“Yeah?”
“I remember the bike, the Norton, and I knew it must have been him, because he had the badger streak in his hair. But back then, he didn’t go by Taylor.”
“No? What was he then?”
“It was one of the names you used. Dalton.”
“You sure? That’s very good, Tommy. Okay, I think it’s time you went home.”
“No, Ed, I’m happy to stay. To, you know, whatever. Make it up.”
“You’ve made it up. To me. Go home, get some sleep. It’s been a big night.”
Tommy grinned sheepishly, feeling his face.
“You can call a cab from inside.”
Tommy made to go, then stopped.
“I don’t have my key,” he said.
“I meant, home to your own house. You can’t stay in Quarry Fields. Not tonight, anyway.”
Tommy’s face flared with indignation and hurt, but he tamped it down, nodded, turned and walked into the Howard Clinic.
I sat in the car park and phoned Shane Howard at the house and surgery numbers and on his mobile; I went straight through to the machine each time, so I called Denis Finnegan. His office phone went straight to voice mail; he answered his mobile immediately.
“Denis Finnegan.”
“Ed Loy, Denis. I hope it’s not too late to call.”
“Never too late, my friend, I’ve been hoping you’d get in touch. And apologies for my vanishing act this afternoon; I’m afraid one of the hazards of my profession is that the allied guilds upon whom we must depend ply their trade in a volatile and unpredictable manner; hence my expeditious removal to advise a, a sole trader and, ah, commodities broker from Finglas on his rights and entitlements under the law, or indeed whether he had any remaining, given the quantity of refined coca leaf powder he was holding when arrested.”
I’m sure this stuff went down a bundle in Blackhall Place or in the Tilted Wig or whatever those pubs near the Four Courts are called; I was only glad I was getting it over the phone, so I didn’t have to applaud him for saying it.
“The information that David Brady and Jessica Howard were having an affair came in the form of a phone call to Shane.”
“That is my understanding also; I gather the Guards are devoting much of their current energy to tracing a number of telephone calls made immediately prior to the murders. Unfortunately for them, they have not found David Brady’s phone.”
Because I still have it. And I haven’t looked at it since.
“I wonder if you’re at home, and if so, could I call and see you, in the next while.”
“Liberty Hall, old chap; I am not at home just yet, but am on my way, and I work into the small hours, so by all means come and interrupt me, there are a few questions I wanted to ask you earlier, and while they momentarily escape me, I’m sure they’ll return.”
A text came through as I ended the call. It read:
I thought for a second, then sent a text to Tommy Owens:
Nineteen
I HAD NEVER BEEN IN SEAFIELD RUGBY CLUB BEFORE, but I suppose I thought it would be like a golf club or a yacht club. Maybe the clientele was, but the surroundings were far from upscale; the place looked more like a school hall or a community center than the playpen for south county Dublin rugby boys of all ages. There were two bars upstairs at either end of the clubhouse, one above each dressing room, with a hall in the center that looked out over the pitch. Tonight a twenty-first birthday party was in full swing, although to me the celebrants all looked about fifteen, the boys drenched in hair gel, the girls in their underwear, so God knows how ancient I looked to them. I suppose I could have walked past the bouncer, who was also younger than me, if a good deal wider, but I didn’t want to scare anyone; nor did I want to risk losing Jerry his job by alluding to police business, so I told the bouncer I had a lecture schedule for Jerry from the university, and was allowed wade through the bubbling sea of pheromones to one bar, only to be told, inevitably, that Jerry Dalton, or JD, as he was apparently known here, was manning the other. “Dani California” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers had suddenly brought the entire room out on the floor, which made the return journey a little trickier, but I made it with the loss of just a few pounds in sweat.
“JD! Point of Heino!” I yelled in my best rugby voice, and Dalton pulled the pint of Heineken and brought it to me in a plastic glass before realizing I didn’t have a turned-up collar or a spiked-up fin.
“Thought if you had any more pointers for me, you could give them in person. Alternatively, I’ve left my car down there, so if you want to slip down and stick something under the wipers, I’ll hang here and watch the taps for you.”
Dalton’s dark eyes flashed.
“This all some kind of joke for you, is it?”
“I think you can see from the scar on my face how much fun I’m having,” I said. “Heard from your friend Anita Kravchenko?”
Dalton nodded.
“She texted me. She said you’d helped Maria to escape. You’ve put them up. Thank you.”
“So what about you? Do you want to try and get to the bottom of this?”
“The bottom of what? What do you think I’m looking for?”
“At a guess, your father. How’m I doing?”
Dalton looked at me, then walked up the bar to serve Bacardi Breezers to two hot, red-faced girls in plaits. More orders crammed in, and soon he had several pints on the go. He gave the girls their change, came down to me, and said, “I’ve a break in ten minutes’ time, meet you outside, okay?” and went back about his business.
I finished the Heineken, which had no taste or purpose that I could discern, went outside and lit a cigarette. When Dalton joined me, we wandered around and sat on a slatted bench outside the dressing room nearest the main exit.
“How’d you know I was looking for my father?” he said.
“You told me who you think he is, at least indirectly,” I said. “You pointed me to Stephen Casey, who you believe was your half brother. From him, we get to Eileen Harvey, or Casey, or, eventually, Dalton. And the boy, Jeremiah John Dalton, born March 1986. And the father on the wedding certificate, Brian Patrick Dalton. Who took off before the baby was born. That’s all we know, isn’t it? Well, apart from the fact that Eileen Harvey, or Casey, or Dalton, killed herself a month afterward.”
“We believe she killed herself. The body was never found.”
“I thought…the priest in Woodpark, Father Massey, told me she had gassed herself in the house, the house you’re staying in now.”
“No. The story I was told, they found her clothes on Seafield Pier, the East pier. She’d apparently jumped into the sea. There was an eyewitness who saw her jump, apparently, he phoned the emergency services, there was a big hunt, but they never found her.”
“And who told you this?”
“Would you believe, the same Father Massey?”
“I asked him had you been to see him, and he said no.”
“Looks like one of us needs to talk to Father Massey again,” Dalton said.
“How do you know about any of this in the first place? How did you find out? I mean, what was your name, for example?”
“What do you mean, what was my name? My name was Jeremiah Dalton-”
“No, I mean, what did your adoptive parents-the ones who did the easy stuff like bringing you up-what did
