Shiver the Whole Night Through (3 page)

I was with my mam and dad. Podsy was there too, smiling when I caught his eye, out of nerves and upset more than finding anything funny about this. There was nothing funny here.

Tommy Fox stood at the back of the huge gathering, balancing unsteadily on the edge of some long-forgotten person's grave. He swayed and I realised it wasn't just his footing – he'd been drinking. His eyes were red, from crying or alcohol or both. He was taking it very badly. Tommy hadn't been seen in school since Monday. He needed time, I guess.

The priest said the last words of blessing and the crowd started shuffling out. As I passed, Tommy grabbed my arm. I probably just happened to be there exactly when he needed someone. Anyone. I smiled in a way I hoped would seem supportive. He stared into my eyes, his own ablaze like angry suns.

‘Why did she do it, man?' he whispered. ‘Nobody's telling me anything and I need to bloody
know
. Why?'

‘I don't know, Tommy. I'm really sorry for you.'

He gazed into space like a condemned man. Finally he released my arm and patted it, a sort of apology. ‘You're okay, Flood. Thanks. I'm sorry too.'

Tommy disappeared into the crowds. I kept walking. After a minute of very slow progress – the crowd was large and the exit small – I found myself abreast of Caitlin. On her own, for once. I stared at the path, weeds poking out of cracks in the stone. Then I heard her speak.

‘Did you  …  Sláine McAuley. Did you know her?'

I didn't look up, just shook my head. Caitlin went on, ‘I didn't really at all. But I've been crying non-stop for the last three days. Isn't that screwed up? I didn't even know her but I can't believe she's gone.'

This was the most she'd said to me in five months. I was struck dumb. I didn't know how to respond, didn't know if I wanted to.

Caitlin was still speaking, almost babbling now, as though she had so much to get out she was afraid she'd explode. ‘Someone our age – dead. Just like that. Gone forever. She's never coming back. And I was thinking, like last night? That could be any one of us. You think it'll never end and then one day  …  ' She choked back a sob. ‘I can't stop crying. Have you been crying too?  …  I think I'm going mad, I can't explain it.'

The better side of my nature won out; it told me to ignore my wounded pride, do the decent thing and console this girl in distress. I said quietly, ‘No, I haven't cried. I mean I feel sad, though. For her. I wish it hadn't happened.'

We got jostled by the mass of people. We were separated and Caitlin went back to her life without me. I stood motionless for a long moment, staring at those old weeds busting up the pathway. The circle of life, indifferent nature, making a mockery of our grand notions as human beings. It felt an appropriate thought to have on a day like that.

I skipped school for the rest of Thursday – first time I'd ever done that. Even after the thing with Caitlin happened and led to my season in hell, I hadn't mitched. Somehow, I managed to drag my ass to that hated place every day and stay there with those hated people. Today, though, I had somewhere more important to be. As kids and staff went back to class, I hit for Shook Woods once more. Again, I wasn't exactly sure why I was going, or why it felt more important than school.

But this time round I went prepared: food, water, flask of coffee, a pouch of tobacco and rolling papers, an MP3 player should I feel the need for a soundtrack to my visit  …  or for some company if the forest started getting a bit too creepy.

And a notebook and pen to jot down my thoughts, if I had any. What sort of thoughts they might be, I hadn't a clue. The whole thing felt unplanned, even random. I was fine with that.

I got to the tree where Sláine was found by half one in the afternoon. That gave me a few good hours of daylight. To do what? Just be there, maybe. Spend a few hours where she'd spent her final hours. Pay my respects to this girl I didn't really know.

I slipped underneath the police tape and sat against the tree, the moss cold but dry underneath. I rolled a cigarette and let my mind drift.

I pictured Sláine lying here, in the pitch dark of the forest; hard to make out any details. Then I recalled there'd been a full moon that night and adjusted my mental picture accordingly. Now I could see her, softly glowing in that silver-blue light. Placing her hands under her face and closing her eyes. Shivering as the coldness gradually took her.

I imagined her body struggling against its oncoming demise as her mind willed it to come. Did her lips turn blue with the cold? Did she feel tingling pains in her fingers and toes, icy stabs? Did she take her clothes off? We never heard what Sláine had been wearing when she was discovered.

What a way to go: lying down on the pine needles and mulch of Shook Woods, waiting for death to take you away. Why hadn't she swallowed something, made it quicker, made it painless?

Then a weird thing happened: my dream kind of took on a life of its own. Because what I'd wanted to imagine was seeing Sláine at peace as she opened her eyes to look at the world one last time. However sad and pointless it might be to kill yourself, I thought, at least it was what she'd desired.

But now I wasn't so sure, because Sláine didn't look peaceful at all: she looked shocked. Afraid. And she was standing, not lying. She was about to run but couldn't. She seemed  …  frozen.

My eyes blinked open. I didn't remember having closed them. The cigarette had quenched. I relit it and took a long drag. Jesus, that was – spooky. I chuckled nervously. It's this place, messing with your head  …  As if to prove my point, a breeze whipped up, making leaves dance and branches flutter, an almost musical sound as it whistled off into the distance: four notes, going up for three, down for one. Obviously it was only random noise, but the tune lodged in my head; I sang it, once, twice, a little cagily in the back of my throat. ‘Doo-doo-
doo
-doo  …  doo-doo-
doo
-doo  …  '

I pulled out the notebook and began scribbling down memories of that waking dream, but I couldn't hold on to the details. It dissolved like morning fog. I finished my smoke sitting back against the tree. Thinking about Sláine, not thinking about her; staring into space, listening to the wind through the trees. It sounded like a mother consoling her baby.
Hussshhh
 … 

I stayed like that for a good two hours. At the end of it I rose slowly, stretched my back, had a pee and realised something so profound that it almost felt like a physical blow: I wasn't sure I wanted to kill myself any more.

Maybe it was Sláine, the terrible tragedy of it. Maybe seeing her being buried reminded me how precious life is – even mine, pathetic as it was.

But I had definitely decided, sometime during those two hours, that at the very least I'd wait a while. I had all the time in the world, right? I still hated myself, hated most everything and everyone, but – life
was
precious. Not to be lightly tossed aside. And death, I now understood, was brutal and awful – something that, only days before, I'd been so glib about. I'd toyed with it, flirted with it.

I'd almost embraced it. Maybe I would yet, but not now.

There was another reason for this change of heart: I was intrigued. Curious. I wanted – it felt as if I
needed
– to know what happened to Sláine McAuley, why she died. What drove this seemingly happy girl, her world full of possibilities, to kill herself? I might never find out, but I had to try. If that was the last meaningful thing I did with my life, fine – I was going to do it. If nothing else, it gave me a sense of purpose.

I left Shook Woods as dusk was falling, without the faintest idea how I'd begin to investigate Sláine's last days. I was excited by it, hopeful, but I hadn't a clue where to start.

As it turned out, help in solving the mystery was to come soon, from an unexpected source: Sláine herself.

By Friday the weather had turned much colder. Frost on the ground, ice on puddles, TV weather warnings of snow to come. Walking to school that day, my head was nearly cut off by a blast of wintery wind. I spent lunchtime with Podsy, eating half a sandwich and smoking too much. He asked if I fancied coming over later to watch a DVD. I told him no, I didn't want company.

That's not exactly true: it felt as if I already had company. For some strange reason that made my skin prickle when I thought about it, I felt Sláine was there, hanging around, somewhere nearby. She wasn't, of course, but it seemed real, or half-real, all the same.

Anyway, I slouched through the rest of the day. No hassle from anyone, not even Rattigan. I wasn't sure if they were preoccupied with this Sláine thing, or had once more forgotten I existed. Whichever, I was happy enough with the situation.

I went home, pushed my dinner around the plate and trudged up to my room. It was tiny, backing on to the rear of our small house. Home was shared with my parents and two siblings, much younger than me: Ronan was twelve, still in primary school, and Sheila only eight. I think I might have felt better about myself, more able to handle the crap in my life, if I'd had a sibling closer to my age. I loved the smallies to bits, but that's exactly what they were: smallies. So there was only Podsy and my folks. But they did their best, I'm sure. I don't blame them for anything.

The view out my window was miserable: our filthy council estate wall, a muddy field beyond that, an old farmer's barn falling apart with neglect. I'd never seen anyone working in there. It was a rusting hulk, left to die.

I put on a CD – Sigur Ros,
Valtari
. Just the job to set my thoughts running free and take my mind off things. I rolled a smoke and cracked open the window. Frost was forming on the glass in intricate patterns. I remembered an old story my mother often told me as a child, about the Snow Queen, how ice crystals were left behind by her touch. That was such a cool story, equal parts frightening and exciting.

I thought about my mother and being a child and how she'd comfort me after a nightmare, wrapping me in a blanket and rubbing my back. I smiled at the memory and slipped into sleep.

When I woke, it was 2 a.m. The house was silent – everyone else long gone to bed. I shivered, noticing that the room was sub-zero; I'd left the window open. I leaned over to push it down, the frame freezing to touch. Then
I
froze, and it had nothing to do with the temperature.

The words were written on the window. Not written, that's wrong – they had been formed, somehow. They rose off the glass, sixteen letters made of ice, shaped out of frozen water, which struck an icy terror into my heart.

I slapped my face, pinched my cheek, thinking I was still asleep and this was some unusually vivid dream. Somehow, I knew I wouldn't wake up from it. It was impossible but real.

And more: underneath the words was a symbol, a jewellery design of two hands holding a heart with a crown. I knew it because everyone knew what a Claddagh ring looked like, and more importantly, I'd seen that design just the day before. A photograph in our town's newspaper, under an article paying tribute to ‘local girl Sláine McAuley, tragically found dead earlier this week'.

The picture was taken at a hurling-club dance that spring. The ring belonged to Sláine. And this message must have come from her.

I didn't kill myself.
Why was she telling me? How could this even be happening? Was I going insane? Was I dead, too? Was I dead and Sláine still alive and this was some bizarre dream someone else was having?

I calmed my mind and
thought
. Okay, you don't know what's going on. You're not sure if you're alive or dead. What
do
you know?

I knew I was here, now, having these thoughts. All right, go with that. Assume this is somehow possible and a dead girl has sent you a message from beyond the grave. Forget the hows and whys, forget about yourself for a second: think about the message. What does it mean?

I didn't kill myself
. There was only one logical conclusion – Sláine had been murdered. And just one question can follow that: who did it?

I pulled the duvet around myself and mulled it over. Someone she'd been seeing? The Claddagh ring is a sign that your heart is given to someone. Did Sláine have a boyfriend, and did the love turn sour? Tommy Fox hardly killed her. He was a nice, mild-mannered guy and didn't seem the murdering kind. Besides, he looked in agony at the news of her death.

On the other hand, people always said love and hate are two sides of the same coin. Something I knew only too well.

My mind said, no, not Tommy. Someone else, then. For some reason I imagined this faceless killer to be older. Maybe middle-aged, married – that'd give him a reason, if she was threatening to go public and wreck his marriage. Would Sláine be vindictive like that? But what if it wasn't vindictiveness? What if she genuinely loved the guy and wanted to be with him properly?

What about the man who found the body, the forestry worker? What had my mother said? He'd claimed he was in there clearing vegetation or something? The perfect excuse to ‘accidentally discover' a dead girl. Then I remembered him – Robert Marsden. He was pretty old, a bird-like sort of man with a gentle way. If he was a murderer, I was the Pope.

Maybe it was a random killing, some sex beast, a bloodthirsty weirdo. There'd been no mention of sexual assault but that didn't mean anything – they might have kept the information private to protect our feelings, or help the case. But if it was a stranger, how did he lure her out to the woods? Maybe he drugged her. But in that case, it would have shown up in the autopsy. Did I read somewhere about chloroform leaving no chemical trace? Or that other stuff, the date-rape drug  … 

How
, though? It all came back to one glaring question: how did this hypothetical man physically kill Sláine? There was no sign of violence. No poisons or drugs in her system. She wasn't hanged or strangled or smothered – even that leaves fibre traces in the lungs, around the mouth. I've watched enough
CSI
to know one thing: it's difficult to kill someone and hide your tracks.

The coroner said it straight: she basically died from the cold. So how does that square with murder?

God, this was exhausting, my brain whizzing around in circles. Ever-decreasing circles, at that. I was getting nowhere. I needed to sleep then come at this from a fresh angle in the morning. I was definitely on to something, but obviously I couldn't tell anyone. They'd think I'd gone bonkers, banging on about magic writing on the  … 

It was gone. Her message, the words and Claddagh symbol, they'd melted from the rising heat in the room. No, no, you stupid
asshole
. I should have taken a picture first. Now there was nothing. I had no proof.

I shut my eyes and thought, to hell with it.
I
know. I saw what I saw. Sláine McAuley didn't take her own life, and I'm going to find out who did. She wants vengeance and justice, and needs me to get it for her.

I slid back into sleep, my body finally yielding to exhaustion, but my mind on fire. It was an electrical storm in there. I smiled as I realised that right then, in a different way, I also felt more energised, more
awake
, than I had for a long time. As if I was about to wake up to something great.

The next morning my family was behaving completely normally at breakfast, which seemed a bit abnormal to me. Then I checked myself: what did you expect, genius? Nobody else saw the ice writing. They don't know anything. Of course they're going to be getting on with business as usual. I guess you always think everyone sees the world from the same perspective as you.

I plonked down next to my father, punched him cheerily on the shoulder, robbed toast from his plate and grinned when he gasped in surprise. He looked warily at me and questioningly at my mother. Clearly this was not
my
normal behaviour. They were used to me moping around, the black cloud of gloominess over my head almost visible.

My parents never asked what was wrong over the last five months, but they surely knew something was. It's hard sometimes for people to have those awkward conversations with their kids, and my dad especially was taciturn at the best of times. As I said, I didn't blame them for anything or hold any resentment.

I poured a cup of tea and checked that the younger kids were in a different room. Then I said, ‘Did you hear anything else? About Sláine, you know, from the sergeant or whatever.'

He said, ‘No. Just what I told you last night.'

‘But they know she wasn't choked or beaten to death or anything. I have that right?'

My mother grimaced and put a hand to her mouth. I said quickly, ‘Sorry, that sounded a bit funny. I'm not being smart. I genuinely just want to know how she died.'

My father shrugged. ‘You know already. Hypothermia.' He clicked his tongue. ‘Awful thing. And her people are the finest you could meet.'

‘No, I know that. I just, she definitely wasn't  …  like, they didn't find any wounds or anything, right? Bruises, whatever. Signs of violence.'

‘I don't think so.'

‘No drugs, poison, nothing like that.'

‘No.'

My mother said, ‘Aidan, why are you asking all this? You're not  …  ' She couldn't bring herself to complete the sentence.

‘Mam, don't worry. I'm not gonna do a copycat or anything.' Not yet, anyway. ‘Just – curious. She was my age. I'd like to know what happened.' I paused. ‘Suppose  …  just supposing Sláine didn't kill herself.' My mother started to object. I cut across her, saying, ‘Let's
say
that's how it happened. For argument's sake. Say someone killed her. How would they have done that? She wasn't stabbed, shot, strangled or poisoned. So how?'

No response from either, although my father seemed to be thinking about it.

I said, ‘Would the sergeant know? Could you ask him?'

‘No,' he said, very definitively. ‘It's not my place. If he wants to tell me things, fine. Wouldn't be right for me to ask.'

‘Ah yeah, fair enough.'

‘Anyway, that job for the Guards is finished. Won't be speaking to the sergeant for a while probably.'

My mother looked at him with worry. These were tough times in our town and my home, tougher than usual. He flapped a hand and said, ‘'Twill be grand. I have another job lined up, some chap collared me – at the station, in fact. Asked me to fix up some classic cars he has. Vintage.'

‘Who is he, love?'

‘You don't know him at all – he's new to the town. Only recently moved from  …  blast it, he said but I don't remember. He's bought one of those places on Belladonna Way.'

I whistled. ‘Belladona?
Very
swish.'

My mother said, ‘He must have money. That's not a cheap part of town.'

‘The house is very old, now,' Dad said. ‘One of the lads reckons Victorian era. But it's in good nick, doesn't need too much work. The man's own name is Kinvara.'

‘Kinvara?' I asked. ‘Heh. Like the place in Galway. So he's got some cool cars. Real James Bond stuff, yeah?'

‘No, I don't think so. An old Jaguar all right, one of the classic nineteen-sixties' models. James Bond might have driven a car like that, I suppose.'

That was my dad, God love him: full of imagination, cracking sense of humour. I rolled my eyes, finished my tea and stood. ‘Gonna head to Podsy's. We haven't hung out much in a while. That okay? I'll study later.'

My father nodded his permission. Mam still looked worried. I caught her look – she didn't even have to say it.

‘Mam, I told you. Don't stress it. I don't have some obsession with death or anything. It's just her, Sláine. She's on my mind.'

‘You hear these things  …  '

‘I know. That's not the case here. Yeah? Stop worrying.'

‘All right, pet. Bring a cap, it's freezing out.'

I did as instructed and half walked, half jogged to Podsy's house. He lived in a nice estate on the other side of town, a step up from our cruddy social housing scheme. But he'd never been snobby about it – another reason I was fond of him.

His mother opened the door and let me in, saying only, ‘His room. Doing something on the computer.'

I thanked Mrs O'Keeffe and ran up. Podsy was at his desk when I burst in without knocking. He held up a finger and said, ‘One second, Aidan. Okay, Hiro? That data's sent to you now. Have a look and see what you think. Sayonara.'

He tapped the keyboard a few times, turned to me and smiled. ‘Well. Mister Flood. Anything strange or startling?'

I smiled too, for reasons of my own. Strange or startling, indeed. I said, ‘Nah, nothin' much. Who were you Skyping?'

‘A pal in Osaka – Hiro. In Japan? He's a great guy. We've been collaborating on a project for SETI. You know, the extraterr—'

‘
I
know. Search for little green men.'

Podsy scowled, pretending to be annoyed. ‘It's not exactly that, now.'

‘So what's the data you're sending?'

‘Ah, I've been monitoring activity over the skies in this part of Ireland. Electromagnetic radiation, a few other things. Noticed some weird spikes recently, so I'm sending it to Hiro. He's got better equipment than me for crunching the numbers.'

‘Hiro's a real hero. Am I allowed to smoke in here?'

‘You know you're not, you ape.'

I lit one anyway and Podsy opened his window anyway. It generally goes like this. I said, ‘Weird spikes how? Explain that to a bonehead like me.'