Local Whispers

by C K Williams

  “I don’t, and I don’t give a fuck,” I say.

  And then he kisses me. With all the caution of someone who is still wearing an alb. And I cannot say that I care much for the caution.

  I haul him in by his lapels, my fingers clutching the white fabric. He follows with all the enthusiasm my ego requires. His hands come up to hold my cheeks. And for the next minute of kissing, we keep our hands where they are, for fear of putting them in the wrong place. For fear of making a mistake. For fear of scaring the other off or scaring ourselves off.

  And then suddenly this is fine, this is more than fine, this is something I have always wanted to do, and I want to do it with him, and for some completely inexplicable reason, he would also like to do it with me, me, a man who has clearly seen better days, with less of a belly and a better haircut and a beard that has seen some grooming. But fuck me if I am going to question it.

  Fuck me if telling the truth isn’t worth it.

  15:51

  We are back at Kate’s house. Kate is in the bedroom, getting changed and grabbing her suitcase before we take a proper look at our handwriting samples. I am in the bathroom, the shower already running so that the water heats up properly before I step in. My limbs are shaking. I take off my sweater, then the shirt, button by button. There is the silliest grin on my face; I can see it in the mirror. It is not the sort of smile that I often see on my face. It suits the beard and the locks and the man. It even suits the red blotches still all over his chest and his throat.

  I turn away from the mirror before I get embarrassed by my own happiness. I reach out a hand to test the water, which has finally run hot. Then I take off my trousers.

  As I put them onto the closed toilet lid, carefully folded, I see that something is poking out of my pocket.

  It is the blank slip of paper.

  That wipes the smile off my face.

  Alice Walsh is dead. That is the truth. She was not my child. She was not my friend. But she was struggling in a way that I have been struggling. She was alive, and now she is dead. Because someone murdered her and cut her up and left her lying in her own bed in pieces. That is the truth.

  My body is still shaking, but it is for a different reason now.

  I stare at the slip of paper. Then I bend over, put it onto the top of the lid and write a single sentence:

  I will find out who did this to you.

  Then I step into the shower. Thirty minutes later, I have shaved and dressed and brought out my own suitcase. Packed and ready, we sit down and bend over the coffee table. Kate is next to me, opening the envelope with the slips of paper.

  “Ready?” she asks me.

  And I am so very ready.

  The truth will win out.

  18:01

  We have sorted the slips of paper into different categories: suspects, potentials, strangers. We will go through all of them, of course, but prioritise our suspects. After tea, consisting of oven potatoes with thyme and caramelised carrots and an alibi side of salad, I consult the list we made a few days ago. It still consists of

  Megan Walsh

  Patrick Walsh

  Father Daniel

  Sean O’Doherty

  William O’Rawe

  I mark everyone with a plus who owns a rifle that we know of, namely William, Sean, and Daniel. Then Kate takes the pen out of my hands and crosses out Daniel’s name, throwing me a grin that is downright dirty.

  She walked in on us in the sacristy. Of course she did.

  Then we make another list. Of people who were close to both Kate and Alice Walsh, whom we may not think of as suspects, but whom we should make sure to check. Florence O’Rawe goes on it, so do Tessa and Elizabeth Adams. We do not have samples from Elizabeth, but Tessa actually filled out a slip of paper, without partaking in the Holy Communion. How accommodating everyone is being.

  I am actually grinning as we lean over the coffee table. Kate unfolds the note attached to the brick, straightens it out on top of the table.

  “We don’t have a sample from Sean, so William O’Rawe should be first,” I say, reaching for it and placing it above the threatening note. And then we both lean in even closer. We stare at the words. I can feel Kate’s cheek right next to me. For a moment, I remember what I told Daniel. I think I want to kiss her.

  Then I focus on the letters. And we start comparing.

  21:01

  The handwriting is not William’s.

  He wrote down a children’s song, the same that he had put on the wreath that I had seen at the memorial. Girls and boys come out to play, the Moon doth shine as bright as day. It may have been a song he had intended to sing to the child he had fathered. If he was the father. We still don’t have proof. It may have been a song he sang to Alice Walsh when she was young. It certainly isn’t his handwriting. Nor is it Patrick’s. Or Megan’s, or Tessa’s, or Florence’s.

  I am no longer grinning. Instead, I am actually tearing my hair. It is the perfect length for tearing. If I am being honest with myself, I was convinced it would be William O’Rawe’s handwriting. He has the means, the mindset, he could have the motive. Not just for threatening Kate, but also for murdering Alice Walsh. The children’s song strikes me as suspicious, but the handwriting simply doesn’t match.

  Now, I am going through the samples of strangers, whose link with Kate is so tenuous that it would be a miracle if we hit a match. Patients, mostly. Next on my list would have been Sean, but we have no sample of his. I turn to Kate. “Do you have anything that could serve as a handwriting sample from Sean? Notes he left you and that you kept, letters?”

  Kate does not look at me but keeps staring at the slip of paper in her hands. Her expression is tired.

  “Kate?” I ask. “A shopping list? A Post-it note? Anything would do, really.”

  She puts down the slip of paper. Right above the threatening note. “Look at the As,” she says, voice tense.

  I lean in even closer.

  The As.

  It is as if my own frustration has been washed away in the way a pint of beer washes away all your aches after a long exhausting day at a rally. Excitement is already thrumming through me. Kate is right. The As are awfully similar.

  “Who is this from?” I ask, my voice notably excited. A stranger after all, then. God, who would have thought? A patient, probably. A patient who saw her scalpel. A patient bearing a grudge, something we may not even be aware of.

  Kate does not reply. All she does is turn over the slip of paper. On the back, the person has written their name in clear, clean letters.

  No.

  No, no, no.

  “We have to be sure,” I say.

  “Yes,” Kate says. “Let’s go through them again. All of them.”

  I nod. All I can do is nod.

  23:12

  Five hours. Five hours we have spent poring over the note attached to the brick and the slips of paper collected from the congregation. We have compared letters, Os and As and Ts. We have double-checked every slip of paper. We narrowed it down to three possibilities. We took a break, ate the leftovers, cold potatoes and carrots, our fingers sticky with cold grease and caramelised sugar. We returned to it with fresh eyes. All the time, dusk was breathing down my neck, the light in the room changing, the sky turning red first through the window, then blue, grey, and finally black, just to let me know how much we are running out of time. We should be off already. Off to the hotel.

  Now it is fully dark out, and the moon has already risen and set again, and we are staring at the coffee table, sitting next to each other, knees drawn up to our chests. Kate is wearing one of my soft sweaters. The phone has been ringing, but neither of us has answered. We are not looking at each other, because the moment that we do, one of us is going to have to say it, and neither of us wants to.

  It is Daniel’s handwriting.

  This is a truth I did not want to know.

  Kate speaks first. She leans into me, her head on my shoulder, and says: “I’m sorry.”<
br />
  I allow my head to fall against hers. The scent of her shampoo is clean and familiar and calming. Today, I stood in the sacristy and I kissed that man. The past few months, Kate has been sleeping with him. God.

  “There might be an explanation,” Kate says, but her voice is so pained that I know she’s saying it only to comfort me. And to comfort herself.

  “Oh, there will be an explanation,” I say. I rise to my feet. My skin is hot with how stupid I feel. How I have been made a fool of. It is hot with anger. “And we’re going to go get it.”

  Kate wraps a hand around my bare ankle. It makes me still. “Shouldn’t we think this through?” she asks.

  “No,” I say, because that is the last thing I want to do. “We should go to him and find out what is going on. What else he isn’t telling us.”

  “He cannot be the father of Alice Walsh’s baby, Jan,” she says quietly.

  “Maybe he lied,” I say. “What do we know? Maybe they slept with each other, and he lied about it.”

  “Wasn’t there anything else in the slips of paper?” she insists. “Any other message that struck you as odd?”

  I am barely holding it together when I push William O’Rawe’s paper slip into her hand. “O’Rawe wrote down a children’s song. He may have sung that to her when she was a kid. Or he may have intended to sing it to their child. We have no way of knowing. But we do know that Father Daniel wrote that note tied to that brick, and I want answers. I want to know why he is bothering you, and I want it to stop.”

  Kate is still looking at me. “Is this about me?”

  “No,” I admit, even though saying the truth is costing me.

  “Let’s call the police,” she suggests, stroking my ankle. Her thumb is too gentle.

  “We’re just going to talk to him,” I say, obstinately.

  Her voice turns a little sharper. “You sound like Sean.”

  “Do this for me.” The words break out of me. “Please.”

  One last stroke across my bare skin. Then Kate is on her feet. “Let me fetch a matching jacket,” she says, and I find that I can take a breath and not fall apart over this. Not yet.

  23:25

  We step out of Kate’s door. I am watching every shadow. For a man with a rifle. My hand is balled into a fist in my pocket, around two slips of treacherous paper.

  I see nothing but trees and hear nothing but rustling leaves and feel nothing but the heat of my skin. The shame, the anger, the hurt. They burn so hot.

  We get into the rental. Kate will be driving. I don’t trust myself to.

  23:57

  When we approach the church, there are still quite a few cars parked outside. My hands are shaking when I open the car door. The cold air wraps me in an embrace that is not welcome. I need my blood hot for this. I know that I am soft. God, did he know? Did he take one look at me, and recognise the way I looked at him, and decide there and then that he could use me?

  We go into the church. The doors are not locked. The church is cold and quiet, as cold as the night outside and even quieter, no more snow crunching under our shoes, ice crystals breaking under our soles. Just the hollow echo of our steps on the stone. He does not seem to be here.

  “In the rectory, then,” Kate says and starts moving towards the sacristy. “The sacristy has a connecting door.”

  Once we have reached the door, I reach for the handle. I pull, and it opens without effort. We step into the room; it is pitch-black, the curtains drawn in front of the only window. We make our way to the connecting door to the rectory. I am in a hurry. My brain is not being kind. It is telling me that this makes no sense. That Daniel isn’t like that. That it doesn’t add up, the letter that was left on the night he drove over to tell me Kate had been attacked. But maybe he is working with someone. Maybe with William O’Rawe. Maybe with Sean O’Doherty. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe I am…

  Shut up, I tell my brain. Just shut up. We will confront him. We will find out why the fuck he is doing this sick shit. We will find out what else he’s done. To Kate. To Alice Walsh. To God knows who.

  I push the handle down. This door, too, swings open.

  We step into a low corridor, walls painted white, simple cream-coloured carpeting. There are a few prints on the wall, drawings of the local fauna, probably came with the building.

  I am still fumbling for a light switch when I hear steps.

  Suddenly the lights are turned on.

  Daniel is coming towards us from the other end of the corridor. My first thought is to charge.

  Then I realise what that expression on his face is.

  Terror.

  “Lock the door!” he calls out.

  Kate is turning to obey, but I stop her with a hand on her arm. He may be trying to trap us.

  “Do it!” Daniel says, his voice desperate. “They’re coming!”

  He has reached us, reaches between us to lock the door to the sacristy. He looks pale and frightened and his fingers are shaking. “I don’t, I can’t…”

  He turns around and rushes back through the corridor. Kate is one step ahead of me as we rush to follow him to the front room, but I am right behind her.

  That is why I barely manage to avoid crashing into her when she stops so suddenly. I reach for her shoulders to steady myself. My chest against her back, her hair in my nose. I can hear her breath. The sharp intake. The sound of shock and the smell of fear.

  We have a clear view of the front door of the rectory from here. Of the windows to both sides.

  A clear view of the silhouettes.

  They are all standing outside around the front door of the rectory. Six of them. Six silent silhouettes.

  Every single one of them is holding a rifle.

  Evidence #10603

  Category: Notice

  Description:

  A poster put up by Neighbourhood Protection with added writing at the bottom, found outside Annacairn church.

  NEIGHBOURHOOD PROTECTION

  * * *

  PROTECT YOUR NEIGHBOURHOOD

  At Neighbourhood Protection we believe in partnership between the local communities and the police (Policing and Community Safety Partnerships (PCSPs)). We help you protect YOURSELF, we help you protect YOUR property, we help reduce YOUR fear of crime in YOUR community.

  * * *

  FIND OUT MORE...

  Sean O’Doherty, Rostrevor Rd

  Sodsodsod67@hotmail.com

  * * *

  PROTECT OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD!

  PROTECT OUR WOMEN!!

  * * *

  We won’t stand for this!!

  We won’t let them poison our teenagers

  We won’t let them fuck our women

  We won’t let them come in here and beat up our men

  We won’t let them abort our children

  WE WON’T STAND FOR THIS

  THIS IS OUR LAND

  OUR WOMEN

  OUR CHILDREN

  OURS!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Day 6

  Monday 7th January 2019

  Evidence #10613

  Category: text messages

  Description:

  A sequence of text messages left on the phone of Alice Walsh, shortly before her death; they were sent via a provider for anonymous text messaging and cannot be tracked back to the sender.

  #1

  Hi Ally

  * * *

  #2

  Sorry, I know you don’t like these texts. But it’s important we do this so that this stays between us. I know you don’t want your parents to know, and that just makes sense.

  * * *

  #3

  You messaged me and you said you needed to tell me something. You said to come by during my lunch break. You made me nervous. Can you believe it? You, making me nervous. Just like that.

  * * *

  #4

  I’m coming over right now.

  * * *

  #5

  I can’t wait. I can’t wait to see you. I love you.

 
I love you very much.

  00:02

  There is no light except the pale stars in the sky, and no sound except our laboured breathing. We are standing in the dark front room, all three of us staring out at the silhouettes.

  The silhouettes holding their rifles. Not just one, but six of them.

  They are so close. If any of them is a practised shooter, I have no doubt that they will not miss their mark.

  “Step back,” I whisper. “Slowly.”

  “What do we do?” Kate asks.

  “The police,” I say. “Use your mobile, Kate.”

  “No signal,” Daniel says. “There’s no signal here.”

  “Landline,” I hiss.

  The ensuing silence tells me all I need to know.

  Daniel does not have a landline.

  Fuck.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  I take a careful step back, but I am hesitant. I want to know who they are. I want to confront them. Hell, I want to confront Daniel.

  “They will go away,” I say. “All doors are locked? All windows?”

  “Yes,” Daniel says quietly.

  I turn to face him. “Then perhaps you’d like to explain yourself.”

  He opens his mouth and closes it. It is impossible to read his expression in the dark. He lifts his arm, perhaps to reach for me. I take a measured step back.

  “There are six people with rifles outside my house, and I’m scared?” he tries. His voice is tense. From the corner of my eye, I see that Kate is slowly inching towards me. I move in her direction, to make sure she does not inadvertently come any closer to the window.