Guilty

by Siobhan MacDonald

Back in his office, Fran was busy at her computer. She didn’t look up as he entered.

  ‘They’re looking for you,’ she said. ‘I’ve been trying to get you. Your mobile was busy.’

  ‘Who’s looking for me?’

  ‘The third-year Med students. It’s your round this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh, yes …’

  ‘Hugh Smyth was in looking for you too.’

  ‘I’ll catch him later.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘You didn’t put something in my car earlier?’ he asked. ‘No one asked you to put anything in it?’

  Fran looked up at him, alert.

  ‘No, why?’ Her eyes scoured his face. She was like a hawk.

  ‘Oh, nothing.’

  He could feel her eyes boring a hole in his back as he closed the door behind him.

  Fire

  Over the weekend Luke had to deal with parents who were angry that their child couldn’t be accommodated in paediatric ICU. Management had closed it for the weekend and the girl was obliged to take a bed with middle-aged men in the stepdown coronary care unit. Being busy meant Luke had less time to dwell on the blood-soaked clothing that had been placed on the back seat of his car.

  By the time he crawled into bed on Saturday night he was shattered. A short time later, he was woken by the sound of sirens coming across the lough. It had taken a while to get back to sleep. He headed back to St Matthew’s on Sunday, planning to take the dog for a walk when he got home that evening. With Nina gone, the poor animal was penned up for stretches at a time. Nina would be home soon but he was full of trepidation. Was it even safe for her to return?

  He’d thought about suggesting she stay in Australia a while longer. But he couldn’t think of any reasonable way to explain things without frightening her. He’d shared nothing with her beyond the death notice in the paper. If she was aware of all that had happened, he felt sure she’d no longer find it amusing.

  He would call at Crow Hall on the way home from the hospital. He hadn’t mentioned the memoriam cards or the bag of Nina’s blood-soaked clothes to Alison. There was, however, stuff Alison needed to know.

  ‘To what do we owe the honour?’ Cornelius greeted Luke in the hallway that evening. The hall was damp with drying boots and rainwear. ‘Still flogging rain? I’ve never seen the like. I was just saying to Alison there’s no point in sending Hegarty down to do the Glasshouse lawn. In this wet, the ride-on would only churn the grass.’ He turned and headed towards the drawing room. Luke followed.

  Luke had passed Sly Hegarty on the front porch on his way in. Sly was in his work clothes and he’d smelled of wet wool and chemicals.

  Cornelius turned the doorknob and entered the drawing room. Though May, a fire smouldered in the hearth, and there, legs sprawled out by the burning logs was Roddy Gilligan. Alison was stretched out on the sofa, her stockinged feet in Roddy’s lap, working on a laptop. Two Irish coffees rested on the burnished metal coffee table.

  ‘How’s it going, Luke?’ asked Gilligan, more boldly than he would have done before. ‘Anything strange?’

  ‘Apart from you cosying up here with my wife, nothing more than usual.’

  Gilligan reddened. Alison pulled her feet towards her.

  ‘In top form this evening, so I see, Luke.’ Cornelius enjoyed nothing more than a fractious exchange between the two men.

  ‘Roddy’s bringing me up to date on what’s happening on the local farms,’ said Alison.

  ‘So it would appear.’

  ‘The Jeffries place is under water,’ Alison carried on. ‘Crow Hall lads had to help winch his cattle that got stuck in the floods, isn’t that right, Dad?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Cornelius, with a nod of satisfaction. ‘I warned him to move them to higher ground, but you know Jeffries, he’s a stubborn old bullock.’

  ‘No more stubborn than you, Dad.’

  Alison looked fondly at her father.

  ‘Now, now,’ said Cornelius. ‘I just hope they appreciate all you’re doing for them, Alison. That’s all.’

  ‘What exactly are you doing for them?’ Luke was curious.

  ‘There’ll have to be compensation, won’t there?’ said Alison. ‘This flooding is unprecedented. Thousands of acres are under water, properties are destroyed, cattle drowned. I’m making representations to our people in Brussels to investigate compensation. It’s a head-wreck. I could have done without this at the beginning of my period of office.’

  Luke doubted that things could have worked out any better. What better way to deflect any criticism of her stance on the wind farm than to be a conduit for compensation? It was a disaster that served the Thompson grace-and-favour system well. They’d supply sandbags at a cost. They’d rescue cattle. And with Alison as minister, they’d look after compensation.

  When the time came, Luke had no doubt that any favours to Jeffries and other landowners would be called in. All those that had been helped would be in debt to the Thompsons of Crow Hall. Which was how they liked it.

  ‘At least it’s a distraction from your setbacks on the wind farm.’ Luke couldn’t resist.

  Alison looked up from her laptop. ‘Oh, I imagine any hold-ups there will soon be over.’

  Luke doubted that. Lucy Considine had been adamant.

  ‘You haven’t heard?’ Alison’s eyes grew wide.

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘Those awful caravans the Considines were living in – they burned down last night. Thank God they weren’t in them. I imagine Miss Considine will have more on her mind than wind farms at the moment. You must have heard the sound of all those sirens coming across the lough last night?’

  Luke looked from Alison to Gilligan. Was that a smirk on Gilligan’s lips?

  Luke pulled his shoulders back. ‘Delightful as it is to see you, I only called to remind you all that Nina will be home this week.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Cornelius. ‘Let’s hope that they’ve managed to put some manners on the girl out there.’

  Luke glared at him.

  ‘It’s OK, Dad. I’m sure Nina will have got her act together now.’

  ‘Well, the girl might be better off staying in Australia. There’s a lot of opportunity out there. I’m just saying—’

  ‘OK, Dad.’ Alison was looking warily at Luke.

  Cornelius shrugged and slurped his coffee, a sloppy cream moustache forming on his lips. He looked with rheumy eyes over his glass, eyes straying to Gilligan. He cleared his throat. ‘All I’m saying is that the girl was never one of us.’

  Gilligan bowed his head. Luke then realised what the old bastard meant. He had wanted a grandchild all right. Not knowing his daughter’s heart condition, he had hoped for a grandchild bred from Gilligan and his daughter.

  ‘Nina will be staying with me when she comes home.’

  All three heads turned to look at Luke. It was time to leave. There was something unholy about this house. The dank lair of an evil old man. If Luke never set another foot in the place again, he’d be happy.

  ‘Nina plans to go to catering college,’ said Luke. ‘She won’t be doing Politics and History at university.’

  Alison opened her mouth.

  ‘I support that decision,’ Luke said firmly. ‘Just to let you know, I’m collecting her on Thursday. She’ll be spending her first night home with me. If any of you want to see her, she’ll be at the Glasshouse.’

  ‘Teeth in a zip,’ said Alison. Her smile was cold. ‘I expected nothing less.’

  ‘What you expect or do not expect is no longer any concern of mine, Alison. And you know what?’ Luke paused. ‘Someone like you should never have had children,’ he said calmly. ‘You’re a fucking dreadful mother.’

  Gilligan spewed his drink.

  Alison stared.

  ‘I’d watch myself if I were you, lad,’ said Cornelius.

  Luke let the front door slam as he went back out to the car. As he reversed, he took pleasure in churning up the lawn. How much longer would h
e and Alison have to limp along in their festering marriage? He longed to be free of her, her father and Crow Hall. It flummoxed him why Alison, businesslike and practical in all her dealings, had not suggested putting a legal end to the marriage. This was no oversight. Deliberate in all things, there had to be a reason.

  As he headed for home in the pummelling rain, he considered her possible motives. Perhaps the Thompsons still didn’t trust him. They needed to keep him close. Despite Cornelius’s threat all those years ago, did they think he’d break ranks with what he knew and take that risk?

  Or was it something more simple? Alison was a politician, after all. She’d aligned herself with Luke’s success to get herself elected. Perhaps she didn’t want to be associated with messy extramarital affairs. Perhaps she wanted to avoid a scandal.

  The Thompsons and their coterie filled their days with scheming, their conversation never direct but laced with nuance in a parlance of their own. Nina would wither in such company. Or worse, but not unthinkable, she’d adapt to become like them. He didn’t want Nina anywhere near Crow Hall.

  Nina had asked once why Grandpa never answered her questions. Perturbed, Luke had challenged Cornelius. ‘Sure I never know who the girl is talking to,’ Cornelius responded. ‘With one eye looking east and the other west, how’s a man to know?’ Even now it made Luke angry.

  A few miles from Crow Hall, an oncoming vehicle swung out from its side of the road straight into Luke’s path.

  What the …!

  Yanking the wheel, Luke swerved, and came to a shuddering halt, right on the edge of the ditch that ran along the roadside. He snapped his gaze to the wing mirror in time to see the vehicle as it rounded a bend. It was a truck laden with sandbags, its lights full-on in the rain. Righting himself in his seat, Luke adjusted the gears, revved the engine and reversed the Range Rover out into the open road.

  The sky brightened in a strange colour and a fork of lightning flashed, followed by a clap of thunder. In the light, he saw a reason why the truck may have swerved. A pothole in the road. But did it need to swerve so wildly, and did it have to cross to Luke’s side of the road?

  Wondering who might have been driving, his thoughts turned to Sly. Something struck him. He thought back to earlier, to when he’d passed Sly on the porch. To that smell of wet wool and chemicals. Thinking about it now, he realised what the chemical smell was. It had an unmistakable smell. The distinctive smell of petrol.

  He thought back to the sound of sirens coming across the lough last night.

  Cameras

  As Luke waited for the front gates to open, he could hear the dog barking. The rain had spluttered to drizzle and the thunder had rumbled off into the distance. Parking up, he headed for the dogrun. He’d bring the animal inside to calm him down.

  ‘It’s OK, little fella,’ he said. ‘I’m here now.’

  As he reached to open the dog-run, he saw the chicken wire was warped where Duffy had been pulling at it. Bursting through, the dog raced to the front gates, tore down the lawn out to the water’s edge, yelping and growling and sniffing at the ground. He threw back his head and barked into the sky.

  ‘Here, boy!’ Luke turned the key in the front door. He entered the house, keying the alarm code by the door. The dog appeared, snarling on the step outside. He looked into the hallway with a growl.

  Luke bent to coax him in, catching him by the collar. The animal’s nose was bloody, cut and chaffed from the chicken wire. Luke dropped to his haunches for a closer look. But the animal wouldn’t settle. Luke straightened and pulled the reluctant animal into the house.

  A quick scan of the hall confirmed nothing untoward. He tossed his raincoat onto the coat stand. The dog continued to growl. The light outside was starting to fail and Luke reached to turn on a hall lamp, which Alison had insisted was fashionable.

  Something was wrong. Nothing obvious, but something felt not right. Luke headed for the kitchen, propping up a photo frame that had fallen over on the console table. The dog padded behind him, sniffing. There was a clean smell. Detergent, spray polish, bleach – no cooking smells, just the sterile smell of loneliness. At first glance, everything seemed in order.

  The dog yelped.

  Luke jumped. ‘What is it, what do you see?’ He proceeded from the kitchen into the garden room. He stared at the wall in front of him, over his left shoulder, then his right, and scanned those walls as well. He went from room to room. It was the same in the study and the dining room. Every family photograph, or rather every photograph that included Nina, was turned face down, or turned to face the wall. The same sight met him in every room he checked. Holding his breath, he turned the photographs around, one by one.

  There was the large one of Alison and Nina accepting a cheque for a charity raising funds for African children whose sight was in danger. One of Nina wearing a spider outfit at a fundraiser. The forced smile. The one on the desk in the study of Nina next to Cornelius making a donation to a retirement home for police officers. And in the dining room, one of Nina and Cornelius at the inaugural Thompson bursary for Planning Law.

  Back in the garden room, Luke felt anger as he righted the frame on the mantelpiece above the stove. It was a photograph of Nina sitting on his knee in the orphanage in Russia. Whoever had done this had slammed the frame so hard they had broken the glass.

  ‘Hello?’ he called. His voice sounded alien. High-pitched. Constricted.

  Silence.

  The dog cocked his head. His ears twitched, listening. If there had been anyone in the house, the motion sensors would have triggered the alarm. The alarm had been on when Luke had entered, so it followed that whoever had been here knew the code.

  He’d check upstairs. From the landing he could see his bedroom door was open. His eyes scanned the space for anything unusual. He couldn’t remember if he had left the door open or not. He walked softly towards the door, stopped and pushed it gently.

  There, laid out flat on the bed was a suit. A tailored black jacket, tailored trousers, a black tie, stark against the whiteness of the shirt. And placed neatly on top, a pair of black shoes. A funeral suit.

  He carried on to Nina’s room. Her bedroom door was open wide. He reached inside and turned on the light. He held his breath. There was nothing immediately out of place in her room.

  He was about to continue when he noticed her wardrobe door was slid open, just a little. He went in to the room and pulled the door fully open. There on the floor was a puddle of clothes, jeans, dungarees, T-shirts, jackets. They’d fallen from hangers onto the floor.

  His eyes were pulled to her chest of drawers. Looking more closely now, he saw the top drawer jutting out slightly, proud of the others. He pulled it open and checked inside. It was Nina’s underwear drawer. The clothes in the blue hospital bag had been taken from here, straight from Nina’s room.

  Someone was coming and going freely in his home. He had to secure his home, and quickly. The first thing he’d have to do was change the alarm codes. Luke glanced at the dog. ‘Come on, little fella.’ He moved towards the stairs. ‘What say you and I head downstairs and see what we can tell from the security cameras?’

  The dog looked up at him, trusting eyes searching his face. He could sense Luke’s anxiety. He sniffed each step as he followed Luke down the stairs.

  The security cameras had been installed primarily to deter prowlers from interfering with Luke’s boat. One camera was positioned outside the garden room, trained on the boathouse. A second camera was positioned inside the boathouse. And a third camera was placed just inside the porch recess at the front door. It was trained on the front gates in the driveway.

  It was possible that the intruder had arrived by boat, but it was more probable that he or she had gained access from the front of the house. Inside the house, Luke had a laptop in the kitchen he used to flip between the cameras. He pulled up a chair and sat. The feeds were live and he would have to rewind.

  On camera one, he could see the shoreline and the b
oathouse at the far end of the lawn. The lough water had risen and foamy waves licked the edge of the grass where there had never been water before. On camera two, inside the boathouse, the cruiser bobbed up and down. The water was high. Now only two steps remained visible above the churning water.

  There was a problem with camera three. Instead of the view Luke expected of the driveway and the gates at the front perimeter, all he could see was veiny marble. He was looking down at the front step in the porch. He got to his feet. Outside the front door, he looked up to study the camera. It had been moved. It was now angled to face the ground. He stood there looking, thinking. Duffy sat back on his haunches looking from the camera to Luke and back again.

  ‘You know who did this, don’t you, boy?’

  The dog pricked up his ears and looked at him solemnly. It had been a state-of-the-art security system when it was first installed. Luke and Alison had been advised on the system by Dickie Traynor, a security specialist who’d provided security advice for Cornelius when Cornelius had been a government minister.

  The cameras could be adjusted manually or remotely using software. When building at the Glasshouse was nearing completion, before the site was secure, Alison and Luke moved in some furniture and personal items before moving in themselves. Dickie had configured the system so the cameras at the Glasshouse could be monitored from Crow Hall. Perhaps this facility had never been disabled.

  Luke went back indoors and sniffed. There it was again. Detergent and furniture polish. The only smells in the house these past few months. Whoever was cleaning the house was heavy-handed on the cleaning agents.

  ‘Jesus. Am I really that stupid?’ He stopped in his tracks. ‘What an idiot.’

  He pulled his phone from his trouser pocket and scrolled. She picked up on the second ring.

  ‘I assume you’re ringing to say sorry.’ Her tone was cold.

  ‘Who was in the Glasshouse today, Alison?’

  ‘I don’t know what you—’

  ‘You can cut the bullshit now. Who was here? Who do you have coming in to clean the place?’