Impostor

by L. J. Ross

  Connor nodded, and continued to look out across the garden.

  “Can you help somebody like that? What if they’re too far gone?”

  “Nobody is beyond redemption,” Gregory said quietly. “It can take years of intensive therapy, but people can change.”

  He had to believe it, or go mad himself.

  CHAPTER 13

  Later, when the rain had begun to patter a melody against the windowpanes of her little cottage, Aideen McArdle set a steaming bowl of potatoes on the dining room table and settled down to eat with her family.

  “Colm, you go easy on that butter,” she said, watching her husband scoop a dollop onto his plate. “You know what the doctor said about your cholesterol.”

  He made a raspberry sound.

  “I’m as fit as a fiddle,” he said. “My old Da ate a full Irish breakfast every morning and he lived to be ninety-one.”

  Aideen pursed her lips.

  “That’s as maybe,” she said, obliquely. “But the doctor—”

  “Now, don’t fret yourself,” he said, and deliberately scraped the butter to one side of his plate. “I’ll be here to pester you for many more years to come, the good Lord willing.”

  Aideen reached across the table to grasp her husband’s hand. She looked down at their crinkled skin, marred by age spots and hard work, and gave his fingers a squeeze.

  “There, now,” she said, briskly. “Who’s for some more of this beef?”

  Her children and grandchildren crowded around the table beside her, still dressed in black from the funeral earlier that day. As she watched her daughter-in-law spoon vegetables onto a plate for the youngest member of the McArdle family, she thought of Claire Kelly and those she had left behind. It was a terrible thing for a child to lose its mother, and she could only be grateful that her own kin hadn’t been touched by such tragedy.

  When their plates were piled high, they joined hands and said a prayer for the departed. They were illuminated by a lampshade overhead, framing their bent heads in a backdrop of warm yellow light inside the window, which stood out like a beacon through the falling rain.

  To the one who watched, they seemed unreal; a perfect microcosm of what ‘family life’ should be. Though there was no sound, they could imagine the laughter, and, with a little effort, they could lip-read what Aideen was saying to the children who came and pressed their sticky faces to her chest.

  “Run along and play,” she told the youngest. “Wash your hands before you go near my sofa!”

  Her warmth spread across the cold evening air and, to their addled brain, her smile might have been meant for them, and them alone.

  * * *

  The showers grew heavier as the afternoon became early evening. Gregory made a dash through the rain, dodging puddles as he followed the directions he’d been given to Maggie’s house, where he was invited for dinner. Mayor Byrne’s home turned out to be more than ‘a quick stretch of the legs’ from the centre of town, and he was beginning to regret not taking up the offer of a lift as he rounded a corner and was faced with another steep, cobbled incline. There were no road signs and, with the rain falling in every direction, he could barely make out any light at its summit. He raised a hand to shield his eyes, peered through the gloom and then, with a fatalistic shrug, dug in his heels and jogged lightly up the hill, clutching a bottle of wine he’d bought from a little shop on the way.

  To his relief, Maggie’s house awaited him at the top. Like most things in Ballyfinny, it was a quaint, modest affair; white-painted with a dark green front door. When the rain was not falling in sheets, he imagined it would enjoy breath-taking views but, for the present, he was more concerned with the shelter it afforded indoors.

  Four cars were parked on the road outside; two of which he recognised as belonging to Niall and Connor Byrne, and one he assumed belonged to Maggie—but he wondered about the fourth. None of the Byrne family had mentioned a family patriarch, and the mayor wore no wedding ring, so he’d assumed she was a divorcee or had chosen not to marry Connor and Niall’s father, good manners having prevented him from enquiring further.

  Perhaps there was a Mr Byrne Senior, after all.

  Gregory hurried up a short pathway towards a covered porch with a hanging lantern, which was swinging wildly as the wind picked up. He ducked underneath and shook out the waterproof raincoat he’d borrowed from the hotel. Water ran in rivulets across his face and he pushed dark, wet hair back from his forehead, no longer the smartly-dressed, city psychologist but a man caught in the rain, like any other.

  He raised a hand to rap his knuckles on the door, which had neither a knocker nor a bell, a fact he found entirely in keeping with the owner’s personality. Maggie Byrne was not the sort of woman to invite idle knocking at her door, nor to display gaudy brass knockers in the shape of prancing animals.

  Presently, he heard the sound of footsteps approaching and squared his shoulders, preparing to greet the lady herself.

  But, when the door opened, another woman stood on the threshold; one with long, slender limbs and hair the colour of spun gold.

  “Emma?”

  The woman he’d met briefly that morning smiled, though it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “Hello, again.”

  They were cocooned for a moment in time while they measured one another. Then, she gestured for him to step inside.

  “You’d better come in,” she said. “Dinner’s nearly ready.”

  Gregory shrugged out of his coat and hung it from one of the pegs inside the porch, then joined her in the hallway. Emma shut the door to the wind and then seemed to hesitate, but any conversation was forestalled by the arrival of the lady of the house.

  “There you are,” Maggie said, as her head appeared around the kitchen doorway. “Thought we’d have to send out a search party. Did you get lost?”

  “A couple of times,” he admitted. “Ever think of putting up some street signs around here?”

  The mayor let out a short, booming laugh that ricocheted around the walls.

  “Why bother? It’s more fun watching outsiders wander around in the rain. Come on in, and dry yourself,” she said.

  Gregory followed Emma down the hallway to a cosy kitchen that gleamed with polished copper pans which hung from a rack in the centre of the room, where a chunky wooden table had been set for six.

  “It’s not much, but it’s mine,” Maggie smiled, and wiped her hands on a striped tea towel. “I see you’ve already met my daughter-in-law.”

  Not a flicker of emotion passed over Gregory’s face, which remained entirely neutral as she imparted the information.

  “We met very briefly this morning,” he said, and turned to look at the woman standing a careful distance away from him. “Which brother are you married to?”

  “I married Niall seven years ago,” Emma said, quietly.

  An awkward silence fell, then Maggie cleared her throat.

  “The boys are in the living room,” she said. “Would you ask them to come through, love?”

  Emma’s eyes passed over him as she left, and his skin prickled as though it had been burned.

  “They’ve been having a few troubles,” Maggie explained, once they were alone. “They’re trying to work through them, for Declan’s sake. That’s my grandson.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Maggie nodded, assuming that he was sorry for their troubles, and not because they were making an effort to resolve them.

  He was a healer first and always, Gregory thought, with some resentment. Not a red-blooded man like any other.

  “Can I help with anything?” he asked, to distract himself.

  But Maggie shooed him away, so he uncorked the bottle of wine he’d brought and set it on the table to breathe.

  Then, picked it up again and poured them both a glass.

  “Well, if it isn’t the shaman, himself,” Niall declared, as he entered the kitchen.

  Gregory shook the man’s hand, and a quick assessment t
old him the inspector had already made a head start on the alcohol.

  “You found us, then,” Connor said, taking a seat beside him at the table.

  “I might take you up on that lift, next time,” Gregory joked.

  “Declan’s happy watching cartoons on TV,” Emma said, taking a seat beside her husband.

  “He should learn to sit and have dinner with us,” Niall replied, and started to get up again to go in search of his son.

  “He’s happy,” she muttered, her eyes begging him not to make an issue of it. “Why not leave him to it? He’ll be bored listening to adult conversation, and I don’t want him to overhear anything about Claire.”

  “I’ll take him a supper plate later,” Maggie said, and placed a firm hand on her son’s shoulder before he could argue. “Declan will soon tell us, if he’s hungry before then.”

  The matter decided, she took her seat at the head of the table.

  “Well, don’t let it go cold,” she declared.

  They helped themselves to bowls of meatballs marinara before Maggie spoke again.

  “I had Liam Kelly at my door again, today,” she said, without rancour. “He wants to meet you, Alex.”

  “Is that a good idea?” Connor wondered. “Liam’s hurting. He doesn’t know what he wants, or needs.”

  Gregory swallowed, then set his fork down.

  “Liam needs compassion,” he said softly, and Emma looked up to meet his eyes across the table.

  He was the first to look away.

  “I’m not here in a clinical capacity, but I’m here to profile his wife’s killer,” he continued. “The man needs some reassurance that I’m here to help bring justice for Claire, not somebody who’s out to make a name for himself.”

  Niall sloshed more wine into his glass, and took a long drink, swilling the liquid around his mouth before swallowing.

  “Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t,” he muttered, not quite under his breath. “It’s why you get into the business, isn’t it? To get inside people’s heads and feel superior, while people tell you how bloody good you are?”

  Gregory was torn between anger and pity, but one look at Maggie’s face decided it. There was history here, he realised, something he knew nothing about.

  Pity won.

  “Maybe some people go into psychology to understand themselves better,” he replied, and took his time twirling a fork around a long string of spaghetti. “Getting inside people’s heads, as you put it, is really a way of understanding their own.”

  He felt Emma’s eyes on him again, but did not meet them this time.

  “As for making a name for myself, I’ve already made one,” he continued. “I don’t need another. I have my own work waiting for me in London and the patients there aren’t all household names. They’re ordinary people the world will never know. For various reasons, they took the wrong path and need guidance to get back onto the right one. Some make it, others don’t.”

  He spoke directly to Niall.

  “I’m not superhuman; none of us are. Psychologists and psychiatrists, and everybody else working in the field, are mortals and that means we make mistakes, sometimes. I’m sorry if somebody made a mistake in the past, and it cost you, Niall. But, right now, I want the same thing you do. I want to help Liam Kelly sleep soundly at night, knowing the person who killed his wife won’t be doing the same thing to anybody else.”

  “Oh yeah?” Niall said. “What if we don’t find him? What if he’s too good for us, and we never find him? What do we tell Liam Kelly, then?”

  “You will find him,” Gregory said quietly.

  “How do you know?” Connor toyed with a meatball on his plate. “He’s ahead of us, so far.”

  “Whoever makes the first move will always be one step ahead,” Maggie remarked. “It’s a game of catch-up, to begin with.”

  Gregory nodded slowly.

  “Exactly. There’s always a pattern. It’s just a matter of finding it and understanding the killer’s motivation.”

  “Who cares what his motivation is?” Niall burst out. “Who bloody cares what this maniac thinks?”

  “It helps us to understand why he does what he does,” Gregory replied. “By looking at why he chose Claire, we can understand what makes him tick. I’m not asking you to empathise with his reasons, I’m asking you to consider what they were.”

  “She was gentle,” Emma said, looking around the table. “Claire tried to be firm with the kids at school, but they had her wrapped around their little fingers, most of the time. God rest her.”

  It fitted Gregory’s image of Claire Kelly as an accessible target.

  “How she was likely to react to danger would have been a major contributing factor, when her killer made his choice. When they sense danger, some women will freeze, like a deer in the headlights,” he said, keeping his voice down in case Declan should overhear. “Others will fight, tooth and nail.”

  “And some go looking for danger,” Emma finished for him.

  This time, he met her gaze.

  “Yes,” he said softly. “Or it finds them.”

  * * *

  That night, Alex dreamed of a woman with long, red hair.

  She walked ahead and just out of reach, leading him along a pathway through the woods. Rain beat down upon them both, plastering the shirt to his back as he hurried to keep her in sight. He reached out to touch her, but she spun away, laughing, her skin pale and sleek as she blinked water from her eyes.

  He smiled too, and felt weightless with a lightness of being he hadn’t experienced in a very long time.

  Perhaps never.

  She started to run, faster and faster as she led him further along the path. He kept pace with her, legs burning as the surrounding woodland became a blur, feet skidding against the sodden earth as he tried not to fall.

  He never wanted to fall.

  Eventually, her footsteps slowed and then stopped beside a long wooden fence bordering one side of the path. He came to stand beside her and reached out his hand again, but his fingers found nothing but air.

  He spun around, searching for her.

  “Emma? Where are you? Where did you go?”

  But she was nowhere to be found, and he started to panic.

  “Emma! Come back! It’s not safe!”

  His eye fell on a small chink in the fence, where one of the wooden slats had come loose. A single strand of long, red hair was caught on the edge, and he crouched down to tug it away. When he did, the slat swung to one side, revealing a narrow gap. Through it, he saw a garden with a well-tended lawn and a long, white-painted wooden house with large windows. In one of them, a pale pink lampshade burned brightly while a red-haired woman and her son read a storybook on a small child’s bed.

  Emma.

  He tried to rush forward, but his clothes caught on the fence and surrounding branches, which nipped at his skin.

  “Emma! Don’t stay there! It’s not safe!”

  He twisted and turned to free himself, but the grip seemed to tighten and, when he looked again, he realised it was not branches that held him back.

  It was two people.

  “I’ll look after the little boy,” Cathy Jones whispered, while her purple-painted hands gripped his right arm.

  “It’s God’s will,” Father Walsh said, gripping the left.

  Gregory fought against them, thrashing wildly until he broke free of the nightmare and returned to reality, but not before he heard the soft sound of a baby’s cry.

  CHAPTER 14

  Sunday

  After a restless night, Gregory spent much of the early hours compiling a long list of residents who, by their own admission, had the logistical means and opportunity to have killed Claire Kelly. Her assailant was more likely to be male, so he prioritised that gender but did not discount the possibility of there being another motive for her death; particularly, given what he had learned about Claire’s former relationship with Tom Reilly, the headmaster at the school where she worked. />
  Revenge was as good a motive as any, particularly for a woman scorned.

  A cold cup of coffee stood on the desk beside him, the milk having formed a floating crust sometime during the past four hours since he’d last touched it, and Gregory took that as a sign it was time to move on. He was due back at Southmoor Hospital by Monday morning, so he’d booked a late flight back to London that evening. In the intervening hours, he hoped to learn as much as he could about Claire’s friends and neighbours, especially those whose names were now written inside his notebook. Since it was Sunday, many of those people would be attending Mass, so he decided to overcome his natural aversion to religious ceremonies and join them.

  He ran into Seamus Murphy and Padraig as he left the hotel a short while later, and the two men walked companionably beside him along the country lane towards Ballyfinny.

  Gregory knew that Padraig lived in a small groundskeeper’s cottage down near the waterside, and the manager of the hotel kept an apartment on one of the upper floors of the castle, so he could be on hand to deal with any emergency as it arose. Today, both men were dressed in their ‘Sunday Best’, consisting of suit, shirt and tie—though they wore sturdy walking shoes for the journey along the woodland lane. The rain had stopped sometime during the night, but the ground remained damp and their feet squelched through layers of fallen leaves and mulch. It was hard to mind, since the storm had cleared the way for blue, cloudless skies, allowing sunlight to filter unhindered through the trees in shards of dappled light. There was a freshness to the air, Alex thought—as though the rain had washed away the sins of yesterday, leaving a fresh canvas upon which they could paint something new.

  “Maggie tells me you’re giving Niall and Connor plenty of food for thought,” Seamus said, after they’d walked for a few minutes in comfortable silence. “Are you getting any closer?”

  Gregory was circumspect.

  “We’re making some progress,” he said.

  “Can’t come soon enough,” Seamus replied. “It’s hard on the boys.”