Living Death

by Graham Masterton

  She picked up her bathrobe and put it on again, tying the belt up tight. Then she went back to the bed and folded back the duvet to cover John.

  John held on to her arm. ‘What do you mean you’re not ready?’ he asked her. ‘You felt as if you were.’

  ‘John – it’s not easy for me to come to terms with what’s happened to you. You’ve changed more than you think, and it’s not just your legs.’

  ‘How? How I have changed?’

  ‘I don’t know exactly. But after what’s happened to you, how could you not be different?’

  ‘I still love you. That hasn’t changed.’

  ‘Well, maybe it’s me, then. I’m finding this too hard to deal with. On top of that, I’m totally stressed out at work. There’s a flood of drugs coming into the city and because of that the crime rate’s gone up through the roof. We’re having a struggle to cope with it, and every day it gets worse.’

  ‘Please, Katie. I’m aching for you.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said? I’m up the walls, John. I couldn’t give my mind to it.’

  ‘There’s nobody else, is there? Some lover you haven’t told me about. You’re always ranting on about that Jimmy O’Reilly. It’s not him, is it?’

  Katie tugged her arm free. ‘Jimmy O’Reilly wouldn’t spit on me if I was on fire. Besides that, he’s as gay as Christmas.’

  ‘Katie. Katie, I love you.’ His voice cracked as if he were going to cry.

  ‘I know, John,’ said Katie. ‘I know you do, and I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry. I shouldn’t have led you on like that. I just thought – well, to be honest with you, I don’t know what I thought. I wasn’t thinking at all.’

  They looked at each other for a long time and neither of them spoke. Both of them knew that it was better to say nothing, in case something was said.

  At last Katie said, ‘You’re sure I can’t fetch you anything? Glass of water, maybe?’

  John shook his head. ‘I think I’ll go back to sleep now, if it’s all the same to you. If I can’t have you for real, at least I can dream about you.’

  ‘Goodnight, then,’ said Katie, and left the room.

  *

  In the small hours of the morning, she was woken by the sound of sobbing, and what must have been John beating his fist against his pillow.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she heard him groaning. ‘Why me? Oh God, why me?’

  15

  Siobhán was woken up by the sound of a door banging, and voices. She could sense that she was still in the ambulance, because she could feel it swaying as somebody climbed into it, and approached her.

  The trolley on which she was lying was unlocked, and then she felt herself being pushed to the rear of the ambulance, and lifted out. She could smell cigarette breath, and diesel fumes. A man’s voice said, ‘Watch it, Tommy,’ and then Fiontán let out one of his strange froglike croaks, like a bewitched prince out of a fairy-tale.

  She felt the trolley being lifted up again, and one side knocked against a doorframe. Then she felt herself being wheeled along a corridor, with the trolley’s wheels squeaking. The same man’s voice said, ‘Take her down the end room for now. It’s going to take us five or six hours at least to load up. When’s Nick coming over?’

  ‘He said he’d be here by now,’ said another man. ‘You know him, though. Takes longer to get ready than my old woman.’

  The men were obviously English, and working-class. Siobhán recognised their accents from EastEnders on the television. She had been drugged and asleep for most of the journey, but she had woken up when she and Fiontán had been taken out of the ambulance for the ferry crossing, and she had been aware of the movement of the deck underneath her. She hadn’t heard any other passengers talking, though, so she had assumed that they were shut in their own private cabin.

  While they were on board, Grainne had lifted her head for her and helped her to drink a cup of sweet tea, and then fed her with a cheese sandwich and a Kit-Kat. In spite of the fact that Grainne had aided and abetted her being blinded and maimed, or perhaps because she felt remorseful about it, she had been very gentle and motherly towards her, continually asking her if she was comfortable, and if there was anything she needed.

  I need my sight, and my voice, and my hands, and my legs. Or if I can’t have those, I need to die, because I might as well be dead.

  Shortly before the ferry arrived in Fishguard, she had needed desperately to urinate. She had flapped her arms, trying to catch Grainne’s attention, and at last Grainne had leaned over her and said, ‘What is it? What do you want, Siobhán? Another cup of tea, is it?’

  She had shaken her head and pointed between her legs as best as she could.

  ‘Oh, you need to pee, is it, or is it a jobby? Well, don’t you bother about that, darling, just do it, because you’re wearing a nappy, like, and we can change you after.’

  She had flapped her arms again in protest, but Grainne had ignored her. After that, she had held on for as long as she possibly could, but in the end the pressure had been too much to bear, and she had let it go. She felt the warm flood between her legs and she sobbed in misery and embarrassment and helplessness.

  ‘Don’t you worry about it, Siobhán,’ Grainne had told her, patting her hand. ‘Things won’t get any worse, I promise you.’

  Now she found herself pushed into what sounded like a large empty room. Her trolley was parked beside a wall and she was left there. She could feel a cold draught, so the door must have been left open, and she could also hear shuffling footsteps and banging noises, which made her think there must be a long corridor outside the door.

  She heard more footsteps, and a man coughing, and the snap-snap-snap of a cigarette lighter that didn’t work first time. After a few moments she smelled cigarette smoke.

  A man’s voice said, ‘Where does all this lot come from?’ She recognised him from the clinic in Cork. She was sure that he was the man who had brought the dog into her room.

  ‘Schoon sent it from Rotterdam just before he was collared. But don’t worry about it. The next shipment’s all lined up. We’re getting it direct from Engelsbel next time.’

  ‘Schoon was such a fecking eejit.’

  ‘Well, he was and he wasn’t. I mean, he was a genius to think of doing this in the first place, you got to give him that. Altogether I reckon he shipped in well over four hundred million quids’ worth. I mean, that’s pretty fucking impressive, isn’t it? You got to give him that.’

  The two men must have turned their backs or moved away from the door, because after that Siobhán could still hear them talking together, but much less distinctly, so that she could only catch one or two words. She was beginning to shiver, in the draught, and the wetness between her legs had turned cold and had started to sting. If she had been able to speak she would have called out to one of the men and begged them to come in here and strangle her, or tie a plastic bag over her head so that she suffocated.

  After a few more minutes, she heard at least two other men approaching, and because of that they stepped back and now she could hear them clearly again.

  ‘How’s the form?’ asked the man from the clinic.

  ‘Got about half of it stashed away, mate. There’s so much there, I don’t think we’re going to be able to get it all in, not on this run.’

  ‘How much altogether?’

  ‘Well, what, there’s over two hundred kay of coke, seventy-five kay of crack, and seventy-five thousand Es.’

  ‘Holy shit. All right. Pack away as much as you can and we’ll pick up the rest next time. Gearoid is buying two more vehicles this week so the fleet’s building up. We should have six at least by the end of January. To be honest with you, though, we never thought the business would expand so quick.’

  One of the other men coughed. ‘It’s the kids these days, innit?’ he said, in a gravelly voice. ‘They can’t get enough of it. We could ship in twice what we’re shipping in now, easy, – three times as much – and they’d sti
ll be crying out for more. In my days it was purple hearts. I remember when they made purple hearts illegal and they went up from sixpence each to ninepence.’

  ‘You can remember the Battle of Waterloo you can, Wardy,’ put in another man.

  ‘Listen, I’m not complaining,’ said the man from the clinic. ‘But just make sure everything’s sealed in one hundred per cent airtight. Those sniffer dogs the customs have at Rosslare, they can tell if you’re carrying a half-sucked Fisherman’s Friend in your pocket.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, mate,’ said the man called Wardy, and coughed again. ‘All the packets are wrapped up tight in your polafeen and all the panels are going to be riveted. That ambulance could be stuffed full of rotten kippers and nobody would smell ’em.’

  ‘It had better not be, boy,’ said the man from the clinic, and from the tone of his voice Siobhán sensed that he was only half-joking. From the way they spoke to each other, she could tell that these were men who were doing business together because it suited them, but who didn’t trust each other at all.

  She heard them walk away. Wardy’s spasmodic cough grew fainter as he went off down the corridor. Then she could hear nothing but a faint metallic hammering sound. Then even that stopped, and there was silence.

  She had never felt so desperately alone in her life. She thought of saying a prayer, and asking God to take her back in time to that night outside the Eclipse Club. Why hadn’t she waited for that Hailo taxi? But she knew that God wouldn’t answer her, and that He couldn’t or wouldn’t give her what she was asking Him for. At some time in her life she must have offended Him dreadfully, although she couldn’t think how, but plainly He was punishing her for it, and He wasn’t yet ready to forgive her, if He ever would.

  So she lay on her trolley in complete darkness, not knowing where she was or when anybody was going to come for her, and the tears slid from her eyes and into her ears. She couldn’t stop shaking in the chilly, relentless draught. Somebody had left a door open somewhere, as if to taunt her. You’re not locked in, love. There’s a whole world outside. If only you could see where it was, and if only you could walk.

  16

  Bridie arrived at 7:05 the next morning, while Katie was still standing in the kitchen, eating a piece of toast. She had forgotten to buy any fresh bread yesterday, so she had been left with the heel, which she and her sisters used to fight over when they were young. Her coffee was still so hot that she could drink it only in sips.

  ‘Is John awake yet?’ asked Bridie, as she hung up her coat.

  ‘Not yet. I don’t think he slept very well last night. Help yourself to some coffee. There’s plenty in the pot.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t drink coffee. It gives me the palpimatations. I’ll make myself a cup of tea, though.’

  Katie watched her fill the kettle and then she said, ‘I’ll be straight with you, Bridie. Me and John had a bit of a confrontation last night. I’ve taken him in because I feel responsible for what happened to him, but he seems to have read too much into that. It’s partly my fault, I admit. I thought my feelings for him wouldn’t have altered, but I’m afraid they have.’

  Bridie puffed out her cheeks. ‘Well, I’ve seen it often enough before. Somebody falling ill, like, or getting some kind of serious injury, like your John. Overnight their partner finds out that they’re not a lover any more, they’re a carer. It puts a fierce strain on any relationship, no question. The multiple sclerosis, and the motor neurone disease, they’re desperate, but I think the dementia is the worst of all. It must be so hard to keep on loving somebody who doesn’t even know who you are.’

  ‘I have to confess, Bridie, I really have no idea what to do.’

  Bridie went to the cupboard and took out a cup and a saucer. ‘I’ll talk to Aileen Noonan when I take John to the hospital this morning. She’s his therapist. I know she was keen for him to stay here with you, for the sake of his morale, like. But if things aren’t working out —’

  Katie’s iPhone played ‘Tá Mo Chleamhnas a Dhéanamh’. She picked it up and it was Detective Dooley.

  ‘Just to let you know, ma’am, we’ve lifted Keeno. Mulvaney tipped us off that he was on his way to pick up his money, and he showed up about twenty minutes ago.’

  ‘He accepted the money?’

  ‘Oh, yes. We made sure of that. Mulvaney handed him the envelope and he took it, and we have the conversation between them recorded. He specifically asked how much Mulvaney had been paid for each of the dogs, the German Shepherd and the Vizsla, so he can’t deny that he didn’t know what the money was for, or try to make out it was payment for something else altogether.’

  ‘Was he alone? How was he? Did he put up any resistance?’

  ‘He came by himself, yes, and he put up no kind of a struggle. None at all. He wasn’t armed, and there were no weapons of any kind in his car. He came out with a few curse words that I’d never heard before, but that was all. He wouldn’t give his name or address or nothing like that, or make any kind of a statement. He wouldn’t even admit that his name was Keeno.’

  ‘Doesn’t he have any ID on him? A wallet? How about a phone?’

  ‘No wallet, no phone. Only a thick wedge of money. Any road we’ve arrested him for handling stolen goods and we’re bringing him in now, him and Mulvaney, and we’ll be able to interview him later.’

  ‘That’s grand, Robert. Good man yourself. I’ll be in myself in half an hour, traffic willing. Eoin Cassidy’s coming in at ten to identify the dogs, so now we can get him to identify Keeno, too.’

  ‘That’s what they call killing two birds with one manslaughter suspect, isn’t it?’

  ‘Now then, Robert.’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am.’

  *

  Before she left, Katie went in to see John. He was awake, although the curtains were still drawn and the room was gloomy.

  ‘I’m off now,’ she said. ‘I wanted to wish you good luck at the hospital, that’s all. I’m truly sorry I can’t come with you.’

  John shrugged and gave her a weak smile. ‘You said sorry yesterday, Katie. You don’t have to apologise twice.’

  She stood in the open doorway not knowing what to say next. John lay looking at her with half-closed eyes as if he were allowing himself to slide back into sleep.

  ‘Well, then, good luck, John,’ she said at last. ‘I’ll see you after.’

  ‘I’ll win you back!’ he called, as she walked out. ‘I promise you that, sweetheart! I’ll win you back!’

  *

  She watched through the two-way mirror as Keeno was charged and fingerprinted and photographed. She didn’t want to make herself known to him yet – not until he had been made to wait for two or three hours. Waiting made arrogant men angry and weak men even more unsure of themselves, and whichever they were, they were always likely to come out with more than they had originally meant to.

  Gerry Mulvaney had been right: he did bear a slight resemblance to Sylvester Stallone, although he was stoop-shouldered and pot-bellied, rather than muscular. His hair was tangled and grey and stained ginger at the front from smoking. His eyes were hooded and his nose was twisted into an S-shape. He had thick dry lips and he was continually licking them. He was wearing a grey leather jacket and a black shirt that was open at the neck, with grey-and-white chest hair curling out of it.

  ‘God – if only Mrs Cassidy had consented to a DNA test,’ she said to Sergeant Begley, who was standing beside her to see Keeno being processed.

  Sergeant Begley shook his head. ‘Myself, I reckon there’s a whole lot more to this than meets the eye. It was hardly worth a full-scale raid on those kennels for the sake of two thousand euros.’

  ‘We still don’t know what’s happened to the rest of the dogs,’ said Katie. ‘Dooley tells me that some of them may have been taken for dogfighting up at Ballyknock.’

  ‘Well, sure, there’s plenty of money in dogfighting all right. But not all of the dogs would have been suitable for that, would they? It’s no good
setting a chihuahua up against a mastiff, is it?’

  Katie had to admit to herself that he was right. Even if the two dogs that they had found at Riverstick and the dogs that were supposed to be fighting at Ballyknock had all been stolen from the Sceolan Kennels, what had happened to the rest of them?

  Keeno slowly turned his head and stared in their direction. He would have been able to see nothing more than his own reflection, but if he had any experience of being arrested before, he would have guessed that he was being observed from behind the mirror. He gave a slow wink, and stuck out the tip of his tongue.

  ‘Why do I have the feeling that we’ll be lucky to get any information at all out of that scummer?’ said Sergeant Begley.

  ‘For the same reason that I do,’ said Katie. ‘It would probably be more than his life’s worth to tell us who his gang are.’ She paused for a moment, and then she said, ‘Any progress with that missing girl?’

  ‘Siobhán O’Donohue? We’re still tracking down all of the crowd from the Eclipse Club on Hallowe’en. There was over a hundred and fifty of them, like, so it’s taking a bit of time. A few of them saw Siobhán having a bit of a scrap with her boyfriend, and then going to the bar and knocking back three or four of them Jägerbombs. Then she left – bit unsteady on her feet by all accounts.’

  ‘We’ve interviewed her boyfriend?’

  ‘Of course. A young shamfeen from The Glen called Donal O’Grady. He said that his relationship with Siobhán had been turning sour for a few weeks before Hallowe’en and that night he shifted some other girl just to show her. That was what kicked off the argument.’

  ‘Do you think her boyfriend might have had anything to do with her disappearance?’

  ‘No, he didn’t for sure, although he was one of the last people to see her. He said he came out of the club with this new girl of his – Phil, the girl’s name is, Philomena. He saw Siobhán standing in the street like she was waiting to have another crack at him. He shifted Phil again right in front of her just to underline the fact that they were finished.’