Chapter 15

Esmée spotted him on the bright Wednesday morning. Maybe it was the long leather coat he wore on such an unusually warm late-spring day that made him stand out. More likely though it was his stance beneath the overhanging horse-chestnut trees opposite the school that made him conspicuous, apparently relaxed but with his eyes darting wildly, watching everything but focusing on nothing, lacking the intent and protective look of the parents who dashed through the finely tuned drop-off procedure.

There he was again on the Thursday and she was sure she’d seen him in the supermarket car park earlier that day and again in the shop itself, but when she went to investigate further, pushing her trolley from aisle to aisle, he seemed to disappear somewhere between the fresh fruit and the delicatessen. So when she spied him in exactly the same spot, opposite the school gates, on Friday morning, the morning after her illicit find, she made a point of tracking down the school headmistress, Mrs Jones.

“I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but I’ve noticed a man the last few days watching the school from across the road.”

Always a woman of action, Mrs Jones beckoned to Esmée, pushed up her ample schoolteacher bosom with folded arms and marched off with that scary kind of authority that only a headmistress on a mission could possess. Her Cuban-heeled shoes click-clacked furiously on the hard linoleum floor while her wide hips swung like a pendulum from left to right and back again.

“Where exactly did you see him, Mrs Myers?” she interrogated as together they arrived at the window of a front-facing classroom.

Despite the fact that Esmée and she would meet in the corridors every other day they still hadn’t crossed, nor were ever likely to cross that line between formality and familiarity.

“Just over there,” Esmée pointed across the street to the now vacant spot amongst the scattering of tiny white horse-chestnut blooms.

Even though the man had disappeared, not even the tiniest doubt crossed Mrs Jones’ mind that Mrs Myers had actually seen this man. Of all the parents she had got to know over the years this was one lady who was reasonable and level-headed. Taking Esmée at her word, she thanked the observant parent, promised to be extra vigilant and immediately set about notifying the staff and the local garda station.

Satisfied and reassured by her responsible action, Esmée left the school and walked briskly back to her car which was parked only a little way down beyond the school gates. She checked her watch: it was almost ten past nine. The drag of her bag weighed heavily on her shoulder, laden down by the burden, both emotional and physical, of the sooty package.

She had called Maloney first thing, only for him to tell her he was in court all day and probably couldn’t make it to the house till after six.

“Is that okay?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“Why? What’s up? Are you all right? Has Philip –”

“I’m grand,” she interrupted. “I found something, that’s all, and I need you to take it as soon as possible.”

“What is it?” he asked, his interest aroused.

“It’s . . .” She paused, paranoia setting in. “Look, I’d rather not say over the phone.”

“Right. So could you drop it in to the station?”

“Yes, I could.”

“Okay – well, Doug will be at the station from about eight – give it to him – he’ll look after it for me.”

She had wrapped the money up tight, binding it in sheets and sheets of the kid’s coloured paper before putting it at the bottom of her bag.

Now, eager to get rid of it, feeling vulnerable with it in her possession, she quickened her pace, fishing the car keys from her pocket as she walked and beeping to open the car. She wasn’t prepared for the tap on her shoulder and the deep voice that said her name.

He stood tall over her as she turned and raised her head, taller by about a foot, his broad bulk close, too close for comfort. Instinctively she took a step backwards, almost losing her balance as her foot missed the edge of the kerb, the car blocking her fall.

“Shit!” she exclaimed, one hand instinctively clutching her chest, startled by his close and intimidating presence. “You scared the life out of me!” She laughed uneasily, aware that she had just reported this man as a potential stalker. “I’m sorry, yes, I’m Esmée Myers. Can I help you?”

She tried to step around him and re-establish the comfort of her personal space. He took steps to regain intimacy and, again putting less than a pace between them, placed a disarming and forceful hand on her elbow.

“Get into the car,” he instructed quietly and politely, steering her firmly by the elbow to the rear passenger door.

“I beg your pardon?” Her protest was ignored as she tugged hard to try and free her arm from his grip.

Thinking she was being mugged she called out, frantically glancing to her left and right, looking for someone, anyone who might help her, but the streets were empty with all the parents scattered in their various directions before the school bell had even rung. Panic pumped adrenaline through her veins and triggered the futile kicks that made contact with the ankles and calves of her assailant to no avail. He tightened his grip and pushed her backwards. She had nowhere to go, jammed tight between the cold metal of the car and the firm chest of her would-be assailant. From nowhere it seemed a second man appeared and jumped into the driver’s seat as she struggled pointlessly.

“Don’t make a fuss,” the first man whispered close to her ear. “Just get into the car and you won’t get hurt.”

The force of his words was thick and menacing as he pulled open the rear door and pushed her towards it.

“Take the car!” she offered, scared and confused. “Go on, take it – my wallet too – there’s money in it. Take it!” Her captured hands made a feeble push towards him, her eyes pleading with him, begging him to let her go.

Catching a look in her terrified stare, he too, if only for a split second, appeared confused, but it passed quickly as he registered what exactly Esmée thought was happening. His eyes sparked with the power her fear gave him and reflected venomously in his slow smile. Sensing her inhale deeply in preparation to scream, he leaned in tighter and pushed against her, closer this time, his laughter vibrating moistly on her earlobe while his fingers and thumb dug deep and sore into her flesh.

“If you want to collect little Mattie in one piece this afternoon then get into the fucking car!”

She felt his spittle slip warm and viscous down the side of her neck as he spat the command through his yellowing teeth, challenging her, willing her to disobey. With shaking knees and lurching stomach, she did as he asked and stumbled into the back of the car. He sat into the seat after her and, snatching the car keys from her grip, threw them to his companion who, with only a silent glance, started the car and pulled off quickly.

Cursing the child-lock that prevented her from escaping at the traffic lights, Esmée watched through the window as gradually they picked up speed.

“What do you want? It’s the money, isn’t it?” she demanded, her reasonable attempt at being masterful and in control utterly belied by the quake of her voice. “Who are you? Where are you taking me?”

But neither man spoke, her backseat companion staring straight ahead apparently oblivious, or at least deaf, to her frantic questions as they drove down the familiar streets of her village and out to the main road that fed into the city.

“Answer me!” she shrieked, hugging her bag protectively, cowering further into the corner of the seat, putting as much distance as she could between her and her captors. “Tell me, for God’s sake! Please tell me where you’re taking me!” Tears of sheer terror fell without shame down each of her flushed and shaking cheeks.

“Would you ever just shut the fuck up?” the man by her side bellowed, followed by a tired sigh and the casting of his eyes to heaven with a denigrating shake of his head, ostensibly bored by her, as if this was the most natural situation for him to find himself in.

The thud in her chest hurt as her stomach danced, threatening to throw up her morning coffee at her feet. She was scared, more scared than she had been in her entire life as familiar landmarks outside the window were soon replaced with places and buildings she didn’t recognise.

They knew her, knew her children’s names. Thoughts of rape and murder filled her head. Why her? Would she ever see her children again? What were they going to do with her? The pace of her sobbing intensified as thoughts of Matthew and Amy came rushing to the forefront of her mind and she thought of them totally parentless, orphans. What would become of them? She was all they had left. She imagined them waiting for her to come and pick them up, pictured Matthew taking his little sister’s hand to wait anxiously for her in the school yard, watching the last of their friends go home. Esmée was never late to collect them. They never had to wait for her – she was always there to meet them, always on time, when they streamed out in single file from their classrooms to their designated and numbered white line drawn on the tarmac. Matthew would worry, would know something was wrong. Amy would probably sense it too and cry; she was still only a baby. She saw them in her mind’s eye sitting on the miniature chairs against the wall outside Mrs Jones’ office, clutching their schoolbags in their little arms. Waiting. Who would Mrs Jones call? Whose numbers were on the emergency form that she filled out? Her own first, then Philip’s and after that . . .? Shit! She couldn’t remember! It was so long ago since she’d completed it. She wept into her hands for her children and for herself and hardly noticed when they came to a standstill.

She looked out the window and into the dim light of a concrete car park but had no idea where they were. It looked like every other high-rise car park she’d ever been in. If she got out of this alive she would never be able to tell anyone where they’d taken her.

The man beside her took hold of her arm and yanked her roughly out of the car after him, almost pulling her arm out of its socket. He steered her towards a silver Mercedes with blacked-out windows in the next bay. This was surreal, she thought, close to hysteria, as the door opened smoothly and a hand emerged, motioning for her to join it. Reluctantly and with everything to lose, she did as she was bid, too afraid to run. Her nose snotty, her eyes runny and her chest puffing uncontrollably, she was in a state.

There were no lights on in the darkened car and it took a while for her vision to acclimatise and notice the grey-faced middle-aged and balding man beside her. He sat like royalty in the back of the luxurious cream-leather interior, an arm thrown casually across the seat, obviously anticipating her arrival.

“Mrs Myers, I hear they call ya,” he greeted gallantly, his outstretched hand taking hers and shaking it slowly. “Is it all right if I call ya Esmée?”

She nodded, taken aback by his unexpected politeness, the thick Dublin drawl mirroring the style of his approach but definitely not the image of the car.

“Sorry if Tommo was a little rough with ya,” he said, handing her a tissue, “but I really just wanted to meet ya.”

All the words in her vocabulary left her. Unable to speak, she simply shook her head, too afraid to tell this man what she really felt. She sat sideways in the seat, on the edge and not quite facing him. She could tell even from his sitting position that he was a tall man, his large intimidating frame seeming to fill the rear of the car, the few strands of hair combed over the bald patch almost touching the fabric of the roof. This, combined with the dim light and the stench of his stale sweat and alcohol, took the warmth from her soul. She quivered, cowering and scared into the corner, holding on tight to the bag in her lap.

“Are ya cold?” he enquired politely, almost convincingly worried, and without waiting for her to answer leaned forward in his expensive camel-coloured coat to adjust a control on the illuminated dial between the driver and passenger seat, his slicked hair-strands flopping comically forward on his brow as he did so. If she hadn’t been in fear for her life she probably would have laughed.

“Tommo tells me,” he said casually, fixing his mop and turning to face her full on, “that your hubby’s been a bit of a naughty boy.” He looked her up and down as he spoke, his eyes eventually stopping at her face, focusing on the faint bruise. He reached out his hand slowly to touch it, running his fingers over the receding pale-pink cut on her forehead.

She flinched at his touch. Her eyes closed as she tried to control the rising nausea. If he noticed her cringe he didn’t show it but a tense and uneasy atmosphere seemed to seep into the car as he continued to explore her, persisted in invading her personal space with such intensity she felt she would pass out.

“Such a lovely face.” His words were barely audible as his hand fell to her shoulder and passed leisurely over her breast, touching it with tentative reverence, his face filled with concentration as tiny beads of sweat formed on his brow, slowly sliding over his temples and into oblivion.

Her chest heaved while her lungs tried to compensate for the lack of oxygen and rush of blood around her body. Her arms clenched, holding the bag tight to her stomach, as if somehow it might protect her. Tighter and tighter she held on as his hand by-passed it to rest cruelly on her denim-clad thigh, just above her knee. Every muscle in her body seized as, moulding it in his palm, he travelled a slow journey towards its top. She held her breath, unable to look at the man for whom this touch was seductive while it repulsed, scared and sickened her. In normal circumstance she would have lashed out against such an intimidating, humiliating and blatant incursion of her person but fear of the consequences stopped her. He would enjoy punishing her, of that she was sure.

“Nothing permanent,” he said finally, making idle nodding reference to her face, the seismic atmosphere shifting as soon as he extracted his hand from between her clenched upper thighs. His exercise was complete: he had achieved the desired effect, confirming that he was the master. Replacing his arm on the back of the seat he sat back to survey her face and reaction to his assault, silently mocking her, enjoying her discomfort, proud of the terror he instilled in her.

“Who are you? What do you want from me?” Esmée asked, her voice shaking as she looked defiantly at him.

“Don’t you be worrin’ about me just yet. I just wanna have a nice little chat, nothing else, that’s all.”

“This is about Philip, isn’t it?”

“Ahhh, that it is. Me and Phil, we go back a looooong way,” he crooned, placing peculiar emphasis on his name.

“Where is he?” she croaked, her voice struggling to escape from the scratchy dryness of her dry throat. Swallowing hard, she waited for an answer.

“Now,” he said, settling further into the seat and looking up towards the upholstered roof as he replied, as if speaking to the gods, “ya see, that’s the gazillion-euro question, isn’t it?”

Cocking his head to one side he looked down to consider her, assess her, and pursing his lips together with due consideration he eventually presented his case.

“Your Phil, or my Bobby as I like to call him – seems he wants us both to think he’s fish food somewhere at the bottom of the Irish fuckin’ Sea,” his arm motioned dramatically in waves through the space between them, “but we don’t believe him. Do we?” He asked the question of her like she was a student and he the tutor.

She shook her head.

“And where do you think he is?” he asked.

Feeling like a brainless, stupid puppet she shook her head again. “I have no idea,” she said, her eyes wide with fear at the unknown horror of what might come next.

His loud laugh ripped into her brain like a stiletto blade as he accepted her ignorance and exercised his power over her.

“You’re lovely, do ya know that?” he complimented her, obviously distracted by her presence and proximity, slapping his hand on her thigh. “So, ya don’t know where he is then?”

Esmée shook her head fast.

Sitting back into the seat, he seemed to relax a little.

“Well, let me tell you a few things about your fancy boy. Me and your hubby, we were . . .” He paused, scratching his unevenly shadowed chin as if searching for the appropriately intellectual words to describe their relationship.

“Hmmm, let’s just say we were business associates. Yeah! Business associates,” he affirmed, happy with his choice. “An’ we’ve got some unfinished business to sort out. Some seriously fuckin’ serious catchin’ up to do . . . but now he’s gone and done his little disappearing act and I can’t sort him out.” He was smiling at her now, as if this latest piece of information should give her great pleasure.

And it did in one respect, because now at least she knew why Philip was gone.

“What kind of business?” Finding her nerve, she asked the question, with genuine curiosity secreted somewhere behind the depths of her fear.

He considered her for a while before proceeding plainly. “Let’s just say he’s cost me time and money. A whole lotta time and a whole lotta money. Ya see, your precious partner liked the gee-gees. Loved them, he did. But he wasn’t very good at it, now was he, and he lost shitloads.” His tone was amicable and matter of fact.

“So this,” Esmée dared, “this is about the money. It belongs to you?” and taking the sizable multi-coloured bundle from her bag cast it unceremoniously into his lap, glad to be rid of it. “Is this what you want?”

“Ah fair play to ya, Es. Can I call ya Es?” he asked as he ripped through the layers. “That’s some bit of wrappin’! What the fuck is it? Pass the bleeding parcel?” he roared hysterically, amused by his own joke until finally he got to the last layer and flicked through the dirty notes, pile by pile, with an accomplished lick of his fingers, laughing as his count was complete. “No offence, love, but this isn’t even close to settling up. We’re beyond cash now.” He placed the package down deliberately on the seat between them. He considered it for a second, as if debating whether or not to just take it, because he could, before pushing it back towards her.

“That’s a lotta moola,” he nodded, “but it ain’t mine, love.” He was almost apologetic as he announced, “Those notes ain’t gonna give me back my time.”

“Time, what do you mean ‘time’?” Frustration was fast breeding panic. Esmée couldn’t think. What the hell was he talking about? Pushing the thought aside, she focused back on the money: that she could understand. “There’s no more apart from that.” She pointed at it. “This is all I have. I don’t know where he got it but there’s no more.”

“Don’t be fuckin’ stupid, woman! Keep the fuckin’ money. I’m not after you or your money,” he sneered. “I’m after your lesser half.” He smirked at his own joke.

Adrenaline suddenly pumped through her veins, giving her an unwise and altogether false cocky confidence. “Look,” she said, “I have no idea where he is and if I knew I’d kill him myself . . . so can I please go now?”

“Easy there, girl!” His voice rose abruptly. “Now don’t go getting all smart-arsey with me.” His eyes bored into hers menacingly. “I’m being nice here . . .”

Startled, she dropped her stare quickly, needing no more warning. “I don’t know where Philip is, really I don’t,” she implored as calmly as she could, “and I want to go home. You’re scaring me!” Her voice shook, courage deserting her, as she admitted the effect he was having on her.

“Well, he’s one brave little bollix,” he said, ignoring her plea, not quite ready to let her go. He hadn’t finished his story yet. “That’s what got him into trouble in the first place. A cocky selfish prick right down to his cold little pinkies,” he mocked.

Esmée had no idea why he thought to share this information with her and wished he’d stop, but he kept going.

“Thought he could play with the big boys, thought he was smarter than the rest of us, thought he could shop me in an’ get away with it. Did he think a fancy name an’ a new hair cut’d keep him safe from me? Thick fuck!” Suddenly he bellowed: “I’m the scariest fucker in this fuckin’ town! In this fuckin country!” He pulled himself together quickly, cracking his neck to relieve his tension. “But he didn’t reckon on ol’ Jimbo here having half a brain, did he? Didn’t count on me mates helpin’ out, bein’ me eyes out here with me in there. No lying and hiding and begging forgiveness gets ya off the hook that easy, now does it?” He laughed raucously, eventually ending with a throat-tightening wheeze. “No wonder he’s gone fuckin’ missin’ – I’d go missin’ if I was after me!”

Esmée tried to keep track of what he was saying but the missing links in his oratory defeated her.

“I’ve got friends, I do. Every bleedin’ where. All over the gaff. He didn’t reckon on that now, did he? And here’s me trying to help out. Sort out his problems. Even tried to teach him a thing or two, ungrateful fucker!” His words brought moisture with them as they were spat out. “But he fucked up good ’n’ proper!” The rise and fall of his schizophrenic tone transformed again into a menacing growl. “And whatever scam he was running in that posh fuckin’ job of his didn’t come through and he comes runnin’ to me like some selfish fuck. ‘Oh help me, oh help me!’” he mimicked with a ridiculous squeak, “and I did and look where it got me. Last fuckin’ time I’ll do that I’ll tell ya. Fourteen fuckin’ years it cost me.”

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked, willing him to stop. This was not something Philip would be involved in. He wasn’t the person this rabid lunatic was describing.

“Because . . .” he returned resolutely, casting a knowing glance at her cheek before shifting slowly to the open pile of notes that lay ominously by his side, “you’ve earned the right to know what class of a bollix your husband really is, or . . . possibly . . .” he paused tilting his head and raising his eyes in mock respect, “was.”

“And what makes you think I won’t go to the police?” she asked.

He leaned in close. “You’re not a stupid bird, are ya? Not like that last bitch he had. Jesus, she was some howler, I’ll tell ya. Lovely bird but a stupid bitch. Not like you though. You’re different.” He moved in close, his face looming dangerously near. “An’ anyway, you want those lovely curls on that boy’s head to stay like that, don’t ya?”

She pulled back, burying herself as far into the back seat as the fabric would allow, shaking her head vigorously, understanding perfectly what he meant.

“I just want a little favour. Teeney-weeney.” He paused, lifting his hand once again to grasp her face in the palm of his hand. Turning it to him, he locked eyes with her.

It hurt, not his grasp or his fingers as they pressed on her skin but the intense brutal warning in his eyes as they bore into hers.

“I want you to tell him I’ll be waiting for him.”

Esmée nodded her assent furiously. “But what if he doesn’t? Come back, I mean.”

“Oh, he’ll be back all right . . .” he said, his mouth close to hers. “You’re a beaut.”

She could almost feel the excitement vibrate through him, taste the testosterone as it oozed from his every pore on his disgusting lecherous body.

“And if there’s one sure fuckin’ bet, somethin’ we can all fuckin’ count on, it’s his addiction to chance, one last stake – and you, my sexy lady,” the pressure of his fingers clutching either side of her face intensified, “you’ll be his biggest risk yet. And when he’s there, right there in front of ya, you tell him I’m lookin’ for him. You tell him Jim Brady has his number.”

Chapter 16

Jim Brady. The name. It slammed through her like a careering juggernaut. He was there when her father was shot. He was the one they jailed. Her father died, killed in cold blood, on a Wednesday morning in June. Fourteen years ago. She was eighteen years old and Interrailing across Europe with Fin and the rest of the college crew. She would never forget the night she called home to tell her parents about the beauty of the Sistine Chapel that they had queued all day in the blistering Italian heat to see. But she never got to tell them any of it. To this day she had never described the beauty of her experience to anyone. How could she share the feelings of extreme passion and nerve-tingling happiness when possibly in those very same moments her father was breathing his last breath in a cold city hospital? He would have understood them. He was her kindred spirit. They were so alike, had so much in common. He would have felt that excitement too. She knew it. But she never got to share her feelings and she never got to say goodbye.

* * *

When they left her back to the same spot outside the school she was quiet and numb. Leaving the keys in the ignition and the engine running, both men got out of the car and walked calmly towards the main street, leaving Esmée bewildered and drained in the back seat with her bag still weighed down by the money by her side. And in her head the tireless mélange of accusations and questions and fears and answers and conclusions all mixed dangerously together, threatening to detonate if she didn’t shut them down. She clutched each side of her head, hoping to stop the spinning, whimpering silently. How had she got here? This wasn’t what she had ever intended to happen. Had she started this? Was this of her making? The rhetorical questions served only to feed her self-pity. She knew it. Even in his absence he made her feel inadequate. She couldn’t let this happen, couldn’t let her world unravel like this. It had to stop. She had to make it stop. If this was of her making, then the undoing was hers to administer also.

* * *

They sat in a triangle of silence. Although the story was told, Fin’s mouth still hadn’t closed. Flabbergasted. Dumbfounded. Aghast. Terrified.

“So go through that last bit one more time,” Tom directed, getting up to pace the room.

“He said to tell him that Jim Brady has his number.” Esmée was now tired and her head hurt like hell.

“That fucking bastard!”

“Tom!” Esmée pleaded and not for the first time, pointing meaningfully to the kids in the next room.

“Sorry, sis, but this is crazy shit,” he excused himself, turning on his heel to work the rest of the room. “That asshole! What the fuck? What the fuck was he playing at?”

Esmée knew he was referring to Philip who had shifted in Tom’s opinion to the aggressor, no longer the victim.

“Tom, I’m sorry but you’re hurting my head,” she pleaded.

“For God’s sake, Tom!” said Fin. “Will you just sit down and stop shouting? It’s not helping and frankly it’s annoying!”

Her put-down struck hurt across his newly infatuated face, the chemistry between them undeniable.

Exhausted but focused, Esmée had hoped that between them Fin and Tom would help her make sense of the pieces she had been fed and deduce the bits she hadn’t. But now, staring at the agitated faces in front of her, she wondered if she had made the right choice and wished she had called Lizzie instead.

“It was him? You’re sure?”

“Oh Jesus Christ, Tom! Of course I’m sure. He told me his bloody name, for God’s sake!” Exasperated, she let her head fall into her clasped hands.

“Maybe he’s confusing him with this ‘Bobby’ bloke, whoever he is?” said Tom.

“I don’t know. I don’t bloody know!” She was reaching the end of her tether.

“You have to go to Maloney,” said Fin.

At last. The voice of reason. Fin had mostly remained quiet, listening calmly as Esmée recounted the events of the morning.

“There’s something else,” Esmée admitted to her captive audience.

“Oh God . . .” Fin’s head collapsed into her paint-covered hands.

Esmée shifted round to reach for her shoulder bag and upturned it onto the centre of the table. “This,” she said, pointing to the notes covering her floral plastic tablecloth.

“Holy shite!” Fin exclaimed, her hand moving involuntarily to cover her mouth. “What the fuck? Where did you get this?”

Always so proper, foul language sounded odd coming from her best friend’s mouth and for a split manic moment Esmée almost laughed out loud. Controlling herself, she recounted the story instead.

“Jesus Christ, Esmée, what on earth has Philip got himself into?”

“Do you think it has anything to do with Dad?” she asked, looking at her now noticeably quiet brother.

“It would want to be one hell of a coincidence if it didn’t,” he said. “Maybe it was meant for Brady – maybe this is why he grabbed you?”

“I don’t think so,” Esmée reasoned, “otherwise he would have taken it, wouldn’t he?” Her mind was working overtime trying to understand what had just happened.

“I don’t know, Es. It’s bloody peculiar, isn’t it?” Tom argued. “One day your husband disappears, then you find this heap of cash in a box and the next day you get nabbed by Ireland’s answer to Don Corleone who just happens to be the guy they jailed for our dad’s murder – seems like a bit of a no-brainer to me.”

“I’m not getting you. Explain, Sherlock!” Fin challenged.

“They have to be connected . . . Jesus, I don’t know . . . maybe Philip was trying to protect you. Maybe he was paying Brady to stay away, you know . . . Ah shit! I don’t know!” He shrugged as his train of thought derailed.

Fin, still captivated by the money toyed with the bundles and asked, “How much do you think is in here?” Mirroring Esmée’s action of the day before, she lifted one to her nose, only to put it down quickly with a grimace.

“There are one hundred five-hundred euro notes in each bundle,” said Esmée. “And fifteen bundles.”

“Hmmm . . .” Always the man for the numbers, Tom took a moment to calculate. “That’s seven hundred and fifty grand.”

Fin’s eyes almost burst from their sockets. “You’re kidding!”

“So what do we do?” asked Esmée.

Both women looked to Tom for an answer.

“Fin’s right,” he said. “We have to take this to the station and let the police do their job.”

“Now?” asked Fin.

“Yes. Now.”

“God, Tom, I’m not sure I can cope,” Esmée sighed. The thought of going back to the egg-yolk interview room made her feel instantly nauseous. “This day has been . . .” But she couldn’t finish her sentence. She had no words left.

“Don’t be so ridiculous, Esmée,” he said. “You really don’t have a choice. This isn’t some small-time anonymous petty thief. This is Jim Brady we’re talking about and Philip. Look at us, like eejits trying to work out what happened. They need to see this and we need to let them do their job. Anyway, this isn’t about coping, this is about doing what’s right – and, besides, I’ll be there all the way, so don’t panic, okay?”

His words were weak assurance, but enough to get her going.

* * *

Maloney listened intently to the story as she told it. Esmée thought it odd that he didn’t take notes or call anyone else in to listen.

He waited till she was finished then sat back in his seat, taking a moment to observe the two siblings before him: Esmée tense and exhausted, Tom enraged but outwardly calm. He could tell she’d had enough. Her eyes were cheerless and her shoulders slightly hunched. If it wasn’t entirely inappropriate, he would love to take her hand, he thought, watching Tom’s mouth move but without hearing his words. He wished she’d stop fiddling with her hair – it was too distracting watching her twist and curl the thick brown lock around her fingers.

Focus, Gregory, he told himself in a silent voice that in his head sounded remarkably like his father’s.

Brady hadn’t wasted much time in tracking her down. He needed to think carefully about the next steps, knowing that the potential for the situation to spiral out of control was considerable. But she had a right to know, he felt, they both did, although others didn’t quite agree. Would this change their minds, he wondered as he sat forwards, bringing his hands to the table.

“Okay. Look, I need some time on this one,” he said.

“You should have informed us that Brady was released,” Tom accused him firmly.

“Yes, yes, we should have,” Maloney agreed, “but we don’t always get things right and this is one of those times.” He took a deep breath, feeling a little cornered. “I can’t explain right now what’s going on but –”

“So you have something?” Tom cut across him.

There was no point in him denying it, but he could delay it.

“Yes, I have some information but I can’t share it with you just yet.”

“We have a right to know!” Esmée interjected. “I need to know!”

“I agree you do, but there is some sensitive information involved here and we need to make sure we have all the facts first.”

“You’ll need to do a little better than that, officer!” she snapped, her words meant to patronise, hoping to insult him, her patience exhausted.

“James Brady was released three days ago,” he stated.

“I thought he got fifteen years!” said Tom.

Maloney shrugged nonchalantly. “Slightly early release, yes. He behaved.”

“He behaved?” Esmée’s words were woven with laughter. “He shot my dad!”

“Hold on there, Esmée, that’s not the case. He wasn’t the one who shot your father.”

“But he knows who did.”

“Maybe, maybe not. And if he knows he’s not telling us, but that’s not the point.”

“You’re defending him now?”

“No. For God’s sake, no. But you have to remember the facts here. You’re treading very sticky ground here so you need to be careful.”

“And what about the money? And the things he was saying about Philip?” she demanded. “Was he right? Is that what was going on?”

Maloney shook his head, more out of frustration than ignorance.

“Well?” she growled. “Is there anyone here who knows what the hell is going on? I am completely in the dark, I’ve no idea what’s going on and to be honest I’m not sure you guys are any wiser than me.” She caught Maloney’s glance and held it, mustering as much authority into her returning stare as was possible. “Do you have any idea what happened to me today? Are you actually putting all this together? The man who was in one way or another responsible for our father’s death as good as kidnapped me today. I was threatened and – and – molested by this filthy disgusting creature, and you sit there telling me to be careful, to remember the facts?” She rose as her temper flared along with her voice. “You need to do better than this!” His silence was infuriating. Her fist slammed hard on the table. “How dare you sit there and tell me to be careful! You need to tell me what the bloody hell is going on or I’ll find someone else who will!”

Both men watched, a little stunned, mute and powerless to intervene, as her temper boiled over and she did a circle of the small cubicle before coming back to the table to reclaim her seat, emotional and slightly embarrassed by her outburst. But she didn’t apologise. She fixed her chair, pulled herself up to the edge of the table, took a breath and asked him calmly, if a little breathlessly, “So. What are you going to do?”

Tom put a reassuring hand on his sister’s arm while Maloney shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

She was right and he was stuck. His hands temporarily tied. Raising his hands in acceptance, hoping to disarm her, he watched as her breath steadied and her composure returned.

“Esmée – Tom.” He looked purposefully at each. “Let me assure you, I, we, are doing everything we can. But we can’t share information with you until we know for sure that it is factually correct. And you’re right –” he looked at Esmée, “it’s unfair, but it’s the right thing to do. You have to be patient just for a little longer.”

“So what you’re telling us,” Esmée asserted, “is that you, contrary to what we see, are fully in control of this – you do know what this is all about but you’re just not telling us?”

“That’s about right.”

“So, when do you think you will be able to tell us?” she asked.

“As soon as I can ascertain that the information I have is factually correct.”

“And when do you think that might be?”

Maloney smiled, beguiled by her unrelenting, dogged persistence.

“Esmée, I promise that I will tell you everything I know as soon as I can. Is that okay?” he challenged, holding Esmée’s glare without so much as a wavering blink.

She nodded her assent. There was nothing much else she could do but agree.

Happy he had the situation back in his control, Maloney used the piled-up cash as a way to get back on track. “I’m going to check the numbers on these notes to see if we can identify where they came from.” And gathering up the piles, he got up and left the room.

“What do you think?” Tom asked, breaking the hot silence.

“It’s bullshit. If he doesn’t tell me what’s going on by the end of the week I’m going to demand to see his superior whoever the hell that might be. And if I don’t get answers then . . .” she paused to weigh up her options “well, then I’ll go to the papers.”

Maloney came back into the interview room and, placing a form in front of Esmée, told her she would need to sign for delivery of the money.

“One of my colleagues will be in shortly to count it with you. And as for your encounter with Brady, well, I need to speak to my Super but it doesn’t sound like you’re in any danger. If he wanted to do you harm he had ample chance this afternoon. That said, I’m going to arrange for a car to sit at the house to keep an eye out – and a visit to Brady is also in order, I think.”

“No,” Esmée protested firmly. “I’m fine with the car, but please don’t go near him. I don’t want him to know I’ve talked to you. I don’t want him to come back.” The idea that Maloney would provoke Brady further terrified her.

“Okay.” Maloney nodded. “Leave it with me.” He paused and added, not wanting to ignite the situation again, “Look, once you’re done here, go home. I’ll have a chat with my boss this afternoon and I’ll call round myself later to make sure you’re okay and give you whatever information I can.”

By the time the money had been counted, three times, she was weary.

Tom took her hand. “Come on, sis, let’s go.”

And not a moment too soon.

“That place!” she remarked as they turned out of the narrow entrance. “How can anyone work there? It just saps every bit of cheer out of you.”

Maloney watched them leave from the upstairs office. He wasn’t happy about how this was turning out and wanted more than ever to mind this young woman, but for the moment all he could do was wait.

“I need to get something from Mum’s,” Esmée announced as they pulled away from the Garda Station. “It’ll only take a sec,” she promised her reluctant brother who was anxious to get her back to the house and neutral territory.

* * *

Her old bedroom still had the same wallpaper she remembered from the long and late nights preparing for her finals, the twin beds a reminder of the good and the bad times she shared in this room with Lizzie. Beneath the window sat a chest of drawers with lots of chips and peels, its colour more cream than white now, a telling sign of its vintage. The top drawers were Lizzie’s while the bottom two were hers. She knelt down and pulled out the last drawer, almost empty apart from a faded purple manila folder. Taking it out, she pushed back the drawer and made her way back to the kitchen where she apologised to her mother again for her hasty visit.

* * *

Later, with Tom dropping Fin back to her studio and the children playing in the garden, Esmée set the folder on the kitchen table. She hadn’t looked at it in years. In the early days, just after it happened, she would spend hours reading through the various reports, each saying the same thing but using different words. They were an assurance that someone cared, an expression of a sort of condolence for her loss. The cuttings themselves had long since faded, with their wrinkled corners evidence of many hours of reading and re-reading, but the words were all still there. Philip hated seeing her read them, hated having the folder in the house, calling it morose, and insisted she move on and let the dead man rest. But try as she might she couldn’t discard his memory and, she thought rebelliously, if that wasn’t moving on then so be it. So the folder moved sideways, back to her old bedroom where she hadn’t touched it since. Until now.

Tears slipped quietly down her cheeks as once again the story came to life in her hands.

He had been escorting a Cash in Transit van, making deliveries in the county. They were on their first drop of the day. He wasn’t supposed to be there, was only filling in for the day. That was her tragedy. If not Frank then it would have been someone else’s dad. Or brother. Or uncle. Or son. On a normal day the job was fairly routine, boring even. They drove behind the blue reinforced van as it made its journey. Their job was to watch for anything suspicious. Keep a lookout. Which they did. On this Wednesday morning he was the passenger, Maurice Mahon the driver. Maurice described him as a great friend and valiant officer. He would never forget him, he had said in his emotional eulogy. That morning Frank Gill noticed a silver Golf GTI parked immediately outside the bank with the engine running and the driver alert and agitated. All he did was get out to take a closer casual look. Their car was unmarked and they were out of uniform. It shouldn’t have caused alarm. He was also unarmed. They never found the weapon or established who pulled the trigger that fired the shot, but nevertheless Frank died only hours later from the bullet that punctured his body. The young manager’s family, held in what was initially thought to be a tiger kidnapping, were released unharmed and Jim Brady was named as the mastermind, but not the murderer. As the investigation unfolded the news that it was an inside job was eventually reported and the manager who everyone felt so sorry for was in on the plan all along. Turning, as all snakes eventually do, it was he, this young Robert Toner, who would ultimately provide the evidence to put Brady away: his reward, witness protection and a new life in a location unknown.

The tragic victims in all this, the cuttings testified, were the young families affected by crime: Detective Gill’s grieving widow and children and Robert Toner’s distraught wife and young son.

She hadn’t ever really given them a second thought: the Toners. She’d never wondered what became of them, was never curious about the little boy and his mother. Glancing now, however, at the yellowing picture in her hand, which showed them leaving their house, she did wonder. They were being hounded by journalists and photographers. The little boy’s arm was being yanked by a frantic mother trying to get them both out of sight, his short legs trying to keep up and his little face scared and confused. With almost fifteen years’ distance she could empathise. Julie and Harry. She narrowed the search by adding "robbery", “crime” and “prison”. She wondered how they felt about Jim Brady. Did they know about his release? If she hadn’t, why would they?

She took down her laptop, fired it up and launched straight into Google.

She typed ‘James Brady’ into the box and watched the long list of hits that quickly formed. She then narrowed the search by adding "robbery", "crime" and "prison". She scrolled through each item methodically. The news stories showed very little about his release, a small commentary about the return of a reprehensible crime lord to his lair the most interesting. Stepping into his world was like delving into the mouth of a savage animal, the particulars of his activities bringing with them an indescribable surge of anger and fear.

On the face of it, he had always been an upstanding citizen, paid his taxes and earned an honest living running a small taxi firm and a bar on the outskirts of the city. This obviously didn’t account for his lavish lifestyle but he covered his tracks well and was always, frustratingly, one step ahead of the police. A well-respected neighbour, he lived “in harmony” in a small community on Dublin’s west side, where people regularly had been “astounded” by the accusations made against such an apparently “lovely, caring man who helped so many people in the community.”

But beneath the fortified surface, if the published reports were to be believed, were bountiful indictments of illicit deals, robberies and assaults, of punishment beatings and repugnant attacks on whosoever crossed his path. Despite being incarcerated, he still held the Gangland crown. An involuntary shiver washed through her as she remembered the touch of his fingers and the smell of his breath.

She typed ‘Julie Toner’ into the search box. Fewer results returned but she clicked on one of the familiar pictures from her cuttings. The image of Robert Toner himself filled the screen. His light brown hair falling in layered waves over hands that covered his face. Wrists tied together and shoulders hunched, he was being led away by a guard, flanked on either side by two suits who she assumed were his lawyers. But it was impossible to make a judgement about the man himself without seeing his eyes. Once again she wondered what might have made him do it. The unknown side to his story: the one that drove him to betray his family and friends.

The ring of the doorbell made her jump. She’d been waiting for him to call all afternoon. Maybe now he’d tell her what was going on.

* * *

On the other side of the door a nervous Maloney inhaled deeply, not looking forward to what he knew was coming. Rarely did he feel like this – dread his job – but there was something about Esmée that drew on his emotions. And while she was so anxious for information, he was sure what he had to tell her now wouldn’t make her any happier.

The morning after Esmée was attacked by her husband he had sat at his computer and begun his research. If there was something to know he’d find it, of that he was sure. Initially Philip Myers turned up a complete blank. Sure, he was there in the database but only just. Apart from the registration of the car, the insurance and a driver’s licence, Philip didn’t exist. He had no parking tickets – ever. Had never been stopped or had his insurance checked. He’d never got a speeding ticket or a summons, which at his age was quite a feat. So he brought it to his regular partner Dougie for some inspiration.

“If he’s clean, he’s clean,” Dougie offered. “Always the cynic, Maloney, eh?” he said, taking a playful swipe at his friend.

“There’s just something about this one . . .” Maloney muttered.

“Yeah, big tits and long legs more like!” Dougie retorted, not so playful.

And a week later Philip was gone.

“You need prints,” Dougie suggested. “Get his fingers and then we’ll see who he is and what he’s been up to.”

The “routine procedure” line worked and allowed him to bring forensics into the house without protest from Esmée.

“Why not just tell her?” Dougie asked, intrigued by his partner’s reticence and apparent new obsession.

“Because if she knows something she could wipe the place clean.”

“Do you think she does?”

“No, but I want to be sure. Besides, if she hasn’t a clue, I don’t want to freak her out either.”

“Don’t go getting all soft on me, bud,” Dougie warned, his double caution not lost on the wary Maloney. If Esmée knew what he was up to that morning in the house she would have had an even bigger meltdown. But he’d got his prints and answers with them.

At the weekly operations meeting they had planned on telling her along with the rest of the family about Brady’s release but Brady was quicker off the mark.

“Snooze ’n’ you lose,” Maloney told his boss, with a told-you-so nonchalance, furious that this mistake had placed him so firmly in Esmée’s line of fire and, boy, did she shoot! His ego still smarted at the memory of the insults hurled. The hardest part was that he had no option but to take it. They had missed their opportunity and were now uncomfortably on the back foot. This latest development placed them embarrassingly at an even further disadvantage and, it seemed, it was his task to catch up.

* * *

Maloney was nervous. Esmée Myers was making him so. Her long luxurious hair was falling simply about her shoulders, the waves resting against her shoulder blades. She was wearing tight-fitting jeans and a T-shirt. The unconscious sway of her behind as it moved was alluring and the outline of her breasts magnetic. He needed to focus, but his eyes were charged. This is crazy, he told himself, watching her as she checked on the kids.

Refusing both the tea and the seat, he rested himself against the kitchen counter, a folder in his hands. He then asked if there was anyone else in the house.

“Just me and the kids – Tom is on his way back here now,” she replied cautiously. “Why?”

“We can wait until he gets here before we start,” he proposed apprehensively.

His concern triggered alarm bells once more: Maloney was fast becoming the Messenger of Doom.

“No. I’m happy that we can get going without him. Frankly I just don’t have the patience to wait any longer.”

“Please, Esmée, trust me. Give your brother a call and see if he’s close.”

Complying, she called her brother, then reported: “He’s just a minute away. Now please can we get on with this?”

“Let’s wait.”

“No. You need to tell me now what the bloody hell is going on!”

He locked eyes with her but was the first to drop his gaze.

“Believe me,” he said. “It’s best if we wait for your brother.”

“Now. Tell me now or get out.”

Well! She’s asked for it, he thought as he cleared his throat. “Sorry, Esmée, there really is no easy way for me to tell you this . . .” He paused and braced himself.

“Oh God, just spit it out, will you?”

He drew a photograph from the file he had in his hand. Placing it on the table, he looked at her with apologetic eyes.

It was a photo of Philip.

“I’m sorry, Esmée, but Philip Myers, your Philip Myers, doesn’t exist. That’s not his real name.”

And taking a large brown envelope from the folder, he extracted from it a photograph, placed it slowly on the table and pushed it towards her.

Tom arrived just in time to catch her as she fell.

Chapter 17

Esmée watched from the car. It was a familiar scene, one she had enacted herself almost every day. Fifteen years on and the little boy, it appeared, had become a man and a handsome one at that. Julie looked tired, she thought, observing the routine from the safe distance of the road. She wondered if he still lived at home, maybe got a girlfriend? Or was he in college and home for the weekend? He’d be about twenty-one now. And so handsome. His strong angular features so unusually striking: just like his father’s. A young girl got out from the back seat of the car, her head firmly planted in a book, her long blonde hair tied back in two plaits. Dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, her slender delicate frame reflected that of her mother.

“Excuse me, young lady!” her mother called.

Esmée smiled to herself at the familiar tone.

“Don’t go inside with one arm as long as the other – help, please!”

Reluctantly the girl complied and with her book in one hand and what Esmée guessed to be the smallest of the bags she huffed her way into the house.

They weren’t what she had expected. They seemed normal enough, even happy as they went about their business, unaware of their observer only a short distance away. But then Esmée wasn’t sure what she had expected. Someone like her perhaps? They, the kids, were so much older – as good as a whole generation older than her own. Nervous now, the hopeful abundance of courage having languished to almost nothing, she debated just staying in the car to watch. What exactly did she believe she could accomplish? Why was she here? But, getting out of the car, she knew she hadn’t driven the two-hour journey to turn back.

She locked the car and made the short trek towards the pretty suburban semi-detached house, clutching her bag close.

Julie was just about to close the front door but paused cautiously on seeing Esmée approach.

“Can I help you?” she asked politely.

Esmée stopped in her tracks. She hadn’t thought of what to say as an opener and now, faced with the dilemma, she was stumped.

“Ehh. I’m Esmée, Esmée Myers.” Her name as it tripped from her mouth sounded absurd. “I wonder if I could have a moment of your time?” A moment of your time: where the hell did that come from she reproved herself silently, cringing from the inside out.

At five foot two to Esmée’s five seven, Julie visibly grew: defensively her long slender neck craned upward and her chin extended outwards, her beautiful features belied by the scowl that washed over her face as her demeanour mutated from affable to hostile.

“I wondered how long it would take.” Her disgust was apparent from the venom held in her voice. “I told you people before: I have nothing to say to you. Have you no shame?”

Esmée held the door just as she was about to slam it, recognising her mistake immediately.

“I’m sorry, Julie, you misunderstand – I’m not a reporter. I promise . . .” the idea of a wasted journey having come this far made her breathless. “I just want to talk. My dad was Frank Gill.” She paused, hoping the name would garner a different reaction.

For a split second Esmée thought she saw fear in the woman’s eyes. But it seemed to disappear as she released her grip on the door and her face began to relax, a slight flush rising on her perfect cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Esmée, I didn’t realise.” She lowered her eyes for a minute as if to gather herself together. “We’ve had some unwanted ‘guests’ hanging around these last few days and I thought you were the first to venture to the door. What can I do for you?”

So Julie knew about Brady’s release.

“Can I come in for a minute?” Esmée asked, reluctant to talk on the doorstep.

Assenting, Julie stepped aside and pulled open the door to let Esmée into her home.

And it was a beautiful home. She followed her down a narrow hall and into an extended open-plan living space. Esmée was blown away by the bright and beautiful room. Straight from a magazine, it was styled with strength and confidence. The oversized canvases and colourful furniture screamed sophistication to completely contradict the assumptions that Esmée had prematurely made about Julie: this was not the home of the quiet put-upon woman she remembered in the courtroom all those years ago. Julie had grown up.

Dressed in patent heels, a dark-grey pencil skirt and sparkling white shirt, with her naturally blonde hair pulled back tight in a ponytail, Julie was a reflection of her environment: sophisticated and elegant. She offered Esmée one of the comfy chairs in the lounge part of the room.

Slightly intimidated and feeling a little on the frumpy side, Esmée wished she’d made more of an effort beyond her jeans and striped cotton jumper.

“Tea? Coffee?” Julie offered, making her way to the granite-topped counter, her voice reverberating off the gleaming black surface.

“Tea, please,” Esmée replied, self-consciously fixing her runaway hair and at the same time absorbing the incredible surroundings. “You have a beautiful home,” she said, taking in the light that spilled from the Velux windows overhead, and the contrast it created on the surfaces it touched.

“Thanks. It’s taken me years to get right, but I’m happy with it now. After it all happened,” she gestured with her hands, waving back to what ever had gone before, “I went back to college to study interior architecture and this became my pet project. Therapy, if you will!” Her comfortable laugh advocated that her past was very much disconnected from her present.

“Well, it’s truly amazing!” Esmée enthused, genuinely impressed with the result. “Probably cost you a lot less than the medical kind!” she joked foolishly.

But Julie didn’t laugh in response.

“So!” she exclaimed, placing a tray on the coffee table and handing Esmée a mug before taking the seat opposite. “What did you want to ask about?”

Esmée fumbled for words in panicked response, unprepared for Julie’s apparent willingness to talk. She had assumed at the very least that she would refuse to start and need some emotional persuasion.

The door to the kitchen opened and the tall young man appeared again, head first around its edge. Closer now, Esmée was eager to take him in: his long and thick brown hair, trendy with a heavy flick to the front, the breadth of his shoulders, the size of his hands and the long slender fingers that wrapped around the door.

“You okay, Mum?” he asked, looking pointedly at Esmée.

“Yes, Harry, I’m fine.”

“I’m just in the study if you need me,” he replied, his tone unmistakably spiked with warning, then he closed the door as he left.

“I’m sorry, Julie,” Esmée apologised, indicating her now-absent son. “I didn’t come here to cause any trouble.”

“Don’t worry about it – he takes his role as the head of the family very seriously – he remembers a lot,” she said by way of an explanation, obviously proud but equally protective of him. “So, Esmée?” she prompted again.

But Esmée didn’t quite know what to say. She felt an uneasy need to befriend this woman, but at the same time wanted to punish her for the ever-so-slight impatient tenor in her attitude. Did she think that she was the only one hurt by what happened all those years ago? What exactly gave her the right to patronise? Did she really think it was that easy to move on? How could she assume that the past would never catch them up? She couldn’t possibly presume that knocking down a few walls and sticking up a few paintings would make everything all right. Impossible.

Looking at the striking and obviously strong woman in front of her, waiting with a smile for a response, Esmée knew she had the power to rock her world. Would she? Could she?

Originally the objective had been to come to the house and inspect this woman face to face: just to see who she was. Perhaps warn her about Brady if she didn’t know already. Telling all wasn’t part of the plan – after all, why would she wilfully refresh the pain? But now the pungent rancour welling inside her like infectious bile was threatening to consume her and blind her ability to reason.

The ring of a phone broke the malevolent progression of her thoughts.

Smiling apologetically, Julie got up to answer it.

What the hell are you like, Esmée? Cop on and relax. This isn’t her fault. Pinching herself hard, Esmée fought the compunction to purposefully destroy this family further.

“Sorry about that,” Julie said, sitting back down. “So, you were saying . . .”

“Well . . .” The inward battle raged as Esmée swallowed hard, ruing her decision to come here in the first place. Left with no option, she launched in. “We never met, you and I, but I’ve seen your pictures a hundred times. I suppose with Brady being released it brought everything back and I just wanted to . . . I don’t know . . . speak to you, see how you were doing.”

They sat in silence for what seemed like eons, each getting used to the other’s presence, each trying to fathom silently what she should say next.

“So when did you hear he was out?” Esmée asked.

“They came and told me about it the day before yesterday.”

More than I was afforded, Esmée thought to herself. “Do you mind me asking about Robert?” she asked, taking a lead from Julie’s directness and getting straight to her point.

Julie shifted ever so slightly in her seat and thought for a moment. “Robert? Well, actually, I suppose I do. I haven’t talked willingly about him to anyone in a long time and frankly I’m not sure I want to start now.”

“Sorry. I know. I suppose I just wanted to know where he went. I know he went away under a witness protection programme but . . .”

“He could be anywhere: South Africa, Canada, the States . . . anywhere. I have no idea. We weren’t told and I didn’t ask.”

“And you didn’t go with him?”

“Us! God, no. After what happened? Are you insane?” She looked at Esmée, slightly perplexed. “You do know what happened, don’t you?”

“I think so, but I . . .” She couldn’t finish, feeling ridiculous and small.

“My goodness, you’re really bringing it back today!”

“I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t have asked . . .”

“Don’t be.” Julie shrugged, taking a resigned breath. “Robert . . . was a prick. There is no other word for him.”

The absurdity of hearing such a word come out of her proper mouth was a little surprising and Esmée felt her pulse quicken at the malice that packaged it. There and then Esmée knew she had opened the floodgates.

Julie leaned forward, her hands clasped as if in prayer on her lap. She took a deep bracing breath and retold her story.

“It was supposed to be a special evening. I had it all planned. I put Harry to bed a little earlier than usual and had an incredible dinner prepared. I remember thinking to myself at the time that this was going to fix everything.” She paused for a moment and closed her eyes, taking herself back to the night before the kidnap. “He was late home and in a foul mood. I should have known something was up. He was so cross, so nasty. We almost didn’t sit down to eat, but I had put so much effort into it and besides I knew if we didn’t there would be more trouble. I refused to let him ruin it for me, for us both.” Her eyes opened and she expelled an apologetic sigh. “Robert had a bit of a nasty streak. He’d lash out sometimes and, well, that night I just wanted everything to be perfect.” She smiled tritely at Esmée, embarrassed by her own naïvety, in hindsight. “So we sat down and I told him.” She took a reinforcing breath as she recalled. “I told him about Beth.”

“Beth?”

“Yeah, I’d done a test that morning and it came out positive. I was pregnant. Just three weeks to be exact.” She smiled tenderly at the thought. “It was a complete surprise, an accident even. So that night I told him. I genuinely thought he’d be delighted. He’d always said he wanted us to try again. But he didn’t say a word. Nothing. Not even an expletive. He just got up and left. I was sure he’d woken Harry with the slam of the door but I just sat there, unable to move.” Her breathing was steady but her tone subdued as she shrugged at the memory. “I was sure he’d be happy. I was sure it would change things. He’d been so distracted. I could do nothing right. And poor Harry . . .” She shook her head, her voice filled with regret and sadness, letting her sentence go rather than recall just how Robert vented his anger on Harry, the deficiency of words speaking volumes. “This was the side of Robert no one knew. It wasn’t important to the case, they said, but it was, is, important to us. I think it helps explain him: how he was. I like to think that somewhere deep down,” she held her gripped fist to her chest with a noble, hopeful smile, “that he did love us. I think . . . it was just that he was ill . . . Well, that’s what I’ve said to the kids anyway. Gambling does that, they say.” Her tone was matter of fact. “We never knew, of course, about the gambling . . . not until it came out in court.”

Esmée’s skin prickled as she listened, a perceptible sense of foreboding swelling as Julie, layer by layer, unwrapped her story.

“To be honest, I was actually relieved when it came out – I always thought it was me!” She nearly laughed. “I always thought that I’d done something wrong and I tried extraordinarily hard to make it right. But it wasn’t me at all. It was just him. All along. Plain and simple.” She stopped and shrugged, her hands open to Esmée, imploring her to understand.

And she did. Esmée knew full well, or was beginning to anyway: the parallel behaviour of inadequate feelings, unexplained outbursts and emotional torture . . . Jesus, this could have been her life Julie was describing.

They both brooded in silence for a while, acutely aware of the part of the tale still to come.

“He’d only been gone about half an hour – I was still sitting at the table – sobbing if memory serves me correctly,” Julie continued. “Then they rammed into my house and came straight at me in the kitchen. I had no idea where Rob was, only that he wasn’t there. For some reason I screamed for him, hoping he wasn’t far away, but he never came. They had me by the hair and someone knocked me at the back of my knees. Jesus, it was sore!” She winced at the memory. “Pain like I have never experienced before. I actually thought they had cut into my skin it hurt so much. I was crying and crying and crying.”

She didn’t bother to hide the distress in her eyes, but swathed in an eerie sense of calm it spoke volumes about her anguish and what she had to do to conquer it and be able to talk about it this way.

She described how she fell to the floor and took kicks to her stomach, how they slapped her across her head as she struggled and cowered to escape them. They kicked her tummy: her unborn baby. They broke her down till she was silent.

“They wrapped this horrible tape around my mouth – it tasted like petrol – and put a cloth blindfold over my eyes. I must have looked a sight wriggling on the floor. I knew they were going upstairs . . . to Harry . . . I had to try . . . I tried to scream but my lips were stuck to the bloody tape. It tore layers off me . . . I couldn’t see . . .” She heaved a breath to calm her emotions and quell her tears. “They tied Harry’s legs and arms and wrapped a scarf around his little head to cover his eyes too. I could hear him cry. He called for me and his daddy . . .” She brought her hand unconsciously to her head and rubbed it slowly across her crown. “Then Rob shouted out for them to stop, but I couldn’t see him. There was blood in my eyes and I couldn’t see. I tried to scream, but sure that was a waste of effort. So I just cried.”

Esmée didn’t interrupt the silent interlude but let it rest between them, affording Julie the time to settle. She had no words adequate to offer even a small consolation for her ordeal.

“They kept us there for hours. They were so quiet. They didn’t speak a word, not even to each other. I could hear them move, their clothes and footsteps, but not a word. I prayed for it all to be over, for sleep to come but it didn’t. My eyes hurt and my belly, well . . . I thought she was dead.” Instinctively she placed a hand on her tummy. “I lost track of time, but when it started to get bright I heard another man join them – clearly the boss – Brady. Immediately after that they left. Rob too. He tried to tell me later that they had taken him by the neck and forced him to drive to the bank and, well . . . I believed him. It never crossed my mind, not even for a moment that he could have been part of it. I didn’t think he could ever be that cruel. But I was wrong and, well, you know what happened next.” She looked apologetically towards Esmée. “I thought I was on my own but when I tried to pull the straps off my wrists I got a thump. Stay calm, I told myself, stay calm. Rob will be back any time now to get us. But after about an hour we were put into a car. They drove us about a half hour then we stopped. They left us there, Harry and me, on the side of the road.”

“My God, Julie, I . . . I don’t know what to say . . . I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry? What are you sorry for? You did nothing.”

She wasn’t accepting any sympathy. It was as if her pain was propping her up and propelling her forwards. The pain was her saviour: it meant she never had to feel guilty about the hate she felt. Her pain was her medicine.

“Do you know, in all this . . .” she swept her arm in an all-encompassing gesture, “what the hard part was? Is?”

Esmée shook her head.

“It’s knowing that he was there all along. He watched it all. In the house. Robert Toner,” she stated powerfully, her anguish replaced by disgust, “had followed the thugs into our home and watched as we, his wife and unborn child were kicked to the groundfloor, bound and gagged. He stood and listened to his son cry out helplessly for him. Watched as our little boy struggled and whimpered in terror . . . And. He. Did. Nothing.”

This was her closing statement for the prosecution. She was giving him the conviction he deserved but never got. He had been part of it all. Part of the whole deceitful scam. He played a part in both the planning and execution of the entire debacle and then offered up his own family as his alibi. To save his skin. The compulsive gambler in Robert Toner made him do things any good person wouldn’t dream of, that’s what they said in his defence. Robert Toner, they purported, was a sick man, a weak man. This along with misplaced compassion and a draw on his feeble scruples led them to morph him into a willing informant. They offered him protection and a new life, contending that giving up the gang and their leader was the smart thing to do. So easily convinced. So eager to save himself. So weak.

Brady had been the unfortunate winner of Robert’s losing hand on a fateful night in the 8 of Clubs. That’s, so the court was told, how they first became acquainted. Brady offered sympathetic terms while Robert tumbled deeper and deeper into Brady’s debt. He was easy prey: a man with even less luck than talent and substantially less sense again. Robert was hooked and all Brady had to do was reel him in. The payback was The Job. It seemed so easy: a real wipe-the-slate opportunity.

“He used us,” Julie uttered, quite matter of fact. “Risked his own family. He didn’t give a monkey’s about us, couldn’t have cared less. Even when I told him we weren’t going into the witness protection programme, he actually seemed relieved, didn’t so much as try to change my mind. Yes. Robert Toner is a prick and if I never saw him again it would be too soon.” She swiped imaginary filth from her palms in finality. Her job was done.

“So where is he now?” Esmée asked again, shutting down the guilt pangs that chastised her for asking the question she had come all this way for.

“I have no idea.”

“Really? He just left after the verdict?”

“Yep.”

“And he never made any contact, not even a phone call?”

“No. Not once. Anyway the programme won’t allow it – either way. He left and we stayed and I haven’t heard anything since. Why so interested in him anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Esmée shrugged. “A morbid curiosity, I suppose.”

Harry returned to the kitchen and the conversation ended.

“Harry,” Julie said, “this is Esmée. Her father was the garda who was murdered in the raid.”

Her use of words intrigued Esmée further.

Harry took a firm grip of Esmée’s extended hand and nodded politely in recognition.

“Good to meet you,” Esmée said, feeling the ridiculous urge to comment on how much he’d grown.

Again he just nodded.

It was time to leave. Esmée made her excuses and left. She needed to be alone.

She got back into her car and sat, unable to gather herself together sufficiently to drive. She had known most but not all of the story – it had been fairly well reported at the time. But the parts that Julie had kept private and the bits that she didn’t know at all were the parts Esmée was most interested in. That and the fact that while telling it Julie hadn’t so much as shed a single tear. Was that acceptance or anger? Or both?

As she searched the depths of her own pain she concluded that what offended her most was the ignorance: how could Julie have been so blind, so naïve? How could she have been duped so easily? How could she, Esmée, also have been fooled so easily? How could she have allowed herself be manipulated like that?

Deep in thought, she removed the envelope that Maloney had given her the day before from her bag and took out one of three large prints. She hadn’t believed him at first and if it hadn’t been for Tom she’d have physically removed him from the house herself. But here, having seen the boy, now a handsome young man, for herself, having shook his hand and looked straight into those soulful green eyes there was no denying it. Harry was Philip’s mirror image: he was his son. And Philip Myers was Robert Toner.

In fact Robert Toner became Colin Jakes before he was ever Philip Myers. That was the identity they gave him when they relocated him to South Africa thirteen years previously. He was set up in a bungalow with cash, a job and a whole new life: that was all part of the deal. As far as the authorities knew right up until they recovered the car at the cliff, Colin Jakes was still living in Pretoria so this discovery was a significant surprise to the security services. They too had questions unanswered, like how had he managed to change his name again? From where did he get his papers? When had he returned to Dublin and what had he been up to since then?

But for Esmée, with her connection to her husband established years before they had ever even met, the questions this revelation prompted were more of the emotional kind. Did Philip know who she was when they first met? Obviously, he must have. How did it not freak him out? Why had he never come clean to her? How did he never say? They were supposed to be soul mates. Did she even know who he was? Philip. Colin. Robert. Were they all the same? Impossible. They were all different: they had to be. In her head she imagined a wholly romantic version of circumstances and events that allowed their relationship to blossom without it being a weird and bizarre perversion of nature.

But sitting in the car, looking at the three pictures, the faces all looked the same, but they had three different stories. Her eyes were drawn to Philip. She let her fingers trace the outline of his face and the swell of his mouth. She didn’t know him at all. And she felt exposed, like she was seeing him for the first time, but first impressions are inevitably deceptive and like dark mirrors they never reveal the truth.

Chapter 18

Day 62 and still no body. The initial suggestion by her mother that they should move back into Woodland Drive was quickly rejected. The house represented something obscene. Esmée felt violated. Like the last ten years of her life were nothing short of a lie. Had it not been for the existence of Matthew and Amy she would have been forgiven for branding them a horrible nightmare. Philip was not only a stranger but a psychological stalker: he had deceived her in such an intimate, convincing and fundamental way there was no way for her to even begin to understand or rationalise what had happened to her. What he had done to her.

“It’s a kind of ‘traumatic bonding’,” the Garda counsellor attempted to reason, “It’s connected to what’s known as the Stockholm Syndrome where the victim develops strong feelings for the aggressor. It’s a kind of defence mechanism . . .”

“But I’m the victim here!” Esmée protested.

“Yes, that’s true, but with Robert –”

“Philip,” Esmée corrected.

“Sorry. Yes, Philip,” she replied, lowering her eyes in recognition of her blunder. “But here I’m assuming that Philip may have felt some manner of guilt towards you and your family and it’s this apparent guilt that re-structures the argument slightly.”

“What? That he’s the victim?”

“Well, in a kind of roundabout way: in his own head, yes, he thought he was the victim. You held all the power. He probably felt like he was as much a victim as you.”

“Are you for real? Do they actually pay you to say this crap? He’s the victim? What, like I asked for this? Like I wanted him to do this to me. He found me. He chased me. I didn’t know any of it so how dare you sit there with your little notebook and make me feel like this was my fault!”

“Mrs Myers –”

“Oh for God’s sake, this is farcical!” Esmée snapped and standing up gathered her coat, bag and umbrella to leave. “There is no Mrs Myers. He wasn’t real. It’s not my name. I am Esmée Gill. Always was and still am. If you haven’t managed to grasp that, then, well . . . I’m done here.”

“Please, Esmée, you’ve misunderstood. Of course this isn’t your doing. You can’t be blamed. I’m only trying to explain from Rob’s – eh, Philip’s point of view – what he may have been thinking. I’m here to help you understand.”

Esmée stopped in her tracks and turned back to the now standing counsellor. “Thanks but I don’t think I need to hear this. I understand what has happened and no amount of ‘psychological spin’ can make this all right. I appreciate you’re trying to help, just doing your job and all that, but this is too soon. I don’t want to . . . I can’t think of him as a victim.”

She left the warm, mellow office standing tall, bolstered by her anger. She and Julie now had something else in common: they would both use rage as a mechanism to survive. Stepping into the grey wet day she didn’t bother with her umbrella, liking the cold wet drops of rain and their cooling effect on her burning cheeks. What was happening to her? Why was this happening? She felt like such a fool. She had fallen in love with him and for years had given him everything: her whole self.

She shared with him everything she held dear. He had seen her at her best and her worst and she had been happy to share those vulnerable moments with him because she trusted him: loved him and thought he loved her. But really, how could he? How could he have made himself fall in love with her? Just like that? He sought her out. He made it happen. True love is supposed to be all about serendipity. Destiny. It’s supposed to ‘just happen’. You can’t force it. Their love, if it even existed at all, was synthetic. Unnatural.

Lizzie was waiting for her when she got home. Recognising the dark mood, she allowed her sister to smoulder in silence, handing her a mug of tea. The two women sat in silence, each lost in the detail of the family woes.

The vibration of Esmée’s phone ruptured the reverie. Jack’s name flashed white on the screen. She sighed: did she really want to speak to her husband’s colleague? She answered.

“Hi, Jack.”

“Esmée . . .” He sounded uncomfortable.

In no mood for small talk Esmée pitched straight in. “What can I do for you?”

“I promised I’d look into things for you.”

“You’re very good,” Esmée responded. She was tired and cross and sure this was just another wasted courtesy ‘found nothing’ call.

“Well, I thought I’d better give you the heads-up,” he continued.

The resting demons of dread in the pit of Esmée’s stomach woke instantly and lurched upwards: he had something. She sat upright in the chair.

“What, what is it? Do you know where he is?”

“No. Sorry. It’s not that, but I may have a clue as to why he . . . well, why he went away.”

“Go on,” she encouraged cautiously.

“Well, I’ve had a look at everything – his files, his customers, the deals that were processed – just to see what he was working on before, before he . . .”

“It’s okay, Jack, I know what you mean,” she helped him along.

“Well, it appears that things aren’t quite what they seem.”

“No shit,” she muttered quietly.

“There’s a team here about to launch a full-blown investigation. I can’t stall it any more. I wanted to be sure before I called. It’s money, Esmée. We think he . . .” again a hesitant pause, “well, he may have lost some money.”

“Do you mean stole?”

“God no, Esmée, I didn’t mean that.” Jack rushed on, mortified at being so transparent, ignorant of the litany of accusations facing the absent Philip. “There is probably a reasonable explanation – Philip wouldn’t do anything like that.”

“Yes, you did mean it and, yes, he would,” Esmée stated apathetically.

“I’m so sorry, Esmée,” he apologised, his words oozing pity.

“Thanks for letting me know.”

“Look, if there is anything I can do . . .”

Conversation over, she cast the phone aside. “Christ, I need a drink!”

“What is it? What’s happened?” Lizzie broached warily.

“Do you know what, it doesn’t fucking matter. I don’t have the energy to care any more.” She dropped her heavy head into her hands and expelled a huge sigh.

Mentally she racked up each of the indictments and accusations, then reminded herself that he was gone. And for a moment she was glad. He had buggered off and left her, so she, in good faith, must act accordingly.

“Right!” she declared, jumping up, shocking Lizzie out of her chair. “That’s it. If he wants to go, then let him. Come on! No time like the present.”

And striding to the sink, she reached in under it and grabbed a roll of black refuse bags. Throwing on her coat, she grabbed her keys and marched toward the front door.

“Well?” she threw back to her sister. “What are you waiting for? Are you coming or not?”

Grabbing her things Lizzie, with no other option presented, submitted and tripped after her, if only out of curiosity to see what the hell was going on.

“Where are we going?”

“Back to the house.”

“Why, what are we doing there?”

“What I should have done weeks ago,” she replied, locking the front door behind her.

She had been avoiding this task, fearing latent feelings of regret that could distract her. But she was angry. There were no emotions of regret or shame or guilt or sadness, only biting rage that she needed to express. If he was around she would have barked savagely at him, probably swiped and whipped him hard. But he wasn’t. The only part of him she could reach was his belongings.

“I’m not waiting for the bastard to turn up. He’s gone. So let’s get rid of him,” she asserted, driving fast and steady through the streets.

“Jesus, Esmée, is it not a bit soon? He’s only gone . . .” Lizzie questioned, keeping one eye on the parked cars they whizzed past and the other on the stony face of her sister.

“I know. But hey, this was his call. No time like the present. And once we’re done, I’m getting drunk. Very drunk. If you’ll take care of the children!”

They pulled up outside the house, the dust on the cobblelocked drive throwing up a plume as she pulled on the brake.

The air in the house was stale. A pile of mail jammed the door. Shoving it hard and pushing aside the paper mountain, she marched in. A quick rummage through the mail revealed that it was almost entirely junk mail. She shoved the few items of importance into her bag and checked her watch. She had a couple of hours before the kids needed collecting. With the decision already made that this was no longer their home, she had to deal with the problem presented by the house’s vacancy. The subject bothered her: she hadn’t the emotional fire to deal with it – until now. Now it was really clear and her prior reluctance slightly innocuous. The house couldn’t be sold so it had to be rented. Simple. How difficult was that?

She walked the rooms, assessing the best place to start, focused and ready. The memories in this house were nebulous, with no basis in reality, all her happy days demoted to mere fiction. She had been an unwitting player in Philip’s game and now it was over she was the one who had lost.

* * *

“Are you okay?” Lizzie asked as they tied up another bag, setting it aside in the hall.

They had spent the time in the house in near silence, with Esmée trapped in her thoughts.

“Not really, but I’ll live,” she smiled back at her sister.

“Wanna share?”

“Not really. I’ll only cry if I do.”

“Okay.”

And so the silence resumed as, bag after bag, they packed up Philip till nothing but his smell remained.

* * *

They toasted her loss in Zac and Barney’s bar in town, miles away from the sympathetic eyes of the village. She was glad of the anonymity. Fin took over as Lizzie and Penny left.

“So you’ve been sent to mind me?” Esmée asked bitterly.

“Don’t be such a bitch,” her friend replied gently. “They’re so worried about you, and don’t forget that they’re all wrapped up in this too.”

“I know, I know. And I should be grateful. I think they’ve had enough of me anyway.” She emptied her glass.

“Need another?” Fin offered.

“You betcha.”

Fin nodded to the barman, indicating a refill for her melancholy friend and a pint for herself.

“So how’re you doing?” she asked. They hadn’t seen each other in days with Fin occupied by her impending exhibition.

“Please, please, don’t be nice to me,” Esmée pleaded. “Can we talk about something else? How’s your exhibition going?”

“Jesus! Frying pan and fire stuff there, honey!” Fin threw her eyes up to heaven. “It’s a bloody disaster . . .”

The night wore on and the music got louder. Despite herself Esmée was enjoying herself, happy to be out and distracted by someone else’s issues, Fin’s hilarious tales an effective tonic that brought the absent smile back to her face.

“It’s good to see you laugh again,” said Fin.

“It’s certainly been a while,” Esmée said, feeling almost human.

“Seriously, though, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I think so. It’s tough though.”

Fin nodded. “But you’re strong, Es. You’ll come out the other side.”

“I know. It just seems a long way off. You know, I’m actually beginning to think I’ve had a bit of a lucky escape.”

“New beginnings!” Fin toasted, raising her glass and with it once again the mood. There was plenty of time for post-mortems, she thought, anxious to see her friend laugh some more before sending her back to reality.

Suddenly Fin’s face dropped.

“What? What is it?” Esmée asked, alarmed.

“It’s Lara.”

“Lara who?”

“Lara Wilson.”

“College Lara Wilson?”

Fin nodded.

“Where?” Esmée asked, turning on the spot.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“What? Oh that!” Esmée responded as reality bit. “Feck it, Fin. I can’t hide for ever, and we don’t have to tell her anything we don’t want to . . . unless she already knows . . . ?”

“Not from me, she doesn’t!”

“Well, then,” she enthused, her prudence dulled by the alcohol consumed so far, “what the hell?” She shrugged. “Lara!” she called over the heads queuing at the bar.

Lara looked around, then seeing her old friend bounded towards her in amazement.

“Bloody hell, Esmée Gill, how the hell are you? If it weren’t for Fin we would have thought you’d been abducted by aliens.” She hugged her hard. “Wagon! You haven’t changed one bit, you’re still as gorgeous as ever.”

“Neither have you!” Esmée choked in between shrieks and hugs.

“Yeah, right, have you seen the size of my ass? That’s changed!” she laughed, slapping her behind playfully.

Yep. Whatever about her backside, some things really hadn’t changed: Lara was still the gregarious whirlwind she always was, whipping up a storm wherever she went.

“So what happened to you?” Lara asked above the din.

“I got distracted,” Esmée replied dismissively.

“Well, I’m glad you’re back. Now come and dance with me.”

And her vivacity was infectious. Esmée hadn’t danced in years, she wasn’t even sure she’d remember how, but it didn’t take long for her to get her mojo back and she was soon strutting rhythmically across the dance floor with her dance partner of old and loving every minute of it.

It was like history repeating itself. Lara and herself on the dance floor with Fin holding court at the bar.

Fin realised it too and smiled smugly, acutely aware of Lara’s two escorts standing on either side of her.

“So, can I buy you a drink?”

She looked round to find a dapper young man in a sharp pinstripe suit with a sparkle in his eye, beaming eagerly from ear to ear.

“Why not?” she replied.

“Justin,” he introduced, extending his hand, his perfect hair shining under the down-lighters above the bar.

“Fin,” she reciprocated with a smile. “So, are you Lara’s partner?”

“God, no. We’re just workmates, that’s all.” He laughed. “I’m young, free and single, if that’s what you’re after.”

Fin laughed. “I don’t think so,” she replied, trying to let him down gently, but liking his smile all the same. “I don’t think I’m quite your type.”

“I could be your Mr Grey,” he smiled, raising his eyebrows seductively.

“Grey’s not my colour, honeybunch,” she countered “I’m more sixty shades of crimson, myself.” She raised her glass to meet his.

“Touché!” he smiled, touching his glass to hers.

By the time Esmée and Lara got off the dance floor, puce and sweating, Fin and Justin were laughing raucously, a line of empty shot glasses decorating the bar in front of them.

“You’ve met Justin then?” Lara asked rhetorically, watching as the rambunctious pair slammed then dunked another shot.

“Me and Fionnuala, we’re pals!”

“Really?”

“Yesh,” he slurred. “She’s my Mrs Crimson an’ I’m her bit o’ rough,” he managed before sliding off the seat and passing out cold at her feet.

* * *

Esmée’s fumbled for her house keys, still sniggering childishly at the memory of Fin and her new-found suitor.

“Bit of rough!” she repeated aloud, prompting a thump from her equally intoxicated friend.

“Ahh, stop!” Fin pleaded. “He didn’t mean it like that!”

“Yes, he did and you know it! Christ, Fin, I’m not sure you quite know how good that felt!” Her face was still pulsing deep red. “I haven’t felt that alive in years. And, I can still dance!” She sashayed across the kitchen, finishing with a not-so-graceful spin, knocking over the milk with a graceless swing of her arm.

“Easy, tiger!” Fin warned, catching the carton before it reached the floor.

“No, seriously, thanks, Fin, I wouldn’t have done it without you.”

“No problem – what are friends for?”

“God, I’m starving,” Esmée declared with her head stuck in the fridge. “What do you fancy? There’s a bit of trifle left.”

“Just toast for me,” Fin announced, popping two slices in the toaster. “Want some tea?”

“Yeah, go on then,” Esmée replied, propping herself up against the kitchen counter, complete with spoon and trifle bowl. “Jesus, that Lara one hasn’t changed a bit, has she?” She giggled between mouthfuls. “She’s still great craic, isn’t she?”

“Yep. She’s off the wall,” Fin concurred. “And you know, whenever I see her she always asks after you.”

“She does?”

Fin nodded and smiled at her drunken pal, taking a seat at the table.

“Ahh, Fin,” Esmée sighed with a pensive smirk. “You know, it felt almost normal tonight.”

“Well, look at it as the way of the future,” Fin munched, taking a ravenous bite of her hot buttered toast.

* * *

Her head hurt like hell the next morning – the morning-after downside of her antics the night before. Esmée couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this rotten. Her head still resonated with the pounding beat of the nightclub and her patience was seriously depleted. The kids sensed her weakness and like predatory animals they pounced, demanding her attention. When they were settled with toast smothered in Nutella, anything for a quiet life, she slumped on the chair and nursed her throbbing head.

She felt rather than heard her phone vibrate in her bag beside her and dug in deep to retrieve it. A message from a number she didn’t recognise.

EI605 09:20 12/6/27 ref HJ7895A

At first glance it appeared to be nothing more than gibberish, but on further examination it was patently clear.

This was a flight reference and, after everything that had happened during the last few weeks, she instinctively knew who it was from and why.

She went immediately to wake Fin.

“What do you mean he’s sent you a message?” a very drowsy Fin asked, thick with the alcohol still very much evident in her body and none too pleased at being woken like this.

“Read it for yourself,” Esmée instructed, passing her the phone.

“I need my glasses . . .” Fin fumbled, feeling the bedside table for her specs. “This isn’t anything,” she complained when she read it. “Now go away and let me sleep.”

“Fin. Seriously!” But it was pointless: the girl was still drunk.

Returning to the kitchen she dialled directory enquires and got the number for the airline.

“I’d like to confirm a flight booking,” she said.

“Sure!” came the politely trained, if a little overly cheerful, male voice at the other end of the telephone. “Do you have your reference number handy?”

“Yes. Yes, I do,” she affirmed, fumbling with the mobile in her hand, and she called out the digits and letters as presented to her on the screen.

“And your name?”

“Esmée Myers,” she stated clearly, adding, “Mrs Esmée Myers – M. Y. E. R. S.” for good measure and could hear, somewhere in the background, his fingertips zealously banging on a keyboard.

She pictured the cold sterile call centre where this man probably sat, in his symmetrical partitioned cubicle with his little earpiece extending over his mouth and instruction manuals for every possible eventuality close to hand.

“Yes, Mrs Myers, I can confirm your booking, leaving Dublin at 9.20 a.m., this Wednesday, twenty-seventh of June, arriving Málaga 11.30 a.m., local time.”

“Is there a return journey with that?” she enquired quietly, trying to figure out what was going on, her Holmesian super-sleuth mind swinging into action.

“No, ma’am,” he replied, “it’s an open ticket. Would you like me to book a return journey for you now?”

“No. That’s fine, thanks.” And with that she hung up.

There was no doubt in her mind as to who had sent this text or, as the case might be, who had organised for it to be sent to her.

Spain! Bloody Hell! He had gone to Spain! What an unimaginative and clichéd place to hide out: there in the Spanish hills, with all the other fugitives that went before him, probably drinking sangria and eating paella. She could just see him fitting in with his hair slicked back, manicured feet and over-bronzed complexion. What a nasty little picture!

By the time Tom arrived, Esmée was pacing the floor, her hangover long since forgotten.

“What’s up, sis?” he asked, throwing his coat over the back of a chair and sitting down.

“This,” she said, handing him the phone.

“A ticket?” he asked, looking baffled. “Are you going somewhere?”

“No, well, I didn’t plan to, but someone wants me to.”

“Someone wants you to? Sorry, Es, but I’m not getting it. Who is ‘someone’?” But she didn’t need to answer, seeing the lights of realisation switch on in his head before he’d even finished the sentence.

“No – way,” he whispered, shaking his head in disbelief at his own assumption. “You don’t think . . .”

“I do.”

“No way!” he repeated, staring back at the phone.

“Well, who else would anonymously book me on a flight to Spain? Of all places! It has to be him! Isn’t that where they all go, these criminal types?”

“But that doesn’t mean it’s him and you’re not getting on that plane to find out!”

“Of course I am, I have to,” she shrugged, matter of factly.

“No. No, you don’t,” he reasoned emphatically. “You hand this one over to the police, let them sort it and if it is a joke or a hoax or whatever, then great – and if not, well, then they’ve got him.”

“I can’t do that!” she interjected, horrified and appalled at his suggestion. “They’ll arrest him!”

“And? Isn’t that what you want? Justice and all that? I know it’s what I want.” He handed her back the offending phone.

“Yes! Of course it is. And I will tell them, but not yet. I want to see him on my own first. I want to know why. Why he’s done this to me.”

“Well, let the cops go get him and then you can ask him.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Tom! Get real. Do you really think he’ll tell me anything after I’ve got him arrested? No. I’ll go to him. And then we’ll see.”

Collapsing heavily into a chair, she threw her head back and stared blankly at the ceiling. And here she was, thinking she had reached some glimmer of normality!

“It might not be him, you know,” Tom said. “Maybe it’s Brady? Maybe it’s a trap of some kind? But . . . I have to say I think you’re right.”

“Christ, Tom, this is such a mess!”

“And assuming it is Philip, what then?”

“Feck sake, Tom! Don’t ask me questions like that! I don’t know!”

“Well, you’d better start thinking about it!”

“I know, I know,” she replied, exasperated, running her hands through her hair for the millionth time. “You’re supposed to be helping me out here, not complicating things even more!”

“I am helping, just not in the way you imagined.”

She cast a sceptical sideways glance at her brother and laughed, shaking her head in disbelief. “How exactly do you figure that?” she asked sarcastically.

“All right then.” He leaned forward in his chair. “What are you going to do when you get there?”

It was a reasonable question, he thought, intended to provoke further consideration, to make her think the whole thing through and, hopefully, change her mind or at least make her see how ludicrous her approach was.

“I’ll just have to see when I get there, won’t I?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” he shot at her.

“Tom, it’s Málaga, not outer Mongolia! I’ll book myself into a hotel and see what happens.”

“Do you not think you’re being just a little irresponsible?”

He sounded just like their mother – he even looked like her as he folded his arms and furrowed his brow.

“So!” she threw back. “What do you think I should do? Hand it over to Maloney and his cronies, let them bring him home? Sit back and do nothing? And what about yer man Brady? What if he gets him first?” She stopped as if waiting for him to reply but knew he wouldn’t. “And yes, you’re right,” she conceded. “I probably am being a little reckless, and it could be something engineered by Brady, but I can’t ignore it. I’m taking that flight and I’m going to see who booked me on it and why. I have to see if it is him, Tom,” she implored, begging him to understand, “and if it is, then I need to see him by myself. I need to ask him why. There must be, has to be, an explanation for all this crap. But I’m not doing that in that horrible interview room because that’s where we’d end up and you know it.”

“Well, let me come with you!”

“No way! Absolutely not! And land you in the middle of this mess? No way! Besides,” she continued with a smile, “someone will need to look after the kids for me.” Her eyes were suppliant, pleading with him not to object further.

And he didn’t. Shaking his head in silence, his face spoke volumes about his trepidation but inwardly acknowledged, knowing her as he did, that to protest would be a fruitless exercise.

“And please don’t tell anyone. Promise?” she pleaded.

“Promise,” he lied.

“Tell anyone what? What did I miss?” a dishevelled Fin asked, lolloping into the kitchen wearing Esmée’s dressing-gown.