Darkhouse

by Alex Barclay

  This year in Ireland had started out as the best he’d ever had with Shaun. He didn’t want anything to happen that would take that away. But the worst part about Shaun disturbing him earlier was the realisation that he was thinking the worst when he went into his room. He had approached those boxes with his heart thumping in his chest. Grabbing the Magic 8 Ball was just to touch something familiar and cosy. Now he was plagued with feelings of dread.

  And why was Mae Miller like a stuck CD in his head? He barely knew her, but he wondered if her evidence could be taken at face value or did she have something to hide or someone to protect. One name came to mind. He needed to get out. He went to the Jeep and drove to the Grants’ house. It was just before eleven-thirty, the time Katie would have been walking home. He sensed something was wrong as soon as he got out. There were three other houses close by, yet no-one else had heard a sound. Frank would have backed up his story with as many witnesses as he could. Joe’s footsteps alone had already stirred up one barking dog. Another, a yappy little terrier, was pressing his face against the bars of a gate. Joe looked around at the ground floor windows. Lights were on in two of them. The third was in darkness, but when he moved closer he could see a glow at the back of the house. It was not too late for Mrs Grant’s neighbours to have been awake.

  He rang the doorbell at the first house. A woman in a bright blouse and polyester pants answered. She blushed when she saw Joe.

  ‘Hello, Mr Lucchesi,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Hi,’ said Joe. ‘I’m doing OK. I’m…I was just wondering were you here that Friday night, the sixth, when Katie disappeared.’

  ‘The poor divil.’ She shook her head. ‘I was,’ she said. ‘It was my little fella’s birthday. I was cleaning up after the party ’til all hours.’

  ‘Like, midnight?’

  ‘God, no. Well after two o’clock.’

  ‘Did you hear anything at all?’

  ‘No. Not a thing.’

  ‘Would you have had the vacuum cleaner on?’

  ‘I would have if the damn yoke was fixed. I was on my hands and knees picking popcorn out of the carpet. Have the lads got you in to help with the investigation?’ she asked, her eyes sparkling.

  ‘No, no,’ said Joe. ‘It doesn’t really work that way. Just curious, that’s all. Did you see anything that night?’

  ‘No. I hadn’t time to bless myself, let alone look out the window.’

  ‘OK,’ said Joe. ‘Thanks.’ He moved on to the second house and a third, before driving back to Danaher’s.

  The forest at Shore’s Rock was utterly still, the silence broken only by Mick Harrington’s footsteps and the heavy breath of his dog, Juno. A mile from the Lucchesi’s house, through a dense network of shrubs and briars, Mick picked his way along a path towards the edge of the cliff, the same path he had trampled on and off for over thirty years, to a ledge that jutted out over the sea where he sat to take in one of his favourite views. Juno trotted slowly ahead on tired legs. Suddenly he let out a piercing yelp, then barked and barked until Mick scrambled over to him, taking him gently by the head, holding his ears tight, crouching to look into his eyes.

  ‘What is it, boy? What has my old boy barking like a madman?’ Mick’s gaze moved past the dog and stopped dead. He staggered back, groping for Juno’s lead, struggling to snap it back onto his collar. He broke into a run back through the forest, hauling Juno behind him until he eventually picked him up and carried him back to the car in clumsy strides.

  Frank stayed calmly finishing his pint as Joe arrived in and sat down beside him, but Richie was almost up out of his seat in protest. He opened his mouth, but his words were drowned out as the door to Danaher’s crashed open. Mick Harrington scanned the bar. His eyes locked with Frank’s. Frank stood up, drawn across the room to him.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Mick, his voice low. He held back tears. ‘I was out for a walk. In…up at the forest. I saw…I thought…I didn’t know what it was.’ His breath caught. ‘I think it’s…was Katie.’

  TWELVE

  Stinger’s Creek, North Central Texas, 1983

  Duke knocked on the screen door and walked back down the steps to look through the window. He could see the light from the television shine across the smooth bald head.

  ‘Mr Riggs?’ he called out. ‘Mr Riggs?’

  Geoff Riggs turned his head slowly and waved Duke back to the house. He lumbered out of his armchair and walked to the front door, throwing it open. Today was a happy drinking day.

  ‘Hey, Mr Riggs. Donnie around?’ said Duke.

  ‘Thought he was with you down at the creek.’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ said Duke slowly. ‘I was supposed to meet him there. Sorry to get you up.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Need the exercise, son,’ he said, waving the remote control at him.

  Duke walked down the path and through the trees. He called out, but got no reply. He finally found Donnie lying under a cottonwood by the creek, legs pulled to his chest, skinny feet sticking out of his tight navy jeans. He was asleep.

  ‘Hey, buddy,’ said Duke, bending down, pulling gently at his foot.

  Donnie woke up slowly, rolling onto his back, rubbing at the dust that stuck to his cheek.

  ‘Didn’t you make it home last night?’ asked Duke.

  ‘I made it home,’ said Donnie. ‘And Daddy’d done lock me out again. No amount of knockin’ on the screen door shifted him from that chair, six pack happy at his feet. Looked around at me, too. “Go on, now, boy,” he says, like I’m some dog.’ He laughed, shaking his head.

  ‘Least you don’t live at my house,’ said Duke.

  ‘Your mom’s all right,’ said Donnie.

  ‘My mom’s all wrong,’ said Duke. He sat beside him with his back against the tree and uncurled a book he had pulled from his pocket.

  ‘No,’ said Donnie, standing up. ‘No readin’. Let’s do somethin’,’ he said.

  ‘Shut up. This is different. It’s cool. Uncle Bill gave it to me.’

  He held it up without looking at Donnie, then flicked through it until he found what he was looking for.

  ‘Listen to this,’ he said, reading slowly, jerkily. ‘“In mythology, the hawk is believed to have special powers, possessing great knowledge, qualities of pride, nobility, courage and wisdom,” something I can’t read, “and truth. It is considered lucky to see a hawk first thing in the morning.”’

  ‘Your Uncle Bill must be the luckiest man alive,’ said Donnie.

  Duke continued reading. ‘“If you hear the cry of a hawk, it is a sign that you should open yourself up to a message, to…”’ he stopped and finished solemnly, ‘“…beware.” Spooky or what?’

  ‘Spooky,’ said Donnie. ‘But I still want to do somethin’.’ He began wriggling out of his T-shirt. The early morning sun was hot on his face. Duke looked up at him. Donnie was patting his swollen stomach, his back arched. He pulled off the rest of his clothes and shouted, ‘Last one in is a dead man,’ before running towards the misty water. Duke watched his naked brown body go. Shivers ran cold up his spine. He didn’t like the way it felt. He didn’t follow him.

  The water looked warm as Donnie jumped in. He surfaced, waving with both hands. He slid under again then came up, pulling himself with the rope that hung from their favourite tree. He climbed to the top, swung, then plunged back into the water. When he was finished, he ran back to shiver in the shade.

  ‘Shoulda come in,’ he said. ‘It was cool. Hey, whatcha wanna do after school?’

  ‘I dunno,’ said Duke, looking up. ‘Jeez, would you put some clothes on, for Christ’s sake?’

  Wanda Rawlins sped through Stinger’s Creek in the pickup with a cold can of soda pressed between her thighs. She smoked like a man, the cigarette clamped between her thumb and forefinger, each pull long and deep. She slammed on the brakes when she saw the lonely figure at the side of the road. She reversed in a zig-zag.

  ‘Hey, Dukey!’ she said. ‘You wanna ride home?’


  He shrugged.

  ‘Hey, hey. Look at me. What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothin’.’

  ‘Nothin’,’ she mocked. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Aw, I was supposed to meet Donnie is all. No big deal.’

  ‘Hop in,’ she said. ‘I’ll take you wherever.’

  ‘Just leave me at the store.’

  ‘Well, that’s not very far, is it?’

  ‘Then I’ll walk.’

  ‘Oh, hop in for cryin’ out loud.’

  She leaned into him as she drove, turning her head towards him when she had something to say. He stared ahead and kept a hand lightly on the steering wheel.

  Donnie stirred his milkshake with a stripey green and white straw.

  ‘You’re funny,’ said Linda Willard, pushing his arm.

  ‘So’re you,’ said Donnie.

  Linda poked at her fries, using her free hand to tuck her shiny red hair behind her ear.

  ‘So what kinda music do you like?’ she said.

  ‘Dunno,’ said Donnie. ‘Don’t have a stereo or nothin’. Don’t even have a radio. My daddy has the TV on all day…’ He shrugged.

  ‘So what do you do? I mean, apart from hangin’ out with Pukey Dukey?’

  ‘Aw, he hates bein’ called that,’ said Donnie. ‘That was all Ashley Ames’s fault. I like Duke. We get along just fine.’

  Duke watched their smiling faces through the diner window, then frowned and turned for home.

  Two hours later, Linda Willard was riding her red bicycle out of town when she saw Duke Rawlins waving to her from the roadside.

  ‘Linda,’ he called. ‘Come over here a minute, will ya?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Linda, putting her foot to the ground to stop. ‘My brakes are shot,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Donnie told me all about you,’ said Duke.

  ‘He did?’ She blushed.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Duke. ‘Know what he said?’

  ‘What?’ said Linda, leaning over the handlebars, her eyes bright.

  ‘He said that you and him were down by the creek the other day and that you—’

  Duke leaned over and whispered the last part slowly into her ear. Her eyes went wide. It was disgusting. She didn’t even know anyone could do that. All she knew was that she never wanted to lay eyes on Donnie Riggs again.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘That’s it,’ said Frank as Richie leaned his hand against a tree, his head bowed, a string of saliva hanging from his lip. He spat it away and waited until the nausea passed. But he heaved again and vomited for the third time. He wiped away the water streaming from his eyes. Four feet away lay the bloated body of Katie Lawson, naked from the waist down. Only her face and legs were fully exposed, the skin a grotesque greenish black and covered with large blisters. Her upper half was hidden under a mess of soil and leaves, her pink hoodie turned a filthy brown. Apart from her clothes, she was recognisable only by her long dark hair, which was fanned out above her and had already begun to detach from her head. Her features were completely distorted, her skin slipping away from the bone.

  ‘That could be animals, maggots; God knows what injuries are under there,’ said Frank. ‘You know, I would have thought she’d just been out for a walk, maybe fallen and banged her head, but for the…’ he nodded towards her jeans and underpants, twisted and discarded at her feet, a pink trainer still caught at one end.

  ‘It’s a terrible business,’ said Dr Cabot, the local GP, edging backwards, holding a blue and white checked handkerchief over his mouth. His job was done, the strange task of confirming the death of the decomposed. Frank made the sign of the cross. ‘You’d have to believe in the soul at a time like this,’ he said, his voice catching, ‘because a body like that – well, that’s just not little Katie.’

  Joe sat in Danaher’s beside Mick Harrington as the shaken man brought his second glass of whisky to his lips. He watched Mick’s chest rise and fall. Ed asked nothing when he brought over the drinks. Joe wanted to run. He didn’t want to be polite and wait for Mick’s shock to ease, he wanted, bizarrely, to get to the most important crime scene he would never see. But he sat in silence. He had too much time to think what could have happened to Katie. For a moment, he imagined her like an angel, lying on her back in a white robe, a small smile on her peaceful face. Then a flood of darker images swept that away and filled his mind with all the evil he’d ever seen. He thought of the woods, her lifeless body hanging by a rope from the limb of a tree. He thought of her face, damaged and broken, her eyes opaque and staring. Then she was wrapped in plastic or buried or posed…He looked around the bar and wished that he was anyone else but who he was – a person who had lost forever the chance to view the world as good.

  Frank held out his hand and felt the beginnings of misty rain.

  ‘We need to get the body covered straightaway,’ he said. ‘Have you got anything?’

  ‘Just the couple of rain jackets in the car,’ said Richie.

  ‘Run,’ said Frank, reaching back to unzip the stiff, folded hood from the collar of his dark green anorak. He pulled the cords tight and tied them under his chin. It was the last thing he did before standing utterly still, staring ahead, his feet rooted to the ground. Every movement he made could compromise the scene. He had failed to protect Katie Lawson once before, he wasn’t about the make the same mistake again.

  As Richie pulled the jackets from the boot of the car, he was lit from behind by a pair of headlights speeding his way. He spun around as the car crunched to a stop in the gravel. D.I. O’Connor got out with a black notebook in his hand, followed by Superintendent Brady. O’Connor motioned for Richie to turn the blinding beam of his torch away from them.

  ‘It’s definitely her,’ said Brady.

  ‘Yes,’ said Richie. ‘It’s getting wet. I need to cover her up.’

  ‘We’ve brought the white tent,’ said O’Connor. ‘Grab it there. But take one of those jackets for yourself.’

  Richie ran for O’Connor’s car. He took the tent from the boot and jogged back towards the trees. The men followed, shining a torch ahead of them through the trees. They arrived at the scene, nodded at Frank, then took a brief look at the body before they set up the tent.

  ‘We’ll need to put a call in to the Technical Bureau,’ said Brady.

  The Garda Technical Bureau, based at the Phoenix Park in Dublin, never opened earlier than nine a.m., regardless of what foul crime was uncovered during the night. In eight and a half hours, someone there would pick up a message from the machine about a suspicious death in Waterford and a team would be gathered together. The State Pathologist, who could at that stage have heard about the body on the news, would then get a call from the Technical Bureau to come to the scene.

  Brady looked at Frank. ‘Let’s get this preserved.’

  ‘Richie, you stay here,’ said O’Connor. ‘Frank, myself and Superintendent Brady will talk to Martha Lawson, before anyone else gets to her.’

  Frank did a double-take at O’Connor’s rimless glasses.

  ‘OK,’ said O’Connor, handing Richie the black notebook. He pulled a pen from the pocket of his padded blue jacket and handed it to him. ‘Write down every single person who comes to this scene, starting with all of us. Obviously, don’t disturb anything, be careful where you’re walking or standing. Or breathing. We absolutely cannot put a foot wrong here, I don’t need to tell you.’

  Richie nodded, but there was panic in his eyes. O’Connor hesitated, then let it go.

  Mick Harrington made it home into the arms of his wife and sobbed like he had never sobbed before. Robert stood at the top of the stairs watching him, thinking something had happened to his granddad, until he saw how both his parents turned and looked up at him.

  Joe Lucchesi slipped gently in the front door at Shore’s Rock and shook his head slowly when Anna walked towards him. He grabbed her and they clung to each other. Then they held hands and walked down the stairs to Shaun’s bedroom.

  Martha
Lawson howled until her throat went dry, collapsing onto the floor of the hallway, her hands over her ears, repeating the word ‘no’ over and over again in short, wrenching bursts. Frank, O’Connor and Brady hadn’t even spoken and had to step around her to make their way into the house. Frank was visibly shaken by her reaction. He bent down and reached his arm around her shoulder, half-hugging, half-dragging her up from the floor into the living room and on to the sofa.

  ‘Get some tea, someone,’ he said. O’Connor looked at Brady, then took a step towards the kitchen.

  ‘I don’t want tea,’ Martha shouted. She threw her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. Where is she? Where did you find her?’

  ‘In the forest,’ said Brady quietly. ‘By Shore’s Rock.’

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘But did you not look there already?’

  ‘Yes, we did,’ said O’Connor. ‘But maybe not quite that far in. It’s very hard to get into.’