by Des Ekin
SINGLE OBSESSION
About Stone Heart, Des Ekin’s first novel:
‘A well-paced plot … a very satisfying read’
U MAGAZINE
‘A wonderfully atmospheric thriller’
SUNDAY LIFE
‘Suspense, action and romance are intricately weaved through this pacey novel.’
AVENUE MAGAZINE/THE IRISH TIMES
‘Des Ekin has thrown everything into the pot – sex, murder, violence, drugs, romance – and stirred it around until it reaches boiling point. The result is the tastiest, most satisfying read you are likely to enjoy this year … Every page of Stone Heart tingles with tension.’
THE STAR
‘Stone Heart is a gripping, beautifully written thriller that will have you reading deep into the night … It makes for marvellous reading and I loved it.’
CATHY KELLY, BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF WOMAN TO WOMAN, SHE’S THE ONE AND NEVER TOO LATE
To my family
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
About the Author
Copyright
Prologue
KATE Spain pulled her flimsy nylon jacket tighter, in a bid to keep out the wet, chill wind that swept up from the harbour and made rats’ tails of her carrot-red hair. She was shivering, but the cold wasn’t enough to make her quicken her pace and hurry home. Even on a night like this, a bleak fourth-floor flat in Hillery Heights was not the sort of place you wanted to hurry home to.
She didn’t even hear the car as it approached her from behind and pulled up alongside the kerb. The soft purr of its engine was drowned out by the thunderous bass and drums of the new U2 single exploding through the earphones of her Walkman. As the dark shape of the vehicle drew to a halt, motor still running, she didn’t look around. Her head continued to nod to the primal rhythm of the music.
She gradually became aware of the car, of its large, looming presence, and her heart gave a lurch of trepidation. Why was the dark figure leaning over towards her and opening the passenger door?
Kate squinted myopically through the window, then gave a short, high-pitched giggle of relief.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, thrusting her hand inside her coat and switching off the Walkman. ‘You scared the life out of me.’
He glanced quickly around the street, as though to satisfy himself that it was still deserted.
‘Hello, Kate,’ he said. ‘D’you want to get in?’
‘It’s okay,’ she said uncertainly. ‘I don’t need a lift, or anything. I’m nearly home.’
She peered at him again.
‘Come on.’ His tone was urgent. ‘I need to talk to you. I have some good news.’
Her heart began thumping again, this time with renewed hope. If anyone had ever needed good news, it was her. This could be the night her long run of bad luck finally came to a end.
‘Well?’ she asked breathlessly as she scrambled into the passenger seat. ‘What is it, then? What’s the news?’
‘In a minute.’ He had already driven away from the kerb. His shoulders were held high with tension. His eyes stared straight ahead.
Kate felt her palms dampen with perspiration. His attitude made her nervous, frightened. ‘What are you doing? Where are we going?’
The car sped through the empty streets, away from the comfort of the street-lights, into the intermittent light-dark of the suburbs, until it was finally engulfed in the utter blackness of the bleak and lonely countryside.
He didn’t answer, but as he changed gears his breath emerged in tiny hisses, like a pressure cooker letting off steam. She had the sudden feeling he was trying to curb some dreadful and powerful emotion that was boiling up inside him.
He swung into a layby, brought the car to a halt, and killed the lights. For the first time since she’d got into the car, he turned around to face her. It was dark – so dark that his head and shoulders were just a silhouette against the pale moon. And when he spoke, his voice chilled her to the bone. It had an unnatural pitch; it was cross, petulant, aggrieved. It was the voice of a grown man pretending to be a little boy.
‘Night-night, ducks,’ he said. ‘It’s time to go to sleep.’
Chapter One
‘THEY found her body this morning,’ Emma said. ‘Up in the mountains.’
‘Yes, I heard,’ Hunter said. ‘There was a newsflash on the radio. Are they sure it’s her?’
‘As sure as they can be. Don’t forget, she’s been lying up there for nearly three weeks. But she would have been unrecognisable anyway.’
‘Why?’
Emma took a deep breath. ‘From what I’ve heard, her face was completely smashed in. With some sort of blunt object. A rock or a brick or something. They won’t –’
Her voice was lost in a blizzard of static.
‘You’re breaking up,’ Hunter said. ‘You should really invest in a decent mobile.’
‘It’s not the phone. I’m down by the harbour, and the signal isn’t great here.’ Emma walked a few paces along the quayside until she was clear of the vast bulk of a trawler. ‘Is that any better?’
‘A bit. Why not call me back on an ordinary phone?’
She glanced around nervously. ‘Because ordinary phones are easier to tap.’
‘Come on, Emma.’ There was an undertone of concern in his voice. ‘You’re starting to sound like one of your patients. Don’t you think you’re being a bit paranoid?’
‘No, I don’t think I am.’
‘Okay.’ He paused, and she could almost picture him shrugging as he tilted his chair back to a dangerous angle. ‘You’re the psychiatrist. You should know.’
Dr Emma Macaulay, warmly wrapped in a navy fleece jacket against the November winds, took a seat on a wooden bench near the beach and tried hard to steady her nerves. She hadn’t asked for this. In fact, it was the last thing she needed right now, this unique and disturbing insight into the abduction and murder of a twenty-two-year-old woman in her home town. As she talked into her mobile phone, her strawberry-blond hair whipped across her face and had constantly to be removed from her eyes. But she was used to the wind and she didn’t mind the biting winter cold. At least it wasn’t raining, which it did nearly all the time in damp, misty, mizzly Passage North, the wettest town in Ireland’s wettest county.
‘What were you saying about Kate Spain?’ Hunter asked.
‘I said, the police won’t be sure of her identity until the post mortem later today.’ Emma lowered her voice as two yellow-clad fishermen walked past, carrying a huge orange fender. ‘But the GP who was called to the scene happens to be a friend of mine,’ she whispered. ‘He
says it was a frenzied attack. It would have been all over in a few minutes.’
‘So we’re talking about a complete sadist.’
‘No, not a sadist. I think we’re dealing with something completely different.’ Emma paused thoughtfully. ‘Something even more worrying, in many ways.’
‘Worrying in what way? A serial killer?’
‘Not necessarily. I don’t know, really. My speciality is the psychology of addiction, Hunter, not crime. It’s just that … well, there seems to have been a lot of blind rage, a lot of anger evident at the scene. I suppose what I’m saying is that there was an excess of violence – much more force than was necessary to achieve death. In the forensic sense of the word, it was overkill.’
‘Well, I haven’t a clue about all that. But I think if there was a multiple murderer running around a place like Passage North, I’d be aware of it. Journalists tend to notice serial killers. It’s part of our job.’
Emma said nothing.
‘How’s Robbie?’ he asked, changing the subject.
‘He’s fine. Don’t worry, I can see him. He’s playing in the sand just a few feet away.’ She smiled and waved across to her two-year-old son. ‘I always look forward to Sundays. It’s our special time together.’
‘I can’t wait to see him again.’
‘And he’s always asking for his dad. Any time, Hunter, you know that. You have access any time you want.’
He sighed. ‘I realise that. Thanks. But freedom of access isn’t a problem, it’s distance. I’m in Dublin, you’re in Passage North. It’s quicker for me to fly to New York than it is to drive to bloody Passage North.’
Emma watched a seagull swoop into the harbour and grab a fish-head. It tried to swallow it in mid-air and succeeded only in dropping it back into the oily water.
‘So what do you think?’ she asked.
‘About what?’
‘About everything that happened last night. Everything I’ve just told you.’
Hunter took a deep breath. ‘I really think you should go to the police and tell them the whole story.’
‘And what if they don’t want to know? What if they know already? What if Mags Jackson is right – that there really is a high-level cover-up to protect the people in power?’
‘I doubt that very much. Tell them you have important evidence about the Kate Spain case. They’re bound to be interested. Last night she was just another missing person. Now she’s a murder victim.’
‘I know, I know. I’m just a bit jumpy. I didn’t sleep too well last night. I’ll go to the station immediately.’
‘Well, not quite immediately,’ he said, and on the other end of the line she could hear the rustle of an opening notebook. ‘First, let’s go over it again. Right from the beginning.’
EMMA had first noticed her in the audience in the conference hall – a hard-faced brunette, late twenties, wearing a white T-shirt and black leather jacket and looking totally out of place among all the sober suits, ring binders and laptops. She wasn’t a doctor or a facilitator or a social worker; Emma was sure of that because of the way she didn’t laugh, or even wince, at the technical in-jokes.
Emma ignored the woman’s fixed stare as her eyes swept across the audience, trying to make contact with every area of the auditorium, before she delivered the final point in her lecture.
‘There’s no doubt that the new technique works,’ she told the audience. ‘Trials at my clinic have proved, over and over again, that it tackles the root causes of addiction more effectively than conventional methods, and at a fraction of the cost of drug-centred therapy.’ Her voice betrayed the anger she felt. ‘Yet the Health Department tells me we cannot afford to devote more resources to research. My reply is simple: can we afford not to?’
The auditorium exploded in applause as Emma gathered her notes together and resumed her seat. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that the woman in the leather coat was not applauding.
As she made her way out through the conference hall, pausing to shake hands and acknowledge compliments, she noticed the woman following her. Emma sighed inwardly. She was used to this sort of thing. Dealing with alcoholics and drug addicts left her wide open to all sorts of unwanted approaches. Better to confront it here, among a crowd, than outside in the car park.
‘Excuse me? Dr Macaulay?’
Emma turned around. The woman had a coppery-brown bob of hair that might or might not be a wig. She had a harsh, world-weary face and wary, mistrustful eyes. A powerful blast of patchouli oil failed to mask a significant body-odour problem.
‘Yes?’
‘I wondered if I might have a word with you. It’s about a friend of mine.’
Emma’s heart sank.
‘Listen, I’m really sorry,’ she said, ‘but I don’t do consultations any more. If your friend calls round to her GP –’
The woman shook her head. ‘She can’t do that, Doctor.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she’s dead.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘She was murdered.’
Emma took a slow, deep breath and looked around for Security.
‘I’m not insane, Doctor,’ said the woman. ‘And, what’s more, I know who did it. I know who killed her.’
‘Who?’
The woman was staring at someone over Emma’s shoulder. ‘He did.’
Emma froze.
Carefully, infinitely slowly, she turned around. Her muscles un-tensed when she realised that the woman was not gesturing towards a real person, but towards a poster that had been stuck to the far wall in readiness for an upcoming general-election rally. At that distance, it was only a blur to her. She fished in her handbag and put on her glasses.
The poster leaped into sharp focus. It showed a picture of Joseph Valentia, leader of the second biggest party in the Coalition Government, and one of the most powerful men in Ireland.
‘JOSEPH Valentia,’ said the woman, still staring at the poster. Her face had turned pallid and she looked shaken, almost at the point of collapse. ‘The Tánaiste. He murdered my friend.’
Emma didn’t know how to respond. Like everyone in Passage North, she was familiar with Joseph Valentia, the local-boy-made-millionaire who had swept to political power on a rural right-wing backlash. After seizing the balance of power in the last election, he had demanded and obtained the position of Tánaiste – Deputy Prime Minister – as the price of his support in the Coalition.
‘I don’t understand,’ confessed Emma, ‘but I can tell you’re upset. We’d better sit down.’
They left the main hall, took a seat in the bar of the hotel and ordered two coffees.
‘Now then,’ said Emma, in the calm voice she used to placate violent drunks and strung-out heroin addicts in her clinic, ‘I’m afraid you lost me a bit there. Better run that by me again. And by the way, I’m Emma. I hate talking to people when I don’t know their names, don’t you?’
The woman accepted the outstretched hand and shook it. ‘Yeah, I suppose so. I’m Mags. Mags Jackson.’
‘Go on, Mags. I interrupted.’
‘Kate Spain. Does that name mean anything to you?’
Emma thought long and hard. Passage North was a sizeable town and had a steady turnover of seasonal workers. Some stayed, some didn’t. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t say that it does.’
‘It wouldn’t. She wasn’t anybody important. She wasn’t anybody powerful.’ She spat the words out. ‘But that doesn’t mean she didn’t matter.’
‘She’s the friend you’re talking about? The one you say was murdered?’
Mags nodded.
‘Where did this happen, precisely?’
‘Right here in this town. In Passage North.’
‘A murder in Passage North? I’m sure I would have heard about that, Mags. There would have been an inquest –’
‘Not if they haven’t found the body yet.’
Emma relaxed. ‘So, strictly speaking, we’re talkin
g about a missing person?’
Mags fished in her cheap handbag and produced a pack of Silk Cut. ‘No, Doctor,’ she said. ‘Strictly speaking, we’re talking about a murder.’
Emma rubbed her eyes. ‘Okay. Go on.’
Mags lit a cigarette from a transparent blue plastic lighter. She took a long draw of smoke and blew it out almost immediately.
‘Kate Spain was my best friend. We saw each other a lot.’ She smiled fondly. ‘Two fecking born losers, I suppose, but we were great mates. We used to meet at the launderette and the chip shop and the park and the other places where losers hang out. We were both at a loose end during the day, what with her working at the video store and me –’
She paused.
‘And you?’
Mags shrugged. ‘I work the quays and the park after pub-closing. I have a few regulars I see during the day, but not many. It’s mostly night and it’s mostly impulse-buying – fishermen coming back after a week at sea, that sort of thing. I suppose there are worse ways to make a living, but I can’t think of any offhand.’
Emma nodded. ‘Was Kate on the game, too?’ she asked.
Mags laughed. ‘No! Kate was too scared for that. She was just another low-paid worker trying to get by.’
‘Does she have any family?’
Mags shook her head. ‘Her ma died long ago. Her da disowned her when she had the baby and her boyfriend fecked off to Boston so he wouldn’t be caught for maintenance. She couldn’t cope and the baby was taken into care. But not before Kate had got her own flat, in Hillery Heights.’
Emma was not surprised at the address. Hillery Heights was a local flats complex populated almost exclusively by tenants with problems and tenants who created problems for everyone else.
Mags noticed her expression. ‘Yes, I know. She was desperate to get out of there and get wee Liam back. God love her, all she wanted was a house on the ground with a scrap of a garden where he could play. She was applying left, right and centre, pulling every string she could, but it was never going to happen. Not while there are families with six kids on the Council’s waiting list.’
‘How old is she?’ Emma was careful to use the present tense.
