Wake Wood (12 page)

‘It will have to,’ Patrick assented.

‘Good. In that case, perhaps we can all get what we want.’

Patrick considered what Arthur had said, but he had a far more burning question to ask before he went into the matter of his and Louise’s permanent residence in Wake Wood. ‘Arthur, why will we only have Alice for three days?’

‘Because when we tap the life force that remains in a fresh cadaver, three days’ worth is all that we’re given. Perhaps three days mirrors the stages of our existence – birth, life … and death. But I don’t truly know,’ Arthur revealed. ‘Three days is a short time, but people who’ve seized the days as an opportunity to say goodbye to their loved ones have told me afterwards that they’re long enough.’ He turned from Patrick to Louise. ‘Have you understood everything I’ve said?’

‘Yes.’ Louise didn’t look at Patrick.

‘Do we have an agreement, Patrick? Louise?’ Arthur demanded.

Patrick looked at Louise. She took a deep breath but he knew that she’d already made her decision and wasn’t to be swayed from it.

‘Yes, Arthur. I need to hold my baby again,’ Louise said feelingly. She reached towards Patrick. He gripped her hand, and stroked her fingers tenderly. He loved Louise with all his heart. He wanted to believe that what Arthur was about to do was possible, for her sake. And – every time he pictured Alice – for his own.

The idea that he could touch and talk to Alice again – tell her how much he loved her, needed her, emphasise how much joy and happiness she’d brought into both his and Louise’s lives – was so beguiling he needed it to happen every bit as much as Louise did.

‘Yes, Arthur,’ Patrick answered firmly. ‘We have our agreement.’

Arthur leaned forward and closed his hands around theirs. ‘Then, Louise, you will hold your little girl again. I can promise you that much.’

After they’d finished their coffee, Patrick showed Arthur out of the house. He walked with him to his car and returned to the dining room. Louise had already cleared the table and carried the dishes into the kitchen, switched off the light, and was standing in front of the living-room window, watching Arthur drive away.

He went to her, moved behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. They remained there, still and silent while clouds blotted out the moon and shadows raced across the lawns.

‘Patrick,’ Louise whispered.

‘Yes.’

‘What will happen if Arthur and the others find out we’ve lied to them?’

‘I don’t know, Louise. It’s best not to think about it.’

‘It will be all right, won’t it?’

‘It will have to be.’ He moved away from her. ‘Come on, it’s bedtime. You go up first.’

He checked the house while she went upstairs. When he climbed the stairs there was a light on in the spare room. Louise had finished putting away Alice’s clothes and toys and was smoothing the duvet on the newly made bed. The pillows were already plumped up. He recognised the bed linen. It had been Alice’s favourite. If the walls had been turquoise, he could have believed himself back in Alice’s bedroom in their old house.

Louise looked guiltily at him. ‘It’s all right, isn’t it?’

‘It’s fine. Just like her old room.’

‘I’m hoping she won’t see the difference.’

‘She shouldn’t.’

‘Patrick …’

He held out his arm to her. ‘Come to bed. We have to be up early tomorrow to visit the O’Sheas.’

‘Do you think they’ll give us Mick’s body?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘If they don’t …’

‘Think positive. Hope they do. Come to bed, Louise, please, we’re both exhausted,’ he pleaded, knowing full well that, bone-weary as they were, neither of them would sleep that night. Not after the things Arthur had told them – and promised.

THE AREA IN
front of the O’Sheas’ farmhouse was jammed with cars parked at all angles, blocking one another in. It was obvious that no thought had been given as to how any of the early arrivals were going to drive off if anyone wanted to leave urgently.

Although only two o’clock in the afternoon, the sky was as dark as a winter evening, heavy and black with dense rain clouds. Crows had flocked to the roof of the house and the barn and were perched on the ridge tiles in silent parliament, their ragged feathered silhouettes apt ornaments for a house of mourning.

Patrick, Louise and Arthur left Arthur’s car in the lane and picked their way across the muddy path that led up to the front door of the house. All three were soberly and formally dressed in dark suits and white shirts. Both men wore black ties.

‘Are you prepared to talk to Mrs O’Shea, Louise? Patrick?’ Arthur asked.

Louise swallowed hard but was too choked to answer with more than a nod.

‘We are.’ Patrick squeezed Louise’s hand reassuringly.

‘Just ask Mrs O’Shea, Louise,’ Arthur advised. ‘That’s all you can do. Ask her plainly and simply.’

They walked through the open front door into the hall. It was crowded with people from the town, all dressed for a funeral as they were. And every one of them had a drink in their hands. As the three of them moved deeper into the hall, heading for the living room, they were waylaid by an attractive young woman carrying a tray of glasses filled with whiskey. She held it up in front of Louise.

‘Hello. We haven’t been formally introduced, although I’ve seen you in the pharmacy. You’re Louise Daley, aren’t you? I’m Annie. You don’t have to take the whiskey.’ She thrust the tray closer to Arthur, who was helping himself and Patrick to a drink. ‘We also have Baileys if you’d prefer it. The bottle and extra glasses are in the kitchen if you’d like to serve yourself.’

In need of the courage alcohol would give her, Louise took a tumbler from the tray. ‘Whiskey is perfect, thank you, Annie.’

‘Your husband is the vet, isn’t he?’ Annie fluttered her eyelashes in Patrick’s direction. ‘It’s great that you’re here. I don’t just mean here, now, in the O’Sheas’,’ she gabbled. ‘But living here, in Wake Wood.’

Louise followed Annie’s line of sight and caught the flirtatious look she was sending Patrick’s way. Oblivious to the attention he was receiving from Annie, Patrick was discussing cattle prices with the town’s livestock auctioneer.

Embarrassed at being caught out looking at another woman’s husband, Annie continued talking at speed. ‘It’s marvellous to have new people in the town. I was afraid that we were becoming a society of old fogeys. I
mean
, so many young people leave to find work elsewhere. It’s sad to lose them. We were all so excited when Arthur told us you were moving into Wake Wood for good and reopening the old pharmacy. We need all the shops we can get. It’s rare to find young people, especially professionals, prepared to live and work in a quiet backwater like this.’

When Louise didn’t comment, Annie said, ‘Mick’s in the bedroom if you’d like to view him. Please excuse me. I’d better make sure everyone has a drink.’

‘Of course.’ Whiskey in hand, Louise pushed her way through to the stairs. She was aware of the recent trend to follow America in holding ‘viewings of the corpse’ but if it hadn’t been for the request she had to make she wouldn’t have dared impose on Mick’s widow on so slight an acquaintance.

A light was burning on the landing above her. She drained her glass, left it on a windowsill and walked up the steps. When she reached the first floor, she saw that all the doors were closed except one. She went to it and looked inside.

The room was large and she guessed it was the master bedroom of the farmhouse. It was furnished with a massive old-fashioned oak bedroom suite that gleamed black from the layers of polish that had been applied to it over the years. The bedspread and curtains were gold and crimson tapestry. Beeswax candles had been lit and placed on the mantelpiece of the carved oak hearth surround, on the bedside cabinets and also in front of the mirror on the dressing table. But their light did little to illuminate the
room
and the overall effect was one of Jacobean gloom.

Mick had been laid out in the centre of the ornately carved, oak-framed bed. He was covered to the chin, but his arms and hands were lying free on top of the bed linen. There was no sign of the wounds he’d suffered or the blood he’d been drenched in, and Louise reflected that whoever had washed, dressed and composed Mick for death had done a masterful job of concealing his massive injuries.

An elderly woman was crouched over Mick’s corpse; her back turned to Louise. She was manicuring Mick’s nails, scraping the dirt from beneath them and trimming them with nail scissors. Louise watched in silence as the woman carefully and meticulously slipped each sliver of nail clipping into a white envelope.

Sensing she was no longer alone with Mick, the woman turned and faced Louise. Grief was etched deep in the lines around her mouth but her eyes were bright, glittering with unshed tears.

Surmising the woman was Mick’s wife, Louise offered her condolences. ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs O’Shea. Please accept my deepest sympathies.’

‘You were there, in the barn when it happened.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘I was,’ Louise admitted.

‘You’re the vet’s wife.’

‘Yes, Louise Daley.’ Louise offered her hand and Peggy O’Shea took it. She didn’t shake it, but she held it for a moment.

‘Martin said you cleaned and dressed the injury to his hand.’

‘Yes, I did. How is it?’

‘It’ll mend, in time. There’s no real damage done. He’ll survive, unlike my poor Mick.’ Peggy set the scissors and envelope on the bedside table, moved a straight-backed chair close to the bed and sat down.

Unable to bear the silence, Louise blurted, ‘Mrs O’Shea, I really am so sorry. I know how awful the pain is. I really do.’

‘I’m sure you do.’

Louise moved a chair away from the wall and sat at the foot of the bed.

Peggy looked down fondly on Mick’s corpse and smiled. ‘In my mind’s eye, he’s still the dashing, handsome boy I met all those years ago. And now there he is, all creased up like an old man. It went too fast. Our lives went far too fast,’ she echoed despondently.

Louise was suddenly aware of noises in the room, harsh scratching and muted whisperings out of her field of vision that set her teeth on edge. She peered beyond the candlelight into the shadows gathered thickly in the corners of the room. She thought she glimpsed movement but it was difficult to tell in the flickers of the candles.

‘Don’t look at them,’ Peggy warned sharply.

Louise shivered, wondering if she’d heard the old woman correctly.

‘It’s better not to look at them,’ Peggy reiterated.

‘Them?’ Louise ventured bravely.

‘Things that cannot be named. Death excites them, you see. Ignore them. Behave as if you’ve seen and heard nothing.’

Terrified, trembling, Louise looked back at Mick. Compared to whatever horrors were lurking just out of sight, the corpse appeared strangely reassuring.

Patrick pushed his way into the kitchen and looked around the throng of people for Louise’s blonde head. He couldn’t see his wife but he noticed that the liberal helpings of whiskey were beginning to have an effect on the mourners crammed into the house. As glasses were emptied and refilled, voices were becoming louder and more animated. To add to the din of conversation a woman was playing traditional Irish airs on a button accordion in the dining parlour and a couple of men, well-oiled by alcohol, had taken it upon themselves to sing an accompaniment.

He only backed out of the kitchen when he was certain that Louise wasn’t in the room. He was in the hall when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and found himself looking into Martin O’Shea’s eyes. They were sombre, bruised by grief and pain.

‘My father was proud of that bull, Patrick,’ he slurred. Patrick couldn’t tell whether Martin’s impeded speech was down to a surfeit of whiskey or grief.

‘With good cause, Martin. It’s a fine animal,’ Patrick complimented.

‘And the beast is out there in the bull house now, standing large and fit as life. His temperature came down anyway. As did my father’s,’ Martin said bitterly. ‘He’s upstairs laid out cold and stiff for the grave and the bull is alive and well.’

‘I’m sorry about what happened to Mick, Martin,’
Patrick
said sincerely.

‘I know you are, Patrick,’ Martin relented.

‘If there’s anything I can do …’ Even as he said the words, Patrick knew from bitter experience how useless they were. There was nothing anyone could do to assuage loss on the scale that Martin was experiencing.

‘Thank you, Patrick. I know you mean it. You tried to stop Dad from climbing into that pen. But there was no stopping Mick O’Shea once he’d made up his mind to do something.’

‘No, there wasn’t,’ Patrick agreed. ‘He was a good man, Martin. And he’ll be missed by more than your family in Wake Wood.’

‘It’s kind of you to say so, Patrick.’ Mick looked around the crowded room and acknowledged Arthur, who was signalling to him. ‘If you’re looking for your missus, Patrick, she’s upstairs with my mother in the bedroom. You’d best go in to them.’

‘Thank you, I will. I need to pay my respects to your father.’ Patrick needed no second prompting. He was anxious to leave the house, the rowdy mourners and all the reminders of Mick’s tragic and untimely death.

He climbed the stairs and saw Louise and Peggy O’Shea sitting in silence in the candlelit master bedroom. Both women were gazing at the corpse.

Patrick bowed his head in respect before approaching Peggy. He held out his hand. ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs O’Shea.’

‘Thank you, Mr Daley.’

‘Patrick, please.’ After Peggy shook his hand he picked up a chair and sat beside Louise.

Louise took courage from Patrick’s presence. She turned to Peggy. ‘Our daughter died suddenly last year. Our only child,’ she emphasised. ‘When she was born things didn’t go very well. I’ll never have another baby.’

Patrick reached for Louise’s hand. The pressure of his fingers on hers spurred her to continue.

‘Even though I know this is a time of great sadness and tragedy for you, I want to ask if we can use your husband’s remains to help bring back our daughter.’

Peggy glared at Louise. ‘You don’t know what you’re asking.’