IN THE afternoon he drove past the house on Pagall Street just in time to see a couple walk out and get into a car. They had scarves on, Challaid FC colors of red and white, and they were heading for the football. A big derby, big crowd. If anyone was going to follow them it would be across to the game at Union Park in Earmam, clearing the scene for Darian. He spent an hour or so at the office with Sholto, before leaving again in the afternoon.
As he was going Sholto said, “I get the impression you’re working hard at things that aren’t your work.”
Darian tried to think of something to say that would defend him. “I’m working hard.”
It was no defense at all, and he felt bad about letting Sholto down the way he was. He was abandoning the man who had given him a job for no reason other than he was his father’s son to work alone while Darian chased a case with Maeve. He deserved better, and Darian’s belief he was doing the right thing was zero consolation.
He parked the Skoda on the next street and walked round the corner. There was no cop or ex-cop watching the house on Pagall Street now, so he took the opportunity to jog along the side of the house and wait in the back garden, out of sight of the road.
It only took thirty minutes of standing around like a burglar with Alzheimer’s before he heard a car pulling up in the driveway, two doors thudding shut as the couple got out. He heard the front door close as they went inside and counted to ten before he knocked on the back door. It might alarm them, someone knocking on the back door when they knew their house was being watched, but he was working on the assumption they wouldn’t be so scared that they wouldn’t answer.
The same man who had been at the front gate hours before stood in front of Darian when the door was opened. He had a pale and featureless face, eyes and mouth barely noticeable, like someone had poked some holes in a lump of mashed potatoes with their finger. He looked concerned and a little angry.
“Yes? What do you want, hm?”
“My name’s Darian Ross. I wanted to talk to you about the people who’ve been sitting outside your house recently.”
The man’s first reaction was one of shock, then a look of horror, as though he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Then a different look, something that might have been a rush of relief. He said, “Come in, please, you need to speak to my wife.”
The man led Darian through the house to the living room where a wary woman in her late forties was standing with her phone in her hand, the expression of a woman who’d pressed two nines and wanted to know if she needed to press a third. The man said, “This is my wife, Moira, it’s about her.”
She looked puzzled and annoyed with her husband, so Darian jumped in and said, “My name’s Darian Ross, I’m working on a private investigation into Moses Guerra and it’s led me here.”
She was a short woman, short brown hair neatly styled, and she looked older than she probably was. Her large glasses showed the lines around her eyes, her veiny hand around the phone showed a cluster of diamonds on a gold band. If you saw her selling cakes at a church bake sale you wouldn’t be the least bit surprised. Her face crumpled into resigned disappointment, a woman who had been expecting an unwelcome visit for some time but didn’t quite know what shape it would take. There were two possible approaches for Darian to take with her. He could try to find out exactly what this woman knew with careful questioning or he could accept the scale of his ignorance and try to fix that fast.
Darian said, “I need to know why Gallowglass and MacDuff were outside your house last night, and that means I need to know your name, what connection you have to DI Corey, and why his people have been out there trying to scare you.”
With a casual laugh she said, “Trying?”
Her husband said, “Moira.”
She looked at Darian with the smile of a woman in charge, throwing the phone onto the couch and sitting next to it, crossing her legs. “All right, okay. You want every little detail, Mr. Ross, you can have them. My name is Moira Slight, born on 16 July 1965 in the King Robert VI Hospital…”
Her sarcasm grated and he said, “I don’t think we have time for your whole life story.”
“A dig at my age, how very ungallant. Fine, the bits you do care about then. I trained as an accountant and, not blowing my own horn here, I was rather good at it. My specialty was tax, which was every bit as thrilling as it sounds, but there’s good money in it because a lot of people are intimidated by Mr. Taxman. He even scares the criminal class, but I don’t suppose I need to tell you that. I’ve worked for a bunch of them over the years, helping them tidy up the jumble of numbers their work created. I knew who they were and what they were doing but I was careful and, as I told you, I was bloody good at my job, so there’s no evidence to prove I did anything wrong and I’ll never admit it in front of anyone that actually matters, no offense intended. Am I going too fast for you, dear, would you like to sit down?”
“Carry on.”
A smug smile and she said, “One day DI Corey came to me, a cop who knew a lot and was able to pile plenty of pressure onto my shoulders. He came to me with money, told me it was clean and that he wanted me to handle the tax side of it, filter it offshore. Of course I knew what dirty money looked like, even if it was in the hands of a cop, but I didn’t say a word. I made sure his money took a plane to Panama and snuck past the taxman in such a way that Corey would never be associated with it and when it came back across the Atlantic I tucked some of it safely away, nice and tight, for him to collect when needed. Now he wants his money, but he wants a lot more than that, he wants a lot of the money from other criminals that he knows I can get my hands on. I don’t know how he found out so much about the money I have in circulation right now, but he did and it’s why he has his pet thugs outside. I know you’re not here for me, Mr. Ross, because you mentioned Moses Guerra and that means you’re here for Corey.”
Darian had frowned through the monologue, hating every ounce of the confidence the swindler before him possessed. She had hidden any fear behind a wall dripping with sarcasm. He said, “Those men will only be outside your house for so long. If Corey wants something from you then it’s only a matter of time before they make their way in.”
“Don’t I just know it. I had a phone call from Corey this very morning, telling me his men would be in the house tonight if I don’t come up with the money he craves by five o’clock. I’m trying to work out whether to give him his own money and hope it’ll stall him or take his dirty money and run like hell with it. One thing I will not do is steal other people’s money for him because he’s not the only scary bastard in Challaid that I can call a customer, I can assure you. I told him I wouldn’t be able to get him more than what he’d given me, and that I was going to the derby today with my husband. He did at least tell me to enjoy the match, so he’s not totally without manners.”
“He said tonight?”
“And he meant it. Corey isn’t mucking around. Not like him to grasp at cash like this. He has the terrors in him; a patient man turned desperate, whatever’s gotten into him all of a sudden.”
“I’ll be here to find out. Someone will come here tonight and I think I know which of his men it’ll be. Your husband can go, stay with a friend or family or in a hotel tonight, no need for any more people to be here flailing their arms at fight time than necessary. You and I are going to stay and provide the welcoming party for your visitor.”
“Oh, wonderful, you’re really selling it, young man. I’d rather a night in a hotel, if one’s on offer.”
“I think we’re past the point where you get to do the things you’d like.”
“Ha, been that way for a long time now. Don’t worry, I’m quite used to life’s disappointments.”
Mr. Slight left, albeit reluctantly, to go and stay in a nearby hotel. Darian and Moira settled in to wait.
“You can tell me a few stories about your criminally minded pals to pass the time.”
Moira Slight smiled easily and said, “I’d need to be very drunk for my loose tongue to invite that sort of danger.”
“No drink.”
“Well, you are a lot of fun, aren’t you?”