Evergreen (a suspenseful murder mystery) (3 page)

That irritability only increased when he noted that someone hadn’t shown up for the meeting. He wouldn't have noticed it if not for loud-mouthed Aileen Brady giving her typical, unwanted two cents.

“I’m just saying, I don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” she said, with a shrug of her shoulders, playing the innocent when everyone knew that trouble was what she loved the most. “But Murphy isn’t there.”

Everyone seemed to be there, the room was packed with forty-odd talking heads, but somehow the teenager who liked to have her nose in every pie, had picked up on one absentee. Paul Murphy was a drunk, a loner. He was touching fifty and didn’t look like he had long left. He was a bitter, foul smelling man who few people liked. They tolerated his drunken, obnoxious and often obscene behaviour because of his past, because he used to be a caring family man, before the drink turned him into a wife beating prick who had scared his family into the protection of wider society.

Aidan McCleary was just as pent up as Patrick, he’d had a few drinks and had never been able to hold his drink. He was a fighter, a man who liked to use his hands and his brawn, but the drink shortened his typically short fuse to dangerous levels.

“The fucking bastard,” Aidan spat on the floor and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I bet it was him. The filthy fucking perverted little prick.”

Patrick already had his suspicions. Murphy was perverted, had ogled a number of the young girls in the past and had come on a little too strongly to a couple of them over the years. He held up his hands though, tried to cool things down.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions.”

Aidan sneered, shoved his way closer to his friend. “Look around, Paddy,” he said with a wide armed gestured. Everyone is here, we have nothing to hide.” He gestured to everyone. “Isn’t that right?” he yelled.

They all chorused back an agreeable noise. Aidan liked to play to the crowd.

“Calm down,” Patrick urged.

“He’s a sick man,” someone jumped in.

“He tried it on with me once,” Aileen said, throwing some more cents into the fire. “Caught him staring at me.”

“And me,” someone else added.

“And me.”

“Me too.”

“It was him.”

“It had to be him.”

Aidan was grinning widely, his eyes on his friend. “Well,” he said in summary. “Let’s go get the bastard.”

Patrick tried to stop his friend but he was gone before he could make his shouts heard over the bubbling raucous. He tried to move forward, but the shifting wave of bodies blocked him as the mob scrambled towards the door.

They spilled out into the night, yelling, cheering and chanting like a drunken gang of football hooligans. They stampeded across the park, past the former homes of Siobhan Haynes and Susie Flanagan, the parents of whom were the only ones excused from the meeting, left alone to continue their mourning.

As Patrick continued to yell, unheard, he saw Sheila Haynes poke her head through a thickly curtained living room window. Her face was both ruby red and strangely pale at the same time, the deathly shade of a mourning woman who had cried herself out and was awaiting her own demise. He gave her a solemn look -- he hadn’t spoken to her since the night of her daughter’s death, she hadn’t spoken to anyone else -- before he moved on.

Aidan was at the head of the group, a few of the younger, blood thirsty men had joined him, including his teenage son Matty. They were egging him on as they strode and staggered by his side, eager for their pound of flesh.

The Murphy caravan sat at the edge of the site, close to the forest and the graveyard beyond. He’d been moved away from the others, forced to relocate after he’d been caught spying on them through his bedroom window, his perverted eyes and his idle hands making use of the proximity to a young mother and her two young girls.

They swarmed in on the caravan, hovered around it. Aidan slammed on the door, yelled inside, “Murphy, get out here, now!”

His heavy fists threatened to break down the flimsy door. As he waited he shifted agitatedly on his feet. The adrenaline stormed through his body, desperately searching for a vent.

Murphy didn’t reply; Aidan banged harder. “Get the fuck out here you creepy little fuck!” He kicked the door hard, releasing some of that desperate anger. Beside him his son threw a foot against the soft material, emulating his father with a weakened kick and shout.

Patrick stopped them before they tore down the door. He tried to usher Aidan to one side, away from the ears of the surrounding yob and the youngsters who were on his heels like adoring disciples.

“Don’t do this,” Patrick said. “We don’t know it’s him.”

Aidan nodded towards the mob, “They seem to think it’s him,” he said.

“We have no proof.”

Aidan shook his head, disappointed in his friend. “You seriously want to leave now? To tell them all to leave this creepy little pervert alone? No one likes him, no one wants him here. They don’t like you for letting him stay here and now they’re starting to dislike you for this whole business as well.” He put his hand on Patrick's shoulder, Patrick could feel the heat in his friend’s eyes, could smell the vengeance and alcohol on his breath. “I’m telling you, as a friend: turn around, walk away. Let us deal with this, otherwise they’ll turn on you.”

Patrick looked to the mob, they were getting angrier by the second. Some of them were trying to peek inside the caravan, others were beginning to thump and rock it while others seemed to be searching for weapons or things to throw at the plastic windows.

Patrick nodded, lowered his head. He hated his friend for making him do it, hated himself for doing it, but he had no choice. He walked away and left them to it. He could hear Aidan’s screams as he did so, could hear his hardened fists and heavy boots as he thumped and kicked the door.

Aidan turned away angrily, gestured for the mob to wait as he ran back through the park, brushing past his deflated friend on the way. He hopped inside his caravan and emerged seconds later looking like a drunken Rambo -- a sword strapped to his back. Aidan loved his weapons; his caravan was an armoury of swords, knives and pellet guns. He had an antique revolver from world war two in a case above his bed; a bayonet from world war one on prime display in his living room. He poached game with his rifles but rarely got a chance to use his blades.

The crowd cheered as their hero returned, armed to the teeth. He stood by the living room window, looking up at the tightly closed curtains and the light beyond. He pointed the tip of the blade upwards.

“This is your last chance Murphy,” he yelled.

He saw the curtains twitch, saw the little pudgy, disgusting face of Paul Murphy appeared and then quickly disappear when he saw the sword.

Aidan set to work on the caravan, hacking and slashing it, denting and chipping the pliable metal. The yells increased, the noise levels rose and everyone joined in. They rocked the caravan, thumped on it with a berating cacophony. Some of them threw stones; a couple of them broke through the window.

Someone fetched a bottle of vodka, ripped a part of their tee-shirt off, soaked it in the vodka and then stuffed the rag back inside the bottle. They tore at the window, turning a small hole into a bigger one, before lighting the rag and tossing the bottle inside.

The light of fire danced and sparkled; a cheer rose from the mob, the intensity increased. As the fire spread, more bottles were thrown. A few of the younger members of the community tried to assist by burning bits of paper and scraps of clothes and hurling them at the caravan, squealing in delight as they did so.

Paul Murphy shouted. He screamed for his life. The noise outside was too high for his wails to be heard. He didn’t try to escape, didn’t want to face the nightmare outside. He sat in the corner of his living room, his hands over his head, his body curled into the foetal position, whilst he cooked inside his burning home.

7

Patrick was the only one at Murphy’s former home the following morning. He caught a few stares on his way through the park; people lowered their eyes, turned away.

An emotional hangover had cut through the community following a night of vengeance and murder. Patrick shook his head when he saw the caravan, the former home; now a burnt out shell. He felt partially responsible. Murphy was a horrible man, there was no denying that, but even if he
had
killed those girls, he didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve to be cooked alive in his own home. And if he did, if that really was justice, then what was the moral cost for those who had killed him, weren’t they just as bad?

The charred shell and the blackened body would have to be disposed of. The police didn’t enter Evergreen, no one from outside ever came in, but he didn’t want the evidence on display nonetheless. He texted Aidan, ordered him to come and help him clean up. He was still annoyed with his friend, but it wasn’t the first time he’d let drink and anger get in the way of rationality and it wouldn’t be the last.

Aidan joined him ten minutes later, slinking toward the shell of former life with his hands in his pockets and his chin on his chest. Patrick handed him a roll of bin bags, pointed him to the shovel. He took them without acknowledging his friend. Patrick stared at him, waited for him to raise his eyes so he could let him know, with a glance, just what he felt and thought of him. Aidan didn’t look up until Patrick left.

He found him in the pub later. Patrick was nursing a pint of beer, receiving worried and cautious glances from those who entered and then left when they saw him.

“About last night…” Aidan said, sitting down opposite and twiddling his thumbs like a mischievous child forced to admit to breaking his mother’s favourite vase.

“Forget it,” Patrick snapped.

“Paddy, listen…”

He glared at him. Aidan saw the anger and the revulsion in his friend’s eyes. “I said forget it.”

He nodded and drank his drink in silence. After a few gulps and a great deal of awkward silence, Aidan eventually said. “At least we got him.”

“Did we?” Patrick asked, not convinced.

“Sure. It had to be him.”

“Oh,” Patrick nodded with exaggerated sarcasm. “It had to be, did it? You mean you had this all figured out and you never told me?”

Aidan sighed, rested forward on the table, one arm either side of his glass. “Look, mate, I’m just saying, if it
wasn’t
Murphy, then why didn’t he show up last night, huh?”

“Murphy is,
was
, a drunk, a waster. He could have been off his fucking head.”

“
Still
...”

“Still nothing, Aidan. You just killed a man.”

“I didn’t--”

“
Don’t fucking bullshit me
,” Patrick cut in. “You didn’t what? You didn’t throw the first stone, didn’t start the fire? No, maybe not, but you were the one who led them there, you were the one who grabbed the fucking sword.”

Aidan raised his eyebrows questionably.

“Yeah,” Patrick nodded. “I know about the sword. I got full commentary last night from Seamus.” He nodded towards the bartender who had followed the mob to the caravan, had watched the chaos ensue.

Aidan shrugged dismissively. “I think it was him. We did the right thing.”

“Murder’s never the right thing.”

“And what were you going to do, huh?” he asked. “You were the one who said we should deal with this ourselves. What was your plan exactly? A slap on the wrists?”

Patrick looked away. He didn’t know what he would have done, but an execution didn’t feel right.

“It was him, trust me,” Aidan clarified. “He’s a pervert, a sick little man, and he was the only one who didn’t have a reason not to be at the meeting last night. No one likes him, we did Evergreen a big favour.”