Closer Than You Think

by Darren O’Sullivan

  ‘I saw him, I don’t know how, but I saw him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘He’s outside.’ I could feel myself hyperventilating.

  ‘Claire? Who’s outside?’

  ‘Him, I swear it was him. Tommy Kay, that man, he looked just like Tommy Kay.’

  Chapter 14

  February 2008

  Lakes of Killarney, Ireland

  The fifth and sixth

  He couldn’t see, the darkness was absolute, but he knew from experience that what was in front of him was breathtaking. If it were daytime, he would be looking down into the valley from the famous ‘Ladies View’ that overlooked the lakes of Killarney. He’d come here once with his mother as a child but hadn’t appreciated it then. Instead, he’d moaned that the drive along the mountain roads took too long and that there was nothing to do. Usually his mother tended to his needs and complaints, but on that day, she sat on the car bonnet looking at the view for over an hour. He wished now he’d joined her on the car, held her hand and understood how much she needed it. That day was the last day he would spend with her alive. He didn’t doubt that he had chosen his victims and this date because of it. Kilgaven was only a twenty-minute drive from Ladies View. Today’s date, sixteen years after he was here with his mother.

  It was colder now than in February 1992 when, just six weeks before his tenth birthday, he walked home from school to find her. He’d known something was wrong the moment he stepped through the front door. The TV was on, the news playing. Images from a helicopter filmed over somewhere in America after a tornado had swept through. People’s belongings were scattered amongst the debris. They cut to a shot on ground level, homes like a stack of cards that had been knocked over. Children huddled to parents in their nightwear, their faces neutral, unable to absorb what had happened. The broadcaster said that the total dead was over forty, but likely to rise. His mother seldom watched the news, she said it was too depressing to know of the horrors in the world. The fact it was on, and she wasn’t even in the room, had sent a shudder through his little body.

  ‘Mummy? Mummy?’

  She didn’t respond and when he looked into the kitchen she wasn’t there. Slowly he made his way upstairs, each step fueled by the fear he didn’t understand. He checked her bedroom, then his, then slowly he opened the bathroom door.

  His father should have been at home, but he was on one of his ‘walkabouts’, a phrase he had stolen from his favourite film, Crocodile Dundee. Even as a nine-year-old he could see his longing as he watched the character played by Paul Hogan, a man without responsibly or care. A man who could leave and go to the other side of the world, just because he wanted to. He knew, even then, that his father was a broken man, and ‘walkabout’ was his word for his binge-drinking days where he would be in a pub somewhere, or a ditch, or another woman’s bed. He would then return home and feel like a caged animal. Pacing, shouting, hitting, trying to fight his way from the cage that was always unlocked. As an adult he suspected his father wanted his mother to throw him out, but she never did. She needed him despite his vile behaviour. Year after year she’d excused his actions, telling friends she was clumsy when a new bruise appeared, until her ‘clumsiness’ drove those close to her away. The more she lied and hid from the world, the easier it was for his father to control her until she was just as trapped as he felt.

  In the end, she found a way out for herself, and it should have been his father who shouldered the responsibility to find her.

  He didn’t know that blood could travel so far from the human body when spilt. He was shocked to see how much of the tiled walls it could cover, the white ceramic painted a dark colour. It was the first thing he thought about after finding her in the bathtub: the volume of paint that came from her small body. The blood must have sprayed out of her, arching like a rainbow across the room to hit the wall on the other side. It wasn’t red like his when he cut his knee or grazed his elbow, but dark brown. Placing his hand on the wall it was sticky, and when he pulled back his handprint was perfectly positioned beside the towel rail. He looked at it for a moment, before looking at his palm, the dark stain tacky and cold. He closed his fist and opened it again, and cracks appeared like dry earth. It made him think of the summer before, with the little bird.

  Wiping his hand on his trouser leg, he turned to face her. She was covered in the dark brown stains. Her torso, chest, arms, face, all spattered. Her eyes were open, looking at him. He tried not to blink as he looked back, but his eyes stung, and he had to. He felt like he had disappointed her. Stepping towards her he picked up a cloth from the edge of the bath beside her and, wetting it in the sink, he washed her face; her skin was cold and the texture of wax. Once her face was clean, he rinsed the cloth, observing the dark brown lightening to blood red as it mixed with the water and circled down the drain. Then, he closed the door behind him and made his way downstairs to watch the afternoon cartoons and wait for his father to come home.

  Details of what happened next were hazy. He couldn’t quite remember what his father did when he returned, unable to place if he had told him about his mother or led him to the bathroom or waited for him to find her for himself. What he did remember was the way the flashing lights from the police cars and ambulance bounced a brilliant blue colour off the tree outside his house. He remembered that they led him away in his slippers. The thick clouds keeping the frost away. He remembered how he tried to see his breath like dragon smoke, but it was even too warm for that. A woman with kind eyes wrapped him in a blanket and helped him climb into a car. His father, wearing just his vest, watched from the window.

  Looking up to the night sky he breathed out, the memory of the night floating away as the air left his lungs. Tonight, he could see his breath was thick and heavy, even in the near pitch-black conditions. The moon, new in its cycle, gave no light which meant the world was lit by the stars themselves. Although he couldn’t see the view now, he stood and looked at it anyway, waiting for his adrenaline to die down after the evening’s kill.

  The fifth and the sixth, Justin and Melanie Turner, had gone according to the plan. ‘I Got You Babe’ by Sonny and Cher was his soundtrack for the weeks leading up to it – he’d thought it seemed apt given their relationship. As he worked on the pair, he noticed his technique had been honed since the last time he killed: the electricity had been killed; the wife drugged; the husband placed in the bathtub. He had removed her toes and dropped her on her husband’s body before setting him alight. He did it all without needing a second thought. It was seamless. Tomorrow’s papers would have the same headline as before: THE BLACK-OUT KILLER STRIKES AGAIN. And fear would be the beating heart of Ireland once more.

  When he began this journey, he hoped the media would play along, sensationalising the kills, driving panic into communities up and down the country. They hadn’t disappointed. Unknowingly, they had made it easier for him to be in two or more places at once. They had made him omnipresent, like a god. Their name for him, the Black-Out Killer, meant that every time there was a power outage, his power grew. Six weeks before, the town of Mallow had a power cut caused by a transformer malfunctioning and the town panicked. As soon as it was known the power was out the media stormed. Helicopters flew overhead, their torches lighting the ground. The police were out in force and people huddled in their homes, terrified the killer would strike them dead. Even when the police tried to announce it was just a technical issue, people still lived in terror. He was at home that evening watching the football; he’d had a beer and when the chaos in Mallow was at its peak, he was sound asleep.

  The only disappointment was that the media hadn’t discovered what linked all of his victims. They portrayed every man whose life he’d taken to be an innocent, not worthy of the brutal manner of execution. He suspected, or at least hoped, that the police knew different. But they hadn’t divulged the information. The wives he’d taken were also misrepresented as happy spouses, the perfect couples killed before their time. That would soon chan
ge, for he himself would leak to the press the link, pretending to be an officer working the case to give it enough credibility to be printable. Once the reason for his kills, the link between them all, was in the public domain, he was confident the change he was working towards would be brought about, and then he would stop, until he was needed again.

  Chapter 15

  17th May 2018

  Cullen, Ireland

  It took about an hour to feel like I could get up – the icy hand inside me telling me to make myself small, hide my body, like it did that night. For a long time, I couldn’t hear anything other than the sound of blood rushing in my ears. This had happened before, and Mum knew what to do. When I eventually felt like myself again and opened my eyes, I was on the floor, looking at the ceiling, my head on her lap. My top had ridden up, exposing the bottom of my scar, the angry pink smile carved into my flesh. Slowly I covered it, hoping Mum didn’t see.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘It’s all right, love.’

  ‘It was him, I was sure of it. It was Tommy Kay,’ I said, knowing how ridiculous I sounded. It couldn’t have been Tommy Kay, he was long dead, and I didn’t believe in ghosts.

  ‘No, darling, it was just a man walking his dog.’

  Slowly I raised myself to a sitting position, my head feeling heavier than it should. I quietly laughed at myself, a sad, deflated, hopeless noise.

  ‘Mum, I’m a mess. Why did I convince myself I had seen a dead man?’

  ‘Because of what we are doing today. Because we’re home for the first time since it happened. Because you are thinking about him and what he did.’

  Gingerly, I sat myself on the edge of the bed and rubbed my eyes. Mum got up and sat beside me.

  ‘I feel so stupid.’

  ‘Don’t. These next few days will be tough.’

  Mum smiled sheepishly and busied herself, giving me a moment to collect my thoughts. I was so sure I was looking at a ghost, but I knew it was impossible. Then I realised I might have seen someone I knew, and my tired, overwhelmed brain had altered the image.

  ‘Mum, did you get a look at the man?’

  She looked at me and waited for me to continue.

  ‘Do you think it could have been Killian I saw?’

  ‘Your friend from the Facebook group? No, love, I don’t think it was him.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Pretty sure, the man outside was older.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘Yes, I only glimpsed him, but I’d say he was in his fifties. Too old to be your friend. Besides, what would be the chances of him walking his dog outside the place we are staying in ten years after you left?’

  I thought about that for a moment, and I knew the answer was higher than it should be. Killian knew I was here in Ireland, it wouldn’t take much to find out where I was staying.

  ‘How sure are you it wasn’t him?’

  ‘Love, it wasn’t him.’

  My messed-up head was making me see things that weren’t there, probably driven by my guilt. And I was thinking the longer I delayed doing what I came for, the harder it would be to stay here. Slowly getting up, making sure I was steady on my feet, I put on my jacket and smiled at Mum. She reciprocated, saying nothing, and we left the room. After a quick breakfast of some toast and a pot of tea we headed to the car and, as we climbed in, I looked back at the B&B to see if anything seemed out of place. But for the old building and fields beyond I couldn’t see anything, or anyone. It was just another day. Fastening my seatbelt, I took a deep breath, and Mum fired up the car. It was time to see Owen.

  Chapter 16

  17th May 2018

  Kanturk Cemetery

  Five minutes into our journey, the heavens opened. It started as a light drizzle, but with each passing mile it intensified until even with the wipers on full speed, Mum and I could barely see more than a few feet in front of the car. She held the steering wheel firmly, her hands at ten to two. Above there was a crack of thunder and I jumped. I tried to hide the fact I was startled, thinking I’d gotten away with it for a moment until Mum shot me a worried glance. I gently touched her tensed arm, reassuring her I was OK. I felt far from it. There was a flash of lightning somewhere in the distance and the thunder clapped again; again, I jumped, this time swearing.

  ‘Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?’

  I forced myself to laugh, I wanted to sound light, calm, but it came out lined with sadness because it made me think of Owen even more. He used to say the same thing. We both knew why I was jumpy, and, we both knew it was an entirely valid reaction. I hoped the thunder wasn’t some foreshadowing of what we were doing today. The last time I saw Owen we were dancing in the living room, a thunderstorm raging overhead, both of us drunk from the three bottles of red wine we had consumed between us.

  We continued blindly until we drove through the entrance of Kanturk Cemetery and up the lane that ran through the centre of it. My breathing was shallow, like I had just run up a hill, and I couldn’t stop myself fidgeting with my house keys which hung around my neck. I counted them and said my mantra in my head. Front door, back door, downstairs windows, upstairs windows.

  I looked out at the graveyard. Row after row of beautifully kept headstones. Each one sectioned off with small concrete boarders. Some were single in width, some double, offering space for loved ones to rest beside one another. Some filled already, some waiting to be joined. Mum stopped the car and pulled up the handbrake. She turned and waited for me to say or do something. But the sound of the rain hitting the metal roof and the wipers powering back and forth was all I could think about. I knew what she was doing; she was wanting me to lead, to take ownership of the moment. She had done it the first time I went outside after I recovered enough to leave the hospital. The first time I shopped in the supermarket. The first time I drove. All three occasions she was there, patiently waiting for me to take the initial step.

  Today, I couldn’t. I just couldn’t, and it wasn’t because of my fear, or anxiety, but something else, something that made me feel intense guilt. I looked at my hands gripping the keys on my long necklace, my knuckles white.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘There’s no rush.’

  ‘It’s not that, I’m OK to see him, I am.’

  ‘Then lead the way.’

  ‘Mum, I can’t.’

  ‘Claire, you can do…’

  I cut her off and looked at her, I tried to hold her eye, but failed and instead focused on the space between her ear and shoulder. My words barely audible.

  ‘Mum, I don’t know which one Owen is.’

  ‘Oh, darling.’

  Mum had been here on the day they laid him to rest. She had followed the hearse into the ground and joined the mourners, dressed in black, tears flowing. She had listened to the priest give his service and his friends talk about what a wonderful man he was. How he was the life and soul of the party. A good friend, a life cut short. Mum was there at the wake after, watching people close to Owen eat food and share stories and raise a glass in his honour. I wasn’t – I was still in Cork Hospital in an induced coma as my body did all it could to recover. When I was well enough to leave, I wanted to come to him, to say goodbye, but the media were in full flight with the story, and that picture of me I would never forget. Mum and the doctors decided it was better for my recovery if I left. So, I didn’t get to see him and was instead whisked to the airport, and out of Ireland.

  Mum got out of the car and opened her umbrella before walking round to my side and helping me out. Tears pressed behind my eyes, trying to spill and I almost let them, but held on. I would cry for my husband when I could see him, not before. Mum led as we walked along a narrow gravel path between the graves, the umbrella only keeping my left side dry as I walked behind her.

  We drifted in silence and I looked at the stones as I passed. Most were a dark grey marble that didn’t show age. Engraved into them were gold letters naming people who had died. Husbands and wives sharing space, side by
side, or sometimes, one on top of the other. I read their names. June and Patrick, together. Maureen and Sean, resting in peace. As much as they were beautiful, and moving, I felt terrible reading them. Soon I would find Owen’s grave, and I knew there was no space for me. But there should have been, they should have dug a hole for two. Mum stopped and turned to face me. Her expression was grave and serious.

  ‘He’s just there,’ she said, gesturing with her head to her left, my right. Swapping places, I stepped from under the umbrella and a few paces from Mum who didn’t follow. She nodded at me, the small movement, one I cherished for its ability to reassure me.

  I turned and looked, and there he was. Quietly waiting for me, his wife. His stone not dissimilar to the others’. The same dark marble, the same gold letters. But Owen had no flowers around, no candles or teddies like the others. The words themselves, shorter than I expected them to be.

  In loving memory of Owen Moore.

  Devoted husband and son.

  Taken too early.

  1982-2008.

  I looked back to Mum, the rain water sticking my hair to my cheek. She had wandered off back towards the car to give me a moment. Both her hands were on the umbrella, her gait calm and mindful. As I watched her, a flash of that night snapped into my mind. Me on the floor, dazed, drugged, searching for something I could focus on. And Owen’s limp arm hanging over the bathtub.

  Looking back to Owen’s stone I knew I should say something, but I didn’t know what – where did you start after ten years of only talking to him using the voice inside your head? I hesitated, hoping he would say something first, but that obviously wouldn’t happen. I took a breath, the air snagging in my throat, my words coming out as a half cough, half sob. I managed to catch it before it could fully form into a cry. Just. I looked for Mum, but she was back in the car, looking straight ahead as if she was trying to discreetly watch me in her peripheral vision, and although I really wished she was standing beside me, holding my hand, both of us huddled under the umbrella, I knew what she was doing was for the best. She had an uncanny ability to always know. Even if I didn’t.