Dead Girls Dancing

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Holy Saint Peter, Roisin, you’re fantastic. You’re fecking fantastic.’

  At last he let go of her hair and Kyna sat up straight, spitting as discreetly as she could into her hand. ‘I need to pee,’ she mumbled and immediately stood up, grabbed her purse, and headed for the toilet. Once inside she knelt on the floor and lifted the lid of the lavatory and vomited. Up came half-digested beans and Prosecco and even the remains of the fruit muesli she had eaten for breakfast.

  She kept on vomiting, again and again, until her stomach hurt and all she could do was retch. While she was still kneeling there, Liam knocked on the door and said, ‘Are you okay in there, Roisin? How about another glass of wine?’

  ‘I’m grand altogether, thanks, Liam,’ she said. ‘I’ll be with you in a second.’

  She flushed the toilet and then washed her hands and scooped a handful of water into her mouth, gargled, and spat it out. She looked at herself in the small toothpaste-spattered mirror over the basin and thought: Dear Mary, Mother of God, I am never doing that again – ever – no matter how desperate I am for information.

  Her gold eye make-up was messed up, but once she had dabbed it with toilet paper and applied some more lip colour she went back to the bed-sitting room. Liam was sprawled on the couch with a satisfied beam on his face, smoking a cigarette. She was relieved to see that he had put himself away and buttoned up his jeans.

  ‘Ara musha, it’s my fantastic girl Roisin,’ he greeted her. ‘After that, do you know, I almost feel like asking you to marry me!’

  She sat down next to him and he put his arm around her, blowing smoke out of the opposite corner of his mouth so that it wouldn’t go directly into her face.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ she said, giving him a quick kiss on his spotty cheek. ‘I hardly know enough about you yet to do a line, let alone marry you.’

  *

  Using all of the interrogation techniques she had been taught at Garda College, Kyna led Liam step by step through his childhood, through the beatings he had suffered from his alcoholic father, through all the jobs in garages he had lost because he was always hungover and late for work. She discussed in detail all of his relationships with girls, and how every one of them had let him down. It had never been his fault, although he had to confess that he did have a temper, especially if he’d been drinking, or taking molly, or just felt humpy.

  ‘I don’t think nobody’s ever appreciated you for who you are,’ said Kyna, snuggling up closer to him and stroking the back of his hand with her fingertip.

  ‘Well, that’s right, they haven’t. They always look at me and for some reason they think that I’m nothing but a wank job like, do you know what I mean?’

  ‘Even Davy doesn’t realize what you have going for you, does he? But you’d think that out of everybody he’d see that you’re one of the smartest fellers he’s got. Stabbing you like that... that was diabolical.’

  ‘I don’t know, I think he did it because he needs me the most and he wanted to make sure that I was never going to grass on him.’

  ‘But you never would, would you? Even if it meant you going to prison, like you said.’

  Liam took out another cigarette and lit it. ‘No, of course not. But it still doesn’t mean that I’m happy out. I mean like, this thing he’s planning. It’s totally scary.’

  ‘If you think it’s scary, Liam, then you shouldn’t get yourself involved,’ said Kyna. She tapped her forehead and added, ‘You’re not a wank job. You’ve got it all up here like, believe me – as well as down there.’

  She paused for a moment, flapping away the smoke that he had just breathed out, but then she said, ‘Mind you, I have no notion of what it is, this “thing” that Davy’s planning, so I can’t really tell you if you should get yourself involved in it or not. It seems scary all right, but come on, maybe it’s not as scary as you think it is.’

  ‘Mother of Jesus, Roisin. He’s planning on shooting that British defence feller when he comes to the Opera House to watch the dancing. If that’s not fecking scary, I don’t know what the feck is.’

  ‘What are you talking about? What British defence feller?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some British feller who’s coming to Cork to talk to the navy like. He’s been invited to watch the dancing feis and that’s when he’s going to be shot.’

  ‘But Davy doesn’t expect you to shoot him, does he?’

  ‘No, of course not. Jesus, I’ve never fired a gun in my life – well, not with nobody standing in the way like. He’s getting three fellers he knows down from the North.’

  ‘So what do you have to do?’

  ‘I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. If Davy could hear me now, I tell you, he’d fecking murder me.’

  ‘I’m only the barmaid, Liam. Who do you think I’m going to tell? And besides, we’re getting close, aren’t we, me and you? I don’t want to see nothing bad happening to you, never.’

  ‘All the same, I should keep Zippo, like Davy says. I don’t want you getting into trouble, too.’

  Kyna sat back. ‘Have it your way. I was only trying to give you some female advice.’

  Liam shrugged, and smoked, and shrugged again, and jiggled his feet, but he said nothing more. At last Kyna looked at her watch and said, ‘I need to be going, Liam. I’ve an early start tomorrow.’

  ‘Why don’t you stay here?’

  Kyna shook her head. ‘Thanks for the invitation, but I only have the one Tampax with me and I want to get home and have a shower like. Besides, I need to change my dress. This one smells like a pub.’

  She rang for a taxi and when it arrived outside she gave Liam a quick goodnight kiss and left him at the front door. He waved as she was driven down to the end of St Anne’s Road.

  Once the taxi had reached the junction with McSwiney’s Villas, though, she said to the driver, ‘Would you stop here for a moment, please? I have to make a call.’

  She took out her iPhone and rang Katie’s personal number. The phone rang and rang before Katie eventually answered, sounding sleepy and blurred.

  ‘Kyna? What is it?’

  ‘Are you at home, ma’am?’

  ‘I am, yes.’

  ‘I need to talk to you now. Like now. And I think I need somebody’s shoulder to cry on, too.’

  Katie said something that she couldn’t quite catch, almost as if she were talking to somebody else.

  ‘I didn’t get that,’ said Kyna.

  ‘No, you’re all right so. Come on over. I’ll see you when you get here.’

  24

  After he had left the Quayside Snooker Club to go home, Bernie Dennehy’s nine-year-old Golf had died on him. Every time he turned the key, the starter motor groaned like a sow in labour, and then it had given up altogether as the battery had finally gone flat. He didn’t have Road Rescue membership, so he had left the car in the yard behind the club.

  His friend Alby Healy had offered to run him home, but as they were driving through the city centre Alby suggested they stop off at the old Vicarstown Inn on North Main Street for a couple of scoops. Bernie had been glad of an excuse not to go home to Maggie until later. Since Niall had been murdered she had been alternately scratchy and depressed, and nothing he had done or said to her had been right. He was hoping she would be asleep by the time he got back.

  He and Alby sat with their pints on the leatherette seats at the front of the pub, their faces mottled red and green by the street lights shining in through the stained-glass windows.

  ‘Do you know the pure tragedy of it, boy?’ said Bernie, with a Guinness foam moustache. ‘The tragedy of it is, I still love her, do you know? I love her with all of my heart. But I was never enough for her, not in any way at all.’

  ‘You need to have more faith in yourself, Bernie, that’s your trouble,’ said Alby. ‘She must have some fondness for you or she wouldn’t stay with you, would she? All right, she’s been acting thwarted, but the trick is for you to ignore it. Whatever she says to you, smile and be
sweet. Buy her a bunch of roses every now and then and buy yourself some of them Via-Gahra pills.’

  ‘Ach, I don’t know,’ said Bernie. ‘She locks the bathroom door these days so I never even get to see her in the nip.’

  ‘I never understood locks on bathroom doors,’ said Alby. ‘It’s not as if somebody’s going to come rushing in and steal your shite, is it?’

  Eventually, after three pints, they left the pub and drove the rest of the way up to Fair Green and Nash’s Boreen. No lights were showing in Bernie’s house, so he clapped Alby on the shoulder and said, ‘I won’t invite you in for another. If I wake her up she’ll give me the seven shows of Cork, believe me. But thanks for running me over, boy. And thanks for the words of advice. I’ll buy her some flowers tomorrow and maybe she’ll start being a shade more accommodating, if you know what I mean.’

  Alby drove off and Bernie went across to his front door, jabbing at the keyhole several times before he managed to fit in the key and unlock it. He was surprised to find the whole house was in total darkness. That was unusual, because whenever he came home late Maggie would at least leave the small table lamp on for him in the living room – mostly because she didn’t want him stumbling around and waking her up.

  Bernie closed the front door and groped his way towards the kitchen. With any luck there would be some of that shepherd’s pie that Maggie had cooked yesterday left in the fridge. Their microwave was banjaxed but he was so hungry he didn’t even mind eating it cold.

  Halfway along the hallway he bumped into something heavy and soft, which swayed when he pushed it. He reached out to feel what it was and to his horror he felt a dress, and a hip. He took two off-balance steps backwards and slapped frantically at the wall to find the light switch next to the living-room door.

  When he found it and switched on the overhead light he saw what he had bumped into. It was Maggie, hanging from the banisters, her head tilted to one side. Her eyes were bloodshot but they were wide open and staring at him, and her tongue was sticking out. Her face was a pale shade of lavender, and she was wearing the purple dress she had bought for their pearl wedding anniversary, as if she had chosen it to match.

  Bernie couldn’t speak. He clambered up the stairs on all fours and tried to untie the cord that Maggie had fastened around her neck. It was a length of nylon washing line which she had tied in a double knot, but her weight had tightened it so much that it was impossible for him to unpick, especially with his bitten-down nails.

  He bumped back down the stairs and pushed his way into the kitchen, switching on the light and dragging out the drawer with all the cutlery in it. It fell right out and dropped on to the floor, so that knives and forks and spoons clattered everywhere. He picked up the small sharp paring knife that Maggie always used for potatoes and staggered back out again and up the stairs.

  He reached through the banisters with his left hand to hold the collar of Maggie’s dress while he sawed frantically through the washing line. As soon as the washing line parted, though, her dress ripped all the way to the top of her sleeve and Bernie found her much too heavy to hold on to. She dropped on to the hallway carpet with a thump, flinging up one arm as she did so.

  Clumsily, he barged back downstairs and knelt down next to her. He could hardly breathe and he wished to God that he wasn’t so drunk.

  ‘Maggie?’ he said and lifted up her right hand. She was cool, but not yet cold, but he couldn’t feel a pulse and from the way her blood-filled eyes were staring at the radiator he knew she was dead.

  He started to cry, making a whining noise like a puppy. He didn’t know what to do. He could call for an ambulance, but what would be the point of that, now she had passed away? She was still warm, so she couldn’t have been dead for very long. If he hadn’t stopped for those drinks with Alby maybe he could have caught her before she hanged herself.

  He bent over her and whispered, ‘Maggie? Maggie? Dear Jesus, Maggie, I love you. I’m so, so sorry.’

  A terrible thought came to him. He had promised to buy her flowers tomorrow and now he knew that he would, for sure, but only to lay on her coffin.

  After three or four long minutes he stood up. He would have to ring somebody. The guards, maybe, or a funeral home. He simply couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t leave Maggie the way she was. She had always been such a stickler for looking dignified and here she was with her crimson eyes wide open and her tongue protruding and her dress torn, her arms and legs all jumbled up in the hallway.

  He bent over and put his arms around her and tried to lift her, but he was too drunk and he simply didn’t have the strength. In the end, he took hold of her ankles and dragged her along the carpet into the living room. The hem of her dress rode up and he saw that her thighs were blotchy with blue and red bruises and finger marks.

  Panting with effort, he managed to sit her up with her back against the couch and then heave her up on to it. He pulled down her dress and crossed her hands over her breasts. Then, with shaking fingertips, he closed her eyelids, although her left eyelid refused to close completely.

  Retracting her tongue was more difficult, but he pulled down her jaw until it made a cracking noise and then her tongue slowly folded up and slid back into her mouth.

  He stood beside her, still unsure what to do next. Maybe he should ring Father Tomás from the Church of the Ascension. Father Tomás would know how to handle a person’s death. Jesus, he must have given the last rites often enough. Father Tomás could also advise him on whether he ought to call for the guards or not, and what to say to them if he did. At the moment he was reluctant to ring them because they knew all about the financial arrangement he had made with Niall Gleeson to keep Maggie satisfied. Their suspicion that he had shot Niall might be confirmed and they might suspect that he had killed Maggie, too, in a jealous rage.

  He took out his mobile phone and was about to ring Father Tomás when he saw an envelope propped up on the mantelpiece, next to the silver-framed photograph of himself and Maggie on their wedding day. He went over and saw that it was addressed in Maggie’s handwriting to Mo Coinín Beag Daor – My Dear Little Rabbit – which was the nickname she had given him when they first met, because he was always hopping around and could never sit still.

  He started to weep again as he took the envelope off the mantelpiece and blindly tore it open. Through his tears he looked back at Maggie lying on the couch with her left eye half-open, as if she were keeping a sneaky watch on him.

  Inside the envelope he found her wedding ring folded inside a letter. He sat down in one of the armchairs to read it, holding her wedding ring tightly in the palm of his hand.

  Dearest Bernie,

  I was wide from the very start that Niall was paying you but I knew too that you did it because you did not want to lose me. I was pure selfish I know but I needed the lovemaking and what you did showed me how much you cherished me.

  I was sure that it was Davy Dorgan who murdered Niall and I was going to tell the guards but somehow Davy found out about it and he fetched some of his gang round here Murtagh and Billy and Kevan and Alroy among them and Liam too but Liam never touched me.

  What those demons did to me I am not about to tell you Bernie because I do not want you to be thinking of it inside of your head. All I can say is that I would never be able to let another man touch me ever again for the mortal shame of it. I can see no other way for me but to repent for all of my selfishness and my sins by giving my soul to Jesus and praying that he forgives me.

  Please forgive me too mo coinín beag daor. We will meet again in heaven if God is willing.

  Maggie.

  Bernie read her letter twice. Then he smeared the tears away from his eyes with his fingers and stood up, carefully setting down her letter with her wedding ring on top of it on the small side table under the lamp.

  He went to the cupboard under the stairs and reached behind the upright vacuum cleaner so that he could take out the 12-gauge Fenian shotgun that was propped against the sh
elves at the back. There was a box of cartridges there, too, and he took those through to the kitchen table and opened them up. He loaded both of the shotgun’s over-and-under barrels and crammed the remaining cartridges into the pockets of his anorak.

  He stood thinking for a moment and then he laid the shotgun down on the kitchen table and went back into the living room. First he pushed Maggie’s wedding ring on to his left-hand little finger, then he tore up her letter into pieces as small as confetti. He carried the pieces into the downstairs lavatory, dropped them into the toilet bowl, and flushed them away.

  If by any chance he didn’t come back tonight, he didn’t want anybody to know why she had committed suicide. She had suffered enough humiliation because of what he had done.

  Before he left the house, he stood in front of the mirror in the hallway. He felt as if his insides had turned into molten lava, churning and bubbling with rage and revenge, and yet he had never seen himself look so placid.

  He crossed himself and said, ‘For what I am about to do, O Lord, please forgive me, and if You can’t find it in Your heart to forgive me, at least forgive Maggie and take her into Your arms and give her the comfort which I never could. Amen.’

  With that, he opened the front door and stepped out into the night.

  *

  It took him over half an hour to walk down to Mount Nebo Avenue, down Bantry Park Road and Knockfree Avenue. A soft rain was falling so that the street lights looked like jinny-joes, the dandelion puffs that Cork children blow away and ask them to bring them back some chocolate.

  He made no attempt to hide his shotgun. The streets were deserted and even though two taxis passed him by he didn’t care if their drivers saw what he was carrying and reported him to the police. By the time the guards caught up with him he would have done what he had set out to do.

  He reached the end-of-terrace house at the lower end of Mount Nebo Avenue where the Dorgans lived. He hadn’t known the number but Davy’s Mercedes was parked on the pavement outside. The house was painted mushroom-grey, with half a wagon wheel underneath the living-room window and fancy net curtains. Every window was in darkness, although an outside security light automatically clicked on as he walked up to the front door.