The Child Before

by Michael Scanlon

  ‘Easy, Beck,’ it was Claire, from behind.

  ‘… It’s certain,’ Beck continued, ignoring her, ‘I think it’s certain, the body of your partner is lying back there in a car registered to your name. On the back seat of which is a baby seat. But there is no baby.’ Beck held the paper in the air. ‘This is a search warrant. Now let us in to the property.’

  Roche raised his arms, fisting his hands, placing them in front of his face in the defensive boxer’s position. His eyes narrowed. Beck wondered if it was within operational guidelines for him to head-butt the man, aim for the nose. The blow to the soft cartilage would cause an instant overpowering pain and a flood of water to the eyes. Deciding it probably wasn’t, he stiffened his left leg in preparation for bringing his right up and kneeing him in the balls instead. He’d have a better chance of explaining that, if he absolutely had to.

  But Roche moved first. And not in a way Beck could have imagined. He began pummelling… himself. And as he did so, his face took on a tormented grimace, his mouth opened in an imitation of Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’. From his throat came a long grinding sound, like a low gear of a motorbike engine. And then he collapsed on his knees to the floor.

  Beck stared. Should he clap or commiserate?

  ‘Look after him, Smyth. Dempsey, come on.’

  The probationer gave Beck a nervous glance, nodded her head. But Beck didn’t have time for this. Roche’s reaction concerned him. Was there a body in here too – that of baby Róisín?

  They went through all the rooms. Looked under beds. Opened wardrobes. Went to the attic. Emptied boxes; old clothing, and stuff. Into the kitchen. Checked the cooker, the fridge/freezer, the refuse bins, even looked in the microwave. Went to the rear garden, a tiny green area, grass faded and uncut, some attempts at flower beds along the edges, but mostly bordered by weeds. They went back into the kitchen and through a door here into the garage. Beck was giving up hope now of finding any baby, and felt relief and disappointment, both at the same time. He detected a smell, like cinnamon, as he pressed a switch on the garage wall. A florescent light flickered and buzzed to life, revealing bare concrete walls, and a single window covered by wallpaper and a metal bar across the back of a door opposite.

  There was a work bench just inside the door, running the length of the wall and in the centre a black machine, without definition, like a lump of metal offal, just sitting there. But the plate with black lettering on a red background bolted to the front gave it away. It said, ‘Original Heidelberg’.

  It was a printing press.

  Beck walked over and looked at it. He touched it with a finger. It was cold and clean. He knew now the smell was not of cinnamon. It was ink. There were two rollers attached, like an old-fashioned clothes squeezer. Hanging from one end was a thin braided leather bracelet, loops of red thread woven through it, with a broken clasp. On the floor was a canvas cover with a corner rolled back, revealing tins of ink beneath.

  Beck considered that. The man was a printer after all. On the work bench was a stack of booklets. He walked over, picked one up, turned it over. The title: Living the Word. The Magazine of St. Joseph’s Parish, Mylestown.

  Twelve

  October 1954

  The boy could see a change come over his mother. She had grown very quiet, sitting with her arms folded, not speaking, her back against the wall in a corner of the room. Not once did she turn his way, to look at him. There was a look in her eye, like she could see things others could not. He didn’t like that look. It told him that something was gone, a part of her was missing. Maybe the leprechauns had crept in while no one was watching?

  There was a terrible stench in the place now. The boy thought the sick calf had died, because it lay so still on the floor. No one was paying any attention to it. He could hear people outside, voices, and a dog barking, an occasional wail of a woman.

  He saw the big detective go to the door and stand before it.

  ‘Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Come with me. Leave your other man here.’

  He opened the door and stepped out into the night, the sergeant following. The boy could hear their footsteps crunching and fading as they walked away. A brief silence followed, and then the big detective’s voice boomed:

  ‘You will all make yourselves useful. Men, women and children. Everyone. You will do as we direct and leave no stone unturned. I want this place scoured. Scoured. Do you hear me!? Enough of your guff about banshees and monsters. I won’t hear of it any more! If that baby isn’t found by the middle of this night, Kathleen Waldron will be returning to Galway with me. From there she will be taken to the asylum in County Clare. Now, get on with it.’

  But no sound of movement followed. Only silence. Then the booming voice of the detective came once more:

  ‘I said. Get on with it. Now!’

  At that moment, a sound tore through the night from outside. It was a howl, swirling through the air, filling the entire world. The boy froze, staring into his grandmother’s tortured face. A panic rose in him but he pushed against it. He was hot, and pulled the blanket down from about him, but instead of cold air he felt something warm on the back of his neck, like a moist breath. He snapped his head around, and looked into the face of a monster, nostrils wide, ears large and protruding, eyes circled by rings of brown.

  It was the calf, standing by the hag, staring at him, its tongue protruding from a corner of its mouth. For the first time, the boy began to cry.

  Thirteen

  In the living room, there was a fireplace with a stone surround full of tissue paper, takeaway coffee cups and cigarette butts. This was not a tidy house. In a corner of the room was an empty playpen, brightly coloured plastic animals strung across the top. Roche was quiet now. He sat on a white settee beneath the window, a very low settee so that his knees were almost level with his face as he leaned forward, arms tightly held across his chest. He gently rocked his upper body back and forth.

  Beck was staring at the playpen. It seemed to shout out to him, drowning out all other sounds by its very silence. He looked at the faces in the room. Was he the only one to hear it?

  The uniforms sat on the settee along with Roche, one on either side of him.

  Beck went and sat in a white leather armchair beside the fireplace. It was covered in black crease lines. Claire sat in the armchair opposite him, turned it so that she was facing Roche.

  Silence.

  For a long time Roche remained in the same posture, arms folded, staring at the floor.

  Silence.

  Slowly he raised his head and looked at Beck. His eyes had lost their defiance. He looked beaten. For the first time Beck felt some sympathy for the man.

  ‘Why did you not report your partner and daughter missing? Can you explain that?’ Beck asked.

  ‘Because, like I already said we’d had a row. She stormed off. She’s done it before. She always comes back though. When she cools down. But I didn’t think she’d stay out all night. If I did, of course, then, it would have been different, I would have reported it. I really didn’t think she’d stay out all night, okay. The row wasn’t so bad. We’ve had worse. I can’t even remember what it was about now.’

  ‘You told us it was about you playing golf and not being home,’ Garda Dempsey said. ‘That’s what you told us when we got here. Remember?’

  Roche did not strike Beck as the golf-playing type.

  ‘Oh, ya,’ Roche said. ‘Look, this is wrecking my head.’

  ‘Where do you play golf?’ Beck asked.

  ‘What? Oh, Cross Beg golf club. On the driving range, nothing fancy.’

  He’s lying, Beck thought, but let it go for now.

  ‘But they didn’t come back,’ it was Claire, ‘that’s the thing. They didn’t come back. And you did nothing about it.’

  ‘I thought she’d gone to her mother’s, or one of her friends’,’ Roche said softly, hanging his head again. ‘The baby’s probably with one of them.’

  The baby’s probably
with one of them.

  And Roche’s earlier meltdown seemed to have passed in double quick order. Specifically around the time he’d realised that they were coming in no matter what.

  Beck noticed now the picture frames on the mantelpiece above the fireplace. And the large framed photograph high on the wall beside the settee. The photograph on the wall was of two people. There was Roche, in an open neck white shirt, the same stubble on his cheeks that gave him a permanently unwashed look. He was smiling. But it was a forced smile. Beck guessed that smiling did not come easily to the man. Next to him was the woman. The woman from the car. Samantha Power. In death there is no beauty, but in life she was surprisingly beautiful, Beck thought. Even allowing for high-heels, she was taller than Roche. The dress she was wearing clung to every part of her slender body, merely emphasising the portliness of the man next to her, the physical differences between them.

  He’s not just punching above his weight, Beck thought, he’s scaling a sheer rock face.

  Beck looked at the frames on the mantelpiece now. There were three: Roche and two men in the nearest, wearing shirts and ties, a sombre occasion of some sort; the remaining two of Roche and different people – family occasions, he guessed.

  ‘It may not be her,’ Roche said. ‘Will you take me there? So I can see. Please.’

  Beck considered.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ he mumbled, ‘it’s not procedure.’ His voice rose an octave now, ‘Mr Roche,’ pausing again, knowing he had to build up trust, and continuing with his first name. ‘Edward. Unfortunately, that’s not going to change anything. I’m sorry to be blunt. Formal identification besides, we’re pretty certain who the victim is. What you haven’t told me about is your daughter. You don’t seem very concerned, Edward. I’m beginning to get suspicious. I have to tell you that.’

  ‘Concerned,’ Roche shot back, his defiance returning now because it had never really gone away. ‘Of course I’m bloody concerned. Look at me.’

  ‘Edward,’ Beck said, ‘where are the photographs of your daughter?

  Roche opened his mouth, was about to answer, but before he could there was a crashing noise and with it an explosion of glass. There were no curtains on the windows, and the fragments showered the settee. Instinctively, the people sitting there covered their heads with their arms. There was a dull thud as the rock bounced against the end wall, the one behind Beck’s head. It landed on the floor at his feet.

  Beck jumped up and crossed the room. He was just in time to see a group of children run along the street from the house.

  ‘Feelings are beginning to get a little hot,’ he said to no one in particular. He turned. ‘Edward, why would that be? Why would children choose this house to put a rock through its window at a time like this?’

  ‘Little shits. News travels fast around here. Very fast. They’ve heard something, haven’t they? And having a cop car outside doesn’t help. They don’t like me, okay.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And I don’t take crap from them either.’

  Claire looked at Beck: uh oh.

  ‘Have you been in trouble with the police before?’ Claire asked.

  Roche’s head swivelled.

  ‘What? What’s that supposed to mean? Why do you ask? What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘It’s a standard question.’

  ‘That I’m not answering, because it has nothing to do with this. My partner, her child, are missing, and…’

  ‘Her child,’ Beck interrupted. ‘Odd phrase. Isn’t it your child too?’

  Roche fell silent, slumping back into the settee, ignoring the broken glass. He sighed, closed his eyes, began massaging the corners with the index finger of each hand.

  ‘She’s not my child,’ he said.

  Fourteen

  The house was big enough that most days they didn’t get to see each other. It sat in a hollow on the side of the mountain two miles outside Cross Beg. It was not a big mountain, rising on one side of the Brown Water River basin, but big enough so that Crabby could see almost the whole way to the holy mountain, Croagh Patrick, way off in Co. Mayo on a clear day.

  Since their two children – both boys – had grown and left home, their living arrangements had changed by mutual, silent, agreement; Julie lived in the top of the house, Crabby in the bottom. The kitchen and the outside deck were shared areas. Julie never went onto the deck anyway, even on the warmest of days, and with a little careful planning, they never were in the kitchen at the same time either. They existed in a state of marital purgatory, hating the sight of each other and yet at the same time neither willing to live without the other. Instead, she liked to silently torment him, just by her very existence. She liked to stand at an upper window when he was down below her on the deck, and watch him. Nothing more. Just watch him. He would feel her eyes upon his back after a time and could not help but to turn and look. And there she would be, looking down at him, with that strange smile on her face. A smile he was familiar with. Her father had it too. It only came out on special occasions. Christmas for example, when he cashed up at the end of the day. As the notes slid in and out between his fingers, it would be there. One corner of the mouth up, the other down, two front teeth poking out over the lower lip. It went against nature, a smile like that. It wasn’t really a smile, but it wasn’t a smirk either. There was no word for it, it was subconscious, it was an expression, of triumph. I have won.

  The patrol car dropped him at the end of the driveway. Where it was difficult to see from the house, unless you were peering out from the very top of an upstairs window that is. Which she could well be, so he kept to the side of the driveway, against the bushes, hidden. At the top he crossed quickly and went around to the back of the house, then approached as if he were coming from the garage.

  He entered through the kitchen door, but she was waiting for him, two fat feet poking out from beneath a long, white floral-patterned summer dress – a dress that only served to make her appear twice as fat as she already was. Her dyed auburn hair framed a still pretty face, despite the blubber on her neck and cheeks, the sharp green eyes still holding their sense of mystery. It was as if a new body had grown out of the old, all that remained was the kernel of who she once was.

  She didn’t speak, she didn’t have to, because those eyes said it all.

  He felt like he always felt around her, like a little boy, one who wanted to run away. But where to?

  ‘I went for a cycle… ’ he said, and a voice inside his head went, you’re pathetic! ‘Like I do… the weather… it was early… maybe a bit too early… I stopped at Kelly’s Forge…’

  The eyes: Humph, Kelly’s Forge.

  ‘I found… I found…’

  As he fell silent.

  The eyes stared, and she was silent. You found what?

  He whispered: ‘A body… there was a body… a body in a car… a d-de… a d-dead body… it was just… just there.’

  A sound issued from his mouth that he had no control over, like a whine.

  Her eyes now: You’re pathetic.

  He felt an overwhelming sense of sympathy, but for himself, and she could read it, she could read everything about him, this woman of tones, a different tone for every occasion. She was an apothecarist of tones, selecting from her vast collection, tipping in the appropriate essence. She selected one now, and it was contempt, dolloping it on.

  ‘What were you doing there? Meeting one of your bitches I suppose?’

  ‘Nooooo,’ the whine never ending.

  He cannot stop the whine.

  He tells himself: You are pathetic.

  ‘My father was right. The apple never falls far from the tree, after all. You did well out of us, my father and I, didn’t you? And now your name is over the door. My father would turn in his grave. Is it one of the shop girls? I warned you about that.’

  ‘I wasn’t meeting anybody.’

  ‘I hear the way you talk to them. There are laws about that now, you silly man. D
on’t you know that? Not to speak of the shame, for your two sons, for me, if… A body, you say. You found it. Whose body?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Humph. I’m thinking of the business. Not you. Of our sons’ inheritance. If you destroy it, my reputation, their reputation. They have the bad luck to go through life now with your silly last name. My fault that, I admit. Yes, if you destroy it, you’ll end up begging on the streets. You’ll have nothing. I’ll see to it. I promise you. I guarantee it, do you hear me?’

  Crabby crossed the kitchen to the sink, leaned over it, placed both hands onto the window sill. He suddenly felt like he was about to throw up.

  ‘Did you tell them, the guards?’ she asked, selecting condescension now, pouring it on. ‘I bet you didn’t tell them that.’

  The whine left Crabby’s voice, replaced by surprise.

  ‘Tell them what?’

  He realised he and his wife were saying more to each other in that moment than in the entire previous year.

  ‘Oh, don’t act silly. Don’t act silly, Maurice. You silly little man.’

  Crabby straightened and turned from the sink. He looked at his wife now, directly into her eyes. It is she, Julie, who is taken by surprise on this occasion. But she doesn’t look away, instead looks back at him. Silently they stare at one another.

  ‘You were there, yesterday afternoon, weren’t you? Kelly’s Forge. Did you tell them that? Well, did you?’

  Maurice said nothing.

  ‘Well, did you tell them that, you silly little man?’

  ‘No. I was not. I was not there.’

  ‘You lie. You pathetic little man. And when you came home, there was blood on your clothes. Did you tell them that?’

  Maurice covered his mouth with a hand and turned back to the sink, lowering his head, retching once, then twice, before finally vomiting up a stream of yellow viscous liquid.