Little Bird: a serial killer thriller

by Sharon Dempsey

  She poured the warmed custard into a bowl and mixed in the already crushed up drugs. It was important get the powder into the first two mouthfuls, anymore and she risked Camille being sick. She barely ate these days, surviving on custard and high protein milkshakes provided by the hospital pharmacist. Not for the first time, Anna wondered about a system trying to keep a dying woman alive. It made no sense. Helping her slip away was the best solution and while Anna knew her father would be horrified, she had no doubts that it was the only thing to do.

  Camille was propped upright against the soft pillows. Her mouth gaped open ready to take the spoonful of custard proffered. Anna gave her a small amount to begin with, scraping the edge of the spoon against her bottom lip to catch the drips. She moaned as she swallowed it down, anticipating the pain of her body performing such an everyday task. A cough gargled up from her diaphragm; scaring Anna into thinking she wouldn’t be able to take the full amount needed. The next spoonful went down easier and the third, given to be sure, sat in her mouth threatening to be spat back out and swallowed down at the last second, as Anna reached for a tissue to catch the mess.

  Anna stood, kissed her mother’s cool, clammy forehead and went down to the kitchen to wash up. She was careful. The chopping board where she had pulverized the pills had to be scraped clean and washed with hot water and bleach, along with the bowl and spoon. With luck, Camille would slip into a coma and simply forget to breathe, her body beyond fighting the effects of the drugs.

  Sleep, Anna thought, she needed to sleep. Her neck ached and her shoulder once a tyrant of pain was now deadened and numb. She tried to push the memories away. She didn’t want to revisit that time. To be in that bedroom in their family home in Cyncoed, to be there when her father sobbed on his knees as he realised Camille was gone from them.

  Instead, she willed herself to think of their holidays in Cornwall. How they had walked along the steep hills of cobbled streets, passing cafes with painted signs advertising clotted cream teas, hand churned ice cream and pasties. Camille always trying to look for the delight in every shop window, exclaiming over the quaintness, the tremendous view over the beach, the postcard perfect rows of pastel coloured houses. Anna trudging along with that, I’m bored, attitude of pre-teens. On one such day they had come across a small art shop. Anna had stood transfixed at the window looking at the display of an easel, wooden cases holding tiny tubes of oils and acrylics in every shade imaginable and jars brimming with long handled brushes.

  ‘Come on, we’ll go in,’ Camille said, seeing the wonder on Anna’s face. Inside the smell of the turpentine and oils settled on Anna like a warm hug. To this day, it was her favourite scent. The shopkeeper was working at a painting of her own, a local scene so typical of what tourists would buy, a shaded cove and a bobbing red boat on the distant sea. She spent time explaining to Anna and her mother about the different types of paints, the charcoals, oil pastels and brushes. They had come away with a small wooden case of watercolours and a set of the softest sable-hair brushes, along with a fat pad of textured watercolour paper. Anna spent the reminder of that holiday experimenting with her paints, exploring the depths of colour and the shade and the light, delighting in her first attempts of capturing the essence and likeness of the landscape around her.

  If it came to it, to her final moments, then that’s the time Anna wanted to focus on. To remember those days spent picnicking on the cool sand, clambering over grassy dunes, paddling in rock pools and studying the paint splurged out from the tiny tubes on to a porcelain plate.

  She heard a car. The headlights swept along the wall. He was back. The room fell into darkness again as the headlights dimmed and then switched off. The car door slammed shut.

  The croft door screeched as he pushed against it. The wooden panels, probably swollen in the damp, making it too big for its frame, for she could sense the effort it took for him to push against it. Then footsteps, soft and even.

  ‘Ahhh, you’re awake,’ his voice was a fraction too high, with a soft burr of a Belfast accent. The intonation rising towards the end of the sentence, as if he was a friend rather than foe.

  He walked in front of her and she could see he was carrying a leather hold all bag. Its contents seemingly heavy for he placed it down on the floor with a thud.

  ‘You couldn’t leave it alone, could you?’ he was walking around the room, she could hear his footsteps, feel his words rise and fall, as he moved. ‘This wasn’t your fight. You could have stayed out of it. I saw you. I watched you on the news, standing to the side, your eyes on McKay, all official and holier than thou. The good guys, seeking the bad. Well, real life isn’t like that. Sometimes the good guys are the worst, and sometimes people do evil things for good reasons.’

  She felt his breath close to her cheek, could smell him – antiseptic, like TCP or Dettol, over laid with a caramel sweetness. She wanted to gag. He moved away from her.

  A bird squawked nearby, something tremulous and high. A fox barked in the distance, while the wind buffeted and roared against the croft walls, catching the underside of the tin roof. The outside world seemed so close, yet escape was impossible.

  ‘That girl, Aisling, she was to be my last. I’d done what I’d set out to do. I was going to keep her as my poppet – do you know what a poppet is? A doll. Maybe you saw the one in my aunt’s house, on the dresser. She loves that old thing, because she knows I restored it for her. Did every delicate stitch myself.’

  Anna could feel her body trembling. She fought against it, not wanting him to see the fear he was inducing, but she could do nothing to control the quivering of her skin. It was as if being close to him, to his evilness, made her body react in a physical revolt.

  ‘But here we are. I have you, instead of the lovely Aisling. Maybe you can be my own little doll, beautifully preserved.’

  She felt him stroke her hair, as gently as a light breeze; her whole body responded in a shudder of revulsion.

  ‘Do you want to know, how I shall make my poppet?’ his fingers tips, rough and calloused, toyed at her ear.

  ‘First, I need to skin you,’ he stroked Anna’s cheek. Her breathing was rapid, her heart thumping against her ribcage.

  ‘I make an incision here and slice right across the scalp line. Just like so,’ he dragged a nail slowly across her hairline. ‘I’m sure you’ve seen autopsies; you know how the face peels away from the skull. It takes a bit of practice, but I’m experienced now. My creatures have been my training ground. Each one teaching me something new, about the art of perseveration.

  ‘Think how lucky you are to be kept for evermore. No empty cavern of damp earth for you. Aww’ he said mockingly, ‘Look at you, like a little bird, trembling, all of a flutter. Don’t worry poppet, it will be all over soon.’

  Anna quaked and felt the warm seep of urine wet between her legs.

  50

  The morning light was breaking as Declan drove through the empty, rain-washed roads. A blue haze settled over the landscape in a misty gauze. He was working from memory, trying to visualise the journey he had taken many years ago, that day when he’d followed Nelson Brogan from his home in Dundonald to the old house in Cushendun. If Brogan’s son was hiding out then maybe he was holed up in the stone cottage. It was a long shot but it was all he had to work with. He saw a tourist sign advertising ‘the glorious glens’ and turned off the main road down a country lane. If he remembered correctly, the Brogan homestead wasn’t far away. Thomas had assured him that Maude Brier’s house was on their search list and that they were aware of the close relationship between Robert Brogan and the aunt. Declan couldn’t sit back and wait. He had to go there for himself. He remembered how Nelson Brogan had walked across the yard of the property with that look of arrogance. When Declan told Thomas about the other out buildings he said he was aware, that they would be searching all surrounding properties.

  The lane was overgrown and full of dips. Branches scraped the car as Declan drove slowly up the dirt track with hi
s headlights off. The car lurched and revved in and out of potholes. Then, just when he thought he had taken a wrong turn, he saw the cottage standing in a clearing. He killed the engine and watched. He was sure this was the place. There was a small car parked in the driveway. The curtains were drawn over the front bedroom window.

  He remembered watching Nelson Brogan amble up to the house with an air of propriety. The hulk of his shoulders and the way he carried himself made Declan think of a bear.

  He really had no idea why he was there or what he intended to do. It was a need to feel that he could mark Brogan out. Watch him; maybe put a hit on him if he felt like it. All conjecture and fantasy. None of it would give him his legs back. Now he found himself in the same spot, watching for Brogan’s son, terrified that he was holding Anna and that she could have already met the same fate as Esme.

  What now? He thought. He couldn’t sit back and do nothing. If Brogan had Anna, he’d, he’d … He’d what? What could he do about it? Feck all. He was a useless hunk of flesh. No use to anyone.

  ‘Fuck.’ Declan slammed his hand against the steering wheel. The frustration was too much. Thinking of Anna being hurt, and that this could be the bastard who killed Esme made him burn up with anger and a rage so pure and resolute that he could feel it power him onwards. Bile sloshed around in the pit of his stomach.

  He could imagine that Anna had come here, that she had made her way through the dense hedging and skulked the perimeter like a cat looking for some sign of Brogan. Declan cursed his useless stumps and the bastards that had brought his disability on to him. He was a liability. No use to Esme as she lay dying in the grounds of the hotel, and now of no use to Anna.

  He stilled the engine off and let the car roll quietly towards the front yard. He steered it around to the side of the stone cottage and listened. Not a sound. The night air was deathly still, almost expectantly so. Opening the car door and putting his chair in motion was more noise than Declan cared to make. The mechanism to lower his chair on to the terrain was motorised and emitted a low rumble. He cursed silently. There was only one thing for it; he’d have to crawl out. Thomas had promised him that the police where doing everything possible to track her down. He’d been warned to stay at home, to keep his phone on should she call but the night had dragged and he was going out of his mind with worry.

  He used his forearms to drag his weight up towards the house. The curtains in the front bedroom window were drawn. All looked quiet. No sign of police patrols though Thomas had assured him that they had already visited Maude Briers and found nothing untoward. They were watching the property should Brogan turn up, but Declan needed to check for himself. If Brogan was holding Anna then maybe the old aunt was in on it too.

  He hoisted his weight forward, slithering with little grace towards the house. An outbuilding sat to the west of the property. The rough gravel was digging into his hands and his stumps as he made his way closer to the property. How he’d get all the way over there he didn’t know, but he had to try. Something in the distance caught his eye. A light flickered. Once then twice. He scuttled onwards like a soldier on a low crawl, desperate to avoid detection. There was no stealth in his movements, every action laboured and tiring. Then almost before he could respond to the awareness of someone running at him he felt a heavy weight land on top of him. He bucked his back with as much power as he could summon but there was no shifting it.

  Brogan. It had to be.

  He was no threat to Brogan, and could put up no defense. His hands grabbed at Declan’s face, his teeth grazing across his ear and then in one swift action reached backwards and with a quick jolt rolled off, releasing him.

  Gasping, Declan pressed up against the wall of the cottage, knowing he had nowhere to go, no way of escaping. Brogan smirked as he reached forward, a flash of metal glinting in the early morning sun, and with a quick jerking action, he jabbed the blade into Declan’s side.

  With the force of the blade, he felt as if all power was slammed out of him. He slumped backwards on the ground, the cold dampness seeping into his bones. Declan’s breathe was ragged. The pain felt like little more than a quick sharp punch but the warm wetness seep out on to his fingers told him it was bad enough.

  ‘What did he do to you Robert? What did your father do to make you feel so worthless?’

  ‘You know nothing of my father. He was a good man. Things got to him. Just like me. He felt too deeply.’

  ‘He knew nothing but hate and bigotry. Are you going to finish what he started? Was that your plan? To kill me?’ Declan heaved himself into a sitting position, feeling the burn of pain surge through him, his back now slumped against the stone house. ‘Why kill the girls, my Esme? Why do it? You could have come after me.’ The anguish made his voice break, the words faltering.

  Brogan looked like a lost man. ‘You didn’t see them, young girls out with their mates, laughing and joking around, not a care in the world. They’d flirt, give me the come on but I wasn’t interested in all that.

  ‘Esme would smile and be polite. Nice even. I met her at one of Finnegan’s parties. She was working, same as me. She talked to me, asked my name. It wasn’t til later that I found out you were her da. Then on the wedding day I saw you in the chair. I knew your name and put the stories together. You were the reason my father ended up the way he did. He didn’t put that bomb under your car, but he was made to pay for it. He gave everything to the force. Everything. There was nothing left when he came home to us. My mother would shush me, don’t bother him she’d say, let him be. But I was only a boy; I wanted my father to see me, to acknowledge me.’

  ‘Even if it meant taking a beating?’

  ‘Yeah, sometimes he’d use his fists, but he couldn’t help it. It was the job, the pressure. We understood. Maude took care of me in ways my father and mother never could. She understood me and loved me for me.’

  ‘Anna, where’s Anna?’

  ‘What’s it matter? It’s all over now.’

  ‘No, no it’s not over for Anna, tell me where she is?’

  Brogan placed the knife to his own throat. Declan could see his own blood still slick and wet on the blade. ‘You think you know suffering? Stuck in your wheel chair, the invalid hero? Well. I’ve taken your daughter and I’ve made your lover-girl suffer. Before long you’ll want out of this place.’

  ‘Don’t do it. Tell me, where is she?’ he whispered it, desperation squeezing his breath out of him.

  51

  Brogan was standing above him, the blade still poised at his throat but Declan could sense a hesitation. He had to keep him talking, to find out where Anna was.

  ‘You couldn’t let it go, could you?’ Declan wheezed as he breathed in. The knife wound was below his left lung and was bleeding profusely now. He pressed on the wound with his hand, trying to stem the blood loss.

  ‘The way life was then, the bombings, the shootings, the punishment beatings, it was a way of life you wanted to hold on to.’

  Brogan looked defeated. Lost. ‘You don’t know what is like to see someone you love waste away. You lot treated him like shit. He gave his life to the RUC, day in day out. Checking under his car, alternating our route, moving house every six months. My mother waiting up at night, desperate for him to walk in the door. Every time the phone rang thinking is it him? Is it bad news?’

  ‘We were all living the same way. They were bad times. You didn’t need to kill the girls. They had done nothing to you.’

  Brogan laughed, ‘They did everything to me. They’d the life I should’ve had.’

  Declan was beginning to see what was driving Brogan – the powerlessness, the struggle to prove something to his father, that need to feel control. He cleared his throat, ‘Robert, your father wouldn’t have wanted this. It has to end here and now. Tell me where Anna is.’

  He had a far off look in his eyes, maybe thinking of his father, considering what could have been.

  ‘You don’t know my father. You don’t know what it was like
growing up with his expectations. His punishments.’

  The morning light was gathering. The sky was pale pink, a hint of the new day breaking. Declan needed to keep him talking, with any luck he’d tell him where Anna was being held and that the patrol would come along and see all was not as it should be. Where the fuck was Thomas King when you needed him?

  ‘You didn’t live up to what he wanted, did you Robert? You were too soft, too much of a mummy’s boy for his likening? Is that it Robert?’

  ‘Shut up! You know nothing about me. He was always getting me to prove I was man. Once our cat caught a bird and brought it into the kitchen. A little sparrow it was. Brown with speckled markings. Not quite dead, still breathing. ‘Look son,’ he said. ‘It’s still alive. Injured but alive. The kind thing is to put it out of its misery.’ He lifted it away from the cat and held it out to me. I knew before he told me what he expected me to do. Its little chest thumping so hard I could feel the patter on the palm of my hand. Its beak was a glorious yellow colour and its black, beady eyes were searching for refuge. Go on son, do what you have to do. Sometimes we have to be cruel to be kind.’

  ‘And I did. I squeezed the life out of it, in my fist until I felt its warm guts exploding into my hand. The bones crackled like dried twigs and the blood and flesh dripped out between my fingers.

  ‘Da laughed. ‘Your mother will have something to say if you get that mess on the tiles. Let the cat have a good feed.’ I opened my hand and let the feathery gore fall into the cat’s dish. The bloody cat didn’t want it. The fun was all in the chase for him. Too well-fed.’