The room fell silent as they took this in, and I took another sip of the brandy.
Karen spoke, and there was a mixture of disapproval and anxiety in her expression: ‘I wanted justice for Dana, but I didn’t want you to kill people.’
I remembered the first time I’d visited them the day after Dana’s remains had been discovered, the best part of thirty years after she’d gone missing. Karen Brennan had been utterly distraught, desperate for me to find her daughter’s killers, showing me her final school report, pressing a photo of her into my hands and asking me to keep it to remind myself of how kind and beautiful she’d been. And I remembered feeling so sorry for her that I’d committed the cardinal sin of detective work and become emotionally involved in a case, making that fateful promise to bring Dana’s killers to justice, whatever it took.
Whatever it took.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘I understand that.’
‘You said there were three killers,’ said Steve Brennan. ‘Who’s the other one?’
‘I can’t tell you that,’ I answered, deciding that knowing Alastair Sheridan’s identity would do them no good. ‘But he’s someone with power. Someone who’ll be very hard to get to.’
‘But if you know who he is, why can’t the police do something about him?’ asked Karen.
‘There’s no evidence against him. He’s clever, he’s well protected, and he’s ruthless.’
She looked frustrated. ‘So he’s going to get away with it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said truthfully. ‘Look, I’m so sorry to involve you both like this. It was the only way.’
‘We’re old, Mr Mason … Ray. We’ve suffered enough. We don’t need this.’
Karen Brennan’s words hurt because I knew she was absolutely right.
‘Come on, love,’ said her husband. ‘Ray’s a good man. He’s tried to do the right thing for Dana. It’s more than anyone else has ever done.’
She looked up at him. ‘But at what cost? You’re risking our last few months together for this.’
I frowned. ‘Your last few months? What does that mean?’
Steve Brennan sat down next to his wife and took her hand. ‘I’ve got cancer,’ he said after a pause. ‘Oesophageal. I was diagnosed a month ago. It’s already spread to the lungs. They’ve given me a year at most with treatment. No more than six without.’ He looked down at his lap, then back at me. ‘I’ve opted for without.’
I didn’t know what to say. Finally I took a deep breath, musing on the utter injustices of this world. ‘I’m sorry. I really am. Listen, I can take it on my own from here. I’ll be out of your home tomorrow at first light, I promise.’
Brennan shook his head firmly. ‘You know, for twenty-seven years we had to sit here waiting for news that they’d found our daughter. Twenty-seven years! Just not knowing. Wanting to die but knowing we couldn’t because we had another daughter … But the pain … it was hell. It is hell. You know, sometimes, very occasionally, I’d have this little sliver of hope that she was somewhere alive, like that Austrian girl, that she’d be found. And then one day the last bit of hope just disappeared when they dug up her bones miles away. And to find out that she’d been brutally murdered … God, it was like being hit with it all over again.’ He paused. ‘And then you came, and you offered to help us. You were the only one who did. And for the first time I actually felt some hope. Then you got put away, and you didn’t write back when I wrote to you.’
‘I thought I’d failed you,’ I said quietly, ‘and my correspondence was checked so I couldn’t tell you what I’d done or hadn’t done.’
‘I understand. But we were ignored all over again. The inquiry into Dana’s killing ground to a halt. But you never stopped, Ray. You promised us you’d do everything to bring to justice the people who killed our daughter. And you’ve done that, and spent time in prison for it. I know Karen doesn’t share my sentiments but, I’ll be honest, I feel a lot better knowing these men are dead. It gives me some peace.’ He turned to his wife and squeezed her hand. ‘You’ve got to understand that, love. I want to do this for Ray. I’ve booked the ferry to St Malo for tomorrow morning. I’m taking him over. It’ll be safer that way.’
Karen nodded slowly and her face tightened as a tear rolled steadily down one cheek.
I bowed my head, not wanting to intrude upon her grief – a grief that had gripped her since the summer of 1989. Someone, an old girlfriend, had once said to me while we were watching a real-life crime documentary that if murderers could see the grief they left behind, they’d never want to commit a crime again. In truth, she’d had a point. Most killers weren’t psychopaths, and plenty had the capacity for regret, but there were some for whom the suffering they left behind was part of the enjoyment of the act itself. Alastair Sheridan was one of those people, and I had no doubt he wouldn’t care less about the deep, all-consuming pain in this room tonight.
I finished my drink and got to my feet. A framed headshot of Dana, caught for ever in childhood, grinned across at me from the mantelpiece and I looked at it for a long moment, thinking that if I had my time again, I’d still
