KIMBERLY NOLAN:
Boivin was dead by the time I got to Paris—this was September 2012—but he’d never really interested me. I just wanted to know how he’d gone about it and who he’d used. I wanted to know who’d pulled that fucking bag over my head. There was only one article I could find that touched on the actual mechanics of the triple-kidnap-murder plot. It referenced three English men, the Matthews brothers, who’d done casual work for Boivin in the good years. From what I could tell, they all lived in France, and they’d all been arrested on charges of conspiracy to commit something, although exactly what was unclear. What got me on the plane was a story saying Gary, the eldest of the three, had been released on bail. And even that was strange, because they said it was on the grounds that their family business, this dive bar in Paris, would go under without him.
Anyway, there was a picture of him walking out of court holding a jacket up over his head. You couldn’t see him properly, but there was a tattoo on his left hand, like a scowling, frowning face, like a tragedy mask. And it struck me that there was probably a smiling face representing comedy on the other hand, just like the one I’d seen inside the van. A ghoulish, laughing clown face, a great big, horrible grin.
RICKY PAYNE, Property developer, acquaintance of the Matthews brothers:
Never saw one of those lads without a drink in his hand, I can tell you that. It’s what they’d come out to France for in the first place, wasn’t it? Bit of the easy life. I don’t know, they’d had some cowboy operation back home, doing up old houses so they looked good for the five minutes it took to sell them, then fell apart five minutes later. They made regular trips to the Continent trying to make every pound coin spend twice, booze and blow runs, and that must be how they got it in their minds to move here. It would have been Gary’s idea—everything was. Mike and Kev were always just along for the ride. They couldn’t say a single swear word in French between the three of them, so their business on this side of the Channel never got far. [Laughs] Not even far enough off the ground to fall down and die again. They just limped. That’s how they started working for Boivin. They weren’t much cop and his standards were low. He didn’t care if his properties got done up or not. He paid cash and he cut corners, so I suppose they all suited each other.
I knew them from the Green-Eyed Monster, an Irish pub in Paris, a money pit the brothers were all mad enough to go in on. Can’t say I was surprised when I heard they’d been arrested for something, although murder left a sour taste. After they went down, I just assumed the Monster, the pub, would go down with them, then I walk by one day to see the lights are on and Gary’s at the bar. I went in and saw he was blind drunk, all over the shop. I says, “Gary, I thought you were serving time, not serving pints.” [Laughs] He said he was out on parole, extenuating circumstances, but I didn’t know they ran to getting pissed. Rumor was he sold his brothers down the river for the home invasion and executions. Gave evidence against them and Boivin in exchange for his freedom. Like I said, he had the brains. [Laughs] If you could call them that.11
KIMBERLY NOLAN:
All I knew about Gary was that he was out of prison and he owned this pub with his brothers in Jaurès, the Green-Eyed Monster. I landed at Charles de Gaulle in the early evening and went straight there. I didn’t have any real money, but I was quite happy to burn up this credit card and hang around for as long as it took. When I got there, I remember stopping dead in the street and laughing out loud. The fucking van they’d put me in was sitting outside the pub. The windscreen was covered in tickets, it didn’t look like it could even run, but I’m sure it was the same one. There were even messages written in the grime on the back door, only now they were all in French. When I saw the pub, I didn’t even think it was open—the door was so dirty you wouldn’t piss on it. And I mean, an Irish pub in Paris—you might as well build a golf course on the Great Barrier Reef—but it looked extra shit. I was surprised when I pushed the door and saw the lights were on inside. There were two or three terminal cases sitting in the corners, like, hardcore guys—blind, deaf and dumb drunk. No one was serving, so I went over to the bar and waited. If the ceiling was as sticky as the floor was, you could have walked on it. I’d been there about five minutes when a man staggered into the room, and that was when I saw his face for the first time.
Gary Matthews.
He looked like one of those fat, inbred English bulldogs. Booze jowls, big red eyes and breathing difficulties. He nodded at me to order, but I wanted to hear his voice, so I waited. I looked at him. I’d lost weight since they’d picked me up outside Fifth, my hair was short and I was wearing black, he didn’t recognize me. He sighed and said, “What you want?”
What I really wanted was to stick a pin in his face and see if it deflated, or take a blade to his belly and drain it for him, but in the end, I settled for a beer. Maybe there was the slightest pause when he heard my voice, but not much more than that. I remember he had to turn in stages to pour my drink, like a fucking oil tanker or something, and I started laughing again. It was the kind of place where laughter really stuck out, so he scowled over his shoulder, but I couldn’t help it. I thought, This is the man you’ve been so scared of? This is the man who made you run away and put those bags under your eyes? He’s a joke. He’s pathetic. He probably hasn’t seen his dick in as long as you haven’t seen Zoe. Then he set my beer down with his right hand, and there was a comedy tattoo on it, the laughing face I’d seen inside the van.
And that was it, the way I looked at his hand.
When we looked at each other, I could see he knew me. His whole face went red, then beetroot, then dickhead purple. Then all the skin I could see, his ears and neck and forearms. I’d have thought he was having a heart attack if I’d thought he had a heart. He broke eye contact. Turned around and muttered something about the drink being on him. I thought about the building site, he and his brothers pouring piss and vodka in my eyes. I said, “Yeah, thanks. I think the last one was on me.” After that, he disappeared while I sat there and drank the whole pint. Over the next half hour, one or two of the others tried to get his attention. They came up to the bar and called for him, but he didn’t come back. Once they’d all sacré bleu’d and stormed out, I went behind the bar and made myself another drink, something expensive this time, from the brandies, then I followed Gary into the back. He was sitting on a stool staring into space like some little boy whose mum had just bollocked him. I don’t know if he was upset for me or for himself or for his brothers or his bar. To be fair, he looked like he was sorry for his whole stupid, shit life. I said, “What did you do with Zoe?” and he looked up for a second. He didn’t say anything, so I said, “What did you do with my sister?” He just shook his head and wiped his face with a rag. He said, “Dunno what you’re on about.” Then he said, “Get out. We’re closed.”