Ninemile House Read online

  Completely oblivious to the war going on in her head, James nodded. “Yes, Mick Roberts did get the contract, but only because his offer beat the others by a mile. There was nothing fraudulent about it. No dirty tricks. Everything was open and above board.”

  “Not according to the documents obtained by the press,” Derry pointed out. “According to them, his offer was derisory in comparison to what some of the others offered. On that basis, what inference could people draw other than that it was a deal hammered out between the pair of you and that you were on the take. Let’s face it, you wouldn’t be the first politician to take a sweetener.”

  James ran a weary hand through his hair. Derry couldn’t help but notice that it trembled a little. “The documents are forgeries, Derry. You remember why I sacked Sinead? I caught her photocopying some confidential papers. The horse had already bolted, though. She already had what she wanted. After that, it was a simple matter to alter the figures, so that it appeared that I was favouring Mick Roberts over everyone else. Next step was to leak them to the press via, who else, but her uncle, Petey O’Donnell, and wait for the shit to hit the fan.”

  The slut and the Slug! Derry felt a shiver of revulsion run through her. The mystery of who paid for Sinead’s trout pout, fancy jewellery and designer clothes was solved. The Trib would have paid a lot for a scoop of this magnitude. It would be interesting to see what happened when it all turned out to be a put up job. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown! Petey O’Donnell had better hope that his own jibe wouldn’t come back to haunt him.

  Somebody banged on the door for the hundredth time and Derry frowned, wishing to hell they’d give up and go, knowing from experience that they’d camp on the doorstep for days if necessary. You didn’t go into reporting unless you had vast reserves of patience and the stamina required to stalk your quarry to the point of death.

  “Presumably the other contenders will have kept copies of the original papers and a comparison will soon show that you’ve been stitched up.”

  “True,” James agreed. “That’s what I’m banking on, but you know how these matters can drag on for so long that by the time they’re finally resolved and the truth emerges, enough mud has stuck to cover you from head to toe. For the rest of your life, you’ll always have the pursed-lips, no-smoke-without-fire contingent. And that’s what Sinead is counting on. The bitch wants to ruin my reputation. She’s out to destroy me, Derry.”

  “And Mick Roberts?” she asked, again having to crunch out the name. It leaked like poison in her mouth. “Why does she want to ruin him? Another ex-lover, is he?”

  James looked pained. “I am not an ex lover, Derry. It happened one time and one time only and I’ve held my hand up to it. I’m prepared to take whatever blame, whatever consequences you want to chuck at me, but please, can I just get over this latest kick-in-the-arse first? As for Mick Roberts, I think she just had to pick somebody and he was just unlucky enough to be the other fall guy. I feel sorry for him too.”

  Derry didn’t. She didn’t feel the slightest bit sorry for him. On the contrary, she wanted him to suffer in every way possible and, soon, when he was dying, begging for mercy at her feet, he would learn what real suffering was. The kind of suffering he had inflicted on her innocent fifteen-year-old sister.

  ***

  Mahendra stood about a foot behind Gabby’s shoulder, his eyes riveted to the back of her head as she gazed out to sea, seemingly transfixed by a boat on the horizon, in reality seeing nothing at all. She’d made him stand there, so he wouldn’t be able to see her face and what it cost her to tell him her story.

  “And that’s how I came to live with Derry and her family . . .” her voice trailed off, leaving in it’s place the kind of shocked hush that falls after a piercing scream in a place of worship, and then both became intensely aware of the sounds of normality filtering through, surf crashing on nearby rocks, the deep throb of an aeroplane passing overhead, the high-pitched shrieks of children playing farther up the strand.

  Despite there being a stiff breeze, little beads of sweat stood out on her forehead and she could feel her heart thudding almost painfully in her chest. Never before had she trusted anyone enough to tell them her story, the complete unabridged edition, and now Gabby felt naked, vulnerable and defenceless all over again, the protective carapace painfully constructed over the course of thirty years, a broken shell at her feet. When no sound came from Mahendra, she turned slowly around preparing herself for the disgust she knew she would find on his face. It was a risk she had had to take. He didn’t deserve to be fooled any longer, to go on imagining that she was a nice person, a respectable person. Gabby McManus was a tramp. She was a slut. She was neither use nor ornament. It was time he knew the truth.

  Mahendra was crying, great silent sobs racking his slender frame, his great black eyes awash with tears that soaked his face and dripped off his chin onto the front of his shirt turning the pale sky-blue material to the colour of ink. Slowly his arms came up, reached for her and drew her into a protective circle against his chest. And then he was raining kisses on her face and lips like he would never stop, murmuring soothingly in his own language, trying desperately to undo the appalling damage inflicted by others on his injured bird.

  When, at last, he held her slightly away from him, he made a promise. Tenderly, he took her hand, placed it palm against his heart. “I am here for you now,” he said in his gentle way. “You will cry no more tears I will always be here for you.”

  ***

  That it should come to this, Derry thought, with what was the still sane part of her mind, stepping into a graffiti covered lift in Ballymun Towers and pressing the button for the twenty-fifth floor. Who would believe it? Who would believe that Derry Quinn, successful investigative journalist, eminently respectable wife and mother would find herself in one of the worst sink estates in Dublin on her way to purchase an illegal fire arm?

  As the door of the lift inched slowly closed, the smell of stale urine rose in an acrid cloud that almost caused her to gag. “James Dunn is a shit head”, she read on the wall opposite, placing her hand over her mouth and trying not to breathe too deeply. “Dano’s Ma is a slut.” “Up the IRA!” Half-fearful, her eyes followed the progress of the lift as it creaked past different floors, hoping that no one would get in, at the same time wanting desperately to delay the moment of reckoning when she would have to get out and meet with the notorious Dekko. For five-hundred quid, Dekko, no surname given, would supply her with a ‘piece’, but he was a dangerous bastard and she should get in and out of there sharpish. That information, gleaned from a less than salubrious contact through her work with Dublin’s underbelly, had cost her another two hundred quid.

  As the lift ground to a halt with a disturbing series of shudders, clanks and bangs, she stepped gingerly out and found herself confronted with an armour plated door, in which a grille had been inserted. A window to one side had been broken and boarded up. Lager cans and cigarette butts littered the floor and there was a pool of half-dried vomit over in the corner, flanked by a smaller pool of some darker liquid that looked suspiciously like blood. It was all Derry could do not to jump straight back in the lift again, but the thoughts of Gabby and what she endured spurred her on. She who hesitates is lost and a second later, the lift began its less than stately procession back down to the ground floor again. Fate had taken the decision for her. Raising her hand she knocked on the door, tentatively at first, then harder a second time when there was no response.

  “Yeah?” The grille slid back and a girl’s face appeared, broken down into putty-coloured pixels.

  “I-I’m here to see Dekko. Sammy sent me.” For a moment, Derry had an insane desire to laugh. It was all so cloak and dagger, a million miles removed from her normal life.

  “He ‘spectin you?”

  Derry nodded. “I think so. I’m Brenda.” No real names, Sammy had warned. What you don’t know won’t harm you and vice verse. The girl disappeared for a moment.
Derry heard her mutter to somebody. The grille slid closed again and then the door opened, only just enough to allow her to squeeze through. In a flash her trained eye took everything in. A short corridor led into a surprisingly spacious living room, itself, surprisingly neat and well-furnished. The girl, Derry estimated her to be about twenty, was pretty but emaciated looking, her greasy blond hair hanging in streels down her face, her eyes, the dark sunken eyes of an addict, dominating her small face. Track marks were visible on her arms, one of them still bearing a dot of blood and a slight bruise from where she had shot up only moments before. A blond curly-headed child of about eighteen months dressed only in a nappy played on the floor with a wooden spoon, banging it up and down. Judging from the smell, Derry guessed he hadn’t been changed any time recently. On a leather settee in front of an overly-large TV, a man, presumably, Dekko lay sprawled, a can of lager balanced on his stomach. Morecambe & Wise was on.

  “Hi,” Derry said stepping forward.

  Ignoring her, the girl picked up the baby and bore him kicking and screaming off into a different room. Slowly the man turned his head. Mid-thirties, Derry guessed, a body-builder with more than a passing interest in steroids. His sweatshirt, bearing the legend, ‘Rolling Stoned’ was stretched across pecs that were never meant to be quite so developed. His hair was short, but not skin-head short. Clean shaven except for a narrow box-beard, he looked her slowly over with eyes so pale as to be almost colourless. Merciless eyes, the expression came to her, as her body instinctively tensed into fight or flight mode.

  “Gonna have to check you.” His accent was broad Dublin laced with a surfeit of testosterone.

  “Check me?”

  “For wires and that. Can’t afford to take any risks in this game. You might be a cop. You look like a cop!”

  Again Derry fought an insane desire to laugh. It really was like stepping into a parallel universe. “I’m not a cop. Sammy sent me.”

  “Still gonna have to check you.” Getting up from the settee, he ambled casually over and Derry was surprised to see that he wasn’t much taller than her own five foot six. Broader by far, but taller, definitely not. Somehow it made him seem less menacing and gave her more confidence.

  She shrugged. “Fine, go ahead and check. I’ve got nothing to hide.” Two seconds later she regretted the invitation as tauntingly he trailed his hands slowly across her breasts, down her back to her bottom and in between her jean-clad legs, leaving her in no doubt that this one part of his job he really got off on. Furious, Derry chalked another black mark up against Michael Kinnane.

  Satisfied she wasn’t wired, Dekko stepped back. “You got the money?”

  “Five hundred,” Derry confirmed, just about managing to stop herself from adding ‘in used notes’. She had a feeling he might not share her sense of, admittedly, black humour.

  “I told Sammy, seven hundred.” Insolently, those pale, colourless eyes travelled over her.

  Forewarned that he might pull a stunt like that, Derry steeled herself to keep her voice even. “Five hundred is what I’ve got.” She shrugged. “But if we can’t do business . . . ”. Taking a gamble, she turned away from him. A low chuckle brought her swinging back round again.

  “You know for a posh tart, you’ve sure got some balls. I like that. You don’t know just how much of a risk you took turning your back on me. Last one that did that got his throat cut.”

  Somehow, Derry had no difficulty in believing him. It was an effort to keep her nerve. “So, then, can you . . .”

  “Sure. What you got in mind?”

  Derry shrugged. “I don’t know really. I don’t know much about guns. Something small I can fit in my handbag I expect.”

  “Small, but deadly, eh?” Derry had a feeling he was talking about himself. “I got just the thing. Wait there!” Disappearing off in the direction the girl had taken earlier, he reappeared with a large brown padded envelope, which he emptied onto a table. “Here she is, the little darling. Beretta, 9 mm, lately liberated from the US marines, but the least said about that the better.” Lovingly he picked it up and stroked it. “Length 8.54”. Height 5.51”. Weight 2.55lbs fully loaded. Semi-automatic. Fifteen round capacity.” He made a kind of showman’s salaam. “Yours for only five hundred quid, ammo thrown in. Here.” He shoved it into Derry’s hand. What do you think?”

  “I think I’m going to faint,” Derry whispered, feeling for a moment like she was standing outside of her own body. Up till now, none of it had seemed quite real. But with the cool, heavy feel of the metal in her hand, it was time to wake up and smell the reckoning.

  Dekko laughed. “Great, isn’t it? A real power trip! You can do some serious damage with that. A present for the old man, is it? Shag some other bird, did he?” He held up his hand. “No. No. Don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know.” As he slipped the weapon back into the paper bag, Derry counted out the money in front of him. The die was cast.

  CHAPTER 23

  It didn’t take Derry long to discover where Mick Roberts lived, a few discreet enquires, a hint that she wanted to do a story on him, and people fell over themselves to tell her what she needed to know. Jotting the information down on her reporter’s notebook, she stashed it in her handbag alongside the brown envelope containing the Beretta and the mini tape recorder on which she was going to record his confession – at gun point, if necessary. Since learning of Gabby’s rape, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it and now it was fair to say that she had become obsessed almost to the point of madness with getting justice for sister. Over the last few months everything else had paled gradually into insignificance. Her job, James and even the twins to some extent had to take a backseat. Vengeance had been a long time coming. Thirty years, to be exact. Thirty years of pain and suffering and deprivation for Gabby, a fucked up mind and a stolen life. Thirty years a-growing for Michael Kinnane, the self-styled Mick Roberts, a new identity, a new life, a ladder up to the top of his tree. Time the ladder was pulled out from beneath him, Derry thought bitterly. Time to face his nemeses. Her!

  ***

  “Mrs Quinn? What a pleasant surprise.” Visibly taken aback, but trying hard not to show it, Mick Roberts stepped back from his door and invited Derry in. It had begun to rain and drops glistened on her hair and the shoulders of her overcoat.

  “What a beautiful house.” Derry looked with appreciation around the huge vaulted corridor, understated, elegant and expensive, just like its owner. In its previous incarnations it had been a church, a library and a nursery school, after which it had fallen into disrepair until he came along, waved his developer’s magic wand, and restored it to something approaching, if not surpassing, it’s former splendour.

  “Thank you.” He cleared his throat, plainly at a loss to know why she was there, but far too well mannered to ask. “Can I get you a drink? Coffee? Wine? Something stronger?”

  “A glass of wine would be good.” Derry bit her lip, needing something to steady her nerves. She followed him through to an equally impressive looking sitting room, where an enormous book case took up one side of the wall and judging from the battered spines on many of the contents, they weren’t just for show. A well thumbed copy of the Bible lay face downwards on a nearby coffee table, placed there, presumably, when he went to answer the doorbell to her. The Bible! She allowed herself a mental snort. Well, he would need to say his prayers by the time she was finished with him.

  “Red? White?” As before he was looking at her intently, but this time Derry didn’t flatter herself that he fancied her. He was looking for Gabby, Theresa, as he’d known her, in her face. Embers of rage kindled in her eyes. Not yet! Not yet! Mustn’t give the game away. Mustn’t put him on his guard.

  “I’m not fussed,” she said, making an effort to keep her voice light. “Whatever you prefer.”