Little Bones: A totally addictive crime thriller

by Patricia Gibney

  ‘It belongs to Jack Gallagher?’

  ‘We have him, Boyd! At last, some good news. He’s being held for the night and we should have something more substantial to wave in his face in the morning, once we have the search warrant for his van.’

  As Boyd pulled on his jacket, Lottie saw the edge of the envelope peeking out of the pocket. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him about it, but she decided now was not the time for personal issues.

  ‘I’ll stay at mine tonight,’ he said, ‘even though I promised Sean I’d help with the painting.’

  ‘Rose texted at some stage to say she’d made her special cottage pie. “The one young Boyd likes”, she said. You better come and eat it.’

  ‘At this hour?’

  ‘I know you’d eat Rose’s cottage pie at any hour. Come on.’

  59

  When he woke up, Kevin saw the message from Dervla and was instantly alarmed. There was no need for her to be contacting him. He checked what time she’d sent the message. God, it was hours ago. He hoped she hadn’t done anything stupid. Staring at his small black phone, he tried to think of his next move.

  ‘I know nothing,’ he recited over and over.

  But that wasn’t true at all. He knew a lot of things. Things he should not know. Things that frightened the life out of him. Things Isabel had told him when he’d been preparing the foundations of her new extension, before Jack ran out of money.

  He went to the chest of drawers and pulled out the broken bottom drawer. It wasn’t a good hiding place but he’d needed to keep it close at hand in case she needed him. Taking the flip-top phone from the drawer, he switched it on, relieved to see it was fully charged. Like Isabel had told him to do. He smiled at how good he was at following orders, and then felt the smile drift from his face. Isabel was dead. There was no way around that. He had failed to keep her safe. Failed to watch her. Not that she’d asked him to exactly, but he’d felt duty-bound to take on the role of her protector. Everything came back to him, didn’t it? Always his fault. That was what had been drummed into his head for years. He had no idea how to make things right any more. And then he wondered about his blackouts. Surely he hadn’t hurt her? Hadn’t killed her?

  He glanced at the screen. Isabel had given him her secret phone to mind the day before she was killed. She’d known, hadn’t she? It was clear to him now. She’d always told him danger was close. Just how close she hadn’t been sure. But now Kevin was one hundred per cent certain she had known.

  There was a missed call, and then a text message alert on the screen. Unopened and unread.

  He pressed the key and read the message, and after that he read it again.

  Who could he trust to tell about it?

  He wandered around his small kitchen, the phone in his hand, reading the message over and over again.

  The birds nesting in the chimney cawed loudly and the mice scratched inside the walls and scampered across the floor around his bare feet. He ran a hand over his thumping forehead. There was no one he could trust. He was alone in the world. Like always.

  A loud knock sounded on his door.

  He stalled, but opened it to a little gap.

  A young woman stood on the stoop, shaking like a leaf.

  It wasn’t that cold out, was it? Not that he knew, because he hadn’t been outside since late afternoon. Or was it longer? It was hard to mark the passage of time.

  She was shivering uncontrollably, her eyes wide and wild, her face streaked with tears.

  ‘Can I come in, Kevin?’

  Still he stood with the door barely open. No one came into his house. Ever.

  ‘What did you do?’ he asked.

  ‘Me? Nothing.’

  ‘You don’t look like someone who did nothing.’

  ‘You’re a pain in the arse, Kevin. A bastard, do you know that?’

  ‘I do. That word was beaten into me years ago. I’d no father that I knew of and a mother who didn’t want me, so I was told. So yeah, I think I qualify as a bastard.’

  It looked like she laughed, but it was only her teeth chattering.

  ‘Are you going to let me come in?’

  Still he held the door between them. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, we need to talk. There’s something going on and people are getting killed. Murdered.’ Her dark eyes narrowed and she leaned against the door, his arm taking all the weight. ‘We know why, don’t we, Kevin? We have to do something about it.’

  ‘No, Dervla, I don’t want to be involved. I’ve enough shite in my life. Look where I live, for God’s sake.’

  She wasn’t taking no for an answer. ‘I still want to come inside. I’m frozen solid. I had to walk from the top of the road.’

  It was pitch dark outside, and in the miserable light he noticed mist settling on her hair like raised crystals.

  ‘You better not make me sorry about this.’

  He dragged the door in over the stone floor and ushered her inside. She walked past him, and with a final look at the night, he shut the door. Bolted it.

  ‘Could you make me a cup of strong tea?’ She was sitting at the dirty table. He hoped the mice stayed out of sight.

  ‘This is not some fancy café.’

  ‘I only want something to warm up my blood.’

  ‘I don’t have any tea. Why are you here?’

  ‘Kevin, a little manners would go a long way to making a woman feel safe around you.’

  ‘Cut the shite, I need to know what brought you out all this way.’

  He sat opposite, nervous energy making his knee jig against the roughly hewn table. She was still shivering, her eyes deep pools. Nothing reflected in them.

  She lowered her head for a second before it shot up, a curve on her lips he couldn’t read. ‘I found a bone yesterday.’

  ‘A bone?’ He’d tried to keep his fake anger set like wax on his face, but he couldn’t stop his open-mouthed surprise.

  ‘I think it’s a baby’s bone. Like from an arm or a leg. Then today, I went back and found a skull. I think there’s a whole skeleton there.’

  ‘Jesus, Dervla. What the fuck?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Where did you find the bones?’ Inching back into the chair, he felt the need to be further away from her and her black eyes.

  ‘On the Misneach Hill. I remembered what you said about that night … out there. I’m not as dumb as I look.’

  He held his breath. No, it couldn’t be that. He tried to remain calm, to ease the drumming in his ears. ‘It’s probably an ancient sacrifice.’

  ‘No, Kevin, it’s not.’

  ‘I hope you left them where you found them, or you’ll have nothing but bad luck.’

  ‘I left the skull, but I took the bone to Ragmullin garda station.’

  ‘You what? Why would you do that?’ Oh hell, now it was a terrible mess.

  ‘I had to get rid of it and it didn’t seem right to just throw it in a bin.’

  ‘You could have brought it back to the hill.’

  ‘Those little bones are somebody’s child.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Why would someone dump a child on the hill?’

  ‘To make a sacrifice?’ he chanced. He had to get her out of here. Dervla Byrne was dangerous. Why had he ever trusted her? But he’d told her the tale as a mythological fable, never thinking she would take him seriously.

  ‘I think someone put a little body up there to hide a crime.’

  ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re on about.’

  ‘Listen to me, Kevin. I remember what you told me once. Do you? Probably not, with that fucked-up brain of yours.’

  ‘That’s not nice.’

  She smirked. ‘I think someone murdered a little child and tried to bury its body up on that hillside. But I found it! I might get a medal or something, do you think?’

  He thought she was high on something, and tried not to allow her words to swim inside his skull, tried not to be distracte
d by the two phones sitting on the table where he’d left them. His and Isabel’s. He hoped Dervla wouldn’t ask about them.

  Then he saw her eyes follow his. ‘Why have you got two phones?’

  He squirmed. She definitely wasn’t as dumb as she liked to let on.

  ‘Safety in numbers,’ he laughed hoarsely.

  But she wasn’t laughing. ‘What are you up to, Kevin Doran?’

  ‘Nothing. What are you up to? Why come all the way out here to tell me about some stupid bone?’

  ‘I sent you a text, but you didn’t have the manners to reply. I thought maybe you were dead out here and no one would find your body for years and years. You’d be lost like that baby’s bone, which was lost until I found it.’

  ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘I wish.’ She turned up her nose and it gave her face an ugly expression. He didn’t like it. She continued, ‘What’s that smell? It’s like something died in here.’

  ‘It’s the mice. They get stuck in the walls and die, then their little bodies rot.’

  ‘That’s gross. Can’t you get the bodies out or something?’

  ‘I wish they’d all get bloody well stuck and die and leave me alone, and that goes for you too.’ The thought took hold so quickly he had no time to halt his words. But they didn’t seem to register with Dervla.

  ‘You always were a bit weird.’

  ‘Takes one to know one.’

  She laughed then, and the laughter brought light to her cheeks as they puffed with the movement of her lips. Her eyes lost some of their darkness. He wondered if he should put a match to the oil lamp. No, it was bad enough that he could see the state of his home; he didn’t want her seeing it. So they sat with only the shadows waltzing around them.

  ‘I can’t understand what you want me to do about this bone of yours.’

  ‘I don’t need you to do anything with it. I gave it to the guards.’

  ‘Right. Okay.’ He scratched his stubbly jaw. ‘Why are you here, Dervla?’

  ‘I saw the news. She’s dead.’

  ‘Who? Christ, Dervla, explain.’

  ‘Isabel Gallagher. She’s dead.’

  ‘I know all about Isabel,’ he said slowly, his voice trembling. ‘I … I was there, yesterday morning, when her mother found her.’ He held his head in his hands. ‘The wails of that poor woman.’

  ‘You were there?’ Dervla reached out and grabbed his sleeve and the words flew out of her mouth. ‘At their house? Where she was murdered? Oh God, Kevin. This is so exciting, but a nightmare too.’

  ‘Suppose it is.’

  ‘Did the guards interview you?’

  ‘They don’t know about me. Well, that’s not true. According to Jack, they do know about me. But they don’t know much because they haven’t found me yet. You’re the only one who knows where I live.’

  ‘This is serious shit. Jack is dangerous. I’ve heard … You just need to know he’ll hang you out to dry and then twist the noose.’

  Kevin kept his head down, his arms crossed over each other, tugging on his sleeves, his body rocking on the chair. ‘He pushed me in the canal earlier today.’

  ‘Oh my God! That’s awful, Kevin. Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m here, amn’t I?’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Some woman pulled me out and the ambulance brought me to the hospital. I left before anyone could talk to me.’ He looked over at her from under his eyebrows.

  She grinned awkwardly. ‘You’re a lunatic, so you are.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘The guards know about the car.’

  ‘What car?’

  ‘Remember a few years ago, Uncle Frank sold his black Ford Focus on Best Deals? I had to do the online stuff for him. Well, I know who bought the car, so I do.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jack Gallagher, that’s who!’

  ‘Really?’ He scrunched up his eyes. ‘I don’t remember Jack driving that.’

  ‘It was before he got involved with Isabel. He probably sold it or something.’

  ‘Then what’s that car got to do with anything?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue, but the guards were asking Frank about it. He wanted me to get the details for them.’

  Kevin shrugged, a bony shoulder nicking his jaw bone. ‘So give them what they want. It’s nothing to do with Isabel.’

  ‘Maybe not, but why are they asking now, after all this time? After she’s been murdered. Kevin, something doesn’t add up.’

  ‘None of my business.’

  ‘Isabel is dead and you told me you were watching out for her. That makes it your business.’

  Pushing back the chair, he filled a mug with yellow water at the sink. He’d need to check the well and the pump. The bog was seeping again.

  He faced her. ‘Do you think Jack used this car to get to their house and kill her and then hid the car afterwards or something?’

  She chewed on her thumbnail and Kevin thought how childlike she looked.

  ‘I don’t know what to think,’ she said. ‘I just think he is dangerous as hell. Kevin, we need to go to the guards and tell them what we know.’

  He slammed the mug on the table. The itch in his leg yearned for a blade. Physical pain to ease the torment crawling like mice around his soul.

  ‘No way. I’m staying out of this. I almost drowned today. You can go to them if you want, because you sold the car for Frank, but keep me the fuck out of it. I know nothing. I know nothing.’

  She stood and gripped his trembling arm. ‘We are in this together, no matter what. Remember. We swore we would look out for each other.’

  ‘We were kids then.’

  ‘We still are kids in most ways. We’re both alone, Kevin. Damaged goods. But others helped us when we needed it, and I think it’s time to return the favour.’

  ‘But Isabel is dead now. Look at me, I can’t even look after myself, let alone anyone else. I failed Isabel.’ He glanced at the secret phone on the table.

  ‘It’s hers, isn’t it?’ Dervla said. ‘Isabel’s.’

  He nodded. ‘I was doing my best to watch out for her. I failed, Dervla. I failed.’

  ‘How come you have her phone?’

  ‘She gave it to me the day before she was killed. “Mind it for me, Kevin,” she said. “Tell no one about it, no matter what happens.” That’s what she said.’

  ‘What’s on it that she wanted no one to see?’ Dervla went to pick it up, but he made a grab for it and held it to his chest.

  ‘Can’t tell you.’

  ‘You have to.’

  ‘No I don’t.’

  ‘You’re acting like we’re in a schoolyard, but you must be forty if you’re a day. Come on, it might be important. It might help the guards to arrest Jack for Isabel’s murder.’

  ‘I don’t think there’s anything about Jack on it.’

  ‘Did you look?’

  ‘I saw a message. It was flashing.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘I’m not sure what it means.’

  ‘Show me.’

  Should he trust her? He’d been through so much that he’d learned to trust no one, maybe only Isabel. But she was dead, and whoever murdered her could be after him. Was it Jack? Maybe.

  ‘Okay.’ He flipped open the phone and showed her the message.

  ‘Kevin, that’s just telling her she had a missed call.’

  ‘I can’t do a lot of things, but I can read.’

  ‘Whose number is it that called her?’

  ‘I don’t know. There’s no name.’

  ‘I’m sure she didn’t keep a contact list in the phone, in case he found it.’

  ‘We could ring the number and see who answers, I suppose,’ Kevin said dubiously. His hand shook and the phone almost fell.

  ‘No, I don’t think that’s clever. We need to bring it to the guards. I was talking to a lovely detective today. Lottie Parker. She’d be a good one to go to.’

  ‘I can’t.’


  ‘Give it here. I’ll bring it in.’

  ‘What would you say? I don’t want my name mentioned.’

  ‘I could put it in an envelope and leave it at the desk in the station. I could put the detective’s name on it and write something like “For Your Eyes Only”.’

  ‘Or you could just say “Private and Confidential” like a normal person.’

  ‘Neither of us is normal and well you know it, Kevin Doran.’

  He sat heavily on the chair. He knew it all too well.

  ‘Okay. I read the last message she got, before that missed call.’

  He knew she saw the fear flit across his face, because he found it difficult to mask. He might as well show her. He turned the phone for her to read the text.

  He is going to kill us. Be careful. J

  ‘It’s a warning,’ she said, scrunching her eyes, her eyebrows meeting in a fuzzy black line. ‘Who is J?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I?’

  ‘Could it be Jack?’

  ‘No way. He didn’t know she had a phone.’

  ‘Jesus, Kevin, could it be Joyce? Shit, I clean forgot to tell you. Joyce is missing. I saw it on the news. And her little boy is missing too.’

  ‘Oh God, no. Not Joyce.’ Kevin’s jaw tightened and his brow furrowed. ‘If she sent this message to Isabel, it means he could have killed her and her boy too.’

  ‘What will we do?’

  ‘Here, take the phone. I don’t want it any more. Give it to your detective, but leave me out of it.’

  ‘You look half handsome when you beg.’ She smiled, and it was the second time since she’d arrived that her eyes lost their darkness.

  ‘Get out of here.’

  She laughed, more like a little girl’s hysterical giggle, and he realised it was a long time since anyone had laughed inside these walls. If there ever had been laughter here in the first place. He felt a tear at the corner of his eye for all he’d never experienced, and even though Dervla sat down beside him and held his hand, he felt more alone than he ever had in his life.

  ‘Kevin, how did Joyce know Isabel? And what were they doing that someone was after them? Who could it be?’

  He shrugged, afraid to speak.

  She filled the silence. ‘Do you think it might be to do with all that happened to us, years ago?’