Alone with the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller (26 page)

Shep picked up his glass, took a swig, then planted it back on the table, hard.

‘You can’t prove a thing,’ he spat.

‘I’ve made friends with that taxi driver,’ I lied, ‘he’s the smart, observant type. He’s confident he could pick you both out of a line-up.’

‘So I happened to be in a pub at the same time as your brother. What does that prove? Nothing. I didn’t even know he was here.’

‘It wouldn’t look good for you though, would it, Guv?’

‘Don’t cross me, Lynch. I could destroy you like that.’ His finger snapped like a bone.

‘Of course, I’d probably only raise the matter if I was directly accused of leaking a story to my brother.’

Shep placed his hands to his lips as if in prayer. He stared hard into his scotch.

‘You know something, Donal,’ he said, ‘you’re not that different from your brother.’

‘I’m beginning to learn to see the angles,’ I said, sounding and feeling grubby.

He stood, drained his glass and slammed it down hard on the shiny counter.

‘People are now saying McStay is the leaker,’ he said, and strode off.

Trinity Road, South London

Sunday, August 18, 1991; 22:30

Had Laura and Terry Foster greeted me at my front door that evening wielding pared-down steel rulers, I would have felt more hospitable.

‘I’m not in the mood, Eve,’ I snapped.

‘Donal, please, I just want to explain a few things.’

I decided to hear her out. My ego badly needed some contrition, and my inner martyr demanded to know how and why my ex-girlfriend had started shagging my older brother, in her own words.

‘I’ll let you in on one condition, Eve,’ I said, ‘I want total honesty. No more lies. Do you understand?’

She nodded, her eyes damp, her bottom lip quivering like a scolded toddler. Here was a woman unused to begging.

After all that had happened today, I felt cold, hard, untouchable. No more Mister Nice Guy. Let’s get ready to rumble.

We stood in the kitchen, face-to-face. She was dressed for housekeeping: jeans, green jumper, hair tied up. I wheeled round to make sure I was closer to the cutlery drawer, and did a quick scan of the sink for any potentially homicidal objects: thankfully all clear.

‘The thing is, Donal, Fintan really was my only friend in the world, you know, when things got really bad. You wanted to help but you weren’t even in the country. I felt so … alone. We started a relationship, by accident really. We kept it secret. We had to, even from you. We knew if anyone found out, it would totally compromise Fintan, and me. They’d have used it to destroy me.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Think about it. I couldn’t be the rape victim and be having a relationship, especially with a reporter who got all the exclusives. I had to play the victim all the way, until I saw it through. I still have to play the victim now, or they’ll find a way to send me back to prison. I’m on a suspended sentence. They could dream up any reason to send me back.’

I felt disorientated, in need of an emotional standing count. I was struggling to keep up with the political intrigue and Machiavellian shenanigans, which now seemed the very lifeblood of her and Fintan’s existence.

I watched her look through my eyes into some dark, buried memory. ‘I promise you, no matter what it takes, I am never going back there.’

Then she snapped back to now: ‘But someone did find out about us. Fintan didn’t tell me who, but they threatened to expose our relationship. Fintan gambled that they knew about us, but couldn’t prove it. That’s why Fintan left so suddenly and came to London.

‘He didn’t even call me, for months. I understood he had to protect himself, but I started to get paranoid. Did he want to make a clean break? Was I too much hassle? When I turned up last week at the Archway, he seemed so … put out. I thought to myself: “Eve, you’ve been a fool.” He’d gotten his stories out of me; I was no use to him anymore. He didn’t want this burden, because that’s what I am now to everyone, a burden.’

She blinked fast but that failed to stop a tear breaking through, carving a wet scar down her left cheek. All of me wanted to go to her. Instead, I held firm, inviting my newfound hard-nosed cynicism to take a sniff, see if it could detect the real story flitting between her words.

I felt certain Fintan had been shagging Eve just to get her exclusives. He recognised her as his meal ticket to Fleet Street. When there was nothing left to milk, he invented some know-all nemesis bent on exposing them just so he could scarper. He never expected her to beat the rap and follow him over; he’d said so himself. Then, when she turned up at the Archway, he realised a shocking truth: he could be saddled with her for good. He was all she had in the world, for fuck’s sake.

My frown told Eve that I’d caught up, so she carried on.

‘One morning last week, I had it out with him. He said he wasn’t ready for anything “too heavy”. After all the promises he’d made to me, I couldn’t believe it. I stormed out. I then realised you were the only person in the world who gives a shit about me. So I found out where you lived and came to see you.’

I suddenly felt a step or two behind the action.

‘Then, when you and me spent time together this week …’ She broke into a full-on sob, burying her face into a hand. ‘You’re so kind and funny. I remembered why I fell in love with you,’ came her muffled tribute. ‘I began to think that the only reason I ended up with Fintan was because he reminded me of you.’

I couldn’t stop my ego climbing off its stretcher and performing a series of somersaults around the kitchen.
Yes that’s right
, it boomed,
in a straight shoot-out with my older bro, I was the better man.

Eve sniffed back her composure. Finally she looked up, her wet eyes seeking out mine.

‘Then when your friend Gabby came around, I realised that I couldn’t just expect to pick up where we’d left off. She obviously has strong feelings for you. You didn’t want me anymore. I’d nowhere else to go but back to Fintan.’

This was the cue I needed to ask another critical question: in between shagging my older brother, had she been terrorising my fledgling girlfriend? You know, sending her newspaper cuttings to underline her murderous credentials, slashing her clothes. My film noir alter-ego wanted to ask her out straight. The rest of me settled for gentle probing.

‘Speaking of Gabby, some weird stuff’s been happening to her.’

‘What do you mean, weird stuff?’

‘Someone’s been sending her newspaper cuttings, about you. Old articles about the trial.’

Her eyes and mouth fell open.

‘Who the fuck would do something like that?’ she snapped. I could see the red mist swirling. ‘Jesus, you don’t think it was me do you?’

I knew Eve well enough to recognise genuine indignation and felt strangely vindicated: of course it hadn’t been Eve.

‘She has this ex-boyfriend,’ I reasoned, ‘a bit of a stalker. He’s obviously tracked down her new address. He must be doing this from abroad. Speaking of which, how did you find out where I lived?’

Eve searched my face, weighing up how I’d cope with bad news.

‘I rang your mum,’ she said quickly.

My defences sprang up: ‘You did what?’ I felt like screaming.

‘You don’t mind do you, Donal? I’ve always really liked her and I didn’t know who else to ask.’

‘What did she say?’

Eve grimaced. I braced myself.

‘She sounded in a bad way. She really needs to see you, Donal. She didn’t say as much, but I could tell …’

The flimsy dam I’d hastily constructed to block Mum out gave way, sending guilt gushing through me like a mountain stream.

‘Why don’t you go see her?’ said Eve, mirroring my desperation. ‘There must be a way.’

I couldn’t think how: not with Martin still capable of whisky-fuelled fisticuffs.

‘She sounded so lonely,’ Eve said quietly.

How could I have done this? I’d cut Mum out, my only ally. I didn’t need Martin’s permission to see my own mother. Fuck him. Eve seemed to be reading my mind.

‘Your dad doesn’t even have to know. You can stay at the bungalow, meet your mum in town?’

This sounded too weird, even for me, but Eve had already made up her mind. ‘I’ll call the rental people. Just let me know the dates. It’s no problem at all.’

Her voice softened. She moved closer, her hand touching mine: ‘You need to reconnect with your mum. It’ll be good for you.’

‘You’re right,’ I said, squeezing it and realising no one else knew me like Eve.

She leaned into me, her cool skin still smelling of fresh pines.

‘You do know that today was the day three years ago we were supposed to move to London? August 18th.’

I couldn’t believe she’d remembered. After all she’d been through.

‘The 18th of the 8th, ’88,’ I whispered.

‘If you want to try again,’ she breathed, ‘I know we can make it work.’

I knew already. Deep down, part of me realised that I could never move on with my life until I gave it one more go with Eve Daly. Nor could she move on with hers. My brain just couldn’t fathom how my gut felt so certain of this.

I turned my lips to hers. Both our mouths opened, ready to kiss. As I leaned in, she turned away.

‘I’m sorry, Donal,’ she said, ‘but I have to finish with Fintan first, properly. I want to tell him we’re back together. If we’re going to make this work, we’ve got to do everything the right way, by the book, right from the start. I’m done with lying and sneaking around. Let’s do it right this time.’

Dublin Airport

One Week Later

I had arranged a secret rendezvous with Mum tomorrow afternoon at Tullamore’s Bridge House Hotel. I couldn’t wait for a proper face-to-face. I now knew the debt I owed her, one which I would spend forever trying to repay.

Tonight’s plans were altogether less straightforward. As promised, Eve had put me in touch with the rental company, and I’d managed to get the old Daly bungalow for the weekend. I then paid a week’s wages for a tiny hire car and headed West. Soon, a low, grey Tupperware sky levelled the land. The air thickened, dampened. I wound down the windows: all that yawning was wearing me out.

I stopped off in Kinnegad and bought four bottles of the only red plonk I could find. As I loaded them into the boot, I unzipped my travel bag to check that the Grade A skunk I’d rolled inside a pair of socks had come through unscathed. I now had all the tools I needed for tonight’s mission.

When forensics had found Laura Foster’s unique footprint on the flat door of 21 Sangora Road, I had felt certain that Marion had directed me to the clue from the other side. This seemed confirmed to me when, a few days ago, I returned to the murder scene. I didn’t tell the unwitting new tenants why I needed to examine their landing. I just flashed my badge and hung about for ten minutes. Every time I’d attended that address in the past, Marion’s raging spirit had appeared to me later. But that night, she didn’t come. I’d done it. I’d caught her killers.

But there was one ghost I still needed to exorcise. My personal bogeyman. If I didn’t, I was scared that he’d always be there, waiting in the corners of my dreams.

I turned left off the Dublin–Galway road for the last leg. Now I’d learned how to prolong the sleep paralysis experience – lots of red wine and weed – I no longer felt scared. I was ready. Tonight felt make-or-break:
come to me, Tony Meehan.

As I approached Tullamore, a soft rain made the windscreen squint. I welcomed the watery cover. It would take just one sighting for my arrival to become known to all. I wasn’t here on a homecoming tour. I was here to make peace with Mum and, in a weird way, Tony Meehan.

I turned right into the tiny lane that led to Frank Daly’s vanity project. More spanking-new, splayed-out bungalows leered at me from both sides of the boreen. I turned into Daly’s driveway: the house looked smaller than I’d remembered it, dwarfed now by the sparkling white mini-mansions all round it.

I parked up. The house keys swung gently in the back door. Just five hours ago, I’d been in South London: this was another world. I saw my distorted face in the back door’s window and remembered that night, cooling my raging skin on this glass. I turned to look at the crazy paving and the pebbledashed shed. The blood from my scrabbling, minced hands had long since been soaked up by the interminable damp air.

I stepped inside. It looked the same but it didn’t feel the same. The family furniture had been replaced by processed, generic Ikea products. It felt cold, empty, unloved, making us perfect holiday companions. Eve’s old bedroom now contained a single bed and a cot. My eye snagged on a single familiar item: the clock radio. I picked it up and cradled it in disbelief. How many times had I visualised this clock, my fellow witness to the events of that fateful night?

It was just gone seven p.m., a good time to light the fire, hit the couch and uncork bottle one.

By nine thirty, the sun had fallen behind the Slieve Bloom mountains and bottle number two had dropped below the label: surely the signal to roll a big fat Tullamore Torpedo.

At about midnight, the national anthem heralded TV closedown. I stood and clutched my chest. Just as
Amhran na bhFiann
reached its vainglorious climax, I zapped the TV off and laughed: in the Irish pubs of North London, that type of behaviour would get you murdered.

I basked then in the vast, suffocating quiet. A tree branch creaked. A dog barked into the void. Something rattled in the roof. The lamp went out, causing my heart to race.

‘Fuck,’ I said, just to break the silence. I walked over to the light switch, flicked once, then twice – nothing.

‘A power cut, great. Just perfect,’ I told the house.

I reminded myself how much I was being charged per night and rang the rental company’s emergency number. No one answered, so I left a rambling message. I’d have to wait until morning. Now I had just the light of the fire to work with, so I threw on two more logs.

‘Could be worse,’ I told myself, uncorking bottle number three and rekindling the Torpedo. I decided to lie back on the couch so that I faced the door. Say what you like about these psychopathic spirits, but they’ve got manners: they always come through the door.

The room felt thick with smoke so I stabbed out the joint. I laid back, willing the chemical swimmers through.

Out of nowhere, a slamming sound jolted me upright. My heart broke into a jog. Not so calm now hey, Donal? I could hear footsteps in the hallway, slow but deliberate, getting closer and closer. My ribcage seemed to shrink until it strangled my thrashing heart. The fire hissed like a snake. This was no fucking dream.

I looked up to see him standing at the doorway. Terror riveted my guts like a nail gun. My brain screamed: ‘Get up. Run.’

But I was rooted to the couch. Frozen.

I couldn’t see his eyes: just his silhouette creeping closer, closer. Now I felt myself backing up against the arm of the couch. I could move. Had I come out of my body?

I screamed with all my might and scrambled over the back of the seat, knocking over the bottle of wine.

The figure kept coming, steady, relentless, determined. It was then that I saw the knife glinting in his hand. I palmed the floor, scooped up an empty bottle in my right hand.

‘Come on then,’ I roared but the fucker kept coming, zombie-like.

Suddenly, swirling bright lights illuminated the room for a split second.

‘What the fuck?’ I cried, recognising those eyes.

I lurched forward, incensed, then found myself free-falling through cold, streaking lights into dark, darker black. I hoped to Christ it was the cataplexy.