Free The Devil I Know by Claire Kilroy Page B

conduit, an instrument of others . M. Deauville issued the instructions and I carried them out. At first, I tried to keep Hickey’s name out of our conversations on the grounds that M. Deauville would have disapproved of the company I was keeping, or that was keeping me, because I couldn’t quite get shot of D. Hickey, I couldn’t quite shake him off.
    I came out of the bank at Sutton Cross having lodged that initial Castle Holdings cheque. I’d anticipated trouble from the cashier – ‘This is not a valid cheque, sir’; ‘You cannot write a cheque to yourself for a hundred grand, Mr St Lawrence,’ but apparently it was, and you could. Anything was possible in an Irish bank back then. The Cross was dazzlingly vivid, as if I’d stumbled out of the darkness of a cinema into morning light. Each object was remarkable for its industrious wholeness, its bright sovereignty, and I was happy standing there in the afternoon sunshine and being part of it, the cheque for Father in my hand, when the battered red flatbed truck swerved and mounted the kerb. Hickey rolled down the window. ‘There ya are,’ he shouted at me. ‘Hop in.’ I’m telling you, that man could smell money.
    ‘Now,’ he said as we pulled away, ‘I’ve had a better idea.’ I smiled. There were some things you could always count on. Not that Hickey would have a better idea, but that he would think that the idea was a better one. The recent history of this country has been moulded by those without the vision to perceive the flaws in their plans.
    He drove in the direction of the castle but pulled in at the old cement factory, which was located a few hundred yards shy of my gateposts and on the other side of the road. Only in Ireland would the acreage flanking a white sand beach be zoned for industrial use.
    ‘We don’t own this land any more,’ I said, heading him off at the pass.
    Hickey threw his hands in the air. ‘Did I open me mouth?’ He jumped out and unlocked the gate and we trundled around the back of the lot. The factory was derelict. So was the motor company. And the petrol station beyond it.
    ‘So anyway,’ he said as we meandered along the perimeter wall, which was festooned with graffiti and edged with weeds, ‘this is me next project. I’m developing it for residential an commercial use.’ He pointed out through the passenger window. ‘There’ll be an apartment block here,’ we rolled along, ‘an another here, an two over there. Eight blocks in total, ranging in height from three to eight storeys. We’re looking at the guts of 400 residential units, with about 12,000 square metres of office an commercial space at ground level, to include a hotel.’
    ‘An hotel?’
    ‘Correct. That’ll go at the harbour end.’
    ‘Father built an hotel on the estate and it barely ever achieves full occupancy, not even in summer. Not even when there’s a wedding. The last thing Howth needs is another empty hotel.’
    ‘This is Ireland.’
    ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
    ‘You can’t build an apartment complex in Ireland without a hotel.’
    ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you can.’
    ‘Ah see,’ he said, ‘you can an you can’t. No investor will touch you unless you qualify for Section 23-type reliefs.’
    ‘Section 23?’
    ‘Tax write-offs. So we have to build either a hotel or a multi-storey car park or a hospital or a student residence. None a which are needed, but the way I see it, if you build a hotel, then at least you have a bar.’ He pointed through the windscreen at the western boundary. ‘The leisure centre is going to be over there, an we have to keep the park an public tennis courts or they’ll all be moanin an cribbin, though we’re turning some of it into an all-weather playing pitch, but we may as well not bother if you ask me because no one’s going to be able to use it in anyways seeing as we’re putting it right next to the cream crackers.’
    ‘The what?’
    ‘Travellers’ halting site.