by Jack Gatland
‘Declan,’ Karl held his hand out, his accent still echoing his past. ‘I wanted to give condolences.’
‘Thank you Mister Schnitter,’ Declan said, shaking the offered hand. ‘I didn’t see you at the funeral?’
‘I do not do funerals,’ Karl replied. ‘I came later, whispered a prayer for him. I hope you do not think I was being rude.’
‘Not at all,’ Declan opened the door wider. ‘Would you like to come in?’
‘No, no,’ Karl almost backed away from the door, his German manners almost horrified at the imposition. ‘I just wanted to see you, to say that whatever you need, I am just around the back.’ He looked to the Audi in the driveway.
‘And when that breaks down, as it looks like it will soon, remember my garage,’ he smiled. But it was as polite a smile as you could expect. A salesman’s smile.
‘I will do,’ Declan said. ‘Thanks.’
Karl nodded and backed away from the door, turning halfway down the drive. Declan watched him leave. Karl was a lonely man; his wife had died around the same time that Declan’s Mum had, and both Karl and Patrick became each other’s support network. Declan hoped that now alone again, Karl wouldn’t retreat into himself. He’d have to take him to the pub some time, get some stories out of him. After all, if Declan stayed in the house, Karl would become his neighbour.
Turning back into the house and closing the front door behind him, Declan didn’t wait around; he was here for a reason, and one reason alone. Making his way upstairs, entering the study and pushing the bookshelf to the side, he entered the secret room, his father’s modern-day priest hole, turning on the light.
A line from Ratcliffe, spoken about another house the previous day flashed into his head.
“All houses of this time have them, sir.”
If Devington House had a priest hole or two within it, what was to stop someone hiding in one the night of the murder? Maybe the guard at the top of the stairs didn’t see them come past, because they found another way? He’d have to speak to Ratcliffe again, see if he could gain a set of plans; although the thought of seeing Susan Devington again both intrigued and scared him.
Walking over to the metal filing cabinet, he pulled the top drawer out. Row after row of brown folder files faced him, all neatly labelled at the top, and Declan gave a silent thanks to his father. The one main thing he remembered from being a kid here was that his father always brought his work home. Literally. He would copy the sheets of his case files, sometimes even by hand and bring the duplicates to his study to ensure that he always had backups. And of course, this probably helped immensely when he decided to write his memoirs.
There was a folder in the second drawer that he pulled out marked DAVIES. Removing it from the cabinet, Declan carried it across to the desk and opened it up.
It was the Victoria Davies files. Or at least copies of them. Reports, photos, musings on paper and even three cassette tapes. Picking one up, he saw written on the side was
MICHAEL DAVIES – INTERVIEW 3,
JANUARY 6TH 2001
Pulling out the tape from the case, he looked around the room. On a shelf was an old tape recorder, the type that had the buttons one end and a small flap where the tape slotted into the middle. Placing the tape in, and praying that the recorder still had batteries, Declan pressed play.
He wasn’t ready for what he heard.
‘Interview three with Michael Davies, commencing at eight fifty-two am. Detective Inspector Patrick Walsh and Detective Sergeant Alexander Monroe recording.’
Declan paused the tape, tears already welling up a he tried to process what he’d just heard; his father’s voice, only a little older than Declan was now, echoing in the study he used to work in. Unsure of what his life would bring, unaware of what would occur down the line.
Declan couldn’t do this right now.
Taking the tape out of the recorder, he placed it back in its case and returned it to the rest of the notes. He’d take them back to Temple Inn and work through them there, somewhere that didn’t have such a personal connection to his father. Maybe there was something Patrick missed within these pages.
As he went to close the folder, he stopped. A single piece of paper half filled with scrawled notes in his father’s handwriting was poking out from behind a divider. One of the scrawls on the page had caught his eye. Pulling it out, he read the line in its entirety.
Necklace broken off. Who has necklace?
Declan placed the note back into the file. When he had first interviewed Andy Mac, Declan was absolutely sure that Andy had mentioned something about a broken necklace.
‘They showed me it… …Broken necklace…’
It was too soft to truly pick up, but he knew there was something here. Someone did have Victoria’s necklace. Was it Andy Mac? If so, how did he gain it? Declan knew that if Andy’s tale of blacking out was true then even if he did have it, he might not know how it came into his possession.
Unless he was the killer.
There was a faint sound downstairs; his front door was being knocked upon again. Gathering up the file, Declan exited the secret room, hiding it once more behind the bookcase. Then, walking down the stairs and placing the file on the coffee table, he walked to the door and went to open it. It was probably Karl again, or one of the other inhabitants of Hurley, wishing the best for the grieving son.
He stopped himself a split second before opening the door.
What if it wasn’t a local? What if it was the man with the rimless glasses again, here for a second round?
Declan grabbed a walking stick from beside the door, holding it behind his body, keeping it hidden, but at the same time ready to strike with it as he opened the door.
A bearded wreck of a man stood in the porchway, blinking at the sudden light. Declan recognised him immediately.
Shaun Donnal was at his father’s house.
‘Who are you?’ Shaun asked, confused, his voice slurring, obviously drunk. Declan wasn’t sure how to play this; he needed to take his time. For a start, he had to work out how a prime murder suspect knew his current address.
‘I’m DI Walsh,’ he started. Shaun’s eyes widened and he stepped back, pulling out a flat headed screwdriver for protection.
‘You’re not Walsh!’ he exclaimed, waving the screwdriver viciously at Declan. ‘You’re with them!’
Declan held his hands up, trying to placate the drunken madman. ‘I’m not Patrick Walsh,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m his son, Declan.’
‘I need to speak to Patrick Walsh,’ Shaun said, the urgency obvious in his voice.
‘Well then you’re shit out of luck,’ Declan said, deciding that tough love was a better option here. ‘My Dad died just under two weeks back.’
Shaun visibly deflated at the news, as if punched in the gut.
‘They said he was sniffing around again,’
‘I think ‘they’ probably meant me,’ Declan carried on, deciding that ‘good cop’ might be his best option here. ‘Why don’t you tell me what you wanted to speak to him about? Maybe I can help you?’
Shaun stood silently for a moment, rocking back and forth. Then he stopped, as if making a decision. He looked at Declan as he returned the screwdriver into the folds of his dirty coat.
‘My name is Shaun Donnal,’ he said, the tears already welling up in his eyes, ‘and I killed Victoria Davies.’
Declan was about to reply to this when Shaun’s eyes rolled into his skull, and he toppled to the side, collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut to the floor.
Declan stared down at the unconscious drunk. He wanted to know how Shaun had found this address. He wanted to know why Shaun was confessing to his father.
But more importantly, he wanted to know what the hell he was going to do with this unconscious man on his doorstep?
21
The Manchurian Candidates
It was dark when Shaun Donnal finally woke, the headache already pounding heavy in his skull.
‘There’s a fresh cup there,’ Declan indicated a mug on the coffee table. ‘I made it white with two sugars. I didn’t know how you’d take it, but I thought the caffeine and sugar would help.’
‘I’d prefer a whisky,’ Shaun muttered, still confused. ‘And what’s the bucket for?’
‘In case you threw up,’ Declan replied. ‘And we won’t be drinking tonight.’ He smiled as Shaun reached to his pocket. ‘And I removed your own supply.’
‘You had no right,’ Shaun snapped, spittle foaming at his mouth. Then, as if a switch was flicked, he calmed down, reluctantly grabbing the mug and sipping it. Declan shrugged.
‘Well, considering you appeared at my father’s door and confessed to a murder I’m currently investigating, you’re lucky you didn’t wake up in a cell.’
Shaun grudgingly nodded. ‘How long was I out?’
‘Little over half an hour,’ Declan replied. ‘I was about to open the windows. You stink.’
‘Sorry, I don’t get to shower much.’
‘Why the screwdriver?’
Shaun looked around. ‘Police don’t arrest you for carrying one,’ he said. ‘And the gun’s hidden with my stuff.’
Declan wasn’t sure if this was some kind of joke, so he kept quiet. Shaun looked back to him.
‘And sorry for your loss. I only met him a couple of times, but Patrick seemed a decent man, apart from his demons.’
Declan leaned forwards. ‘That’s the other reason you’re not in cuffs,’ he said. ‘How did you know to come here?’
‘I didn’t,’ Shaun admitted. ‘I didn’t know where else I could go.’ He sipped at the tea, as if taking the moment to frame his response. ‘I came here. Back before… Well, back before. It was about five years back. It wasn’t hard to find the address.’
‘Why did you come here?’
‘To warn your Dad.’
‘About what?’
‘Why do you care!’ Shaun screamed this, his face a mask of fury. And then, as quickly as it came, it went. Calm once more, Shaun sighed. ‘How much do you know about Michael Davies?’
Declan watched Shaun warily before continuing. He knew that Donnal had a temper; he’d seen that on the CCTV footage, but this was different. This was more than the alcohol. This was a man who’d been living on the knife edge of conspiracy and fear for years and had finally slipped off. ‘I know he was a socialist, that he was working with you on changing the Labour Party before you slept with his wife. I know he was charged and convicted on her murder, and that five years ago he died of terminal bowel cancer in prison.’
Declan stopped, the maths finally catching up.
‘That was when you disappeared, wasn’t it?’
Shaun nodded.
‘He didn’t die of bowel cancer,’ he said, the anger rising again as he spoke. ‘I know that officially he did, and that the papers all said it, but it wasn’t terminal. It was stage 2. That’s an eighty percent survival rate these days.’
‘So you think that he was killed?’
‘Of course he was bloody well killed! Are you an idiot? Christ!’
Declan let Shaun rant. This was a man who quite happily stabbed a man over a recognition a couple of days ago. He had to tread carefully.
‘Why?’ he asked in the calmest voice he could muster under the circumstances. Shaun leaned forwards, seemingly calm once more as he placed the half-drunk mug of tea back down.
‘Michael was writing a book,’ he said. ‘He’d been talking to his solicitor and they reckoned that with the cancer, and the fifteen years done already he could be released. But he would be coming out to nothing; Susan had taken everything while he was inside, and even his nest egg had been spent by Francine without his knowledge during the trial.’
‘Francine Pearce?’
‘Yeah. She held it for when she wanted to create her own company a few years after. Anyway, Michael? He was broke. And because of that, he was working on a tell-all. His side of the story. He’d been offered six figures for it, and in it he was going to talk about the donations he gave, the party politics…’
‘Yeah, I could see a lot of people being pissed at that.’
‘But he was going further,’ Shaun said. ‘He was in for a penny, in for a pound, you know? He was opening the lid on Devington, on the relationship Vicky had with her sister, what she did that night, everything.’
‘How did you find out about this?’ Declan reached into his jacket, pulling out his notebook. This was turning into an enlightening interview. ‘I mean, I’m assuming you were a large part of the book.’
‘Why? You think I’m part of—’ Shaun took a deep breath, calming himself. ‘Sorry. He called me from prison. Wanted to talk to me. And I agreed.’
‘Why you?’ Declan asked. ‘No offence but you wouldn’t have been my first point of contact.’
‘I don’t think I was,’ Shaun leaned back into the sofa, pulling his glasses off and rubbing at his eyes, the headache getting worse. ‘But who else was going to take his call? Susan was running the company. Francine hadn’t spoken to him since the night of the murder. Andy MacIntyre was now Andy Mac, the YouTube Prophet. And Charles was pushing his way up the Tory backbenches.’
‘And you had nothing to lose.’
‘Only my marriage and my family, but I was losing those anyway,’ Shaun snapped, the anger returning, his emotions yoyoing back and forth. ‘The guilt of the murder had made me make some bad choices...’
‘Yes, the murder. Tell me about it,’ Declan asked, switching topic. He didn’t want Shaun getting comfortable telling a story, and changing tact seemed to stop the anger.
‘What do you want to know? I pushed her off the roof,’ Shaun confessed. ‘She fell.’
‘And how did you do it?’ Declan asked. ‘How did you get to the roof?’
Shaun paused, as if reaching for an answer.
‘I walked up the stairs.’
‘Past the guard?’
‘I suppose.’
‘Describe the roof.’
‘What?’
‘Describe it. What did it look like? Smell like? How cold was it?’
‘I don’t remember,’ Shaun shook his head.
‘Of course you do,’ Declan placed the notebook to the side. ‘The act of killing someone embeds itself inside you. You’ll remember everything vividly. Dream of it constantly. Unless of course you didn’t do it.’
‘Are you saying I’m a liar?’ Shaun swiped at the mug, sending it crashing across the room. Declan waited a couple of moments before speaking, forcing himself not to react, not to move. He’d faced many people like this in his time in the Military Police. The one thing you didn’t want to do was give them a reason to attack.
‘I’m saying that you believe it for some reason.’ Declan said carefully, walking on eggshells. ‘But I don’t think you remember killing Victoria Davies. I think you don’t remember anything from that night.’
There was a silence between them.
Eventually Shaun broke it, his voice no more than a croak.
‘How would you know that?’ he asked.
‘Because in the last two days I’ve spoken to you, Andy and Charles about that night. And the one thing that links the other two was that they both admitted that they were blackout drunk at the time of Victoria’s murder. It makes sense that you were too.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I think you were all deliberately made that way,’ Declan said, rising up and pacing around the room as he spoke. ‘I think someone wanted all three of you to have no memories of that night. If you can’t remember it, how do you know you were the killer?’ he asked.
Shaun’s body language changed, as he slumped d
own in the sofa. The angry man was gone for the moment.
‘Because they showed me the necklace,’ he said.
‘Who did?’
Shaun went to speak, but then stopped.
‘I can’t say,’ he said. ‘They might hurt my family. My daughter, she’s been helping me—’
‘I’m sorry Shaun, but she hasn’t.’ Declan sat back down, facing Shaun again. ‘Your daughter Sally hasn’t been paying in the money. Someone else has. Your family’s moved on.’
Shaun took a deep, shaky breath and nodded to himself.
‘I wondered that,’ he said. Then he straightened, as if making a decision. ‘It was after the election, right after Michael was convicted,’ he said. ‘Francine Pearce met with me.’
‘Michael’s PA.’
‘Yes, but not by then. Francine worked for Devington in their law department before she started sleeping with Michael, and when he was removed, she found a new way to move up in the company.’
‘Susan?’ Declan asked. Shaun didn’t answer, continuing on.
‘Anyway, she meets with me. It’s September, just after the 9/11 stuff happened. She said that Devington were going to push for some kind of arms infrastructure deal with the government; it was the first big deal that Susan had helmed since taking over, and Frankie needed me to help push it through Parliament.’
‘And you said yes?’
‘Christ no!’ Shaun rose now, the furious anger returning to his voice. ‘I was completely against that. And then she showed me the envelope with the necklace in it!’
Declan rose to face Shaun, his hands out and in front of him, palms facing Shaun.
‘Easy Shaun, I’m just asking questions. No need to feel threatened. You mean Victoria’s necklace?’
Shaun nodded. ‘She explained that she’d found it on me that night. I’d cut my hand, and the blood was all over it. She’d hidden it from the police.’
‘She’d saved you from being accused as the murderer.’
‘Yeah,’ Shaun spat the word. ‘But because of that she owned me. And of course I did what she asked. To say no would kill my political career, and have me locked up.’
