Living Death

by Graham Masterton

  Siobhán let out another wheeze, and attempted a cough, but it hurt so much that she suppressed another one, even though it made her feel that she couldn’t breathe.

  ‘If you give me any trouble at all,’ the man whispered, ‘it will be a matter of only a few moments for me to puncture your eardrums, and then you’ll not only be blind, and dumb, and paralysed, you’ll be deaf as well. It makes very little difference to me.’

  Siobhán thought: Why don’t you kill me now, and get it over with? But she couldn’t even tell him that. She could only lie there silently weeping while the two men talked to each other and Smiley let out two sharp barks, as if she were asking to be taken out for a walk.

  8

  It was after eleven before Katie returned home. It had been too late to stop off for a drink in Kinsale, but on her way back from Ballinroe East she had called in at Anglesea Street to drop off Detective Scanlan and also to collect a report on pornography fraud which Detective Ó Doibhilin had prepared for her.

  When she let herself in, she saw that Bridie was sitting in the living-room watching television with Barney’s head in her lap, so the two of them had obviously made friends.

  ‘Sorry I’m so late,’ said Katie, as she hung up her coat. ‘One thing just led to another.’

  ‘Not a bother,’ said Bridie. ‘That’s what I’m here for. You can come home as late as you like.’

  ‘How’s John?’ Katie asked her.

  ‘I put him to bed about nine, because his antibiotics and his painkillers make him so sleepy. He was disappointed that he didn’t get to see you before I tucked him in, but otherwise he’s no worse than you could expect.’

  Katie glanced towards the spare bedroom door. The way in which Bridie said that she had ‘put him to bed’ and ‘tucked him in’ struck her as sadly ironic, considering that the spare bedroom used to be the nursery, where little Seamus had slept. Even though it had been so long now since that morning when she had walked in and found Seamus cold and lifeless in his cot, she still thought of it as his room, and she still felt that his spirit was there.

  Bridie had left the door a few inches ajar, in case John woke up and called out for her.

  ‘You don’t have to come in too early tomorrow morning,’ said Katie. ‘I won’t be leaving until about nine.’

  Bridie patted Barney’s head and stood up. ‘That’s no bother at all. As you know I’m only in Roche’s Row. Doesn’t take me even ten minutes to get here.’

  Katie and Barney followed Bridie into the hallway and Katie opened the front door for her.

  ‘John’s putting on a brave face,’ said Bridie, as she turned to go. ‘Don’t let that fool you, though, Katie. Losing an arm or a leg, like, that’s almost as bad as being widowed. He’s grieving, do you know what I mean? And in some ways it’s worse than being widowed, because he can still feel his legs, even though they’re not there any more.’

  Katie didn’t answer that, but smiled tiredly and said, ‘Good night, Bridie. We’ll see you tomorrow.’

  She went back into the living-room, crossed over to the drinks table and poured herself a large glass of Smirnoff vodka. She had been cutting down on her alcohol consumption lately, but right now she felt that she needed a drink to help her unwind. On the television, the chat show presenter Claire Byrne was having a lively conversation with her audience, but the sound was mute, and after watching her for a while, Katie switched the television off. She didn’t feel like listening to other people arguing.

  Barney made that odd sound in the back of his throat as if he were asking her what was wrong. She scuffled his ears and said, ‘I’m grand altogether, Barns, don’t worry,’ and then went through to her bedroom.

  She knew that she would have to talk to Cleona Cassidy again. Cleona had admitted that the baby she was carrying wasn’t her husband Eoin’s, but she had been willing only to say that the father was ‘some feller’ that she had met in Kinsale. ‘Some feller’s’ identity was probably irrelevant, but all the same several key questions remained unanswered about the break-in at Sceolan Kennels and about Cleona’s alleged rape and the fatal shooting of the dognapper. Whether ‘some feller’s’ identity was irrelevant or not, Katie was always insistent that she knew the complete story before she was prepared to consider a case closed and put together a Book of Evidence.

  After they had interviewed Cleona, she and Detective Scanlan had talked again to Eoin Cassidy, but he had stubbornly repeated his original story, word for word, and not a word more. The dognapper had come for him, he had fired a warning shot, and then he had shot the dognapper in self-defence. When Katie had put it to him that he had witnessed Cleona being raped and had shot the dognapper out of revenge, he had simply shaken his head and said nothing.

  Katie had also failed to persuade Cleona to go to the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit at Victoria University Hospital, so that she could be intimately examined and DNA samples taken. Gently, she had made it clear to Cleona that if she refused to agree to forensic medical tests, the Garda would be unable to proceed with a prosecution through the courts, even if they managed to find and arrest ‘Keeno’.

  Cleona had kept her eyes fixed on the kitchen table in front of her and said, ‘I’m still alive, and the baby’s not hurt, thank the Lord, and isn’t that all that matters in the grand scheme of things?’

  *

  Katie undressed and took a long warm shower. When she stepped out of the shower cubicle and looked at herself in the steamed-up bathroom mirror, she thought that she had lost even more weight. She knew that she needed to take a holiday, preferably somewhere sunny like Gran Canaria, but she was snowed under with half-completed cases and reports, and apart from that she had nobody to go with her. What would be the point of going to Gran Canaria on her own? She couldn’t take John, and equally she couldn’t leave him here.

  Maybe she should just take a day off and spend it at the Susan Ryan Beauty Clinic, having a deep massage and a waxing and a manicure.

  She tugged on her pink brushed-cotton nightshirt and sat with her feet up on her bed to finish her vodka and read through the report that Detective Ó Doibhilin had given her.

  ‘Porn fraud’ was a new on-line phenomenon in Cork. Twenty-three young Cork girls had reported that their photographs had been lifted from their Facebook pages and pasted on to a pornographic site called Quadruple-X, with obscene comments about them, or degrading sexual fantasies about what men claimed to have done with them. The site said, ‘Look at these sluts! And there’s plenty more in Cork where these came from!’ In several cases the girls’ pictures had been posted showing erect penises up against their lips, or with semen spattered across their faces.

  Detective Ó Doibhilin had been trying to trace where the Quadruple-X site originated, especially since it featured so many Cork girls. ‘We have a few promising leads,’ he had written at the end of his report. ‘I’ve also brought in Patrick Kirwan, from the Cork Training Centre, who’s an expert hacker. Even if we can’t ID the offender and prosecute him, I’m v. confident that Patrick can at least close the site down.’

  A fat lot of good that will do, thought Katie. The second you close it down, they’ll open it up somewhere else, under another address, like www.Sextuple-X.

  When she had finished her drink, she went back into the bathroom to brush her teeth. As she switched on the light in the hallway, John called out, ‘Bridie?’ He sounded groggy, as if he were talking in his sleep.

  Katie hesitated for a moment and then pushed open the nursery door. John was lying in the single bed beside the window. His hair was tousled and his face was shiny with sweat. The dark brown blanket that was covering his legs was humped up by a metal cage, which kept the weight off his stumps.

  He frowned at her as she switched on the bedside lamp and dragged over the small hessian-covered armchair in which she used to sit at night and breast-feed Seamus.

  ‘Katie, you’re back,’ he said, thickly. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Midnight, nearly. I got
back about an hour ago.’

  He tried to lift his head off the pillow, but then let it fall back again. ‘Mother of God, I feel like shit. I don’t know what they put in those pills they gave me. Rohypnol, most like.’

  Katie laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘John, it’s going to take you a long time to recover from this, but you will. You’ll just have to be very patient.’

  He raised his eyebrows and attempted a smile. ‘At least I have you. If I didn’t have you, I think I’d take an overdose.’

  ‘You shouldn’t talk like that. Look at all the people who have lost their legs like you, and still have full and happy lives.’

  He lifted the blanket and looked down at himself. ‘Do you know what the worst thing is?’

  ‘You can still feel your legs, even though they’re gone? That’s what Bridie said, anyway.’

  ‘Well, yes, that’s bad enough. I can even wiggle my toes, can you believe that? But that’s not it. That’s not the worst thing of all.’

  Katie waited for him to tell her. She kept her hand on his shoulder and she could feel how tense he was. His muscles were so taut that she felt almost as if he could catapult clear into the air, lifting all his blankets with him, and then crash back down on the bed.

  Instead, though, he started to cry. His eyes filled with tears and his mouth was dragged down like a miserable child.

  ‘Oh God,’ he said, shaking his head from side to side. ‘Oh Jesus and Mary.’

  ‘John,’ said Katie, and stroked his sweat-beaded forehead. ‘You’ll get better and better as the time goes by. It’s going to take a while, darling, like I say, but one day you’ll be walking again. Who knows, you could even be running, and you’ll wonder why you ever felt so desperate.’

  ‘But I’ll never be like a man again,’ he sobbed, wiping the tears from his face with the sleeve of his pyjamas. ‘I’ll always be short, like a freak, or a dwarf, or a small kid who never grew up. What difference will it make if I have prosthetic legs, or blades, or whatever? I could have stilts that make me a foot taller than everybody else around me. But that’s all I’ll be. A freak, or a dwarf, or a small kid on stilts. And don’t tell me that everybody else won’t secretly feel the same way.’

  ‘They won’t, John. People don’t treat amputees like that. None of the people that I know.’

  But John continued to weep and shake his head, and he gripped Katie’s hands so tightly that her rings were pressed painfully into her fingers.

  She gradually levered her hands free and then patted his shoulder, although she was aware that she was treating him more like Barney than her one-time lover. ‘John, I swear on the Bible that you’ll get over this, and that you’ll feel like more of a man again. Garda O’Leary lost a leg in a car crash three years ago, and you should see him now. He runs a football coaching course for Rebel Óg.’

  John gave a last heaving sob and then he wiped his face with his sleeves again and said, ‘You’re right, Katie. You’re totally right. I know I shouldn’t be feeling so damned sorry for myself. And I should be much more appreciative of what you’re doing for me. Believe me, darling, I don’t take your love for granted.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ said Katie. ‘Don’t you think it’s time you got yourself some sleep? Is there anything you need? A fresh glass of water? How about a pee?’

  ‘Do you know what I’d really like?’ John told her, still wiping the tears from his eyelashes.

  Katie was already halfway out of her chair. He folded back the blanket and said, ‘If you could just hold me. If you could just prove to me that I’m still in working order.’

  He raised the blanket higher but Katie continued to keep her eyes on his face and didn’t look down.

  ‘I love you, Katie, you know that, in spite of everything that’s happened. As soon as I landed back at SFX I realised that I shouldn’t have walked out on you. There’s never going to be anybody else for me, ever. Only you. Hair like rubies, eyes like the sea.’

  He kept the blanket lifted but still Katie didn’t look down and still she made no move to sit down again. She was desperately trying to think of words to say to him that wouldn’t crush him, and that wouldn’t rip her apart from head to foot with guilt.

  ‘John,’ she said, gently, and she prayed that her smile wasn’t too patronising. ‘You’re still very sick. You’re up to your ears in drugs. If I started to mess around like that, God alone knows what strain it could put on your stitches. What would your doctors say to me if we had to rush you back into hospital because – well, because of that?’

  John slowly lowered the blanket. ‘Okay,’ he said, although she couldn’t tell from his expression or his tone of voice whether he believed her or not. Did he realise that she was making an excuse not to masturbate him because she was no longer sure that she loved him? She bent over and kissed him very lightly on the lips, but stood up straight again before he could put his arm around her shoulders and pull her down closer.

  ‘Goodnight, John,’ she said, blowing him another kiss with her fingertips. ‘Sleep well. Don’t think of yourself ever as being small. You were never small before and you never will be now. You’re a giant.’

  John gave her a shrug, but he didn’t look convinced. She switched off his bedside lamp and went to the door.

  ‘I’ll leave the door open in case you need anything. Bridie will be here at nine.’

  ‘I love you, Katie Maguire,’ he said, out of the darkness. His voice sounded hollow, like a hermit in a cave.

  9

  John was still asleep by the time Bridie arrived the following morning.

  ‘How’s he been?’ she asked, heaving off her bulging navy-blue back-pack and smacking the raindrops off it. ‘Not too much bother, I hope?’

  ‘No, no bother at all,’ Katie told her. She was about to say that he had slept like a baby, but then she thought of Seamus and she stopped herself. She looked across at the clock on the mantelpiece and said, ‘I have to go now, but I shouldn’t be back too late so.’

  ‘John has an appointment with Doctor Kashani tomorrow morning at eleven-thirty,’ Bridie reminded her. ‘That’s to see if he’s ready yet for the next stage of his prosthetics. I’ll take him there myself of course but you might want to meet us there.’

  ‘I’m up the walls with work at the moment, but I’ll try.’

  ‘It’s just in case you want to ask Doctor Kashani direct about John’s long-term treatment. You know – when he might expect to start walking again, and what medication he’s going to have to take, and for how long, and such, do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Like I say, Bridie, I’ll do my best.’

  ‘And of course there’s the psychological side to it. Some of the amputees I’ve taken care of, they’ve taken a brave few years to get used to losing their arms or their legs or whatever. And it’s quare, you know, the fitter they were before their ampumatation, the more depressed they are about it. They keep staring at the place where their leg or their arm was, as if they can force it to grow back again by willpower.’

  ‘I can understand that, yes, after talking to John,’ said Katie. ‘I don’t think he’s finding it at all easy to deal with.’

  Bridie was struggling to reach behind her hips and fasten her apron. ‘He has you, at least. You know how much he’s relying on you, don’t you?’

  Katie didn’t answer that but said, ‘Here,’ and tied up the strings for her. ‘Tell John I’ll try to get back home as early as I can.’

  ‘I will of course.’

  *

  It was raining as she drove into the city on the N25 – not torrentially, but fine silvery cloaks of drizzle that drifted across the city like a procession of ghosts, and softly rattled against the side windows of her car as if they were trying to attract her attention. Don’t you remember us, Katie? We remember you.

  She had received at least a dozen messages, and she listened to them as she drove. Detective O’Donovan needed to talk to her about a District Court case against a Romanian pi
mp which had collapsed for lack of credible witnesses, and Detective Ó Doibhilin had traced the origin of one of the porn fraud sites. Inspector O’Brien from Bandon said that he had a possible ID on the ‘feller’ with whom Cleona Cassidy had been having an affair, and Detective Dooley thought that he might have a lead on two of the most valuable dogs that had been stolen from Sceolan Boarding Kennels.

  The last message surprised her most of all, though. It was delivered in the dry, emotionless tones of Assistant Commissioner Jimmy O’Reilly.

  ‘Katie, if you would be so good as to come by my office as soon as you get in, there’s a matter I have to discuss with you. Something pure confidential.’

  Katie was so taken aback by this message that she played it again, twice. The relationship between her and Jimmy O’Reilly had always been unpleasantly abrasive, right from the very start. He was one of the old-school golf-playing stonecutters, and he had made no secret of his annoyance when Katie had been promoted over the heads of several senior male inspectors, even though she was equally experienced and – in some instances – much more qualified. Her appointment as detective superintendent had been part of An Garda Siochána’s drive to show that they gave just as much opportunity to women officers as they did to men, but Jimmy O’Reilly had seemed to consider her promotion a personal affront. As far as he was concerned, female gardaí were good only for making tea and comforting battered wives and seeing primary school children across the road.

  What had finally brought him to the point where he would barely even speak to Katie was her discovery that he had been passing confidential Garda information to a Cork thug called Bobby Quilty, in return for substantial unsecured loans. He had been borrowing the money to give to one of his young personal assistants, James Elvin, to pay off his gambling debts. James Elvin was not only his personal assistant, but his lover.

  So what was this ‘pure confidential’ matter that Jimmy O’Reilly wanted to discuss with her? Katie had found out that he had been tipping off Bobby Quilty about imminent Garda raids on his properties, but she had still failed to come up with enough incriminating evidence to take to the Commissioner and the Garda Ombudsman, and finish his career. That was why the last few months between them had been characterised by such a hostile deadlock.