An Irish Solution

An Irish Solution

Part One

Five minutes to midnight, and Gloria was there at last, sitting at a table on her own. Paul Blake, patron of Blackwood’s, slipped into the holy of holies to apply a spot of L’Occitane to the chops, only to find the Robin ensconced at the table, fugging the air with cigarillos.

‘Robin!’ Blake beamed. ‘A thousand pardons. We’ve been absolutely! Let me fix you! Burgundy? Snack?’

The Robin cleared his throat: ‘You told Pat he was gone.’ Eyes opaque, his voice filtered through what sounded like a permanent head-cold.

Blake chuckled: ‘Pat exaggerates, as usual. Heat of the moment, I assure you.’

‘Cause he’s not.’

‘Of course not! Worth his weight. Absolutely! Top-notch. A bar manager in a million. My sole concern remains that he should not bring the club into disrepute. And our new décor?’

The private suite had been lined with dark-green striped wallpaper, chosen by Blake to set off his new collection of Victorian caricatures. A mirror, leaning at an angle against the wall, reflected the two men: Blake broad and courtly; his interlocutor rat-like, skinny. Blake smoothed his auburn forelocks. And yet, he was not as he had been. Failing eyesight, for one thing. The tragedy of creeping decline.

Behind him, the Robin persisted: ‘You bawled Pat out in front of the guests.’

‘He was indulging in an inappropriate relationship with a cheap tart. Peroxide to the gills. In my bedroom.’

‘Not your room.’ The Robin was seriously vexed.

‘In which I reside, since my eviction by –’

‘Not your gaff,’ the Robin said. ‘And you don’t talk that way to Pat. Pat doesn’t work for you.’

‘Not for me, for Blackwood’s. Forgive me for being proprietorial. Others may own the physical accoutrements, but the name is mine, the ambience, the look and feel. To say nothing of my bearing the costs of dry rot treatment, following the evaporation of my partners.’

‘If Pat hadn’t of brung me in, you were gone.’

A diffident knock and Pat O’Hara himself scuttled in, grinning. Sandy-haired, wiry, head hunched as if to ward off well-deserved blows, Pat was the humanoid equivalent of a crab. ‘Sorry, gents, but one of them bankers wants a word.’

Blake checked himself once more before the mirror and sallied forth. Gloria was dressed in silver and gold. Smooth men in dark suits encircled her at the bar. She was the only worthwhile legacy of Blake’s absconding American bankers. A blonde Californian financial consultant, recently widowed, elegant in her sorrow, she braved an evening or two in Blackwood’s every week. She spoke to everyone in exactly the same low sympathetic voice, surveying them with her astonishing almond-shaped eyes. Blake himself aspired to her in a gentlemanly way, but although she hung on his words she was not yet ready for commitment.

Gloria introduced bankers and business moguls to the club. She also handled some nifty offshore investments for selected acquaintances, with returns so high you could even afford to pay the tax, if that was your idea of fun. Had even recovered money from one of the vanished partners’ accounts, and was investing it on Blake’s behalf. Doing remarkably well, somewhere in the blue Caribbean.

She caught his eye, smiled sadly across the distance that divided them.

When, five minutes later, he forced himself to re-enter the den, the Robin and Pat were huddled together, sniggering. Pat rose to his feet and stuck out his hand. ‘Lookit, boss, I’m sorry about the thing in the bedroom. I had nowhere else to take the girl. Me ma would do anything for me, but she won’t let me take girls home. It’s agin her religion.’

Blake gave his fingers a friendly slap. ‘Think no more of it, young reprobate.’

‘Sure how were you to know,’ Pat grinned, ‘about the cheap tart being Robin’s first cousin?’

Blake’s stomach was suddenly empty. ‘I’m frightfully, I really had no idea –’

‘No harm done,’ chuckled Pat. ‘What did the bank fella want?’

‘Insisted on writing me this cheque for his membership fee. I said it would be two hundred and fifty. Did I do right?’

Pat pocketed the cheque. ‘To be filed,’ he grinned. Blackwood’s had offered trial membership to the chosen few. An annual fee was to be invoiced at some vague point in the future. Blackwood’s was unusual in this and in other respects. As the city spawned ever more glitzy facilities for the moneyed, this club remained doggedly conservative. The French chef came in the evenings only, carrying string bags full of market produce, and cooked exactly what he felt like cooking. Tonight, a salad of walnuts and ducks’ gizzards.

Still the Robin sat silent.

‘I’m planning a recital for the ochre drawing-room,’ Blake babbled. ‘I’ll have the Bechstein tuned.’

Not a word.

‘The Cape reception was a roaring success,’ Blake continued, as though they cared. ‘You really should drop in, Robin, meet the gang. They’d like you. I’m sure they would.’

The Robin leaned his wiry frame back in the rosewood carver, gazed over Blake’s head. Pat O’Hara chipped in helpfully: ‘They like your tickets, anyway. Paul Blake is a bleedin’ magician, so far as they know.’ The Robin supplied unobtainable seats for plays, for ballets, for concerts, for matches, which Blake passed on to club members at cost.

The Robin frowned. ‘Who owns this place?’

Blake swallowed. ‘Technically, it’s –’

‘I said who owns it?’ The Robin’s voice was rising in his throat.

Pat cut in nervously: ‘Lookit, Robin, it was a misunderstanding, okay? Plus, Mr Blake is after solving your delivery problem.’

‘Et voilà!’ Blake crooned. ‘Completely slipped me noggin. He’s calling around in the morning for a chinwag. Fennessy. Jerome Fennessy, professor of modern languages. Pure serendipity. We were schoolmates. An assignment such as yours would suit him to a tee. Here on a flying visit.’

The Robin, still motionless, asked: ‘When could he go?’

‘Any time.’

‘Why would he do it?’

‘I advanced Jerome a little cash once. He doesn’t have the wherewithal to repay. He’d be interested in the fee. We go back a long way.’

‘Professor? Where does he teach?’ The Robin peered unblinking into Blake’s eyes.

‘Language academy in London. English as a foreign language, for senior business folk, very high-powered.’

‘And you met him in Oxford?’

‘No, at school, as I told you.’

‘Not a Balliol man, then?’

‘No, indeed.’ Blake laughed indulgently. ‘But passes for a gent.’

‘What age is he?’

‘Forty-two, forty-four, give or take. Been in London two, three years. Got tired of his old job.’

‘Which was where?’

‘Boarding school in County Cork.’

‘Married?’

‘Not any more, I’m afraid. Where do you want him to go?’

‘Paris. There’s papers have to be brung. Tell him be at the Midshipman, eleven in the morning.’

‘Our rendezvous is for ten. I’ll send him straight on.’

The Robin stood up, pulled on brown leather gloves, settled his heavy blue coat around his shoulders. Standing up made no great difference to his height. The coat hung about him like a vampire’s wings. Frankly, an anorak would have suited him better. ‘Okey-doke,’ he said. ‘You gave the man a loan. How much?’

‘Jerome? Owes me five hundred. Irish pounds, of course.’

‘Call it six-fifty euro. We’ll wipe that out.’ He counted thirteen fifty-euro notes from his back pocket, handed them to Blake. ‘Start even.’ He turned to go.

Blake harrumphed. ‘Look here, I don’t want to be awkward, but are you sure this is safe? Chap was arrested coming in from Amsterdam two weeks ago.’

The Robin nodded, bored: ‘He got off. Did you not read it?’

‘Indeed. And another chap’s on trial at this very moment.’

‘He’ll get off too. And do you think I’d get into stuff like that? I keep my nose clean, Paul. Plus I said Paris. That’s in France, Paul. Amsterdam is in Holland. Tulips. Did they not learn you that at Balliol College?’

There was a cheap little tin box on the corner of the walnut desk, that priceless heirloom that would forever remind Blake of the home from which despicable Désirée had barred him. The tin box had a design proclaiming Junior Fidelissimo Havanaise, by Rossini of Amsterdam. No tulips, just tobacco leaves. The Robin stubbed out his cigarillo in the tin, closed the tin, pocketed it. He always smoked those cigarillos on his visits to Blackwood’s Club. He carried no key to the club. He knew the combination for the back entrance.

‘I’ll see you to your car,’ Pat O’Hara said. As the two little trolls departed the premises, Blake patted his cheeks with a scented splash of Eau de Contadour, replacing the bottle in the top drawer of his walnut desk, where he also kept such treasures as his old Oxford University Calendars, his special address book and the nifty six-shooter he’d brought back from South Africa, which was perhaps not strictly legal.

He slipped out to the bar, poured himself a shot of Courvoisier. Meeting the Robin always made him feel ghastly. But he must rally. A man is bigger than his own problems. One has to move to pastures new. In today’s world, security comes from imagination. In his case, sound business ideas. For example? An Irish gentleman’s club in Mayfair. Crying out for it. He could talk up his Dublin experience.

Gloria was on the landing now, in her good black coat, flanked by admirers. As he moved towards them she started to drift away, trailing pleasant laughter. He caught up with her and escorted her to the door. She pressed his hand regretfully, as if only circumstances prevented her from committing unspecified intimacies upon his person.

The guests were trickling out. Pat came back to close the bar and count the cash. Blake took himself off to the private suite. The other bedrooms were being renovated. Nobody staying tonight but himself.

He put the money away in the safe, got into his nightshirt, brushed his remaining teeth, thought once again about things as they were, as they might have been. How unpalatable those fellows were. Having been educated by soi-disant gentlefolk, for a time, he naturally resented the Robin for being common, and patronizing him, and talking in a flat Dublin accent, not to mention wearing brown shoes with blue blazers. But he told himself not to be such a jolly old snob. And being realistic, what were the alternatives? He had been left high and dry. So what if he was living in the Robin’s pocket? He enjoyed a handsome salary and a flexible budget. He was still top dog. There were, of course, some blots on the landscape. He suspected Pat O’Hara of purchasing contraband spirits for the bar. And Pat had recently usurped jurisdiction over his personal space. Just one week previously, Blake’s own bed had hosted a tryst between a Kokoschka-painted Russian courtesan and a Welsh arms-dealer, while he himself had had to put up at the Shelbourne like some sort of commercial traveller.

Still, let us not exaggerate. Tonight he had done well. Reprimanded Pat, and given the Robin a minor lesson in style – although the little runt was almost beyond redemption.

Poor Jerome Fennessy! Was it fair to take advantage of his indigence?

The Robin would have to be dealt with, firmly, one of these fine days. Remind him what’s what. Assert one’s authority.

The forthcoming weekend’s assignment, far more important than any of these folderols, was a jolly good heart-to-heart with Dee Dee and Felicity. Without overdoing it, of course. Children may be unforgiving little beasts, but they must at least be helped to understand. That is our last duty as parents. They would enjoy their surprise trip to London. He would show them Merchant Tailors’ School, entertain them to lunch in the Aldington. They would stroll through St James’s Park, take in a show, talk lightly about life and its multiple ironies. Rebuild. Reconstruct. Revalue.

Prepare to disappear, if required. Resurface in sunnier climes.

Paul Blake fell fast asleep, dreamed of ocean breezes south of Monterey.

‘Frankly, he’s a joke,’ said Billy O’Rourke.

‘So why did Frye appoint him?’ Trixie repeated.

‘Don’t think of Joyce as a human being. Think of him as a bespoke suit.’

‘So why should Frye appoint him over you?’ she insisted. ‘Why aren’t you the head of the iDEA? And was it Joyce that chose that poncy name?’ She laid her notebook on the coffee table.

‘God, no,’ said Billy. ‘That was the Minister himself. Wanted the Yankee effect. Drugs Enforcement Agency. With a small little “i” for Ireland. Our people on the switch have instructions not to pronounce it “idea”, but to spell out all four letters: “I-D-E-A, how-can-we-help?” All part of the image.’

Billy was such a hunk. Big, rough, yet with that touch of gentleness. One of those sources you want to be close to.

‘And the head of the agency? Why Joyce?’

He considered her question. ‘OK, here’s how it went. Paddy Goldborough has his heart attack. Finance, as usual, trying to shut the agency down. Frye wants me, but I’m an animal. Plus I’m too young. Only a boy. Bit of a thug. Couldn’t be Director. So he parachutes in Séamus Joyce, committee star and performing seal, fresh from Europe, to be our bishop and sit on his arse in the back office drafting policy documents with fancy titles like “Europe Without Drugs” while I’m out in the rain playing Action Man.’

Trixie discreetly refilled his glass. ‘And the sole purpose of the iDEA is to hoist Richard Frye into the European Union Narcotics Directorate?’

Billy nodded. ‘We’re here to line up photo-ops. Preferably heroin, because who cares about hash, and cocaine is for yuppies, but heroin rots your teeth and makes gougers from council flats come and clean out your dez rez to feed the habit. So we capture a few working-class heroes, one or two big pushers, the odd dago master criminal, and Frye is winning all the way. At last, a Minister who’s hitting the drug barons. Meting out Dublin justice to the godfathers. If we screw up, it’s all Séamus Joyce’s fault. If Joyce personally screws up bad enough, he doesn’t get confirmed as head of the iDEA. But if he’s a really, really good boy, Frye brings him back to Europe. And Joyce knows his way around Europe. He’s well regarded. Half of them think he wrote Ulysses. And if he does get back, his iDEA stint will stand him in good stead, because when that European druggernaut finally hits the road, it’s going to be run by diplomats negotiating with greasy foreign governments over drug supplies, without sending in the Marines, because Europe won’t be doing Marines.’

Billy’s delivery was rapid and gruff. There was no variation in his facial muscles to indicate when he was being ironic. And those eyes, weighing her up. The hidden anger.

‘Print any of that stuff, Trixie,’ he warned, ‘and I’ll put you across my knee. The Gazette is to treat Mr Joyce with the utmost respect. I will not have my boss upset. Not when he shows such fatherly concern for my welfare. Not when his Minister is howling for convictions, and all poor Séamus can offer is acquittals. Not while his wife is sick.’ He stood up to go.

‘What’s wrong with the wife?’

‘Apart from being rich and fat and dressing in pink and sleeping with the great and the good?’

‘No, really. What’s she got?’

‘Diverticulitis. It’s when your large intestine –’

‘Stop it, Billy!’

‘You’re not a fellow sufferer, are you, Trix?’

‘Tell me about yourself,’ Trixie begged. ‘About what really happened last year.’

‘It was in the papers.’

‘Yes, but I was on Woman’s Eye. I wasn’t paying attention.’

‘Here, I’ll show you my chest.’ Billy undid another button of his tartan shirt. Her eyes widened. His skin was crisscrossed by long jagged scars, starting from the neck. ‘Thoracic Park.’ He buttoned up again.

‘They pulled you out of hospital,’ Trixie said, ‘questioned you for days, then gave you a medal. Manky or what?’

‘You come to expect that sort of thing. Top brass didn’t like the Inner City Racketeering and Drugs Task Force.’

‘ICRAD. I know.’

‘Course you do, Trix. An old hand like yourself. Top brass reckoned we wuz too political, too media-friendly, too rough on the poor criminals. Also, they thought we were on the take.’

‘What actually happened in that house?’

Billy shook his head.

‘Please. Off the record.’

He closed his eyes for a moment, sighed. His voice a rapid monotone: ‘All right. ICRAD is putting pressure on the Mahers. So the Mahers start feeling insecure. Losing their grip. So they decide to make an example of a newsagent’s son, because the newsagent, an Asian gentleman married to a Wexford girl, is making complaints about them to his local councillor.’ Billy paused. Trixie sat forward, breathless.

‘They lift the young lad, near his home, take him off to this derelict house. Some old one phones the fuzz. Thank God. I’m driving through the neighbourhood, and I hear it on the intercom. I know that house. Leo Jordan hears the same call, but he’s coming from Drumcondra. I go in along the lane at the back of the building, through the basement window, nice and quiet. They’re up in the front first-floor room.’ Another sigh. ‘Leo pulls up on the pavement. Hops out of the car and starts trying his master keys in the front door. Fozzy Maher hears the racket and comes out to investigate. Fozz is carrying a piece. He’s the eldest son. Twenty-five. Sees me on the stairs, takes a blast. I return fire, to put him off his aim. Nick his arm. Pure fluke. Fozzy drops the piece, runs into the first-floor room, holds a knife to the child’s throat, and when I get to the doorway he says “Throw it away, Billy.” But I don’t. I can’t. Completely unable to, actually.’

Billy’s breath is catching. Trixie says nothing. Billy sighs and goes on, as if dragging a rake through gravel. ‘Of course I should have dropped the gun, started negotiating, waited for reinforcements. Softly softly. But Fozzy is a mad bastard. Harmed a boy once. I can’t trust him. And we’re allowed to shoot in order to preserve life. That’s what the rules say. I raise the gun nice and slow, shoot him, clean. Old man Maher carves a few noughts and crosses on my chest with a hunting knife. I go down, but I get my left hand to the gun and blast him in the stomach. Then I collapse. Loss of blood. Leo meanwhile kicks in the front door and comes up the stairs like a herd of elephants auditioning for Riverdance. Old man Maher is still alive, unfortunately. Reaches for my gun and wastes poor Leo. Fires a second shot into the nice Georgian plaster ceiling. Then dies and goes to hell.’

‘But you saved the boy,’ Trixie breathed.

Billy nodded. ‘At a cost. Three dead, and I’m not feeling too good myself. I was out sick for seven months, and Decko Dowd snaffled Leo’s job. Decko was our big rival at the time. He closed down ICRAD. When I came back they put me guarding Richard Frye, while he was still a junior minister in Justice. Then Frye got promoted and set up the iDEA. Decko still hates us. Nice man.’

‘Why were they so suspicious?’

‘Three bodies. Not the way we do things here. Marked a new high-water mark in the annals of Dublin gangsterism. Bad for trade. And it wasn’t just the cops and the tourist board; the whole nation was shedding salt tears for the Maher family.’

‘They believed you in the end, though.’

‘I was the only witness.’

‘What about the boy?’

‘Partially sighted. Not the full shilling. Old man Maher believed in soft targets. But yes, of course I should have dropped the gun, taken the chance that Fozzy would act reasonable. I did wrong. That’s what the internal enquiry said.’

‘Another drink?’ Trixie asked.

He shook his head. ‘Calls to make. We never sleep. That was off the record, mind. Official Secrets Act. Unspeakable punishments.’ Billy tapped her lightly on the wrist and was gone.

Trixie closed the window. He had insisted on fresh air. The cold draught had given her the beginnings of a sore throat, but she didn’t mind. Suffering in the line of duty. She lit another Silk Cut.

There was a delay. The Dublin flight would leave ninety minutes late. A short reprieve.

Séamus bought a Figaro and glanced at the front page. The stories refused to settle in his brain among the sediment of the day gone by: the formulae of bureaucratic politeness, the dull presentation they had come to hear, his own naive questions, the chairman’s sardonic interventions. All eclipsed by the fax from the clinic.

He shook his head and found a seat in the departure lounge. A little girl came and sat beside him: cropped black hair, dark skin, big ears, brown eyes, long purple skirt. Aged nine or ten. Arab? Persian? Jingling some coins, counting them, turning them over. She stood at the coin-operated Coke machine and fed a coin into the slot, pushed a button, retrieved her coin from the return tray. Did the same again. Looked at her coins and moved to the confectionery machine. Fed a coin into the slot, pushed a button, retrieved her coin from the return tray. Came and sat again, turning the coins in her lap.

‘Can I help?’ But who ever heard of a kid needing adult help to work a coin-op machine? The girl paid him no attention. Séamus realized that her euro coins were of different national origins. The Greek owl, the German eagle. The coin you get back is not the one you put in. Hawkish Dante Alighieri eyed Queen Beatrix with distaste.

Séamus groped for his wallet and found a coin bearing the Irish harp. ‘Would you like one of these?’

She turned and smiled. An older girl in blue denim, slim and close-cropped, swooped to bear her away. Sister? Mother? Au pair? They had a plane to catch, or else she needed to remove the little one from the toxic attentions of an older man.

On a morning such as this, with the warm brickwork of Merrion Square picked out by sidelong sunlight, and a clean blue sky offering a cold picture of spent summer, and along the Georgian vista, far away, tweedy blue hills rising gently, Dublin seemed a good place to be. Not for Jerome Fennessy, of course. Never had been. Never would.

The place did look prettier. That much was true. Prosperity and rampant good taste: Dublin was burgeoning without losing its roots. Venerable squares, carefully preserved and restored, stood like the ghosts of the old brick tenements he remembered, north of the river.

Blackwood’s was one of the larger houses on the Square, with iron and woodwork smartly painted black. Jerome tried the bell. The door was opened by a dark teenage ballet dancer, in a tight black tailleur, circa 1965. Jerome explained that Paul Blake had asked him to drop by. Mr Blake had just popped around the corner. She led him upstairs – those coltish legs! – but she was not his type, her face soured by adult make-up. She pranced him into a rose-coloured drawing room, backed him into a chintzy armchair, handed him a Financial Times. He opened the Weekend section and gazed uncomprehendingly at a garden on Long Island, where someone had designed a patch of old England in a haze of clematis, salvia, cosmos daisies and Tibouchina. Too many words for his wandering mind, his brain still tender from the breakfast interview. Those hungry businessmen at the Merrion Hotel had pricked his veneer of professional competence. His gimcrack qualifications had been probed, his experience dismissed, his lack of vision exposed. They had winced as he drank jugfuls of orange juice. He was not fit to be Deputy Principal of their new College of Language and Cultural Studies. He had let everyone down. Paul had done him a reference, and he had failed to shine.

Lifting his eyes, he spotted through the open door a dishy redhead, running a tap behind a mahogany bar. Jerome essayed a shy smile, which she returned with freckles. A moment later she was in his midst, wearing a voluminous yellow silk dress with puffed white sleeves and carrying four china jugs full of variegated flowers which she laid out on tables across the room. Jerome forced himself to speak:

‘Crowflowers, nettles, daisies and long purples.’

His creaky voice sounded sinister, even to himself. The little moon-faced girl frowned. ‘Are you a teacher?’

‘Is it written on my face?’ he asked in some dismay. He had somehow hoped that this day at least, in his Norfolk jacket and broad-wale corduroy slacks, he might have passed for a minor country gentleman.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I won’t tell.’ She stoked the little fire with coal, whistling under her breath, dipped him a curtsey, and disappeared in a flurry of yellow silk.

Where on earth had she got such a dress? From a theatrical costumier? Such a contrast with her slim workmate, now handing him a cup of bitter coffee and trying not to laugh.

He sipped the coffee, went to the lavatory, dried his hands on the softest of towels, tried the bristle clothesbrush. Paul Blake came bounding up the stairs. ‘Romy! Large as life and twice as handsome! Sorry to hear the news. They phoned to let me know. You did make an impression. Have the sylphs been pampering you? Come to my boudoir.’

Jerome followed him. From the top drawer of his antique walnut desk, Paul extracted a sheet of cream-coloured paper with the familiar heading: AAA.AAA – Anglo-American Academy of London – Accademia Anglo-Americana di Londra, and flourished it like a conjuror’s handkerchief.

Jerome’s throat went dry. He knew the shape of that ancient letterhead. He had chosen the name so as to head the Yellow Pages listings of language schools. Ceased trading. Money owing. People to be avoided, all over London.

Paul tore the paper twice, lengthwise, dangled the four strips in the air. ‘Wiped out, Romy,’ he smiled. ‘Obliterated.’ He dropped the pieces into the paper bin.

‘No, really.’ Jerome held up his hands. That IOU had been haunting him. The last six months had not been kind. Brit-Lang had cut his hours, and his young ladies were growing expensive. To be released from an unpayable debt was a blessing, and a new obligation.

‘No call for it in the first place,’ Blake went on in confidential tones, drowning out his friend’s feeble protests. ‘Your credit was always good with me, Romy. And as it happens, I don’t need the cash. Tell me about the interview.’

‘Dreadful,’ Jerome confessed. ‘They chewed me up. But to forgive me this debt. I hardly know –’

‘Think nothing of it, Romy. You’d do the same for me, were our circumstances reversed. And as luck would have it, you are poised to do me a signal favour. If you’re available, of course, I need someone to pop over to Paris, on behalf of an associate who has a delicate piece of business to transact. All above board, it goes without saying, but super-confidential. I recommended you.’

‘When can I do it?’

‘This very day. Hic et nunc, as they say.’

‘Oh. Yes. I have a flexible ticket.’ He would return to London on Monday instead of this afternoon. He could do something to repay. A sense of relief began to spread through him like milk.

‘Do you know the Midshipman?’ Paul asked. ‘The public house?’

‘Ah. I think I’ve seen it. Tara Street or thereabouts?’

‘Thereabouts. South Brunswick Street. My friend will see you in the snug at eleven o’clock.’

‘Whom shall I ask for?’

‘He’ll know who you are. I’ve described you. Flatteringly, I assure you.’

Jerome consulted his watch. ‘Gosh, just in time.’

‘Attaboy! I value your support.’

Paul Blake watched him fondly as he receded along the Square, looking like a superannuated donkey in his cast-off tweeds.

The crew of the Midshipman was bracing for Saturday lunch. Tables were being set, the shiny carpet vacuum-cleaned, a sweet smell of wax polish blending with the ineradicable pub aroma of stale beer and cigarettes.

‘Professor Fennessy?’

A small fat man wearing a grey suit, grey shoes and a grey hairpiece emerged from the shadows, beckoned Jerome and floated back into the secluded area from which he had come. He subsided onto a velvet bench. ‘Cup o’ tea?’ A high, throaty voice from somewhere west of the Shannon. ‘Or maybe somethin’ stronger? Sammidge? The sammidges here is grand, so they are.’ He himself had set up a double-decker, glistening with salad cream.

‘Nothing for now, thanks.’

The little fat man took a large bite and masticated vigorously. ‘Mulhone,’ he mumbled through the crusts. ‘P. J. Mulhone.’ He gulped a mouthful of tea and chomped his now amphibious sandwich with redoubled vigour, gulping more liquid to clear his gullet. ‘You’re sure you won’t be having a sammidge, Pro-fessor?’

‘I’m all right, thanks.’

‘You won’t mind me polishin’ this off, then?’ And P. J. Mulhone tackled the remains of his snack with animosity, as though chewing the nape of an ancient enemy. Jerome settled into a seat and waited until it was all over.

His host washed down the last noisy morsel with a final aspiration of tea, sucked the tips of his fingers, dabbed his lips with a pink serviette. ‘Smashin’,’ he sighed. ‘Scrumptious, so ’tis.’ He reached under the table, produced a briefcase, fished out a padded envelope and placed it on the table next to Jerome. ‘Now, Pro-fessor,’ he said. ‘This is the thing.’

He peered around to check for eavesdroppers, and proceeded.

‘Doc’ments, d’ya see?’ He tapped the envelope. ‘Vital doc’ments. We have to complete this property deal, pronto. Stric’ly confidential, like. We’re after reservin’ your air ticket, you’re to pick it up at the airport, I’ll hand you this envelope again at the departure gate at two-fifteen sharp. D’ya get me?’

‘More or less. What sort of documents?’

‘Planning permission doc’ments, copies of title deeds, official tenders, plans and drawings. Top secret, d’ya see, though it’s all legal like, but I’ll tell you anyhow because you’re an educated gen’leman and you’ll want to know what you’re gettin’ into. There’s a lot ridin’ on this, Pro-fessor. Not just money, but jobs. Loads of jobs. For the young people of Dublin. And months of work. Our plan’ – here he dropped his voice, as though swallowing an obscenity – ‘is to build a shoppin’ centre, d’ya see? In a deprived area. We been assemblin’ the site for two years, so we have. The centre means work for boys and girls, and it means urban renewal and all the rest, so it does, but the real pain in the arse, pardon me French, is if we don’t secure the site by tomorrow night it gets bought in as an investment by some shower of shaggers in an English feckin’ bank and sits there idle for the next five or ten years doing no good to man or beast.’

‘And these documents have to be signed in Paris?’

‘Not Paris, Pro-fessor. Holland. The thing is because there’s one little parcel of land we need to complete the site, like. That little parcel is controlled by a crowd of Hollanders. Our bid for it is late, d’ya see? We’re after missin’ the shaggin’ deadline, Pro-fessor. The Dublin lawyer having carriage of the sale, as they say, is after leavin’ town last night, he’s over beyond in the Netherlands. He’ll be meetin’ the present owners of the land tomorrow night, in a town called Eindhoven, did you ever hear tell of that place? He’s taking a train down there from Amsterdam, so he is. He’s agreed to put our bid on the table, but only if we get all the paperwork to him fully completed by tonight, so’s he can go over the doc’ments, make sure they’re in order, because he’s supposed to have done all that in Dublin, d’ya see? He’s doin’ us a favour, d’ya see? The dirty eejit.’ P. J. Mulhone opened his round eyes wide, searching Jerome’s face for signs of comprehension.

Jerome was puzzled. ‘I’m delighted to help, of course. But suppose I made some silly mistake. You’d be safer delivering –’

‘No, no, no, can’t be done at all, man. The English bidders, d’ya see, thought they had the whole thing sewn up last Tuesday, when the tender deadline was after passin’. Which wasn’t our fault, mind you, but stric’ly speaking the lawyer fella shouldn’t be acceptin’ the documents off of us at all at all. If our competitor could prove that one of us was over beyond in Holland this weekend, they could undermine the whole shaggin’ biddin’ process and get an injunction to stop the sale going through, so they could. Or if they could prove we used a firm of couriers, same thing. We’d be rightly bunched then, d’ya see? The beauty of you, Pro-fessor, if you don’t mind me sayin’, is I never saw you before in my life and I hope I’ll never meet you again, heh heh. We’re total strangers, so we are. And of course we’ll pay you for your time. Did I mention that at all?’

‘Thanks indeed. May I see the documents?’

‘They’re sealed. Has to be. Why would you be wantin’ to see them anyways?’

‘Well –’

‘What’s your problem, Pro-fessor?’

Jerome bit his tongue.

Mulhone groped for meaning, twigged, waxed indignant. ‘Man dear! D’you think we’re askin’ you to do something shady, like? You think Paul Blake is after leading you astray?’

‘No. Of course not.’ Jerome saw how silly he was being. ‘Forgive me.’

‘I’ll take no offence, then, so I won’t.’ But his voice had gone cold. He cleared his throat. ‘Your cash, Pro-fessor.’ Still scowling, Mulhone handed Jerome a bundle of hundred-euro banknotes, with a small index card clipped to the front. ‘Eight hundred in all. Not your fee, but your expenses, d’ya see? You use this stuff to buy your ticket to Amsterdam today, and pay for your room in the Hotel Poorbuis. The names is all written down on this card. You’re booked into a room with a bathroom off of it, and its own colour television and even a trouser press, like. The lap of luxury, d’ya see? We’re after writin’ the reservation codes for the plane and the hotel on that card. The plane takes off at three o’clock. Now, the Hotel Poorbuis is on the Meijerlaan. It’s written on the card. You take the number 7 tram from Amsterdam central station, get off at Leidseplein. Sit yourself down in the hotel lobby at eight o’clock tonight, with this bag on your knees, so’s the lawyer fella can recognize you when he calls in. He’ll give you a receipt for the doc’ments. You’ll hand me that receipt, here in this room on Monday mornin’ at eleven sharp, and I’ll hand you nineteen hundred smackers as your professional fee. Cash. Between you and me and the Revenue Commissioners, d’ya see?’

‘Perfectly,’ said Jerome. Nineteen hundred euros. Unbelievable. At current rates of exchange, he would be almost twelve hundred richer in sterling. This was a new start, a heaven-sent opportunity. Carlotta Monelli: the pearl-drop earrings! Her shivering smile.

Séamus Joyce, Acting Director of the iDEA, was not behind his desk, but at home in the spacious residence, set in an acre of gardens on the suburban slopes of Glenageary, that he shared with his wife. His mind was snared in a mess of trackless emotions, as he padded through empty bedrooms and bathrooms, consulting his list and packing her Samsonite bag with nightdresses, bedjackets, dressing-gowns, lavender perfumes and soaps. Theresa would not be home today. Autumn was sinking towards winter.

Around the house, Wharfedale speakers poured out Ivie Anderson’s glorious whine – ‘I Got It Bad And That Ain’t Good’ with the Duke Ellington orchestra – while the supersweet saxophone of Johnny Hodges trailed airy tendrils all around her, in Hollywood in the summer of 1941, a full decade before his birth. Séamus had discovered it on a French compilation, bought in Bordeaux on a weekend break, during his European days.

He would soon be on his way to Saint Aidan’s Private Hospital, with a bunch of her favourite chrysanthemums – flowers of the dead, said the French. He would sit with Theresa, take instructions for paying the roofer who had re-slated the Kilmacanogue house, and the painter who was finishing up in Bluebell. He would gossip about the office, about the Minister, about Eileen McTeague, his personal assistant, who had been enquiring with ladylike delicacy about her condition.

He would make an excuse and leave her lying there, to keep his appointment with Dr Maguire Gibson. After weeks of tests, they were circling the cause of her illness.

Theresa had made him what he was. He was moulded by her, bonded by something stronger than love. He was her creature. This was his identity, the cage of his existence.

What’s the point of freedom? Take chickens. They have no use for it. Captivity comes from nature, not circumstance. Released from death row and rede-signated as free-range poultry, chickens would still be caught in chickendom.

Theresa’s things were everywhere: silver thimbles on the occasional table in the sitting room, ebony figurines on the bookshelf, lacquered vases on the windowsill, a grey Angora cardigan on her chaise-longue, colour swatches in the workroom, and the crochet hook she might never again pick up. All strange, these familiar effects.

The minutes were slow in passing. The house was heavy with the scent of plants. Séamus thought about being alone again. Wished he hadn’t been born a chicken. Listened instead to long-dead Ivie Anderson singing ‘Jump for Joy’, just for him. Glanced in the mirror, caught sight of his mother’s smooth face. Averted his eyes, patted his flat thinning hair. Picked up the crochet hooks and wool, plunged them into her bag, zipped it up, made for the open air.

Davnet’s dusting was finished. It being Saturday, no members had shown up. Mr Blake had nipped out again, so she sat quietly with Jenny, and they worked on their homework together. First history, then biology. Jenny recited the questions and Davnet had all the answers, yet they both knew it was Davnet who needed Jenny. These were the best bits in her entire life.

The doorbell rang. Jenny skipped downstairs. Davnet leaned over the banisters. The scrawny teacher was back again. Pink flamingo skin, ingratiating twinkle. Davnet watched his reaction to Jenny as she twirled around. No surprises there. Beauty and the Beast. But his sad eyes flickering over Davnet were equally yearning.

‘If it doesn’t inconvenience you,’ he was saying, ‘I’d like to wait for Mr Blake, just in case –’

Davnet showed him into the reading room. He refused coffee, settled into an armchair, pretended to read the National Geographic.

She perched at the bar, putting Jenny through a mock oral examination while they polished the warm glasses from the dishwasher. Jenny’s throaty voice stumbled over the nasals and fluting sounds of French. After six years, she still had trouble differentiating vous from vu. A strand of dark hair fell across her hazel eyes. Davnet fixed the moment in her image bank.

Jenny changed her clothes, hugged Davnet around the neck, kissed her cheek, clattered off to catch her bus. Davnet, pumped full of happiness, filled the ice-buckets, stored them in the freezer, poured fresh water into ice-cube trays.

‘Am I holding you up?’ The oldster was teetering on the drawing-room threshold.

‘Not really. I don’t have to be home until three.’

‘It’s just that I’m anxious to have a word with Mr Blake. Where did you get that wonderful dress, if I may make so bold as to ask?’

‘Secondhand shop. Mr Blake wants us to wear period costume. Even in the mornings. It’s part of what he calls the look and feel. He gives us cash to buy the clothes. No jeans and combats. Jenny goes for slinky stuff. I go for the puffy look. Guess why. Am I talking too much?’

‘Not at all. Did anyone ever tell you you look like a painting?’

‘Rubens? I tend to hit people who say Rubens.’

‘Gosh. No, Rembrandt. It’s in the National Gallery, on Trafalgar Square. Rembrandt thought your name was Saskia. I’ll send you a card of it when I get back home. I teach in London. You should come and see yourself. Oh, by the way, I’m Jerome Fennessy. What’s your real name?’

‘Davnet O’Reilly.’

‘Where do you live, Davnet?’

‘I never give my address to strange gentlemen.’

‘You think I’m strange,’ he said, ‘you should meet my wife.’ And wished he hadn’t.

Paul Blake was returning to base after a sortie. Road-testing a credit card, he had picked up a scarf in Kevin & Howlin, and a box of Strauss in HMV. He had also reserved three tickets to Heathrow for the weekend – business class because the plebs had stuffed up the steerage. Dee Dee and Felicity would enjoy the champagne, even if they refused to talk to their father. The tickets were flexible, which was just as well as the trip had yet be negotiated with barking Désireée. No hurry about that. Sufficient unto the day. His immediate plans involved a Havana cigar and some Viennese waltzes, and possibly a peek into the Financial Times colour magazine, entitled ‘How To Spend It’, which frankly had never been his number one personal problem. Put things behind him. Besides, the timeshare brochures were starting to arrive. He needed to plan his retreat on the Algarve. Nothing lavish: a simple white-walled villa. Four weeks in the year. A small glass of madeira to put him in the mood?

He fished out his key. Young Davnet had made a super job of the brasses.

When suddenly the black door swung open and there floated up before him like a corpse from a harbour the frozen mackerel face of Jerome Fennessy, about to jump ship.

Blake did his best to smile. ‘Don’t tell me they turned you down!’ An unfortunate phrase, considering Jerome’s employment record.