Marie sat opposite him in the living room while Ellen lay on the floor, drawing. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Why you got mixed up with someone like him.’
‘Someone like him,’ she echoed. ‘I didn’t know what he was when I met him. It was at Uncle Michael’s wake. He looked so lost.’
‘He killed your uncle.’
Lennon watched his daughter as she drew a slender figure, sticks for arms and legs.
‘I know that now,’ Marie said. ‘I’d heard of him. I knew he’d been inside, that he had a reputation. But I’ve known men like that all my life. I didn’t think he was any different. I didn’t know there were so many.’
‘So many what?’
‘Dead.’
Ellen drew dark lines for hair around the figure’s head, then sad eyes and a soft smile.
‘But he was so kind,’ Marie continued. ‘So gentle. And he was ready to give his life for Ellen and me.’
‘He’s a killer,’ Lennon said.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘He’s a monster. He’s insane. And he’d do anything to protect us.’
‘So would I,’ Lennon said.
In the stick-woman’s arm, a baby with a small round head, and tiny hands grasping at its mother’s breast.
‘Jack, you left us,’ Marie said. Her eyes were cold. ‘The time to protect us was when I had Ellen inside me. But you ran away from us when we needed you most.’
‘I’ve missed you so much,’ he said. ‘I’ve missed Ellen.’
Marie gave a laugh like cracked ice. ‘Jesus, don’t go all sentimental on me, Jack. It doesn’t suit you.’
Ellen began another figure beside the stick-woman. Slender again, but taller.
‘It’s true,’ Lennon said. ‘As soon as I left, I regretted it.’
‘Only because she ditched you a week later.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘It’s perfectly fair,’ she said, her face hardening. ‘What’s it called? When you regret a sin only because you’ve been punished. Yes, that’s it. Imperfect contrition.’
‘I was punished, all right. You know, she tried to bring a sexual harassment charge against me. She told them I’d been pestering her, calling her up, following her, said I wanted to marry her. It was bullshit, of course. She just couldn’t stand being in the same building as me, so she tried to get me fired. And she almost succeeded. It was a bad time. The way people looked at me in the corridors, especially the women, like I was filth. They offered me a deal, said if I resigned, they’d settle with her. She’d have got a payout, and I’d have been looking for a new job. The way things were it didn’t seem like that bad a deal. I almost took it.’
‘So why didn’t you?’ Marie asked.
‘I remembered what it had cost me to be a cop in the first place. How much I’d thrown away just by joining up. I’d be damned if I’d let that crazy—’ He swallowed and glanced at Ellen. ‘I wouldn’t let her drive me out of my job just because she couldn’t face up to what she’d done.’
‘Face up to what she’d done? God, that’s rich.’
Lennon ignored the jibe. He hesitated, wondered if he should tell her. ‘I’ve watched you, sometimes. You and Ellen.’
‘You followed us?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Yes. Not followed, exactly. I just wanted to see my daughter. You’ve never allowed me to know her.’
‘You never deserved to know her.’
The new figure beside the stick-woman and her baby was a man. His face was not round like the woman’s, but long and pointed. Ellen’s tongue poked out as she concentrated on the lines that made up his body and legs.
‘She’s my daughter,’ Lennon said.
‘You’ve no—’
‘She’s my daughter,’ Lennon said. ‘I’m her father. I have a right to know her. She has a right to know me.’
‘Rights,’ Marie said. She stood and went to the window overlooking the marina. ‘Don’t talk to me about rights. You left me to raise a child on my own because you didn’t have the guts to be a father. You gave up any right to her six years ago.’
Lennon followed her to the window. Sailing-boat masts swayed below. Seagulls pitched and swooped. ‘You’re using her to punish me. You always have.’
She looked back over her shoulder. Her face showed no emotion. She said, ‘And I always will.’
Lennon couldn’t hold her gaze, so he looked down at Ellen’s picture. The stick-man had a pistol in his hand. He hunkered down beside her and put a finger on the figure.
‘Who’s that, sweetheart?’ he asked.
‘Gerry,’ Ellen said.
He pointed to the other figure. ‘And that?’
‘That’s the secret lady.’
‘What does Gerry have a gun for?’
‘To scare the baddies away.’ She drew stick-Gerry’s mouth as a thin, straight line.
‘What baddies does he need to scare away?’
‘Dunno,’ Ellen said.
‘Isn’t Gerry a baddie?’ Lennon asked.
Ellen put her pencil down and gave him a serious look. ‘No, he’s nice. He’s coming to help us.’
‘No, love,’ Lennon said. ‘He doesn’t know where we are.’
‘Yes, he does,’ Ellen said. She picked up her pencil again. ‘He’ll be here soon.’
63
Gerry Fegan didn’t slow his pace as he approached Marie McKenna’s flat on Eglantine Avenue. A female cop leaned on a patrol car eating chips from a polystyrene tray. A bottle of Coca-Cola sat on the car roof. Another cop emerged from the house. He threw a stuffed bin liner onto the car’s back seat and closed the door. He tried to filch a chip from the woman cop’s tray. She pulled it away, but not before he snagged a few. He grinned at her as he chewed them.
Fegan was less than twenty yards away, on the other side of the avenue, when a young man came out of the house. He looked like a student. He exchanged a few words with the cops before heading towards the Malone Road, walking in the same direction as Fegan. Going to the university, or maybe the Student Union building.
Fegan lifted his pace to match the boy’s. The cops were too busy arguing over their chips to notice him. What had happened there? The cop he’d talked to on the phone said Marie and Ellen were safe, and Fegan believed him. But for how long? If someone had tried to harm them, then they would try again. He quickened his steps to close the distance between him and the boy. By the time they reached the corner of Eglantine Avenue and the Malone Road, Fegan was just steps behind him.
‘What was all that about?’ Fegan called, his voice light and friendly.
The boy slowed and looked back. ‘What?’
‘Back there,’ Fegan said as he drew level with the boy. ‘The cops outside that house you came out of. Was there trouble?’
Unease creased the boy’s forehead. He looked around him. The Malone Road teemed with life. Fegan kept his hands in his pockets, his voice friendly. He tried a smile. ‘Just curious,’ he said.
The boy kept walking. ‘The woman who used to live there,’ he said, ‘she had some trouble yesterday. Something at the hospital.’
‘What sort of trouble?’ Fegan asked, keeping in step with him.
‘I only heard what was on the news,’ the boy said. ‘Someone tried to snatch her daughter. Then the police came today to get some of her stuff.’
