Final Venture

'Thank you, Simon,' Craig said, finally.

'I never thought they'd come up with the whole amount.'

'But they did! They did!'

I stared out of the window at Long Island disappearing behind me. I was pleased about Net Cop. Very pleased. But it still left all my other problems out there.

Craig noticed my silence. 'Hey, Simon, what's up? You've been fighting for this as much as I have.'

I smiled at him. 'Yes. And I am truly very pleased.'

'So?'

So I told him about how I was everyone's favourite suspect for Frank's murder. I told him that Lisa had left me because of it, and that I needed to find out more.

'Perhaps I can help,' he said. 'My dad retired a few years ago, but I know a lot of people in the department. Hey, I come from a good Catholic family. I got more cousins than you got fingers and toes, and most of 'em are cops.'

'Perhaps you can,' I said. I took a moment to get my thoughts together. 'The man leading the investigation is assigned to the Essex County DA's office. Sergeant Mahoney is his name. He doesn't like me. It would be interesting to find out a bit more about him.'

'I'll ask around.'

'And can you get a look at any criminal records?'

Craig smiled. 'Of course not. That would be illegal. What do you want to know?'

'See if you can find out whether the following people have a criminal record. Do you have a pen?'

Craig raised his eyebrows. 'What do I need a pen for? I know pi to twenty-nine decimal places.'

'OK, sorry. The names are Arthur Altschule, Gilbert Appleby, Edward Cook – that's Lisa's brother, and,' I paused over the next name, but I remembered Daniel's words,'Diane Zarrilli.'

'Nice to see you trust your partners.'

'Someone killed Frank, Craig. And it wasn't me.'

'OK, I'll see what I can do,' he said. 'Just as long as you have a drink with me when we get to Boston. And that will be champagne.'

'Ow!' A stab of pain ran down my shoulder as I swung the boat into the water. Although I didn't much feel like it, I had kept my Saturday morning appointment to go rowing with Kieran. Are you OK, Simon?' he asked.

'I got into a spot of bother a couple of nights ago. My shoulder still hurts.'

'A spot of bother? Do you mean a fight?'

'You could call it that. I was mugged on the street outside Pete's, downtown. With Daniel Hall.'

'Really? How much did they take?'

'It was odd. They didn't take anything.'

'Oh, I see. So they just didn't like your face?'

'I don't know what they didn't like.'

I puffed as we carried the boat to the river. My shoulder ached like hell.

'It was probably Daniel. Did he make some smart-arse comment?'

'I don't think so. He thinks it was me they were after. I've been in some trouble recently.'

'Must be some pretty bad trouble.'

'I suppose it is,' I said. 'But even so, I don't know why anyone would want to beat me up. One of them spoke Russian.'

'Really?'

'It sounded like it.'

We threw the boat in the water, and set off at a slow pace. I wanted to warm up gently.

'I read somewhere that the Russians are the new boys in town when it comes to organized crime,' said Kieran. 'Drugs, money-laundering, loan-sharking, cabs.'

'Are cabs a criminal activity?'

'When they're driven by Russians they are,' said Kieran. 'Do you remember that guy Sergei Delesov?'

'Yes.' He was a very able Russian in our class at business school. I hadn't known him well.

'There was a rumour he was mixed up with some of them.'

'Delesov? A Harvard graduate?'

'That was the rumour.'

'Where is he now?' I asked. 'Maybe he might know something.'

'I'm pretty sure he went back to Russia. I think he's already running some bank there.'

We rowed on at a slow, steady pace. The aching in my muscles eased a little as I warmed up, but I didn't want to push anything. We met another pair who asked us to do a 'piece' to the next bridge, something we were usually game for, but I declined. I apologized to Kieran for my tentative performance afterwards, but he told me not to worry, he could use a gentle start to his Saturday.

Weekends are tough when you love someone and they hate you. Especially if you're alone.

The full reality of Lisa leaving me was sinking in, bringing with it the awful thought that she might not come back. At first, it had all seemed absurd, almost unreal. Frank being murdered seemed absurd. I had never known anyone who was murdered. And then suddenly Lisa going, shattering our marriage out of nowhere. It was so unfair. My father had been able to womanize for over a decade and get away with it because my mother adored him. But despite my desperate efforts to avoid becoming my father, my own marriage wasn't going to last a year.

The loneliness of that thought crushed in on me.

It should have been a perfect marriage. We seemed to me completely compatible. No, we were completely compatible. No matter what Lisa said or did I would always believe that. Our respective mothers had doubted it from the start, but they were wrong.

The wedding had been a nightmare. Or rather, the wedding itself wasn't, but planning it was awful. When I told my mother that I was marrying an American woman, she was cautiously optimistic. I think she assumed I was following those many landed Englishmen who had found themselves a colonial dowry to keep the family estate intact. When she found out Lisa was Jewish, without a trust fund, and that she intended to keep her maiden name, the disapproval could have frozen the Atlantic. I took Lisa to England, partly to show my mother what a lovely person she was. My mother didn't notice, but insisted on talking about pork and Saturdays.

Lisa's mother tried to disapprove too, but did a much worse job of it. She had set her heart on a nice Jewish son-in-law, and my blond hair and blue eyes just didn't fit. But her pleasure at her daughter's happiness, and the fact that she and I got on quite well, made her abandon her earlier hopes, or at least ignore them.

Over the first six months of our marriage, I thought we had proved them both wrong. I refused to admit now that they were right.

Craig burst in on my moping on Saturday evening.

'That was quick,' I said, getting him a beer.

'The Boston Police Department never sleeps,' said Craig. 'Or at least the computers still work at weekends.'

'So, what have you got?'

'Mahoney, first. My dad knew him. He worked in Boston for twenty years as a street patrolman and then detective. Then he got himself shot, and his wife demanded that he quit. He transferred to the State Police as a compromise.'

'I thought he looked streetwise,' I said.

'Oh, he was a good detective, my father says. He used to do things the old way. He'd get a hunch and he'd play it. Often he'd be right.'

Oh, great. I was obviously his hunch on this case.

'Do you know anything about any sympathies he might have with the IRA?'

Craig looked surprised. 'I don't know. I can check. I mean, he's Irish, like half the cops, especially the older ones. And most of the Irish in Boston do kind of think you should get out of their country. No offence meant.' I smiled thinly. 'Why? Do you think he's picking on you because you're a Brit?'

'Something like that,' I replied. Given Craig's own ancestry, I wanted to leave out my Northern Ireland tour of duty if I could.

'I can check if you like,' said Craig.

'If it's no trouble. Now, what about the others?'

'There are a coupla Edward Cooks with records in California, but none of them looks like your guy. Nothing on Gil. Nor on Diane Zarrilli.'

I was surprised to feel a small wave of relief when I heard about Diane. I was also glad that Gil was clean. Eddie was a bit of a disappointment.

'And Art?'

'Now, this guy has an interesting file. He was involved with a company that sold UNIX boxes. His partner, a guy named Dennis Slater, liked to invent customers who he'd sell the same box to several times over. When they sold the company, Slater was found out, and he blew himself away, or at least that's the way it was left.'