Page 33

‘Whoa, whoa,’ I said, trying to politely stop her from slamming the door in my face. ‘It’s about your father—’ I blurted out, throwing my face into the fast-narrowing gap between door and frame.

The door paused, less than an inch from closing.

‘I haven’t spoken to my father in thirty years. Why would I care if he’s in any danger?’ Maeve muttered. Her voice seemed indifferent, but I could see she was feeling a small fleck of concern.

‘Because he’s still your dad?’ I said, appealing to any small shred of familial love left in Maeve’s heart. ‘That’s something you can’t change, no matter how hard you try.’

‘He probably finally pissed off the wrong guy and got what was coming to him. Is he dead, then?’

‘We’re…in the middle of an investigation.’ I wasn’t sure how best to answer that question. We think your dad has been carved up, chopped up and disposed of didn’t seem to be a response that would help me here.

‘What makes you think he’s in danger?’

‘He’s gone missing.’

The door crept open a few more inches, and I finally got a proper look at the woman in front of me.

‘Five minutes. I need to focus on repairing my oven so I can eat tonight.’

She didn’t offer me any tea or coffee but she did lead me to the small kitchen table, which was cluttered with various parts of some sort of machine. ‘Just replacing the oven igniter,’ she explained, probably noticing my puzzled look as I tried to make sense of the scattered pieces of machinery.

‘Look, my father was an entrepreneur, but he ran his businesses’ – she struggled to find the suitable word – ‘immorally,’ she continued, crouching down to fiddle with the oven.

‘The way he operated meant we moved around a lot – usually packing up shop before people realised that they’d been conned. ’

‘Has anyone ever tried to hurt him before?’ I asked, trying to inconspicuously pull out my notebook, hoping the smallest of my body movements wouldn’t disrupt her; the way I had to sit perfectly still when Mep finally came to sit on my lap.

‘That man could make you madder than you’ve ever been in your life, then convince you punching him wasn’t in your best interests,’ Maeve said, a small twinkle of sentimentality in her tone as I heard the oven clunk as she fiddled with some device.

‘Even when I was young, I thought that maybe one day his luck would run out, which is probably what has happened now.’

I thought back to yesterday, standing in Cis’s office looking over the wads of purchase orders, invoices and statements that belonged to the Heart of Hope Foundation.

‘Do you know anything else about this foundation he was a part of?’ I asked.

‘Oh, that…It was his little way to give back to the community, he said. They donated to schools, museums, art projects, things like that. If my father wasn’t home, that’s where he’d be.

I remember he and his friends all wore these little bronze rings.

It meant they were “brothers in blood” or something, that they had made a promise to help others, but it was clear the whole “guild” thing was just one big ruse. ’

Rings? Just like the one Macleod wore. I jotted that down in my notebook before glancing back up at her.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, trying not to make it blatantly obvious that I was playing a bit clueless.

‘Did you not listen to a word I just said, mate?’ she laughed. ‘My father was a con artist. Do you really think he suddenly had this gracious change of heart and decided to give back to the needy? The man just saw a new opportunity.’

Interesting: the same theory that I’d come to.

‘And when was the last time you saw your father?’

Maeve stood up from repairing the oven and began washing her sooty hands in the sink. ‘One night, out of the blue, my mother told me to stay in bed until late the next morning. Told me I didn’t even need to go to school the next day – so I didn’t.’

She stopped when her voice cracked, muttered a quiet apology, collecting herself before continuing.

‘Take all the time you need,’ I offered. But her face creased with frustration, as if my words had disrupted the flow of her memory.

‘We stayed home,’ she went on, pretending she hadn’t heard me. ‘He went to work, and then my mum bundled me into her car and we drove to my grandparents’ house in Manchester. We never came back.’

‘Did your dad ever find you?’

‘No, but I also don’t think he tried.’

‘And did you ever find out why your mum had decided to leave all of a sudden?’

‘I tried to ask my mum about it – I was only thirteen when it happened – but she never spoke of him again. She met another man and settled down, but she couldn’t even be in the same room if anyone mentioned my father.

I always assumed we had left because he’d finally conned the wrong man – you know, the kind of man who comes back to give you a bit of a punching.

Or maybe my mother realised she couldn’t stay with a man who stole from hardworking people for his own gain.

I never found out why we left that night. ’

‘And you never saw him again?’ I asked. ‘You never tried to reach out?’

I could see Maeve trying to hide the sadness in her face, still drying her hands on the tea towel, even though they were perfectly dry by now.

‘My mother never wanted to speak to my father again, but she never forbade me from talking to him. But he never even reached out. He never made an effort. Do you know what that does to the mind of a thirteen year old?’

I didn’t. I had loved my dad; now I just missed him.

‘Gordon O’Neill is a name that’s followed me my whole life. I’ve had people track me down and ask me for the money he still owes them, even after I changed my surname, but I’ve never heard even a whisper from him.’

She stopped drying her hands and sat down across from me at the kitchen table, letting out a long and mighty sigh as she settled into the chair. While she took a moment, I did the mental mapping in my head about how best I could un-implicate Fran from this.

‘Maeve, this might sound strange, but do you have any photos of your father?’

‘Why?’

‘It may just be useful to the investigation, if that’s okay.’

She gave a giant huff and begrudgingly trotted out of the room.

I waited, unsure if she was even going to come back.

I was lost in a swirl of my thoughts about Fran when, out of nowhere, a handful of photos were slapped down onto the table in front of me, startling me. Maeve had re-entered the room.

I picked them up. The first was of O’Neill – decades younger – holding a baby I assumed to be Maeve.

He looked extraordinarily cheery, smiling widely as he cradled the newborn in his arms. The next photo was O’Neill again, flanked by two people who I assumed were his friends.

They stood outside some building, grinning at the camera and holding an oversized cheque with the ‘Heart of Hope’ insignia plastered on the front.

O’Neill was unmistakable in the middle. I didn’t recognise the face on his left, but on his right stood Thomas Macleod, identified easily as the Director of the SFO from his uniform and the insignia on his badge.

Sure enough, all three of them wore the ornate bronze rings on their little fingers.

I looked at the name of the building, St Nicholas’s Children’s Home, and the headline: ‘Children’s home receives ￡100,000 grant for renovations and support’.

‘Thank you, Maeve,’ I managed to say, my words stumbling over each other as I tried to rise to my feet, everything beginning to make sense.

‘St Nicholas’s…’ I murmured, recognising the name from Fran’s report.

Surely, I couldn’t be thinking right? But as hard as I tried to resist, I believe I had stumbled upon what, in our line of work, you would call a motive.