really want.’ Jack knew that there was only one more secret left to tell. ‘I want my freedom, Jack and, in return, I’ll give you my mother’s murderers.’
Jack’s mind raced as he tried to work out if Adam was telling the truth or if this was all just a ploy to distract him. How the hell could Adam know who had murdered Avril?
Adam got to his feet, slid his hands into his pockets and surveyed the landscape before them. ‘I can’t go to prison. I’d not survive without beauty. Nature, art... they keep me alive. I sold the Rossetti in the US, you know. It bought Seamus’s farm for him, bought me a nice castle in western Europe, and bought this place together with land enough for the hemp farm — I’m joking about the castle.’ Adam turned to face Jack. ‘It took me a long time to find my place in the world, but I think this is it. It’s important to belong somewhere, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘How do you know who killed Avril?’
‘Are you still searching yourself, Jack, or have you found your place?’
Then it dawned on Jack that there was only one way Adam could know who the killers were. Jack had to take a deep breath before he could speak. ‘You have the missing CCTV footage!’
Adam nodded, smiling. ‘Jack, the cellar was Frederick’s, not Mahoney’s. The CCTV was Frederick’s, not Mahoney’s.’
Jack couldn’t believe they’d missed something so obvious. Michael Mahoney and his gang took over Avril’s home. They found the cellar, they stacked their boxes of guns and grenades in front of the rusty old filing cabinets and never gave them a second thought.
Jack continued to think out loud. ‘If you knew the CCTV footage locations, that’s how you got in and out of her property.’
‘Most of the time, I was already inside when she locked up for the night. I told you, she was stupid. Freddie became obsessed with monitoring every room in the house. The camera in the bathroom he used to observe the steaming of parchment paper to age it.’
‘Did she know about the monitors in the cellar?’
‘Of course not. She only knew where the external CCTV cameras were, at the front and back of the property. I even showed her how to watch those on the laptop she had, and when Mahoney took over I guess she could have showed him. But neither of them ever knew about or had access to any of the cameras on the inside of the house.’ Adam smirked. ‘Mahoney must have been spitting feathers when he stared to see one patrol car after another turning up.’
‘All the calls to the local police were down to Avril being scared.’
‘She was in so deep and had no clue how to make it stop. She was jeopardising everything.’ Adam cocked his head to one side. ‘I asked you a question, Jack. Are you still searching, or have you found your place?’
‘No more talking, Adam. Back inside.’ Jack was reeling. He needed to get control of the immediate situation, but he was also desperate to learn the identity of the sharp-suited man who’d arrived in a Jag on the night Avril was so brutally murdered. And if he believed what he had just been told, Adam knew who it was.
‘Are you still searching or—’ Adam pressed.
‘I found my place!’ Jack said angrily.
With that reply, Adam was back in control. He could see the yearning for justice in Jack’s eyes. He could see the guilt, and he knew he could now toy with Jack and he’d have to play along for fear of losing this golden opportunity to finally do right by Avril.
‘Why were you lost? Was it an errant parent, like me? Or were you the errant one?’
Jack sighed and gave a small shrug of his shoulders. ‘A little of both.’
‘Parents!’ Adam boomed. ‘Fuck ’em!’ He took a huge breath in, held it, then released. When he spoke again he was quiet. Quiet but full of venom. ‘Boogaard was decent when sober but a nasty drunk. She did that. She did that to all of them. I’d like to have known him properly but, the truth is, I’m not even sure if he was my father. I took his name and I do seem to have his enviable hairline, so who knows?’
Adam put his hands on his hips and began digging the toe of his boot into the soft, wet earth. He started to sound petulant. Childlike. ‘Perhaps it was Wolfgang Beltracchi, a man she once met in Germany and lived with for a long time or perhaps it was Chi in Amsterdam. The moment she landed in a country, she started shagging the locals, so anything is possible. Perhaps an Irish “uncle” is not an uncle after all. Perhaps Terence Jenkins is not so squeaky clean in the fidelity department. She lived in London for years — who knows, Jack? We could be brothers.’
This was the first time Jack had sensed any kind of vulnerability in Adam. ‘Biological parents aren’t all they’re cracked up to be,’ he said. When Adam looked up, he was fighting back tears. Jack kept the connection going — partly to keep Adam from doing anything rash, and partly because he felt compelled to. Jack felt as if his brain was turning cartwheels. Regardless of the fact that Adam was a criminal and was withholding the identity of a killer, they had an undeniable connection. It was an unsettling thought.
‘I never met my biological father,’ Jack volunteered. ‘But the more I found out about him, the less I wanted to know. He was a criminal and was murdered because of it.’
Adam’s pupils dilated, replacing violet with black. He tilted his head to one side, listening, so Jack continued.
‘He had no love for my biological mum, even though she adored the ground he walked on. I have no first-hand knowledge of either of them and I’m no worse off for that. My foster parents are the people I called Mum and Dad. They’re the people whose name I proudly use and that, Adam Border, is all you need to know.’
Adam looked directly at Jack. ‘Darkens the soul, though, doesn’t it?’ He walked forwards and placed his hand flat on Jack’s chest. ‘I can feel the scars each time I take that first breath of a new day. Right here. It reminds me that I’m damaged. But also, that I’m so much stronger for it.’ Adam lowered his hand and stepped back from Jack. ‘I’m ready to go inside now.’
In the corner of the studio was a stack of laptops. He opened the one on top. Adam clicked to open a blank email account — one that had never sent or received anything — and he handed the laptop to Jack. Then he opened his mobile phone. A couple of seconds later, an email pinged into the inbox on the laptop. There was no subject heading and no content, but there was a video file attached. Jack opened it.
Avril sat in the middle of the sofa in her front room. Her knees were clamped together, her fingers were clenched in her lap. Her body was pure tension. She was sobbing and looked petrified.