The Dark Eye (The Saxon & Fitzgerald Mysteries Book 2) (17 page)

Conor Buckley had started out with offices in some crumbling, rat-gnawed Victorian hole down by the quays that shook gently when the trains went by, shivering stone overlooking its shivering reflection in the water at its feet. Now he’d fled the heart of the city for some soulless glass and steel monstrosity in the growing financial district, where his fortress sat indistinguishable from the ranks of banks and insurance companies massed alongside it.

There was no point me trying to get past security. Besides, I could tell by looking for his Mercedes in the parking lot that Buckley couldn’t have arrived yet. Not unless he’d started taking the bus, and there was more chance of Warren Beatty taking a vow of chastity.

So I waited in the parking lot.

Yawning mostly.

I hadn’t got much sleep last night. Clearing up made me realise how Sisyphus felt, pushing that rock eternally uphill; and then, when I’d finally brought some semblance of order to my apartment, sleep wouldn’t come anyway. The thought of a stranger rifling through your underwear drawer isn’t exactly the best relaxation known to woman.

When I cornered him that morning, Hugh couldn’t tell me any more than I knew already. He’d knocked off early, one of the other residents in the building must have left the door downstairs open, or maybe fallen for some story and let the intruder in . . .

What he had for me instead of explanations was a letter from Buckley.

Hence the waiting.

Buckley was a lawyer, excuse me whilst I wash out my mouth, and the worst kind: a defence attorney. He’d once represented a killer I was trying to nail, which didn’t exactly endear him to me either. It wasn’t so much that he represented him – everyone is entitled to a defence, right? – so much as that he didn’t seem to care much whether the guy in question was guilty or innocent. For me, that’s kind of a crucial question.

I didn’t have to wait long before Buckley’s Mercedes pulled in. He was driving, and there was some woman in the passenger seat admiring her reflection in the overhead mirror, like she had to make sure she looked good enough before getting out in case there were paparazzi waiting with cameras.

Buckley hadn’t changed much, I saw as he climbed out. Short and round and bald like Mussolini – that’s who I always thought of when I thought of Buckley, which, I am glad to say, wasn’t often. Ever since I’d known him he’d been stuffed to the same bursting point with self-satisfaction at having made it. He was the archetypal working-class kid with a grudge. Clever, that went without saying, but a man for whom intelligence could never bring as much satisfaction as deviousness, or justice as much as beating the system. It was said of him that he regarded each case he won as another blow to the Establishment. I didn’t go in for that kind of amateur psychology, but it didn’t seem far off the mark in Buckley’s case.

Perhaps I’d introduce him to Burke and they could plot the revolution together.

Except Burke would despise the oily creep as much as I did.

His passenger climbed out too and she was all legs and blonde hair and . . . well, that was about it. Philosophy major? I doubt it. She was carrying a few files, so I guess she must’ve been his secretary; but I doubted Buckley had hired her for her typing skills.

‘Saxon,’ he said when he saw me. ‘Is that a bad attitude in your pocket or are you just displeased to see me?’

‘Spare me the feeble banter, Buckley,’ I said. ‘I want to talk.’

‘I’m busy.’

‘Don’t tell me. You’re due in court.’

‘Within the hour,’ Buckley said with a smug smile. ‘I’m representing some young gentleman who had the misfortune to be found at the airport with five kilos of cocaine in his hand luggage.’

‘Let me guess. He didn’t know what was in there. He was the innocent pawn of an evil international trade.’

Buckley pretended to be astounded.

‘Have you been sneaking a peek at my intended defence, Special Agent?’

‘Just a wild guess,’ I said. ‘You know, you must have the unluckiest clients in Dublin. They’re always being arrested for things they didn’t do.’

‘They’re not that unlucky if they have me to represent them,’ Buckley said slickly. ‘Which reminds me. Since I’m going to be tied up in court protecting my client’s constitutional rights, I’ll have to skip lunch with my wife. Be a good girl, Simone, and call to tell Margaret I’m running late, will you?’

The blonde with the legs and teeth smiled with the sort of smile you normally only see in toothpaste ads and went off to do whatever it is blondes with legs and teeth do.

‘I think I took the wrong path in life,’ I said, watching her go. ‘I should start studying law. Try out as a defence attorney. Find some guilty scumbag to represent, you know, get a big office, an unemployed supermodel to answer the phone.’

‘You mean Simone? She’s something else, isn’t she?’

He grinned. Cat who got the cream.

‘Where’d you find her?’ I said.

‘I won her in a backgammon game.’

‘I believe you. I’ll bet she’s a great help all those nights you have to work late.’

‘A man has to have a hobby,’ said Buckley. ‘Think of it as one of the perks of the job.’

‘I’d rather not think about it at all, if it’s all the same to you. Right now I’m more interested in finding out what the hell this is about.’ I reached into my pocket and pulled out the letter Hugh had handed me that morning. ‘You mind explaining why I got a letter on your headed notepaper on behalf of Vincent Strange warning me to stay away from him?’

‘You’ve been putting the frighteners up him. I’m not saying you don’t have your little reasons, be they professional or extracurricular, but enough is enough. He wants you to stay away, to stop harassing him. What do you Yankees say? Cut him some slack.’

‘I haven’t been harassing anyone.’

‘Whatever you say, Saxon, whatever you say. It’s not you that’s been calling him up every hour through the night then hanging up. It’s not you who had his gallery broken into and ransacked three nights ago. It’s not you who’s been sending him photographs with his face defaced. It’s not you who’s been seen hanging round his house.’

So I wasn’t the only one, I thought.

Always presuming Strange was telling the truth.

‘Don’t you think I have better things to do?’ I said.

‘Let me think.’ No pause. ‘No.’

‘Look, Buckley, I don’t know what you call evidence in this town, but you can’t accuse me of harassing Strange just because he says I am. What evidence does he have?’

‘He says you turned up at Felix Berg’s funeral yesterday.’

‘I got an invite. From Berg’s sister.’

‘You have a copy to prove that?’

‘You think I keep all my funeral invites filed neatly under C for Cadaver?’

‘Well, Strange says you didn’t get one. According to him, you were gate-crashing.’

‘He’s a liar.’

‘Is he lying too about you buttonholing Berg’s sister in the church and trying to get her to hire you to look into her brother’s death?’

‘Did she say that?’

This was getting more surreal by the minute.

‘He also says,’ said Buckley, ‘that this isn’t the first time you’ve given him grief. Apparently you’ve also been bugging him for some stuff he has of Felix Berg’s.’

‘I went round there once about a week ago. I didn’t even know Strange had Felix’s stuff until he told me. I asked if I could see it. He said no. End of story.’

Apart from following him round to the locker at the station, but I thought it best to leave that part out.

‘He also said you made some vague threats about what might happen to him if he didn’t hand it over, about how people were dying. Does that part sound familiar?’

‘OK, so I may have tried to put a little shiver of doubt into him, but I certainly didn’t start ringing him up and putting the phone down. What do you think I am – nine years old? And I certainly don’t make a habit of sending defaced photographs through the mail.’

‘Then forget it. You’ve got nothing to worry about, have you? All you have to do is stay clear of Vincent Strange and nothing more will be said about it.’

‘You know,’ I sighed, ‘I’m beginning to think the Marxman shot the wrong legal eagle.’

‘What’s the matter, Saxon?’ he said. ‘Am I not your type?’

‘Buckley, you’re not even my species.’

‘What a creep. Can you believe him telling me to keep away from Strange? Like I’m some kind of stalker or something.’

‘You know what Buckley’s like,’ said Fitzgerald mildly, hardly even glancing up from the file she was reading on her desk. ‘I hear complaints about him in here every day. He gets up people’s noses. He
likes
getting up people’s noses.’

‘Doesn’t it piss you off?’

‘Of course it pisses me off, but what good is being pissed off going to be? He’s a defence lawyer. That’s what defence lawyers are like. You should let it go. Just back off on Strange like Buckley advised and then nothing more will come of it.’

‘Back off on him? All I did was talk to him.’

‘Then let me rephrase it. Forget him.’

‘I can’t forget him. Strange checks out for too much of this.’

‘Too much of what?’

‘Too much of everything. I’ve been finding out plenty about him,’ I said. ‘Such as his criminal connections. He’s been under investigation for years by the Criminal Assets Bureau. They’ve never got anything on him, but they obviously don’t think he’s clean otherwise why would they keep on at him? And did you know he collects guns? He has stuff shipped in and out of the country all the time. All along you’ve been wondering how the Marxman got hold of a Glock semi-automatic. It’d be easy for Strange.’

‘You’re not trying to say Strange is the Marxman, are you?’

‘Why not?’

I finally had her attention.

Fitzgerald pushed the file away and leaned back in her chair.

‘Because,’ she said, ‘
I
had him checked out too. Strange’s name was bound to come up once firearms were involved. Everyone with a licence in the city, or who’s ever applied for one, or who’s ever been suspected, questioned, convicted or sentenced for a firearms offence, or who’s ever been involved in the military in any way, has been questioned, sometimes many times over. And Strange has rock-solid alibis for at least two of the killings.’

‘But—’

‘I know you think I don’t know what I’m doing here—’

‘That’s not true—’

She raised a hand to stop me. ‘But I
am
able to do that much at least. I checked all the shipments he’s taken in the last year and none of them match up. Sorry, but he’s clean.’

Suddenly I felt ashamed. Fitzgerald was under enough pressure on the Marxman case without having me throwing bricks at her too. Maybe she’d made some bad decisions, but the only people who never make a bad decision are those who never make a decision at all. She had to go with the percentages. She couldn’t just go chasing after her instincts like me.

But ashamed or not, I still wasn’t willing to let it go.

The state of my apartment last night was reason enough.

‘What about the old gun that Felix had? Alice said he didn’t even own a gun. Doesn’t it make sense at least that he got it from Strange?’

‘Saxon,’ said Fitzgerald slowly, ‘I’m going to tell you something. I shouldn’t be telling you, but I will because I don’t want you shooting off down the wrong path and then accusing me later of holding out on you. You’re right about Strange. He
did
give the gun to Felix.’

‘You know that?’

‘Felix went to him about three weeks before he died. Said he was frightened of something, that he felt in danger. He begged Strange for a gun to protect himself with.’

‘And Strange gave it to him?’

‘He was reluctant, but Felix Berg was a friend, not to mention one of Strange’s most valuable artists. He wanted to help. He never imagined Felix would shoot himself. If he’d known he was in any way suicidal he’d never have handed over a gun. At the time he just thought that having one would calm Felix down some. Then, when Felix killed himself, he felt bad. He went to Draker and told him what had happened.’

‘And old friend Draker made sure it was covered up.’

‘What would have been the point of pursuing it?’ said Fitzgerald reasonably. ‘It wouldn’t have brought Felix back. It wouldn’t have been in the public interest to prosecute Strange for a simple mistake.’

‘Now you sound like Draker.’

‘There’s no need to be bitchy, Saxon. Don’t you think I have better things to do than pursue a man like Vincent Strange on minor charges? I’m trying to run a murder enquiry. I’ve been in here since six a.m. I have a list of suspects that’s starting to look longer than the Dublin phone book. I have surveillance on five possible candidates for the Marxman. I have the press demanding answers. The families demanding answers. The Commissioner demanding miracles.’

‘But doesn’t that make you want to investigate the circumstances of Berg’s death more closely? Doesn’t Felix asking for a gun prove that his life was in danger?’

‘No, it doesn’t, because there’s still no proof that he
was
being threatened,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘How many times do we
have to go over this? All you have to go on is the fact he told
you that he was—’

‘And Strange too, apparently.’

‘You’re dragging Strange in as a witness now? Thirty seconds ago he was your prime suspect. Felix probably only told Strange he was afraid so that Strange would give him a gun. A gun that he could shoot himself with. Telling Miranda Gray that he was the Marxman just emphasises that you can’t trust anything he told you. You’re chasing after shadows.’

And for a moment I was too exhausted to argue. Was I the only one who wanted to keep Felix Berg’s death on the agenda? Fitzgerald wanted it dropped. For the newspapers it had been a one-day wonder. Strange still insisted there was nothing in it despite the fact that his supposed close friend had asked him for a gun only three weeks earlier because he was afraid.

As for Alice, she still wasn’t answering my calls, I must have left a half dozen since the funeral, despite saying she wanted us to keep in touch yesterday.

I didn’t know who to believe any more.

What to believe.

Maybe if I told Fitzgerald about the break-in she’d believe me; but what good would that do? It would only be one more thing she had to think about, worry about.

She had enough of those as it was.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ was all I said eventually.

‘Tell you?’

‘About Strange. About the gun.’

‘I’m telling you now.’

‘Before,’ I said, ‘when I was running round like a fool after him.’

‘If it had gone any further I would’ve done. But I couldn’t tell you, you’re not . . .’ She trailed off uncomfortably, and I knew what she was going to say.

You’re not police.

Like I needed reminding of it.

It was my theme tune almost.

OK, so I wasn’t police, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t pursue my own enquiry, that I had to sit around waiting for the
real
police to do their job. If I waited for that, I’d be some old woman in a condominium in Miami watching Court TV all day before they came up with anything. I could picture the scene.
You want to know what I remember of the Berg case, Officer? Wait right there while I put my teeth in and I’ll tell you all about it
.

‘I just don’t get why you’re so adamant.’

‘To not play Felix Berg’s little game?’ she said. ‘Because after what he did, he doesn’t deserve people running round after him, acting out this posthumous drama for him. Suicides are selfish bastards. I get enough of that emotional blackmail crap from my mother.’

‘Has something happened?’

‘Only the usual. I had her on the phone this morning telling me how she has nothing to live for any more, only a daughter who’s never there, and no chance of ever having grandchildren running round her feet, and how lonely it is being old.’

‘She can’t expect you to live your life only to satisfy some need in her.’

‘I know that. But it doesn’t stop her dropping hints that she might just leave the gas in the oven running one night, or take a swim off the beach.’

‘Did you try to talk her out of it?’ I asked.

‘I’m not going to plead with her,’ Fitzgerald said. ‘It’s her life. That’s what she wants me to do. Get involved in some big negotiation so she feels important. She’s trying to frighten me into feeling guilty, and I have nothing to feel guilty about. There’s nothing more I can do for her than I do already, just as there’s no more you can do about Felix. It wasn’t your fault that he died. It’s not your fault that you can’t tell Alice why.’

‘I know that,’ I said.

Just like I
knew
Sydney’s death wasn’t my fault either.

But did I really?

********************

I went down to Records. I shouldn’t have been wandering about Dublin Castle unaccompanied, but since no one was stopping me I didn’t feel any need to play jailer on my own movements; and it wasn’t like there was anyone waiting for me at home.

Or waiting for me anywhere.

Niall Boland was at his desk.

‘I was getting ready to call you,’ he said.

‘You got something for me then?’

‘Might have.’

Strange’s cryptic remarks that day at the gallery about Felix once sharing a house with a murderer had intrigued me. I’d wanted to know more. Maybe this, sparse though it was, might provide a lead at last. And where better to get the information than from Boland? I’d asked him to see if he could get me a full list of all the places Felix had lived.

I hadn’t expected him to come up trumps so fast, though. I’d lost count of the number of places I’d lived in my life, from a string of student lodgings in Boston to one winter spent up in Montreal with an old boyfriend, Steve, in an apartment where the only thing that stopped it falling down, I sometimes thought, was the ice that coated everything. One shock heatwave and I swore the place would fall apart. Then there was a house in Boston where I’d lived for three months with my first serious girlfriend, Arabella; and the fact that I’d ever dated a woman who shared DNA with people who could give their kid a name like Arabella horrified me now. She wore cotton print dresses and smoked too much weed and listened to Joni Mitchell all the time. It drove me nuts, I had to get out of the relationship just so I didn’t have to hear
The
Hissing of Summer Lawns
on vinyl one more time. The only real hissing I ever heard when I was with her was the air escaping out of her brain when she smoked too much dope.

I’d got back together with Steve for a while after that, for which I’d never forgive her; though to give him credit, it was his goading which drove me to apply for the FBI as I wandered rootless and destination-less, it seemed to me, through my twenties. Christ knows where I’d have ended up if it hadn’t been for that.

I wasn’t cut out for the Housewife of the Year awards, after all.

As for when I was in the FBI, I’d lived out of a suitcase effectively for five years; I did buy a tiny place outside of Saratoga in upstate New York, but hardly ever went there. After a couple of years in Dublin I’d sold it at a loss to get it off my hands.

And those were just the places I could remember off the top of my head.

Felix’s life had been less nomadic. After the childhood home in Sweden, there were only a handful of places that he’d lived. The aunt’s house out in Howth; an apartment he’d rented in Clerkenwell in London when he was an art student at St Martin’s; back to the Howth house after his aunt died; then finally he and Alice had sold up and moved into Temple Bar. And that, apart from one summer spent back in Sweden and the months out in New England last year after his breakdown, was that.

Was the answer hidden somewhere in there?

Maybe.

And maybe it was the Howth house where it lay.

Boland had come up with two names.

The first was Paul Vaughan. The son of some famous theatre director in the city, he’d been Alice’s boyfriend at the time Felix was studying in London. He had even moved in with her and Felix shortly after the aunt died and Felix returned from London, and stayed about a year and a half before he and Alice broke up. Three years later he was killed in a road accident whilst taking a bend too fast on his motorbike. According to reports at the time, he’d been so badly mangled they could only identify him from his clothes and his driving licence.

The second name was Paddy Nye – another photographer, interestingly, though by popular consent nowhere near as gifted or successful as Felix. Boland hadn’t been able to find any listings of exhibitions of his work.

Quite what he was doing living in the house in Howth was not clear, but he hadn’t stayed long, three months at most. Afterwards, he ran his own studio for a time, working for various magazines, surviving mainly on the jobs Felix passed over and passed on to him, and publishing a single book, self-financed, of black-and-white photographs of Ireland’s Eye, the small uninhabited island a half-mile off the coast that I’d seen an outline of the night I found Felix’s body.