Claire Kilroy - The Devil I Know

‘Do we understand you correctly, Mr St Lawrence: you are asserting that Mrs Hickey—’

Please don’t call her that.

‘That is her name. Are you claiming that Edel Hickey was involved in the Claremont development from the outset?’

No. She had no interest in construction, or in anything that Hickey did. Looking back, I suspect that she may have come down that afternoon to meet me. That may sound like colossal vanity on my part, but the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that Edel showed up on that occasion for the express purpose of seeing me again.

‘Mr St Lawrence, sticking to the particulars of the case: you are stating that Edel Hickey had no involvement in the Claremont development. Is that correct?’

Yes, Fergus, that is correct.

‘Thank you. Now, to get down to the financing of the construction of the Claremont development. Where did you get the money?’

Is that a trick question? I don’t understand this game. Where do you think we got the money? Where does anyone get money, after all? We got it from a bank. Not Castle Holdings — M. Deauville only financed the purchase of the site — but from an Irish bank. You remember, Fergus: they were throwing money at people at the time, forcing it down their throats. Hickey said I knew the very man and my heart sank. Here we go. Ray the bottom feeder. ‘No, no, no, you muppet,’ he said. ‘Not Lawless — another head. An you know him, not me.’

‘What other head?’

‘Another head who knows a third head, who knows a whole rack a heads, who between them know every head worth knowing in this country, an once we’re in, we’ll be laughing, so we will.’ And then he reeled off a list of names, Public Enemies numbers one through to six six six. Builders, bankers, financial regulators, county councillors, even the serving Taoiseach.

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘them.’ It would have been difficult not to have rubbed up against at least a few of them in a country like this if you were from a family like mine — you know how it is yourself, Fergus. I sighed at Hickey. ‘What’s it going to cost?’ Everything cost. Everything was about money with the class of individual on his list. It was how they measured themselves.

Hickey shook his head. ‘That’s not how the Golden Circle works.’

The Golden Circle. I had to laugh at that. They had rebranded. In my day, they had called themselves the Bills, as in, the Billionaires. Long live the Bills! they shouted down in Suttonians after matches. They were the sons of wealthy men, but nowhere near as wealthy as they wanted to be. The Mills, technically. Their moniker betrayed the terrible hunger in them, the insatiable drive to acquire.

M. Deauville requested that I supply him in advance of the meeting with a list of the members of this so-called Golden Circle who, according to Hickey, were now running the shop. Tocka tocka as he fed their names into his database of base data. Murmurs of approval at the results. The Bills had finally blossomed into billionaires. Excellent, said M. Deauville. Ausgezeichnet, eccellente.

Hickey drove us to a district of the city that had not existed when I had fled. The towers were built of the same jade glass as Hickey’s crystalline power generator. He had beaten himself into a suit for the occasion, and I don’t wish to be unkind, but when I saw him got up in it I couldn’t help thinking of… ah no, I won’t.

The boardroom occupied the penthouse suite of one of the glass towers. A panorama of cranes spanning the horizon was engaged in a courtly dance. One step, two step, swing to your partner, and part. Ten men were seated around the boardroom table and the most senior man stood at the top. ‘Ah,’ he said upon our entrance. ‘Here they are. Do join us.’ He was a small man with a brown face and a fleece of white curls. I thought of a Roman senator.

‘Dessie,’ said Hickey, pumping the senator’s hand with both of his. McGee didn’t need to introduce himself. We both knew who he was. Hickey jerked a thumb at me. ‘This is Tristram St Lawrence,’ he told the table. ‘He’s the brains.’

The men laughed at that and Hickey laughed loudest of all. I lowered my head in admission. Yes, it’s true. The brains are stored in this receptacle, me. I provide them so that Hickey doesn’t have to.

Only it wasn’t true. I wasn’t the brains. I was just stupid enough to think that I was.

A man from the far end of the table was on his way over, his arms open in welcome as if I should recognise him. It took me a moment to register that this was O’Dee. He had lost his hair and turned into his old man, a golf-clubbing captain of industry.

O’Dee put his arms around me and clapped my back. ‘Welcome home, man,’ he said as sincerely as he was able, though no affection or camaraderie had ever existed between us. This display was strictly for the benefit of the others, to demonstrate that we went back, that there was history, that it was kosher. ‘Jesus, Trist, I heard you were dead.’

They all laughed again at that, eager to exhibit their approval.

‘Eh,’ said Hickey. ‘That was another Tristram St Lawrence.’

‘Marvellous!’ said McGee and took his seat to indicate that the topic was now closed. Everyone seemed perfectly satisfied with Hickey’s explanation. Nobody wanted to rock the boat. We were here to do business.

Hickey’s architectural model of the Claremont development was displayed in the centre of the table. It looked bigger. Had he glued on extra crystals? The skyscraper hotel closely resembled the building we had assembled in, which in turn resembled the building next to it, and the building next to it again, and so on throughout the docklands and across to the opposite bank of the Liffey. Those dollar-green towers were a contagion that had ripped through Dublin.

A knock on the door and a girl entered the boardroom. ‘Marvellous!’ McGee declared with unfaltering enthusiasm. The girl set a tray of tea and coffee on the console table.

‘Anything else I can get you, Mr McGee?’

‘This is perfect, Suzie,’ said McGee. ‘Good job!’

The girl turned to leave. The boardroom table took a moment to assess her pinstriped arse and then it was down to brass tacks.

‘Right, gentlemen,’ said McGee, ‘what have we got here?’

Hickey got up on his hind legs to make his presentation. He threw a load of numbers out there — how much we’d secured, how much we still needed to secure, how many units we intended building — several more than the planning permission granted, I noted, but although the documentation was there in front of them nobody raised a query. Revising planning permissions upwards was not a problem, not in a room like this. He went on to estimate how much profit the development would generate. This figure too had increased, but then, property prices were rising exponentially. We were getting rich by doing nothing. ‘An nearest the Dart station and harbour, right at the entrance to the scenic fishing village of Howth,’ Hickey concluded, ‘we’re going to construct a landscape building.’

‘Landmark,’ I corrected him.

‘Yeah,’ said Hickey. ‘A landmark building for Howth.’ He indicated the hotel. ‘Eleven storeys high, eighty-eight bedrooms, with bars, restaurant an ancillary areas.’ He narrowed his eyes at the horizon. ‘Youse’ll be able to see it from here.’

‘Terrific,’ said McGee. He turned to the other ten. ‘I like these guys,’ he decided, as if the purpose of our presentation had been to make new friends. ‘These guys have balls .’ Assent echoed around the table. Balls , these guys have balls , and balls are what we need.