Disappeared (22 page)

So familiar was the route to Hughes’s cottage he could have driven there in his sleep. A furniture-removal van crammed the lane. Two men waited in the cab and watched as Daly parked and got out. He felt as though he had stepped into an unfamiliar water-bound landscape. The sound of hidden water filled the air, gurgling in gullies and clefts along the lane and behind the hedges. He made his way up to the house, scrambling between dry land and the flood’s rising tide.

When Daly called at the door, Eliza Hughes’s face registered a kind of cold dismay. In the morning light, she looked to have aged. She was haggard, the smudges beneath her eyes were coal-dark, and her forehead was heavily lined. She seemed to have lost weight. Her neck did not quite fit the collar of her polo-necked blouse.

She nodded quickly at Daly and stepped aside for him, as though she had been expecting his visit. The kitchen table was stacked with half-filled boxes. Cupboard doors and drawers lay open, their contents gone.

“I don’t have much time to talk,” she told him. “Busy packing.”

Daly surveyed the rifled kitchen. “Every step I take forward in this investigation seems to produce more and more complications,” he remarked.

The cottage was quiet but full of shadows. It occurred to Daly there might be someone lurking in the next room. The ever-present sense of danger was what distinguished the lives of these people, he realized. He looked at Eliza and she produced a distant smile for him.

“Do you mind?” he asked, getting up to close the door.

She said nothing and stared at him, her eyes widening.

“Is anything wrong, Miss Hughes?”

“Nothing,” she said, turning away. “I’ve been unable to sleep. The loneliness has got to me. I’m moving back to Belfast, until they find David.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“I mean the police. Yourselves.” She looked around the room as if giving it a mental farewell.

“I visited your house last night, but you were gone. What were you doing at Devine’s cottage?”

She was less distracted now, listening carefully to Daly’s every word.

“From the first night I came here, something has not quite added up. You’ve been hiding the truth from me. In fact, I believe you’ve delayed and hampered the progress of this investigation all along.” He waited for his words to sink in. “But, I suspect you were put in an impossible position.”

Eliza switched on the radio and turned up the volume. On her way back, she staggered slightly. Daly wondered if she was on tranquillizers. Her face was ashen with weariness, and her voice sounded groggy. Through the window, the flooded fields looked like the gray ice floes of a frozen landscape.

“I should have told you the truth that first night you arrived. David wasn’t just a farmer. He worked undercover for Special Branch. The East Tyrone Support Unit was his brainchild. He set it up with eight other officers. They operated in plainclothes and in unmarked cars, and mixed with the local community. He was a recruiter of informers, one of their best. Devine was one of the men he enlisted.” Although her voice shook at first, a practical tone reasserted itself. She was like a survivor reconstructing the scene of a ghastly accident.

“I used to work as an administrator in the security forces, and had special clearance. When David became ill, I was assigned to look after him. After all, I was his sister and I knew how much he wanted to live here by the lough. I kept in contact with headquarters, and they routinely assessed him. Though he was confused at times, he wasn’t deemed a security risk. I thought I could keep a handle on his dementia, but David had his own plans.

“My brother believed that Devine had made a note of all the operations he was involved in. The typical legal type. Everything recorded down to the last detail. That’s what we were doing at his cottage, looking to see whether he had hidden the information somewhere.”

As she spoke, Daly noticed the lines of tension dissolve from her face, and he guessed she was telling the truth, or at least that part of the truth she knew.

“I need to know if anything unusual happened to David in the weeks before he disappeared,” said Daly. “Did he have any strange visitors? Did he talk to someone he shouldn’t have? This wasn’t a prison. You couldn’t shut him away completely from the world.”

She looked away and reached for a bottle of window spray on the table. Daly got there first. He grabbed the bottle and placed it out of her reach. She stared at him in surprise.

It was a small but important victory against the woman’s obsession with cleaning. The way in which she used it to tidy away unruly feelings and unwanted thoughts.

“Remember, this is David’s last chance,” said Daly. “To the people who murdered Devine, life is cheap. Especially an old man’s life.”

She stared at him, her face motionless. She appeared to be waiting for more. He tried a different tack.

“Noel Bingham’s life was cheap too. I suspect his death was no accident. It was linked to his meeting David the morning after he ran away.”

Eliza shook her head. “Don’t you see what’s going on? Bingham knew everything. He was David’s driver when he worked undercover. Bingham was in contact with Special Branch, and was meant to bring him in. Somehow, David guessed and managed to get away while Bingham was phoning for help.”

She reached her hand into a cardigan pocket and fumblingly withdrew a cigarette.

“The last few months have been hell. I took on far more than I could handle. David became obsessed with the past and the informers he had recruited. He didn’t seem to notice me at all. It was as though I had become a shadow in the cottage, walking through his darkest memories.

“The weeks dragged on and became months. His illness didn’t get any better, nor did it seem to deteriorate. I began to feel I was the one under surveillance. Living in a prison. David was writing notes to himself and leaving them littered across the hedgerows. I couldn’t sleep at night with the worry.

“Last November, I went to my GP to get some sleeping tablets, but I broke down in his surgery. It was the one moment in the last six months that I lost my self-restraint. Before I knew it, the GP had organized a fortnight’s respite for David at a nearby nursing home. An ambulance was waiting for him when I arrived home. I had two weeks of blissful sleep at night and desperate elation during the day. Even then, I had a dread that my rest was going to be paid for at a very high price. I didn’t tell Special Branch, of course.

“When David returned, he appeared less confused. He was full of humorous remarks about how quick I was to abandon him. I was relieved and glad to get back to the business of caring for him. I convinced myself I had done no wrong. Special Branch believed their security measures were watertight, up until the night he disappeared. I committed my second error that night by ringing the police in a panic. My instructions had been to contact a special number if David went missing, but it was the middle of the night and I couldn’t think straight.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “You’ve been so helpful and I’ve been such a hindrance.”

Daly shook his head. What he saw was a guilt-ridden woman swept into a land of shadows.

She stared at Daly. “I’m worried about David. You’ll find him, won’t you?”

“You did the right thing that night, calling the police,” said Daly. “And I’m glad I was the detective on call. But I have to be careful. Special Branch is watching me, as well. I want you to give me twenty-four hours before you tell them about David’s respite stay. Now, I need the name of that nursing home.”

T
he silence observed by the residents in the nursing home was like that between competitors at an interminable game of chess. It hung in the air, forming an invisible barrier between them as Daly made his way through the day room to the nurse manager’s office. Some of the faces of the patients looked vexed, others had relaxed into the half-grin of senility. Nurses carried out their duties with an air of organized tranquility. Underfoot, the thick carpet decorated with the shapes of flowers gave off a synthetic smell of roses.

The nurse manager stood waiting for him, as his urgent call had requested. Her mild, maternal eyes scanned his face with an expression of puzzled amusement.

“What sort of emergency heralds a lone policeman in an unmarked car?” she enquired.

“I’m sorry for taking you away from your work,” said Daly. “This shouldn’t take too long. I understand David Hughes spent a fortnight’s respite here back in November. I’m just following up any leads that might help us locate him.”

“David Hughes,” she said with an understanding nod. “We were all concerned when we saw his photo in the papers. The staff warmed to him while he was here.”

“I need the details of anyone who came in contact with him. Staff, visitors, other residents’ relatives….”

She went to a filing cabinet and produced several files. “All our employees are vetted by the police these days. Their information is in these files. I can let you read through it, if you want.”

An old man walking up to one of the windows in the nearby day room caught Daly’s eye. It was dusk outside, and the old man’s focus was short. He appeared to be examining his own reflection rather than the darkening view of the landscaped gardens. Saliva drooled from his mouth.

“Mr. Hughes enjoyed his stay with us,” said the manager. “It was a surprise he did not come back. I think he needed more space and time to work things through.”

“Work what through?” asked Daly, raising an eyebrow.

“He still hadn’t come to terms with his illness. Sometimes the residents gain a new perspective, a different angle, when they come here. Sometimes it forces them to see what they’ve been ignoring all along.”

“Like what?”

She shrugged. “We’ve all got unfinished business, Inspector, things we try to push to one side and ignore.”

Daly felt his shoulders tighten. He found himself staring down at his shirt.

“Take that gentleman over there,” she said, pointing to the man at the window. “He’s in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Like Mr. Hughes. To anyone who’ll listen he’ll tell a terrible story about his brother-in-law, and the morning they found his mutilated body in a roll of carpet floating in the river Bann. I’ve no way of knowing if his story is true, but the details never change.”

“Did David ever talk about his past?”

“No. He was very reticent in that regard,” she said. “He was more of a wanderer than a talker.”

The manager left him alone to search through the files. He took down names and contact details. It was like searching for a needle in a haystack. He was going to have to interview every staff member and find out what they knew about Hughes. Then he would have to start on the residents and their relatives. Even then he could not be sure he had talked to everyone who had met Hughes during those two weeks. How could he? Perhaps he was just fooling himself. Eliza’s revelation about Hughes’s stay in the nursing home had seemed promising at first. However, he feared it might lead him down a dead end.

When he got up to leave the office, the old man was still standing at the window, peering into the unfathomable depths of his reflection. He glanced over at Daly. The corners of his mouth were dragged down by what might have been sadness.

“Do you shave with a razor?” he asked.

“No. Should I?” Daly rubbed his jaw line.

“I need a razor myself. I haven’t had a proper shave in weeks.”

Daly noticed the man’s jaw was smooth and stubble-free. A bit of dried shaving cream was stuck in one of his nostrils.

The old man raised his hand. He was holding a crumpled piece of paper.

“Do you know what this is?”

“No.”

“It’s my secret. You didn’t know I had secrets.”

“Everybody has secrets.”

“But mine are special.”

“What are they?”

“I can’t tell you. Only the visitor is allowed to see.”

“The visitor?” Daly’s voice changed, grew careful.

“Yes. The young man that comes and writes down our secrets. Are you waiting for him too?” he asked, analyzing Daly’s face.

“No. I’m not.”

“Does he frighten you?”

“No.” Daly made an effort to relax

“Good. He doesn’t frighten me, either.”

“What’s his name?”

“Who?”

“The visitor.”

“That’s his name. The visitor.”

“Are you going to show him your secret?”

“Maybe I won’t. It might be too horrible.”

“Will it frighten him?”

“Let’s wait and see.”

Daly turned away.

“Do your best to find him,” the man said. “I’ve been waiting for too long.”

Daly assured him he would.

The manager was signing sets of sheets by the medication trolley in one of the lounges. A humming noise filled the room. At first Daly thought it was a trapped insect, but the noise was too loud. It continued, hanging elusively in the air. It jarred him when he realized it was a high-pitched wail coming from an old woman with closed eyes. Another old woman looked up at him, blessed herself, and began reciting the rosary. The patient next to her leaned forward and with vehemence began chanting:
“Fuck the pope and the IRA.”

“Oh dear,” said the manager. “That’s the only phrase he remembers.”

A care assistant helped her remove the disturbed patient from the room. She returned with a harried look on her face.

“You didn’t tell me about the visitor,” said Daly. “The young man who writes down secrets.”

“The visitor?”

“The patient in the dayroom is waiting for him with a piece of paper.”

“He must be talking about one of the pupils doing voluntary work.”

“What pupils?”

“They come here at weekends. They add a new dimension to the residents’ lives. Sometimes they write up people’s life stories, or play games. There’s a big difference in the residents’ moods afterwards.”

She glanced impatiently at her watch. Daly moved in with the important question.

“Tell me about the boy who writes down secrets. Did he spend time with David?”

“Yes, there was a boy who wrote down his memories. His company produced a big change in Mr. Hughes. He was more settled afterwards.”