Lizzie laughed. ‘I was saying that I was good at caring. Especially when my dad was sick. He wasn’t sick like your mum is. It was different, his type of sickness. Not everybody can stomach it. My mum couldn’t. She’d have had enough of it, she’d be in the bedrooms packing our stuff then he’d appear in the doorway, gun at his head.’ She held her finger to her head and bit her lower lip in anger. ‘He’d be saying he’d shoot himself if she tried to leave.’
Her eyes looked dead, then just as suddenly Lizzie lightened and asked, ‘This is okay, isn’t it? I mean, there’s nothing I hate more than self-protecting small talk. Look at the weather. Blah blah. I don’t want to protect myself anymore, and you even said I should talk about me, Harry.’
‘And I want to hear it, Lizzie,’ I said.
She played with the fringe on a cushion by her side.
‘I was about to tell you about this one night, I was asleep, they were fighting, as usual. Always fighting. He said, “No one’s leaving.” I could hear him. Then Mum was begging him, don’t. “Not her,” she said. Me, she meant me. I was little.’
‘That’s so tough,’ I said.
‘You know I was in my twenties before I let that memory come all the way back? But that night I opened my eyes and he was aiming a gun at me. 9mm Beretta.’ Lizzie stroked the cushion beside her again and looked far away. ‘When my second son was taken off me and given to his father, Dad stopped talking to me. What did he want me to do? I went to see him to talk it through. I, at least, didn’t want to lose my parents too. But he lifted his hand to me. He smacked me in the face.’ Lizzie went silent. ‘I loved that poisonous nut-job. When I was little and stupid. You love who you think you should, who they tell you to. One minute my mum was, “Grab your stuff and get away from him,’’ next minute she was like, “You’ve made your dad feel bad, he can’t help it, give him a hug and tell him you love him.” But no one has hurt me like he has, Harriet. Not even Justin, or my kids’ dads, or the fucken courts. No one will ever hurt me like that again, I’m being for real.’
‘And your mum,’ I said, ‘what did she say about him hitting you, or about the kids?’
‘Nothing. I don’t care. I hate her more than I hate him. She should have let him blow his rabid brains out. The only time he ever took me under his notice I had a gun in my hand. Dad was impressed with me. Better than the police officers he was training, he said. ‘‘You’ve a good steady hand. Don’t know why I didn’t get you to do this before,’’ he said, ‘‘maybe because you’re a girl. But you’re good.’’ Suddenly … he could see me.’
She looked at my pocket where the photos were poking out, and she slumped down on the sofa more.
‘I’m sorry, Lizzie. We all have our cross to bear,’ I said.
Her story brought back the taste of gun metal from Jason’s breakdown. I ran my tongue over my chipped tooth, it was not perfectly smooth. I could still feel it after every meal. The reminder of when my life flew apart; my own kidnap and rape at the hands of my nut-job ex-husband. For a second I saw me in Lizzie, me always trying to impress my father. But I had my own family now. Lizzie had nothing and no one, just this capsized life.
‘So you haven’t seen your father in a long time then?’
‘Yeah, years, until Thursday. Drew drove me there.’
‘Where?’
‘Bangor. A nice little cul-de-sac of bungalows, it’s why I like here, it’s kind of like their place. He still didn’t want to know me, though. Didn’t care that I’d just said my final goodbye to my best friend, or that I’d just found out that my man was keeping big important secrets from me.’
When she stopped talking I took the photos and flipped them over. The last photo was a smudge of black. I looked closer, there it was, Lizzie wearing a pair of high heels, bare legs, her bare ass skimmed by a black coat, the sheen of a tiger’s sequinned face on it, red belt and cuffs. Chloe’s coat.
The one she went out wearing the day she died.
Now I could no longer act trusting. If she had the coat it only meant one thing.
We had never got an alibi for her. Had underestimated her, her power, her pure evilness.
‘Lizzie,’ I said, ‘I’m arresting you for the …’
She grabbed a gun from under a cushion and shot me through the shoulder. It didn’t hurt, it was more a shock, a force. Pure heat. I fell on the ground and she got on top of me.
‘Finally have the guts to attack someone from the front,’ I said, wrestling with her. ‘Coward.’
She spat in my face. Went to stand over me when I tripped her up and she crashed onto the floor, the whole time she tried to get that gun to my forehead. After a tussle I got the better of her and cuffed her. Took the gun.
I straddled her back and imagined putting a bullet through her brain. I grabbed a fistful of her stupid hair that I realised was extensions, they came off in my hand. I had no energy to crash her head into the parquet floor.
‘Hands above your head, hands above your head,’ I growled at her. I pressed the gun into the back of her head and called for backup. ‘It was my money. My money, you fucken crazy bitch.’
But it wasn’t really. It was money for my children from their own no-good father.
Chapter 42
On Saturday afternoon I was staring out of my hospital window when Hewitt came to visit.
‘I can’t believe LDM did that,’ she said.
‘Still think she’s good looking?’ I asked her wincing.
‘Oh hell no. Hotter!’
‘I’m leaving here,’ I said.
‘You are not, you probably need a few days’ rest.’
‘I can do that at home,’ I said.
‘Stay here. We have her now. The Sloane girl did good.’
‘I’ve taken a bullet, so now you think I’ve earned my dues.’
‘I’ll say yes,’ said Fleur Hewitt, smiling. ‘Do you know that Justin died last night?’
‘He did?’
‘He was always going to.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ I said. ‘It’s still a bit of a shock. Have you told Lizzie?’
‘Oh no. She’d love that, wouldn’t she? I’m letting her sit it out.’
‘You haven’t interviewed her yet?’
‘I want to speak to you first. I found out a few things once you gave me the name of her father last night.’
‘I can’t even remember last night,’ I said. ‘But Kinahan, from what I remember from before, was a bit of a psycho, too. I suppose you’ve got to look at the apple then look at the tree it fell from.’
‘Shit doesn’t fall far from the asshole, hen,’ said Hewitt. ‘You were a bit out of it on pain killers after they removed the bullet, Harriet.’
‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘tell me what Pat Kinahan said.’
‘Lizzie, or Elizabeth, as he called her, has had both her children taken off her. Two boys. They live with their fathers.’
‘Yes.’ It came back to me. ‘They paid her off to stay away.’
‘Oh, they did alright, one of them, a granny of one of the boys. But it’s not the half of what I found out about her. Do you know Lizzie attracts very strange relationships? And she has a history of stalking her two most serious exes, and of faking pregnancies. She even stalked her exes’ subsequent partners, and their family members. They’d complained to the police but claim they weren’t taken seriously.’
‘Who are the fathers of her children?’ I asked.
‘One was an ex, the other a one night stand: that guy maintains that they used a condom but suspects she must have fished it out of the bin after he left. Basting job.’
‘Unbelievable!’
‘They did a DNA test and the boy was his,’ said Hewitt. ‘Lizzie acted like they had been having a relationship and wanted to move in with him. In the end, she was at a low ebb and suddenly no mention of her again, then his mum admitted paying her £1,400 to get out of their lives.’
‘Is that all a child is worth?’ What were mine worth, twen
ty grand apiece?
‘Totally!’ said Hewitt. ‘Her relationship with her first babydaddy, Stuart, was all about drink and drugs and messing with each other’s heads, and with Justin it was exactly the same. Justin would fight men who he thought fancied her.’
‘Doesn’t surprise me at all, Fleur.’
‘When Lizzie and Justin would have sex, knives got involved.’
‘We know that.’
‘But, listen. That was his kink, if it is a kink. Those scars on Lizzie, when I described them to the doctor, said they sounded more consistent with liposuction.’
‘Oh my god,’ I said.
‘Lizzie stabbed Justin, but I reckon it was at his insistence. He had the history of knives. Plus, I saw his dead torso, and it was like a fucken colander.’
‘Jesus!’
‘They were a headache for police in Coleraine, as you know, then they moved to Belfast, where they had an isolated life. No real friends. Except, for Lizzie, Chloe. But she got covetous, probably, like she had with past relationships. She probably thought that Chloe fancied her boy. I know she smoked a bit of blow but Chloe was straight-laced anyway. I can’t see her being part of their games.’
‘Definitely not,’ I said. ‘Chloe was just a trusting soul who trusted the wrong people sometimes.’
‘Lizzie had a history of being a bunny boiler long before Justin; he had a history of being abusive and sexually strange, and together …’
‘They were a lethal combo. And her past didn’t help,’ I said. ‘Her dad liked to wave his gun around.’
‘He who holds a gun talks the loudest.’
‘Or, she,’ I said. ‘Becoming the violent antihero was appealing to Lizzie.’
‘And yet, she has a lot going for her,’ said Hewitt. ‘Sorry, I know she just shot you, Harriet, but still … It seems a bit pointless, the whole thing.’
‘So, she shot Justin too?’
‘Revenge kill.’
‘And his companion, Molly?’
‘Jealousy.’
‘So she knew about the affair back then?’
‘Oh, she’d have tailed him. She clocked his mileage and hacked his Facebook messages.’
‘Chloe probably didn’t sign Facebook custody over to Lizzie at all.’
‘You could be right. We’ll check. Maybe. But Justin was always having to report in, take photos of his clients and send them to Lizzie for approval.’
‘The before photos!’ I said. ‘But she definitely did not know about the love shack.’
‘No?’
‘Definitely not.’
‘And the twelve-year-old kid, what?’ asked Hewitt. ‘Collateral damage.’
‘An attempt to make the whole thing look random. Silencing a witness, too.’
‘And the gender gap in violence, it closes.’
‘She’s not the first,’ I said. ‘But how?’
‘On her bike.’
‘Really?’
‘Nifty, for getting in and out of spots. Plus, it had that little basket, so it looked all sweet and Mary Poppins. And,’ said Hewitt, ‘a neighbour said they saw a woman on a bike after the shooting, pedalling along, old-fashioned bike at that. Basket in the front … handy place to hide a gun …’
‘Psycho!’
‘Totally! I went to South Eastern Regional College in Bangor, never got the chance to tell you.’
‘What did they say? More lies?’ I could not picture her having taught there.
‘No. She actually wasn’t lying,’ said Hewitt. ‘They had no records of a Lizzie Donegan-Moat working there, but they did have a Beth … Elizabeth, Lizzie, Beth … who worked there for a year, she was just out of college herself and about twenty-three or so.’
‘Beth Kinahan by any chance?’
‘Yep.’
‘Where did Donegan-Moat come from?’
‘The babydaddies’ names, she officially changed her name to theirs: with Stuart Donegan, she had a son called Freddie, he’s now eight. With Jamie Moat, she had Benji. Now four.’
‘Wow.’
‘But get this, Harriet, Lizzie parties with the dudes at the SERC. Every student night she’s in the bars. This one dude, she fails him from the course at the end of the year. He goes to the director of the college saying she only did it because he rebuffed her sexual advances. She claimed he never handed in coursework, but the admin was doctored. Lizzie blamed the boy, said that he had the hots for her and she wouldn’t go there, but other students said Lizzie was overly-friendly with them, the girls too. She tried to be best friends with them. This one guy, she was always touching him in class. The director didn’t know who to believe, but I think we can safely say she was at her work.’
‘She was fired?’
‘They suspended her. Soon she met a new man, got pregnant, focused all her energy on pinning him down.’
‘Nothing surprises me anymore.’
‘Nor should it. But that’s low down the list of important things now. Just another thing to add, I suppose. Right,’ said Hewitt.
‘What now?’
‘I’ll go speak to her. You, in the meantime, rest.’
‘Oh no, I’m leaving right now.’
‘Leaving to go home, though, hen?’
‘Of course, Fleur.’
‘Yeah right, I’ve met your sort before.’ Hewitt winked at me.
‘Are the results out?’ I said.
‘What results?’
‘The Repeal, from south of the border.’
‘They got it,’ she said.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, the right to safe legal terminations. Who’d have thought Ireland would get it before the North?’
‘Not me,’ I said.
‘It’s easier for people here though. I’ve been with girls who have been given a D&C in the early stages by doctors who know what they’re doing and bless them – they’re good guys. And there’s always travel money.’
‘It’s still not good enough.’
‘I don’t disagree. Not that I’ve had an abortion, I just know it’s not fucken black and white.’
‘I’ve had one,’ I said, ‘I had to do it and don’t regret it. I was in a toxic situation, worse than toxic.’
‘Even if you weren’t, Harriet, it’s your body. What a year! And the Belfast Rape trial … Any fucken wonder those other drugged girls didn’t report anything.’
*
Paul called in with the twins. I liked seeing him in his professional manner, even though he wasn’t working and was just there to say hello, let me see the boys and probably to show the rest of the staff that he had nothing to hide with this audit.
He said he would bring the boys to his mum’s for the afternoon. Then I got a call from Kate Stile. ‘I have some news,’ she said, ‘are you sitting down?’
So I got up, and signed myself out of hospital.
Chapter 43
Never leave hospital on a Saturday or you’ll end up going back in, Granny Sloane used to say. I ignored that warning and turned on the car radio looking for confirmation of the Irish abortion referendum result. It wasn’t time for the news yet. I flicked through stations until I heard Michael Bublé.
Quickly I turned the radio off.
I drove one-handed to Ballyhackamore, walked into the estate agents with my arm in a sling.
‘Heard on the radio Justin Nicholson has died,’ Dom Moore said.
Repealing the 8th amendment means nothing to you, I thought.
‘I wouldn’t bother with the Sold sign,’ I said. ‘And, obviously, the deposit needs returned.’
‘Oh, I,’ Dom became flustered. ‘But who to?’
‘Mr. Moore,’ I told him sweetly, ‘that money was stolen out of a woman’s car. So we can play the long game of you going to court and testifying …’
‘I don’t have the time for all that.’
‘Or, I’ll return the money to Justin’s victim for you,’ I said, ‘she won’t press charges against you if she gets the money back. You re
ally should have alerted the PSNI with that amount of cash coming in.’
‘But I don’t have it. It was lodged that same day.’
‘You can get it.’
‘I can’t take that sort of money back out of the bank in one hit.’
‘The woman has already told me she would be fine with getting her money back in smaller payments. She’s sympathetic to you, too.’
He nodded. ‘Alright. We’ll do it like that. Weekly instalments?’
‘She’s elderly,’ I said, ‘and has mobility issues. I’ll call and collect it on her behalf.’
‘Scumbag.’
‘Sorry?’
‘To steal a disabled and elderly person’s cash. He deserved that bullet in the head.’
I nodded as neutrally as I could.
*
Carl Higgins was standing in the office when I returned to Strandtown. ‘Miss me?’ he asked.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.
‘I’m off suspension. It was just a misunderstanding. Can’t a few officers make the same mistakes without a conspiracy?’
‘I’d have thought so. Happens often enough.’
‘I hear you were shot,’ he said.
I smiled at him.
‘And still, you look so pretty.’
‘Stop that.’
‘No repeat performance of Christmas then?’
‘God, no. I didn’t appreciate what a good man I have then … not that I need to explain myself to you.’
‘I’m just joking. I’m seeing someone too. I just like to see you squirm.’
‘Good, because that could be construed as sexual harassment.’
‘What! It was you who kissed me, Harry.’
‘Oh, shut up, Carl. We were off the clock,’ I said. ‘And you copped a feel, don’t deny it.’
Higgins laughed.
‘Where’s Fleur anyway?’ I asked.
‘Our Flower of Scotland is interviewing Lizzie Moat-Donegan. I suppose you’re back with me now.’
‘Donegan-Moat! Can this day get any worse?’
‘Ah, don’t be like that.’ Higgins gave me a hug and I almost cried with the pain. ‘I’m not copping a feel, okay,’ he said, ‘I’m just happy to be back. Platonically.’
Problems with Girls (DI Sloane Book 2) Page 21
