Darkest Truth

by Catherine Kirwan

  Finally, as Gill had, Donnie entered the dock from below. He was dressed, as he had been at the station, in sun holiday clothes. He shivered in his seat, holding his baseball cap in his hand, and stared at the floor. Gill and Esther ignored him entirely.

  At twenty past five, the judge took his seat, and the hearing began. Evidence of arrest, charge and caution was given by the guards who had been tasked with formally arresting Gill, Esther and Donnie. Lenihan stood at the side watching for any errors or forgotten details, ready to prompt the prosecutor if needed. But there was little to be done. There would be no bail hearing, as bail in a murder case can only be granted by the High Court, though the various defence solicitors confirmed that applications would be filed as soon as possible. The judge nodded, took a note for the court file and remanded Jeremy Gill and Donnie Bryant in custody to Cloverhill Prison. Sure to be considered a flight risk, they would have a hard time getting out again before the trial. Esther was remanded to the Women’s Prison at Mountjoy. She’d get a comfortable berth in the Dochas Centre, given her age.

  ‘Any further applications?’

  Gill stood and opened his mouth. The judge spoke first.

  ‘Mr Gill, I think that’s what your solicitor is for.’

  Gill’s solicitor shook his head, but his client started to speak. I wondered if this was what the lawyer had said before court, that Gill should stay quiet and refrain from speech-making. If that’s what it was, he was ignoring the advice.

  ‘I’ll be very, very brief, judge. Thank you for the time. I want the people of Ireland to know that I love them and I love this great country still, even after what has happened today. The establishment has never liked me, and they’ve tried to bring me down before. They didn’t succeed then, and they won’t succeed now. I put my faith in the constitution and in the jury of my fellow Irishmen and women that I will be happy to have stand in judgment over me, and I want every one of them to know now that I am completely innocent of this abominable charge, this travesty of justice, as is my mother. I am the victim here, and I will fight this horrible calumny, this stain on my character until my dying breath and I …’

  ‘Mr Gill, you would be far better advised to save that kind of talk for your consultations with your solicitor and your counsel. I’ll rise now.’

  When the judge had left the room, Gill looked in the direction of the press benches, half raised his left arm and fist in a gesture of defiance, then turned his back on them and the courtroom. The show had finished, and the journalists knew it. As one, they leapt to their feet and started to make their way outside.

  Donnie went back down to the cells immediately and I saw Esther mouth the words ‘good job, son’ to Gill and he bent to kiss her before she was taken away. But after she had left, as the courtroom emptied, he seemed to turn in on himself for a moment. He held on to the railing, his skin dull with fatigue. I remembered how he had been on that morning in my kitchen, and how frightened of him I had been then.

  No longer. I saw him now for what he was, and I saw what he would become. It was over for him – his power, his riches, his great success, all of it. He would never admit his guilt, and it didn’t matter. He would fully contest the case against him, and he would fail.

  The attending Garda touched Gill’s elbow, but he made no move towards the stairs. I stood to go, and he must have heard something because he glanced up at the public gallery, empty except for me. He hadn’t known I was there, I think, and when he saw me his eyes widened, very slightly.

  Almost instantly, he straightened and his face became a mask again, hard and unyielding. He turned towards me, his back to the guard and the people in the well of the court below, and the rest of the world fell away. Gill brought his left hand to his throat and drew his index finger right to left across the base of his neck. He smiled at me then, and kept smiling as the custody guard put his hand on his shoulder and guided him down to the cells.

  I stood my ground and kept watch until Jeremy Gill had vanished, as completely as if he had descended into hell.

  48

  10th March 2014

  ‘If you’d held out, you could have done better,’ I said.

  ‘We wanted it over,’ Sean Carney said. ‘And what we got is worth more than any money to us.’

  ‘It’s a symbol,’ Ann said. ‘Even if we can’t tell anyone about it until after the criminal case.’

  ‘And maybe never,’ I said. ‘If Gill isn’t convicted in the murder trial, the terms of the settlement mean you’ll have to stay silent for ever.’

  ‘I know,’ Ann said. ‘And he’s never going to be convicted for what he did to Deirdre. Still, it’s some recognition. It means more than I imagined. And he will be convicted, I know he will.’

  The Rhona Macbride murder trial was fixed to start in early May. I wouldn’t be involved much, I reckoned. Even though I had been listed as a State witness, it was likely that the Gills’ legal teams would argue that my evidence should be excluded for fear of prejudicing the jury. If they succeeded, Another Bad Day at the Office would provide evidence that Gill knew Rhona but, as with all criminal trials, the jury would have to adjudicate on the basis of the evidence before them, and nothing else.

  The background about Gill and Deirdre would come out only after the trial. There would be more prosecutions too, and civil cases. After he was charged with Rhona’s murder, other victims had felt safe enough to come out of the shadows, in Ireland, and also in the United States. I hoped that one of them was the girl from Winterville in New York State, the girl Christopher Dalton had told me about, though I didn’t know. The upcoming trial meant that a lid was being kept on publicity about additional complaints. But once the trial was over, there would be no way back for him. I had had new client enquiries already in relation to personal injury claims against Gill, and in other similar cases. I had even received a few referrals courtesy of DI Lenihan, which surprised me no end. Though when I rang to thank him, he didn’t take the call, which surprised me less.

  Garda Ruth Joyce’s tenacious investigation had led to the solving of the string of arson attacks that had plagued Cork during 2012 and 2013. After I had dropped my complaint against Joey O’Connor, Ruth had re-examined the footage from previous burnings and found that Joey had an unfortunate and inconvenient habit of being in the neighbourhood of several of the attacks. When confronted with the evidence, he admitted finally that he had been responsible for torching not just my car but all the rest as well, his only selection criteria being that the car owners had visited his car showroom and not bought a car. And that he hadn’t liked them. He wasn’t prosecuted for my car, but he was done for the rest. He pleaded guilty and, unlike after his previous prosecution, got jail time. But, with a discount for his co-operation and plea, he could be out in as little as eighteen months.

  We walked down the steps of the courthouse and on to Washington Street. The settlement discussions hadn’t taken long in the end. The Carneys had pressed me to seek an admission from Jeremy Gill of what he had done to Deirdre, rather than a larger damages payout without an admission. Soon after Gill’s arrest, I had obtained a Mareva injunction, preventing him from dissipating his assets pending the resolution of the Carneys’ claim. Understandably, as he didn’t qualify for legal aid, Gill and his legal team wanted the order lifted, and I was able to set up early settlement negotiations as a result. There was a gagging order on the Carney settlement until after the criminal trial, but it was enough for Sean and Ann that the concession had been made. For them, the case had never been about the money.

  At the foot of the steps, Sean turned to me.

  ‘All I ever wanted was to warn others about Jeremy Gill. To make sure that he wouldn’t hurt another girl, like he did Deirdre. I blame myself, you know. Right back at the very beginning, if I’d listened to Ann, maybe the two of us could have persuaded Deirdre to go and report what had happened. But I didn’t even try. I didn’t want her hurt any more. I thought we could mind her. I thought we could make h
er better. There was a time later, too, when she might have … It was only a few weeks before she died, she came to me and she talked around in circles but, as I look back on it, I think, no, I know that’s what she was saying, that she wanted to go to the guards then. If I’d been brave enough, I could have helped her. And she might still be alive. You could have met your sister. And we would still have our daughter. I didn’t want her to go through the pain and the public shame of a trial after so many years had gone by. But I was wrong, so wrong.’

  It fitted with what Deirdre’s psychiatric records had said – that she had been building towards naming her assailant and making a report. There had been no mention in the notes of a conversation with her father, though. Maybe it hadn’t been as important to her as it seemed to Sean in retrospect, but there was no way of knowing.

  He started to cry, and I remembered the November night that we had met, and how he had wept on the street in front of my office. I looked at Ann. Her eyes were filled with tears. She shook her head. She knew about regret. I did too. I knew it didn’t help anyone and that it never went away.

  ‘You did your best, Sean,’ I said. ‘And at least Gill is a danger to nobody now. He’s on remand in Cloverhill. Assuming he’s convicted, he’s facing a mandatory life sentence. He’ll be inside for a long time.’

  Ann took hold of my hand.

  ‘Don’t be a stranger, Finn,’ she said.

  I walked in silence with the Carneys to the corner of South Main Street, the same street Sean and I had taken together that first night on the way to Forde’s pub. We stopped for a moment and both of them hugged me. Then we parted without a word. There was nothing left to say.

  Legally, the case had ended successfully, but Deirdre was never coming home.

  EPILOGUE

  29th May 2014

  I was at my desk, staring out the window at the rooftops and the sky, and waiting, waiting. When the call came at last, I messaged Davy to let him know the news and said I’d talk to him more when I met him later. We saw each other most days. In my mind, I still wasn’t calling what we had going on between us a ‘relationship’. But the rest of the world probably would.

  My feet took me down the stairs to MacSwiney Street, along Liberty Street and on to Castle Street. Had Deirdre walked this way on the last evening of her life? I thought about her all the time, and about Rhona, who would still be alive if I hadn’t visited her that one time.

  By the time I got to the Roundy, other people knew the news too: it had come through on their phones. Early evening drinkers waved at me from sunlit tables, and gave me the thumbs-up. I’m famous now. I had had to give evidence after all. Cornered, Gill had gone on the attack – on Donnie and on me. I had spent three whole days in the witness box being cross-examined by his very expensive silk. Allegations of unprofessional behaviour were the least of it. He tried to target my mental state, brought up again the allegations he had made that I had threatened him and put him in fear, tried to suggest I had planted evidence.

  And the jury had bought none of it. Their verdict was unequivocal: Donnie Bryant and Jeremy Gill guilty of murder and Esther Gill guilty too. The truth about the twisted dynamic that had bound the trio together for so many years would remain a mystery, but special supplements were planned for the weekend’s papers, a ‘tell all’ television documentary was in production, and a hastily assembled true crime book was almost ready to go to press. I had been asked to give interviews, to tell my side, to write my own book. Several ghost writers had offered their services. My star had risen in the office too, now that I was bringing in more high-paying work, and getting publicity for the firm. Dermot Lyons greeted me civilly whenever we met on the stairs or in the coffee-room. I had even been asked back on to the Film Festival Board.

  I had declined all invitations.

  But I had put out feelers to the Macbrides, had said that I would like to meet them. Word had come back, via Sadie, that Mrs Macbride wasn’t ready to meet me, and that she might never be. I knew about that kind of unready, knew it all too well, had known it since I was sixteen, when I had first found out about my mother’s suicide.

  Now, that knowledge was no longer enough. After all this, I needed to know more about where I had come from. I needed to know about my birth mother, about who she had been before she had been an alcoholic, a diagnosis, a label. The search might take a long time, and wouldn’t be easy on me, I knew. But it would be equally hard on my mam and dad. What I had told them about Deirdre had come as a shock at the start. They hadn’t known that I had a half-sister, hadn’t been told about her by my birth mother. They hadn’t found out either from the social workers during the adoption process. At first, I hadn’t fully believed that, though I hadn’t said anything to them about my doubts. I had gone away and investigated on my own, had asked a colleague who worked in Child Protection about a hypothetical case involving a double adoption, preceded by fostering. She had told me that not only was it possible, it was likely that foster or adoptive parents wouldn’t know about a later sibling. She had said that things like that happened all the time. I had left it at that, tried to get on with things. I didn’t know how long it would take for me to get used to being alive while Deirdre was dead. Maybe I never would.

  I went down Cornmarket Street and, as I had often done those long months since November, on to the Coal Quay. Along from the footbridge, at the place where my sister had gone with the river, I looked down into the Lee, its waters still and quiet now. I counted the steps of the stone staircase, exposed to the air by the low tide. But, after a time, I turned my back to the river and leant against the quay wall. Hearing a ping, I checked my phone. It was a message from Davy.

  Good news about the trial. Great excuse for me to cancel a couple of yummy mummies. See you at your place around 6.30. OK?

  Smiling, I sent him a one-word reply.

  Yes.

  Acknowledgements

  I want to thank everyone who encouraged and supported me on the road to Darkest Truth, particularly my agent Luigi Bonomi and all at LBA Books; my publisher Selina Walker and all at Cornerstone, Penguin Random House UK and Penguin Ireland especially my editor Sonny Marr (Sonny, Selina and Luigi knocked the book into shape and allowed me to be far braver than I could ever have been on my own); my copy-editor Beth Humphries, Grace Long, and cover artist Emma Grey Gelder; the judges and organisers of the Penguin Random House UK and Daily Mail First Novel competition; my friends, colleagues and clients at Finbarr Murphy Solicitors and throughout the Cork legal community (by the way, everything in the book is completely made up, including a few locations, and not based on real people or legal cases; also the errors in the book are my own – and some are intentional); Nick Daly who, with great fortitude and kindness, read chunks of the earliest version of this book as it was going along; all the members of the Ulysses Reading Group whose ridiculously positive reactions to my weekly posts boosted my confidence enormously; Cork’s amazing reading, writing and creative community and its arts and literary institutions including Corcadorca, the Munster Literature Centre and Cork International Short Story Festival, the Cork World Book Festival, the City Library, the County Library, the ‘From the Well’ competition, Fiction at the Friary, Crosstown Drift (and Cork Midsummer Festival), West Cork Literary Festival, UCC School of English and Waterstone’s Cork; Cork’s various film festivals and film organisations (especially the oldest of them, Cork Film Festival, to which the Film Festival in this book bears much resemblance, though there are some differences); my book club friends who helped me to read better; and Alison Bonomi, Ann Luttrell, Anna Kelly, Billy O’Callaghan, Brian Murphy, Carol Quinn, Carys Davies, Christine Moore, Claire Connolly, Claire Kilroy, Colm Roberts, Danielle McLaughlin, Deirdre Kingston, Diarmaid, Miah and Nora Falvey, and Mary Jones, Dr Denise Syndercombe-Court, Eimear O’Herlihy, E.R. Murray, Fin Flynn, Ger Kenneally, Harry Moore, Helen Boyle, Helen Guerin, Jane Moore and John Strachan, Jean Kearney, Joan Sheehy, Joe Kelly, Joe McNicholas, John Breen, Jon Gower a
nd Sarah Hill, Jules O’Toole, Katie Dinneen, Kerry Dineen, Kieran O’Connor, Lily O’Sullivan, Lynn Sheehan, Madeleine D’Arcy, Maggie Kennedy, Marguerite Phillips, Maria O’Donovan, Marie Gethins, Mary Doyle, Mary Stanley, Michelle Nagle, Miriam O’Brien, Natalia Cacciatore, Norma Burke, Olan and Paul O’Donovan, Oonagh Montague, Peter, Nicola, Laura and Alex Byrne, Pat Cotter, Pat Kiernan, Patricia McVeigh, Paul McVeigh, Rachel Andrews, Sally Kearney, Sile Ni Bhroin, Siobhan Lankford, Sophie Dwyer, Stephen Darcy Collins, Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin and all at Inkwell Group and writing.ie, William Wall and Zsuzsi Gartner; and my family – Marcia Kirwan and Rob, Michael and Molly Regan, and Neil, Nicola and Elizabeth Kirwan and, for everything, my parents Michael and Breda Kirwan.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781473554306

  Version 1.0

  Published by Century 2019

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  Copyright © Catherine Kirwan 2019

  Images: Silas Manhood

  Design: Emma Grey Gelder

  Catherine Kirwan has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Century

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