He doesn’t look like a private investigator. He’s too short. And his beard – if anyone would call it that – is a mess, like he just hasn’t bothered to shave for the past week. Not that I’m in any position to judge someone’s appearance. It’s just… I assumed a private investigator would look more like… more like… well… I’m actually not sure what I expected a private investigator to look like. Maybe I’ve watched too many movies down the years; expected this guy to turn up in a trench coat and fedora hat, not a fuckin plastic yellow jacket that makes him look like the Michelin man and a stupid furry-muff hat.
He points towards the blue plastic chair by my bedside and I nod to welcome him to sit in it. Though he shouldn’t be sitting for long. He needs to be out there; out there finding Betsy.
He sits, removes a pad and a pen from his pocket, and then crosses his legs as if he’s getting comfortable.
‘Okay, Gordon,’ he says. ‘What makes you think I can find out what happened to your daughter in the next few hours?’
That’s a hell of a question. A question I don’t have an answer to. I’ve been looking for her for seventeen years. I don’t expect this guy to find anything in the next few hours, but I have to at least try. I can’t lie here and do nothing.
‘The police have never done a good enough job,’ I say, not wanting to pause too long, in case he realises I don’t have an actual answer to his question. It’s the first thing that came into my head. But it’s also the truth. They didn’t. They fucked up the investigation on day one. They took too long to ignite their search – concentrating on me as if I had something to do with it. It meant whoever took my daughter had time to get away; time to get Betsy hidden in whatever place he wanted to hide her.
‘They questioned a few suspects, but not intricately enough. I know she’s out there, Lenny. And I—’
‘But what makes you think I can find her in the next few hours if nobody has found her in the past seventeen years?’ he says, interrupting me.
I take a deep breath as I push myself back into the steel bedpost to sit more upright.
‘There’re a few things that have niggled at me for years, things I couldn’t push too far because the cops wouldn’t let me. But now that I’m dying… or probably about to die, I need a new perspective on this. I can’t lie here in the final hours of my life and not… and not…’ A tear drops from my eye. Lenny stands up, turns towards the bedside cabinet and pulls two tissues from their box.
‘Here,’ he says. I fold the tissues in half, dab at my face.
Then I turn to him.
‘One thousand euro to try your very best over the next few hours, but,’ I say, pausing. ‘If you make any breakthrough I’ll make you a rich man.’ Lenny blinks. Repeatedly. About four little twitches. He looks like a fuckin idiot. But I know he’s totally tuned in. He’s intrigued. ‘Listen; I have no family, no friends. Not anymore. I’ve got nothing. My life is my home. It’s alI I have,’ I tell him. ‘If I don’t make it through the day and you do your very best for me in my final hours… I’ll leave you my house. I have a lovely home on the South Circular Road. Y’know those red brick Victorian houses?’ Lenny nods, but he looks perplexed. As if he doesn’t know what to make of me. ‘They’re worth close to a million,’ I say. ‘A neighbour sold his at the tail end of last year for nine-hundred and forty grand. And he didn’t have the kitchen extension I have.’
Lenny squints his eyes, circles his tongue around his mouth.
‘Gordon, let’s start with the one thousand promised. Can you – as you suggested – transfer that into my account? I think we’re both keen for me to get started. Then I’d like to talk to you about the leads you said you had.’
I take my phone up from my lap, log into my online banking app and within seconds I’m punching digits into the screen.
‘What are your bank details?’ I ask him. He scoots one bum cheek up off the chair and removes his wallet from his back pocket. Then he slips out a debit card and hands it to me.
‘Account number and sort code are on the bottom,’ he says. I type them into my screen, then turn the phone to face him.
‘Press transfer,’ I say. And he does. Without hesitation. Maybe he’s desperate for the money. Maybe I’ve chosen the wrong private investigator. If he’s not very rich, he mustn’t be very successful. I just plumped for the nearest private investigator I could find on the Yellow Pages website. I was surprised to even find one based in Tallaght. I needed someone here as quickly as possible.
‘Transfer complete,’ I say, turning the screen back to Lenny.
He blinks rapidly again. It’s really weird.
‘Thank you, Gordon.’
He sits back in his seat, reopens his notepad and re-crosses his legs. He has the same tics every time. He’s meticulous. Perhaps he is a good investigator after all. I guess we’ll find out.
‘In terms of leads—’
‘You only have until three p.m.’ I interrupt him. ‘I’m having emergency heart surgery then. May not wake up from the procedure.’
He flicks his eyes up from his notepad to stare into mine.
‘My heart’s a mess. The hiatus hernia I’ve had as far back as my late twenties has grown and torn my main aorta. I have to have an open aortic valve replacement as well as some other procedure… a eh… triple-A something. I can’t pronounce it. The two surgeries have to be done at the same time. If they’re not carried out as quickly as possible, I’ll have an unrecoverable major heart attack. My heart’s basically a ticking time bomb, Lenny. Doctors said if I hadn’t come into the hospital last night, I’d already be dead. They’re just waiting on a couple more members of the surgical team to get here, and for the theatre to be cleared and set up. Said everything will be ready for three o’clock.’
Lenny gets up from the chair, walks slowly towards the foot of my bed.
‘Do you mind?’ he says, nodding towards the clipboard hanging on the bed rail.
I shake my head.
‘An abdominal aortic aneurysm repair,’ he says, his eyes squinting.
‘That’s the one.’
‘So this could literally be your last roll of the dice. You want to throw everything into your final hours to find Betsy and you’re hiring me to do it?’
‘Ah – you are a good detective, huh?’ I say. I laugh as I say it. But the laugh isn’t reciprocated. Probably because it wasn’t funny.
He hangs the clipboard back onto the rail, then paces to the blue plastic chair and sits in it again. But he doesn’t cross his legs this time; instead he leans forward, eyeballs me.
‘Gordon. It’s admirable that after seventeen years of looking for Betsy and all that you’ve been through that you would dedicated the final hours of your life to continue looking for her… but…’ he pauses, then blinks rapidly again. ‘What, eh… what do you think I can actually achieve in such a small amount of time?’
Monkeys see as monkeys do. I blink too, mirroring him.
‘Barry Ward,’ I say. ‘Police interviewed him. Dismissed him too early for my liking. I’ve spent a lifetime digging around, following him, getting information on him—’
‘So you think he took Betsy?’
‘Him or Alan Keating.’
‘Hold on,’ Lenny says, scribbling down the two names I gave him on his pad. ‘Just so I can be clear now… you are paying me one thousand euro to speak to a Barry Ward and an Alan Keating to see what they know about Betsy’s disappearance? Is that what you’re hiring me to do?’
‘I’m hiring you for more than that. I’m hiring you to find Betsy,’ I say. I know it sounds ridiculous. I know I sound like a madman; like the madman Michelle has often told me I am. But what else am I supposed to do? Lie here and die without giving it one last go?
Lenny’s eyebrow twitches, as if he is trying not to blink. I swing my legs over the side of the bed, wait for him to look up at me, to meet my eyes.
‘You make a breakthrough in this case today, Lenny, my house is your house. While you’re out investigating, I’m going to write a new draft of my will. It’ll include you getting my house if I die today. I’ll leave it in an envelope there on that cabinet with your name on it. I’ll send a picture of it to my lawyer. But you’ll have to make a breakthrough for that will to be sanctioned.’ I grip the top of his hand; the one he has resting on his notepad. ‘It means everything to me that you try your hardest to find Betsy; that you give it your all. You have until three o’clock.’
I take my hand off his, reach it under my pillow and take out the note I spent the last fifteen minutes writing.
‘Here you go. Everything you need to know is on here.’