He pauses, and hangs up.
His heart is still pounding.
He almost laughs.
At around eleven thirty Jimmy gets a callback from Gary Lynch.
‘I got your message,’ the voice says. ‘So. Who are you? What do you want?’
Jimmy explains. He’s a journalist. He has some questions about Susie Monaghan. Any chance they could meet?
‘Susie? Holy fuck.’ Lynch sounds drunk. There’s noise in the background, voices, music. He’s in a pub somewhere or a club. ‘Yeah,’ he then says. ‘Why not. I’m in Alba, in town. I’ll be here for another hour or two.’
He hangs up.
Jimmy looks at his phone.
That’s it?
Does he go and meet him? It’s late, but if Lynch is drunk, then yes – going on today’s form. Now is probably the perfect time to go and meet him.
He gets ready in a hurry and heads out. He flags down a taxi on Strand Road and makes it into town in about twenty minutes.
Alba is a club just off George’s Street, over a trendy bistro called Montmartre.
As he is going up the stairs to the club Jimmy realises that he doesn’t know what Gary Lynch looks like. He’s probably seen photographs of him, but none that he remembers, none that stuck. He walks into the main room, which is bright and airy, with a long bar running along the back. The place is crowded but not hectically so, not as crowded on a Thursday night as it would have been a couple of years ago.
There is music. It is loud, pounding.
He is greeted by a hostess.
‘Hi,’ he shouts. ‘Gary Lynch?’
The hostess smiles and points over to a side room.
‘Can I take your jacket?’
Jimmy shakes his head. ‘No, you’re grand,’ he says, and smiles back. He makes his way through the crowd. As he approaches the side room, he sees that it’s a small lounge area with leather sofas and armchairs. Two couples, facing each other across a low table, occupy one part of the room. They’re drinking pints and talking loudly. To the right, sitting alone in a deep armchair, and looking slightly forlorn, is a guy in a suit. He’s about forty. He’s slim, has thinning dark hair and a goatee. In his right hand he’s holding a glass of what looks like whiskey or brandy.
Jimmy leans forward. ‘Gary?’
The man looks up. He seems puzzled. After a moment, he says, ‘Holy shit, that was fast. You’re the journalist?’
Jimmy nods and sits down in the armchair next to the one Gary Lynch is sitting in.
He holds out a hand, ‘Jimmy Gilroy.’
They shake.
‘So,’ Gary Lynch says, ‘Susie Monaghan? That was another lifetime.’ He grunts. ‘Man, another planet.’
Jimmy leans forward to hear properly.
‘In what sense?’ he says.
‘Well.’ Lynch takes a sip from his glass and then explains that, what was it, three, four years ago, he was a corporate executive on a salary of two hundred and fifty K per annum, with the same again in bonuses and perks. That he was footloose and fancy free, always had the latest Beemer, city breaks every fucking weekend. But that two years ago he lost his job, company upped sticks and relocated to Poland, go figure. And that since then he’s done a stint as a taxi-driver, he’s worked at a call centre and he’s now the manager of a shoe shop around the corner on George’s Street. ‘Keeping the head above water, you know?’
‘Yeah,’ Jimmy says, debating whether or not he should pitch in with a reference to his own circumstances.
‘I’m only glad I never got married,’ Lynch goes on. ‘Though I came close with Susie. Guys I know from the old days? Stuck now with kids, debts, mortgages they can’t afford. It’s a nightmare.’
Looking around, Jimmy wonders where some of these guys are tonight – at home, probably, watching CSI or an old Leinster schools cup final on Setanta Sports.
‘Talk to me,’ Jimmy says, ‘about that weekend, the conference. Drumcoolie Castle.’
Lynch looks at him and laughs nervously. ‘Jesus, cut to the chase, why don’t you? What kind of journalist are you anyway? Is this an article or -’
‘I’m writing a biography of Susie,’ Jimmy says firmly. This may no longer be true, but it sounds good, and it works.
‘Oh, well then,’ Lynch says, nodding his head sagely, ‘a biography. Cool. Am I going to be in it?’
‘That depends. I reckon so. You were engaged to Susie, weren’t you?’
‘Yeah. For a while.’ He takes another sip from his glass. ‘But I couldn’t keep up with her, to be honest. And I was small potatoes anyway, where Susie was concerned. I may have effectively been on half a million per annum, but back then that was nothing. I didn’t own anything, I didn’t run anything. What Susie needed was someone with assets, property, money in the bank. Staying power. There were guys before me like that, but I guess they didn’t work out either. And probably for the same reason. Couldn’t keep up with her.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Oh.’ He groans. ‘Do I have to spell it out? She was a fucking pig when it came to the coke.’ He clicks his tongue and shakes his head. ‘What she was, basically, was a coke whore, no other word for it. That’s what was going on that weekend. It was all about the charlie.’
Jimmy’s heart sinks. Does he want to hear this?
‘What do you mean?’
‘Look, I’m not a hundred per cent certain, but I had this feeling at the time that she was involved in setting up some sort of a… deal, and a pretty big one. I bumped into her late on the Saturday night and she more or less told me that straight out. But when I pressed her for details, she went all coy.’
‘A coke deal?’
‘I assumed so, yeah.’
A bar girl appears at this point and Lynch holds up his glass. Jimmy nods at her and says, ‘Yeah, whatever that is, and I’ll have the same.’
The bar girl smiles and makes a face that says, gents, er, I’m not a mind reader.
‘Oh, sorry,’ Lynch says, ‘a triple Hennessy.’
Jimmy swallows and nods.
The bar girl retreats.
‘So,’ Jimmy says, after a suitable pause, ‘why did she go for the helicopter ride? The story doing the rounds was that she was trying to make you jealous. Heading off with Niall Feeley.’
‘Hah. I heard that one, too, and you know what? Niall Feeley was a close friend of mine, but he was big into the show tunes as well as the paragliding, so that doesn’t wash. There was something else going on.’
He stops there, looks into his glass and swirls what’s left in it around.
Jimmy waits.
Lynch then knocks the brandy back in one go. He holds the glass aloft, allowing the burning sensation to work its little bit of magic.
Jimmy fights the impulse to reach over and shake him. After a moment, he says, quietly, ‘So, what do you think was going on?’
‘I don’t know. For the life of me.’ He pauses. ‘Jimmy, isn’t it?’
Jimmy nods.
‘Look, Jimmy, Susie was great, she was funny, she was different – she was the light of my fucking life for a while, I can tell you that – but by the end there, by that weekend, she was in serious trouble, she was strung out, and I just didn’t want to get involved. I didn’t want to know. So what I’m telling you is, there was something going on, sure… but what that was exactly? I haven’t a bloody clue.’