The Doll's House (20 page)

‘Thirty years back, you say.’

‘Around that time. Now Keith has drowned. You never know what’s ahead of you, do you, Detective Inspector?’

‘There’s been another drowning, Isabel. Jimmy Gahan’s body was found yesterday.’

‘Oh, dear Lord.’

‘It was close to where we found your son-in-law, in the canal.’

‘Heavens above.’ Isabel Blennerhasset turned her head away from O’Connor, her neck narrow, lined, and looking like a featherless bird.

O’Connor could see that the last piece of information had unsettled her. Lifting herself up from the couch, she leaned heavily on her stick and walked to the French windows, which were filled with a view of the estuary. Despite the cold, she opened them. The breeze swooped in around them, the noise of squawking seagulls sounding like laughter. Isabel Blennerhasset kept her back to him.

‘My daughter and son-in-law, Detective Inspector …’

‘What about them?’

‘He met her on the rebound, you know. An older woman broke his heart,’ she faced O’Connor again, ‘not that I ever thought the lowlife had a heart. Wait here, Detective Inspector. I’ll get my daughter for you now.’

When I arrive at Gerard Hayden’s, he still doesn’t mention my bruises, although they’re a lot deeper now. I remind myself that he isn’t a friend. I’m paying for his services. And even as I think this, I know I’ve already crossed a line. The two of us are in this together, and for the first time since meeting him, I wonder about his personal life. Gerard Hayden has all the appearance of a man living alone. I’ve not sensed that anyone else shares this house. There are no photographs on the wall, nothing that might belong to someone else.

Before we start, he questions me again, asking if I’ve spoken to Dominic or Martin. I tell him that I’ve decided not to.

‘Okay, then, Clodagh, if you’re sure,’ he says.

I ask him again if my regression is unusual.

‘Some people when they regress only hear things, others might simply see things. Not all their senses are realised. But you are slightly different again.’

‘Because of the dolls,’ I say.

‘They definitely complicate things.’

‘But you said they might be part of my subconscious protecting me.’

‘Yes. Or cutting things up in such a way that you can’t really trust what you’re remembering.’

‘So I shouldn’t set much store in what they’re saying?’

‘That’s exactly what’s complicated about it, Clodagh. What they’re saying could be the very thing you should be listening to.’

‘I see. But about the hearing and seeing …’

‘What about it, Clodagh?’

‘During my regression, I could hear and see, but I could also smell and touch. More importantly, I felt like I was inside that little girl’s head.’

‘I know.’ He stands up and paces around the room, as if the last piece of information has unsettled him.

‘Gerard,’ I say, sensing he might be reluctant about bringing me back again, ‘I need to go back. I need to know if my subconscious is protecting me, and if so, from what. There are large chunks of my memory missing, and I don’t understand why. The missing bits are making me feel stuck. I can’t stay in this nothing place forever. Where I am now is not a good place to be.’

‘Very well,’ he says. ‘Let’s start.’

This time when I regress, I realise I’m somewhere different. I’m inside the doll’s house. Jimmy is there, and so are Kim and Katy. Jimmy is telling them a story about a sailor who travelled the high seas. Debbie and Sandy are there as well. I don’t know where Sebastian is.

Debbie says, all smarmy, ‘I’ve invited Mum and Dad to tea. Take out the good china, Clodagh. You know how fussy your mum is, and don’t forget the blue vase with the lovely yellow flowers.’

Gerard asks me where I am.

‘I’m inside the doll’s house.’

‘Who else is there?’

‘Everyone except Dominic. He’s playing football. My doll Sebastian isn’t there either.’

‘What else can you tell me, Clodagh?’

‘Debbie’s invited Mum and Dad to tea. My mum has a bump. I think she’s pregnant. My little-girl self doesn’t know. She thinks Mum is fat. Sandy wants me to give Mum one of the chairs from the dining room with the tall backs so she can be comfortable.’

‘Go on.’

‘Mum has her hair tied up because she’s hot. Debbie’s trying to copy it, putting her hair up in a bun like a tight ball, the way ballerinas
wear it. Dad puts his hand on Mum’s tummy. She pushes it away. Dad says nothing. He looks angry and hurt at the same time.’

Debbie is whispering in my ear: ‘Your mum’s keeping another secret from your dad. Your mum has lots of secrets.’

‘What are you feeling, Clodagh?’

‘I’m sad. My little-girl self is sad. She wants to play happy families. Debbie is laughing, but it isn’t a nice laugh. It’s one of her evil ones.’

Sandy says, ‘If Clodagh wants to play happy families, then I do too. I love that game.’

I hear Gerard saying, ‘I’m listening, Clodagh. Remember that at all times you’re perfectly safe.’

‘Ben, the brown terrier, is barking. He nearly drops his black-and-white ball.’

Dad says, ‘Jimmy, it’s time to go home. We’ve had enough of your stories for one day.’

Mum says, ‘It’s about time you saw sense about that fool.’

‘Leave it,’ Dad says back.

‘Mum and Dad are not talking to one another any more, but neither of them can leave the doll’s house. In the doll’s house people have to live by the doll’s-house rules. Rules are important. I give Mum the pretend powder from the pretty dressing table in the upstairs bedroom, but she’s not happy.’

‘Powder your nose,’ my little-girl self is saying, ‘you know you love to powder your nose, Mum.’ But she doesn’t.

She says, ‘I don’t want to powder my nose, Clodagh.’

Dad says, ‘Leave her alone. It’s not Clodagh’s fault.’

I take the perfume and the small white hand mirror from the dressing table and ask Mum would she like them instead. She doesn’t look up. Sandy is sitting beside me. I love Sandy’s curly blonde hair and her blue eyes like the sea.

‘Debbie takes the perfume, powder and mirror. “Waste not, want not,” she says. “Her loss is my gain.” Gollywog looks shocked, but Golly always looks shocked.’

‘Keep going, Clodagh.’ I hear Gerard Hayden’s voice again.

‘Dad wants to be alone. He doesn’t say it, but I know it. I put him in the attic, lay him down flat. He’ll get some peace and quiet there. Mum doesn’t say anything once he’s gone, but it doesn’t feel like peace. It feels the opposite.’

I stop talking, and my face must look worried, because Gerard asks, ‘Is something wrong, Clodagh?’

‘It’s the ringing – I can hear ringing, and it won’t stop.’

‘Where is the ringing sound coming from?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What’s making the ringing sound, Clodagh?’

‘It’s like a long buzz in my ear. The way an earache feels. It’s not nice. It reminds me of something rotten.’

‘Is it still there?’

‘Yes. It’s like a bluebottle thumping against a window, relentless. But this noise isn’t a bluebottle, it’s …’

‘What is it, Clodagh?’

‘It’s a doorbell. It’s the doorbell on the front door of the doll’s house. I’m not sure if I want to open the door.’

It’s then I hear Debbie scream, loud and ferocious. ‘OPEN THE DAMN DOOR, CLODAGH.’

‘What are you doing now, Clodagh?’ Gerard asks.

‘I’m going to open the door.’

‘Who is at the door, Clodagh?’ Gerard’s voice remains calm.

‘I don’t know. I’m opening the door, but all I can see is an empty space, black like the night. But something is making a shape. It’s a face, I think. The face is the size of the doorframe, but it’s blurred, the way mirrors at a funfair make big people small, and small people big.’

Mum says, ‘Shut the door, Clodagh,
now
.’

‘The blurred image is clearing. It’s a man’s face, tilted, large, like a giant looking through the small doorframe of my doll’s house. I don’t want him to see me. I don’t want him inside the doll’s house. He isn’t part of happy families.’

‘What do you feel, Clodagh?’

‘I want to close the door, but I’m afraid. I reach out and grab the handle. I worry that the man will do something, but he doesn’t. His face looks at me blankly.’

‘Did you not hear me, Clodagh? Close that bloody door.’ My mum is roaring, and Debbie is laughing behind her.

‘I shut the door, and the walls of the doll’s house start trembling. My little-girl self is crying. She picks up Sandy, telling her, “We don’t want to play this game any more.” I don’t want to play either.’

‘Clodagh, can you still hear me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Clodagh, this is important. Do you know who rang the doorbell?’

‘Yes, Gerard. I do.’

A sharp beam of sunlight shot across O’Connor’s face with an unexpected break in the clouds. The next full squad meeting would be at three p.m. and, with his shirt sleeves rolled up, O’Connor had been surfing the net since getting back from the Jenkins house in Malahide. Edwina, Isabel Blennerhasset’s daughter and Keith Jenkins’s widow, had proved to be something of a red herring, but Isabel linking Jimmy Gahan and Keith Jenkins was the first bit of decent luck they’d had. Adrian Hamilton was part of this story. Three men meeting their deaths through drowning was a coincidence too far.

Keith Jenkins had been the only publicly named director of Hamilton Holdings, but the original company had been set up thirty-seven years previously by Adrian Hamilton. O’Connor was keen to find out why Jenkins had been currently running the show.

He checked his watch. Lynch would be back there soon. If what Ozzie Brennan had implied to Kate and Lynch was true, and Jenkins had been Jimmy Gahan’s benefactor, the next question was why? What had Gahan on him?

Higgins and Clarke had paid another visit to the hotel, Maldon House, this time with a selection of mug shots. O’Connor hadn’t been particularly surprised to discover Jenkins had registered under a pseudonym. What had surprised him was the description of the woman, which Higgins had been quick enough to pick up on. He’d shown the receptionist a number of images, including one of Jenkins’s latest girlfriend, Siobhan King, and on a hunch, Gloria Sweetman. The receptionist couldn’t be one hundred per cent sure, but she had picked out Gloria Sweetman’s face from the bunch as Jenkins’s companion.

Jenkins spending the night with a model wasn’t a shocker. But Gloria
Sweetman was now very much a dead model, and the word ‘suicide’ attached to the death of Adrian Hamilton and Gloria Sweetman was circling in O’Connor’s brain. The hotel receipt had been dropped by either Jenkins or the killer, and O’Connor had his suspicions that it was the latter.

O’Connor’s eyes felt as if two large prodding fingers were pressed on top of them. He needed to get his drinking under control. This case was tough enough without him voluntarily putting obstacles in his way. Isabel Blennerhasset had been on the phone to the chief super already, and although Butler was glad the connection had been made between Gahan and Jenkins, he had again warned O’Connor to tread carefully.

Stretching his back, O’Connor then took a gulp from the cold cup of coffee by his computer, before scanning through the files on screen.
The Irish Times
newspaper archive was the only one searchable online. There had been an inquest into Adrian Hamilton’s death, and misadventure was the outcome. Hamilton had borrowed a small boat from a business colleague, leaving the estuary at Malahide very early on the morning of his death. The alarm was raised later that evening when he had failed to return the boat as promised. It hadn’t taken long to find him and, with calm waters, bad weather was quickly dismissed as the reason for Adrian Hamilton’s fully clothed body having ended up in the water. According to the report, large amounts of alcohol had been found in his system. That, coupled with the fact that he hadn’t worn a lifejacket, had led to a verdict of misadventure: he had fallen overboard while intoxicated.

If Adrian Hamilton’s death was connected with the current case, O’Connor needed to discover who had owned that boat. He couldn’t find any mention of a name anywhere in the archives. He’d have to gain access to the old case notes, an arduous task that he would assign to Lynch. O’Connor stared at the image of Adrian Hamilton on the screen. He’d been a successful businessman. The Irish economy wasn’t exactly booming at the time, but it hadn’t hit the full deprivation
of the late eighties. If Hamilton’s death hadn’t been an accident but suicide, as Isabel Blennerhasset had said, he needed to talk to the family. Unfortunately Adrian Hamilton’s widow, Lavinia, had recently passed away from cancer. There were surviving children, Dominic Hamilton and Clodagh McKay, but they would have been very young at the time of Adrian’s death, and probably not a whole lot of use to him. Jimmy Gahan had a surviving sibling, Deborah Gahan, now chairperson of Kenmo International, a thriving export business. She was top of O’Connor’s list for the next house call. He’d have to run background checks on the others. He also needed to be careful not to put too many eggs in the one basket.

The next call O’Connor received was from Monroe, a new detective to the squad at Harcourt Street. ‘I have that number and address for Deborah Gahan.’

‘I assume she’s been told about the demise of her late brother?’

‘Yeah, she’s just identified the body.’

‘Right. Does she know I’m looking for her?’

‘Not yet, but I can set it up.’

‘No, you’re fine, Monroe. Just give me the number, and I’ll make the contact.’

As O’Connor scrawled the number and address on a yellow Post-it, he remembered Isabel Blennerhasset telling him about how their kind didn’t speak in straight lines. O’Connor wasn’t in the mood for riddles. Deborah Gahan might have lost her brother but, from the sound of it, they weren’t exactly close. If she had information, he’d get it out of her, even if it meant applying extra pressure.

Walking over to the wipe board, he wrote down a number of questions to which he wanted answers. If Adrian Hamilton’s death had been suicide, what had lain behind it? If Keith Jenkins had been Jimmy Gahan’s benefactor, what had Jimmy on him? Why the hell had an old hotel receipt been left at the scene? Was Gloria Sweetman part of all this? And how the heck had Jenkins become the principal director of Hamilton Holdings?