Page 61 of Mann Hunt
“My parents are blind to anything they don’t want to know about. I suspect they’ve never given it a thought.”
“How do you think they’d react if they found out?” Declan asked.
“Who’s going to tell them—you?” Michael said.
“No.”
“Then the chance of them finding out is virtually nil.”
As his arrogance increased, Declan found Michael less and less attractive. “Tell me,” Declan asked, redirecting the conversation, “what do you do?”
“Other than listen to jazz music? I’m in graduate studies. Business management with an interest in corporate real estate.”
“Not law, like your father?”
“Father made it perfectly clear from an early age that he felt that I wasn’t cut out for ‘the law’, as he pretentiously calls it.”
“But business… Are you cut out for that?”
“I happen to be very good at it,” Michael snapped back.
This was the state of mind Declan had hoped for. “So, how did you get interested in business?” Declan asked.
“I took two years off after high school. My parents agreed to let me tour Europe. I met a man—Pierre Lavigne—a vintner. I saw in his eyes the joy of running your own business. After that, I spent my time there travelling and talking to businessmen from every industry—fashion, computers, hospitality, real estate—and the successful ones all had the same look in their eyes. That trip changed my life. I just needed to gain some credibility, hence the degree in business.”
Declan nodded. There was passion there—no doubt about it. “Now, if we could talk about the death of Ian Mann.”
Michael hesitated. “Okay.”
“To clarify,” Declan added, “you don’t think Ian knew about your affair with Katherine?”
“No. I always felt, when it came to Katherine’s personal sex life, Ian didn’t care.”
“What makes you say that?”
Michael paused, as if to review his mental notes. “He just never seemed to show any jealousy when other men paid attention to Katherine, even when they were younger and far better looking than him.”
“Did you ever talk business with Ian?”
“Not really. He may have been a player a while back, but he inherited everything he had. He didn’t build his business up from scratch. I saw him as more of a manager, and not really an effective one. Since the crash, he’s down to a single property.”
Michael stopped talking. Declan wondered if he’d decided that dissing a dead man made him look bad.Then Michael continued. “We did spend a lot of time talking about his hockey team.”
“The Axemen.”
“Yeah. He loved that team. He felt it made him a real Canadian. He treated it like it was an NHL franchise that he’d bought into, which of course it wasn’t,” Michael said with a patronising sneer.
“So, did you ever hear of anyone who would want him dead?”
“Ian didn’t have an enemy in the world, as far as I knew.”
Apparently there was someone.
Declan smiled, then stood.
“Thank you so much for stopping by. I really appreciate it. Can I get your number in case I have any other questions?”
Michael passed him a business card with his name, number and a customised realtor logo, then they shook hands and Michael departed.
