Pale and skinny, with bobbed brown hair pulled back in a messy half-up, half-down ponytail, and wearing black jeans and a baggy black T-shirt under an ancient GAP hoodie, Sadie O’Riordan didn’t look much like a detective Garda. But she had a brain as sharp as a drawer full of knives. And she had a way of looking a different kind of nondescript every day, though some things were a constant; the disposable work clothes, for one. She never wore anything that couldn’t be torn, or dirtied, or dumped. And she never wore scarves, or jewellery, or anything that could be dragged from her, a tiny silver scar in her left earlobe testament to an elementary error she wouldn’t make again.
After some queuing, we’d managed to snag the booth. The remainder of the place had long tables and benches and the kind of retro/industrial/hipster look that had been unusual in Cork until recently. Located in what used to be a no man’s land for restaurants, between the city centre and suburbia, Ramen had been full out the door since the day it opened, and had spawned a multitude of imitators, some more successful than others. For a while, every greasy Chinese in the city was rebranding itself as Asian street food, even though Chicken Maryland was still on the menu in a couple of them. I knew. I made a point of checking. And I have no idea what that says about me.
Sadie had had no food since breakfast and attacked her dinner like she hadn’t eaten in a year. I used the time it took for her to eat her starter and main course to tell her about the Carney/Gill case and the afternoon’s events, almost without reply, apart from an occasional grunt. Nothing unusual there. Sadie never spoke until needed, though once she started, she usually had plenty to say. I hadn’t mentioned Davy Keenan, partly because he was off topic, but partly, too, because I had a feeling Sadie wouldn’t approve. She was my best friend. But she was a cop, and Davy’s past was too much of a grey area. I hadn’t mentioned Deirdre’s relationship to me either. I needed to know more about how I felt about her and the whole situation before I told anyone.
‘So, are you suspended?’ Sadie asked. ‘You done with that, by the way?’
She had finished her noodles and was eyeing my green curry.
‘No and no. Oh go on, eat it,’ I said.
I pushed my dinner across the table. I had no appetite, and it was never wise to get between Sadie and food when she was hungry.
‘You’ll be back at work tomorrow so, will you?’ Sadie said.
‘Not exactly.’
‘Go on.’
‘I’m on an unplanned holiday.’
‘Sounds like a suspension to me,’ Sadie said.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘But the partners hadn’t a clue what had been happening, didn’t know anything about the case. I argued that I had no control over other people’s social media activity, that trending on Twitter couldn’t be considered misconduct absent any supporting information, that I appreciated that the firm was embarrassed but that fair procedures were required nonetheless and, given that they hadn’t carried out any investigation whatsoever, that they couldn’t suspend me. Not legally, anyway.’
‘Too right,’ Sadie said.
‘So I offered to take a week off with pay and they jumped at it. Turns out Gabriel had got a call from one of his golfing buddies, who just happens to be the festival board chairman, saying he wanted to meet Gabriel, to talk about me. Then two minutes later, he got a call from a journalist asking for a statement and how he felt about me trending on Twitter. The journo had to explain to Gabriel what that meant. He lost the plot. Started ranting, gave me a complete carpeting. I was in bits, but held it together till I got out of there. I got Tina to cancel my client appointments and gave her work to do while I’m gone. But it felt like moving deckchairs on the Titanic, Sadie.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘If they want me out, I’ve given them enough ammo. I’ve been acting way outside my job description, taking on a case without authority, a case that by any standards is unwinnable. Been behaving more like a detective than a lawyer. They’ll get the procedures right next time, and if – when – they do, I’ll be out on my ear. And unemployable. Nobody’s going to give a job to hashtag lawyerbitch, the woman who disrespected Ireland’s uncrowned king. I could lose everything I’ve worked for, Sadie. No job, no mortgage payments. I can only barely afford my house as it is.’
‘Any chance of suing for … anything?’
‘Not yet, not that I can see. There’s been a heck of a lot of vulgar abuse, but nothing defamatory so far. Gill has said nothing publicly, and neither has the Film Festival, it’s just been the disappointed, angry kids, upset because I deprived them of contact with their hero. They don’t know why, or what my suspicions are, and I can’t tell them. I’m only able to tell you because I got the Carneys’ authority.’
I paused.
‘I still can’t understand why they didn’t do something about it.’
‘Who?’
‘The Carneys. They knew Deirdre had been raped and they told no one, not even a doctor. For fuck sake, she was their daughter.’
‘Finn, you know that the vast majority of sex crimes – between two-thirds and four-fifths, possibly even more than that – are never reported. And of those cases that are reported, most aren’t prosecuted and even fewer reach a successful conviction. There could be any number of reasons they didn’t pursue it at the time.’
‘I know, I know, but it’s so wrong.’
‘Which bit?’
‘All of it. I keep thinking about Deirdre. How awful it must have been for her … if only she’d been able to do something. I’m not blaming her for not, not at all, I just wish that she could have. For her, for herself. For nobody else.’
‘None of us knows how we’d react in similar circumstances. All the system can do is make it as easy as possible for victims to make complaints and, when they do, ensure that adequate supports are in place.’
‘Are there adequate supports?’
‘No – but there’s a greater understanding of the issues than there was back then.’
‘It was 1998, Sadie, it wasn’t a hundred years ago.’
‘The last Magdalene Laundry, where so-called fallen women were more or less imprisoned for the crime of being sexually active, closed in 1996. The Supreme Court case, where the Attorney General of this state took action to try to prevent a pregnant suicidal fourteen-year-old from leaving the country for an abortion, was in 1992. The nineties in Ireland might as well have been a hundred years ago. Why are you surprised the poor girl didn’t report it?’
Sadie was right. In law and politics, gynaecology was ever-present.
‘I’m not remotely surprised,’ I said. ‘I’m sad for Deirdre, that’s all.’
‘You’re 100 per cent convinced that it was Gill who raped her?’
‘More like 99 per cent. Or 90. I shouldn’t be as sure as I am. I don’t actually know.’
‘No you don’t,’ Sadie said.
‘I think I’m right, though, or I feel I am a lot of the time. But Gill’s like an eel. Every time I have a hold of something, or of him, he slips from my grasp. Even what happened today at the workshop, it seemed so clear at the time that he was targeting that girl Carmel from St Al’s. But she’s one of the loudest voices on Twitter, she seems to have started the lawyerbitch hashtag. I just don’t know. I don’t know who he is. Or what I’m doing. Maybe I’ve gone a bit mad over the last few days. And now I’m going to be mad and jobless and homeless too. It’s too awful for words.’
‘Could you issue a statement? Defend yourself?’
‘I want to – but issuing a statement only fuels the fire and gets me nowhere. I said that to the partners’ meeting at work. The best thing is to let it die down and, if asked, say something like “not in a position to comment at present”. I’m expecting some press interest, I know it’s already made breakingnews.ie and I’m fairly sure it will hit the papers. But if they’re not fed, the press will tire of the story. And Twitter will move on. That seems to be the approach being taken by the festival too. But there’s an added complication for me, something dire altogether.’
‘What could be worse?’
‘I got a letter by fax, and an email, this afternoon from Gill’s solicitors. Elliott Phillips, the biggest and baddest in Dublin, offices worldwide.’
‘What does it say? Just tell me.’
‘It tells me to cease and desist my campaign of harassment and intimidation of their client, one Jeremy Gill, in default of which the appropriate further action shall be taken against me without further recourse to correspondence, which said action shall include, without being limited to, civil proceedings for defamation, including all and any damage to their client’s impeccable reputation, and/or complaint to the Law Society of Ireland seeking to strike me off the roll of solicitors for misconduct and/or complaint to an Garda Síochána in respect of their client’s fears and concerns for his personal safety, and the letter taxes me with the costs of all and any proceedings.’
‘Ouch,’ Sadie said.
‘It looks bad, really bad, and if they were to carry out even a tenth of it, I’d be ruined for ever. A lot of it is bullshit – completely unsustainable, the criminal complaint in particular. He might, at a push, a big push, be able to argue innuendo in a civil case though I’m sure I said nothing defamatory. But, with his money, he could issue proceedings anyway, for the sheer hell of it, and whether the proceedings were sustainable or unsustainable, it wouldn’t matter. The fact that they existed would be damaging enough. Or he might take the economical option and decide to report me to the Law Society for unprofessional behaviour, or conduct unbecoming, or some crap like that. And, if he does, they have to investigate and that can go on for months – years, even. Meanwhile, I’m in professional limbo and fired for sure. Worst case scenario, he sues me, gets me struck off and pauperises me. Best case, it’s an idle threat, calculated to terrify me with shock and awe tactics that he’d never carry through on.’
‘All you were doing was taking standard precautions for child safety, surely?’
‘That’s true. But I went for a public confrontation when I should have approached Alice privately afterwards, even Gill himself. Instead I set myself up as his public enemy, and made a complete show of myself and the festival – and dragged the firm into the mess. And there’s the fact that I took the photos out of the archive in advance of Gill’s arrival. It looks like I had an agenda.’
‘You did.’
‘I did.’
I paused.
‘My gut says Gill is guilty. If he takes any kind of action against me, I have an opportunity to defend myself in some forum or other, and he won’t want that. What I have on him amounts to diddly squat – but Gill doesn’t know that. That’s what I hope – that it stops here, because otherwise his own reputation would suffer too much. And, if you think about it, this is a total over-reaction to something minor. I mean, I’m a complete nobody in his world. The fact that it is such an extreme reaction means, I think, I hope, kind of, almost, that I’ve struck a nerve. That he’s rattled. Maybe he didn’t know about Deirdre’s death until I told him. Maybe he thinks she told me, or someone else, about him.’
I paused again.
‘But I’m shit scared, Sadie, about my job, about my life. If his intention was to frighten me, it’s working. And even if he doesn’t sue my arse off, what else might he do?’
‘Maybe if you apologised,’ Sadie said. ‘Threw yourself on Gabriel’s mercy, got a doctor’s cert, blamed stress or something, promised to drop the case? Would you do that?’
I grimaced, closed my eyes, put my head in my hands. I remembered Ann’s words: ‘If there was to be a case it would have to be about justice.’ Deirdre, my sister, deserved justice. I looked at Sadie again and shook my head.
‘I got Tina to send a letter to Jeremy’s lawyer saying that I’m out of the office on leave and that she will pass the letter to me on my return. I don’t know if that will pause the juggernaut. But throwing myself on Gabriel’s mercy, stopping the investigation?’
I stopped, thought about telling Sadie who Deirdre really was, then didn’t.
‘If I’m right about Gill, then I’m sure there are more girls out there that he’s hurt, and that there will be more in the future. I don’t know what I can do. I have doubts, Sadie. Every single minute I have doubts about what I’m doing. But I have to go on.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’m worried for you, really worried. And you’re going to have to be careful. But I’m glad you’re not walking away, Finn.’
She paused.
‘The way you described Gill, the narcissism, the bullying, the being whoever he needs to be to suit any situation, the volcanic temper when he senses he’s been found out. And, at the same time, how he’s elusive, manipulative, impossible to pin down, and that thing you said about how it feels confusing when you’re around him. There’s a name for all that.’
Sadie sank the last of her beer and leant across the table.
‘How you’re describing Gill? You’re describing a psychopath.’