He lets me take the measure of the place—the wire-mesh door at the back, the two-way mirror next to the cash-out window, the CCTV monitor blinking in the corner where the old Donnelly sticker is half-peeled and scabbed with black tape.
There is no one on the monitor feed.
Fiachra stands with his arms folded by the door.
His stance is parade-ground, but he keeps one finger hooked inside his blazer, close to the grip of the Glock.
Boyle pretends not to see it.
He has played this hand before.
I begin.
"Thank you for coming."
Boyle tilts his chin, just enough.
"I heard the invitation was not optional."
"That's correct."
He looks at his watch, a battered Seiko, the crystalscratched to haze.
"I've got ten minutes before my driver starts to worry. What's on your mind, Ruairí?"
The way he says my name—flat, clipped, with the ghost of a sneer—tells me more than the last three weeks of intercepted calls.
I wonder if he rehearsed it in the car or if it just comes out that way when the room smells like bleach and old panic.
I slide the envelope across the table.
It lands with a soft slap, heavy with printouts and annotated shipping manifests.
Boyle eyes it like a dog checking for poison.
"Open it," I say.
He does.
His hands are steady as he sorts the papers, the only tremor at the tip of his left ring finger.
I watch that finger.
I remember, from the last war, that he lost a piece of it in a car door, but he claims it was frostbite during the big freeze in ‘98.
Both stories are true, in their way.
He scans the top sheet, brow furrowing.
"These are Donnelly invoices."
"They're yours," I say.
"Or they were until last Tuesday."
He makes a show of reading the first three lines, then tosses the sheet aside.
"I haven't signed for Donnelly since the funeral. You know that. Everyone knows that."
