up on a big spread about extraordinary rendition. A cleaning woman had boarded a supposedly empty American plane to find a prisoner handcuffed, hooded and wearing an adult nappy. The Irish government were hugely embarrassed: they'd given public assurances that war-on-terror 'rendered' prisoners didn't come anywhere near the place on their way to Guantánamo Bay or the CIA's secret prisons in Afghanistan, Pakistan or wherever their interrogators had been able to set up shop.
The piece said:
The practice has grown sharply since the 9/11
terrorist attacks, and now includes a form in
which suspects are illegally arrested, sometimes
straight off the street, and delivered to a third-party
state. There, the suspects are tortured by
many means, including 'waterboarding' . . .
We used to do it out of this very city, only it wasn't called rendition in those days. They were just lifted. It got me wondering if Special Branch had ever used waterboarding. We never hung around at the castle long enough to see what went on. Better not to know, and have a clean pair of hands.
I checked the property pages but there was nothing for sale in the whole suburb of Ballsbridge, let alone Herbert Park.
'What do the houses go for round here?'
'Put it this way, last time you were here you could have picked up one of these little beauties for fifty thousand punts. Last one I saw advertised went for well over seven million euros. We're nearly there. Which end?'
I folded the newspaper. 'Drop us off here, mate. I'm going to walk down and surprise them.'
I paid him thirty euros and walked along Herbert Park in the rain, looking for number eighty-eight. Actually, it wasn't really rain, not even drizzle, more a mist that soaked everything through. I pulled up the collar of my bomber, hooked my bag over my shoulder and started walking.
If Pete had done good, Dom had hit the jackpot. These were substantial four-storey red-brick houses set back from the road, with large rectangular windows, designed for the grand and merchant classes during old Dublin's previous heyday. Raised stone staircases led one floor up to very solid and highly glossed front doors. The ground floor was reserved for the servants. Either Dom had married into money or the Polish celeb mags paid much more than I'd imagined for their double-page spreads. Or the Yes Man hadn't been talking bollocks.
Lights were on in several of the houses, and curtains were open to display the gilded furniture and big chandeliers to best effect.
I was still trying to work out what to say to Siobhan. Did she know Dom was an asset? I wasn't sure how that worked with spouses. I'd never been put to the test.
I walked past 6 Series BMWs and shiny 4x4s.
For all I knew, Dom could be sitting at home with his feet up watching telly, and Siobhan was putting the kettle on to make him a brew.
I neared number eighty-eight. The hall light shone through a glass panel over a wide, shiny wooden door. I couldn't see any movement through the front windows or upstairs. There were no milk bottles on the front step, empty or full, but that meant nothing nowadays. There was no condensation on the windows, but I wouldn't expect it. This was no minging old council house with poor heating and no ventilation.
I carried on past. Keeping a mental count of the houses, I reached the end of the street. The last time I'd walked past so many brand-new cars I'd been in a Kuwaiti showroom. This place was awash with money. I picked up a flyer from the pavement advertising a luxurious spa with a helipad on the roof in case you needed some emergency work on your cuticles.
I turned left at the end of the terrace and worked my way round to the back of the houses. There was a small service road about four metres wide that the gardens on each side backed on to. I walked past all the wheelie-bins and counted up to sixteen. Each property had a six-foot brick wall and either an old wooden gate or a fancy wrought-iron one. Mature trees towered over the gardens.
The lights were on at the back of eighty-eight on the first floor.
There was movement in what looked like the kitchen, but the blinds were half down. I couldn't ID the shadow, but it seemed too small to be Dom.
I turned back and it wasn't long before I was knocking with the heavy iron lion's head on the front door.