Martin Edwards: I Remember You

‘Ripe for the bulldozer if you ask me, although the landlord’s coming round to see what can be done. And the leather store down below is doing a roaring trade in what they call a Fire Sale. I reckon they’re flogging twice as much stock as they had in the entire shop last night.’

Harry laughed. He never ceased to marvel at the entrepreneurial genius of his fellow Liverpudlians.

‘How do you intend to keep the business going?’

‘I’m thinking of taking a winter break. I insure with the people whose ads brag about how fast they come up with the readies when calamity strikes. If they’re as good as their word, I should get a payment on account within the next few days.’ Finbar rubbed his hands. They were tattooed with dragons, picked out in vivid colours. ‘Tell that partner of yours I owe him a pint. It was a lucky day I followed his advice about the policy.’

‘As long as you didn’t give Fate a nudge.’

Finbar groaned. ‘Have you no trust at all? I thought we’d settled this last night. Listen, as Jases is my judge, I didn’t torch my own place. Nor did I pay anyone else to do it for me. Satisfied? Or do I need a plane to skywrite that I’m innocent?’

‘Sorry.’

A magnanimous wave of the hand. ‘We’ll say no more about it.’

‘You realise Sinead will want her slice of the insurance cake?’

‘What? Ah, be buggered to that. The massed army of the saints couldn’t persuade me to cut her in.’

Harry sighed. In this job, his tact and patience were tested as often as a whore’s knicker elastic.

‘Look, it’s another reason for doing a deal on the maintenance payments at the door of the court. Why don’t you let me talk to her lawyer at least? Kim Lawrence might fight each case like a personal crusade, but in the end she’s usually realistic.’

The Irishman grunted. ‘Let’s talk about it over lunch.’

Harry led the way to the front of the building. As he stepped into the courtyard, he realised that Finbar was no longer right behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, he was startled to see the Irishman dodging back into reception and out of sight.

A sleek BMW had parked at the opposite end of the courtyard. A big dark man was leaning out of the driver’s window and haranguing one of the builders. The other members of the gang had stopped work and were looking on with folded arms and mutinous faces.

Harry stared at the tableau for a moment, then hurried back into the office. Finbar was winking at Suzanne, but Harry could tell he was shaken.

‘This young lady tells me there’s another way out of here.’

‘There’s an emergency exit at the back, yes.’

‘Mind if we leave that way? We can make sure the door isn’t blocked off — wouldn’t want you to fall foul of the fire inspector. Blazes can start when you least expect them, as I discovered last night.’

Finbar headed off in the direction Suzanne was pointing. Harry did not catch up until they were both in the street outside.

‘So what was all that about?’

Finbar slowed to a stroll. ‘No sweat, Harry, I simply spotted someone I’d rather not bump into. It makes no sense to spoil a meal. We have a lot to talk about, you and I. Sinead is so…’

‘Who didn’t you want to meet? The big feller in the BMW? Who is he?’

Finbar waved dismissively. ‘An old pal of mine by the name of Dermot McCray, if you must know. We go back a long way.’

‘You won’t be going forward a long way if you dive for cover whenever you see him.’

‘We had a spot of bother — let’s leave it at that. Now, about Sinead. The truth is, I just want rid of the whole damned business. I’m beginning to wish I’d never bothered with divorce after all. I won’t be making the mistake of matrimony again, believe me. It grieves me to think of that woman living the life of Riley at my expense.’

‘The judge will want to be convinced she is properly provided for.’

‘But she seems to want me to fund the entire bloody animal rights movement, by the sound of it. God, why ever did I get hitched to a woman crazy about all creatures great and small — except for her poor bloody husband?’

Sinead Rogan was a leading member of Free Animals Now! better known as FAN! a group of militant activists. Her approach to matrimonial litigation was equally bellicose.

‘I agree her claims are excessive, but let’s face it, what you offered originally wouldn’t keep one of her cats in Whiskas.’

‘I’m prepared to negotiate,’ said Finbar with dignity. ‘All I want is a fair settlement; surely that’s not too much to ask. What’s the old saying — let justice be done, though the heavens fall?’

‘Forget that idea,’ said Harry amiably. ‘It might ruin our case.’

‘Women!’ expostulated Finbar, stretching out his arms in an extravagant parody of despair which almost swept a strawberry pavlova from a passing dessert trolley. ‘They’ll be the death of me.’

Harry drained his coffee cup. The Ensenada’s cuisine had left him feeling replete. Finbar had, as usual, been a generous host, and Harry didn’t have the heart to say that for his client to malign the opposite sex was much the same as Billy Bunter badmouthing the school tuck shop.

‘Offer a few more quid each week to keep Sinead quiet,’ he advised. ‘Business isn’t so bad. You can afford it.’

Finbar grunted. He was too free-spending for his own good much of the time, but Sinead’s admittedly exorbitant demand for maintenance pending suit had provoked a mulish refusal to compromise on a more realistic figure.

‘Lord knows what I’ve done to deserve this,’ he complained.

Persistent adultery, perhaps, reflected Harry. Spendthrift habits, general fecklessness … but clients embroiled in messy divorce proceedings were seldom open to reason. The trick was to let them convince themselves that acrimony was counter-productive.

‘When marriages break down,’ he said gently, ‘there are only losers.’

He had first-hand knowledge of the truth of that. He and Liz had drifted apart long before she had left him for a man who promised the good life and in the end brought her nothing but disillusion and disaster.

Finbar nodded in agreement. An opportunistic waiter took the gesture as a sign that the bill was required and produced it with a conjuror’s flourish. Scarcely glancing at the bottom line, Finbar opened his wallet and passed over a sheaf of notes. ‘A feast fit for a king,’ he said. ‘Keep the change.’ After much lavish gratitude, the waiter disappeared.

‘You’d never believe it these days, but at one time Sinead was a fine looking woman,’ Finbar said sorrowfully. ‘Yet look at her now! I’ve met better-dressed bag ladies.’

Harry forbore to point out that neither he nor his client were exemplars of high fashion.

Finbar scratched his nose. ‘I suppose I blame myself.’

Harry leaned forward. This was more promising.

‘She wasn’t keen on coming over to England originally — moving away from her friends and family in Dublin. I talked her into it; the worst mistake I ever made. We hadn’t been married long, but already the writing was on the wall. Mind, in those days she didn’t rant and rave every single time I opened my mouth.’ Finbar gave a reminiscent shake of the head. ‘I should have known better. I’d always sworn I liked women too much ever to marry one. And Sinead was hardly my type. Steeped in the faith and mad about animals, while all I ever knew about was the birds and the bees. Even in those days she was into animal lib, going on demos and that kind of malarkey. I ought to have spotted the warning signs.’

Finbar mused for a few seconds. Then he grinned. ‘But there’s something irresistible about a passionate woman, wouldn’t you agree? And she was that, all right. So I set my sights on having my wicked way with her. In the end, I managed it, but at the cost of a wedding ring. I’d have done better with her in the long run if I’d had four legs and fur.’