by Paul Charles
Thankfully, McCusker didn’t find it difficult to completely block her from his mind as he walked up the driveway to Superintendent Niall Larkin’s humble, but stylish, home on the Bangor Road, just out past the George Best Airport.
He’d never been to the Super’s house before. Yet, he figured that for some reason or other, Mrs Angela Larkin had decided that she was going to like McCusker in advance of meeting him. He didn’t quite know why; maybe something to do with her husband (he hoped), but he was happy for it to be true, mainly due to the simple fact that sometimes in his life, the complete opposite was true. In fact, such was the case with Ethel Stringer, the mother of his estranged wife, who most certainly felt that her daughter was too good for McCusker. Mrs Stringer, in her defence, had always held that opinion. Equally at the opposite end of loath and love, and right from the get-go, Angela Larkin was fussing over him like a mother hen reunited with one of her own after a forced absence.
Mrs Larkin was equally warm to Lily O’Carroll; they clearly got on well and had an established banter that started off immediately with, ‘So how are you getting on with your manhunt?’
‘You mean Mr Louis Bloom’s murderer?’
‘No, actually I meant your enduring search for Mr Right?’
‘Well, I’m just trying to make sure I get it right first time like you and the Superintendent did.’
Niall Larkin basked in the glory of that for a few seconds before his wife continued with ‘So how come you allowed your sister to steal your boyo here from right under your nose?’
‘Now, now, Angela,’ her husband said, clearly trying to cut off Angela’s subtle attempts at matchmaking at the pass. ‘You promised me that the officers’ personal lives would be out of bounds tonight.’
Angela smiled a “We’ll let it go, for now” smile and then started to busy herself bringing out various dishes.
‘We thought we’d have a light supper, just in case either of you were on the way to somewhere else,’ she said, as she winked at O’Carroll and proceeded to set the dishes on the table.
The promised “light supper” fast became a mini feast as she carted out plates filled with: halloumi, fresh from the oven, baked crisp and nicely browned on top; slithers of hot toast with smashed avocado spread generously on top; hummus and hot pitta bread; and a generous supply of cocktail sausages, well-cooked to perfection, or at least to McCusker’s taste. The Larkins enjoyed a glass of wine each but O’Carroll and McCusker politely declined, winning the desired Brownie points from their senior.
‘Do you know this Armstrong fella?’ O’Carroll started, as everyone seemed to have eaten their fill.
‘What? That long, croaky, pipe-cleaner-like drink of water?!’ Angela Larkin replied, without a moment’s hesitation. ‘He’s nothing but an excuse for a human.’
‘Now Angela… I don’t think the phrase “long, croaky, pipe-cleaner-like drink of water” actually assists our two detectives in their investigation.’
‘Okay, then how about a pothead, a dope dealer, a man who has never worked a day in his life. He’s been on the dole for as long as I can remember and he’s still never paid taxes and… and he’s always scrounging off my sister.’
‘Okay,’ Larkin replied slowly, ‘let’s consider those, item by item. Have you ever actually seen him smoking pot?’
‘Oh, he’s much too cute to let me see him; he knows I’m much too loyal to you not to report him.’
‘Has Elizabeth ever seen him smoke pot?’ Larkin said, continuing the interrogation of his wife.
‘Not just that, Niall, she also said he’s actually shared some with her! She claims it helps her lumbago!’
‘Sadly, that’s just hearsay.’
‘Has he actually been done for dealing dope,’ O’Carroll ventured, seeing a possible angle.
‘No,’ Larkin admitted.
‘But he did tell Elizabeth he was thrown out of his beat group because he was supplying his friends with pot, and the band manager was scared of unwanted attention from the drug squad.’
‘Okay, next point,’ Larkin started, ‘admittedly he’s been on the dole for a while–’
‘For… ever…’ came Angela’s hasty interruption.
‘I’ll give you that…’
‘Says his asthma means he can’t get a proper job,’ Angela chipped back in, with all the perfect double-act timing of Morecambe & Wise.
‘But…’ O’Carroll said, willing onwards.
‘But yet he makes an absolute fortune from doing up those properties and selling them on. And he boasts that he never pays a penny in taxes.’
‘If he registers them as his prime residence then he’s allowed to sell them without paying taxes,’ Mr Larkin offered.
‘Yes, that was fine when he was buying them as a wreck, moving into them, doing them up, selling them on at a profit, buying another dilapidated house and doing it up, and on and on,’ Angela protested. ‘Actually, Elizabeth claims he’s very, very good at it. Says he’s a real handy man and is always doing thing around Landseer Street for her… where was I…?’
‘You were about to climb up on your soapbox and give us one of your “if every person who didn’t pay taxes, paid their taxes, then the rest of us wouldn’t have to pay anywhere near as much tax” rants, Angela.’
‘Oh yes, I remember,’ she said, completely ignoring her husband, ‘but then he got that wee house over in Camden Road.’
‘Bigger than our house,’ Larkin cut in on his wife, in good humour.
‘I won’t move from here, Niall, you know that by now. So, Armstrong moves into Camden Road, to all intents and purposes makes it his permanent home, yet he still continues to renovate properties for great profit.’
‘Again, Angela, he can nominate any of his properties.’
‘I know, I know, Niall,’ she admitted, ‘I just get so annoyed at scroungers, people who scrounge on the country yet they’re the first to complain about it! If I ever find out that he’s scrounging off our Elizabeth, I’ll, I’ll…’ Angela stumbled over her answer, ‘I just can’t think of anything severe enough to do to Mr Al Armstrong.’
‘I’d say by the pitch of his voice someone has already beaten you to it and done the obvious,’ McCusker offered.
There was much laughter from around the table.
‘Do you think now that Louis has passed, that Elizabeth and Mr Armstrong will resume their university romance?’ McCusker asked, clocking what looked like relief on the Superintendent’s face and hoping it meant he was happy with the change in direction.
‘You don’t mean to say you think that could be the motive?’ Angela asked, as she seemed to consider this for a moment. ‘No, our Elizabeth isn’t that daft.’
‘Did Louis and Elizabeth have a regular place they visited on their holidays?’ McCusker asked, still searching, for something, anything.
‘They never went on holiday,’ Angela said regretfully, ‘Louis, with all his travels, didn’t have time to take his wife on holiday.’
‘Did–’ McCusker started, without having thought through his question properly.
‘Elizabeth and Armstrong, however, did like their wee Ulsterbus trips – you know, weekends all over the South and Scotland. She loved them – separate rooms, of course,’ Angela added, going to great pains to point out the sleeping arrangements.
‘Do you know a Miss or Mrs Mariana Fitzgerald?’ McCusker asked.
‘I’ve heard the name – how does she fit in?’
‘Who is she?’ Larkin asked his wife.
‘Augh, you know, Niall, she’s the one with the really long hair…’
‘Oh yes, I remember that night at the Queens fundraiser for the new library.’
‘Yes, that’s the one. She knew Louis. I don’t know how she knew him.’
‘She has a friend,’ McCusker tried, ‘her name might be Muriel – do you know her?’
‘No, we were never even properly introduced to Mariana. I think she’s a Mrs, not a Miss. Yes, in fact she i
s. I remember her husband now – a much older man. He was there with her that night. He’s in banking or investments – family money apparently. I’d be very surprised if Louis and Ronald Desmond weren’t trying to tap him up that night for a few bob. Oh yes, that’s right, Niall, you remember that was the night Louis and Ronald also tried to tap you up for a few bob for the library?’
‘Oh yes, of course,’ Larkin said, as he and his wife broke into a fit of the giggles.
‘Oh go on,’ Angela encouraged her husband, ‘you tell them.’
‘Well, they asked me – at the table, in front of everyone – if I was going to make a donation to the library,’ Larkin started, as Angela was now absolutely roaring with laughter. ‘So I said, yes, that I felt libraries were a very worthy cause and I would definitely like to make a donation. And they both got excited and asked me – again, in front of everyone – what they could put me down for. Clearly the intention was to, you know–’
‘… to try to embarrass Niall into keeping up with the Jones’s by matching the other donations,’ Angela explained, on behalf of her husband.
‘So I considered it for a few seconds and said, “Well I’ve thought about it and I feel it should be something substantial, something worthy of a great library…’
‘All this time Desmond and Louis were growing increasingly excited about the prospect of reeling in another donor,’ Angela continued. ‘And so Niall said…’
‘…and so I said that I would like to donate my complete set of 46 paperback editions of all the Dick Francis books.’
More joyous laughter around the table – mostly, it had to be said, from Angela.
‘Now that was funny,’ Angela offered, clearly proud of her husband, ‘and well Louis, God rest his soul, saw the funny side of it and had a great laugh with the rest of us, but Ronald Desmond, well, let’s just say he wasn’t best pleased at all.’
‘Fair play to you,’ McCusker offered, still chuckling. ‘Angela, did Elizabeth ever share any worries she had about Louis with you?’
‘For instance?’
‘I’m thinking of him having a bad falling out with anyone? Money troubles? Owing anyone money, you know?’ McCusker was fishing around as best he could.
‘No, they were always fine for money. One thing about my sister - and this has always been the way between us since our pre-teens - she would always reach out to me if anything were troubling her. Like when Louis went missing last night – she didn’t sit stewing in her house, worrying all night long. No, she rang me pretty quickly. And she knows I’d always rely on her in the same way.’
‘Did, say…’ McCusker began, before he’d a proper question formulated, ‘did Louis ever invest in any business or in any friend’s start-up projects?’
‘Louis would often tell me he’d no time for investing; he saw it as a form of gambling,’ Larkin replied. ‘We discussed it quite a bit over the years – the way he told it to me, it had nothing to do with risk. No, he always said that his father had worked too hard for him to come along and just waste it.’
‘Please forgive me for asking this…’ O’Carroll started.
‘Please, ask away – Niall has already advised me you’re only going to ask very personal questions. He also said you would only ask questions you feel you need the answer to.’
This gave O’Carroll the confidence to continue. ‘Did Elizabeth ever confide in you that Louis had an affair?’ She looked relieved to have got it all out in one go.
‘No she didn’t, but…’ Angela paused, ‘she said they hadn’t lived as man and wife for years, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he needed to. But she really didn’t want to know and for Louis’ part, well, there was never, ever any gossip about him and other women.’
‘What about Elizabeth, did she ever–’
‘No, I don’t believe she did and I also believe if she did, she’d have a very difficult time not telling me about it. Perhaps that’s why she and Armstrong are such great chums. You know, he ticks all the friendship and companionship boxes without having to…’
‘Tell me this, Mrs Larkin: do think that Elizabeth and he ever…?’ McCusker said, hoping he was sparing his senior’s blushes.
‘Let me tell you this, boyo, if Elizabeth – or any woman, for that matter – ever came on to Armstrong, he’d have been out of there quicker than a pink balloon rising from the bottom of the swimming pool.’
‘Do you think Armstrong is gay?
‘If any man ever said to Armstrong “Come on, babe, follow me I’m your Pied Piper”, he’d have set off out of there like a bat outta hell and wouldn’t have stopped until he was at the top of Napoleon’s Nose.’
No laughs from the four, but hints of a smile. What McCusker did find funny though, was the fact that both Angela and her sister had used the same simile. Obviously it was something they’d discussed before.
‘Do you really think there’s a chance that Al Armstrong could be involved in Louis’ disappearance and death?’ O’Carroll asked.
‘Personally speaking, I would bet money that it would be an impossibility for him. So, if he was involved it would only be if he’d hired an assassin,’ Larkin replied.
That was pretty much as far as they got discussing the case. They went around the houses with different topics for about half an hour or so and then proceedings came to a natural end.
On the doorstep as they were saying their farewells, Angela Larkin invited McCusker to ‘Return soon, in the not-too-distant future, with Grace, for a more relaxing evening’. Hoping to avoid a potential faux-pas she added quickly, ‘And you should come too, Lily.’
‘That would certainly be entertaining,’ O’Carroll replied on the doorstep, while ninety seconds later, in the security of her car, she belatedly added, ‘what, and have me play the part of a gooseberry?’ She paused before adding sing-song style ‘I don’t think so!’ Another pause while she started the car before offering ‘Which reminds me; Grace said if we were done by 10.00, I was to drop you off at her place.’ O’Carroll looked like she was going to say something else but she laughed instead.
‘Sorry, what?’
‘Actually, what she really said was: if we were done by midnight, to drop you off, but you see that just created too visual a scenario for me and maybe even showed her off in a bad light.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Well, you’re hardly going to go around to her flat at midnight just to lament Trump and Brexit or even watch the Stephen Nolan show, now are you?’
‘Okay… I got you now,’ McCusker said, back-pedalling as fast as he knew how. ‘Actually we wanted to watch Newsnight together, you know, just to catch up with current affairs.’
‘Yeah right,’ she said, grinning at herself and muttering something under her breath that sounded like, ‘more like carnal affairs if you ask me.’ Whatever it was she said, it caused her immense self-amusement.
Chapter Seventeen
The thing McCusker found about Grace O’Carroll, and he’d admitted this to no one but himself, was that she inspired unquenchable lust in him.
They ended up in bed quite quickly – actually, more like on the bed. Grace loved to lie on top of the bed talking, chatting about anything and everything that came to mind. The upside for McCusker was that he got to view her for ages in her delightful, sensible, but equally sensual underwear. The other thing about Grace O’Carroll was that she really didn’t realise how beautiful she was. Nor did she realise how big a turn-on it was to be so physically close to her. McCusker had never really experienced these sensations before.
Tonight’s topic was looks, and what attracts men to women and equally women to men. Grace playfully asked McCusker what it was he thought he possessed that might attract women to him.
He thought long and hard, for he was desperate to find something that could delay their inevitable (he hoped) encounter.
‘The only thing I can remember is from my high school days, when this girl said to me that she thought I had beautiful long ey
elashes. I wasn’t even confident enough to know if she meant the eyelashes were both “beautiful” and “long”, or if the word “beautiful” referred to the word “long”, in that my eyelashes were “beautifully long”.’
‘Awwh’ she said, as she climbed over him to get a better look at his eyelashes. She said something that he couldn’t quite make out. She looked deep into his eyes. He couldn’t believe that he could be so close to this beautiful, wholesome being. The absolutely tangible, physical charge of her body made him shudder with pure, unbridled lust every time he was close to her. Sometimes he didn’t need to be so close; late at night, the memory of her was enough to make him involuntarily tremor as he tried to fall asleep.
She leaned over McCusker and kissed him on his eyelids and in doing so released the beautiful elusive butterfly of their passion. They mutually set off to chase it – never quite catching it, but ecstatic when it managed to escape them, so they could set of on another chase, until… eventually, the butterfly would willingly surrender.
Another major thing about Grace was that McCusker found she was equally attractive and appealing after they’d chased the butterfly, as she had been just before.
Something very special had just happened between them, but he was too reserved to talk about it.
Grace, still breathing heavily, said ‘That was just so good, most likely due to the fact that you weren’t performing – you weren’t preoccupied with your performance. Neither was I. We were just so… together. It was wonderful. I have never before felt what I just experienced. It was always just “sex”. And before you get too big-headed, can I just say that there was some fantastic sex, too, but… that was something altogether entirely different. What we just did, it’s not that it was different… maybe it was spiritual. I don’t know, but I do know that most certainly the mechanics of the process were missing from my mind… maybe that was… I don’t even want to say it.’
