by Catie Murphy
He did, turning toward her, swinging wildly but high with the golf club, as if he expected an attack at shoulder height. Megan slammed into his knees, driving him over sideways. The club went flying. Heather screamed and a splash followed. Anto hit the asphalt with a scream of his own, and a terrible crack that said his arm had broken. Megan never stopped moving, no longer caring about him. She ran for the staircase, realizing as soon as she reached its top step why Anto had stayed away from it. It wasn’t more than two metres nearer to the sea than he’d been, but the difference in the wind was incredible. It had the strength to push Megan around, even as she ran forward into it. She caught a glimpse of the jagged, rocky wall beside it, her gut clenching in relief as she realized Heather hadn’t fallen on those stones. Still running, Megan sought the other woman with her gaze as she reached the lowest steps, kicked her shoes off, and dove into the sea.
Cold shocked the air from her lungs as she hit the salty water and surfaced again, gasping. She twisted, spitting salt from her mouth as she searched for Heather, who was very near the wall itself, lying on her back in the water and—even in the dim moonlight, even with the sounds of surf all around—obviously breathing through clenched teeth as she tried to stave off panic. Megan struck a few strokes over to her, shouting, “I’m here, I’ve got you.” She put an arm around the other woman’s shoulder and neck in a swimmer’s save hold. Although Heather was clearly trying not to give in to terror, she flailed at Megan’s touch, trying to get herself farther out of the water. She dunked Megan, who tightened her arm around Heather’s neck as she came back up and bellowed, “Knock it off! I’ve got you, just relax, you’ll be fine! Knock it off!”
To her surprise, Heather, audibly crying now, stopped flailing. Megan allowed herself a single breath of relief, then spoke in Heather’s ear. “I’ve got to swim out from the wall a little so I can see where we can get back on shore. I have you, okay? You’re going to be fine. The waves are going to spill over us some. Just spit the water out I’ve got you. We’re gonna be fine.”
Heather wrapped her fingers around Megan’s arm in an iron grip and nodded just a little, whispering, “Okay. Okay.” Megan nodded too, then swam away from the wall with a powerful scissors kick, giving herself enough room to turn and search for the stairs. The ones she’s dived off were too near to where Anthony Doyle would be. The bathing area where swimmers could exit and enter the bay was farther away, but felt safer.
The water got noticeably colder even a few metres out from the wall. Megan put the thought out of her mind as best she could. The swimmer’s entrance was only about thirty metres away. They could make it. Megan spat out saltwater as another wave rolled across her face, promised, “Two minutes,” and pulled Heather through the water. She was exhausted from cold when she pushed Heather onto the concrete steps a minute or so later. Heather grabbed her, pulled her up, and hugged her hard, muttering, “One and a half,” through chattering teeth.
“One and a half what?”
Heather whispered, “Minutes,” and Megan realized she’d been counting down the window of rescue time that Megan had promised. She laughed sharply and hugged back, both of them shivering from the bone. Heather’s words slurred with cold and gratitude. “You saved me. You saved me. Oh, God, where’s Anthony?”
“I think I broke his elbow.” Megan, so cold she could hardly think, crawled up the steps to the open doorway in the concrete wall and looked down the road. The caddie wasn’t visible in either direction, so he was either on the eastern beachfront or had made a break for the Royal Dublin’s clubhouse. “The guards will get him. I’ll call—” She felt for her phone, which had gone into the water with her and stayed there. Even if it had come back out with her, it would have been ruined. “I won’t call. Come on. Can you walk? My car is down the road. We can warm up in it.”
“I will do anything to be warm.” Heather, gracelessly, got up and shivered her way down the road in a wobbling line. “Wh-whi-whoo.” The last sound was just an exhalation, trying to get her breathing and jaw under control so she wouldn’t stutter so much. “Lou. The developer. What . . .”
“Sean Ahern.” A chill ran through Megan so hard it twisted her head of its own accord. She wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her torso as they staggered toward her car, but it didn’t seem to help much. “He wants t–to develop a park over there.” She nodded toward the mainland. “I don’t thi—sheesh I’m cold—I don’t th–think Lou’s death has anything t–to do with golf or you or M–Martin, Heather. I th–think it was about Saoirse. Okay, can you r–run? Let’s run. I’m t–too cold to talk.”
“I can do anything to be warm,” Heather repeated. They broke into a shuffling run, which, while much faster than their walk, wasn’t actually very fast at all. Still, Megan had warmed up a little by the time they arrived at the Volvo several minutes later. She got survival blankets out of the boot and, with the car’s heaters on full blast, the two of them stripped down to their underwear, hung their clothes from the back windows to dry in the wind, snuggled together, and wrapped up in the blankets. Megan snaked a hand out to lock the doors, then tucked back in, and Heather blurted a shivering giggle. “This is going to be hard to explain.”
It reduced Megan to unexpected tears of laughter. “Not really. Skin dries faster than cloth.” It sounded very reasonable, and she whooped with laughter about it again, both of them dissolving until finally some of the stress had passed and they were able to control themselves. “Maybe a little hard,” Megan admitted, wiping her eyes. “My boss is going to kill me for saltwater-staining these seats. I mean, they’re treated against spills, but not against dripping wet people sitting in them.”
“We’re on the space blankets. They’ll be fine.” Heather gave her a bright, overemotional smile. “You saved my life.”
“You saved your own life, holy moly, woman. You were so cool up there, keeping him talking. You got a confession!” Megan shivered again, but she could feel the warmth crawling through her, chasing away the cold.
“Yeah, but I was screwed when I went in the water.”
“You were floating,” Megan disagreed. “Saved yourself.”
“Oh my God. I went to one of your movie theatres this summer and they had a cold-water shock ad, a thing to tell you what to do if you fell in. Like, it said the cold would basically make you panic and shut down your ability to think and you’d start flailing and you’d end up drowning, but if you could get past the first like twenty or thirty seconds of that you’d be able to think again, so even when I was talking to Anthony I was telling myself that was what I needed to do. It was still so hard.” Heather choked off a sob.
“See,” Megan said. “You saved yourself.”
“With a little help.”
“Right. Okay. With a little help.” Megan closed her eyes, pulling the blanket around them more tightly. Heather put her head on top of Megan’s, and for a few minutes they were silent, just warming up. Megan, tired enough that colors flashed behind her eyelids, blue and red, finally sighed. “Sean Ahern has a hearing to push forward his accelerated development plans tomorrow afternoon at the same time as Lou’s funeral. Saoirse is the environmental expert for the community. Honestly, I think Ahern had Lou killed so Saoirse wouldn’t be in any condition to make the community’s case against development in front of the planning board.”
“That’s insane. Nobody would do that.”
“It’s hundreds of millions of euros.”
“Why not just kill Saoirse?”
Megan slumped, stumped. “I don’t know.”
A hard knock sounded on the window. Megan and Heather both screamed, full-throated shrieks of terror. Outside the car, in the moonlight, Detective Paul Bourke jerked back from the window in surprise. Wheezing with the slightly demented laugh of dissipating fear, Megan rolled the window down about an inch. “Anthony Doyle killed Oliver Collins because Collins killed Lou MacDonald. Doyle is somewhere on the island, probably with a broken arm, and we think Sean Ahe
rn paid Collins to kill Lou so Saoirse couldn’t interfere with his St. Anne’s Park development plans.” A little to keep the heat in, but mostly to see Bourke’s expression, she rolled the window back up again. Heather burst into giggles.
Bourke stared at them both, then, stone-faced, took out his phone and started making calls.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Not that I should be telling you this, but we arrested Sean Ahern at half twelve this morning. He was on the way out of his house, bags packed, when the gardaí arrived. Anthony Doyle had called, asking him for help, and Ahern took it as a warning. They’ll both go on trial for murder.
New phone, Megan texted back. Who dis?
Paul Bourke sent a laughing emoji, and Megan sent a wink back. She’d gotten up early despite the late night, gone to the gym, then replaced her broken phone as soon as the shops opened. After some wheedling, she’d gotten her old number back even though she’d lost the SIM card, which meant people could get hold of her, at least, even if she didn’t know who they were. She was waiting outside of Heather Walsh’s hotel now, reinstalling apps and trying to figure out the new phone’s idiosyncrasies. At least texting was still texting. Are you coming to the funeral?
I don’t think so. I’ve another arrest to make.
Megan, said, “What? Who?!” out loud before texting the same thing to Detective Bourke.
As if I could tell you, he replied a minute later.
Megan bounced out of the Continental, striding across the parking lot with suddenly high energy, and actually called him, but he didn’t pick up. She let it ring until it went to voice mail, then texted an agitated You can’t do this to me! to him.
I can so, Bourke texted back, and then, despite the series of increasingly frantic messages she sent him, he didn’t respond again. Megan muttered a couple of good-natured curses in his general direction and got back in the car to await Heather.
The golfer looked about like Megan felt, honestly. Like she’d had a traumatic night, hadn’t gotten enough sleep, and still had to be professional. Makeup hid a wealth of sins, but they exchanged a glance that admitted to the exhaustion beneath the professional veneer. “How are you doing, Mrs. Walsh? Do you really have to be there today?”
Heather made a face. “Martin doesn’t need me, but with Anthony under arrest and Lou dead, I think I should be.”
“For the optics,” Megan said, and Heather, with a sigh, nodded.
“The media will have a field day no matter what, but if I’m not there, they’ll hang me out to dry, and I’m going to need all the good will I can get, if I’m divorcing Martin when this tournament is over.”
“I don’t know,” Megan said, not quite under her breath. “I think you might get more media sympathy than you expect. He may still be charming the masses, but after that showdown at the wake, everybody who actually knows him seems pretty fed up with him.”
“I should be so lucky.” Heather fell silent as Megan drove her out to the island under a clear blue sky. The wind seemed milder than the days before, but to make up for it, there was a media presence unlike anything Megan had ever seen. “They’ve caught wind of the arrests,” Heather said grimly. “This has gotten bigger than golf, now. It’s a scandal.”
Megan kept in front of her, fending off reporters, as Heather made her way to the clubhouse. Inside, friends approached, and Megan backed away until the first competitors of the tournament were called. Martin Walsh was among them, and Heather, plastering on the smile of a dutiful wife, went out with the rest of his entourage. Megan followed in their wake and snatched her phone out of her pocket as it began to ring.
Saoirse’s tone flooded with relief when Megan answered. “Megan, thank God. What’s going on? The planning board called to say the meeting’s being rescheduled after all, and it’s just broken on the news that Sean Ahern’s been arrested for Da’s murder.” Her voice rose in hurt confusion. “Why would he kill me da?”
Megan, trying to keep her voice quiet, shook her head. “I don’t know. Or rather, I don’t know why he didn’t just have you killed, honestly.” A high-pitched laugh broke her explanation and she winced. “I’m sorry. That was kind of abrupt.”
“But it’s true, though, why kill Da if I was the one in his way? I don’t understand.” Saoirse’s voice broke and she clawed it back under control. “Will that police detective of yours tell you?”
Megan cast a shifty glance toward Dublin’s city centre, as if Paul Bourke was out there somewhere and could somehow meet her gaze. “He might, but he said he’s got another arrest to make this morning.”
“Who?”
“I’ll find out,” Megan promised.
“Okay. You’ll be here to bring me to the funeral?” the younger woman asked, her voice thin.
“I will,” Megan promised, and Saoirse, reassured, hung up. Megan exhaled heavily and caught up with the golfing entourage just in time to watch Detective Bourke arrest Martin Walsh.
* * *
A wall of noise rose up around Martin’s arrest. Reporters and photographers encircled Heather Walsh, whose shock was visible. Megan elbowed more than one well-known media personality out of the way as she got Heather from the crush into the car, where they followed the police vehicles off the island. Only then did Heather, on a broken laugh, say, “Accessory to murder. Did you hear? That’s what he was arrested for.”
Megan shook her head, trying to keep her voice low and calm. “I was too far away to hear. What . . . who?”
“Lou.” Heather took a shuddering breath. “I’d like to go to the precinct and find out what happened, if I can, but do you know what I’m thinking now?” At Megan’s negative headshake, Heather said, “That I can go to Lou’s funeral now. I’d been stuck going to the game because I had to be the good wife, but I don’t have to do that anymore. Not if Martin was involved.”
“I’m driving Saoirse to the funeral,” Megan said softly. “I’ll see if she minds me bringing you, too.” Questions absolutely bubbled inside her, but she kept a lid on them, concentrating very hard on driving.
It turned out following cop cars meant a smooth drive to the precinct. Heather went inside while Megan parked, and Megan followed her in a few minutes later. Heather was almost on her way back out again, face pale beneath her makeup.
“He’s confessed. Apparently he started talking as soon as they put him in the police car.” Her voice shook and she took a moment to gather herself. “I don’t know all the details. I didn’t—I didn’t want to stay and hear them.” Her eyes filled with tears as she met Megan’s gaze. “Is that awful of me?”
“No.” Megan opened her arms, offering a hug, and Heather Walsh stepped into it, clutching the back of Megan’s coat and sobbing into her shoulder for a ragged half minute. “No,” Megan said again, quietly. “You learned as much as you needed to. You don’t have to take more on right now, Heather. It’s okay.”
“Thank you.” Heather finally let go, wiping her face and fighting against more tears. “Somebody tipped him off last week that Lou got the wild card spot on the PGA Tour. He kept a lid on it—I didn’t think he could act that well, Megan, I really didn’t—and when Oliver Collins mentioned that Sean Ahern was looking to develop St. Anne’s Park, but Saoirse was getting in the way, Martin saw a chance. He and Ahern went in on paying Collins off to kill Lou.”
Megan, softly, said, “God. I’m sorry, Heather,” and the golfing champion nodded, whispering, “Me too. Can we . . . can we go now? I just . . . I don’t want to be here when the media shows up.”
“Yeah. Come on. I’ll take you to your hotel to change for the funeral, and I’ll call Saoirse. She needs to know this.”
Gratitude filled Heather’s face. “Thank you. She’s been through so much.” She left the building a few steps ahead of Megan, who cast one anticipatory glance over her shoulder, hoping she’d see Detective Bourke and get more answers. To her disappointment, he didn’t magically appear just because she wanted him to, so, with a rueful smile, she follow
ed Heather Walsh back to the car.
* * *
A whole load of Saoirse’s friends—all the young men who had surrounded Martin at the wake—took it upon themselves to forgo actually attending the funeral. Instead they, along with Megan, blocked both the doors and the mourners from the arrival of pushy, curious media people who had gotten enough details of Martin Walsh’s arrest to conclude something exciting might go down at Lou’s funeral.
They weren’t wrong either. Megan caught bits of Saoirse’s eulogy, savage with rage and grief, and of Heather’s slightly more measured words after. The voices of the mourners, afterward, were edged with anger, and when people exited to find busybody reporters hanging around for a story, a flash of outrage sparked through the crowd. Megan, driving Saoirse and Heather home later, thought it was lucky the funeral had ended without violence. She was shattered with exhaustion her own self, and couldn’t imagine having to golf the next day, as Heather had to. Staying awake enough to be Heather’s driver would be work enough.
Despite that, she stayed up late anyway, relating the details of the past few days to Jelena over dinner at a Lebanese restaurant in the Temple Bar section of Dublin’s city centre. “Driving people around is supposed to be boring,” Jelena said, mystified. “It’s not supposed to be an adventure.”
“Well, if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have this.” Megan gestured to her gold pantsuit, and Jelena laughed.
“If we don’t stop eating, you won’t fit in that.” They kept eating anyway, until Megan finally had to drag herself home and to bed. She was almost late driving Heather to the Howth golf course the next morning, and caught an earful from Orla when she skidded into the garage at the last possible moment.
Heather overcame a bad start to her game to take second, with Saoirse MacDonald caddying for her. It clearly just about killed Aibhilín Ní Gallachóir to not ask about her personal relationships in the aftermath of the game. Maybe as a reward for her restraint, at the end of the interview, Heather said, “Aibhilín? If you have half an hour for me tomorrow after the final game of the tournament, I’d be happy to talk to you.”
