‘Look at these, Michael.’ Janet put the prints on the table. ‘We had such a good time.’
‘Where in Spain was it?’ McLoughlin tried to sound enthusiastic.
‘A little village called Jimena, an hour or so from Málaga. Up in the hills. In fact we stayed in a house that belongs to a friend of Sally’s daughter.’ Janet spread out the photos so he couldn’t avoid them. ‘Marina was there for some of the time. See, here.’ She pushed one of the pictures towards him with the tip of her finger. ‘Here’s Marina with Tony and the kids. Hard to believe that a couple of weeks later she was dead.’
Even without his glasses McLoughlin recognized her. The same wide smile, high cheekbones, dark eyes and glossy hair. ‘Look,’ his voice was embarrassed, ‘look, really, your friend is very nice and I’m sure she’s in a terrible state, but I can do nothing for her. I’m not a guard any longer. I’m a civilian. Even if I wanted to I don’t have the access. I don’t have the facilities. Best thing she can do is accept that her daughter took her own life. Or if she can’t why doesn’t she get back on to the Blessington police? Brian Dooley is a good guy. He’ll listen to her.’ He pushed the picture towards Janet and stood up. ‘I’d better go. I’m trying to stay off the drink and all that goes with it. I’m off to France in a week or so. Sorry, Janet, it’s not my scene any longer. OK?’
He didn’t look to see how she would respond. He picked up his coat and stepped away from the table.
‘See you round, Tony.’ He headed for the door.
Didn’t want to get involved. Didn’t want to know about another woman’s grief for her dead daughter. Had enough of that with Margaret and Mary. Look at the trouble it had got him into. He’d wound up in a nursing-home for six months after that night in the cottage in Ballyknockan. First of all he’d gone on a bender. Then the doctor had prescribed anti-depressants. Eventually he’d gone to the welfare officer. A nice guy. Checked him into a private clinic in Glenageary. Lots of very sweet Filipina nurses. He slept and ate plenty of healthy meals. He watched a lot of daytime TV. And he went for therapy. For the first few sessions he did nothing but cry. The therapist was an American, a woman of about his own age, with pale blonde hair, like a Scandinavian’s, pulled into a loose bun on top of her head. She didn’t say much. When he began to talk he spoke of his father. Over and over again he told the story of the day he died. It was a Thursday. The first Thursday in the month. Children’s allowance day. A big pay-out at the local post office. There should have been an armed escort. Should have been, but wasn’t. After the death of Joe McLoughlin there was always an armed escort. He was the blood sacrifice. He was the one who’d had to die. The Provos were waiting for the Securicor van. There were two of them hanging around the bookie’s next door. A third was in the car parked outside. When Joe and his partner drove up he flashed his lights to get the guy to move up a space so they could park in the best position. The guy wouldn’t move. Joe got out of the car and walked towards him. Just as the two raiders, their balaclavas pulled down, came running from the post office, dragging the money sacks behind them. And the guy in the car aimed his gun right at Joe’s face. He blew half of it away.
‘I heard about it immediately. I was a rookie working in the Bridewell. Word came over the radio that a guard had been killed in Dundrum. I knew it was my father. There was this terrible silence. And the look on all their faces. His body was brought to the morgue in Store Street. They asked me to identify him. I didn’t want to. I was scared of seeing him. And then my mother arrived. I let her do it. I rationalized it. I said it was her right. She was his next of kin. But it wasn’t that. I was a coward. I was too scared. I let him down. I was his son. I should have been brave enough to acknowledge the way he would go into the grave. But I couldn’t do it. And I’ve never been able to forgive myself.’
‘And your mother?’ The therapist’s voice was low. ‘What did she say?’
‘We never talked about it. She identified him. She sat with him for as long as they would let her. I don’t know what she thought.’ But he did know. He knew she was disappointed. All through those dreadful few days, when the coffin came home with its lid closed, and the house was filled with relatives and neighbours and guards from every station around the country. And the removal to the church, the night of heavy drinking that followed, and the next day the funeral Mass, the burial, the three-course lunch in the hotel, then the session back at the house where the drink flowed and all the old stories were told time and time again. And he knew what his mother was thinking.
‘How could you know? Are you a mind-reader?’ The therapist leaned forward in her chair.
‘Not a mind-reader, a body-reader. I know my mother. Our eyes didn’t meet. Not once. Not during the whole bloody thing.’
‘And now? How long is it since your father died?’
‘Nearly thirty years.’ He looked down at his hands. ‘Now, well, now she needs me. She’s in a nursing-home. My sister lives in London so there’s only me to go and see her, to keep an eye on her. So it’s pretty OK between us.’
‘And do you talk about your father?’
‘Yes, we do. But we don’t talk about that. I don’t think either of us can bear to bring it up. I don’t know why I’m talking about it now.’
But he did know. He wanted to talk about Margaret, but there were things he couldn’t say. He doubted that the confidentiality rule would hold if he spilled the beans about what had happened that night. So he’d dug up his father. And then when he could think of nothing further to say about him he prevaricated. Dredged up some other awful cases. A mother who had suffocated her two children, then taken an overdose; a man who had set fire to the family home killing his wife and baby; a son who had starved his invalid mother to death and kept her body hidden in the attic for months. They were all true cases. And they had hurt badly at the time. But he hadn’t been directly involved as he had been with the death of Jimmy Fitzsimons.
The death of Jimmy Fitzsimons. The slow, agonizing torture of Jimmy Fitzsimons. He had put it out of his mind. He had put the place out of his mind. He could have got into the car and driven out there any time he wanted. But he hadn’t. He went crazy. He went to the clinic. He got better. He put it out of his mind.
Now he sat in the car in the dark. There was music on the radio. Frank Sinatra was singing. That lovely song, ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’. He remembered. A night in May – was it 1986, ’87? Some time around then. Frank Sinatra had come to Dublin. Janey had got tickets to go to the concert in the football ground at Lansdowne Road. He hadn’t wanted to go. He had been in the middle of a murder. A girl found in Blackrock Park. Raped and beaten. They’d followed up the obvious leads. Nothing so far. He’d have preferred to go drinking with the lads to talk about it. But Janey had insisted. And she was right. It was a magical evening. Old Frankie’s voice was past its best, but he could still weave that spell. And afterwards, as the crowd drifted out through the gates, a woman somewhere up ahead had started to sing. Her voice was thin and reedy but it didn’t matter. They had all joined in, a surge of voices. They sang ‘Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered’.
Janey had reached out and taken his hand and he had pulled her to him and kissed her. And for once he’d been genuinely sorry that he had to go back to work and not home to be with her.
He began to sing now, in the car, in the dark, the lights of the city filling the sky with a sickly orange glow. The orchestra came in behind Sinatra’s voice, filling and swelling like the sweep of a spring tide. And he felt the tears again as he sang, and his throat tightened and his voice choked and died away, leaving him suddenly bereft.
He checked the handbrake, checked that the car was in gear, switched off the ignition. He opened the door and got out. He walked around to the boot and put the key into the lock. The metal was warm to the touch. He swung it up and open. He’d gone shopping earlier in the day. Vegetables from that nice little greengrocer’s in Glasthule and cheese from Caviston’s. A soft goat chee
se from somewhere in Cork and a big slab of Bandon cheddar. He’d been tempted to buy some squid. Lucky he hadn’t. It wouldn’t have lasted long in this heat. The goat’s cheese gave off a pungent smell that verged on nasty. He gathered together the plastic bags and lifted them up. And saw, underneath, the shiny black cover of Sally Spencer’s album. He sighed and reached forward. He picked it up, tucked it under his arm, then slammed the boot. He turned towards the house. And as he moved a piece of paper drifted towards his feet, twirling in the still night air, like a feather. He bent to pick it up. And saw a face he remembered. That he had last seen that night in Ballyknockan. Patrick Holland: Mary’s father, Margaret’s lover. Who had helped her kill Jimmy Fitzsimons. And who, he knew, was now dead. A heart-attack on holiday in Spain. A huge funeral in Dublin. The great and the good gathered to mourn him. Crowds spilling out of the church, clustering around his black-clad widow to offer sympathy and support. McLoughlin had stood some way off. He had scanned the crowd. He had been sure Margaret would be there. He couldn’t believe that she would let Holland go to his grave without saying goodbye. And when he didn’t see her at the church he followed the cortège to the cemetery. Stood far enough away not to intrude, but close enough to see who was there. Thought his heart would stop beating, just for a moment, when a tall, slim woman wearing dark glasses, with a black shawl flung around her shoulders, got out of a taxi and walked towards the small knot of mourners by the open grave. Then saw Holland’s widow give a little cry of recognition as they embraced. And the woman took off her glasses and, of course, she was nothing like Margaret. He left then. Slunk away, dodging behind headstones, and trying not to trip on the cracked slabs of the old paths. And realized that Mary was buried in this place too. It was fitting, he thought. Father and daughter in the same piece of earth.
He opened the fridge and put away his groceries. And pulled out a bottle of beer. Erdinger, German wheat beer, cloudy to the eye and yeasty to the nose. He flipped off the cap and poured it into a glass. He sat at the table, and laid the newspaper cutting down. He smoothed it out. It was an account of James de Paor’s funeral. Patrick Holland was one of the chief mourners. He skipped through the text. Attended the same school, friends at university, called to the Bar in the same year. Some polite read-between-the-lines reference to political differences. And there was a quote: ‘James was one of the best. We didn’t always see eye to eye, but I never for a minute doubted his integrity and commitment to his beliefs. His death is a tragedy for all.’
There were three photographs. One was of Holland helping to carry the coffin from the church. The second was also of Holland, this time comforting Sally. She looked very young and, despite her obvious grief, very pretty. And the third showed a group of mourners. Marina was immediately recognizable. She had her arm around a younger boy, with the same high cheekbones and a mop of fair hair. Slightly apart from them was an older boy. A young man, really. He was standing stiffly beside a tall, dark woman. McLoughlin read the caption. Dominic de Paor, Helena de Paor, Marina Spencer, Tom Spencer. Dominic de Paor was striking. He was tall and well-built with a jutting nose. His tanned face was without expression but his body said it all. He was tense, withdrawn.
McLoughlin stared at the photographs. Helena de Paor. Must be the first wife. She had the look of one of those Japanese women. Almost like a geisha. Her black hair pulled back from her broad forehead, her face a white mask, her eyebrows dark slashes, like paint. Her son was very like her. Their bodies seemed to cleave to each other. He opened the album and turned the pages, looking for the empty space from which the cutting had come. He picked up his glass and drank. Then he began to read.
By the time he got up from the table it was dark outside. Three more empty bottles of Erdinger had joined the first under the table. His foot knocked against them as he pushed back his chair and stood up. He leaned down and gathered them together. A four-bottle job, he thought. Like in the old days when they’d go to the pub after their shift was over and sit in the snug for the rest of the evening, going through whatever case it was they were working on. A six-pint night would be the usual. And the next morning he’d take out his notebook. And there would be written, in his small neat hand, everything they had discussed, every conclusion they had come to, every course of action on which they had decided.
And the habit hadn’t left him. He picked up the envelope on which he’d made notes, and his glass, then slid back the doors to the terrace. He stepped outside. The lights of the city were a sparkling carpet below. The view at night always made him feel as if he was flying. He looked up at the sky. Even the competition from the lights below couldn’t dim the brilliance of the Plough as it arched across the darkness. He lifted his glass and saluted. Its constancy made him feel secure and safe. He drained his glass and walked around the outside of the house. He could smell cut grass from the heap in the far corner and the sweetness of the night-scented stock, which had self-seeded in all the beds. A legacy from Janey. Planted that first year they had moved here. When she had been happy.
He checked that the car was locked, then walked up the drive, pushed shut the heavy wooden gates and slotted the bolt into place. Towards the south, the bulk of Three Rock Mountain loomed in the distance. Behind it was Kippure, and close by its eastern flank, Djouce Mountain. To the west of Kippure the lake at Blessington and the stone village of Ballyknockan and over the hills, over Moanbane and Mullaghcleevaun and Duff Hill, and down into the valley with Fancy Mountain on one side and Djouce on the other, Lough Dubh where James de Paor had drowned twenty years ago, and where his step-daughter Marina drowned too. One was an accident, the other suicide, so the newspapers said. He leaned against the gate. It was very quiet up here tonight. Hardly a sound, except his feet on the tarmacadam of the drive and his breath. Sometimes the peace was shattered. Like that day on the lake. High summer, the graceful nineteenth-century house. James and Sally, their one-year-old daughter, Vanessa. Dominic and his friends from school. And his step-brother and -sister, Marina and Tom. Swimming in the lake, sailing and fishing. Picnics in the woods that sloped down behind the house to the water. Then one day the roar of a motorboat shattering the quiet. A group of kids, teenagers, had stolen it from its mooring. James and Marina had gone out in the dinghy to remonstrate with them. But something went wrong. The outboard engine stalled. James had stood up to try to start it again as the motorboat careened by. The wash caused the dinghy to swing wildly from side to side. James fell in. Marina tried to rescue him. But he drowned. A tragic accident. And then, twenty years later, another tragic accident. Another party in the house, this time given by Dominic de Paor. The morning after, Marina could not be found. It was thought she had gone back to Dublin with some of the other guests. But her body was found trapped in the rocks where the small stream ran from the upper lake into the lower. Blood tests showed she had drunk three-quarters of a bottle of vodka. There were also traces of cocaine. And one of the tabloids had got hold of details of what was described as a suicide note. It was addressed to her mother. It said she was sorry for what she had done. She could never forgive herself. She hoped that she would be forgiven, if not in this life then in the next.
McLoughlin gave the gate a push. Just to make sure that the bolt was holding. Then he walked back down towards the house. He began to sing the same old Frank Sinatra song. He sang it, slowly, softly, over and over again as he went around to the terrace. He picked up his glass, then gazed out over the lights of the city towards the dark of Dublin Bay and the Irish Sea beyond. The Kish lighthouse flashed twice, then flashed again thirty seconds later. The Baily light to the north flashed once, then flashed again twenty seconds later. The West Pier light gave its three green flashes every seven point five seconds. And the East Pier white light flashed twice every fifteen seconds. And the red Poolbeg light occulted twice every twenty seconds. He stood and watched the lights repeat and repeat and repeat, then turned and went into the kitchen. He ran the glass under the cold tap and left it to dry. He closed the
album and walked down the corridor to the bathroom. He splashed water on his face and cleaned his teeth thoroughly. He’d phone Sally Spencer in the morning. He wanted to know more about the suicide note. He undressed and got into bed. The words from the song ran round in his head and he hummed the tune. Then he lay on his side and slept.
The Kish light flashes twice, every thirty seconds. The Baily to the north is also white and flashes once every twenty seconds. The West Pier in Dun Laoghaire gives three green flashes every seven point five seconds and the light on the East Pier is white and flashes twice every fifteen seconds. And the Poolbeg? The Poolbeg is occulted, red, twice, every twenty seconds. ‘Occulted’. Now that was a word she hadn’t thought of or used for years. In the context of lighthouses it meant that it was a constant light, but it darkened or ‘occulted’ at pre-determined intervals. Is that what I am now? she thought, as she stood at the front window and watched the lights from the lighthouses in the bay. I am occulted, I am darkened by my acts. And how can I bring myself out into the light again?
She turned away. She opened the front door. It was still warm outside, but she shivered as she pulled on her jacket. She checked the pockets. Keys, purse, phone. She pulled the door closed behind her and walked down the steps. She needed to fill her lungs with air. Breathe the saltiness of the sea deep inside her body. She wouldn’t be able to do it for much longer. She had to make the most of it while she could. She walked quickly along the road and past the Martello tower. Then she ran down the stone ramp towards the sea.
SEVEN
McLoughlin stood outside the small terraced house just off Ranelagh Road. Marina Spencer had lived here for the last year and a half, so her mother said. He put the Chubb key into the lock and tried to turn it. It resisted, and for a moment he thought it had jammed. He half turned it backwards, then tried again. This time it engaged fully and the barrels of the lock clicked. He pulled out the key and selected the Yale from the bunch in his hand. He slotted it into place. It turned smoothly. He pushed the door and it opened, the hinges squeaking. The sound set his teeth on edge. He stepped over the threshold and closed the door behind him.
I Saw You Page 4
