Local Whispers

by C K Williams

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  FIND OUT MORE...

  Sean O’Doherty, Rostrevor Rd

  Sodsodsod67@hotmail.com

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  Protect our neighbourhood!

  PROTECT OUR WOMEN!!

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  FIRST MEETING IS HAPPENING!

  FEEL SAFE EVERYONE!

  WE GOT YOU!

  (Bring plenty of water and a rifle/firearm if you got one. Snacks will be provided. –SOD)

  00:06

  Midnight is a dreadful time to be in a hospital.

  Daniel made sure we could still go in. Apparently, he knows the hospital minister. Now we are sitting on two uncomfortable chairs in an empty corridor. Kate is still being examined. She sustained a head wound, probably from a blunt object to the back of her head. The blow was not very powerful, the tired doctor told us, just from a preliminary inspection, but she insisted on running further tests.

  Kate was on her way into the examination room when we got to the hospital. The nurse told us to wait. So here we are, two strange men sitting on orange plastic chairs in a windowless corridor, waiting for news. It is too quiet, and the smell of disinfectant is too intense, and everyone is far too tired to be up still.

  Daniel has his eyes closed.

  “Does it help?” I ask. “Praying?”

  He opens his eyes to look at me. They are very clear. “I was not praying,” he says, his Scottish accent more pronounced when he is tired, his voice scratchy. “I was thinking about running over the man who did this to her with my car.”

  “Oh,” I say, a little taken aback. “What would God have to say about that?”

  “I am not actually going to do it,” Daniel says. “That is what matters.”

  “Is it?” I ask, looking at my hands, carefully folded, fingers growing older, more wrinkly, thicker. “Does it not matter what we want, or what we imagine we might do?”

  From the corner of my eye, I see that Daniel is not looking away from me. “It matters if you want it to.”

  “I was raised a Catholic,” I explain. “In the confessional, it was all about what we thought and what we wanted. It was only rarely ever about what we had done.”

  “Was it because you never did anything wrong?” Daniel asks gently. “Was it because you always stopped yourself in time?”

  I shrug. Search for a topic of conversation that is safer. “I didn’t picture you to be the sort to be driving a Tesla.”

  “Ah.”

  The sound he makes is a little embarrassed and a little gleeful. I look over to see that he has leaned back, dropping his head against the wall, laughing silently. The line of his throat is long. “It was a gift. It’s completely inappropriate, of course, not to mention that I basically have to cross the border to find a supercharger, but I just didn’t know how to say no. I mean, if somebody offers you something like that, how do you turn them down? It belonged to an elderly lady in the congregation, she couldn’t use it anymore…”

  “Ah, that’s it then?” I tease. “You accepted it in the name of charity? Being a good Christian?”

  “Bugger off!,” he says, laughing still, though no longer silently.

  I raise both hands in mock defence.

  “No, you’re right, it’s a great car,” he goes on, almost unprompted. “The acceleration is incredible, remind me to show you on the way back, there’s a stretch of road where no one ever goes, it’s perfectly safe…”

  He peters out. Suddenly, I have to look away from him. Distance myself. Remind myself why we are here. Who we are waiting for to wake up. “So you think it was a man, then? Who did this to her?” I ask.

  “I was wondering whether it was the same person,” Daniel replies.

  “The same person?”

  “Kate’s attacker and Alice’s murderer.”

  “Then you don’t think it was her?”

  “Of course I don’t,” Dan says. “You’d have to be mad to think that. Kate couldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Well, someone does. They’re sending her threatening letters, after all.”

  Daniel sits forward so suddenly it almost makes me recoil. “What?”

  “Kate received a threatening letter after she was released by the police,” I explain. “And another letter was delivered tonight.”

  Daniel looks away. Then he looks down.

  “She didn’t tell you, I take it,” I say.

  “She told you, though,” he says, looking back up at me. Is it hostility I see in his expression? Jealousy? Disappointment?

  “Well, I was the one who found the first letter,” I say. “So it couldn’t really be avoided.”

  He says nothing to that.

  Instead, he leans across to me after ten minutes of silence. “Are you saying you knew that she’d received threatening letters, but you still let her go to the graveyard all on her own?”

  Now it is up to me not to say anything.

  It is half an hour later that the doctor releases Kate into our care. I want to ask her if she remembers anything the first chance I get, but Daniel takes one look at her face, puts an arm around her shoulders and says: “Let’s get you home.”

  01:25

  The car is moving through the darkness in almost perfect silence, the roads empty, white snow reflecting the cold headlights.

  “Who found me?” Kate asks, making a valiant attempt to sound as if it cost her nothing to say the words. Her head is bandaged.

  “Me,” Daniel answers, eyes fixed on the road. He is well beyond the speed limit and does not seem about to slow down. Another rage driver. Make no mistake, I will be behind the steering wheel from now on. Between the two of them, they might get us killed.

  Kate glances at him. “Did you want to check on Alice?” she asks quietly.

  I look at him then, too. Because it’s quite convenient, isn’t it?

  That he arrived just at the right time. Just the right place. Almost as if he knew where to be.

  “It was very lucky you were there,” I ask. “The attacker couldn’t have been gone for long. Did you see anyone?”

  Daniel shakes his head. “The only person I saw was you. Your body on the ground, Kate.”

  But he isn’t looking at either of us. He is staring, staring, staring, straight ahead, at nothing but the road.

  I cannot help but keep glancing at Father Daniel as he drives us home.

  01:49

  Once we arrive at Kate’s, Daniel insists on accompanying us inside. I watch him closely. I promise myself I will not let Kate be alone from now on, not with him nor anyone else.

  I stand in the kitchen, preparing tea, shamelessly eavesdropping on the conversation Daniel and Kate are having down the hall, in front of the bedroom.

  “It’s all right,” Kate says. “All I want is to go to sleep, really.”

  A pause. Then Daniel speaks again: “You sure you don’t want me to stay?”

  I am sure it is meant to come out kindly, but instead he sounds tense.

  “Where would you sleep?” she asks, almost laughing.

  “Erm,” he says. “The bed.”

  “Then where would we put Jannis?”

  Another pause. This one longer than the last. “He’s sleeping in there with you, then?”

  “You know what the guest room looks like. I wasn’t going to make him sleep among the paint buckets, Dan.”

  “How kind of you.”

  The irony in his voice could not be more obvious. Neither could the annoyance in Kate’s: “Don’t be like that.”

  “Concerned?” he asks, sharply.

  But not as sharply as her: “Jealous.”

  Daniel seems to consider his answer carefully. Then he says: “You’re shutting me out.”

  I can almost see Kate throw up her arms: “Jan and I have slept in the same bed for nineteen years. Get over it.”

  “No, I mean, you’re shutting me out of this,” he says. “You didn’t tell me about the threats.”

  This time, it is Kate who draws out
the silence. I remember the list on the coffee table. Daniel’s name on it. “I wanted to,” she says. “When I came to the church today.”

  “You could have texted,” he says.

  Silence.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he tells her, just as she says, “Let’s talk tomorrow, okay?”

  Quiet laughter. A chuckle. The chuckle is hers, I recognise it, so the laughter must be his. I wonder if he looks like he did in the hospital corridor, head thrown back and grinning widely.

  On his way out, Daniel stops in the kitchen. Standing in the doorframe, he waves goodbye. His fingers are long and thin. “Good night.”

  “Good night, Father,” I say.

  That gives him pause. He looks at me. Then he turns away without another word. I do not hear him drive off. All I see are the headlights cutting across the mountain slopes and then down the road and out of sight.

  I take the tea into the bedroom. Kate is already in her pyjamas, sitting on the bed. I hand her the tea, then I take the letter I found this evening out of my pocket and put it down on the bedspread.

  She picks it up gingerly.

  “It was dropped off just before Daniel got here,” I explain. “I did not see anyone, though.”

  Kate runs a finger along the edges of the piece of paper, reading the words threatening her with physical harm. “Seems like they acted first and warned me later, doesn’t it?” Her brow furrows. “Is that a Bible quote, do you think?”

  It is difficult to look at her face, so I look at her hands instead. “Daniel thinks it was Alice Walsh’s murderer who attacked you.”

  Her voice is tense when she speaks next. “And you think it was Daniel.”

  I sigh. I am careful not to look at her still. “I’d rather not. But it’s very convenient, don’t you think?”

  “That he saved my life?” she asks, the challenge in her voice obvious.

  It raises my hackles. I’m not the enemy here. “No, that he was there just in time.”

  “I was lucky,” she says stubbornly. “He is the priest. It is his graveyard. Why aren’t you looking at me?”

  I look up. Into her thin, determined face.

  “If I had come with you, this would not have happened,” I say, quite miserably.

  “You’re being stupid,” she insists. “This isn’t your fault. It’s the fault of the person who hit me over the head.”

  But there is a tremor to her voice. She does not want me to know that she is scared, but she is.

  “The violence is escalating,” I say quietly. “We should do something.”

  Kate nods, her expression turning grim. “Yes, we should.”

  I nod, too. We begin speaking at the same time:

  “We need to find out who is sending these letters…,” I say.

  “We need to find Alice Walsh’s killer,” she says.

  We stare at each for a moment. “You with me?” she asks, and it isn’t well above a whisper.

  “I’m always with you,” I say promptly.

  “Good,” she says. “Then there’s something I need to tell you. The secret. About the procedure.”

  “I have nowhere to be,” I say.

  Kate nods. She reaches for the pillow. She hugs it to her chest.

  And then she tells me.

  02:45

  I stare at Kate once she has finished.

  So Alice Walsh had an abortion. That was the procedure she went through. One week before she was gruesomely murdered, she has an abortion, taking two pills that she ordered on the Internet, after asking Kate about them. Alice Walsh swallows them. The same night, she wakes up, bleeding profusely. She makes it all the way to Kate’s house and rings the doorbell. Kate helps her in and takes care of her. That’s how Kate got stuck with her bloody clothes, because Alice Walsh did not want her parents to find out. That was why Kate came around for a house call on the day of Alice’s death, when her parents were not in.

  “She made me swear not to tell anyone,” Kate says. “I told the police, of course, but I don’t think that anybody else knows.” Her fingers are drawing erratic patterns onto the bed sheets. I swallow, watching Kate’s fingers.

  “Who was the father?” I ask Kate.

  She just shakes her head. “She wouldn’t say.”

  “Fuck,” I curse. “Verdammte Scheiße.” Because it feels so much better to swear in German sometimes.

  “But I’ve been thinking,” Kate adds, worrying her lip. “You know the way Alice’s body was positioned? With her body parts… puzzled back together?”

  I stare at her. Horror is already sweeping through me as she goes on: “There is this myth that, after an abortion, you have to find all the body parts of the foetus and put it back together, like a puzzle, to make sure you didn’t miss anything. Obviously that’s not true, but it is persistent. That’s what Alice’s body reminded me of.”

  We turn off the lights eventually, but I cannot go to sleep.

  If only Alice Walsh had told Kate who the father was. A woman scorned, the saying goes, but try telling a man you have taken something away from him that he considers his own. Depending on the man, this might get you into very real trouble, or so my sister says. She should know, being a detective.

  Next to me, Kate shifts in her sleep. Then she turns onto her other side, facing me. I look at the line of her face, the tufts of her hair, anything I can see in the darkness. The white fabric of the bandage, for one.

  She may pretend that she is not frightened, but know her well. I do not want to see her frightened. And I promise myself that I will protect her. No matter the cost.

  08:32

  Another morning spent at the police station in Newry. I insisted we file charges. I also insisted that I drive. Kate agreed, thank God.

  Of course, I know that the police are up to their neck in the murder investigation. Kate discovered the body on Tuesday, I flew in on Wednesday, today is Friday, and they have not made any more arrests. Detective Inspector Adam Kwiatkowski looks harrowed.

  It is still morning by the time we are on our way back. Kate is wringing her hands. I wonder if she even realises. “I have to open the practice today. This sitting around, it isn’t helping. My patients need me. GPs are far and few between in rural Ireland.”

  I nod. It will do her good to be back at work.

  “You’re right,” I say. “They need you.”

  13:01

  Rostrevor Road is as windswept as ever. I dropped off Kate at her practice, then set off for her house. Clouds are collecting in the sky, heavy and grey, as if it is about to rain, when I drive past Megan Walsh’s home.

  There is a group of men standing in front of it. Two of them are waving at me, motioning for me to pull over. I recognise Sean O’Doherty and William O’Rawe and turn into the driveway. Sean is smoking, so is William. The group seem mostly to be standing around.

  When I have come to a stop, Sean flips away his cigarette and comes towards me. William O’Rawe follows suit, also getting rid of his cigarette.

  Sean plants his feet and knocks against my window. He is wearing a smile.

  “License and registration,” he says. He laughs. I laugh with him, although I most decidedly do not feel like laughing. “Is anything the matter?” I ask.

  “No, just having a bit of a meeting,” he says. “We set up the Neighbourhood Protection, under the PCSP, O’Rawe and me. I’m the co-ordinator.”

  “A little chilly, having a meeting out here,” I point out.

  “We just want Meg and Pat to feel safe,” Sean says.

  He points towards the front of the house.

  I swallow.

  Rifles. Arranged in a neat row, ordered by size. Standing upright against the white wood. Hunting weapons, as far as I can tell. I count six.

  “Whose are those?” I ask.

  “Not to worry,” Sean replies, clapping me on the shoulder “All with the proper permits, of course.”

  “Of course,” I say, doing my very best to ignore the uncomfor
table sensation settling at the pit of my stomach. “Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll be on my—”

  “Kate not with you, then?”

  “No,” I say. “She’s at work.”

  “At work, is she?” Sean spits on the ground. “Fancy that.”

  “Where else would she be?”

  “Oh, nowhere. Just makes me laugh, that she’d go to work.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  Sean grins.

  Before he has time to say anything else, the front door of the house is opened. Megan Walsh steps out. “Is it her?” she calls out.

  Sean straightens. “No, just her fuckboy.”

  “If you don’t mind,” I say, “I really must be going.”

  But Megan Walsh is already calling out: “Ask him in, will you, Sean?”

  Then she turns around and walks back inside.

  I stare at her. Then I stare at Sean.

  He shrugs. “Looks like you’re getting out, mate.”

  He doesn’t seem to be asking.

  I get out of the car and lock it. Then I walk up to the house and enter.

  Megan Walsh has already gone on ahead, through the hall, past a set of stairs and into the kitchen. I follow her. She puts the kettle on as I stand at the kitchen island. It is state-of-the-art, outfitted with all the latest equipment, a massive fridge with an ice dispenser, a steamer and a regular as well as a pizza oven.

  She glances at me as she takes out the tea bags. “You a Catholic?” she asks me gruffly.

  Taken aback, I can do nothing but nod, although I haven’t practised my faith in years.

  “Well, that at least.” She takes out the teabags.

  She puts two cups and saucers on the kitchen island. They are very fine and match the teapot she takes out next. She bends down to take a matching sugar bowl out of the cupboard. She puts it down with a huff, then turns to the kettle. “The detectives aren’t. The one in charge of this case. He’s a Protestant.” The kettle begins to emit a shrill whistle. “They don’t care about us. It’s always been the powerful helping the powerful in this country, and we’ve always been second-class citizens.”