Chapter 59
59
Shakily, Dan Kilcroney stood. “I’ll, ah…of course. We’ll speak later on?”
As soon as he was gone, I said, “He’s part of this.”
“But there’s no proof. Anna, can we go and see Hal?”
I was surprised, but, “Okay, sure. I’ve his address.”
As we drove, I said, “It’s hard to think of Hal doing those things for, like, a hundred euro. He seems so nice .”
“Whatever about setting those fires,” Joey said, “I can’t see him wrecking your mum’s car for money.”
“You think someone made him?”
“Yep.”
It was suddenly obvious. “Burke.”
“That’s who my money’s on,” Joey said.
Hal lived in a small house in a terraced row on the Clifden road. His mother Augustina, a woman perhaps in her seventies, answered the door. “He’s in the kitchen.”
When he saw us, Hal scrambled to his feet. “Anna. Mr Armstrong. I’m very sorry for all the damage. I’m sick about it. Anna, your mother’s car, that was the worst of it. But Burke said if I didn’t, he’d arrest me for the paint-flinging I did last Friday week.”
Joey and I exchanged a look.
“Why did I fling the paint, sez you? He had me for possession of hash. Said he wouldn’t press charges if I did the job.”
“And the fires?” Joey asked.
“Same thing, the hash.”
Joey frowned. “How much hash?”
“I dunno, a couple of grams. Maybe four.”
“My drug days are long behind me,” Joey said. “But I know that’s a tiny amount.”
Hal twitched a bony shoulder. “I still broke the law. He had me.”
“Why did Burke want the cottages burnt?” Joey asked.
“To stop the resort from going ahead.”
“But why?”
“I haven’t a notion and I’m sorry for that too.”
“That’s okay. Tell us about setting the fires.”
Hal rubbed his hand across his face. “He said to just do one but I hadn’t a clue how. YouTube said to use fabric softener, the strips. Could you credit that?”
“Seriously?” Joey asked. “That’s an actual thing?”
“It actually is. ‘Highly flammable,’ it said.” Briefly Hal was animated, then shame regained its hold. “None of them would stay lit, just smoldered away. Then it started pelting rain. I got one fire going then came home. But the smoldering ones must have caught because they all went up.
“I didn’t want to do any of it,” he said. “I’m sick with myself for the trouble I’ve caused you. If I could I’d spend the rest of my life working to pay you back, but I’ll be in prison. This lad on YouTube says I’ll get ten years.”
“But you were coerced,” I said.
He shook his head. “Burke will stick it all on me and, to be fair, I’m the eejit who did it.”
“But Burke—”
“Nothing will happen to Burke. I’m going to jail. He isn’t. I’m no good at standing up for myself. I never was. Worse than stupid, that’s what Tipper says.”
“Tipper knew about it…?”
Hal ducked his head. “I couldn’t say.”
“That’s okay.” Joey was gentle. “Hal, I don’t know how everything will end up but you deserve better than this.”
“I don’t. And I’m properly sorry. I liked meeting the two of you, regardless. Anna, you’re lovely. And you’re…” He studied Joey. “You’re lovely too.”
Out in the parked car, Joey said, “He won’t implicate anyone else because, I’m guessing, if he says nothing, Kilcroney or whoever will look after his mother. Financially, I mean. People like Hal always end up with a prison sentence, while the smarter, better-spoken ones thrive. It’s soul-destroying.”
“Joey, thanks for being kind to him. If you’d gone in hot and heavy, I’d feel even worse.”
After a silence, Joey said, “In a different life, I could have been him. If I hadn’t met Luke, if we hadn’t left Ireland…There but for the grace of God. Or the grace of something.”
“I’m still trying to figure it all out,” I said. “So Burke is involved. Looks like Kilcroney is too. But why? What’s in it for them? There’s no way Brigit’s place would steal customers from the Broderick. Ike said we should ask ourselves who has the most to lose by a high-end hotel opening up around here…” All of a sudden the penny dropped. Well, a penny. “Oh God.”
“What?” Perplexed, Joey focused on my face.
“Ike kept trying to take me to the top of the cliffs. He hinted heavily that there was something to see.”
Joey became very still; then, as understanding dawned, his mouth formed a silent Oh . “You mean…Rose?” His voice was faint. “You think?”
“I mean, maybe? No one else comes to mind. Should we ask her? She might be at The Broderick, working.”
“She’s not in today.”
“We could drive up and take a look? Helen mentioned ‘scaffolding.’?”
“But that was to stop the house from falling down.” Joey was insistent. Then, “Wasn’t it?”
He didn’t want it to be Rose. And maybe it wasn’t. “It can’t hurt to take a look.”
The route was complicated: we went north out of town, skirting the cliff, then looped sharply back on ourselves to climb it from the far side. We drove up a long, lonely track which had probably once been a fine carriageway but was now crumbling to pieces. Neither of us spoke. My stomach buzzed with emotion that might have been anticipation but felt more like anxiety. When my phone rang, I jumped.
It was Helen. “Where are you?”
“In a car with Joey.”
“Put me on speaker. I’ve news. So I went with the really expensive option. Turns out that the emails from ProudIrishPatriot1916 were sent from the home computer at Sunnyside, Clover’s Lane, Maumtully, Co. Galway. The electoral register shows that to be the home of…would this name mean anything at all to you?” She took a breath. “Danaher Kilcroney?” She let a second elapse. Then she exclaimed, “It’s Brogue-face! There he was this morning giving it Appalled of Maumtully. When he was the one who did it!”
Joey and I shared a subdued look. Now we had some sort of proof. A connection, at least.
“I’ve another one,” Helen said. “[email protected]? The one who offered to fuck you, Anna, if you had a bag on your head? Yes? Sent from 12 Chestnut Crescent. That’s the address of the Burke family.”
“Burke?” Joey asked. “That absolute prick.”
“I’ll keep at it with the Local Hero address but I thought you’d want to know.”
“Helen.” Joey was croaky. “Quick question: in your opinion, who in M’town has the most to lose if a high-end retreat opens up?”
“…Ah. Haven’t a baldy.”
“Don’t overthink it. The first name that comes into your head.”
“I know nothing about the town but from what I saw, it’d be her ladyship, Rose.”
“Why?”
“That house is amazing. All those trees…There’s even an old funicular track down to the beach. I mean, the place is a total shithole now and you’d need, like, ninety billion punders to fix it but it could be a totally cool as fuck hotel.”
“Thanks, Helen.” Joey wouldn’t look at me, just stared straight ahead and kept driving. Dread settled on me, like a shroud.
Suddenly the road widened and improved, with a fresh-looking layer of tarmac. We had almost arrived. From this vantage, the house and grounds looked much bigger than from sea level.
Joey stopped the car in front of shiny new gates, which were secured with a padlock. I got out and stared through the gaps. In the front yard was a massive bin, a forklift truck, stacks of shiny, new-looking pipes and palettes of plastic-wrapped timber. Helen’s scaffolding was in evidence, ladders linking each level, with a wheelbarrow parked at the top.
I noticed something. “Joey! That digger? The orange one. I think that’s Tipper Mahon’s. Which had sand put in the petrol tank. Allegedly.”
“But a digger is a digger. Don’t they all look the same?”
“See the sticker? ‘Diggers do it standing up’? Tipper’s has one. Maybe it comes with all orange diggers? Like the can of Monster Energy in the cup-holder.” I got out my phone, but Joey was ahead of me, scrolling through the report of the damage done in the first attack on Kearney’s Farm.
“Same number plate.” His voice was tight. “Let me check the forklift…yeah, same number plate too.”
“I’ve a feeling those pipes and timber might be the ones ‘stolen’ from Kearney’s. We need to talk to her.”
“Wait now.” For the first time in ages he met my eyes.
“You have her number?” It both was and wasn’t a question. “Ring her.”
When he produced his phone and pressed some digits, my chest tightened. But it didn’t have to mean anything, him having her number?
He took a breath and turned his back on me. “I’m here.” He was so quiet. “Outside.”
In the house a curtain was yanked to one side and there was Rose’s face gazing in dismay. The curtain fell back and moments later, she was crossing the front yard. Briskly, she twisted a key in the padlock, opened the gate just wide enough to admit us, then locked it again.
“Come inside.” Her face set, she walked ahead of us.
In a dark, old-fashioned kitchen, she said, “No coffee, Joseph, my apologies, but I can offer you tea.”
“Just tell me what’s really going on,” Joey said.
“Joseph, I’m sorry.” Rose was quiet and ladylike.
I went hot and cold as I understood that my dread was justified, that something really was in play here.
“…Would you like me to step outside?” I asked. “Give you some privacy?” Was I being sarcastic or sincere? Perhaps both.
“Stay where you are,” Joey said, but all his attention was on Rose. “So you, Burke and Kilcroney?”
“I had nothing to do with Burke.” She sounded disgusted. “Dan brought me a proposal: restoring this…” She waved a hand. “Creating an opulent hotel. The ambition of Kearney’s Farm had inspired him.”
“Where was he getting finance?” Joey asked.
“He has remortgaged the Broderick.”
“That would raise only a tiny percentage. Five million, if he was lucky. To do a decent job here you’d need ten times that amount.”
“So it would appear…He grossly underestimated the sums needed.”
“Is that where I came in?”
“I won’t deny I know how you make your living,” she said. “But I have genuinely enjoyed your company, Joseph, and—”
“I checked, you know,” Joey cut in. “You don’t have planning permission.”
“No.”
“No…? Or do you mean, ‘Not yet’?”
“Dan wanted to wait until the situation at Kearney’s Farm was resolved before applying.”
“?‘Resolved’?” I asked. Both Joey and Rose seemed surprised to find me still there.
Quietly, Rose said, “My concern was that two upscale hotels in such close proximity couldn’t survive. Dan said he would take care of it.”
“?‘Take care of it’?” I said. “By getting someone to burn down Kearney’s Farm?”
“I knew nothing about that. I give you my word.” She was dry-eyed but obviously upset. “The fire, the damage to Mrs Walsh’s car, I would never have endorsed it.”
“But you’d be okay with getting our investors to pull out, leaving Brigit and Colm destitute,” Joey said.
“They won’t be destitute. They just won’t have a hotel.”
“They will be destitute. They no longer own the land. They won’t get it back. They remortgaged their house to raise enough money for their stake. They won’t get that back either. So, destitute and homeless. And their little girl has cancer.”
“I’m truly sorry about Queenie. But I was aware of none of the rest.”
“The forklift truck?” I gestured towards the yard. “The timber, the digger? They’re from Kearney’s? Tipper and his lads were working here all week, but getting paid by Joey?”
“Yes.”
“Talk to me about the planning permission,” Joey said. “How do you know you’ll even get it? A house this old must be listed—oh God…” He stopped. “You know someone in the planning office?”
With some reluctance, Rose said, “It’s no secret that Dan’s ex-wife Olivia is a county councillor.”
“Olivia? You mean, the woman at the public meeting?” Joey asked. “The county councillor? She was married to Kilcroney?”
Hold on, who ? Mrs Lopsided Wig? She was “The lovely Olivia” Courtney had spoken of?
“However”—Rose spoke quickly and anxiously—“There’s no suggestion of—”
“Bribery?” I provided. “Corruption?”
“Absolutely none.”
“Anna?” Joey said. “Let’s go.”
Rose reached for a book and extended it to Joey. “The biography of Alexander Scriabin I mentioned.”
Joey took a moment. Then, “No, thanks.”