‘Why would she do that?’
‘Because he asked her to, because she loved him, she wanted to protect him, because she suspected she was having his baby. Who knows? Besides, she had those drippy bleeding-heart notions about redemption and second chances. Whatever he’s done, she probably thought, Felix is a good person. He will get better. All he needs is time and treatment and the love of a good sister.’
‘Even if more people die in the meantime?’
‘Even if that. Because that’s not his fault, remember? He’s sick, he’s ill, he’s a tortured genius, he took a knock on his head and it played havoc with his hypothalamus. There are no end of excuses to find once you start looking for them. But at the back of it all is the real reason, which is simply that she needed Felix, she was imperfect and incomplete without him. She said once that they were really two parts of the one person.’
‘So you’re saying she did what?’
‘She agreed to identify the body found at Howth as Felix’s. Felix would arrange for me to be there, and when I saw a body in the water I would instantly assume it was him because of his call to me. I would tell the police when they arrived that it was Felix Berg, and they would go and fetch Alice. No one was going to question the word of a grieving sister. Felix would be free to go into hiding, maybe go abroad, where she could join him later when the fuss had died down. Only he had other plans. He wasn’t going to stop being the Marxman, he liked it too much. Plus maybe he never had the slightest intention of being with Alice again. Maybe that’s why she killed herself. When she realised. Anything rather than be without him.’
‘It’s a brilliant theory, I’ll give you that,’ Fitzgerald said, ‘but if the plan was to make the world think Felix was dead, why did Alice keep pressing you to investigate his death? We were happy to put it down as a suicide. If that’s what they wanted, like you say, why would she take the risk of you uncovering the truth?’
‘For the same reason Felix called his book Unreal City.’
‘You’re saying she had an urge to confess too? To play with fire?’
‘Why not?’
‘Why not? Because there are too many loose ends, that’s why not. Such as, if it wasn’t Felix who died that night, who was it? Such as, how did they manage to make a murder at the harbour, if that’s what it was, look like suicide? Such as, why is it that when Miranda Gray investigated Felix’s activities, she discovered he’d been out of the city at the time of the first murder?’
‘How did Miranda know he was out of the country? Because Alice told her, remember?’
‘You still haven’t explained how all this connects to Brendan Toner. If Felix Berg was the Marxman, why did Toner confess? Why would he be willing to kill himself and cover up for a man who you say murdered his sister? Just because they were thick as thieves when they were children doesn’t mean he’d conceal something like that.’
‘I’m not saying I have all the answers,’ I said. ‘All I’m saying is that there are questions that need looking into further. Like the break-in at the mortuary the night Mark Brook was shot. You said you thought it was just kids looking for drugs, but even addicts aren’t fried enough to think there’d be drugs in the filing cabinet of the City Pathologist. What if it was Felix looking for his own autopsy report so that he could destroy it, just in case suspicion ever arose about his supposed death?’
‘Stop!’ she said. ‘Just stop, please. I can’t get my head around this. I can’t . . . I can’t believe . . . I don’t even know what you want me to do.’
‘Get an exhumation order, like I asked before,’ I said. ‘Have the body in Felix’s grave tested to see if it’s him. That way, the matter will be cleared up immediately. It’s not like Felix has any troublesome relatives who’ll kick up a stink about it.’
‘How am I supposed to get an exhumation order? I can’t just start ordering a judge to let me dig up bodies all over the city on the say-so of some lunatic American.’
‘First get the autopsy X-rays from Butler. Like I say, Felix was knocked on the head pretty badly and suffered severe damage to his skull. If the fracture doesn’t show on the X-rays Butler took at the time of the autopsy, then an exhumation order should be simple.’
‘OK. I’ll do it.’ She put down her drink. ‘I’ll call Walsh and send him over there. I’m not saying I believe you. As a matter of fact, I think it’s crazy, and I’m even crazier for listening to you. But I’ll do it to put your mind at rest. So that you’ll see at last that what you’re saying is impossible. And in the meantime, you and I are going to talk to Paddy Nye.’
‘Why?’
‘Because if you’re right and Felix Berg really did kill that little girl in Howth ten years ago, then I want to know why Nye gave him an alibi for the night it happened.’
‘Didn’t you already speak to Nye’s wife today about Toner?’
‘I wasn’t able to, as I might have told you if you’d let me get a word in edgeways since we sat down. According to the neighbours, they’ve taken their boat out to Ireland’s Eye to spend a few days away from it all whilst their son stays with his grandparents.’
‘We’re going to talk to them by cellphone?’
‘They never take them to the island. Reminds them too much of the modern world.’
‘Then how are we going to talk to them?’
‘I’ll give you three guesses.’
Chapter Forty-Nine
Being a Chief Superintendent had its advantages. Fitzgerald was able to requisition a boat within five minutes of arriving at Howth. Though now that we were sitting in it making our way across the dark water to Ireland’s Eye, I wasn’t sure it was an advantage.
Especially since it had started drizzling again.
I sat huddled in the middle of the boat, my hair getting wet and wishing I’d brought a coat, whilst Fitzgerald perched up straight at the back, working the outboard motor.
Like she was born to the life.
The boat made alarming noises as we went, creaking and complaining like the ancient thing was resenting having to make its way through the water when it had thought its work was finished for the day. I tried to take my mind off the racket it made by watching the island getting closer. By degrees it was turning from being little more than a smudge against the rain, with no more substance than a fallen Storm-cloud, to having a definite shape.
Soon I began to make out individual rocks at the edge of the isle.
See the contours of the land.
The journey couldn’t have taken more than a half-hour, but by the time we were pulling into the landing place where a small sandy beach stretched and curved like a crescent moon along the edge of the land, overlooked by a ruined tower with a door halfway up the wall and a rope dangling out to climb, I almost felt I’d forgotten what solid ground felt like.
I was never a very good traveller.
We tied the boat fast next to what must have been Nye’s own boat, and stood still for a moment, listening. The birds were restless in the growing dark. We must have disturbed them as we came in. The outboard motor had made a mockery of any idea of arriving quietly. The birds wheeled and screeched round a great stack of rock in the cliff.
Fitzgerald saw me looking at it, and said: ‘That’s Puck’s Rock.’
‘Puck?’
‘People used to say it had been carved by the Devil.’
Nothing would surprise me.
‘Surely they must have heard us arriving,’ I said.
But no voices called out, no one came to see who we were.
‘Where did they say they were going to be camping out again?’
‘Round by a place called Long Hole,’ said Fitzgerald.
‘Long Hole. That’s where that young woman died all those years ago.’
I’m not sure I’d have wanted to sleep there.
‘Come on,’ she said.
‘You know the way?’
‘I checked the map at the harbour before we set out. There’s a path that leads directly
to the main beach on the other side. It shouldn’t take long to find. The whole island’s only half a mile square. Watch your feet for rabbit holes, though,’ she shot back as a warning, and not for the first time I wondered what I was doing here.
My preference would have been to leave the island for a couple of centuries and come back when they’d replaced the rabbit holes with sidewalks and buildings and there was somewhere warm I could get a strong drink. Instead here I was stumbling along a path in the darkness after Fitzgerald, with nothing to stop me tripping and breaking my neck but the fitful beam of her torch dancing across the rough grass and picking out the way ahead.
I understood now what Paddy Nye had meant about the wildness of the place. How having it so close was an escape from the city. My only quarrel was that, for me, it was places like this I needed to escape from. It felt oppressive. I could tell Fitzgerald didn’t feel like that at all. Her mood had been lighter since we’d arrived here, like she felt the same relief Nye talked about. I’d never understand it. Being too long in a place like this would drive me mad.
There are only so many times you can look at the sea and the sky without growing sick of them, and soon with yourself, and after that with everything bar none.
I looked ahead and saw Fitzgerald had stopped.
‘What is it?’ I said.
‘I see them.’
We’d reached some kind of summit. The island swept down at our feet towards a beach below, where flakes of white foam were licking the land and – what was that?
A fire.
For a moment I remembered Strange’s house, and the ghost of a panic touched my brain, then my eyes adjusted and I saw it was only a small campfire down on the beach.
‘Let’s go,’ said Fitzgerald, and she was whispering, I noticed, which was strange, as if the sky was listening. It was so quiet all that could be heard was the soft phut-phut of another boat as it moved, invisible in black water, alongside the island’s margin.
As we got closer, details began to come clearer. There was a tent pitched on the level sand between rocks; a couple of rucksacks heaped alongside; the fire was burning low.
There was no sign of Nye or his wife.
‘Inside sleeping?’ I suggested to Fitzgerald.
‘Without putting out the fire?’ she said. ‘Didn’t you ever go camping as a kid?’
‘I was too busy shoplifting and smoking weed.’
‘I can believe it.’
The sand felt cold through the soles of our boots as we walked towards the tents. And then it felt colder still as I saw a shape lying unmoving on the ground beside the fire.
Nye.
‘Grace.’
But she’d seen him already. She shone a torch down on to Nye’s white face – and then we both started as Nye, who we’d obviously feared was dead, let out a confused mumble, threw his hands to his face to keep out the light, and said:
‘What the—’
‘Easy, Paddy,’ said Fitzgerald. ‘It’s the police.’
Nye sat up, rubbing his face roughly.
‘Shit, I must have fallen asleep,’ he said, and he looked round, eyes squinting into the dark, hand still shielding his face. ‘Hey, switch that off. There’s enough light with the fire.’
Fitzgerald thought about it a moment and then switched off the torch. We’d need it for getting back to the boat anyway. The beach rearranged itself under a different glow whilst across the water hundreds of lights pricked the dark land we’d recently left.
‘Where’s your wife?’ said Fitzgerald.
‘She went to fetch some more wood,’ said Nye. ‘What’s it got to do with you?’
‘I came to talk to you about Felix.’
‘Not again. How many times do we have to go over this? Felix is dead,’ said Nye.
‘So is Lucy Toner.’
‘What has she got to do with anything? That one there,’ he said, pointing at me roughly, ‘came round asking about her too. I told her the same thing.’
‘You didn’t tell me you’d given Felix an alibi that night,’ I said.
‘Did I?’
‘You know you did,’ said Fitzgerald. ‘Quit playing games. We’re not going to start charging you with anything now. We just need to know if he really was with you.’
Nye got to his feet and walked a couple of steps to one side, lifted a handful of something from the ground, heather maybe, or moss, and threw it on to the fire. The fire delighted in the company, blazing fiercely as he added more and more handfuls.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said, looking down at the flames. ‘I thought it was Brendan Toner you wanted to know about. My wife already told the police on the phone everything she knows about him. What has this got to do with Felix? Felix is dead.’
‘You already said that,’ I said. ‘Are you really so sure he is?’
He stared at me in confusion a moment before finding his voice.
‘He was buried,’ he said. ‘That’s usually a pretty good indication.’
‘Maybe not this time,’ I said. ‘We think – OK, I think that it might not’ve been Felix’s body which was in the water that night. That Felix might still be alive.’
He looked at Fitzgerald.
‘Is this true?’
I could see she was still struggling with the idea, but she simply said: ‘The autopsy reports are being double-checked back in Dublin to make sure it really was him who drowned. They’re going to call me as soon as they have an answer.’
There was a fear in Nye’s eye that needed to be built on, so she continued: ‘We also suspect he may have killed Lucy Toner.’
‘Felix?’ He shook his head firmly. ‘That’s impossible.’
‘Because you really were with him that night?’
Nye’s mouth opened to lie, but the words wouldn’t form. Instead he sank down on the sand and stared into the flames.
‘How did you know?’
‘About the alibi being false? You can call it a lucky guess, if you like,’ I said. ‘Felix’s behaviour all along suggested he killed Lucy, but if he did kill her then that could only mean he wasn’t really with you the night it happened. Unless you did it together?’
‘You don’t honestly think that I could do something like that?’
‘Do you think Felix could have?’
‘Yes,’ he said flatly. ‘I think he could. There was always something hard about Felix. They didn’t call them the Ice Bergs for nothing. But could’s not the same as did. I wouldn’t have given him an alibi if I’d suspected for one moment he’d murdered that girl.’
‘Why did you lie for him?’
‘He’d spent the night with another woman and he didn’t want Alice to find out about it. He said she’d kill him if she knew. She could be very – protective of Felix.’
‘They were sleeping together even then?’
‘Alice slept with everyone, I told you that,’ Nye said to me.
‘Felix doted on her. Never went out with other women, even though she slept with anything on two legs. Then one day he told me he’d met someone a couple of nights before, the night Lucy Toner was murdered, and that he’d spent the evening at her place. He was desperate for Alice not to find out, and he feared that if he told the police the truth then it might all come out.’
‘So you agreed to say he was with you?’
‘It didn’t seem to matter,’ Nye said. ‘They’d already arrested Isaac Little. No one had any doubt he did it. It was just a small white lie. It never crossed my mind that Felix would have . . . that he could have done something like that. I still can’t believe it. Though . . .’
‘What?’ said Fitzgerald.
‘I remember he had a scratch on his face,’ said Nye. ‘The price of passion, I remember him telling me. We laughed about it.’
And that made it seem almost worst. If only they’d taken scrapings from under Lucy’s fingernails . . . if only they’d matched them to samples from men in the area . . . if only someone had seen Felix’s face .
. . What ifs. There was no point regretting them now. Those were primitive days, policing-wise. The important thing was to get better. To always keep moving on.
‘Why did you never come forward and tell the truth, even when he was taunting you through the mail?’
‘I told you. Because I thought Isaac Little was guilty. Even during all those times when he was tormenting me, I never for one moment thought that he’d done that.’
‘Your wife thought so.’
‘Don’t you see that was the problem? She was always going on about how she was convinced it was Felix who had murdered Lucy. How he’d got away with it. How much she loathed him. How could I admit to her that I was the one who gave him an alibi, and that the alibi wasn’t even genuine? Can you imagine how that would have made her feel?’
‘She’s going to find out now, whatever happens,’ Fitzgerald said.
‘Don’t remind me,’ he said miserably.
He looked back up the beach to see if he could see her coming.
I wondered where she’d got to.
‘I still don’t see why you came out here at this hour,’ Nye continued. ‘Even if it was Felix who killed Lucy. Even if Felix really isn’t dead, like you seem to think. What does it have to do with me?’
‘It has everything to do with you,’ I said. ‘As far as Felix knows, you’re the only one left alive who knows that his alibi that night doesn’t count for anything. Alice knew probably, but Alice is dead. Brendan Toner is dead. Even Felix himself is presumed to be dead. And if he could find a way to stop you from talking—’
I was jolted suddenly from my thoughts of Felix by an unexpected sound.
‘That’ll be Walsh,’ said Fitzgerald, and I realised it must be her cellphone ringing inside her jacket, but the noise of it sounded so alien out there that it hadn’t registered as real in my mind.
She took out her phone and pressed the button.
‘Walsh? What have you got?’
I watched her face as she listened to what Walsh had to say.
‘Repeat that,’ I heard her say. ‘I can’t hear you too well.’
Then: ‘Shit. No, Walsh, no, you did good. I’ll call you later.’
The Dark Eye (The Saxon & Fitzgerald Mysteries Book 2) Page 34
