He suggests they start upstairs and work their way down. He tells them to take their time.
As soon as they’ve left the room, he drops into one of the chairs at the dining table and puts his head in his hands, willing the pulsating in his brain to slow or stop. It’s been developing for the past hour, threatening since the middle of last night. He should’ve taken something for it hours ago.
He hears the woman’s voice in the hall mutter, “Fucking shit tip.”
“You have to use your imagination, Em.”
“And that guy looks like he has Ebola.”
“Ssshhh …”
He can barely think through the pain. He knows the pills will start to dull it soon, but what until then? The kitchen starts to feel like its spinning. He pulls one of the brochures toward him and tries to focus on the text, a steady center in all the movement.
R&P Estate Agents are proud to present this superb three-bedroom semi-detached home in this ever popular, mature, and sought-after location. The property is close to all amenities and offers easy access to the M50, public transport links, and all main arteries through the city and beyond. Accommodation is over two floors, the centerpiece being an open-plan kitchen/living space, which offers flexible options to suit any style of living, thus enabling the purchaser to tailor their new home to their family’s needs and put their own stamp on the property. It benefits from a south-facing garden, ample off-street parking and built-in storage in all three bedrooms. The main bathroom requires some modernization but it is a sizeable space with great potential. The previous owners began the conversion of the attic space into a fourth bedroom, a project which, when complete, will offer panoramic views over South Dublin. Welcome home.
He wrote it himself, so he knows what it really means. R&P Estate Agents will pretend to be proud to present anything you pay us to, including this musty, neglected, bog-standard three-bedroom semi. The housing market being the way it is, we could park a septic tank in the shell of a burnt-out house anywhere between the sea and the motorway and get more than the asking price from one of the hundreds who’d queue up to view it. Easy access to the M50? Sure. But only before eight in the morning and after seven at night, because there’s about fifteen sets of traffic lights to get through before you get to the on-ramp. Since you’re going to have to gut the place entirely, you might as well make it look the way you like. You can start with removing the storage upstairs, which comes in the form of unsightly 1970s-era built-ins that dominate every room to the point of oppression. They actually finished the attic conversion but never secured planning permission for it, so we can’t say they did. Bonus: the ceiling up there is so dramatically sloped that the Velux window is at chest height, so if you bend down a bit you’ll get a view of a sea of slate roofs and, beyond them, the monstrous eyesore that is the new incinerator at Poolbeg.
The “welcome home” bit was the boss’ idea. All the agents add it with an eye-roll to the end of every property description R&P put out.
He hears footsteps directly above his head, dull thumps on the bare floorboards in the master bedroom. He folds his arms on the tabletop and rests his head on them. He wishes he could sleep. He will when they leave. He’ll take a nap. There’s an old blanket in the boot of his car. He can put it on one of the cold, damp beds upstairs and lie down on top.
He slides into the bliss of that idea. That’s all he needs: to sleep for a while. He’d been up all night. A couple of hours of it and he’ll be able to think clearly. Then he can sort everything out.
He just needs to sleep …
Footsteps, on the decking outside.
He wakes up with a jolt, nearly knocking over the chair he was sitting on in his rush to get to the kitchen window. The couple are outside, in the back garden. They must have gone out through the double-doors in the living room. He must have dozed off.
The man is walking toward the shed.
The pills are working hard to dull the pain, making him groggy. He struggles to turn the lock in the double-doors here, in the kitchen, and half-stumbles out onto the deck.
The woman is out there, flipping through the brochure.
“So no garage?” she says to him. “I didn’t see one …”
He answers automatically. “There’s certainly space for it.”
The man is at the shed now.
The padlock on the door glints in the sunshine. But it’s not the door that worries him.
It’s that side window.
“I think they’re taking that with them,” he calls out as he starts down the garden, trying not to look like he’s hurrying.
The man turns, frowns at him. “The shed? Really? Do people do that?”
“Sometimes, yes. Have you seen the side entrance?”
“Yeah, on our way in.”
“Your wife was asking about a garage.”
“Wife,” the man repeats. He smiles. “She’ll love that.”
“Oh, is she not …?”
“We’re not married, no.”
The woman is standing on the decking, shielding her eyes from the sun, looking at them.
“Why don’t we go back inside?” he suggests. “You two can take a closer look at the kitchen.”
The man hesitates. He looks at the shed again. “Yeah …”
“Filled with junk, that thing is.” He points at it. “Right to the door. They’ll have a hell of a time clearing it out before they move it. I don’t envy them.”
The man nods. “Probably a good thing they’re taking it with them. I’d do exactly the same thing.” He laughs and starts back up the garden, back toward the house.
Away from the shed.
Finally.
On the deck the woman is looking bored and impatient. She starts walking toward the man.
“They’re taking the shed,” he tells her, raising his voice to cover the distance between them.
She makes a face. “Do people do that?”
When both halves of the couple are within feet of the deck again, he goes to the shed’s door and tugs on the padlock, double-checking. Locked. Then he goes to the window, which is grimy and partially blocked by a stack of shelves inside, but still offers a narrow view of the interior of the shed.
The wheeled plastic garbage bin is still standing there.
property of st john’s college, it says on the side.
At the sight of it, the pain in his head throbs harder. It’s all gone wrong and he’s not sure how to make it right.
He turns and heads back to the house.
alison, now
When Malone said we, of course, he meant he and Shaw needed to leave.
“What about Will?” I asked. “Am I still going to see him?”
“Maybe one of the local lads could bring her?” Shaw suggested to Malone.
“Yeah, maybe.” He turned to me. “Leave it with us.”
“When do you think …?”
“It’ll be a few hours, at least.”
“You’re taking the picture,” I said. “I won’t be able to show it to him.”
“I don’t want you showing him,” Shaw said. “We”—he indicated him and Malone—“need to see Will’s reaction for ourselves, and we need to record it. I want a formal interview. That’s what you can do: get him to talk to us.”
“I’ll call you,” Malone said to me.
After they left, my mother made lunch for both of us, peppering me with questions about what the detectives and I had talked about between bites. I dutifully filled her in, sticking to the bullet points.
“A girl is missing,” I said then. “A first-year from St. John’s.”
“Oh, no.” My mother shook her head. “God, that’s awful. Her poor parents. Imagine what they must be thinking.” She started clearing the plates. “I’ll put on the news. They might have something on about it.”
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br /> I had no interest if they did.
“Can I take a shower, Mam?”
“A shower?” She smiled. “I have something much better than that, love.”
Turns out my mother’s newfound love for interior design extended to indulging in luxury bathroom features as well. She led me upstairs, to the en suite off the master bedroom and then motioned for me to go in so I’d discover it for myself: a giant, freestanding bathtub that almost came up to my hip. There was a wire shelf set across it, providing a resting place for various bottles of bubble bath and maybe a book.
“I situate your father downstairs,” she said, “and I come up here, put in my bubbles, pour a nice glass of wine and then I have the Kindle but do you know what I do with it? I put in a ziplock bag! Isn’t that a good idea? You can have that one for free.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Mam, what is all this? The house, the bath, the garden. Did you guys win the Lotto or something and decide not to tell me?”
“No, I just … You know.” She gave a little shrug. “What else would I be doing? I have to occupy my time somehow.” She smiled, denoting it a joke, but the translation I heard was, My only child refuses to come visit, and grandkids? What are those?
I was beginning to see that I wasn’t the only one who’d lost a part of herself to the past.
My mother left me with soft towels and an array of smelly things, and only after I’d told her three times no, no, really, I wouldn’t have any wine. The tub took forever to fill but the wait was worth it. Sinking my shoulders beneath the hot, rose-scented water was a moment of pure, unadulterated bliss.
I closed my eyes.
I thought of Will.
My phone began to ring.
I’d left it on a facecloth on the wire shelf. I pulled myself up out of the water again to check the screen.
Sal.
Before I could think too much about what would happen next, I picked up the phone and answered it.
“Ali? Sorry, I didn’t expect you to answer … I was just going to leave a message. Are you okay? What’s going on? Can you talk?”
“Sal.” It was so nice to hear her voice. It felt like an age since I’d spoke to her last and, for us, it really was. “Sal, listen. There’s something I need to tell you.”
“What’s wrong?” Her words were sharp with concern.
“I’m fine. Physically fine, anyway. Everyone is. The reason I’m here … I came here because …” I didn’t know where to start. “It’s a really long story.”
“I have time.”
“I should’ve told you it long ago.”
“That’s okay,” she said, although she sounded a little uncertain. “You’re telling me now.”
“It’s about something that happened before I came to the Netherlands. It’s why I came to the Netherlands, actually.”
“Ali, whatever this is—do you want to tell me it? Don’t feel you have to.”
“No, no. I do. I want to.” I bit my lip; tears were threatening. “I need to, Sal.”
“Well … I’m listening.”
It would be better, I decided, to do this quickly. All in one go. Rip off the Band-Aid.
I took a deep breath.
“I went to college in Ireland,” I said. “For one year. Before I went in Den Hague. A place called St. John’s, here in Dublin. And while I was there, there was a series of … of murders. Five girls. There’s this canal that runs through the city, right by the campus, and each of them—they’d been walking home late at night and someone had attacked them, pushed them in.”
“I think I remember that,” Sal said. “I remember seeing something about it on Sky News. They got the guy, though, right? The one who was doing it. Wasn’t he a student there too or something?”
“Yes,” I said and that was the last word I got out before the tears came. The sounds of my crying traveled down the line. “Yes, he was.”
“Ali? Ali, what’s wrong? Did … did you know one of them? One of the girls?”
“Since primary school. Her name was Liz.”
“Oh, no. Oh, God. I’m so sorry. That must have been awful.” She paused. “But why am I only hearing this now? Why wouldn’t you tell me that?”
“Because …”
Just say it. Just tell her. Just do it.
“Because I knew him, too.”
There was a moment of silence. By the time Sal asked, “How?” I was beginning to panic, beginning to fear that what came next was judgment, disgust, and disbelief, but it was too late to turn back now.
“We were, um …” I wiped at my eyes with the back of my free hand. “We were together, Sal. I … I loved him.”
In a rush, I blurted out the newest chapter in the story. A copycat killer, the Gardaí asking me to talk to Will, me coming to Dublin and discovering that maybe what I thought had happened back then wasn’t the real story, or at least not all of it. Me wondering if Will really was who they said he was, or who I’d thought he was back then.
“Best-case scenario,” I said, “he had an accomplice, which means I’m an even bigger idiot than I thought I was, because I didn’t see anything, ever, that pointed to that. So not only was this killer right under my nose, in my bed, but this whole—this whole other clandestine operation was going on around me as well. And I’ve stepped back into all this for nothing and he’s fooled me yet again, because I’ve been second-guessing everything, thinking that he’s …” I took a breath, exhaled. “And that’s the worst-case scenario, Sal. That’s he’s innocent. That he didn’t do these things. That I thought he could’ve … That he had hurt Liz. And I ran away, I abandoned him, and he’s been in there all this time rotting, losing the best years of his life, and I”—my voice cracked—“I can’t even deal with the prospect of that.”
I don’t know what I expected Sal to say to this, but it certainly wasn’t, “I’m getting on a plane. I’m coming to you.”
“What?” I could hear noises, like her moving stuff around a desk. It was Monday afternoon; she’d be at work. “Sal, no—”
“Is there an evening flight from Schiphol? Or maybe Eindhoven. I could get Dirk to drive me there.”
“Sal, wait. No. Seriously. There’s no need.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Sal,” I said, “really. I love you and you’re amazing—that’s amazing, that you would do that—but you don’t need to come here. I’d never ask you to—”
“You didn’t ask.”
“But I’m coming back tomorrow. So there’s no point. Really. I mean it.”
“Are you sure? I could just go for the night and then come back with you. Are you flying back into Schiphol? If I came to you now then you wouldn’t have to come down on the train by yourself when you get back. We don’t even have to train it. We could get Dirk to collect us.”
“You’re really hell-bent on getting Dirk to drive somewhere, aren’t you?” Sal laughed. “Look, I’m sure. There’s no need. Thank you, though.”
“Okay, well, phew,” Sal said. “I didn’t see Line of Duty last night and I was really looking forward to watching it after work. I’d have resented you for delaying it. For a long time. And so would Dirk, because I told him if he watches it without me that’s, like, automatic divorce.”
I smiled and felt the warmth of it spread across my chest. I should’ve called Sal long before now. She was a welcome breeze of normality wafting through all this stuff. She was my normality, reminding me that this wasn’t my life but a mere detour from it, and as soon I returned to Breda everything would be all right again.
So long as this time, I got myself some closure first.
“I don’t know what to do.” Careful not to drop the phone, I leaned back against the cool ceramic of the bath. “Tell me what I should do. Please.”
“What are the options?”
�
��I’m not even sure.”
“Well, talk to me. Can you just leave? Come home now?”
“No, I have to go see him again. Later. They want me to convince him to be formally interviewed.”
“‘They’?”
“The Gardaí.”
“Do you really have to, though?”
“I don’t know, to be honest. No? But I want to.”
“Why?”
I thought of the photograph. “There’s something I want to ask him.”
“Were you still dealing with this when I first met you?”
“Well, yeah. It had just happened at the start of that summer.”
“Shit, Ali. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I wish you’d told me. We could’ve talked about it.”
“I should’ve. But I was mortified, Sal.”
“About what?”
“About not knowing. I mean, how stupid do you have to be to be in love with a person who murders other people and not know about it? Murder, Sal. What kind of person do you have to be to do that? And he did it five times.”
“Well,” Sal said, and I just knew by her tone a joke was coming, “I will have to stop accusing you of being too picky.”
I rolled my eyes, but I was smiling. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Humor’s how I deal, okay? Deal with it.”
“But seriously.”
“Seriously? Ali, he murdered five girls. That’s at least four murders the police didn’t solve right away, four times they failed to catch him. And they’re the police. There’s hundreds of them. You were just one teenage girl. How in God’s name could you have known?”
I didn’t have an answer for this. Only that no matter which way I looked at things, I still felt like I should have.
“Did you say he confessed?” Sal asked then.
“Yes.”
“I’m just asking the question here, but doesn’t that make his guilt pretty cut and dry?”
“That’s what I used to think.”
A beat passed. “Used to?”
“Apparently the confession was coerced. It’s false. Or it could be. That’s what he says, anyway. And there’s this detective here, Malone, who seems to think there might be something to it, that Will might be innocent, and that the quote unquote real killer is the one out there now, doing it again.”
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