The Child Before

by Michael Scanlon

  STOP AND DETAIN.

  STOP AND DETAIN.

  STOP AND DETAIN.

  Seventy-One

  ‘To what do I owe…’

  ‘Shut up, Beck, and listen,’ Gumbell said. ‘I’ve spent all afternoon in the company of Inspector O’Reilly. In twenty-six years of doing this job I can safety say I’ve never seen anything quite like it…’

  Gumbell lapsed into silence.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Can you get over here? Someone should come and talk to me. Instead of me having to ring around like some kind of telephone sales person.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m just about to go up on deck for some pre-dinner cocktails. Where the hell do you think I am? The morgue, Beck. The morgue.’

  An image of Gumbell massaging his head with his hand, two bloodshot eyes peering out from a pale face, and a temper – obviously – foul. Beck allowed himself a self-righteous smile.

  ‘I’ll be right there.’

  Before he had finished speaking, Gumbell had already hung up.

  The State Pathologist looked up abruptly as Beck entered the room. It was obvious he had nodded off. His breath and every pore of his body were throwing off enough fumes that even in the morgue it was sufficient to add a coarse sweetness to the air.

  For a moment he stared at Beck, confused. Beck was tempted to ask if this was further proof of what can happen when brain cells go AWOL. But he did not. He considered too, that, with a little colouring here and there, there would be little difference between the body lying on the mortuary table and the body sitting on the stool next to it.

  Dr Gumbell took a deep breath, standing up slowly. For a moment he appeared unsteady on his feet, reached out, grabbing the mortuary table.

  ‘You alright?’ Beck enquired.

  ‘Don’t ask silly bloody questions,’ Gumbell snapped. ‘Of course I’m not alright. Jesus, you. Of all people.’

  Gumbell released the table, stood silently. Slowly he pushed himself away, walked round and stood on the other side, opposite Beck. He reached down and grasped the hand of the corpse. Beck noted he was not wearing gloves. He raised the hand and turned it at such an angle that, if he were alive, Inspector O’Reilly would be screaming in pain.

  ‘By the way. The bones. I counted three sets. Two girls. One boy.’

  He allowed the statement to settle in.

  ‘Old as Methuselah,’ he added. ‘A conundrum.’

  ‘Yes.’ Beck said. ‘But I can’t think of that right now. To the matter at hand.’

  ‘See this?’ Gumbell said. ‘Lean in for God’s sake, man. You won’t see anything the way you are.’

  Beck craned his neck. That smell again, stale alcohol, mixed now with that of a carcass left out of the freezer too long.

  Beck could not ‘see this’. He could not see anything other than the hand of a dead person. Gumbell looked like he was about to speak again. Instead, he twisted the hand ever further, almost a full circle, catching the harsh florescent lighting overhead. It was then Beck noticed the tiny particles reflected in the palm of O’Reilly’s hand.

  ‘What is that?’

  Gumbell gave a triumphant smile.

  ‘About time. Bloody Nora. Metallic residue from the handle of the very same blade that was extracted from the neck of the late Inspector O’Reilly, that’s what. Here. On his own hand.’

  Beck was silent, considering. Gumbell threw him a look: And?

  ‘Really,’ Beck said after a moment, but not coming up with any conclusion. ‘I suppose he’d have to have gripped it very tightly, wouldn’t he, for that to happen? Like, very tightly.’

  Again, another triumphant smile from Gumbell.

  ‘And two plus two equals…?’

  ‘What? Two plus two equals… four. So?’

  ‘Plus two again?’

  ‘Six. Where’s…’

  ‘… This going? It’s the logic of the equation. Simple equation, Beck. Kid’s stuff. No fingerprints found at the scene. Some old ones, but nothing new, nothing fresh. No markers for DNA either. Nothing. Not even a dirty mug. Forensically, the scene was as clean as a sterile wipe. Yet not wiped. That’s key. Not wiped. Residue intact; dust, minute food particles, hair follicles. All embedded. Undisturbed. Not wiped. All there for a while. Since before the discovery of the body. You saw the amount of dust in the place yourself. So, two plus two equals four, and a further two is six, and on infinitum. It’s the sequence. The inevitable outcome. And so is this. Mors voluntaria, Beck.’

  The term made Beck wince. Not because of its meaning, but because the language invariably brought with it an image of him, the Scarecrow, who pointed a crooked finger at him now: ‘Come on you imbecile. Did you learn nothing from me? Nothing but a talent for harbouring a grudge, you ungrateful bastard.’

  ‘You mean?’ Beck began. ‘You can’t be serious? Mors voluntaria. Death by one’s own hand. He did it himself? Slit his own throat? Suicide? Steady on…’

  ‘It’s not a case of steadying on anything, Beck. Look. Read. Interpret. Everything is in those three words. It’s basic to anyone in my profession. Look. Read. Interpret. And I’ve looked. I’ve read. I’ve interpreted. And it is as plain as the nose on your face. Or the knife in his bloomin’ neck. Like the equation, it’s whichever way you want to look at it. Either way, it’s the same result. It will always be the same result.’ He fell silent, then: ‘It’s not as odd as you’d think. It’s Western sensibilities that struggle to comprehend it. Take the Japanese for example. They’ve been doing it for centuries. It’s considered an act of honour. Of bravery. But it does appear gruesome, I’ll grant you. To our sensibilities, what he did. But the neck is a much more efficient way of speeding things along. A hell of a lot more efficient. The Inspector would have died practically instantaneously. How many suicide options can give you that certainty? Think about it. Throw yourself under a train? Terrible odds. Doesn’t cut it. If you excuse the pun. Let me tell you a little story. I treated a fellow one time. Back when I was a junior doctor, just starting out. Had lain down nice and cosy in front of the evening train to Westport. Next stop the Pearly Gates… or so he thought. And there to meet him St. Peter. It turned out his next stop was the Mater Hospital, and there to meet him was not St. Peter but yours truly. I never saw anyone more disappointed. His legs were later thrown out with the rest of the offal from the surgery department. No, Inspector O’Reilly chose an effective way to end it all. His grip on the handle, i.e. his determination to see the job through, was such that it left the residue you see here now.’

  Beck shook his head.

  ‘You serious? He did it to himself?’

  ‘Jesus, you’re a slow learner, Beck. Yes. Yes. Yes. He did it to himself. And no, it’s not a joke. Even I have my standards you know.’

  Beck rubbed an index finger along the top of his ear.

  ‘Okay, I’ll let you explain this one to Superintendent Wilde.’

  Seventy-Two

  Crabby had not walked into the water after all. The cold ocean had jarred him back to his senses enough to make him realise that he did not actually want to die. Not just yet anyway. No. Not just yet.

  Since first light he had been driving. His shoes and socks were sodden so he had taken these off. He drove in his bare feet. After an hour on the dual carriageway, just past Ennis, he spotted the big road sign that said, ‘Limerick 40 kilometres’. He realised he’d been heading in the wrong direction, south, when he should have been heading north.

  He turned at the next junction and started back the way he had come. He drove for another ten minutes then turned off the dual carriageway, following the sign for Loughrea. He didn’t know where the dual carriageway would ultimately have taken him, once past Limerick, but he knew that Loughrea was on his way home.

  After another ten minutes or so he came to a village, spindly houses on either side of a road that widened as it passed through. His attention was drawn to an old set of fuel pumps at the side of the road,
painted green, in front of a white building, its windows boarded up but cleverly painted over to make it look like the place was still active: a ‘face’ peering out behind it, another window containing stacks of Bovril and Cadbury’s Cocoa. An illusion. When he looked back to the road he saw the patrol car parked across it, flashing roof lights and a sign: Garda Checkpoint.

  Crabby slowed. Thinking. Telling himself that this was a mere formality. They weren’t looking for him… or were they? It was possible, he knew. He thought of the sergeant. The one who’d viewed the CCTV in his office. Even if they weren’t, they soon would be. But were these guards looking for him? Probably not.

  Probably not.

  He thought of his mother. He thought of St Bridget’s, no bars across its windows now. But there might as well be. But most of all, he thought of his sister, Bernadette.

  A yellow-jacketed officer was standing in each lane, the furthest one leaning into the open window of a battered-looking estate car. Ahead of Crabby was a small Nissan. The guard waved the Nissan through without stopping it. Crabby eased the Range Rover forward. The guard had his hands on his hips, glancing at Crabby’s registration number and the tax and insurance discs in the windscreen.

  So far so good.

  The guard indicated with his hand for Crabby to stop, and Crabby eased his foot onto the brake pedal, pressing the window remote at the same time and lowering the window.

  The guard approached, rummaging through a mental filing cabinet, under the heading of R for Range Rover.

  ‘Good morning, sir.’

  No smile. Poker face. The tone almost bored. Nonchalant. Just procedure, sir.

  Nothing to worry about.

  Crabby relaxed, pushing his bare feet further into the footwell where they wouldn’t be seen.

  ‘This your vehicle, sir?’

  ‘Yes, guard, it is.’

  ‘Got your licence with you?’

  ‘Of course. Right here,’ leaning across, opening the glove compartment, fumbling about, finally finding it, extracting it now, handing the driving licence to the guard.

  ‘Always carry it with me,’ Crabby said, his tone friendly: let’s get this over with and I’ll be on my way.

  The officer took the licence, looking at it, then back to Crabby, then back to the licence. Then Crabby saw it. A change, understanding setting in. Reaching out now, his hand coming through the window. Crabby looked at that hand: where’s it going? Then realised, when he saw the fingers begin to curl around the ignition key.

  And then everything happened too fast to comprehend; the V6 growled, then roared, the wheels spun, Crabby jerked the steering wheel in the opposite direction to the guard, who was running alongside him now, shouting, the words indecipherable, suddenly falling away, tumbling, his hat knocked from his head, rolling across the ground. Crabby spun the steering wheel back, the carburettor filled with fuel, igniting, a surge of power, maximum revs, the big machine tearing away. He looked in his wing mirror, saw the guard getting to his feet, running towards the patrol car, gesturing to his colleague, the estate car that he had stopped taking off with a puff of black smoke. And then the flashing blue lights were in his rear-view mirror, as he pressed on the accelerator pedal, all the way, until it could go no further. The speedometer needle climbed higher and higher. But always, when he glanced in the rear-view mirror, it was there, an apparition stuck to his bumper, blue lights flashing, occasionally receding, but never disappearing completely.

  Seventy-Three

  The image of Inspector O’Reilly’s dead body had settled beneath the surface of Beck’s consciousness. Like most news of its nature, it had first seemed distant, removed, even alien. But now, after the immediacy of the time spent with Gumbell, he could consider it objectively. The man he had known, and yes, it was true, disliked, had pushed the point of a knife into the side of his neck, and kept on pushing until it had gone deep enough to slice through sinew and veins, and then, changing direction, he had pulled that knife across his neck, on and on, the distance short but relatively as wide as Siberia. And his life, all forty or fifty odd years of it, all its trials and tribulations, its happiness and joy, everything that comes with a life, finished. Gone. In a matter of seconds. It was all over. And he had done it to himself.

  ‘I bought you a coffee. It’s probably cold now.’ Claire handed him the takeaway cup. He sipped. It was cold, but he didn’t care. ‘What happened in there?’ she asked. ‘You haven’t said a word since you came out.’

  She was munching on a chocolate bar.

  ‘The two cases aren’t connected after all. Inspector O’Reilly. He killed himself. He slit his own throat. That’s what happened in there.’

  She coughed, covering her mouth to catch the spittle from flying everywhere. She swallowed, and coughed again.

  ‘Whoa,’ she said. ‘Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.’

  ‘And the bones. Found in the wood. There were sets. Two girls and a boy.’

  ‘Whoa,’ Claire said again, and looked out the window.

  When they got back to the station, Beck put his head around the door of the public office.

  ‘Connor and Ryan,’ he asked the two guards there. ‘They back yet?’

  They shook their heads.

  ‘No boss,’ one of them said.

  They should have been back by now, Beck thought. He considered going to the comms room and calling them on the radio. Instead, he looked at his watch. He’d give it another twenty minutes.

  Seventy-Four

  The road became narrower, twisting with sudden, sharp bends, slowing the big Range Rover down, lurching it about like a crazed Clydesdale horse. More than once Crabby thought he had pushed it too far, felt the big machine sliding from beneath him, crouching low onto its springs on one side, rising so high on the other it defied the laws of physics by not toppling over. For the first time in his life his thoughts were a mere sensory perception. There was a freedom to that. A dangerous, perhaps fatal, freedom.

  He had been rejected by the two women in his life who he thought had mattered the most: his mother and his wife. His children? Yes, them too. Because he had spent his life working, in this supermarket, trying to prove something to someone whom he could never impress: his wife. So he had given up. Had instead created his own world, a world where his wife and his children were not a part. And the boys, his two sons, had grown up quickly. And then they were gone. First chance they got. Who could blame them?

  Still, this was easier. The accelerator a metaphor for his life. Always running. The road demanded his attention. He eased back. Just a little. Because all it required was an extra nudge, a tight bend, a spin of the steering wheel, and he would lose control.

  A stretch of straight road suddenly opened up ahead of him and he snapped the reins, and the big Clydesdale started to gallop. But still the blue lights were in his rear-view mirror, impossible to shake.

  It was then he felt it. The energy required to propel two tonnes of metal into forward motion at this speed, that of three hundred and eighty horses, literally fading away. And something else was missing. A sound. As he listened, he could hear the grinding of fat, wide-rim tyres on tarmac. What was missing was the sound of an engine. His eyes were drawn to something glowing on the instrument panel. He looked at it. It was the fuel pump icon. Flashing. The power was not fading. It was gone.

  Crabby threw his head back and laughed.

  He couldn’t even get this right.

  Seventy-Five

  They brought Crabby directly to Cross Beg station. Running on sirens and blues, the journey had taken less than thirty minutes.

  Crabby listened to the water dripping into the bowl of the cell toilet. He lay on the thin plastic mattress on the concrete bed that had been built into the wall underneath the cell window. He could hear other sounds from outside the cell door, these drifted along the corridor, rising and ebbing; shouts, laughter, crying, the banging of doors.

  He was numb now, a coldness in his body, feeling the hopelessness of it all
. It was destiny. For this to happen. Again. And now it was his turn. To be locked up, just as they had locked up his mother. It had happened before. And it would happen again. It was happening now. To him.

  He turned and faced the wall, closed his eyes.

  And was back again. To that night. That terrible night.

  Now it was his turn.

  Seventy-Six

  Superintendent Wilde was subdued; he seemed to have lapsed into a daydream. He jerked forward in his chair now, his eyes focusing on Beck, shook his head once.

  ‘I know,’ Beck said. ‘It’s a lot to take in.’

  ‘It is. Gerry was alright you know… underneath it all. Christ, I had no idea. What he was going through. You ever work with someone who killed themselves?’

  The question struck Beck as odd. Cops all knew of colleagues who had tied ropes around their necks, or shot their brains out, usually with service firearms. Statistically, police suicide rates were six times the national average.

  ‘I know of five,’ Beck said. ‘Over the years.’

  Wilde’s eyes widened.

  ‘Really. Five. That many.’

  ‘That many. And you?’

  ‘This is my second. But I have to go all the way back to training college for the first. Andy Carroll was his name. He went down to the Cliffs of Moher one weekend and threw himself off. I never spotted it in him either. Did you ever spot it? In anybody? Did you ever say, “Ya, he’s the one, he’s going to do it?”’

  Beck inhaled hard. ‘The thing is,’ he said. ‘It’s never the ones you think. It’s always the ones you don’t.’