Darkhouse

Joe tried to smile at him. ‘It’s OK, son.’ He walked over to the bed and took the basin out of the way. He sat down.

‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ he said. ‘I needed you to sleep this off…’

Shaun saw fear in his father’s eyes for the first time in his life.

‘When we got back last night, your mother was gone.’ His words were slow, gently slurred.

‘What?’

‘She’s…gone,’ said Joe. He was blinking again, concentrating to hold his head up. He wanted to lie down on the bed and wake up when it was all over.

‘What? What do you mean gone? Where?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Joe. ‘She’s not here. She wasn’t here when we came home.’ His lids were heavy.

‘Dad, Dad! Are you OK? You don’t seem…are you…have you been drinking?’ He shook Joe’s arm and brought him back.

‘No,’ said Joe firmly. ‘No, I haven’t.’

‘What are you saying about Mom?’ said Shaun.

‘Your mom is gone somewhere.’

‘Where? Did she have plans or something?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘No offence, but your memory sucks.’

‘Look, she may have been…mad at me for something.’

‘What?’

‘That’s between me and your mother.’

Shaun frowned. ‘Well, she wasn’t mad at me. She would have told me if she was going somewhere.’

‘Maybe not.’

Shaun looked hurt. ‘What will we do?’

‘Nothing for now. I’ll take care of it. You go to school. She’ll be back by the time you’re home.’

‘I’d rather stay here…I could wait for her…I don’t feel well.’ He flopped his head onto the pillow.

Joe stood up and threw back the covers. Shaun moaned and curled into a foetal position.

Joe shook his head. ‘You’re a loser, you do know that.’

Frank sat at his desk, wondering what O’Connor really wanted that morning. He asked some questions about the progress in the case, but then he just stood with his hands in his pocket, staring out at the sea. The only thing Frank got from his visit was offended. He felt himself redden at the thought. He hoped O’Connor said what he said in anger or to impress someone, not because he thought it was true. Frank found out afterwards that the call had been to Superintendent Brady. And Brady didn’t appreciate bad-mouthing. Maybe that’s what O’Connor had been considering when he was staring out the window.

Frank unwrapped his sandwich and peeled back the bread. Ham and mustard. There was some comfort in that. But before he ate, he made a quick call to someone he knew would appreciate it.

‘Dr McClatchie. Sergeant Frank Deegan here, Mountcannon.’

‘Oh, hello.’

‘Just a quick call; thought you might be interested to know what those fragments came back as…from Katie Lawson’s skull. You know, after what you said about never finding anything out.’

‘Absolutely.’

‘It was shell. From a Sandhill Snail, would you believe. Probably under the rock you said was used.’

‘Well, it’s very decent of you to let me know, sergeant. So I guess the body was moved after all.’

‘Yes, but we think it was immediately after the murder. And none of the other trace evidence brought up anything, so…’

‘Well, that would make sense.’

‘Right. So…well, I’ll let you get back to it.’

‘While I have you on, there’s something quite curious I’d like you to hear. I had a visit the other day from Joe Lucchesi…’

‘What?’ said Frank.

Lara had to jerk the phone away from her ear. ‘Well, he’s clearly not in your good books,’ she said. ‘Anyway, he showed me some crime scene photos from the US, asking me if there were any similarities between them and Katie Lawson, which there weren’t. And no, I didn’t tell him that. However, the curious part is, the wounds were almost identical to a PM I carried out just over three weeks ago on that poor girl from Doon – Mary Casey, the one found dead in the field beside her house. I pulled out my file and I would swear that the crimes were committed by the same person. Hers seems more careless, but they’re almost identical.’

‘Jesus Christ Almighty,’ said Frank.

‘Yes. The odd thing is that when Joe came to my office, which was a bold move, you have to admit, he was very…I wouldn’t like to say pushy, but he was certainly a man on a mission. But when I telephoned him this morning, he had no interest. I mean, I was half-lying to the man about why I was asking, maybe he picked up on that, but anyway, he said he’d thrown the fax away…which I found odd, considering the lengths he’d gone to in the first place. What do you think?’

The doorbell rang in three short bursts. Joe ran. He fumbled with the latch, then opened the door to a FedEx guy who reached out with a thick, rectangular package and a clipboard. Joe scrawled a signature and closed the door. The Gray file. Joe tore at the plastic and pulled it out. He stared at it – just a bunch of pages with words on them in a plain brown folder. The same kind of folder that could contain your medical notes, tax records, your personnel file…your divorce papers. Every day people got shat on by files. And this one meant more than Joe could bear thinking about. He looked down and saw a bright blue tab towards the back. He flipped it open and scanned a long list of names, one of which was circled. There it was. In black and white, just as Danny liked it. Black and white.

Oran Butler was bent over in a coughing fit, holding his throat and spraying specks of tomato sauce onto the kitchen floor. A ball of mozzarella and mushrooms shot out. He collapsed into a chair and tried to slow his breathing. Then he picked up the bare pizza slice in front of him and flung it into the sink.

Richie came in from the living room. ‘Are you all right?’ he said, glancing down at the mess.

Oran grunted. ‘The whole topping came off in my mouth.’

‘I’ll clean that up, don’t worry,’ said Richie, pointing to the floor.

‘Well, we know that,’ said Oran.

Richie was already reaching for a mop.

‘We’ll be having a word or two from your pal, tomorrow, by the way,’ said Oran.

‘My pal who?’

‘Why, D.I. O’Connor. The D.S. is off for the week, so O’Connor is lowering himself to get street with the Drug Squad.’

‘Really?’ said Richie. ‘You’ll enjoy that.’

‘Not if I’m coming home every evening and you’re here pining for him.’

Joe sped along the Waterford road, hyper-aware of the few cars that passed him. His mind was shocked out of its fog and raced with the adrenaline pounding through him. He went heavy on the accelerator, feeding the part of him that wanted to keep driving and driving until everything was behind him and Anna was home.

He parked the Jeep by the quays and went straight to Fingleton’s bookstore, his hand gripping his mobile. From the busy cobbled street, Fingleton’s looked like a regular sized store, but inside, it opened out and up three storeys. It was dark and quiet with a sunken area on the ground floor bordered by tall black shelves. Joe quickly scanned the natural history section and picked out the only book on Harris’ Hawks. The cover shot was of two of them, poised and alert on the branch of a tree. He fumbled as he flicked through the pages, pausing at the photographs and sketches, stopping to skim random passages. The writer was a falconer in awe of his subject. Joe was intrigued by a bird that could capture the imagination of a falconer, a criminal and, now, a cop. He stood for several minutes, absorbed in the words, torn between reassurance and a desperate gnawing panic.