Alice

‘I love seeing you, Moody. You bring the sunshine with you. I knew you’d be over when I heard what happened. Not sure how I can help, though.’

‘Don’t be a wanker.’ Alice blushed despite herself. Jimmy Doyle in Fraud was a world-class flirt. The myth went he’d been inside the knickers of half the women in the station. He hadn’t been in Alice’s, but she wouldn’t say no. Not that she’d ever get a chance. His MO was the charm offensive, but in her case she knew he was just being charitable.

‘You must be punching the air with delight, seeing old Harry get what he deserves.’

Doyle shook his head.

‘Nah. You want him banged up for what’s he’s done wrong. But that taking the law into your own hands shite is not on. Anyway, I sort of liked him a little.’

‘You liked Harry McNamara? Even though you helped build a case that had him up on eighteen counts of fraud?’

Doyle laughed, rubbed his chiselled jaw.

Channing Tatum. That’s who he looked like. Gorgeous.

Alice gave herself a mental slap and an order to cop on.

‘Yeah. I did. He was self-made, Harry. Fair enough, he wasn’t born into poverty and the father sent him to a good school, but that was all he gave him really. He was an aloof git by the sounds of things. Harry was left on his own in a world where network is everything. He made it work. Those men he ended up surrounded by – they’d have looked down on him and envied him in equal measure. Shrewd enough to get close to the money but still thinking of him as a little upstart with nobody behind him.’

‘And when you say money – what are we talking? How wealthy was McNamara when all this was going on?’

‘Oh, he’s still wealthy, Alice, my little flower. We couldn’t even begin to track down all the money. But at the height of it, I’d say he was Ireland’s first billionaire. Mainly on paper, but that didn’t matter until stocks went belly-up.’

‘You’re shitting me.’

‘Scout’s honour. Why do you ask?’

‘I’m trying to figure out if he knew JP Carney. Or if Carney knew him. Carney is piss-poor by Harry’s standards. How the hell would two men like that ever interact?’

‘Hmm. It’s a puzzle all right. But only if you’re thinking of money as being whiter than white. Harry’s money wasn’t clean. By any stretch.’

‘How do you mean? Are you just referring to the illegal trades at the bank?’

Doyle raised an eyebrow.

‘Ah, Alice. Let me take you for a drink and explain it.’

‘Here is fine, flower.’

He laughed.

‘Okay. Well, look, nobody as young as Harry could make that much money, that fast, without being naughty from the start. And we know he got rich early because he was spending money hand over fist as far back as the mid-nineties. The tales about his wedding would make your eyes water.

‘But if you really won’t take me up on my offer, then let me steer you to somebody even better than me on this stuff. There’s a woman you should talk to. She’s a busy gal but I’m sure I can sweet-talk her into seeing you. She’ll give you everything you need about Harry’s world. See if you can find a chink of light there that leads you to your Carney suspect. Can I have a kiss now?’

‘Only if it’s you planting one on my arse.’

‘Such a tease, Alice. Such a tease. You’re breaking my heart, you know that?’

She smiled, so hard it was painful. If only.