"I'm only getting to the interesting bit," said Sam. I made a face at Cassie and turned towards the map before she could make one back. "So by March of 2000, when the motorway is announced, these three companies own almost all the land around this section of it. But four farmers had held out-those are the yellow bits. I tracked them down; they're in Louth now. They'd seen what way things were going, and they knew these buyers were offering pretty good prices, above the going rate for agricultural land; that was why everyone else had taken the money. They talked it over-they're all mates, these four-and decided to hold on to their land and see if they could work out what was going on. When the motorway plans were announced, obviously, they copped why these fellas wanted their land so badly: for industrial estates and residential developments, now that the motorway was going to make Knocknaree accessible. So these lads figured they'd get the land rezoned themselves, double or triple its value overnight. They applied to the county council for rezoning-one of them applied
He tapped one of the yellow blocks, half full of tiny calligraphic notes. Cassie and I leaned forward to read them:
Cassie took it in with a brief nod and leaned back on her hands, her eyes still on the map. "So they sold up," she said quietly.
"Yeah. For around the same price as the others got-good for agricultural land, but a long way under the going rate for industrial or residential. Maurice Cleary wanted to stay put, out of sheer bloody-mindedness as much as anything else-said he wasn't going to be forced off his land by any eejit in a suit-but he got a visit from some fella from one of the holding companies, who explained to him that they'd be building a pharmaceutical plant backing onto his farm and they couldn't guarantee that chemical waste wouldn't seep into the water and poison his cattle. He took it as a threat-I don't know whether he was right or not, but he sold up anyway. As soon as the Big Three bought the land-under various other names, but it all traces back to them-they applied for rezoning, and got it."
Cassie laughed, a small angry breath.
"Your Big Three had the county council in their pockets all the way," I said.
"Looks like."
"You've talked to the county councilors?"
"Ah, yeah. For all the good it did me. They were very polite and all, but they talked in circles. They could keep going for hours without giving me a single straight answer." I slid my eyes sideways and caught Cassie's covert, amused glance: Sam, living with a politician, should have been used to this by now. "They said the rezoning decisions were-hang on…" He flipped pages in his notebook. "'Our decisions were on all occasions intended to further the best interests of the community as a whole, as determined based upon the information made available to us at the relevant points in time, and were not impacted by any form of favoritism.' This wasn't part of a letter or anything; your man actually
"How much does it take to buy a county council?" I asked.
Sam shrugged. "For that many decisions, over that amount of time, it must have added up to a decent old figure. The Big Three had a lot of money sunk in that land, one way or another. They wouldn't have been best pleased at the idea of the motorway moving."
"How much damage would it actually do them?"
He pointed to two dotted lines, just cutting across the northwest corner of the map. "According to my surveyors, that's the nearest logical alternative route. That's the one Move the Motorway wants. It's a good two miles away, four or five in some places. The land to the north of the original route would still be accessible enough, but these lads all have plenty on the south side as well, and its value would go right down. I talked to a couple of estate agents, pretended I was interested in buying; they all said industrial land right on the motorway was worth up to twice as much as industrial land three miles off it. I haven't done the exact maths, but it could add up to millions in the difference."
"That'd be worth a few threatening phone calls," Cassie said softly.
"There are people," I said, "to whom that would be worth a few extra grand for a hit man."
