“Prison’s done you good Bobby. Being forced to mix with the great unwashed has given you some character. You know, when you burst in tonight you actually made me laugh for the first time I can remember — that Che Guevara line and so forth. You wisecracked your way in here with all the insecurities and bravado of a young NED…a real person instead of the old, self-loving prick. Humour is born of adversity and I think you’ve encountered it for the first time in your life. Even addressing Fin as ‘Pinhead’ was positively affectionate compared to the way you used to ignore him.”

 “Hah,” Bob laughed. “I had nothing to do but stew over my existence in that prison. What you said about my mother and nobody being good enough for me could almost have come out of my own head. Do you know, that four months inside was the first time I’ve ever really relaxed. It provided some peace and perspective. My whole life’s been a torment Dan, trying to be better than everyone, like she always told me I was. Of course, with dad away a month at a time on the oil rigs and her shielding me from him whenever he was home, I’ve grown up unable to accommodate criticism. That’s why I flew into a rage when that whore attacked my music. Did you know she used to be a classical cellist? I hated it when she told me that. You see, Dan, I’m the archetypal goldfish in a liqueur glass. That’s why I consort with prostitutes and have oddballs like Herman and Dickens tagging along. It makes me feel superior, like I’m supposed to be.”

 “You…you were right too.”

 “Sorry?”

 “What you just said about me being a victim of my mother and using Ingrid as a captive audience so I could enjoy the sound of my own voice.”

 “Well, we’re all victims of nurture, Danny. So what do you intend doing then? Are you going to the police?”

 “That’s entirely up to you.”

 “No it’s not at all! The balls are all stacked in your court. So what’s it gonna be?”

 “I’ll keep quiet on condition that you sign all the Squeaky Kirk royalties earned since you were arrested over to me, before lunchtime tomorrow. Seven hundred and sixty grand should do the trick.”

 Judith shook her tearful head in disgust. In the space of a minute, a man who’d spent a lifetime masquerading as a socialist had exposed himself as a phoney and a blackmailer, willing to profit from the attempted murder of a prostitute.

 “You’re friggin’ joking aren’t you?” Bob laughed exaggeratedly, through a combination of disbelief and nerves.

 “No. I mean, let’s face it, it’s only what you people should be paying in taxes anyway.”

 “According to you people who have nothing to lose and everything to gain maybe.”

 “Whatever. But what’s a hundred per cent worth in prison when you could be enjoying half of it in the fresh air?”

 “How do I know you won’t hand me in anyway, after I’ve paid up?”

 “Because I’d be incriminating myself wouldn’t I? With half your royalties in my bank it would be obvious there’d been blackmail and I’d be looked upon as badly as you. You know I’m a man of my word.”

 “I did, yes. But how can you trust a man who, it’s just turned out, has been lying to himself for forty years. You do know you’re renouncing everything you professed to believe in?” There was another brief pause before Bob started talking into his phone. “Fergus?...Bob Fitzgerald…Fitzgerald! Fergus, I need a face to face…I know that but…I wouldn’t be bothering you unless it was an emergency…Half an hour…I really, really appreciate thi…hello?”

 Light filled the hallway. Judith just about managed to conceal herself in the darkened bathroom before Bob marched out of Danny’s bedroom towards the front door, talking manically.

 “It’ll be worth it to see you finally coveting cash and stripped of your self-righteousness. We’ll be morally indistinguishable and I won’t have moved an inch either way. You know what this means don’t you?” He turned to face Danny, who was now wearing an old white dressing gown, with pink streaks where it had been washed with coloured clothes. “It means I’ve won. I was right and you were wrong. We are all instinctively loners…self-interested individuals.” He rubbed his hands in glee. “Do thank the old lady downstairs for letting me past her as she came through the main entrance door.”

CHAPTER: 8

 Danny turned from shutting the door to find a deeply hurt Judith standing in front of him.

 “You used me,” she complained plaintively.

 Ashamed, Danny looked down at the floor. “Yes, I did…and I’m truly, truly sorry.” Then he walked away, unable to look at her. As he entered the lounge, he passed Fin on his way out, but neither so much as acknowledged the other’s presence. The latter told Judith he was going to give her and Danny some time alone together, before retiring to his own bedroom.

 Having taken time to recompose herself, Judith went into the lounge, where Danny was stood on the balcony in his dressing gown, looking up at the stars. She slumped down on the couch and stared at the faded area on the knees of her jeans, arms crossed, kneading her pink, lamb’s wool V-neck jumper with her fingers. After a couple of minutes, Danny started talking, but remained with his back to her.

 “The only reason I drove a cab was to keep Bob and Ingrid under surveillance…the bloody thing wasn’t even mine. I just borrowed it from a pal when he wasn’t working. I only took fares if, like you, they furthered my ends, and so I was usually out of pocket by the time I’d paid for fuel. But I didn’t have any other vices and watching Ingrid was my passion. It was more of an escape than anything — just a few of hours away from the apartment and mum. I was supposed to be her full time carer, but I don’t know if I’d have coped without that time to myself each day.” When Judith looked up, Danny was still out on the balcony, but facing her now. “Please, try not to consider me a freak. It’s just really hard giving up on somebody you love. Not a minute’s gone by without my regretting having used you. I might have had a hidden agenda to begin with, but I grew to enjoy your company immensely and felt we could probably be very good pals. So please, please try and forgive me Judith. Be my friend, then at least something precious will have come out of this ridiculous obsession of mine.”

 The puzzle of “Must say sorry to Judith” had been solved. Danny had obviously been genuinely contrite about using her and, as such, she found it easier to consider forgiveness. But a much darker issue still needed addressing.

 “I can bring myself to understand you spying on Ingrid, even your reasons for not telling her about what Bob did, if I try hard enough. But blackmail? How can you justify something as calculated as that?”

 “Homelessness.”

 “What?”

 “While that arrogant bully’s swaggering round the city with several million in the bank, Finley and I are being evicted, so the landlord can get more lucrative tenants. We’re being deprived of the fundamental human right to a home, while unproductive people like Bob, with their three houses, are hogging all the money.” He stabbed out with his forefinger to stress the point. “All I’ll be doing is taking our rightful share of the cake.”

 “Profiting from violence against society’s most vulnerable though? Surely that’s against everything you stand for?”

 “Even Castro’s had to make moral compromises…and, anyway, like I told you at the wake, since my ma’ died I don’t have any ideology. Ideology’s what’s been paralysing me all these years.”

 “But what if he does it again, only next time he kills somebody?”

 “There’s nothing we can do to prevent that short of becoming murderers ourselves. Remember, I never actually saw Bob do anything, and, it’s so long after the event, my evidence would be dismissed as sour grapes over Ingrid. The only thing we’ve got on him is an informal confession. So, if we play it by the book he remains free and unpunished. If we take his cash though, he’ll at least be paying for what he did in some way…we can transubstantiate it through good acts, just like the government claims to do when they confiscate the proceeds of criminality.”