Darkhouse

‘The cab driver who brought us to the airport could have said something, I dunno. One of the neighbours, someone came sniffing around…’

‘Joe, you sound nuts.’

‘How long have you known me, Danny?’

‘Too long.’

‘Right. And in general how often do I screw up?’

‘Yeah, but you’re on vacation now. I’ve never solved a fucking crime in my life sitting by the pool at the condo.’

‘Come on,’ said Joe.

‘Look, people just don’t give up that kind of information. People are suspicious these days, they want to know why someone’s asking. Hold on a second, I got a call coming through.’

Joe waited on the line.

‘That TS guy is a total retard,’ said Danny. ‘The call was for MacKenna, I get stuck talking to his ma—’ Danny stopped. ‘Holy shit,’ he said. ‘Hold on.’ After two minutes, Joe hung up. Just as he walked away, the phone rang again.

‘A couple weeks ago,’ said Danny, straight to the point, ‘a Lieutenant Wade called here from the nineteenth, looking for you. The call was diverted and the bad news is that our boy on the TS has never heard of you, calls out to one of the guys who shouts back you’re in Ireland. And we know there’s no Wade in the nineteenth. And we know there’s a gimp on the TS.’

Joe said nothing. His heart was thumping.

‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘He told him Ireland? But that’s it, right? Nothing else?’

‘That’s it, so he’s not even gonna know where you are in Ireland. If we’re assuming that’s the guy who made the call.’

Joe shook his head. ‘We are assuming that. And I don’t know. Ireland’s a small country.’

‘It’s not that small.’

‘How many people live in Ireland, Danny?’

‘I dunno, twelve million?’

‘Four. And over a million of them live in Dublin. Which leaves under three million spread across the whole country. Believe me, that’s small. Look, leave it with me. I’ll see what I come up with.’ He was about to hang up, when he stopped. ‘Uh, Danny? You think you could call that nice warden, get to Rawlins’ cell mate, talk to him, see what he knows?’ Danny grunted. As soon as Joe put down the phone, he went to the den. He took a box from the back of a row of books and pulled out his dupe – a copy of his shield. It was illegal, but most offi-cers had one. Losing the original meant losing ten vacation days, so when he was on the job, Joe would leave his shield at home in the safe and carry his dupe. This time, there was no original. He had to hand it over when he vested out. He felt a surge of something like jealousy. He flipped open his wallet and looked at his ID card, stamped in red with the one word that changed everything: retired.

O’Connor sat in front of a pile of folders and prepared himself to pick apart every single word of what he was about to read. As usual, each job in the investigation – chasing phone records, interviewing the person who found the body, calling in medical records – had been written on a triplicate form and assigned by the ‘book men’ to a detective. The blue top copy was glued into the left-hand page of the jobs book, with a note opposite saying who took the job and what the outcome was. The other copies were filed in the folders in front of him: Statements, Witnesses, Suspects…He looked at the stack and pulled out the one marked Statements. Top of the pile and four pages long was Shaun Lucchesi’s. He could think of three men over the previous five years who had murdered their girlfriends and walked free. If the gut instinct of every guard working their cases could have been admitted as evidence, three men would have been locked away for a very long time. O’Connor’s gut instinct was not telling him that Shaun Lucchesi was a killer, but it was telling him he was a liar.

Joe almost ignored the phone when it rang on the desk beside him.

‘Hi, Mr Lucchesi. It’s Paula here from the school…Shaun’s history teacher. I can’t get hold of Petey Grant’s mother, so I thought I’d call you. He’s just told me he’s been arrested by Richie Bates and he’s going down to the station.’

‘What?’ said Joe. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Well, no. You know Petey.’

‘I’ll go down and check it out. Thanks for the call.’

Richie and Petey sat in the station at opposite sides of the desk.

‘Why have you arrested me?’ asked Petey.

Richie laughed at him. ‘You’re not being arrested, you’re…’ he held up his fingers to make quotes, ‘“helping us with our enquiries.” I mean, we don’t have any evidence…yet. So,’ he went on, deliberately friendly, ‘obviously you’re here because of Katie.’

‘Oh,’ said Petey.

‘Did you fancy her?’ said Richie bluntly. He was tapping his fingers loudly on the wooden surface.

Petey blushed. ‘No!’ he said.

‘You sent her a Valentine’s card, didn’t you?’

Petey’s eyes shot wide.

‘That was before she was going out with Shaun,’ he stammered.

‘And were you upset when she started going out with Shaun?’

‘No!’ said Petey, horrified. ‘Shaun’s my friend. So is Joe!’

‘Did you ever ask her out?’

‘No!’ He stopped. ‘I’ve never asked anyone out.’ He blinked back tears.

‘I’m going to get to the point here, Petey,’ said Richie. ‘Do you know anything about what happened the Friday night Katie went missing?’

‘No,’ said Petey. ‘I told you. I was inside, like I was supposed to be.’

‘Are you sure?’ said Richie, forcefully.

‘Yes,’ said Petey. He started tapping his foot on the floor.

‘Do you understand how important it is to tell us if you know anything?’ said Richie. ‘Another girl could die if we don’t have all the information.’ Petey looked shocked.

‘Someone else could die?’ he said. ‘Oh my God.’

The doorbell startled him.

‘Stay where you are,’ barked Richie. Petey was shaking.

Duke jumped up from the bench and put his ear to the thick round glass. He heard it again – a scratching sound, then churning, then scratching. ‘Shit,’ he said. The owner came over to him.

‘You got a problem with the dryer?’

‘Uh, yeah,’ said Duke. ‘Think I left a pin in my jeans.’

‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘Well, here.’ She pushed a key into a slot at the side and turned it off. ‘You should be able to open it now.’

He reached in and pulled out the warm, tangled jeans and jacket. On the bottom of the drum, a single euro coin was left. He picked it up, confused. It burned his palm.

‘Money,’ she said. ‘Even better.’ But Duke was panicked now, pulling out pockets, examining the denim, patting down the clothes he was wearing, emptying out his bag on the floor. His fingers ran over and through everything, until he was kneeling, panting, his heart pounding. He stood up and leaned heavily against the dryer, his head bent. Beads of sweat had broken out on his forehead.

‘Damn,’ he roared, slamming his hands against the machine, kicking it with his boot. ‘Damn.’ Everyone was quiet around him. The owner didn’t move. Duke piled everything back into his bag and walked out the door, past a woman holding a pair of white trousers with a grass stain on the knee.

‘Molasses will get that out,’ he snarled as he walked by.