The Death of Love (9 page)

Nell Power had a small hand but a firm grip.

McGarr avoided looking directly at Noreen, whose practiced, incompany smile had been replaced by a look of acute social pain. From the easy manner in which Nell Power had greeted them, she was obviously good company. Of greater concern to Noreen was the fact that Nell Power, as the former wife of Paddy Power, was an acceptable person, both here and back in Dublin among Noreen’s parents’ set, who included—by their own estimation—the best people in the country.

What bothered her most, however, was McGarr’s deceit. It would later be told by Nell Power that McGarr had waited until he had extracted the last bit of information before breaking the news of her ex-husband’s death.

“May I ask you something?”

She swung her head to one side and smiled. “Why not?”

“Where’d you get these?” McGarr pointed to the photocopies of the note cards on the table.

Her head moved to the other side. She had opened the golfing jacket, and the reason for the appellation “Big Nell” was now apparent. Her jumper was made of some sheer material beneath, and McGarr could see the lacy array of some substantial support. “So, is that what this is all about? Curious—I thought you were homicides, or are you another one of Paddy’s ‘friends’?”

McGarr only waited.

Holding Maddie in her arms, Noreen shifted from foot to foot. Her green eyes wheeled toward the door. It was one thing to dissect the fine points of an enquiry over tea, quite another experience gathering facts firsthand.

Nell Power moved toward the table, her thin-hipped stride lithe for a woman of her age. “Those are my erstwhile husband’s notes on his life. He’s assembling them for a memoir, so. It’s common practice among great and near-great men, I believe. Do you think you’ll ever be bitten yourself, Peter?”

“You’re helping him with the work?”

She paused, as if playing the sentence over in her mind, then smiled again, liking the thought. “I guess you could say that. Yes, or at least I’ve
tried
to help him.”

Again McGarr waited.

“Listen,” said Noreen, “I think I’ll—”

But Nell Power began speaking again. “What I mean is, I’ve taken the time and summoned the…strength to read them all. I then tried to reach Paddy to give him my opinion, contrary as it is. But he was out when I called round.”

By “called” she meant “visited.” “At Parknasilla?”

She turned and smiled at him, her dark eyes glittering with evident anger. “The very place.”

“When?”

“Sunday afternoon.”

“He was expecting you?”

She laughed once. “Not likely. His debt conference was about to begin, and I met his chargé d’affaires on the stairs. D’you know
her
, Peter?”

“Gretta Osbourne.”

“So, you do. We had words, as usual, and I thought it best to depart. Life’s too short for that, and, when he knows that I’m now privy to these immortal thoughts”—her hand swept the table—“he’ll be by.”

“Did you tell Gretta Osbourne you had them? Copies of the note cards.”

“What’s this all about?”

“Ah, Nell—” Noreen began to say, but McGarr, stuffing one hand at the floor, stopped her.

“Well?” Nell Power demanded, now seeming to sense
that some purpose larger than the note cards had propelled the McGarrs at her door.

“You first. The note cards. Gretta Osbourne. Did you tell her you had copies of them?”

“I didn’t have to. Wasn’t it she herself sent them to me?”

“Do you know that?”

“No—but who else could it have been?”

“When were they delivered?”

“That morning. Sunday morning. There was a knock on the door, and a porter was holding that sack”—she leaned back and pointed to the “M.J.P Frost, Chemist” sack in the shadows beneath the table—“filled with the photocopies. I read my own first, or, rather, Paddy’s poor opinion of me, his children, and the life we’d passed together for nearly fifty years, counting our childhood in Sneem. I then set off to see him, to give him the other side, don’t you know. It’s like”—she regarded the stacks of note cards and shook her head—“two people, one life, but reading those cards, you’d think he’d spent it with somebody else.”

“How do you know Gretta Osbourne sent them?”

“I just
know
,” she snapped. “Who else could it have been? Who else has access to Paddy but her? Or the spite.”

“Did the porter mention her name?”

“No, but I know.”

McGarr waited, and when she offered nothing more, he asked, “Eire Bank. You’re a shareholder?”

She nodded. “Isn’t it about time you told me what you’re about here?”

“
Yes
, Peter,” Noreen echoed.

“Because of your divorce.”

Nell Power nodded.

“You
are
divorced?”

Again. “’Tis a wonderful lot of questions over some photocopies of some note cards.”

“Who else are shareholders in Eire Bank?”

Nell Power only regarded him.

“You, your former husband, Shane Frost,” he prompted. “Gretta Osbourne?”

Still she said nothing.

“The Irish government—how much aid have they given Eire Bank?”

“What happened to Paddy?” she asked.

McGarr drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “He’s dead.”

Nothing about her changed: not her stance, her facial expression, not even a blink. “When?”

“Sunday evening.”

“His heart?” she asked.

“Did you know about his condition?”

“Wasn’t I his wife for thirty-plus years? How is it you’re telling me of it now and like this?

“Who knew you were here?”
With
the bulk of the note cards, McGarr thought.

“My daughters, my sons.”

“We’ve been trying to get in touch with your son Sean Dermot in Palo Alto. Perhaps you can do that for us now.” McGarr reached for the plastic sack. “What had you planned for the note cards?” He looked around for another container to hold the cards.

As though lost in her thoughts, it took some time for Nell Power to reply. “I don’t know. I had thought of destroying the lot.”

“Looks like years of work.” Seeing an empty waste bin, McGarr reached for it.

“Malevolence, I’d call it.” There was a pause, and then: “Pity a life should come to that.”

McGarr began placing the stacks as neatly as he could in the bin.

“Hold on—I’ll get you another plastic sack. I have a bunch of them.” Nell Power had nearly reached the study doorway when she stopped. “Why…
you
and not—” A priest, she meant. “Was Paddy murdered?”

“Commissioner Farrell asked me to look into the matter. Tell me about the medicines Paddy was taking for his heart,” he went on, drawing the groupings together and trying to arrange the subject headings in some rough alphabetical order.

“I have no idea. Shortly after he began taking them, he left me, saying he didn’t have much life left, and he wasn’t going to waste it ‘for the sake of the children.’ No mention
of me or us, which he
said
he didn’t remember. Apart from my bad opinion of him.”

Again she began turning away before she asked, “Will you read them?”

“Yes.”

“Then I want you to remember one thing and one thing only. Anytime I asserted myself, Paddy felt threatened. He got me to quit golf. He got me to quit my little business. He got me to quit this, that, and the other thing until he had me all to himself, body and soul, which is when
he
quit
me
.”

When she returned with a small valise, she asked, “Where is he now?”

McGarr explained that a postmortem had been performed and named the hospital.

“So, it
was
murder.”

He snapped his eyes up to hers. “And if it was, whom would you suspect?”

“Gretta. The Osbourne woman, of course.”

“Why?”

“Because he used and spurned her, like he used and spurned me. The difference being that at least we were married, which is what she had wanted and didn’t get.”

“He would have had a will?” McGarr asked.

“Certainly. In matters financial, Paddy was most careful. With his own money.”

McGarr recalled what he had seen in the desk in the study and her letter describing how Power’s debt conference would cost Nell Power and her children money. “You mean he owned no part of Eire Bank.”

She shook her head. “I didn’t say that. As far as I know, he was still the largest shareholder by one percentage share. The children and I got nineteen percent in settlement of the divorce.”

“And Shane Frost told you your husband was now proposing that Eire Bank ‘write down’ its share of the Irish debt? What exactly does that mean?”

“
Some
of its share. It means forgive, forget, expunge. Twenty percent, to be exact.”

“Which means in pounds?”

She shook her head. “I have it somewhere, but not a
small
fortune by any means. Millions and millions of pounds.”

“Can Eire Bank absorb such a loss?”

“Paddy can or…could, and what did he care about us?”

“Where will you be for the next several days?”

“Here.”

McGarr waited.

“It’s close to Sneem, where, I assume, Paddy’s children will want him buried. And, you know, he taught me once before—
my
life will go on.”

The porter, who had been working Sunday morning, said he had gotten the plastic sack bulging with photocopies from the front desk, along with the order to take it to room 411.

The desk clerk said it had been delivered by “A kind of country gorsoon. I fully expected him to have an ass rail of turf waiting for him outside.”

“Small, tall, young, old?”

“Tall. Quite tall. And, er”—the young woman’s eyes flitted over McGarr’s bald head and then lighted on Noreen, who was about her age—“middle-aged, I’d say. A rough-looking fellow and hardly a word on him. He handed me a note, asking that the sack be taken to Nell.”

“Do you have it still—the note?”

“I’m afraid not. That was two days ago, and our trash gets compacted daily.”

“By middle-aged, you mean my age or her age?” He nodded his head toward Noreen.

“I beg your pardon—” Noreen began to say.

“More yours, sir.” The desk attendant lowered her eyes to McGarr’s photo I.D., which he had placed on the counter.

“Dark, red, gray, fair?”

“Fair and gray, what I could see of him for his hat. A shabby thing and wet, since it had been raining. Hanging before his eyes. A greatcoat.”

“What color?”

“Black, of course.”

“Leather shoulder patches? An old belt cinching the middle?”

A finger darted at McGarr’s chest. “Precisely.”

McGarr glanced at the clock and guessed he had time to phone Parknasilla before the press conference at which Shane Frost and Gretta Osbourne would announce Paddy Power’s death.

After filling in McKeon on what he had discovered at the Waterville Lake Hotel, McGarr asked if Mossie Gladden had arrived.

“Complete with solicitor. They’ve gotten as far as the foyer, and I can hear them now, arguing the point of whether Parknasilla is a public facility or a private accommodation at this time of year. The place is crawling with Great Southern Hotels security and the press, who Gladden has already attracted.”

McGarr rang off. Given what he had seen of Paddy Power’s “O’Duffy” file, where would Gladden have hidden the note cards? Certainly in no bank or other public place. Perhaps in his “mountain aerie,” as described by Frost, which was remote, as described by Power.
If
Gladden had been the country gorsoon who had delivered the cards to the desk at the Waterville Lake Hotel.

Turning to Noreen, he said, “I’ll take you two back to Parknasilla, unless you’d like to wait here.”

“Why?”

McGarr attempted to summon a smile but failed. “Because I have something to do.”

“Like interview Mossie Gladden?”

“Something on that order.”

“Why can’t I come along?”

“Well, it’s not just you, is it? And it’s a long ride and rough, from what I read in Power’s note cards.”

“But Maddie
sleeps
in cars, no matter how rough the road. And presently she’s very tired.”

QUONDAM DETECTIVE SERGEANT Bernard Quintus McKeon was suffering from just the condition that Nell Power had said Paddy Power had had in their marriage. McKeon was scarcely twelve hours on the job as undercover Allied Irish Bank’s “empty suit,” and he could barely remember his thirty-year career with the Guards. There he sat in the plush of a wing-back chair at—he checked his watch—10:32 of a Tuesday morning with nothing more disagreeable to do for the rest of the day than to keep his ears open and his mouth occupied. Even more agreeable still was his condition.

Already McKeon had one potent libation settling comfortably in the cavernous confines of his unslakable gullet and another on the way for him and O’Shaughnessy, who was also masquerading as bank executive and was sitting on the divan across from him. It was the first chance that the two senior squad staffers had had to speak in a day, and with the Shaw Lounge now packed with reporters, photographers, and even a mobile television crew, the few words they were exchanging would go unnoticed.

“Tell me, Liam—ascribe you to the ‘great man’ theory of history?” McKeon asked in the pancake accent that branded him unmistakably as a Dubliner.

Dialogue only served to make McKeon more loquacious, and O’Shaughnessy’s eyes rolled toward the door. His drink could not arrive too quickly.

“You know—the right man, in the right place, at the right time.”

O’Shaughnessy thought McKeon would mention something further about Paddy Power, whom both already had agreed had been the right man to lead the country, when McKeon pointed to a tall, gray-haired man who had just entered the room. He was wearing a tuxedo with a little nameplate saying
SONNIE
on his lapel, and with a practiced snap of the wrist McKeon called him over.

“I told your helper there—Hughie, I believe his name is—that I
didn’t
want another of these.” McKeon waggled his empty glass. “If I did, why sure he’d probably get caught taking drinks orders from all the bankers and reporters hereabouts, and you two would be doing a roaring trade. Fully ten minutes ago. I’m glad to see he took my advice. If he appears now, he’ll probably get et—his tray, his obsequious smile, and his big brother’s tuxedo, spiffy as it is.”

With clenched fists Sonnie left the room, and in mere seconds, it seemed, Ward appeared in the doorway carrying a tray brimming with drinks.

“Will you look at yer mahn there. He’s magic, isn’t he? How long did it take for him to master that? The balance, the grace.”

A walrus of a TV producer with a shoe-brush mustache and rolls of tanned flesh lobbed over his collar now stuck four fingers in Ward’s face. “Four, count ’em. Four pints of Carlsberg. We’re parched here, and if you get them to us double-quick, there’s fifty pee in it for you, my good man.” Ward only smiled and nodded and continued on his way.

“A day?” McKeon went on. “No—what am I saying? He learned his trade in a morning only, precocious lad that he is. Must be all that training in the ring.”

Setting the brimming jar of alcohol in front of McKeon, Ward glanced up and thought McKeon looked, acted, and even sounded like the former Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, whose brutish visage Ward had gaped at as a child on his family’s first television set. McKeon was small, wide, drunken, and sly, with quick, beady eyes and the effusive manner of a roistering proletarian. Who else
would come to Parknasilla and order a Black-and-Tan, which was something dockworkers drank.

Granted it was fair play to take unfair advantage of another staffer’s disadvantageous assignment, but how was Ward supposed to poke about and find out what was what when he spent his day running drinks for McKeon? And then to sic Sonnie on him was just plain low.

“Will that be all?” he asked, straightening up.

“For the moment,” said McKeon. “We understand you have your hands filled. Chin up. Work away. Don’t forget, there’s fifty pee coming to you if you’re double-quick. But don’t expect anything from us. Like you, we’re working.” McKeon winked and raised his glass to O’Shaughnessy. “Cheers, my man.”

Ward departed quickly, and McKeon eased himself into the cushions and considered the creamy buff head of his drink.

O’Shaughnessy managed to take a sip from his own before McKeon began again. “This is the life, is it not, Superintendent? Ever think of it for yourself? You know—buying a bit of land down here in the country, going on the dole? You could drink a few jars, put a few bob on a nag or two, and contemplate the whole bit out there”—McKeon cast a hand toward the window where beyond the terrace they could see surf rioting in the bay—“Mother Nature in all her incontinence.”

It would take dynamite to get McKeon out of this or some other lounge, of which he was most definitely a lizard or some other cagey, profoundly urban creature, thought O’Shaughnessy. Cockroach, he decided.

“How much is the dole these days?”

“Sixty-odd pound.”

“Per week?”

O’Shaughnessy nodded.

McKeon raised his glass. “You’re good with figures, Liam. How many pints is that?”

“Thirty-seven and a swallow.”

McKeon did, and long. When he had regained his voice, he concluded, “Well, scratch the good life. It’s simply not affordable down here in the country.”

It was eleven o’clock, and the room was packed. Shane Frost pushed through the door and, working the crowd of reporters with smiles and handshakes, made his way to the lectern. Tall, silver-haired, and distinguished-looking, he assembled his notes, and voices quieted. When the television lights snapped on, he raised his head, as though he would speak, but the doors opened and Bresnahan stepped into the room.

Frost glanced at her, looked down at his notes, then glanced back again. Even the television camera panned in her direction.

She was wearing the same cobalt-blue suit that McKeon suspicioned had been requisitioned from McGarr’s slush fund, which was otherwise spent on a pre-Christmas slush, and he hated her for her profligacy. Eventually women got everything they wanted, one way or the other, which was often by some dramatic display.

Nevertheless, he wondered how he could have failed to appreciate Bresnahan’s special beauty when she was still wearing uniform blues and was a diamond in the rough. Maybe he was improving with age and with twelve children was now beyond such considerations.

He took another long swallow and sincerely hoped so. A person only
thought
sex was fun when he was at it, tooth and…well,
not
nail. Sex was dangerous and could threaten every fiber of a man’s corpus with all the penalties, expenses, and most recently even fatal conditions that could be laid on even a single slip into that treacherous vale of despond. McKeon tugged at his drink yet again.

Bresnahan blushed an apology, which only added more color to her bright appearance, and tripped gracefully for such a large person toward the reporters who were standing behind the divans. Eyes followed her every lovely lope. In her hands she held a notepad and pen.

“As many of you may have already heard, I am here to confirm tragic news that will sadden this conference, the Irish nation, and many others in the world. Yesterday Paddy Power passed away,” Frost began.

Suddenly the room was so quiet that the only noticeable sound was the whirring of the television cameras.

“Paddy was only fifty-eight years old, but he had a
heart condition and, as was his wont, had been working at a torrid pace both to prepare for this conference and to announce that he would soon enter politics and stand for the Dail from this very constituency here in the South Kerry Mountains. Paddy thought he could bring his expertise in finance and management to bear on the problems that Ireland now faces, and there were not a few of us who thought that Paddy might have made a difference.”

From outside of the building on the terrace they now heard shouting. Turning his head, McKeon saw Mossie Gladden, waving his arms, his mouth working, even as two large young men approached him. Gone were the greatcoat, boots, and farmer’s cap that McGarr had said he had been wearing the day before. Instead he was dressed in a TD’s pinstriped suit covered by a dark, formal topcoat. A similarly dressed man beside him now began gesturing a hand while shouting at the approaching security guards.

“It is not for me to eulogize Paddy from this podium, nor could I, or anybody else, tell you of the countless thousands of lives he touched, always for the better. Paddy had brilliance, courage, tenacity, and a generosity—not of the spirit alone—that made him unique. How many people the world over are living better today because of Paddy? And for those of us who were fortunate to count Paddy as colleague and friend, his death comes as a special loss. He will be sorely missed.

“Funeral arrangements including a requiem high mass and burial here in Sneem, which was Paddy’s birthplace, are scheduled for Thursday. Taosieach Sean Dermot O’Duffy will deliver the eulogy.”

Murmurs arose from the reporters, but after a seemly pause Frost went on. “Paddy has been taken, but he would have wanted his work to go on, and it will. Paddy had intended this conference, which is presently taking place here in Parknasilla, to be the cornerstone of his entry into politics. I know of no more fitting memorial to him than to have us proceed with his wish. Gretta Osbourne, executive director of the Paddy Power Fund, will now chair the conference.”

Elaborately Frost turned his head to a middle-aged
woman with long silver-blond hair who was leaning back against the mantel of the fireplace. McKeon noted that she was yet another tall, well-built person whose good looks were marred by a rough complexion that much makeup only partially concealed. The lumps and streaks of whatever had ravaged her face were apparent even at a distance.

“Gretta helped Paddy draft his proposal and has worked with him throughout the past year to bring the conference about. I’m happy to say that Paddy’s final project is in capable hands.”

The woman only lowered her head, as though taken by grief or the magnitude of the challenge of filling Power’s shoes.

“I also should announce that Taosieach O’Duffy is sending Finance Minister Patrick Quinn to take part in the proceedings.”

Another murmur swept the crowd. “…now that he’s dead!” McKeon heard somebody say.

Questions were then barked, but Frost, raising a palm, stayed them. “Eire Bank has prepared a bio of Paddy that will be distributed to any and all members of the media in the bar. If you have any other questions, I—”

As one, the reporters began speaking, and Frost had to single them out and call for quiet so he could hear their questions. They wished to know when exactly Power had died, the correct spelling of his heart dysfunction, why there had been a lapse between his death and this announcement of it. “We understood that Paddy was resting and did not wish to be disturbed.”

Other questions had to do with Power’s heirs—“I don’t know. His family, I should think”—his exact political plans—“As I said, he would stand for office from this riding. If he had been successful, then…well. Who knows?”—the size of the estate, which was always of interest—“I don’t know, nor do I know if it’s the sort of question that we should be addressing ourselves to here. Yes, from the little I know, Paddy was quite rich, but what matters is how he lived his life, which was simply and in the service of others. From my understanding, the great
bulk of his money will be devoted to charitable undertakings, as it was in his life.”

Yes, you bastard—and doubtless devoted to whoever will now control his money, thought McKeon, who had long admired Paddy Power and had looked forward to his entry into politics. It would be hard to count the people who would benefit from his death, which McKeon assumed had been a class of sneaky, well-planned murder.

There were the political beneficiaries, like O’Duffy and his party, which Power would not have joined. Even Mossie Gladden might have benefited, were he planning a political comeback. Then there were the financial beneficiaries. With a fortune as large as the estimates of Power’s—hundreds of millions of pounds—some lucky person or persons would now find themselves suddenly enriched, unless—McKeon smiled to think of it—Power had foxed them all and socked the whole bundle into his Fund.

Finally there were the aggrieved parties in Power’s life, of whom McKeon knew only of the wife, Nell.

It was then Bresnahan spoke up. The questions had been entirely too general for her, too soft and sympathetic to the explanation that Frost had put forth. And there was something about him that got her hackles up. Maybe it was how sure Frost was both of himself and the cause of Power’s death. She couldn’t imagine the temerity it would take to stand up before television and the press and announce to the “world,” as he had pointed out, his finding. Frost might look like some new-day Celtic hero with his high forehead, wavy silver mane, broad shoulders, and commanding presence, but he was in reality just another local, who in all probability had had to leave Sneem for work, as had she.

A big person herself, Bresnahan had a big voice. “Excuse me,” she said in her best Southside Dublin drawl. “Excuse me—I have a question that I would like to ask.”

Frost, who had been pointing to this reporter or that, now swung his finger to her. He smiled. “Yes, Miss—?”

Bresnahan would not give her name. “Who will run Eire Bank now that Chairman Power has died?”

Frost smiled condescendingly, as at her ignorance of the
particulars of his life. “I will, of course, as I have now for several years. Paddy’s position with Eire Bank was titular alone.” Frost raised his hand, as though for a question from somebody else.

“Wait, please. I have a follow-up question,” Bresnahan called out, her hands behind her back, one long tangerine leg set rakishly before her where she was moving that shoe on the pinion of a cobalt-blue heel. “Wasn’t Mr. Power the largest individual shareholder in Eire Bank?”

Frost waited, his eyes watchful.

“Yet wasn’t he now asking you to write down twenty percent of your stake in the debt? As part of his proposal to the debt conference.”

Gretta Osbourne took a step toward Frost and was heard plainly to say, “Where did she get that?” Her expression was stern; her eyes were accusatory.