‘Come on,’ Slattery called to her now. ‘Time to get back to Corbally.’ He was glad to get into the car and turn the heat up high. There was a time when he’d never felt the cold, but too much booze – well, it tempered his body’s thermostat, so now he was either shivering or sweating, there was no middle ground. Be the death of you yet, Maureen’s warning hung in his ears.
Maureen. Well, that was a worry that he’d have to shelve for a few more hours. Their only hope was that his wife’s decline into dementia would be slow – at least that’s what the doctors said. She was in good hands, getting the right medication and even if she wouldn’t entertain Slattery dropping by, at least Angela seemed to be able to boss her about with the efficiency that Maureen had taught their daughter from an early age. Now when he visited, it felt as if he was stepping into a fragile no man’s land. As if, with the wrong word or a look, he could feel its potential disintegration around him. So he walked on eggshells, tried not to say too much, tried not to rise to the bait. She had started to mention Una, since they’d gotten her diagnoses. It was unsettling, hearing his sister’s name fall between them in a conversation. They’d avoided it steadfastly for years. Maureen had been Una’s best friend. Her only friend, it turned out, after she was murdered and it was that one bond that had thrown them together, as if a marriage in a state of permanent loss had any chance of happiness.
Slattery sighed. It was funny, well, maybe not funny, but odd, all the same, how every time he thought of Maureen now, somehow, Una managed to slip into his memories too. There was nothing more he could do, for now, just get on with things. He’d managed to get one of the neighbours to call into Maureen in the mornings. Slattery offered to pay the woman a few quid but she wouldn’t entertain it. He knew that one day he’d have to get professional help to care for her, but at least for now he was happy Maureen would just believe she was having a friendly visit from a caring neighbour. At least it meant that there was someone watching out for her. Slattery swung by the little house five or six times a day, more if he thought she might be a little off with him. It wasn’t love. The love had long disappeared from Slattery if it had ever been there to begin with. Maureen didn’t expect anything from him, probably, more than anyone, knew there was no point. If you can’t love your own… he sometimes wondered what that made him.
‘Nate Hegarty?’ Iris said and from her expression she knew she’d intruded on his thoughts, but being Iris, she didn’t much care.
‘Yeah? Scumbag,’ Slattery answered her question before she had a chance to ask, keeping his eyes on the horizon. A granite sky was pushing out indifferently over the Atlantic; soon they would have an inkling of the day ahead, even if they wouldn’t be in much of a position to enjoy it.
‘You have history?’
‘Not exactly, but when you’ve been around as long as I have, well, you can spot the signs easily enough.’ Slattery glanced towards his packet of fags on the dash.
‘That doesn’t make him guilty, Slattery, not the same thing at all.’
‘Yeah, well, when you look at that girl, her brains spilled across the floor, it makes me suspicious of anyone that messes with my gut.’
She smiled, because Slattery had never been ambitious – he was all about the job, but not about the rank, the idea of a career ladder was something Slattery never entertained. ‘I’m not sure I should share this with you, but I think Julia felt there was something off about him too, especially when it came to Rachel and Eleanor.’
Chief Superintendent Byrne was waiting for them when they returned to the incident room. There was no love lost between Slattery and Byrne – it might be that there was mutual respect, but Slattery knew it was, at best, grudging. Slattery had solved more cases and slid off more hooks than Byrne would ever see and that got up his boss’s nose no end. And Byrne had a rather large hooked nose; it was probably the biggest part of him. He was a narrow, neat man, hair soft and thinning, his hooked nose and small eyes made it seem as if he was always on the lookout for something, owl-like. Slattery often thought it was a bit of a waste, really, because undercover he’d have passed for anything from bus conductor to gay waiter… but there you have it, sometimes a book cover can surprise you. From Byrne’s stony expression now, Slattery had a feeling that whatever he wanted, his visit would cost rather than credit them.
‘You two!’ he called them and headed for Grady’s office.
Slattery thought he’d never noticed how small a space it really was. Byrne stood uncomfortably behind the desk and Iris hovered by the door. ‘Right, you were both out at Curlew Hall this morning so, what are we looking at here? Accident, suicide or… manslaughter?’ He turned his stare towards Iris, as if she could somehow give him a more palatable form of the truth.
‘It’s early days, but we’re looking at murder.’
‘Nonsense! How can a girl like that possibly be capable of murder?’ He shot the words out, but there was no mistaking the anger beneath them. Then he looked at Slattery, ‘Ben?’
‘Like Iris says, early days, but it’s not a suicide and as for accident?’ He shook his head. ‘Rachel McDermott was battered to death, probably with a sledgehammer – it’s unlikely she did that to herself.’
‘I suppose we’ll have to wait until the pathologist comes back with more. In the meantime, you’re both well aware that Grady has been seconded to a case over in Cork and there’s no getting him back yet.’ He held up his hands to halt Slattery in the verbal onslaught he knew would ensue. ‘The thing is, we need to get a team up and running and while I’m aware that you’re both at senior rank…’ He picked a stray hair from his otherwise pristine uniform. ‘Ben, let’s call a spade a spade, you’ve never wanted any sort of responsibility, not for a team or even for an investigation, we both know that your strengths’ – he leaned on the word as though it caused him pain – ‘lie more in digging holes in a case than building one up.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Slattery said flatly, ‘although, I’m not sure for what.’
‘You can thank me in a minute.’ He glanced at Slattery then turned his full attention on Iris. ‘Now, Sergeant Locke, I know you’ve been through a terrible time, but you’ve come back on duty, you feel well enough to be here and, to be honest, from what Grady has told me, I think you have the makings of a good detective…’
‘Oh.’ Slattery tried not to grin, seeing now why they’d been dragged in here. Byrne wanted someone to take on the case and he didn’t need two sergeants, so making one of them up to team leader wouldn’t do his budget a lot of harm, now the year end was looming close.
‘So, I’m happy to let you have an opportunity on this case… see how you’d like to lead it out…’ Byrne stood watching Iris; if he’d been expecting her to jump at the opportunity, it was a disappointing response. ‘It’s an important case, even if it’s not a murder case. It’ll need delicate handling.’ His eyes slid towards Slattery who everyone acknowledged had the diplomacy of a bulldozer. ‘Kit Marshall is not a man to be trifled with and regardless of what has happened out in Curlew Hall he will want answers quickly and quietly, do you both understand?’
‘Ben, you’re the most senior here.’ Iris turned to Slattery, sounding him out.
Regardless of the fact that they all knew he was probably the least appropriate person in Limerick for the job, he appreciated it. ‘Maybe, but you’re the most suitable.’ Slattery managed to drift half a smile into his words, enough for her to catch but not enough to reach towards Byrne.
‘I could do a little moving about, there is another sergeant interested in applying for Grady’s job, should it become available,’ Byrne said slyly, perhaps he had expected Iris to bite his hand off in her gratitude for the opportunity he was handing her, but of course, she’d been around long enough to know that being Officer in Charge meant more than just running a team. ‘The thing is, this is a chance to make a name for yourself, but this case – with the Kit Marshall connection – well, it’s going to have to be handled sensitively a
nd by the book. If there’s a question of anything being missed or a corner being cut, it won’t just be the inspector’s neck on the line. Mind you, Tony Ahearn is chomping at the bit so…’
‘That won’t be necessary, Superintendent, I think that as a team we can handle this case until Grady gets back to us,’ Iris said steadily and she looked towards Grady’s desk, as if checking with him that it would be okay to take this on.
A few minutes later, they walked back out to the incident room together. Iris walked a little taller, though it seemed to Slattery that over the last few weeks she’d shrunk by about half a foot – still, she threw her shoulders back to prepare to take her first morning briefing as the senior officer on the team. Byrne planned to make the announcement that she would be, for now, the new inspector – or the cigire in Irish, as she would be called behind her back. She went to her desk to gather up some clean sheets of paper, make some notes and pull herself together for the day ahead.
‘You did the right thing,’ Slattery said at her elbow.
‘I know, it just seems a lot to take on at the moment.’
‘Byrne wouldn’t have asked you if he didn’t think you could do it.’
‘Wouldn’t he? Come on, Slattery, we both know I’m the easy way out for him. He doesn’t need two of us here at sergeant grade, but he can’t get rid of you and it’ll look bad if he throws me out now.’
‘You belong here and don’t you forget it. You’ve earned your place as much, if not more, than anyone in this room.’ He said the words quietly. ‘Anyway, you don’t have much of an option…’ He nodded over towards a couple of detectives making their way in the door.
‘Tony Ahearn?’
‘Yep. He’s been looking to get into Murder for ages now and he’d be as popular with the team as early closing on Christmas Eve down the Ship Inn. Grady doesn’t like him, but an opportunity to slip into his shoes while he’s away…’ It was the truth. Ahearn had his cronies and none of them were in Murder. He was a guard that liked to saunter and snigger, with a reputation for the ladies and an aversion to any real work, he’d delegate his way around the team and take credit for everyone else’s results in the absence of his own.
‘Well, it’s a good thing I said yes, so.’ Iris picked up a sheaf of papers and then turned towards Slattery. ‘You’d better have my back, Ben,’ she said quietly, but her eyes dug into his and he felt the weight of so much more owed to Iris than this whole station could ever repay.
Iris divvied out the day’s tasks as if she was born to it and wisely set Tony Ahearn with full responsibility for the search party that was combing the woods around Curlew Hall. Most of the uniforms were put on grunt work, checking out properties where people might have noticed something or indeed where Eleanor might be hiding.
‘Ben, you and I should visit Rachel McDermott’s mother and we’ll do it before she has a chance to hear it from anyone else.’ She glanced up at the clock. Imelda McDermott wouldn’t even have got out of bed yet. This was, apart from the post mortem, probably one of the shortest straws at the beginning of an investigation. Mrs McDermott should be able to tell them more about their victim than anyone else, however – this made breaking the news to her as valuable for learning as it was awful beyond words.
‘Right,’ Slattery said as he reached for his fags and stuck them deep in his pocket; thinking to himself, at least it was better than the PM.
‘And then, we’ll head over to the pathology lab and sit in on the post mortem,’ she said, avoiding his eyes, knowing that it was the last place Slattery would want to go this morning.
Four
As Imelda McDermott opened her front door slowly, Slattery reached for his identity card, but she told him not to bother, knew who he was anyway, and maybe when she looked at her watch, well, maybe she knew why he was here too. Iris introduced them both; she suspected the names would not infect this woman’s understanding, not with everything else she was going to have to take in. She backed away from them, holding the door open so they could take some shelter in the cold and dreary hallway.
‘It’s Rachel, isn’t it? ‘The words were out before she had even closed the door behind them. ‘It’s that car, there’s been an accident, hasn’t there?’
‘We are truly sorry, Mrs McDermott. Can we come in?’ Iris gestured towards the kitchen door beyond. Imelda turned from the detectives and made her way towards the kitchen. In the background, the presenters on Morning Ireland were doling out their daily quota of doom and gloom. She switched them off. Now only the gentle tick of a clock long since gone out of fashion, high above their heads, would distract from whatever tidings they brought.
‘Are you here alone, Mrs McDermott?’ Slattery asked. He leaned towards her, his eyes sympathetic; there was no hiding that their news was not good, it was a gesture, for all the good it would do her now. ‘Do you have any family nearby we can call for you?’
‘What are you saying? ‘Her voice trembled and she looked as if she was steeling herself, bringing up a strength perhaps she hadn’t realised was deep within her. ‘Tell me what’s happened?’ She put out a hand towards Slattery, blindly reaching for something, anything, to anchor herself in these unfamiliar emotional waters. His arm was strong, and he guided her towards a kitchen chair. She sat, gathered up her cardigan around her body, hugging her weary arms to her.
‘Are you okay?’ Slattery’s stoutness and quick eyes spoke of too much time at a bar counter, but still something about him made you feel he would always know the right thing to do. An old-fashioned policeman, the kind you could trust.
‘I’m fine, really.’ She sat up straight in the chair. ‘Now, you came to tell me about my daughter, please.’ She looked him in the eye, perhaps bracing herself against the pity she saw lurking there.
‘I’m sorry. Rachel died earlier this morning.’ Iris moved towards her, taking the chair opposite. ‘Is there anyone we can call for you?’
‘Rachel. That can’t be! No, I’d have known, a mother would know?’ It was as much a question as a reassurance. ‘They must have made a mistake. That’s it. No, no, Rachel couldn’t be dead. She is too young; she’s only twenty last July, for heaven’s sake. Surely, it should be the oldest to go first. Doesn’t every mother expect that?’ She was talking as much to herself as to them, letting her thoughts pour into the emptiness of the kitchen until the words petered out. In a small voice she said pathetically, ‘She was going to go to college, she told me so herself, even been in there looking about one day.’ Her words tapered off, pathetic in their innocence as much as their unassuming tone.
Imelda sat then for some time, saying nothing, trying to take it in. ‘I can’t feel anything,’ she said softly. She began to shiver, her limbs and neck letting her down just when she needed them to sustain her. She rocked gently back and forth, the motion making her look as if she was a huge child, seeking solace in such a simple gesture. When at last the right words came to her, they sounded colder than her daughter’s perishing body and they sent a shiver through Iris. ‘Thank you, Sergeant, but you haven’t come here to offer your condolences. You’ve come to tell me how she died.’ Imelda McDermott’s voice clipped through the small talk; she wasn’t a woman with time for wasting. Slattery had told Iris on the way over that she’d been a district nurse. She’d tended to her patients, washed and scrubbed them, and made sure they were as comfortable as possible. She hadn’t entertained them, nor had she been one for hand-holding or unnecessary chitchat. She would expect the same professional approach, now, that she’d given to so many of her patients over the years. ‘Can you tell me yet how she died?’
‘All we can say is that we believe it warrants Gardai investigation,’ Iris began softly.
‘Not natural causes, so,’ Imelda said darkly. Iris figured she could be Slattery’s age, she might be even younger, but when she spoke, there was an old-fashioned ring to her words, so it sounded as if she could be eighty if she was a day. So many questions swirled between them. Mrs McDermott was i
n shock so Iris knew it would be hard for her to form one question from the maelstrom of words – the tempest of who, when, where and most hauntingly of all, why – for now, all the questions would have to come from them.
‘Mrs McDermott, Rachel was killed as a result of trauma to her head. She sustained an injury after being hit with something that may have been taken into Curlew Hall with the intention of doing her harm,’ Slattery said, perhaps knowing the woman needed to hear the plain truth. ‘We’re looking into the death of your daughter along with the disappearance of a young woman.’ Slattery’s voice penetrated the overhanging despair, his accent was surprisingly gentle, his words almost the soothing antithesis of the message carried within them. County Limerick soft, he hadn’t grown up in the city.
‘A girl disappeared? I hadn’t realised. I’m sorry.’ She twisted nervous hands in her lap now, the cotton tissue breaking under the pressure. Her voice had changed. It was understandable in this strange world that had somehow managed to slip off its familiar axis overnight. She took a deep breath. ‘And this girl? Had she anything to do with…I don’t know…I suppose…’ She moved towards the heavy sideboard and rubbed a worn hand along it, trying to drag herself into this awful reality. The cabinet was like everything else, too large and outdated, with a character of its own that frowned on a house that had never been quite good enough for it.
Why She Ran Page 4
