Why She Ran

by Geraldine Hogan

  ‘She probably always has but he’s a—’

  ‘Bully. He’s a bully, but he’s not going to bully us.’ She looked across at Slattery, knowing that he couldn’t be cowed by anyone if he thought there was a case to solve. ‘Come on. We have nothing to lose.’

  She smiled a thin smile at him. They had to find Eleanor Marshall, before it was too late. Too late for what though? With this case, with Eleanor Marshall, Iris sensed an enormous amount of vulnerability mixed with an admirable subversive streak. That was the unspoken message conveyed by the people who knew her. She was an unknown quantity. It was them and us. Staff versus Eleanor. That’s what Iris was seeing. And people who saw things in black and white very often feared what they saw as different, and unfortunately it only added to Eleanor’s already formidable reputation.

  ‘You’re right, fiddlers on them.’ The creases that rutted across Slattery’s forehead deepened, resolve shaping his face to make it look far older than his near sixty years.

  ‘I’ll follow up with Nate Hegarty,’ she suggested, grounding them back into the here and now. ‘Then I’ll face the music with Byrne; see if we can’t do a bit of a two-step.’

  ‘We need to get this out there.’ His voice was low. ‘It doesn’t matter how they spin it for now, as long as people know that she’s missing and we want to find her.’

  ‘Kit Marshall knows how important it is to make people aware. So, what’s he playing at?’ They should have it already, not waiting for it to be stage-managed by Marshall.

  ‘That’s a problem for us, isn’t it?’ Slattery affectionately rubbed the half-empty box of cigarettes that rested beside the handbrake. ‘It’s one of the questions we’ll have to think about, along with what exactly Rachel McDermott was up to.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, she didn’t die because she’d done someone a good deed, now did she? And that bruising…’

  ‘Suppose not, suppose not,’ she replied, her mind scrambling through the woods, searching for the missing young woman. Slattery hadn’t mentioned William McDermott – Rachel’s father– since their meeting with Harry. Iris sensed that it was an avenue he didn’t want to explore right now, but she knew it had to be done. ‘Tell me about William McDermott.’

  ‘Ah, Iris, he’s dead and gone, old news.’ Slattery sighed.

  ‘You might as well tell me anyway.’ She smiled at him.

  ‘Look, I was hardly in the station a wet week when he died. I’d just transferred in from the border duties. I’m not the right one to ask.’

  ‘Well I’m asking you anyway.’

  He seemed to recognise the deep lines that furrowed into either side of Iris’s mouth as a sign that she wouldn’t let this go until she was satisfied. ‘Okay, William McDermott died suddenly. He was a relatively young man and appeared to be in good health so naturally a post mortem was carried out.’ Slattery took a cigarette from the packet and began to twirl it between his fingers. ‘Anyway, the post mortem showed nothing, nothing at all. As Harry said, there was no cause of death, the man just died for no good reason.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I was a uniform at the time; Bobby Nestor was my DCI so it was in his hands.’ He replaced the cigarette in its box, his body language telling her that he was itching for a smoke. ‘He made the enquiries at the time. I think he was suspicious because of Imelda McDermott’s attitude as much as anything else.’

  ‘Cold?’

  ‘Yes, for want of a better word. She had every answer rehearsed and at the time, in financial terms at least, William McDermott was worth more dead than alive, Imelda had insured him to the hilt. When you looked at things on paper, she was the earner, he’d never done a hand’s turn, from what we could make out.’ He sighed then continued, ‘All right, it looked like they were going to lose that house. He was a shirker and a gambler, his death meant that they kept the roof over their heads. Who knows what state the marriage was in anyway – back then you just stayed, kept quiet and put up with whatever was thrown at you.’

  ‘Did Nestor really think she did it?’

  Slattery indicated and began to move the Ford onto the main road, spending just a little too much attention with mirrors and gears. Iris knew he was considering his next words carefully.

  ‘I think his instincts told him she was as guilty as sin, but Imelda McDermott was and is nobody’s fool. You’d be wise to remember that.’

  Was he warning her? She wasn’t sure. ‘Did they question her, at the time?’

  ‘Of course, but there was nothing, she had herself well covered, there wasn’t even a scrap of circumstantial evidence to point at her.’

  ‘So, what did you think?’

  ‘I think there was no proof and without it there was no case.’

  If William McDermott were a nineteen-year-old girl like Una Slattery, would you feel the same? Iris wondered.

  Nate Hegarty was minus one eyebrow; a large silver hoop penetrated the skin above the one remaining when Iris called to his flat. He appeared to be dressed in whatever clothes he’d woken up in. His sullen expression was only slightly more depressing than his slouched and pessimistic posture. Crooked teeth, brown fingers and a pinched face belied his youth. Iris would guess he was probably no more than twenty-five. He looked nearer fifty, like a man who’d put in thirty years of hard living. He hadn’t turned up for work since the death of Rachel McDermott and appeared to be genuinely upset by the events of the last few hours. Iris wondered which would worry him more: the police on his doorstep or the passing of his colleague. In fairness, she knew that wasn’t unusual. Most people, although completely innocent of any wrongdoing, tended to panic a little when faced with a questioning session by the police.

  She watched him as his eyes furtively sought out the darkened corners of the room. Take-out cartons and empty lager cans littered the apartment. At his feet a sketch pad fell open on the floor, it seemed Nate was a doodler. He kicked it beneath his chair when he noticed her looking at it.

  ‘Completely mental bitch’ was how he described Eleanor, putting a dirty boyish hand up to his temple and screwing it around just to emphasise his point.

  ‘The last time you saw Eleanor, what was her mood like? Did you notice if there was anything different about her?’ Iris checked her notes. ‘That was the night of Rachel’s death?’

  ‘That’s right, I was on roster that night. I popped in, had a cup of tea, before I headed off to make sure the whole place was locked up securely.’ He opened a packet of cigarettes and lit up what she guessed was his fortieth cigarette of the day, if the ashtray before him was anything to go by. ‘There’s a lot of boundary fencing there, it’s supposed to be checked each night, that’s my job, and when I’ve done that, I go and have another cup of tea, maybe something to eat in one of the other units.’

  ‘Were you there when Eleanor was given her nightly medication?’

  ‘I was nowhere near any tablets, if that’s what ye’re thinking. Rachel always asked me to double-check her counts, but I never touched a tablet in Curlew Hall.’ He sulked now, dragging long and hard on his cigarette. They weren’t going to leave, not until they’d got what they’d come for, so he dropped the scowl and carried on. ‘Only care staff, ya see. Only smart ones, people who’ve been to college, they work in the units and give out the tablets. I’ve never even been near the store cupboard and I didn’t want to be either.’ He puffed out, almost self-importantly. ‘Not after what went on a couple of months ago.’ Iris had heard some tablets had gone missing weeks earlier. ‘Funny, if ye’d asked me yesterday what was Rachel’s drug of choice, Epilum wouldn’t have been my first guess.’ He smiled at his own weak joke.

  ‘Oh yes?’ Iris asked neutrally. Still, it bothered her that he knew the name of the epilepsy medication that was missing from the store cupboard.

  ‘Come on, sergeant, I’m sure ye’ve heard the rumours? Rachel enjoyed an occasional joint, just to relax after a long shift.’

  ‘They’re not rumours s
o far as we know.’ She was testing the ground; hopeful he’d give her more. This was like walking off a cliff edge, she had no idea where she was or where she might land. ‘Was there anyone connected with Rachel’s drug taking who might want to see her out of the picture, so to speak?’

  ‘Jesus, what are you saying, that ye think she was killed for having an occasional spliff?’

  ‘Yes.’ She could smell it, Nate Hegarty knew something. He shrank in his oversized recliner, his already wizened face turning more scarecrow-like by the minute.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what Rachel was into, all I know is that she had the occasional joint, just like most people who aren’t so uptight they don’t know their own…’ He stopped himself. His face became a blank and Iris knew that she’d get nothing else from him, not without having something to go on first.

  ‘Who was her supplier?’

  ‘Hey, if I knew that do ye think I’d be smokin’ this shit on my day off?’ Iris hoped he was joking, but then he was such a yokel it was hard to tell. No doubt, the drugs team would have more information on Rachel’s dealings. If not, she’d be knocking on Nate Hegarty’s door once more – sooner than he might like.

  ‘Now, you told Sergeant Slattery in an earlier statement that you didn’t see anything unusual on the night.’

  ‘Well, if that’s what I said…’

  ‘You can cut the attitude right now, Nate,’ she said sharply. ‘It’s like this: you’re the one person who had access to every corner of that place and the only one working there who hasn’t got even the whisper of an alibi. Everyone else was locked in and getting out would have meant setting off alarms.’

  ‘So, it’s hardly my fault if I was out doing my job, is it?’ he said angrily. ‘Anyway, that’s just means, isn’t it? I had no motive to kill Rach, we were mates, like I said, I’m gutted at what happened to her.’

  ‘Yeah, well, maybe you’ll have to be gutted down at the station,’ Iris said, because as upset as Nate was at the death of Rachel, he was lying to her – she could see it easily. Whatever he’d been up to on the night of Rachel’s death, it was not what he wanted them to believe.

  ‘You’re not arresting me?’ he spluttered.

  ‘No, but you can come along and help us with our enquiries.’ Iris stood, tapping her shoe on the wooden floor, waiting for him either to catch up or talk up.

  ‘Now, wait a minute, if you think you’re going to fix me up for this—’

  ‘You’re lying to me, Nate, I know you are. So it’s like this, either you start talking here or we move the conversation somewhere you’ll feel a bit more talkative.’

  ‘All right, all bloody right, I wasn’t out at Curlew Hall all night. That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it?’

  ‘I just want the truth, not a palatable version of it.’

  ‘This will get me sacked, you know that?’ He shook his head, perhaps he knew Iris might be thinking this wouldn’t be such a bad thing at all. ‘I did my rounds, had everyone locked up safe, but then, about eleven, I got a call from Tania.’

  ‘Tania?’

  ‘Girlfriend,’ he muttered. ‘Tania Quirke, you can ask her, I spent the night at her flat. Her kid was sick and she didn’t want to be on her own, so she called me and I—’

  ‘I’ll need to check this out with her,’ Iris said coldly, but now at least she had a sense that maybe he was telling something nearer the truth.

  ‘Go ahead, check away, she’ll tell you the same as I’m telling you now,’ he said, and they both knew it; he’d had plenty of time to cook up an alibi. The thing he didn’t know was that his car could be picked up on traffic cameras any number of times if he’d driven back into the city. She wrote down the address for Tania Quirke and the route he’d taken on the night.

  ‘Had anyone threatened Rachel? Anyone who’d want to cause her harm?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not the cops – that’s your job, isn’t it?’ He smirked at her. ‘But I’ll say this, when I heard what happened to Rachel, the only thing I could imagine was that someone had made a mistake – no one in their right mind would have wanted to kill Rach.’ His eyes didn’t falter and, for once, Iris knew that Nate Hegarty was telling the truth.

  Nine

  Day 2

  The woods were light again; in the distance, Eleanor could hear dogs, she never minded dogs, but she had a sense she should be moving away from them for her own safety. The world was closing in on her. She could feel it. It was a bolt of pressure at the base of her skull, wrapping around her head so all the thoughts and memories were jumbling up again. Eleanor continued to move through the damp green leaves, sometimes she stumbled on the soft ground.

  They would be searching for her now, she was sure of that. She imagined them calling ‘E-L-E-A-N-O-R!’ calling out her name in their unfamiliar voices. When she slept, she dreamed she could hear them whispering and moving. The sounds were bending their way through the trees to let her know they were coming to get her. Each noise sent ripples of fear through her. She could hear them, hefty men in hi-vis vests, their heavy boots working their way slowly towards her. She knew, with the wisdom of dreaming, that she had to keep moving; she had a journey to make. Fate had handed her a chance, just one chance, and she was grabbing it with two frightened but determined hands.

  Then, darkness had set in and she was back in a new nightmare.

  Her own screams had woken her first. It was the same dream, a continuation, really. The wet stains on her back were from sheer terror. She couldn’t have put a name to the panic that overtook her when Rachel’s face visited her dreams. She felt the sweat seep from every pore of her body, her neck, her arms, even behind her knees and then she realised she’d wet herself too. She had seen too much – knew she was next. In the dream she felt those wet hands coming towards her and she struggled to get away. Worst of all, she realised that if Rachel was still here, she’d put her arms around Eleanor and tell her everything would be okay. Not today though.

  The winter dark green of leaves and branches, still damp with the dew of morning and cut off from the day’s sun, filled her senses. She thought she might burst with the sounds and smells. She’d closed her eyes and stumbled through. Then she flung her hands up in the air, caught up in the giddiness of freedom, her recently dormant senses bursting with the packed earthiness of the place. Curlew Hall had been just small rooms and timetables – this, this was living. Above, she could hear birds call out, at her feet the crack and snap of fallen twigs, and all around the cacophony of cascading leaves and moving creatures, all of them getting on with their tasks – not bothering her. There was no schedule now, no empty rooms and echo noises. No whispering staff, no agenda and no prying eyes or counselling sessions.

  She knew the woods well. She walked here often, but this was different. Maybe it was that she hadn’t taken the white tablets, her antidepressants – never liked them anyway, never liked the way they dulled her senses. Today she was actually seeing things and it felt good.

  Later, she lay for a while with falling leaves tumbling gently around her. There were no alarm clocks here, no Rachel coming in to tell her it was time for her morning shower. No breakfast either, but there was plenty to eat, she wasn’t worried about that. If she walked away from the early-morning sun, eventually, it would come to meet her. That was how it worked. She had places to be and the men in their bright jackets were probably working to her back so she could move as quickly as she wanted without fear of running into them.

  She thought of home – her father’s house. Was it still the same? Karena would still be there and that thought made Eleanor smile.

  She walked for a while along the road; she guessed she was some distance from Curlew Hall. Her feet ached and her belly was empty. She was hungry, but she ate as she found and she took one precious tablet in the morning when the sun began to creep over the trees. It was less than they’d have given her in the home, but she was okay. Time was missing; she must have had a seizure, maybe more than one. She�
�d never been able to remember them nor had she ever known when they would strike.

  She thought again of Rachel lying lifeless on the floor. Did she even know it was coming? Eleanor looked down at her hands. A vaguely familiar tingling sensation was rippling from her fingers. She fell to the ground before she had time to contemplate what the tingling meant.

  Darkness descended and vomit pushed for escape from somewhere low in her abdomen. Her body was taken over by firing sweat, pressure at the back of her neck, and then she was released. She looked beyond herself. Far down, far, far down, she watched as the rattle of the seizure overtook her body. She was a swallow. A summer bird, soaring loftily above her leafy bed, liberated in the frenetic rapture that took custody of her body. She wouldn’t remember this freedom – probably just as well. Starting somewhere deep in her throat, the seizure worked its way throughout her body, until her limbs and torso rattled like a rag doll in the mouth of a very large and angry invisible dog. Her head lolled from side to side, trying to keep up with the incessant pace of her shoulders, deadening itself into vacuous numbness.

  She’d forget all of this when she woke up. If she woke up, she thought as she watched a second seizure engulf her alien form, her body appearing smaller and spent. She closed her demented eyes and dreamed of home, as it once was, and then she was drifting away softly on the breeze…