Ross O’Carroll-Kelly

It's been a mad two weeks. The whole Anglo Irish tapes thing has been bad news, I know, for Ireland. But for the country's third-fastest-growing confidential document disposal service, it's been, like, a godsend? As my old man says, there's nothing like a business scandal to stir a country's corporate conscience and, for the past 10 days, I've been busier than a cat burying shit on a hardwood floor.

Six o’clock on Wedneday night, roysh, I’ve just done my last job of the day, when my mobile suddenly rings and I answer with the usual, “Shred Focking Everything – secure, reliable and environmentally questionable. How may I direct your call?”

It ends up being him – as in, like, my old man? – and he sounds in a seriously agitated slash mullered state. "Can you, um, pop in to see me," he goes?"

Fifteen minutes later, I’m sitting in his study, listening to him muttering madly to himself, while he pours himself a glass of brandy big enough to strip the paint from the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

“You’d have to worry about the message it sends out internationally,” he goes. “What will it do to Ireland’s reputation as a banana republic if conversations like this can just leak into the public domain? There’s a lot of people won’t want to do business here.”

I’m like, “Sorry, you invited me out here to listen to this?”

He pushes a Dictaphone across the desk to me. “No,” he goes, “I invited you out here to listen to this.”

“What is it?”

“A recording. Of a phone conversation. Between me and a certain David Drumm in the autumn of 2008. It has the potential to be very embarrassing if it ever gets out.”

"Er, you record your phone conversations why exactly?"

“Just in case somebody says something compromising that I can use against them at a later date. It was a piece of advice that Hennessy gave me when I started out in business. But this time it’s me who’s compromised.”

He presses play and I listen to the conversation. I’ll give it to you, like, word for word.

COCK: “Pip pip and what ho!”

I probably should point out that COCK is Charles O’Carroll-Kelly, not David Drumm.

DD: “Hello? Who is this?”

COCK: “Drummer, it’s Charles.”

DD: “Who?”

COCK: “It’s the famous Charles, old bean!”

DD: “Charles O’Carroll-Kelly?”

COCK: “Right and correct.”

DD: “Charles, what do you want? Sorry, I’m kind of busy at the moment.”

COCK: “I expect you are! That’s why I’m ringing. Just to offer you my support – moral, obviously, rather than financial – at what I’m sure is a very difficult time for you and all the chaps at the bank. And to say, you’ll come through this. In five years’ time, you’ll be looking back on this time and laughing.”

DD: “I, er, hope so.”

COCK: “The Government are going to do something, I presume.”

DD: “At the moment, we don’t know.”

COCK: “Well, they have to! What’s the alternative?”

DD: “We’re trying not to think about that.”

COCK: “You’ve got to be tough with them, old chap.”

DD: “We’re not really holding a lot of cards.”

COCK: (chuckles) “I’m laughing here because I’m thinking of my son, Ross, whom you might remember him from the famous Castlerock College Dream Team of ’99. When he wants money for something, he comes to me and says, ‘Gimme the moolah!’”

DD: “Gimme the moolah?”

COCK: “You could almost say it’s a catchphrase of his.”

DD: “Gimme the moolah!”

COCK: “That’s it. Quote-unquote. Or, ‘Gimme the focking moolah!’ if it’s a particularly large sum he’s looking for.”

DD: (laughs) “Okay. And does that approach tend to work?”

COCK: “Well, it’s probably not much of a reflection on my parenting skills, but yes, I have to say it does. Actually, I played nine holes with one of your chaps recently and I was telling him a story about the self-same Ross. He came to me once and he said, ‘I need seven grand. My car insurance is due.’ As I was writing him the cheque, I said, ‘Is that how much car insurance costs these days?’ And he snapped the cheque out of my hand and said, ‘No, I just pulled it out of my arse.’ Seventeen years of age! I thought to myself, oh, dear, what kind of a monster have I raised?!”

DD: “I’ve got to go. I’ve another call coming through.”

COCK: “Well, best of luck, old sport. And remember what I said!!”

DD: “Gimme the moolah!”

COCK: (laughs) “That’s the style!”

The calls ends.

I laugh then. I can't help it. I'm like, "I can't believe you put all that stuff in their heads."

“Well,” he goes, “you can see now why I don’t want this getting out. I have my political ambitions to consider. What would it do to the future of New Republic?”

“Why don’t you just smash the tape with, like, a hammer? Or throw it in the fire?”

"Because I'm worried it won't destroy it sufficiently. That someone might still be able to, I don't know, retrieve the information by some means or other. That's how paranoid I am. I haven't slept in days, Ross. But then I thought, wait a minute – why not call in a professional to do the job?"

Meaning, presumably, me? I take the little cassette out of the machine. I'm like, "Consider it disposed of."

He breathes a sudden sigh of relief. He’s there, “I can’t even begin to tell you what this means to me, Kicker.”

“But it’s going to cost you,” I go.

He’s like, “Of course,” already dialing the number into the safe.

I’m there, “Ten grand.”

"Ten grand?" he goes. "Where did you get ten grand?" And I'm like, "Don't force me to use the line."
ILLUSTRATION: ALAN CLARKE