Dark Mirrors (23 page)

Both men watched, a little stunned, mute and powerless to intervene, as her temper boiled over and she did a circle of the small cubicle before coming back to the table to reclaim her seat, emotional and slightly embarrassed by her outburst. But she didn’t apologise. She fixed her chair, pulled herself up to the edge of the table, took a breath and asked him calmly, if a little breathlessly, “So. What are you going to do?”

Tom put a reassuring hand on his sister’s arm while Maloney shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

She was right and he was stuck. His hands temporarily tied. Raising his hands in acceptance, hoping to disarm her, he watched as her breath steadied and her composure returned.

“Esmée – Tom.” He looked purposefully at each. “Let me assure you, I, we, are doing everything we can. But we can’t share information with you until we know for sure that it is factually correct. And you’re right –” he looked at Esmée, “it’s unfair, but it’s the right thing to do. You have to be patient just for a little longer.”

“So what you’re telling us,” Esmée asserted, “is that you, contrary to what we see, are fully in control of this – you do know what this is all about but you’re just not telling us?”

“That’s about right.”

“So, when do you think you will be able to tell us?” she asked.

“As soon as I can ascertain that the information I have is factually correct.”

“And when do you think that might be?”

Maloney smiled, beguiled by her unrelenting, dogged persistence.

“Esmée, I promise that I will tell you everything I know as soon as I can. Is that okay?” he challenged, holding Esmée’s glare without so much as a wavering blink.

She nodded her assent. There was nothing much else she could do but agree.

Happy he had the situation back in his control, Maloney used the piled-up cash as a way to get back on track. “I’m going to check the numbers on these notes to see if we can identify where they came from.” And gathering up the piles, he got up and left the room.

“What do you think?” Tom asked, breaking the hot silence.

“It’s bullshit. If he doesn’t tell me what’s going on by the end of the week I’m going to demand to see his superior whoever the hell that might be. And if I don’t get answers then . . .” she paused to weigh up her options “well, then I’ll go to the papers.”

Maloney came back into the interview room and, placing a form in front of Esmée, told her she would need to sign for delivery of the money.

“One of my colleagues will be in shortly to count it with you. And as for your encounter with Brady, well, I need to speak to my Super but it doesn’t sound like you’re in any danger. If he wanted to do you harm he had ample chance this afternoon. That said, I’m going to arrange for a car to sit at the house to keep an eye out – and a visit to Brady is also in order, I think.”

“No,” Esmée protested firmly. “I’m fine with the car, but please don’t go near him. I don’t want him to know I’ve talked to you. I don’t want him to come back.” The idea that Maloney would provoke Brady further terrified her.

“Okay.” Maloney nodded. “Leave it with me.” He paused and added, not wanting to ignite the situation again, “Look, once you’re done here, go home. I’ll have a chat with my boss this afternoon and I’ll call round myself later to make sure you’re okay and give you whatever information I can.”

By the time the money had been counted, three times, she was weary.

Tom took her hand. “Come on, sis, let’s go.”

And not a moment too soon.

“That place!” she remarked as they turned out of the narrow entrance. “How can anyone work there? It just saps every bit of cheer out of you.”

Maloney watched them leave from the upstairs office. He wasn’t happy about how this was turning out and wanted more than ever to mind this young woman, but for the moment all he could do was wait.

“I need to get something from Mum’s,” Esmée announced as they pulled away from the Garda Station. “It’ll only take a sec,” she promised her reluctant brother who was anxious to get her back to the house and neutral territory.

* * *

Her old bedroom still had the same wallpaper she remembered from the long and late nights preparing for her finals, the twin beds a reminder of the good and the bad times she shared in this room with Lizzie. Beneath the window sat a chest of drawers with lots of chips and peels, its colour more cream than white now, a telling sign of its vintage. The top drawers were Lizzie’s while the bottom two were hers. She knelt down and pulled out the last drawer, almost empty apart from a faded purple manila folder. Taking it out, she pushed back the drawer and made her way back to the kitchen where she apologised to her mother again for her hasty visit.

* * *

Later, with Tom dropping Fin back to her studio and the children playing in the garden, Esmée set the folder on the kitchen table. She hadn’t looked at it in years. In the early days, just after it happened, she would spend hours reading through the various reports, each saying the same thing but using different words. They were an assurance that someone cared, an expression of a sort of condolence for her loss. The cuttings themselves had long since faded, with their wrinkled corners evidence of many hours of reading and re-reading, but the words were all still there. Philip hated seeing her read them, hated having the folder in the house, calling it morose, and insisted she move on and let the dead man rest. But try as she might she couldn’t discard his memory and, she thought rebelliously, if that wasn’t moving on then so be it. So the folder moved sideways, back to her old bedroom where she hadn’t touched it since. Until now.

Tears slipped quietly down her cheeks as once again the story came to life in her hands.

He had been escorting a Cash in Transit van, making deliveries in the county. They were on their first drop of the day. He wasn’t supposed to be there, was only filling in for the day. That was her tragedy. If not Frank then it would have been someone else’s dad. Or brother. Or uncle. Or son. On a normal day the job was fairly routine, boring even. They drove behind the blue reinforced van as it made its journey. Their job was to watch for anything suspicious. Keep a lookout. Which they did. On this Wednesday morning he was the passenger, Maurice Mahon the driver. Maurice described him as a great friend and valiant officer. He would never forget him, he had said in his emotional eulogy. That morning Frank Gill noticed a silver Golf GTI parked immediately outside the bank with the engine running and the driver alert and agitated. All he did was get out to take a closer casual look. Their car was unmarked and they were out of uniform. It shouldn’t have caused alarm. He was also unarmed. They never found the weapon or established who pulled the trigger that fired the shot, but nevertheless Frank died only hours later from the bullet that punctured his body. The young manager’s family, held in what was initially thought to be a tiger kidnapping, were released unharmed and Jim Brady was named as the mastermind, but not the murderer. As the investigation unfolded the news that it was an inside job was eventually reported and the manager who everyone felt so sorry for was in on the plan all along. Turning, as all snakes eventually do, it was he, this young Robert Toner, who would ultimately provide the evidence to put Brady away: his reward, witness protection and a new life in a location unknown.

The tragic victims in all this, the cuttings testified, were the young families affected by crime: Detective Gill’s grieving widow and children and Robert Toner’s distraught wife and young son.

She hadn’t ever really given them a second thought: the Toners. She’d never wondered what became of them, was never curious about the little boy and his mother. Glancing now, however, at the yellowing picture in her hand, which showed them
leaving their house, she did wonder. They were being hounded by journalists and photographers. The little boy’s arm was being yanked by a frantic mother trying to get them both out of sight, his short legs trying to keep up and his little face scared and confused. With almost fifteen years’ distance she could empathise. Julie and Harry. She narrowed the search by adding "robbery", “crime” and “prison”. She wondered how they felt about Jim Brady. Did they know about his release? If she hadn’t, why would they?

She took down her laptop, fired it up and launched straight into Google.

She typed ‘James Brady’ into the box and watched the long list of hits that quickly formed. She then narrowed the search by adding "robbery", "crime" and "prison". She scrolled through each item methodically. The news stories showed very little about his release, a small commentary about the return of a reprehensible crime lord to his lair the most interesting. Stepping into his world was like delving into the mouth of a savage animal, the particulars of his activities bringing with them an indescribable surge of anger and fear.

On the face of it, he had always been an upstanding citizen, paid his taxes and earned an honest living running a small taxi firm and a bar on the outskirts of the city. This obviously didn’t account for his lavish lifestyle but he covered his tracks well and was always, frustratingly, one step ahead of the police. A well-respected neighbour, he lived “in harmony” in a small community
on Dublin’s west side, where people regularly had been “astounded” by the accusations made against such an apparently “lovely, caring man who helped so many people in the community.”

But beneath the fortified surface, if the published reports were to be believed, were bountiful indictments of illicit deals, robberies and assaults, of punishment beatings and repugnant attacks on whosoever crossed his path. Despite being incarcerated, he still held the Gangland crown. An involuntary shiver washed through her as she remembered the touch of his fingers and the smell of his breath.

She typed ‘Julie Toner’ into the search box. Fewer results returned but she clicked on one of the familiar pictures from her cuttings. The image of Robert Toner himself filled the screen. His light brown hair falling in layered waves over hands that covered his face. Wrists tied together and shoulders hunched, he was being led away by a guard, flanked on either side by two suits who she assumed were his lawyers. But it was impossible to make a judgement about the man himself without seeing his eyes. Once again she wondered what might have made him do it. The unknown side to
his story: the one that drove him to betray his family and friends.

The ring of the doorbell made her jump. She’d been waiting for him to call all afternoon. Maybe now he’d tell her what was going on.

* * *

On the other side of the door a nervous Maloney inhaled deeply, not looking forward to what he knew was coming. Rarely did he feel like this – dread his job – but there was something about Esmée that drew on his emotions. And while she was so anxious for information, he was sure what he had to tell her now wouldn’t make her any happier.

The morning after Esmée was attacked by her husband he had sat at his computer and begun his research. If there was something to know he’d find it, of that he was sure. Initially Philip Myers turned up a complete blank. Sure, he was there in the database but only just. Apart from the registration of the car, the insurance and a driver’s licence, Philip didn’t exist. He had no parking tickets – ever. Had never been stopped or had his insurance checked. He’d never got a speeding ticket or a summons, which at his age was quite a feat. So he brought it to his regular partner Dougie for some inspiration.

“If he’s clean, he’s clean,” Dougie offered. “Always the cynic, Maloney, eh?” he said, taking a playful swipe at his friend.

“There’s just something about this one . . .” Maloney muttered.

“Yeah, big tits and long legs more like!” Dougie retorted, not so playful.

And a week later Philip was gone.

“You need prints,” Dougie suggested. “Get his fingers and then we’ll see who he is and what he’s been up to.”

The “routine procedure” line worked and allowed him to bring forensics into the house without protest from Esmée.

“Why not just tell her?” Dougie asked, intrigued by his partner’s reticence and apparent new obsession.

“Because if she knows something she could wipe the place clean.”

“Do you think she does?”

“No, but I want to be sure. Besides, if she hasn’t a clue, I don’t want to freak her out either.”

“Don’t go getting all soft on me, bud,” Dougie warned, his double caution not lost on the wary Maloney. If Esmée knew what he was up to that morning in the house she would have had an even bigger meltdown. But he’d got his prints and answers with them.

At the weekly operations meeting they had planned on telling her along with the rest of the family about Brady’s release but Brady was quicker off the mark.

“Snooze ’n’ you lose,” Maloney told his boss, with a told-you-so nonchalance, furious that this mistake had placed him so firmly in Esmée’s line of fire and, boy, did she shoot! His ego still smarted at the memory of the insults hurled. The hardest part was that he had no option but to take it. They had missed their opportunity and were now uncomfortably on the back foot. This latest development placed them embarrassingly at an even further disadvantage and, it seemed, it was his task to catch up.

* * *

Maloney was nervous. Esmée Myers was making him so. Her long luxurious hair was falling simply about her shoulders, the waves resting against her shoulder blades. She was wearing tight-fitting jeans and a T-shirt. The unconscious sway of her behind as it moved was alluring and the outline of her breasts magnetic. He needed to focus, but his eyes were charged. This is crazy, he told himself, watching her as she checked on the kids.