by Maeve Binchy
The front door was a little ajar. Music was playing inside. Alice knocked firmly, and they waited.
‘D’you think that woman is here?’ Maggie whispered to Alice.
‘Hello!’ Alice called as they stepped over the Welcome mat. ‘Anybody at home?’
‘Not a soul,’ Maggie said.
‘You may be technically correct there,’ Alice said, and went down the hall to a door from which wisps of steam were wafting. She hammered with her fist on the wooden panelling.
‘Excuse me! Hello?’
The force of her fist was enough to push the door open. A greater volume of steam now rushed out, and when the first wave passed, Alice and Maggie could see another door marked ‘Finnish Room’. They took tentative steps, cautiously pulled the door open and were hit by even more intense heat. After a moment, they could make out an arm lying on the wooden bench of the sauna, and then a head turned away from them. As Alice stepped a little closer, she could clearly see a naked back.
‘Oh, we do so apologise,’ Maggie spluttered.
There was no movement.
Alice stepped into the sauna.
‘Oh, no!’
‘What?’
‘Don’t look!’
Alice had thought at first that it was a woman, as the long damp blond hair was pasted down to the shoulders; but the deeply tanned back was broad, and just down from the neck, in the space where the wet hair parted, was written in distinct blood-filled strokes:
M
The victim’s head hung at an odd angle to the body. Alice lifted the left eyelid and recognised the pale cabbage-green stare she had previously seen outside the Shelbourne Hotel. She took out her phone and clicked a close-up of the dead man’s face, then sent one copy to Ned and another to Sebastian. Maggie was pointing to a screwdriver on the floor. Clods of fresh skin curled on its tip. She hurried over to the hand basin, gripped it tight and was sick.
Dingle, County Kerry
17 June, 1 pm
Up beyond the snake curve of the main street, Davy Rainbow sat in a café relaxing and recovering after his long drive from Kildare. His mind was a jumble of images from the past, of horses and racing and trainers and jockeys. His mother had run off to Paris with a pastry chef – and who could blame her? She was a distant mother to Davy, but still remembered his birthday with a card.
He had become an apprentice jockey, but had grown too heavy and, to counteract this, had begun to starve himself to make the jockey’s weight. He started drinking spirits: they gave him the warmest feeling, filled him up with the impression that warm food had entered his belly. He had made a sort of fist of it as a reporter, beginning with court cases; but he still got tips from the lads in the stables, and soon he was gambling on the horses.
One day, outside the courthouse in Naas, he was asked by one of the defendants’ dads to omit details of a particular case in exchange for money. Davy owed a bookie over a hundred quid. He agreed. It happened again, with a different defendant. And then another. Word got around that Davy Rainbow could be bought. Soon none of the mainstream Kildare newspapers would touch him. His gig with the Doonlish Enquirer, a weekly free-sheet, was scraping the bottom of the barrel.
But the Enquirer had published his exclusive on the Caravaggio, and that gave Davy, when he thought about it, a better glow than whiskey.
He had never had much success with women. He had gone out once with a physiotherapist from Athy, but it hadn’t worked. Other women? Those he liked best were drinkers, but the liaisons never lasted. Then there were the women he didn’t like much, but knew might be good for him, because they tried to get him to quit. He knew they were talking sense but he couldn’t act on it. Yet he had to acknowledge that, in the past few months, he was starting to turn a corner: small steps, yet everything big must start with a small step. She had been so helpful, so kind. He missed her terribly.
He drained the coffee, stood up and set his jaw. Now she needed his help, and he was going to find her.
Kildare Village
17 June, 1.15 PM
Metro sat in the back of his maroon Mercedes as Yevgeny, his shaven-headed driver, parked among the throng of clotting, stationary vehicles.
The news about Brice had shocked him. He had wondered at first was it a trap, set up by the pigs in Harcourt Street, but the cop snitch was on a grand a month to deliver clean information, and swore what he said was true. Metro now felt in danger for the first time in twenty years.
He had been driven by Yevgeny on the back lanes, up to the summit of the hill, where the glint of steel, or glass, had come from earlier. It was a remote place with a perfect view in two directions: east, into Metro’s stud farm, and west, to Kildare Village, a busy shopping outlet less than a mile away. He’d got out of the car and scoured the ground, looking left and right.
‘Lost something, boss?’ Yevgeny asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ Metro said, and suddenly dropped to his knees on the grass margin to the east side of the narrow lane.
A person standing here would have a perfect view, through binoculars, of Metro’s house. A person standing … here!
‘Yes!’ he cried.
He was able to stick two fingers of his right hand into the indentations left by that recent observer’s sharp heels. On his feet again, he turned to Kildare Village.
‘Just maybe,’ he had muttered to himself.
He got out of the car and walked towards the shopping complex. He often came here, to unwind in the crowd. To buy gifts for his family. With Yevgeny a pace behind, Metro sniffed the breeze. The window-shoppers. The crowd sauntering by with their designer carrier bags. As he stopped to admire a pair of light tan men’s brogues, he became conscious of the clicking sound of a woman’s heels on concrete. A striking, very tall woman in dark glasses had emerged from the Louise Kennedy shop and was walking away from him. She was dressed in a long dark-green coat and was wearing a sweeping green hat with a crimson band. As he watched, she strode unerringly to the end of the shops and turned left at the Tommy Hilfiger store.
Suddenly, he got it. He smacked himself on the jaw. So slow! Of course! Of course that was where he had seen her before, even if the CCTV the cop had scanned for him had been distorted. And now she was here, in his territory! The flashing signal she had sent him earlier had been almost primal!
Metro whispered to his driver in Kazakh, pointing to the set of Waterford Crystal goblets in the Louise Kennedy window.
Doonlish
June 17, 1.45 PM
Maggie sat on the settee. Lyric FM was on the radio. Sebastian Hayes had turned it off when he’d first arrived with Billy Heaslip, but Maggie had turned it back on again, keeping the volume low. Maggie needed the soothing music to restore her equilibrium. Stumbling upon these murder scenes was becoming something of a bad habit, especially for a nun.
The Assistant State Pathologist was still in the sauna room with the corpse. Sebastian and Billy Heaslip were talking quietly in a huddle outside the bathroom door. Alice had been summoned, but had then been told to wait. She was standing at the end of the corridor, close to the sitting room.
‘What’s the news?’ Maggie whispered.
Alice turned and tiptoed back towards Maggie.
‘They think they’ve identified him.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Sebastian will tell us in a minute.’
‘That Sebastian is very suspicious of us,’ Maggie said, as if she hoped to be contradicted.
‘Sshhh!’
A man in white protective gear came out of the sauna room, went down the hallway and out the front door, just as Sebastian appeared. Maggie noticed that Sebastian was wearing odd socks, one light blue and one grey.
‘Someone got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning!’ she said brightly.
Sebastian looked at her icily. ‘Aren’t you meant to be someplace else this morning, Sister Mary Magdalene? Like, at morning prayers?’ he said, and went over to the kitchen area.
Mag
gie crinkled her nose at Alice, who put a finger to her mouth. Sebastian removed the grill pan from the cooker, placed it on the draining board of the sink and peered at it carefully. Then he came over to where Alice and Maggie were sitting, his head down as if looking for something on the carpet.
‘Have you identified the deceased?’ Alice asked.
‘Would you mind standing for a minute?’ he asked.
As the nuns stood up from the settee, Sebastian grabbed a corner of it and pulled it back.
‘God, what is that?’ Maggie said.
Sebastian, on his haunches, was staring at two pale stains on the carpet.
‘Don’t touch anything,’ he said, and walked back down to the bathroom.
‘What’s going on?’ Maggie said.
‘You probably don’t want to know, Maggie,’ said Alice with sisterly concern.
‘I do want to know,’ Maggie replied, like a child being excluded from a grown-up secret.
‘Be patient,’ Alice sighed. ‘You’ve spent the last fourteen years in a convent. What’s the sudden rush?’
Kildare Village
17 June, 2 PM
Metro smoked a Cuban cigar as he waited outside L’Officina. Through the window he could see the big woman, sitting at the far end of the restaurant, consulting the menu, still with her dark glasses on. She had removed her hat, and her Titian hair glowed in the restaurant’s lighting.
Metro was now absolutely certain.
Yevgeny came around the corner with the goblets in a shopping bag. He opened the bag and Metro saw the purchase. He nodded and exchanged the cigar for the bag. The manager met him inside the door.
‘Good afternoon, sir.’
He smiled courteously.
‘Table for one?’ He nodded.
‘This way.’
He sat facing her table. She was still investigating the menu. He placed his Louise Kennedy bag prominently on the empty chair so that it would be the first thing she saw when she looked up.
Doonlish
17 June, 2.15 PM
Sebastian came back into the room, followed by Billy Heaslip and the Assistant State Pathologist, a small-faced individual, dressed in white, with black hair combed forward. Maggie glanced over at Alice, who was standing pensively by the window. Sebastian showed the Assistant State Pathologist the marks on the carpet.
‘Think we might be right?’ Sebastian asked.
The Assistant State Pathologist nodded, then blew his nose into a tissue. Billy got two white mugs from the cupboard and followed Sebastian to an area which the settee had recently covered in front of the plasma-screen television.
‘One there,’ Sebastian said, pointing.
Billy placed a mug upside down on a spot on the carpet.
‘And one there,’ Sebastian said, pointing to the area in front of the compact-disc stand. He turned to Alice and Maggie. ‘Would you two mind coming outside?’
Maggie looked to Alice, half-hoping she might object, since she was intrigued by what was going on.
‘Of course,’ Alice said, and led the way outside, where Sebastian ushered them into the back of the dark blue Ford Mondeo. No eye-contact was made. Billy got into the driver’s seat and Sebastian took the seat beside him. There was a tense silence until the two men turned round, somewhat unwillingly.
‘We are confused,’ Sebastian began.
‘Confused?’ Alice said.
‘Confused about a few things. For example, can it be coincidence that you two stumble upon yet another dead body?’ Sebastian paused, letting his words hang in the air.
‘Come on, Sebastian,’ said Alice calmly.
Sebastian said nothing. He glanced towards Billy, then back at Alice and Maggie. He began in a measured tone.
‘We found long strands of auburn hair in the bath. The victim has dark blond hair, so we’re assuming that the auburn hairs came from the murderer. We have identified the dead man as Leonard Brice, an associate of Kazakhstan-born Mafia boss Matthias Taboroski, aka Metro, a part-time resident of south Kildare. The fact that Brice is here means that Metro knows where our painting is, but he cannot seal the deal.’
‘Our painting,’ Maggie said.
‘The recovery of that painting is our responsibility,’ Billy said firmly.
‘You’re not making much headway, are you?’ Maggie snorted.
‘Dead bodies keep turning up,’ Billy said, ‘and somehow they’re all connected.’
Talk about stating the bloody obvious, Maggie thought, looking out of the car’s window.
Sebastian Hayes had turned the wipers to intermittent as a light rain began to fall.
‘We’ve also just had a chat with the Misses Hogan,’ Sebastian said. ‘The killer was at their cottage this morning. In addition, we have established that the killer was outside their cottage on the night the painting was stolen. In both cases, the same woman is described: very large and menacing.’
‘Wearing a green hat,’ Heaslip added.
‘We’ve got a woman on CCTV in Liffey Valley on the night of the murder,’ Sebastian continued. ‘Same woman, same hat.’
‘In all cases, including this morning, death was achieved by breaking the neck,’ Heaslip said.
‘What about the dead man in the Shelbourne?’ Maggie asked. ‘Was his neck broken?’
‘No,’ Sebastian said, ‘but the man who killed the man in the Shelbourne had his neck broken here this morning.’
‘God,’ Maggie said.
‘There’s more,’ Sebastian said. ‘Are you ready for this?’
‘Go on,’ Alice sighed.
Sebastian’s face was taut. ‘We think this killer woman is a sexual deviant,’ he said.
‘Why?’ Maggie asked, round-eyed.
‘We think something pretty lurid went on in there earlier,’ Sebastian said.
‘Oh, you mean the dead man in the sauna with the letter “M” carved on his back!’ Maggie said with feigned brightness.
Billy looked as if he might be about to snarl, but Sebastian sighed.
‘And the marks on the carpet,’ he said. ‘We think they may be – I’m sorry, Sister – part of a male emission.’
‘Emission,’ Maggie repeated, for once confined to a single word.
‘We’re not talking about spreading the gospel in Africa here,’ Alice told her quietly.
Billy Heaslip snorted, but then cleared his throat when he saw that Sebastian was not amused.
‘Oh, God!’ Maggie gasped.
‘We think that she first either seduced or raped the deceased, then killed him,’ Sebastian said.
‘Just like the female spider does,’ Maggie whispered.
‘We’re dealing with one screwed-up, unhinged woman,’ Sebastian said. ‘She’s sick and she’s very dangerous. She will not hesitate to kill again.’
‘We’ve sent off a number of items to forensics, including the screwdriver,’ Heaslip said. ‘Until we get the results back, we’re advising you two to keep a low profile.’
Sebastian nodded vigorously. ‘We think you two are at serious risk. We must now absolutely insist that you stand down from this investigation.’
Kildare Village
17 June, 2.30 PM
Dark Heart decided on a Waldorf salad and a glass of Pinot Grigio. When she lowered the menu, she saw a Louise Kennedy shopping bag on a nearby chair, and then, beyond the bag, a strikingly handsome Asian-looking man with a thick black moustache. She’d wondered what he’d look like in the flesh.
The waitress smiled at him as she passed down to Dark Heart’s table. ‘Ready to order, madam?’
Dark Heart adored the exotic, the hint of the Orient, the skin texture. Tactile. He stood up. Very tall, she thought, taller than me. Taller than I thought he would be.
‘Excuse me, madam.’
She looked up. ‘Yes?’
He extended his arm back towards his own table and, smiling, opened his palm.
‘Would you mind if my shopping bag joined your shopping bag during l
uncheon?’
A moment to savour the tension.
‘Delighted.’
He gave a slight bow and returned to retrieve his bag. Expensive teeth, she thought. A hint of that Egyptian actor in Doctor Zhivago, what was his name? He came back and placed his bag on the seat alongside her. She could already taste something of him, and the anticipation of it made her a little dizzy. His eyes at the end. She blinked behind her shades. Careful.
She drew her green varnished nails through her hair, pushing it back from her face. The man opposite her was studying her benevolently.
‘May I be impolite? Do you come here often?’ he asked.
‘Occasionally,’ she replied. ‘I just adore the surrounding countryside.’
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ he said with enthusiasm. ‘The valleys and the little hills. Especially the hills.’
‘Especially the hills,’ she said, and felt her blood running as it always did when the hunt began.
‘What brings you to Kildare Village?’ she asked politely.
He smiled that perfect-teeth smile. ‘Buying presents for my children.’
‘How nice!’
She smiled as demurely as she could. His skin. She could almost see the outcome in every detail, his naked body, lifeless. His laugh primed her juices. If only they could have met in different circumstances.
‘Anything to drink, sir?’ the wine waitress asked.
‘Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Red. But my lunch companion …’
‘I have already ordered,’ Dark Heart said.
‘I just love Italy!’ he said. ‘Her great composers: Verdi, Vivaldi, Puccini, Monteverdi, Boccherini. Caravaggio.’
She smiled carefully. ‘You omitted Bellini.’
‘Bellini, of course!’
‘His passionate ecstasy. His elegiac melancholy,’ she said, excited now.
He sniffed his glass of red, then lifted it towards her.
‘My birthday,’ he said.
‘Congratulations!’ His fingers were square-tipped – often a clue to a body. On the little finger of his left hand, a gold ring sat snugly. ‘Your ring,’ she ventured. ‘Very attractive.’
