‘I’ve been massaging the figures for months, sending bogus returns to Head Office. It was part of the agreement with Rickard. I don’t know how much longer this can go on before they discover the manipulation, start asking awkward questions and demanding repayment of his massive debt.’
Bishop Connor shot him an angry look. ‘I need my money too. Why isn’t he here? What can be more important at this stage of our plans?’
O’Brien shrugged his shoulders.
‘How soon can Rickard’s company start hauling down that monstrosity of a building?’ Bishop Connor was anxious to be rid of the physical reminder that had caused him so much trouble over the years.
‘There’s a waiting period for objections. A month or so I think. Could be longer.’
‘What? Another month?’ Bishop Connor’s cheeks flared fluorescent red. He picked up a glass of water and swallowed it in a single gulp.
‘That’s the system,’ O’Brien said. ‘And the building cannot be demolished. It’s on some Protected Structures Register.’
‘You know what I mean. It would be nice, though, to see it all crumpled into the ground.’
‘It’s difficult to bury secrets, isn’t it?’ O’Brien looked up from beneath heavy eyelids.
‘When that place is gone, all ill goes with it. And it will be a fantastic place when it is finished,’ Bishop Connor said. One hundred and twenty hotel rooms and an eighteen-hole golf course. Lifetime membership. And St Angela’s history buried. Forever.
‘That’s if he has the money to do it,’ O’Brien said.
‘I hope you’re not serious.’
‘Like I said, Rickard’s company is sitting on a stack of loans. If even one bank calls in its share, the whole thing will collapse and Rickard will be bankrupt.’
Bishop Connor hit the redial button.
‘Rickard, we could do with you at this meeting. Things need explaining.’ He then held the phone at arm’s length looking at it, his face curling into itself with anger. ‘He hung up on me.’
‘I just want my money.’ O’Brien rose to leave.
‘Where are you going? We are not finished yet,’ Bishop Connor said.
‘I think I am,’ O’Brien said. ‘I honestly think I am.’
One Hundred Two
Tom Rickard disconnected the call as Melanie came down the stairs and placed a suitcase in the hall. He looked at his wife, silently questioning.
Arms folded, she stood on their ridiculously expensive Italian marble floor and stared back at him.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked.
‘I’m going nowhere,’ Melanie hissed through closed lips, her make-up and clothes immaculate.
‘But, Mel . . .’ he began.
‘Don’t you Mel me. I smell her, you know. Every time you come home from your soirees. Our son is missing and I’ve had enough, Tom. Enough!’
Rickard sighed, buttoned up his coat.
‘This is it so?’ he said.
‘You made your bed so go lie with your dog.’
‘But Jason . . . we have to find our son . . .’ He gesticulated his arms about wildly.
‘You drove my baby away. Go.’
She pushed past him into the living room, the echo of her high heels deafening him. He looked around at all he’d worked for and saw emptiness. He’d lost everything. He picked up the suitcase and pulled the door behind him with a soft thud.
He drove away, leaving his wife and life behind. He had to find his son.
Mike O’Brien did not like the way the meeting had ended with the bishop. He drove erratically around Ragmullin. Was he hoping to get arrested for dangerous driving? He didn’t know. He didn’t know who or what he was any more. He was lost. More lost than ever before in his life and that was saying something.
Tom Rickard had ruined everything. But wasn’t it his own fault too? Being bullied by the bishop. He should have remained strong in the face of that adversary. But he knew he had never been strong. Weak and manipulated – that’s what he was. The carbon beneath the diamond, according to Lottie-fucking-Parker. We’ll see, he thought, shrugging resolve back into his bones.
He parked outside the developer’s house. All the windows blazed light out on to the snow, turning it yellow. What could he say to Rickard? That he was sorry? For what he did, for what he was about to do? No! He was through with being sorry.
He was going to stand up and be counted. It was time for him to come out from the shadows.
Gunning the engine, he drove away.
He would leave his mark.
Bishop Terence Connor ran his fingers through his hair. The meeting confirmed what he already knew. Rickard was going to screw him.
He marched from wall to wall, bare feet on plush carpet, leaving footprints in the deep pile. He had come too far to lose it all now. He wasn’t about to let things slip away without a fight. There was too much at stake. St Angela’s owed him.
He put on his socks and shoes. Pulled on his coat.
A cold edge, deep within his bones, told him it was going to be a long night.
He warmed up the engine of his car before driving through his automatic gates and into the pelting snow.
The four walls were starting to fall in on top of him. Derek Harte clawed at his throat. Water, he needed water. He needed to get out of here.
He’d already had five years in prison and he didn’t want to spend a minute longer in it. He’d said goodbye to that life. Metal crashed on metal, doors opened and closed, keys rattled in locks, laughter and crying, shouting and screaming. His life was made up of bad choices. Starting with his bitch of a mother, whoever she might be. He hoped it was Susan Sullivan. Because she was dead and he wouldn’t have to look for her and kill her.
‘Let me out of here,’ he screamed at the walls. ‘Let me out . . . out . . . out.’
He curled into a ball on the floor and screeched at the injustice that was his shit of a life.
Patrick O’Malley looked at the canal for a long time. The cold ice cracking in places, solid in others. The streetlights, casting shadows and shapes through the falling snow.
He craved a drink, just one, a sip – no more than that. Two days without alcohol flooding his veins. And he felt worse than he’d ever felt. No, that wasn’t true. The worst time of his life was the night of the Black Moon. He’d never known such terror as then. The memories flashed and dimmed. Fitzy screaming for his life. With his freckled nose and bright hair. Brave boy. A little hero. O’Malley could see the face clearly now and a spark pricked at the back of his brain. He thought of the photo the inspector had shown him. Was it Fitzy? Was the boy in the photograph the same boy buried under the apple tree? He shook his head. He couldn’t be certain, but thought it might be.
Another image appeared on the shining ice of the canal. Susan, James and himself, looking out of the window as his little broken friend, Fitzy, was dumped in the clay. He closed his eyes. The memory flickered like a frame-by-frame movie. The men with their shovels, cracking the hard earth to make way for the young soul.
He opened his eyes and the scene remained there, a vivid vision. Suddenly, he could see the faces of the two men reflected in the ice, floating up from his subconscious. And the terror returned, stronger and more violent than before.
He needed a drink.
But first, he decided he would tell the detective lady everything he knew.
One Hundred Three