The Witch Elm: A Novel

by Tana French

  “What was he like?”

  “I don’t know. Just a regular guy.”

  “Was he smart? Thick?”

  “Not really. I mean, not either one. Like he didn’t do great in school, but not because he was seriously thick? He just, he couldn’t be arsed.” Skull, dirt clot, yawn, I had been sitting under that tree just a few days before—

  “Nice guy? Sound?”

  “Yeah. Definitely. He, Dominic was a good guy.”

  “Did he get on with people?”

  Kerr was writing all this down and I had no idea why, what had I even said that was worth recording? “Yeah. He did.”

  “He was popular? Or just harmless?”

  “Popular. He was I guess really confident? Out, out—” Outgoing, I meant, couldn’t find it— “Always on for a laugh or, you know, action, like a party or whatever. And he was good at rugby, so that always helps, but I mean it wasn’t just that—” The rhythm of this was getting to me, no let-up, every answer seized and turned straight into a new question; like being back in the hospital, trapped in the bed, my head throbbing and Martin and Flashy Suit asking on and on—

  “Anyone you can think of who didn’t get on with him?”

  Actually I had a vague memory of Dominic taking the piss out of Leon, but a lot of guys had taken the piss out of Leon back then, and under the circumstances I didn’t think I should go into this. “Not really.”

  “What about girls? He do well there?”

  “Oh yeah. They threw themselves at him. It was kind of a, a thing? Like a joke? Whatever girl we were all into, Dom was the one who’d get with her first.”

  “We all know that guy,” Rafferty said, grinning. “The bastard. He piss anyone off with that? Rob anyone’s girlfriend, maybe?”

  “No way. Like I said, he was a good guy. He wouldn’t have hit on anyone’s girlfriend—bro code, you know? And the rest, the way girls were all into him . . . like I said, that was kind of a running joke. No one got upset about it.”

  “Easy for you to say, man, if you weren’t on the wrong end of it. Dominic ever get a girl you were into?”

  “Probably. I don’t remember.” This was true. I had been into just about every girl who was pretty or hot or both, back then; odds were Dominic had hooked up with at least some of them, but then I had done OK myself, so it hadn’t bothered me.

  “Did he stick to the hit-and-run stuff? Or did he have a girlfriend of his own?”

  “Not when he . . . Not that summer. I think he was maybe going out with someone for a while, like the year before? Maybe some girl from St. Therese’s, that’s our sister school? But it wasn’t, like, a big serious thing.”

  “When did it end?”

  I saw what he was getting at, but— “No. Ages before he— And I think he dumped her. Either way, he wasn’t torn up about it or anything. That wasn’t why . . .” I stopped. I was getting mixed up.

  “About that,” Rafferty said. “When you heard he’d killed himself. Did that make sense to you? Or were you surprised?”

  “I don’t—” My bedroom upstairs, rolling over with a grunt to grab my insistent phone, Dec’s voice: Did you hear? About Dominic? “I mean, yeah, I was shocked. He didn’t seem like the type, at all. But everyone knew he hadn’t got the course he wanted, like for college? He wanted to do Business, I think, but he didn’t get the points in the Leaving Cert. And he was pretty upset about that. So he’d been kind of off, that summer.”

  “Depressed?”

  “Not really. More like angry, a lot of the time. Like he was taking it out on the rest of us who’d got into the courses we wanted.”

  “Angry,” Rafferty repeated thoughtfully. “That cause any problems?”

  “Like what?”

  “Dominic get into any fights? Piss anyone off?”

  “Not exactly. Mostly he was just kind of a bollix, like getting nasty with people out of nowhere? But nobody held it against him. We all got it.”

  “That’s pretty understanding,” Rafferty said. “For a bunch of teenage boys.”

  I did some kind of shrug. The truth was that I at least hadn’t thought very much about Dominic, that summer, except for the odd moment of pity tinged with smugness. My mind had been on college, freedom, a week in Mykonos with Sean and Dec; Dominic’s strops (pinning Darragh O’Rourke against the wall and shouting in his face, after some harmless comment, then storming off when the rest of us broke it up) had been low on my priority list.

  “Looking back, do you think he might have been in worse shape than you realized? Teenagers, they don’t always know how to spot the signs that someone’s in real trouble. They’re all half mental anyway; even when someone’s falling apart, they just figure it’s more of the same.”

  “I guess he could have been,” I said, after a moment. “He was definitely . . .” I couldn’t come up with the right way to describe it, the raw, splintered, unpredictable energy that had made me start avoiding Dominic that summer. “He was off.”

  “Put it this way. If one of your friends right now started acting the way Dominic was that summer, would you be worried?”

  “I guess. Yeah. I would be.”

  “Right,” Rafferty said. He was leaning forwards, hands clasped between his knees, gazing at me like I was making some valuable contribution to the investigation. “When did he start acting out of character? Ballpark, even.”

  “I don’t . . .” It had been years since I’d thought about any of this. “I mean, I wouldn’t swear to this. At all.” Rafferty nodded understandingly. “But I think it sort of started around the Leaving Cert orals, so April? And then it got way worse in June, with the written exams. He knew he’d fucked up. Like, most of us? we were all stressing about how we’d done, except a few nerds who knew they’d got a million points; one day we’d be all ‘Yeah, I should be fine’ and the next we’d be like ‘Oh shit, what if . . .’ But Dominic was like, ‘I’m fucked.’ End of. And it was obviously wrecking his head. And when the results came out in August and yeah, he actually had done as badly as he thought, then he got even worse.”

  “Why’d he do so badly? You said he wasn’t thick.”

  “He wasn’t. He just hadn’t studied. He”—hard to explain—“Dominic’s parents were rich. They kind of, I guess they spoiled him? Like he always had everything, cool phones and cool holidays and designer gear, and before sixth year they bought him a BMW?” Sudden vague memory of resentment, my dad had laughed in my face, Better start saving— “I think it just, like, genuinely never occurred to him that he might not get something he wanted. Including whatever course he wanted. So he didn’t bother studying. And by the time it hit him, it was too late.”

  “Did he ever do drugs?” And, wryly, when I hesitated: “Toby. It’s been ten years. Even if I was looking to bang people up for a bit of hash or a few pills, which I’m not, the statute of limitations ran out years back. And I haven’t cautioned you; anything you say wouldn’t be admissible in evidence. I just need to get a feel for what was going on in Dominic’s life.”

  “Yeah,” I said, after a moment. “He did drugs sometimes.”

  “What kinds?”

  “I know he did hash, and E. And coke, sometimes.” Dominic had liked coke, a lot. It hadn’t been all that common, back in school, but when there was some around it had been his more often than not, and he had been good about sharing with the host: clap on my shoulder during a party, C’mon over here, Henno, I need a word, sneaking to the bottom of the garden snickering and swearing as our feet sank into mud, lines chopped out on a rusty little garden table. “There could’ve been other stuff, I don’t know. That’s all I saw him with. And he wasn’t some junkie, or anything. Just . . . when it was going.”

  “Your basic teenage experimenting,” Rafferty said, nodding. Kerr was writing away. “Any hassle there, do you know? A dealer he didn’t pay, someone who ripped
him off, anything like that?”

  “Not that I know about. But I probably wouldn’t have known anyway.”

  “That’s right. You weren’t friends friends.” He left that there for a moment that made me vaguely uneasy. “Was Dominic ever at this house?”

  “Yeah,” I said. This felt like something I shouldn’t admit, but there didn’t seem to be much choice. “Me and my cousins, we used to stay here during the holidays? And we’d have parties? I mean, not like mad raves or, I mean Hugo was right here, but he’d stay upstairs—we’d just have a bunch of mates over, put on music, hang out and talk and maybe dance—”

  “And drink,” Rafferty put in, grinning. “And the other stuff. Let’s be honest here.”

  “Yeah. Sometimes. We weren’t, like not a drug den or orgies or anything, but . . . I mean, this wasn’t when we were like twelve, I’m talking when we were sixteen, seventeen, eighteen? Mostly it was just a few cans, or someone would have a bottle of vodka or—and I guess sometimes people would have hash or whatever—”

  I knew I was stammering and babbling, I could see Kerr’s face getting a subtle look of very sympathetic understanding like it was dawning on him that I was a bit unfortunate. I wanted to grab him by the collar and shout in his face, get it into his thick head that that was nothing to do with me, it was all because of two worthless skanger pricks and he should be fucking giving them that look, not me. Everything inside my head was ricocheting.

  Somewhere in there, although I can’t pinpoint it exactly, had been the moment when all this turned real. Up until then it had been basically an outrageous pain in the arse—horrible, sure, obviously, and grotesque, presumably this poor guy (or girl, whatever) hadn’t planned on having his skull fished out of a tree and God knew what kind of tragic story had gone on there, but it would have been really fucking nice if he had picked some other tree; but, apart from in the geographical sense, nothing to do with us. Even through the first half of this conversation, I had had the same feeling, even when Rafferty said the skeleton wasn’t old, even when he showed me the photo—Dominic, Jesus Christ, didn’t see that coming, how the fuck did he wind up in there? It had taken a while to sink in that we weren’t spectators any more; we were, somehow, inside this.

  “And Dominic came to these parties?” Rafferty asked.

  “Yeah. Not always, but I guess most of them.”

  “How many?”

  I had no idea. “Maybe we had three or four parties that summer, and he came to two or three? And around the same the summer before that, and the one before that. But I don’t, I mean I’m just guessing?”

  “Fair enough. It’s been a long time; we don’t expect anyone’s memory to be perfect. Just give us what you’ve got. If you don’t remember, that’s grand, go ahead and say that.” Rafferty smiled at me, all easy and reassuring. “Who would’ve invited him to the parties? Would that have been you? Or was he closer to one of your cousins?”

  “Me, probably. I’d just send out a group text to all the guys.”

  “Was he ever here apart from the parties? Like, did he ever call round on his own? Or with a few of your mates?”

  “I’m not—” What flashed up in my mind was me and Leon and Susanna on the terrace, the first time we got stoned, the three of us giggling like maniacs and I was almost positive another laugh in the darkness, had that been Dominic’s catching chuckle, hadn’t it? “I think so. I can’t remember any, any specific times, but I think he was over now and then.”

  “Would you remember the last time he was here?”

  Dominic lying back on his elbows in the grass grinning across at Susanna, had it been Susanna? Dominic shouting with laughter, in the kitchen, over the shards and splatter of a dropped beer bottle. “I don’t know,” I said. “Sorry.”

  “What about the last time you saw him?”

  “I don’t have a clue. I don’t think it was right before he went missing, because I would remember that”—maybe—“I mean, it sounds like the kind of thing I’d have been telling people, afterwards, right? ‘Oh my God, I just saw him that day and he looked fine’? And I don’t remember doing that. So . . .”

  “Makes sense,” Rafferty said, which was charitable of him. “The last time Dominic was seen was—let’s see here”—reaching for his notebook, flipping—“the twelfth of September. That was a Monday. He was working a part-time summer job at a golf club; he finished up there around five, got home around six and had dinner with his family. They all went to bed around half-eleven. Sometime during the night, Dominic snuck out, and he never came home.” A glance up at me: “Any idea what you were doing that day? Whether you were in the country, even?”

  “I was staying here. Me and Susanna and Leon, we’d been here most of the summer. But I don’t—”

  Kerr shifted, chair creaking. “Why?” he asked.

  I stared at him blankly. “Why what?”

  Patiently: “You stayed here for the summer. How come?”

  “We always did.” And, when he kept looking at me: “Our parents go traveling together.”

  “You were eighteen that summer, but. Would you not have rathered stay on your own at your parents’ house? Free gaff, no uncle keeping an eye on you. Party time.”

  “Yeah, no, I could’ve. But—” How could I explain? “We all liked it here. And it was more fun with three of us. We were all single, that summer, so it’s not like we wanted to play house with our girlfriends or boyfriends. We just wanted to hang out.”

  “Sounds like they did all right for parties even with the uncle around,” Rafferty told Kerr, grinning. “Amn’t I right, Toby?”

  “Right.” I managed a weak smile. “But I don’t have a clue whether we were here that actual day. We all had summer jobs, so probably we were at those?”

  “Unless you were too hungover, right? Been there. Where were you working?”

  “I was”—it took me a second to get my summers straight—“I was in the, the post room at the bank where my uncle Oliver works. Susanna was volunteering for a, one of those nonprofits, I can’t remember which one. And Leon was working at a record shop in town.”

  “What time would you have finished up there?”

  “I think I finished at five? And then probably we came back here for dinner, that’s what we mostly . . . Maybe we might have gone out afterwards, or people might have come here, but if it was a Monday then probably not . . . But I don’t actually remember.”

  “That’s OK. We’ll ask around, see if any of your gang kept a diary. Check out social media—Myspace, wouldn’t it have been, back then?—see if anyone posted about their day.” Rafferty straightened up, hands on the arms of the chair: winding this up. “Since the dead person had links to this house,” he said, “we’re going to need to search it.”

  The fireball of outrage took my breath away. “But,” I said, and stopped.

  “That’s one reason why I wanted to talk to you on your own,” Rafferty said, apparently not noticing. “Your uncle. I hope I’m not putting my foot in it here, but is he all right?”

  “No,” I said. “He’s dying. Brain cancer. He’s got maybe a few months.”

  If I hoped this would be some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card, I was wrong. Rafferty grimaced. “Sorry to hear that. I’m glad I talked to you first; maybe you can help me come up with a plan to make this as easy on him as possible. We’ll do our best to work fast, but realistically, it’s going to take us the guts of today. Is there anywhere the two of you could go for the day? Somewhere your uncle would be comfortable?”

  “No,” I said. Actually I had no idea whether Hugo would mind clearing out for the day, but I minded, for him and for myself, with a savagery that made no sense but I didn’t give a fuck. “He needs to be here. He can barely walk. And he gets confused.”

  “The thing is,” Rafferty explained, very reasonably, “we don’t have any choice about searc
hing the house. That needs doing. We’ve got a warrant and all. And you can see how we can’t have the two of you hanging over our shoulders.”

  We looked at each other, across the coffee table. The terrible part was that I knew, with total and wretched certainty, that just a few months ago I would have been able to talk them round: easy-peasy, no problem to me, charming smile and some perfect solution that would make everyone happy. The gibbering mess I was now couldn’t have talked round a five-year-old, even if I had been able to come up with a solution, which I couldn’t: the only thing I could think of was going all Occupy Ivy House and telling these guys that they would have to handcuff me and drag me out, and even apart from the cringe factor I had a feeling they would cheerfully do exactly that if they had to.

  “Tell you what,” Rafferty said, relenting. “Split the difference. You and your uncle clear out of our way for, what, say an hour?”

  He glanced at Kerr. “Hour and a half, maybe,” Kerr said. His notebook had vanished.

  “Hour and a half. Go get some lunch, do the shopping. While you’re out, we’ll do the study and the kitchen. Then when you get back, you can stick to those rooms—get your work done, make yourselves a cup of tea if you want one—and we won’t be in each other’s way. How does that sound?”

  “OK,” I said, after a moment. “I guess.”

  “Great,” Rafferty said cheerfully. “Sorted, so.”

  When I stood up, he did too. At first I didn’t understand why. It was only as he followed me up the stairs to Hugo’s study that I got it, and that I realized: Since the dead person had links to this house, we’re going to need to search it. We’ve got a warrant and all; but a few minutes earlier, he had made it sound like he had only just that moment found out who the dead person was.

  * * *

  I wasn’t supposed to drive, but Hugo clearly couldn’t, and there was no way in hell I was going to make him walk the streets till Rafferty and his pals finished doing their thing. His car was a long white 1994 Peugeot, rust spots and duct tape everywhere, but actually a nice drive once I started getting the hang of its quirks. The hard part was the surroundings, out on the main road: speed and colored lights and moving things everywhere, like being yanked up from the depths of still green water into way too much of everything. I hoped to God I was driving OK; I really, really couldn’t handle any more cops right then.