I got up at six and, with massive effort, went to my study without checking my phone to see if Davy had messaged me. I reread the information I’d logged the night before, concentrating on Joey O’Connor. He had said that Deirdre had told him there was someone else and that, if she had had an ongoing relationship, he would have known. I realised that I should have asked how he would have known. If he’d talk to me again, what he had to say might help my case against Gill. But I’d be a fool if I allowed myself to forget that Joey was a suspect too.
And I’d be late if I didn’t hurry. This case consumed time like nothing I’d done before. I raced up the two flights of stairs from my study to the kitchen, grabbed an apple from the bowl to munch on the way, shoved a Glenisk yoghurt in my handbag and ran back down one flight and into my bedroom. One of the advantages of being a solicitor is the uniform-like dress code, which is boring, but takes all the effort out of weekday dressing. I grabbed one of my black skirt suits and one of my many white shirts and, with a slick of red lipstick, I was out the door – unshowered, admittedly, and wearing no earrings.
I was in my office fifteen minutes later, just before nine, dead on my feet, distracted as hell, but ready for work. When I’d checked my phone. I did. Still no message from Davy.
‘Fuckfuckfuck,’ I said, and threw the phone in a drawer.
A groaning inbox, and a list of missed calls from the previous day meant that I barely greeted Tina when she came in with the post.
‘Talk later,’ I mouthed, on hold at CIE Legal and simultaneously rereading a medical report on the eighteen-year-old son of an important client of Gabriel McGrath’s who had been knocked off his bike when he’d either wobbled into the path of the 214 bus or been the victim of a sudden swerve, depending on whether you believed the bus driver or the plaintiff. It was a good sign that the defendants were the ones who had rung me, a signal that they wanted to set up negotiations. Settlements meant fees. It would be a long time before the Carney case got anywhere, if it ever did. Meanwhile, Gabriel and the other partners expected me to pay my way in the firm. And the pressure on me was bound to increase after I told them about the Carney case.
It was almost noon before I realised that I hadn’t eaten my yoghurt, warm now, but I ate it anyway. Then I rang Tina and asked her to bring up coffee for both of us. I had already forwarded her my updated notes for saving to the office case management system. I guessed that Tina would have read them and that she would have an opinion on Joey O’Connor.
‘The way I see it, Finn,’ Tina said. ‘Either Jeremy Gill did it or we have nothing. The only reason we’re doing this loopy case is because the dad thinks it’s Jeremy. He never mentioned Joey to you. Never asked you to go near him. Now, have a Jaffa Cake, it’s the best brain food there is.’
I took the biscuit and ate it in two bites. Tina had a point. I had to bear Joey in mind, and any other signs of Gill’s possible innocence. But surely I wasn’t obliged to give equal weight to every lead? Sean had come to me with his concerns about Gill, and Gill alone.
‘I wish I’d had you to talk to at four o’clock this morning,’ I said. ‘I was tossing and turning half the night trying to sort it out in my head. Though if you’d met Joey …’
‘I don’t have to meet him,’ Tina said. ‘He sounds like a complete langer altogether.’ I couldn’t have put it better myself.
I was waiting by the bike stand on Emmett Place when Marie Wade emerged at three minutes past one. I had called her at work at the Opera House accounts department. She had agreed to meet me at lunchtime: she took a stroll every day and had said I was welcome to tag along.
‘Now I remember,’ Marie said. ‘I couldn’t put a face to the name on the phone earlier. You all set to go?’
‘Ready when you are.’
The North Face waterproof jacket and serious walking shoes should have been a portent. She took off at speed over the Christy Ring Bridge, but it was only when we got to the top of Coburg Street that the full horror of her lunchtime regimen became apparent: repeated trips up and down Patrick’s Hill, Cork’s meanest slope. Though the view made it a worthwhile slog any time, that wasn’t why Marie did it.
‘I’m going skiing in January,’ she said. ‘I go every year. This is great for the muscles.’
At the top, with the green of Bell’s Field dipping towards Blackpool, and the houses heaped to the summit of the hill opposite, and Cork’s shabby magnificence laid out before us, she paused long enough to examine the photo of Daniel O’Brien I had saved to my phone.
‘I remember him,’ Marie said, as she started the descent. ‘Nice guy.’
‘So I hear,’ I said. ‘Any word from him after he left?’
‘Not a sausage. I didn’t know him all that well – I was only in for a few weeks managing the volunteers. He was fun to be around but we weren’t super-pally.’
‘Was he from Cork, do you know?’
‘Let me think,’ Marie said.
‘No,’ she said after long while. ‘Not Cork. I think he was from County Clare. Is it important for you to find out?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It might or might not be. If you remember anything else, will you let me know?’
‘Of course I will. Ready for the next one?’
We were at the bottom.
‘I might forgo that, I think.’
‘You should give it a go some other day,’ Marie said. ‘You’d be surprised how quickly you’d get into it.’
Yeah, I thought as, five minutes later, I sat slurping a latte in the window of Cork Coffee Roasters, I’d be truly amazed. Even Davy had never tried to make me take on Patrick’s Hill.
Back at the office, I had enough time to try Lorcan Lucey’s number again before the Carneys arrived for their appointment. There was a possibility that he hadn’t heard the first voicemail. Whether he had or not, he hadn’t bothered to call back. I left a second message and phoned the Philosophy Department at UCC. The department administrator, Noreen, told me that Dr Lucey was at lectures all afternoon and that she’d pass on that I was looking for him, though she didn’t know when she’d see him and couldn’t possibly say when he’d be in his office. I didn’t know if she was telling the truth or being evasive.
‘That’s a pity,’ I said. ‘I have a visitor coming to stay from the Philosophy Department in Bangalore University and I know that he’s keen to attend some lectures in UCC. He mentioned Dr Lucey’s work in particular. I’m not sure what it’s about but he was talking about an exchange programme and foreign students or something like that.’
‘Oh. That sounds important.’
‘It might be, Noreen. You’d be the expert on that kind of thing. I’m just thinking, I wonder would it be possible for you to email me Dr Lucey’s timetable? It would make everything a lot easier, less hassle, and we could leave them both to their own devices.’
In less than a minute, the timetable was sitting in my inbox. Lucrative foreign students opened doors at UCC, and at all the universities, but I was shocked at how easily the lie had come to me.
By the time the Carneys had produced their identification documents and proofs of address and had signed the client contracts and the various authorisations that I needed so that I could get Deirdre’s medical records, most of an hour had gone by. They looked exhausted and I had started to sweat. Yes, Sean had initiated the complaint against Gill. Yes, he had told me that Deirdre was my sister. But I knew that he and Ann were going through this rigmarole because of me. Whether I hoped to forge a permanent connection with Deirdre or whether it was something else that was driving me, I had invented a civil case that no reasonable lawyer would have pursued. If it ended up being a wild goose chase, which it well might, I was afraid of what that might do to them.
But I was even more afraid of them changing their minds about pursuing the case, and of what that might do to me. Catching Gill, avenging Deirdre’s death, was starting to feel like the most important thing I might ever do.
And if I failed? I couldn’t bear to think about it.
‘We’ll be looking forward to a progress report,’ Sean said.
I won’t have news for a long time. Maybe never.
‘It’s going to take a bit of time, Sean,’ I said. ‘It might be a little while before I have anything major to say.’
‘Of course it will, love,’ Ann said.
‘I had a good chat with Jessica, though,’ I said. ‘She was helpful. And I visited Deirdre’s old school and met Aifric and Colm O’Donnell the art teacher.’
‘Did you meet the boss?’
‘Eoghan MacGiolla, the headmaster?’
‘That’s him,’ Sean said.
‘Yes. He told me he wasn’t working in the school when Deirdre was a pupil.’
‘No,’ Sean said. ‘But he was a neighbour. Used to live in Lee Valley Park. He knew Deirdre her whole life and then he got the big job in St Finbarr’s School and moved to Maryborough Heights and he couldn’t find one couple of hours in his day to come to her funeral.’
‘What has that to do with anything?’ Ann said. ‘Finn, Sean spends his time finding people to give out about and it does him no good.’
I was only half listening to Ann. I’d have to check my notes but I was nearly sure Eoghan MacGiolla had led me to believe that he had never met Deirdre. He told me that he didn’t know her parents either. Though maybe I had it wrong? Either way, there was no point mentioning it now. By agreement, I put a reminder in my diary to call the Carneys for an appointment to come and see me in two weeks. Meanwhile, if anything urgent cropped up requiring their input, I would contact them immediately.
‘Before you go, there’s one last thing,’ I said. ‘It’s not to do with the case itself, it’s just that by its nature this is a situation where the Gardaí have a lot of expertise and, even though no prosecution is possible, I think it might help if I showed the file to a detective Garda I know well, and trust. Her name is Sadie O’Riordan, from Coughlan’s Quay Garda Station. She was in my law class at UCC, actually. Would you authorise me to talk to her about the case?’
‘I talked to the cops and it was a complete waste of time,’ Sean said.
‘Do if it helps,’ Ann said, giving Sean a poke in the arm. ‘Don’t mind this fella.’
‘Oh sure if the boss says yes, then who am I to question?’ Sean said. ‘Good luck.’
I’d need luck, and plenty of it, if I was to earn the trust the Carneys had placed in me. For a while after they had gone, I stared out my window at the darkening sky, my stomach swirling. By now, Jeremy Gill had arrived in town. He might even have reached City Hall. Soon, he’d be making his way to Cork Opera House.
And I would be there to welcome him.