Aftermath (13 page)

"
T
hank you so
, so much for coming on the show today, Annabel. Really, with all you’re going through - we so appreciate it.”

"I feel like I needed to, Tara. There’s been such a huge response from the public... such a huge outpouring of love for Josh and our family. So I wanted to come here - my home away from home - to say thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I suppose, to just let everyone know that we’re doing okay."

"None of us can imagine for a second what you must be going through, sweetheart. It's really brave of you coming on this morning."

"I suppose I don’t think of it as brave, but thank you."

“So … how is Josh?”

“Oh it's not... it's not great to be honest. He’s stable but… they’ve induced a coma until his liver is functioning."

"As soon as he wakes up, I'm sure he can help the detectives."

“That’s what we’re praying for. The doctors say the prognosis is looking pretty good, thank God. Although you wouldn't know to look at him … all those tubes and machines …”

"I know this must be so hard, honey, but do you mind talking with us about some of the details of that night? I’m sure you’ve gone over it a million times with the detectives…”

“No, it’s fine. I mean I do mind…it’s just so hard to relive the horror, but talking it through helps a bit too.”

"You were the one who found him."

"I... yes, I found Josh…just lying there in our kitchen. It was horrifying. I mean, here you are going through your life, and then all of the sudden everything you know falls into a tailspin. It still seems like such a nightmare, and I keep... I keep wondering if I'm ever going to...wake...up."

"It's okay sweetheart. It's okay. Take your time."

"Sorry, I just..."

"It's okay. Why don't we take a break."

R
eilly guessed
that if she wanted to get to the bottom of the wife’s story, she would have to rely upon old fashioned detective work.

Yet conversely at this point, she wasn't going to inform the detectives of her latest strand in her thinking.

Not for the moment.

No, she was thinking detective work in the literal sense.

So she decided to begin where her investigative peers of years gone by would have.

The archives.

But just as she was about to get started, the GFU receptionist buzzed her.

“Dr Corcoran here to see you.”

Damn, the shrink.
She’d forgotten all about that.

And it seemed if Mohammad wasn’t going to come to the mountain….

A few minutes later, the mountain, who was actually an affable middle-aged psychologist, appeared in her office doorway.

“I know how busy you are, and guessed coming here might take up less of your time…”

“Is this really necessary? Here, now of all times? Like I said, I’m in the middle of a major investigation…”

“Just a quick chat, I promise. Enough to tick the necessary boxes at HR.”

She rolled her eyes. He wasn't really giving her a choice, was he?

“Pull up a chair then.”

"How is the case coming along?" Corcoran asked.

“Not particularly well. It’s been frustrating, stressful and largely fruitless."

"Lots of eyes on this one," he said nodding.

"
All
eyes seem to be on it. And every last one of them have an opinion on it, too."

"Are you sleeping much?"

“Much?” She almost laughed.

“You’re getting a few hours at least?"

She shook her head.

“Ms Steel, how can you possibly expect to take on this kind of responsibility - at nine weeks pregnant - if you are not properly rested?"

Reilly shrugged. “Goes with the territory.”

"I can prescribe a very gentle sedative if you like .…”

"A sedative? I can take something like that?"

"It's quite gentle, no risk for you or the child."

She shrugged again.

"Are you irritable? Impatient?"

"You have drug for that too?"

"Well, of course. But it is far too early in this process to suggest medicinal therapy. In fact, I think what you are going through is quite natural and very healthy."

"Healthy?"

“Your recent encounter with Mr Ellis was a very traumatic experience, Ms Steel. Your mind needs to play out all of the new barriers that have been put up. Defensive barriers, you understand, that were placed to protect yourself psychologically. When others overstep these barriers, you strike out and they, presumably, strike back. I say this is healthy, because you likely have identified a comfort zone within which you are willing to operate. Now you are in the process of training others on where that comfort zone is. The more they intrude, the more hostility you display."

Reilly had automatically started to zone out, but a little of what he was saying made sense, especially in relation to how she’d been dealing with Chris.

"Wouldn't you normally advise against hostility?"

"I'm sure that you have little choice. For you, this is merely a defense mechanism. A way to protect your new worldview, and more importantly, protect your unborn child. Since the pregnancy, you are adjusting to a new world of possibilities. Such a new realization can dismantle some people psychologically, and they must rebuild their worldview.”

"Obviously, in this line of work, I kinda get that danger is a possibility."

“Certainly. But what the mind knows and the heart understands are two very different things. Unless you have truly experienced something, the mind does not take it as part of your world.”

She sighed inwardly. ”Okay. Got it. Anything else? I really do need to get back to -.”

"One more thing, I'd like to talk a little more about sleep."

"I'm not sleeping."

"Precisely. What is the origin of the insomnia?"

"What do you mean?"

"For some people it is simple anxiety. There is just too much to think about, too much to do, and too much to worry about. So the mind fixates on these things in a permanent repeating cycle until exhaustion takes over. Then, there are those who are anxious about sleeping. They have night terrors that keep them up, and are afraid to close their eyes. How would you describe yours?"

"I don't know, simple anxiety I guess. I just can't sleep."

"You aren't having nightmares? Residual fears from the incident at the restaurant?"

“Hey no offense, but I really don't think that incident impacted me as much as everyone thinks it did. I'm not some special snowflake doctor, I'm a trained law enforcement officer who just happens to be pregnant. So no, I'm not getting night terrors."

"It's nothing to be embarrassed about."

"I'm not saying it is; I'm just telling you that's not happening with me. I have too much on my plate. This is a major case with a lot of pressure. I'm somehow keeping an embryo alive every day aren't I?”

"Embryo? That's an uncommon way to refer to your unborn child.”

"I was making a joke," she growled.

"Further symptomatic of your irregular detachment. The more detached and isolated you are, the less support you get and the more you lash out."

“Well, then, my life should continue to stay interesting. I have no intention of making friends. I have a case to solve."

Dr. Corcoran smiled, and stood up. "I think that should do it for now. I'd like to see you again next week.”

“Next week? You mean this is going to be a regular thing?”

"It would be good to meet again and truly explore if you've internalized any latent trauma issues. Issues that could perhaps grow into problems."

Taking a moment to glare some more, she finally assented. “Fine."

"Take care of yourself, Ms Steel."

She didn't want to hear it, so didn't respond. This whole thing annoyed her. His assertion that the incident with Tony Ellis had in some way damaged her permanently just because she was pregnant was annoying enough, but then to talk about the way other people's behavior was somehow reflective of her own...

Reilly wasn't repelling people to become more isolated, she was just going to do things her way if no one else seemed to be stepping up.

Grumbling under her breath, she stopped off for a coffee before heading downstairs to the GFU archives.

At least she could be alone and quiet there.

She could bury herself in data and research and focus on the case, the only thing she truly wanted to do.

She needed to resolve this thing, and she needed to do it to prove to herself that the pregnancy didn't mean she’d lost her edge, and that she wasn't the loose cannon everyone seemed to think she was.

She was fine.

I
've known
Josh Morrison for twenty years. During that time there was more than one moment in which I thought he was immortal.

He'd managed to break through so much adversity and create a harmonious support unit, dripping with success and stability long before most of us even left college.

That's why moments like these can be so hard for the public, and garner so much attention from the press. Here is someone that did everything right. He took superstar fame and turned it into a practical and healthy enterprise.

Of course as athletes we are trained to be the best, to push every limit and to train tirelessly to do so. It is so ingrained that we may find ourselves feeling invincible. Especially those that make it to the top of the sports world.

For people like Josh Morrison, the sky isn't even a limit.

I played with Josh for Ireland and in the Lions team, too. There was no achievement outside of his reach. No opponent that could cause him to buckle.

He has such a tremendous life force that allows him to break through any obstacle and rise above any challenge.

It pains me deeply to see him in this state. When I saw him in the intensive care unit, with tubes coming out of him, eyes closed and chest breathing in a rhythmic pattern, I didn't recognize him.

This was not our fearless Lion who rose above all adversity--who excelled in the face of failure and triumphed on the field.

This was not our captain, the man who towed the line for our team, who took us from being champions to legends.

Yet there he lay. As fragile as we all are. The myth now deflated and returned to the reality of man. His imperfections, his losses, his scars. All there for the world to see.

Does he still dream of excellence? When trapped in his mind, does he think of the sport? Does he see the victories? Or does he see a vicious, thankless world prompted by horror, pain and suffering?

Josh Morrison reminds us that we are all human. That a single moment in time can unseat your entire life. Redefine your legacy. Change your world to such a degree that you find out what truly matters in life.

And taking a breath, inhaling, exhaling. Hearing the sounds around us, the voices of those who love us, the sky, the scents and colors of our world. All of these things matter so much more than achieving.

No matter the mythologies we create, none of us can measure up.

Our task is to collect those things that are truly important in life, that define us as human beings, and embrace them. We should do this whether or not there is adversity.

We should do this all the time, every day and without fail.

Because when we are the ones on the hospital bed, then it is too late to pay attention to the things that really mattered.

Irish rugby loves you Josh Morrison. We are all praying for your recovery. Come back to us.

Be the man who propped us up so many times in the past.

Remember your strength and remember your tenacity. Your will alone can get you through this.

O
nly brave souls
that had memory of how things worked before 2000 would brave down the concrete steps into the sheltered and locked concrete-floored basement room that held the microfiche.

A gray hair sprouted on Reilly’s head when she recalled that these machines used to be a permanent companion at Quantico, but here in the GFU she only thought of using one when needing to unearth something truly ancient.

They were so infrequently used, in fact, that many of them had fallen into disrepair and were not kept clean. Some of the microfilm had been destroyed by the elements because detectives neglected to return them.

And others were not carefully re-filed.

Someone in the admin staff would do a round of the place every few months to make sure things weren't a complete mess, but it wasn't like anyone supervised that activity and they could easily be phoning it in.

It would appear, upon arrival, that they were. Film was left askew here and there, boxes open, and some joker had left an unfinished latte in the corner that had started its own miniature ecosystem.

Holding her breath she trashed it--but in the hall where it was more likely to be disposed of by the cleaners.

The GFU had tried to get a grant a number of years ago to transfer the film into digital archives.

But something political happened and the grant was denied. They then dispatched a couple of Garda trainees to handle the task, but that didn't pan out either, because trainees were inevitably redirected to more important mundane tasks.

So there it was, nineties-era technology and Reilly was now forced to use it.

First, she had to go to the index. With some quick calculations she figured she needed to be looking sometime around the late eighties to mid nineties - before the age of the internet.

Rifling through the massive tomes of meticulously indexed references she zeroed in on
The Independent
and the
The Times.

The dust made her sneeze, and the index volumes towered over her working table like mountains.

It took about an hour of working through the index, but she found six possible newspaper clippings that referred to Josh Morrison.

Working through the filing cabinet, she laboriously thumbed through the alphabet and pulled out the microfiche then fired up a machine.

Its bulb was burned out, so she turned on another one. Placing the film in, Reilly hunkered down for a night of scanning articles and making print copies.

Researching data like this always appealed to her though. She was an introvert at her core and was always most comfortable, isolated, doing her own thing in a hermit cave somewhere.

Since the internet, the magic of research work had somewhat dissipated. There was an art to archiving. People would spend entire careers perfecting the art and for every archivist, the technique was different.

Now algorithms measured complex queries against the relevance of digitally listed content. It was all mathematics. Much of the technique was lost.

But going back in time, as she was now, Reilly was able to feel the art again.

The particular queries chosen, the cross references. The rabbit hole of references. Books piled higher and higher the more she researched, before she was buried behind a wall of tomes, each uniquely pointing to something that was pointing to something else that was pointing to the thing she needed.

As the night wore on, a sketchy picture started to assemble and she was relegated to some more tabloid style publications, which weren’t exactly known for their reliability.

But hey…

Josh Morrison's rise to stardom happened fairly early on. He excelled in Blackrock College, a Dublin institution famed for its rugby - a sport which Reilly knew absolutely nothing about, other than what she caught on TV now and again.

She guessed it was the closest thing to American football in these parts, only they had no pads and much more contact. Definitely the more hardcore.

Being an outsider, she didn't have that innate understanding of domestic team sports. Certainly in the States, she felt the winds of the World Cup when it was happening, and in her younger days even participated in some of the revelry that went along with it.

But that was nothing like in this part of the world. Sport here, particular Gaelic games was like a religion. Entire weekends would be on hold because a team from one part of the country was matched with another from somewhere else.

And the violence on the pitch was like nothing she’d ever seen. Head wounds dripping blood from hastily applied bandages, while the players soldiered on as if it was just a tiny nick, and concussion was just a state of mind, while an American player would have been long airlifted to the nearest hospital.

So it was no small estimate to say that Josh Morrison earned his stripes.

According to the papers, the guy had been nothing short of a superstar, and by university had become a rugby legend.

Following third level education, he went pro with the Leinster team, had been a Lion (whatever that meant) and went on to captain the Irish International team to a rugby world cup in 1994.

Pretty amazing story, when all pieced together.

A celebrity athlete here was hard to compare to the ones in the U.S. Sure, Americans showered money and praise on their athletes, but few ever reached the level of demi-god that Morrison had achieved.

As powerful as fame was for athletes in the States, they were just flashes of light. Though with a few exceptions, ypically the fame rarely last pasted the athlete's prime, no matter the length of the glory at their peak.

But with Josh Morrison, the halo had been maintained - had grown even.

He managed to stay in the positive atmosphere of Irish public consciousness for decades, and as a result, remained very successful and very well regarded in all circles.

His influence stretched from sports straight into business and from there, philanthropy.

The interesting part, Reilly realized now, is that even as far back as secondary school - the Irish equivalent of high school - Annabel had been part of that narrative. She’d known they were childhood sweethearts, but hadn’t really thought all that much about what that pat phrase truly meant.

Annabel’s own rise to fame also seemed to run in parallel with her husband’s. When Josh took the lead in charity work, so did she.

When he excelled in business, so did she. Before long, Annabel's bright star matched, but then likely outshone his as she conquered the airwaves, and became a household name in fashion and celebrity.

Like those superstar quarterbacks in the US who retired and opened up used car lots, Josh had in this case, opened up a coffee chain.

She knew she would be able to locate that story without the hassle of microfiche and the miracle of the internet.

The most interesting titbit of information Reilly found that she didn't already know, related to an incident Josh had been involved in 1992.

He’d been playing for Leinster Rugby Club and had just been named captain, when he’d been involved in a drink-driving car accident with one of his team mates.

Josh had been a passenger in the car, but the driver, a guy called Ian Cross was killed at the scene.

The article stood out because it was an interesting vignette, but also because of the accompanying photograph.

The car was completely smashed into a wall. It looked like a horrific accident and by Reilly’s estimate, was a complete miracle anyone had survived. And even from the photo—the resultant injuries surely couldn't have been good news for Josh’s sporting career.

But yet, almost as by sheer force of will (who was this guy - Thor?) he’d managed to pull himself out of the car by the time help arrived, and following months of rehabilitation, returned to the rugby pitch, and eighteen months later, went on to lead the national team to a championship title.

Whoah. She’d heard the word ‘colossus’ bandied about more than once in the same sentence as Josh’s name but this … this was pretty incredible.

The timing of the tragedy was something that had again fueled the Morrison bittersweet media-darlings narrative, as at the time, Annabel had just given birth to their first-born, Dylan.

Sighing, Reilly turned off the microfiche.

It was late and she was tired and she didn’t think she had the stomach to read any more fawning articles about the Morrisons and how after the incident, Josh had turned determinedly teetotal and was outspoken about the dangers of drink-driving in Irish life … what?

Josh was teetotal. At the hospital, the doctors had confirmed that his blood alcohol levels were nil at the time of the attack … so who was drinking from the JD bottle that smashed along with the table?

Josh didn't drink. Annabel was out with friends. And Reilly thought it was pretty safe to assume that most families didn't just randomly keep bottles of bourbon on the dining room table …

Either Annabel lied about the timing of her return, had been drinking the bourbon and was there at the time of the attack. Or someone else was there - a third party, and not some random burglar.

Someone Josh knew well enough to have a drink with - even if his own choice of beverage was a harmless cup of tea….

This had to be it, Reilly thought excitedly.

But then, where was the corresponding drinking glass? Had it too been smashed following Josh’s fall?

She’d take another look at the glass samples first thing. The team had managed to isolate remnants of the Jack Daniels bottle from amongst the broken glass of the table, and now those samples would need closer analysis. If they could somehow even manage to pick up a partial …

Now Reilly was buzzing. Her theory about Annabel covering up something, was slowly but surely gaining ground.

For her, the burglar thing had never truly stood up.

But that little snippet about Josh’s abstinence had thrown significance over the JD bottle, and this, taken with the deleted iPhone messages, all seemed to point towards something else. And she needed to figure out what.

She’d had it up to here of reading about how Josh and Annabel Morrison had been together forever, had been through thick and thin, and still come out smiling.

Despite their devoted happy-ever-after public persona, something wasn’t quite right with that couple, she was sure of it.

It was all
too
perfect.

The archives had given her a history, allowed her to get a better sense of the Morrisons, and a true sense of the hold they seemed to have over the Irish public.

But it was only giving her one side of the story - the glossy aspirational side, and in order to truly explore what exactly Annabel had been covering up on Friday night, Reilly needed more.

In short, she needed dirt.