The Suicide Pact (The Tick-Tock Trilogy Book 3)

by David B Lyons

  I feel Ingrid about to speak up, about to rattle off her address, so I place my hand on her knee; my sign to her that she should leave the speaking to me.

  ‘Connolly Gardens, in Inchicore,’ I say. ‘Number fifty-one.’

  The officer winks at me, then turns around and starts the car.

  I feel Ingrid turn to face me. I’d bet any money her eyes are wide. But I don’t look at her. I don’t want to give the officer any clues that we have lied our asses off to him ever since he started asking us questions. So I just stretch my fingers towards hers and grip on to her. I can feel the sweat on her palm. Bet she can feel the sweat on mine too.

  ‘How old are you girls?’ the officer asks, staring back at us through his mirror.

  I cough before I answer.

  ‘Eh… thirteen, both of us.’ That’s the first answer I’ve given him that isn’t a lie.

  ‘Does eh…’ he says nodding his head in the mirror, ‘does Mel not talk, no? Cat got your tongue?’

  I squeeze Ingrid’s fingers.

  ‘She’s just quiet is all,’ I say.

  ‘That right?’

  We don’t answer and the car falls silent as we turn onto the canal road.

  The officer made me forget what happened back at Debbie’s house for a few minutes. It starts to play at my mind again. That slap. But to hell with it! I can’t let what Debbie does affect me. I thought she was bigger and better than doing bleedin’ drugs though. But I guess I don’t really know her as well as I thought I did. I can hear the slap over and over in my head as I stare out the car window and every time I do I feel the sting of it inside my hand. She deserved it though, I s’pose. And besides, that’s only a tiny bit of pain compared to how she’ll be feeling in the morning when she’s told the news. I don’t really wanna hurt Debbie by dying, though. I don’t want to hurt Miss Moriarty either and Ingrid sure as hell doesn’t want to hurt Harriet. That’s why we were visiting them this evening, to let them know that we called by to say our final goodbyes. We wanted those three to know they meant something to us. But instead of a long hug to say goodbye to Debbie, I ended up slapping her across the cheek. And now here we are — both of us — in the back of a bleedin’ police car.

  I squeeze Ingrid’s fingers again and then we both turn to face each other. I wink an ‘it’s all okay’ at her and she gives me that half smile thing she does. She seems to be taking being in the back of a police car better than I ever thought she would. She’s not crying, anyway. Unlike last night. Jesus, she could have filled a swimming pool with the amount of tears that came out of her eyes.

  I twist her wrist a little so I can look at her digital watch. 20:59. Just a few hours until all of her pain is gone away. And mine. We’re almost there. As soon as this officer drops us off, we’ll be back on track.

  ‘I love you,’ I mouth to her. And as she does the same we squeeze each other’s fingers even tighter.

  ‘What school do you go to, girls?’ the officer asks.

  I think quickly.

  ‘Goldenbridge.’ I’m so good at lying. It’s almost as if the lie comes to my mind before the truth does. That seems to be how my brain works. I’m sure I got that skill from my dad. I knew I had to say the name of a school that was close to the wrong address I gave him. I know Harriet goes to Goldenbridge. She’s actually in her last year this year. Is doing her Leaving Cert in June.

  ‘Ah… I know it well. I went to Junior Infants in Goldenbridge. Grew up in Inchicore until I was seven meself,’ he says.

  Neither me or Ingrid say anything back to him. We both just turn our heads to look back out of the side windows.

  Hopefully he gets the message. We don’t wanna talk. We just want you to drop us off.

  The streets are too dark. I can’t quite make out where we are, though this area is a bit unfamiliar to me. Ingrid would know it better than me. She hung around here a bit when she was younger. I assume we’re in Inchicore by now. It shouldn’t have been that long a drive.

  ‘Okay, so which one is Connolly Gardens?’ he asks, eyeballing me in the mirror.

  I turn to Ingrid. She coughs.

  ‘Eh… next turn right and then it’s the eh… I think it’s the second turn after that,’ she says.

  I look at him in the mirror, notice his brow go all wrinkly again. Shit. I hope he isn’t getting suspicious.

  ‘Yeah, this turn here,’ Ingrid says.

  Now I know where we are. I’ve been here a few times with Ingrid. It’s a quiet little cul de sac. The type, I’m sure, no drama happens in. Not like the road we live on.

  ‘That house there,’ I say. And then I unclick my seatbelt.

  He turns around to us after he stops the car.

  ‘Ye want me to walk ye up to the house?’

  ‘Oh… no thank you,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to give my dad a fright. It’d be his worst nightmare if I showed up at the door with a policeman.’ I reach my hand towards his shoulder and pat it gently. ‘Thank you, officer.’

  Then I open the door and hop out.

  I can sense him watching us as we stroll towards the house and push at the gate that leads us into the tiny garden.

  He’s pulling away slowly as we knock at the door. I know he’s waiting to see if anybody answers. It doesn’t take long until he gets what he wants.

  ‘Wha’ you two doin’ here?’

  ‘Ah, Uncle Brendan. We just wanted to see Harriet. Is she in?’

  Ingrid’s uncle pushes his door wider to allow us to walk in to his hallway. And as we do, I turn back and offer a wave of my hand to the police officer.

  ‘She’s inside watchin’ the tele. Your mother know you’re here, Ingrid?’ Brendan says.

  Ingrid turns to face her uncle and then nods her head slowly.

  ‘Course she does,’ she says, her cute little smile wide on her face. But I know that will have hurt Ingrid a bit. She hates lying.

  21:00

  Terry

  So I’ll just cut to the chase, Terry. The reason we called you in here was not to marvel at your successes so far, and not to meet you and see that big, handsome smile of yours. We asked you here for a very specific reason. We need a new Saturday night prime time entertainment show on RTE television, something that’ll get the entire nation tuning in. And, we know of no better man to front that show than the great Terry Murph—

  My eyes shoot open. I let out a groan.

  ‘For Christ sake, Greta, you’ve just fuckin woken me.’

  It’s not like her. She’s normally very careful when I’m sleeping. So I know she closed that door with a bang on purpose.

  I turn my face to look at the clock. 21:01. Jesus, I’ve only been asleep an hour.

  She pushes the door open and looks around it sheepishly at me.

  ‘Sorry, dear. I’m glad you’re awake though. I eh… I’m worried. About Ingrid. And Ciara. They’ve gone missing.’

  I try to clear my mind of the annoyance by squeezing my eyes closed. I fuckin hate being woken. Then I rub a hand over my face.

  ‘What do you mean missing?’

  She perches her butt on the end of the bed and looks over her shoulder at me, her arms crossed.

  ‘Ingrid said she was going around to Ciara’s house to do some studying for that exam they have coming up. But I’ve eh… I’ve just rung Vivian and they’re not there.’

  I rub my face again with my hand.

  ‘What did Vivian say?’

  ‘She eh… she said Ciara had told her they were coming around here to study.’

  I sigh as loudly as I can and then sit up in the bed, leaning the back of my head onto the top of our wooden headboard.

  ‘Something’s going on, Terry. I know it. I said it to you as soon as they left the house this evening. Ingrid could barely look at me as she was going out the door. That’s not like her.’

  I hold each of my forefingers to my temples; not so much to think through where Ingrid might be, more to stop the annoyance of being awake from scratching thr
ough my mind.

  ‘She’ll be back soon. She knows she has school in the morning,’ I say.

  I scoot myself back down in the bed, until my head is resting on the pillow again.

  ‘Call it mother’s intuition or whatever Terr—’

  ‘Jesus, Greta. She’ll be home soon. And when she walks through that door you’ll be annoyed with yourself that you woke me up for no fuckin reason.’

  I sit up sharpish. Because I know that was a little harsh.

  ‘Sweetie, it’s Ingrid. She’s incapable of doing anything wrong.’

  ‘Except for lying.’

  Greta’s standing now, her hands on her hips.

  ‘What do you mean lying?’

  ‘Well, lying about where she was going.’

  ‘Ah,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘That’s a little white lie. She’s thirteen now. Isn’t that what teenagers do?’

  ‘I hope it’s just a boyfriend or something. They probably met boys at that party—’

  ‘It fuckin better not be boys,’ I say, sweeping the duvet off me. I take one step over to our window and pull at the curtain so I can stare up and down our street. Then I look back at my wife.

  ‘Jaysus, I always loved that Ingrid was really pretty, but now that she’s a teenager, I wish she had a face like the back of a bus.’

  Greta shoots a little laugh out of the side of her mouth. That’ll do me. She’s obviously not as concerned as she seems to be letting on.

  ‘Sweetie, she’ll be back in a while,’ I say, tossing her hair. ‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to her when she gets home from school tomorrow. If she’s messing around with boys, she’ll have an awful lot of explaining to do.’

  I jump back into bed and pull the duvet nice and snug around me again.

  ‘Now,’ I say, turning on to my side. ‘I’ve got a big show in the morning… Close the door gently this time.’

  ◈

  The kids across the street all cock their heads up again at Helen as she strolls away from the police car, the phone to her ear.

  ‘I know you’re crazy busy, won’t keep you long, Eddie. I was just, y’know, lying here on the sofa and thought I owed it to you — owed it to our marriage — to be totally honest and up front with you.’

  There’s a hesitation on the other end of the line.

  ‘Go on,’ Eddie eventually says.

  ‘You did hurt me earlier. So much so I’ve been crying. I thought what you said was really insensitive… about me needing to go home to watch the soaps. In front of everybody.’

  There’s silence again, but Helen is aware Eddie will be rolling his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry, Hel… it’s just I’m under so much pressure here and… well, yeah… there’s no excuse for me saying that in front of everybody. Please accept my apology once more and we’ll speak in the morning, yeah?’

  Helen fake-coughs down the line, is not really sure where to take the conversation from here.

  ‘Yeah, yeah — I know you didn’t mean it. It just hurt is all, and I didn’t wanna just lie here getting angry with you, so thought I’d call so I can just put it all behind me. I know you’re mad busy… how’s the investigation going?’

  ‘Frustrating,’ Eddie says. Helen smiles to herself. Is aware her husband has fallen into her trap. ‘We’re certain Keating is up to something. He’s keeping well away, for sure. We know he’s in Spain. Again. Same place he always is when he’s pulling off something big. None of his main men seem to be doing anything, but we’ll get to the bottom of this. We have to before it’s too late. I’m not letting this fucker give us the run around again.’

  ‘You’ll sort it. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Did you eh…’ Helen looks over her shoulder, ‘did you trace the caller? Y’know; if you get the caller, you’ll almost solve this thing.’

  ‘Yeah. Call was made near the Drimnagh Luas stop, we managed to get CCTV footage of the boy making the call. He looks about fourteen, maybe fifteen. The type of young recruit Keating normally uses to carry out a little bit of the dirty work for him.’

  ‘Track him down yet?’ Helen says, nibbling at the edge of her thumb. She stops walking, awaits the response.

  ‘No. We’ve no name. Just an image. That and the fact we know he walked to Harold’s Cross after making the call. We tracked him on CCTV all the way up the canal. He turned off at the main Harold’s Cross bridge. No sight of him after that. We’re closing in.’

  Helen grabs some air with her fist, chuffed that her little mind game of pretending she was upset soothed Eddie into opening up to her. She spins on her heels and begins to pace back towards the car.

  ‘Interesting… interesting,’ she says. ‘Eh… apology accepted. We’ll do that breakfast after we wake up tomorrow, yeah?’

  ‘Helen, you okay?’ Eddie asks. But Helen barely heard; was too busy bringing the phone back down to press at the red button. She places the phone in her coat pocket and begins to quicken her pace as she gets nearer the car, wiring her finger around as if to signify to Charlie that it’s time to get going.

  ‘Here, yis aren’t gonna find the two girls if you’re just gonna leave that car parked there all night,’ one of the teenage boys roars towards her. She doesn’t pay him any attention, nor any of the other boys who decide to laugh at his silly statement. She just snatches at the door handle, folds her tall frame into the passenger seat and instructs Charlie.

  ‘Harold’s Cross.’

  He stares at her, then turns the key and speeds off, staining the road with tyre marks.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Charlie asks.

  ‘The young boy, in our image… he’s in the Harold’s Cross area now. Walked there after making the call.’

  ‘How do you know?’ Charlie asks as he reaches for the siren switch.

  As the sound blares out from the car, Helen sucks on her lips and then says nothing; as if Charlie hadn’t just asked that last question. She’s trying to remain mysterious; as if she’s operating at a different level to Charlie. It seems to be working. He has no idea that his low rank as a recently-recruited uniformed beat officer makes him her senior.

  Charlie chicanes out of the narrow streets of Drimnagh and finds his way back on to the canal road. He’s a decent driver, is Charlie. Was given the share of a car with another beat officer who works a different shift pattern to him about three months ago. For the minimal admin work they do, as well as the odd walk beat they take, they barely need the wheels. But there was a car left over at the station. And Charlie was chuffed with the offer. It almost felt like a promotion to him.

  ‘So, what we gonna do? Door-to-door?’ Charlie shouts over the siren.

  Helen has the nail of her thumb held between her teeth.

  ‘Same again,’ she shouts. ‘Let’s contact the local school Headteacher. He’ll know every teenager in that area. What’s the local school in Harold’s Cross?’ she asks.

  Charlie answers by picking up his phone and handing it to her.

  Helen clicks into his Internet browser history, Googles ‘secondary school Harold’s Cross’ and finds her answer in a matter of seconds.

  ‘St Joseph’s CBS,’ she says. ‘The number’s here.’ She holds the phone to her ear; hears a tone ring twice before an answer machine kicks in.

  ‘The school office is currently closed. We operate between the hours of eight a.m. and five p.m., Monday to Friday. Please leave a message after the tone or — alternatively — call our emergency site team on 01 5333873 in case of an emergency.’

  Helen holds her eyes closed, soaking in the number just read out to her, then she swipes at the screen of Charlie’s phone and punches in the digits.

  Another answer machine.

  ‘Ah for fuck sake!’ she says before the beep sounds.

  ‘This is Detective Helen Brennan from Rathmines Garda station,’ she yells down the line, ‘ring me back on this number as soon as you possibly can!’

  Then she hangs up, places Charlie’s phone back in the cup holder a
nd screams into her hands.

  ‘Supposed to be a fuckin emergency number that!’

  Charlie continues to speed up the canal road, swerving past cars that pull over for him.

  He looks at Helen, then back at the road in front. He does this numerous times. Is itching to ask her another question, but he can sense her frustration and isn’t quite sure now’s an appropriate time.

  ‘Helen,’ he says tentatively.

  She doesn’t hear him.

  ‘Helen!’ She opens the hands from around her face, looks over at Charlie. ‘I eh… I can see why you are a brilliant Detective. You take things really seriously, but do you eh… do you normally get this animated during an investigation?’

  Helen stares straight ahead.

  ‘I take every case as seriously as the last one,’ she says.

  Charlie can just about hear her over the siren. His fingers begin to fidget on top of the steering wheel.

  ‘It’s just,’ he shouts again, ‘you said earlier that this one was personal…’

  Helen looks over at him, arching one of her eyebrows. Then she lets out a long sigh.

  ‘Just do lights,’ she says.

  Charlie reaches for a button near the ignition and clicks at it. The sound of the siren stops but the blue lights remain flashing, bouncing off the car bonnet and back into their faces.

  Helen sits more upright in her seat and then fixes the seat belt around her so that it runs at a straighter diagonal across her chest.

  ‘Somebody very close to me died by suicide,’ she says.

  Charlie turns his face towards her and purses his lips. But she doesn’t notice. She’s just staring at the light show on the bonnet.

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ Charlie says.

  ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for.’

  The car falls silent, except for the noise of tyres zooming down the canal road.

  ‘My son,’ Helen then says, still staring straight ahead. Charlie offers another purse of his lips. ‘Similar age to these two girls, I suspect. He’d only just turned fourteen. Y’know… I still don’t know why. What I wouldn’t give to know why. Ye know what my husband says to me all the time? “Helen, you will never know why.” As if it’s that easy to just forget about it.’