The Insider

‘Locksmith.’ She flipped her phone open again and had a businesslike conversation with Express Locksmiths, who assured her that an engineer would be out in ten minutes. Harry could feel her energy levels pick up. Absurd how a burst of activity could fool you into thinking you were in control.

She perched against the sofa and massaged her neck and shoulders. They felt stiff and bruised, as though she was headed for a bout of flu. Then she remembered the blinking light in her bedroom, and went back to listen to her messages. There was only one. She recognized her mother’s throaty voice, made low and fruity from years of heavy smoking.

‘Harry, it’s Miriam.’

There was a pause as she heard her mother pull on a cigarette. Harry had been addressing her mother by her Christian name since the day she’d left school. It was as though by unspoken mutual agreement the mother–daughter dynamic had dissolved once she’d turned eighteen.

‘I’ve been trying to reach you all day, and all I get is this wretched machine,’ Miriam continued. ‘Could you please take a minute to pick up the phone and call me.’

Harry closed her eyes and fixed her lips in a tight line. Then she jabbed at the delete button and returned to the living room, where Dillon was still on patrol.

She looked at her watch. ‘It’s late. You head on home, there’s no need to stay.’

Dillon waved a hand at her. ‘I’m staying.’

She felt a tiny squeezing sensation in her chest and realized she was glad to have him there. Then she looked at the destruction all around her, and dared herself to cross a line.

‘Is that offer of brandy still open?’ Her voice had come out a little louder than she’d planned.

Dillon turned to look at her with his tucked-in smile. ‘’Course it is. Let’s make it a double. You’ve had a rough day.’

He came to a sudden stop next to the damaged painting, and bent down to examine it. He poked his hand through the rent in the backing board. ‘Why would anyone do this?’

Harry shrugged and shook her head.

Dillon scanned the room. ‘This whole place – it’s like they were looking for something.’

Harry threw him a sharp look. ‘It strikes you that way, does it?’

‘Doesn’t it seem like that to you?’

She sighed and rubbed her eyes. They felt gritty. ‘Yeah, but I was hoping I was wrong.’

She eased herself off the arm of the sofa and made her way over to the kitchen, keeping the weight off her bad knee. She leaned against the door jamb and stared at the incongruous heap on the floor.

What the hell were they after?

Then she thought of the man in the train station, of his hot breath against her ear, and shuddered.

9 (#u3b73707e-90e5-5479-9343-230970466da0)

‘So what did you find?’ Leon said.

He swallowed and ran a finger along the inside of his collar. He was leaning against the back door of O’Dowd’s pub, hunched over his phone as if he had cramps.

‘Nothing,’ came the reply. ‘I told you it’d be a waste of fuckin’ time.’

Voices roared from the bar at the other end of the passageway. In spite of the draught seeping in from the street outside, Leon was sweating.

‘Are you sure?’ Leon said.

‘Course I’m fuckin’ sure. I tore the whole place up, just for the crack, but there’s nothing there.’ There was a pause. ‘So when do I get paid?’

‘Stop worrying about your money, okay? You’ll get paid.’

Someone opened the door of the nearby Gents’ toilet, and Leon caught a whiff of disinfectant and stale urine. He turned his face to the wall and lowered his voice.

‘Just stick with her. I want to know everything she does. But don’t get too close. Blow your cover, and the deal’s off.’

He disconnected the call and moved over to a door marked private. He stood in front of it, rubbing his hands along his trouser legs. Then he eased open the door and stepped inside.

The room was the size of a prison cell and just about as well decorated. Light from a single overhead bulb bleached the walls and carpet of any colour. The door closed behind him with a thunk, blocking out all sound as though he’d been sucked into a vacuum. He stepped over to the green baize table where four other people were seated.

‘Come on, Leon, are you in or what?’ The dealer scowled at him, his sun-damaged skin corrugated with wrinkles. His name was Mattie, and Leon heard he spent most of his life crewing other people’s yachts in the Mediterranean. The rest of the time he played poker.

Leon nodded and resumed his seat on Mattie’s right. He slumped in the chair and closed his eyes, squeezing the bridge of his nose. The only sound was the slick-slick of the cards being dealt.

He hadn’t expected the girl’s apartment to be clean. There had to be a record of the money somewhere. Where the hell was she hiding it?

Mattie slapped the deck on the table beside him. Leon straightened up and tried to concentrate on the game. Being distracted was no way to play high-stakes poker.

They were playing no-limit Texas Hold ’Em. Each player was dealt two cards face down, which he had to combine with five communal cards to make a poker hand. Usually it was Leon’s favourite game, every betting round another opportunity to coax money out of some loser’s pocket. But tonight it felt as though he was the loser. And if he didn’t win the next hand, he was fucked.

He slid his two cards towards him, lining up their edges, one on top of the other. He peeked at the bottom card. King of spades. He glanced around the table but no one was paying him any attention. He squeezed the top card out from behind the first, just enough to see one corner of it. Another king. His heartbeat broke into a little canter and he worked hard not to let it show.

The player on Leon’s right tossed a handful of chips into the centre of the table. ‘Raise a grand.’

Leon threw him a sharp look. The guy was built like a professional wrestler, with grey hair scraped back into a ponytail that reached halfway down his back. His face was unreadable.

Leon made a show of playing with his chips, but he didn’t stall for long. With kings back to back in the hole, he intended to hit them hard. ‘Yours plus another thousand.’

Mattie shook his head and flung his cards on the table. The old bald guy to his left consulted his hole cards and consigned them to the muck along with Mattie’s.

Next up was Adele, the only woman at the table. Leon had played with her before. Blonde and in her forties, she always dressed in a smart business suit and played a tight game. She studied Leon’s face for a moment and called his raise.

Leon waited for the Wrestler to decide if he was in or out. What the hell did he have? Leon was in no mood to work it out. Sal Martinez could have done the maths in an instant, but that kind of stuff made Leon’s head hurt. All he knew was the pot was now over eight thousand euros, and he needed to win it badly.

It didn’t help that he was playing almost entirely with his clients’ money. A couple of businesses whose accounts he’d audited had sent him cheques for owed income tax, cheques that Leon was supposed to submit to the Revenue Commissioners. Somehow the money had made an unplanned pit-stop in his own pocket. Just for a few days.

The Wrestler’s chips clattered into the centre of the table. ‘Call.’

Leon took a deep breath and flexed his shoulders. He could hear the bones cracking at the base of his neck. Mattie flicked the three flop cards face up on the table, the first of the five communal cards. A king, a three and a five, all different suits. Electricity surged through Leon’s veins. Now he had three kings.

Adele checked, and didn’t look happy about it. The Wrestler was up next. With hands the size of baseball gloves, he grabbed a fistful of chips and raised by two thousand euros.

Leon examined the other man’s face. The features were immobile, all apart from a tiny pulse in one eyelid that jumped like a sand flea. It was all Leon needed. He knew that at best the guy was holding a three and a five, giving him two pair. It didn’t beat trip kings.

There were two more cards to come. Should he call or risk another raise? Play the man, not the cards, Martinez would’ve said. But then Martinez was a pretty loose player. Leon had seen him win half a million in a single pot, only to lose it minutes later on a bluff with a pair of threes.