‘I left around eleven twenty, walked back to my car.’ McBride fell silent again.
‘And Tanya,’ Claire said. ‘Did you ever wonder how she was supposed to get home at that hour, in the dark?’
‘Tanya always took the shortcut. It’s only ten minutes away. It was a good night. Bright.’
Claire couldn’t contain herself any longer. ‘Ah, spare me.’ Her voice was loud.
Beck was thinking, from a distance, in dim light, that McBride could pass for Johnny Cash.
McBride watched him. ‘Tell me you don’t think I killed her,’ he said.
Beck knew McBride was starting to think of self-preservation now. ‘I can’t tell you that. On the contrary, the evidence points to you, Mr McBride.’
McBride’s voice cracked. ‘I was open and honest with you. I hid nothing. And by the way, it was Tanya who did the running after me. She came on to me, you know, in the beginning.’
‘Really,’ Beck said. ‘How so?’
A look crossed McBride’s face. ‘I can’t say any more, you understand. I’ve said enough. I need my solicitor.’
Fifty-Two
The house on Bog Road gave no sign of what lay behind its doors. The postman and been and gone, dropped three envelopes through the letter box and hurried on his way again. The two ladies standing on the doorstep now would not be so quick to leave, however. The rain had petered out to a light drizzle, but the sky was still dark and the wind like a great rumbling beast.
Mrs Fiona Hogan and Mrs Charlotte Cummins were supposed to be making final preparations for next week’s coffee morning in aid of the National Association of Carers in Ireland, along with Imelda, who was meant to oversee the group responsible for cake baking, which last year had brought in more money than all the other activities combined. Except Imelda hadn’t shown up this morning, and Imelda hated not showing up for anything. If she absolutely couldn’t help it she would always ring first and notify somebody. No one had heard anything from her since yesterday, and Imelda’s friends worried, because they were at an age now where death occupied a permanent seat at their dinner table. They had come round to check, to satisfy themselves that all was well.
But they didn’t know what to do now, because they had never really considered anything being wrong, never imagined Imelda not answering the door when they called. They looked at one another now. They hadn’t thought of this. And so they waited, and they hoped that she would soon come and open the door and everything would be as it was supposed to be. They liked having things the way they were supposed to be. And as they waited and it became apparent that no, Imelda was not going to come and answer the door today, Mrs Cummins, who was by far the pluckier of the two, knelt down and opened the letter box, peered in. The familiar hallway revealed itself as it should, everything in order. She straightened and went to the front windows, Mrs Hogan trailing behind, cupped her hands and looked in. Nothing to arouse her suspicions here either.
‘Maybe she’s gone to visit someone, or something,’ Mrs Hogan offered, both hands clasped around the straps of her handbag. She wasn’t happy with this at all.
Her friend shook her head and said with great certainty, ‘No. Her car is still here. And she wouldn’t, anyway. Not Imelda. No. You mean just take off? Not possible.’
They stood for a moment considering. Then Mrs Cummins said, ‘This way,’ and led the way from the front of the house along the footpath at the side, to the back of the property. They stood in the small neat garden here and looked up at the window where they knew her bedroom to be. The curtains were drawn.
‘Something’s not right,’ Mrs Cummins said. ‘I can’t even hear the dog.’
Mrs Hogan looked very worried now. ‘What should we do?’
‘Call the police,’ Mrs Cummins said without hesitation, rummaging in her pocket for her mobile phone. It was her first mobile phone, a gift from her daughter three Christmases ago. She didn’t carry a handbag.
‘Is that not a bit drastic?’ Mrs Hogan said, not wanting to make a fuss. She never liked to make a fuss, still unable to contemplate anything having really happened to her friend, because in her world, nothing ever happened that wasn’t supposed to happen, even death. ‘I mean, I’m sure she’s fine. Let’s wait a little longer.’
‘No,’ Mrs Cummins was adamant. ‘I’m not so certain everything is fine. I’m not certain at all.’ She pressed ‘9’ three times and put the phone to her ear.
Fifty-Three
Sometimes a 999 call to the guards in Cross Beg did not result in an immediate response. The station cars were often tied up with other call-outs, and a crew might have to travel from a different station within the district or sometimes from a different district altogether to get to the scene of an emergency. This all took time, and slow 999 response times were a hot political topic locally. But that wasn’t the case now.
Because of Tanya Frazzali’s murder, more than a dozen patrol cars were in or about the town, and ninety seconds after Mrs Cummins had made her call, a marked patrol car turned onto Bog Road and pulled up in front of Imelda Jean Butler’s house. Despite the prompt response time, the two gardai in it seemed in no hurry to get out of their car and go to the house. Minutes passed before they emerged from the vehicle and made their way along the garden path to the front door, talking to each other as they went, one laughing, motioning with his foot as he kicked an invisible football. Mrs Cummins scowled, and Mrs Hogan forced a smile.
‘And the bedroom curtains are drawn, are they?’ the smaller of the two gardai asked without any introduction. He had fair hair and bad skin.
‘Yes,’ Mrs Cummins said. ‘You can have a look yourself. Come on, I’ll show you. It’s round the back.’
The guards didn’t move. They had picked up on Mrs Cummins’ natural sense of authority and didn’t like it. The older of the two, tall with thin shoulders and white sideburns, said, ‘We’d better go round the back, Des, and have a look,’ as if by saying it he was maintaining control.
They followed Mrs Cummins down the path at the side of the house to the back garden. Mrs Cummins pointed to the window.
‘That’s it right there. See? The curtains are drawn.’
The fair-haired guard bent down and picked up a couple of loose pebbles and threw them up at the window. They tinkled against the glass and fell back down to earth.
‘Imelda has very good hearing,’ Mrs Cummins said. ‘We knocked on the door. Nothing. Something is wrong, I’m telling you.’
‘We’ll have to force the door,’ the older guard said. ‘Des, put your shoulder to it and see if it gives.’
The young guard went to the door, pressed his shoulder gently against it, testing it. He could tell it was old. He readied himself, positioned one foot as an anchor, and rammed his shoulder against the wooden panel. It took two more attempts before there was a splintering sound and the panel gave. The guard reached in and turned the latch.
‘Look at her door,’ Mrs Hogan said. ‘My God. Did they have to do that?’
‘Stay outside, please,’ the young guard said, stepping into the hallway. The two guards walked into the kitchen, looked around briefly, came out again into the hall, went through all the ground-floor rooms. Finally, they climbed the stairs. On the landing they paused, looking at the closed doors across from them.
‘That should be her bedroom,’ the older guard said, pointing to the door on the left. He moved over to it and knocked twice.
‘Hello? Mrs Butler. Are you in there? This is the guards.’ He put his hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly, pushed it open.
The smell was like a toilet that hadn’t been flushed in weeks; he saw the body lying across the bed, and about it and on the floor – as if someone had splashed a can of red paint – was blood, but turning black now, thickening.
The younger guard took a step forward but the older guard caught him by the arm. ‘No. Don’t do that. It’s a murder scene now.’
The younger guard had not thought of that. He had not
fully processed the sights before him. A suicide, possibly, or a freakish accident, but not murder. In any case, it was too late, as his foot came down on something soft with a distinct crunching sound. He looked, saw that his boot was planted firmly into the centre of a squashed dog. Beside it, where the head should have been, nothing but tooth splinters and splattered brains.
‘Holy fuck,’ he swore, as he jerked his foot up.
Fifty-Four
Beck was in the ops room, standing next to Claire’s desk, by the window, looking out on to the street below. McBride’s solicitor had arrived and was interviewing his client in the Prisoner Consultation Room in the holding area. It was unlikely that McBride could be held beyond twenty-four hours. A file was being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions, so his detention would be suspended while the case against him was prepared. He would also have to surrender his passport. There was not enough to detain him for the murder of Tanya Frazzali, but he would be charged with the crime of statutory rape.
From where he was standing, Beck could hear the sound of voices coming over the radio in the Comms Room, tinny and full of static. He was not listening, not as such, more like processing, similar to an automatic monitoring system programmed to pick up on keywords. Beck picked up on keywords now: ‘victim’, ‘dead’, ‘cordoned off’.
He went quickly across the Ops Room, stood in the Comms Room door, saw the green light illuminated on the dispatch table as the dispatcher notified all units… ‘Bog Road in Cross Beg, body of female, multiple stab wounds, found inside property. Note, house can be located by presence of marked unit parked outside. All units with exception of priority attend.’
* * *
The blue and white chequered crime scene tape fluttered in the wind. They were the first detectives to arrive. Two uniformed guards stood on the pavement outside the tape. Other guards milled about along the pavement, a half-dozen marked cars haphazardly parked on the roadway, roof racks turning and headlamps blinking, like a scene from a TV crime drama. The two guards in front of the crime scene tape were the first responders. Beck was pleased the older one had the presence of mind to seal the crime scene. No one would enter until the Technical Bureau arrived. Beck learned the older guard was Joe Burke, who, on approaching him now, displayed the calm demeanour of a seasoned old-timer. He explained to Beck and Claire how he had found the body.
‘Good work,’ Beck said, but the old guard seemed impervious to praise.
Beck saw an unmarked Hyundai pull up and O’Reilly and Wilde get out. O’Reilly’s shoulders were hunched and his face expressionless. He walked straight over to Beck.
‘You,’ he said, jabbing a finger. ‘I don’t want you here. You’ve done enough for one day. Just fuck off.’
Wilde had stopped further behind, was talking to a uniformed guard. He glanced at Beck once, then looked away.
Beck knew you had to pick your fights – your battles – call it what you will. You decided which were worth it and which were not. And very few were worth it, and even though this wasn’t one of them, Beck found himself stretching to his full height; if he could, he would have pawed the ground like a buck deer. Instinctively, O’Reilly squared up too in reply.
‘You’re an arsehole,’ Beck spat. ‘You know that? Who the fuck do you think you are anyway? Arsehole.’
O’Reilly pointed, spittle forming in the corners of his mouth. ‘Sherlock fucking Holmes himself, is it? Ha! Your problem, Beck, is you think you’re better than everybody else. You think you can look down your nose at us, at me…’
Around them, everything stopped; faces turned to watch. No one spoke.
‘That’s enough!’ It was Superintendent Wilde now, striding up and stepping between them. They were so close he had to push them apart. ‘Beck. Go back to the station. Please.’
Beck opened his mouth to object.
‘Beck! There’s little can be done here, anyway. For now.’ The superintendent glared at him.
Beck bowed his head, turning, began walking away.
‘You come with me,’ O’Reilly said to Claire, before Wilde could say another word. Wilde placed his hands on his hips, looking about. He pointed at something, and a uniformed garda turned to look. O’Reilly glanced quickly at Beck, then back again.
Although it was mid-afternoon, the light was murky. Motorists turned their headlamps on. As Beck walked away, he could feel it, intangible but real, permeating everything: fear.
Fifty-Five
Beck went home, packed an overnight bag and made the five o’clock train to Dublin with minutes to spare. He passed the journey brooding about O’Reilly. The inspector’s petty grievances were getting in the way of professional objectivity. He was like poison ivy, spreading a sense of stinging irritation everywhere he went. Just past Athlone, Beck rang Claire. She answered immediately.
‘Beck. How you feeling? You have grounds there. He humiliated you.’
‘He humiliated me?’
‘Yes.’
Beck waved an arm through the air, almost hitting the person sitting next to him. He turned towards the window. ‘I don’t think so. He annoyed me, got my goat up, yes. But he’s not capable of humiliating me. Humiliation is in the eye of the beholder. No, he did not humiliate me. Anything I should know?’
There was a pause. Beck listened to the gentle clickety-clack of the iron wheels on the rails. ‘It was quite brutal,’ she said. ‘I mean, there was a lot of blood.’
‘You were in there?’
‘Yes. I went back.’
Beck could see, reflected in the carriage window, the person sitting next to him, a middle-aged man with a high forehead, wearing glasses. He saw his eyes slide towards him now.
‘We’ll talk later,’ Beck said, and hung up. He closed his eyes, and nodded off for the remainder of the journey.
* * *
Beck turned the key and went into the house. It was literally like stepping into a fridge. In fact, it was colder in the house than it was outside. With it came the musty smell of damp.
Beck went straight to the oil burner switch in the kitchen and turned it on, heard the whoosh as the oil ignited.
His house was in the Dublin suburb of Ranelagh Village. He’d bought it over twenty years before. Or rather, he’d nominally bought the front door knocker, the rest being given over to a mortgage that stretched off to infinity. At the time he had been thinking of getting married but had been finding it difficult to move beyond the theory stage and on to the practical and to actually do it. When his fiancée at the time, a soft, kind-hearted nurse named Valarie who was simply too sweet for a man like Beck, eventually realised the idea of marriage to him was never going to be anything other than that – an idea – she finished the relationship and moved on. She had surprised him with her steely resolve. But by then, the house had been purchased, and without her contribution, the mortgage became a major strain on his income as a young uniformed garda. But fast-forward and now, because of Dublin property prices, the house had increased in value tenfold, and Beck found himself, technically speaking, a millionaire. However, in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king, and so Beck would never see the monetary benefit of this. Because to sell the property and live in Dublin would mean having to buy another, and he’d be back to where he had started again. Unless he actually did retire and move to Spain as, according to Gumbell, he’d been talking about doing in O’Callaghan’s the other evening. A simple stone house with a terracotta slate roof, an olive grove out back and wine on tap in a barrel. He also thought of sunburn and flies, sweat dripping into his eyes and that he’d probably be dead within a year.
He knew he would have to make a decision about this place soon. Rent or sell? And in that was the answer as to whether he would remain in Cross Beg or not. The only upside to remaining was that property prices were considerably less in Cross Beg. With a million, he could probably purchase the entire Main Street.
He went through the house. Everything was in order. He should be grateful; it h
ad not been burgled. Or maybe it had and he just hadn’t noticed yet, because the burglars had left again without taking anything, not interested in the paltry pickings on offer. And the alarm hadn’t gone off because Beck didn’t have an alarm. What he had was a two-box dummy alarm system purchased from Lidl, fitted to the front and back walls and with blinking green and red lights. It was solar-powered, so he never had to worry about batteries.
Beck waited for the central heating to melt away the chill of the house. He sat in the living room with its one settee, one armchair and a bookcase crammed with old Sunday newspapers but no books. He kept his coat on, watching the wisps of condensation puff from his mouth and nose each time he exhaled.
The shrill sound of his phone cracked the silence. He took it from his pocket, looked at the screen, saw it was a private number and answered. The feeling that came from knowing it had to be her, that she had rung, even if she would not speak, made him feel like a giddy teenager.
He listened, but it took a moment to realise that there was sound, and to understand what it was. It was the sound of someone crying.
‘Who is this?’ he said.
The crying softened, and he heard a long, sniffling sound. A voice spoke softly.
‘I waited for you. You never came home. Where are you?’ The edges of the words slurred.
‘Mrs Claxton? Is that you?’
‘Mrs Claxton, is that you? Mrs Claxton, you say! Do you even know my first name? I’ll save you the trouble, will I? It’s Sheila! Did you even know that? Check the lease if you need reminding next time.’
‘Mrs… Sheila. I know your first name. I don’t need to check the lease. I’m in Dublin. I have a meeting in the morning.’
‘Are you with someone? Is that it?’
Beck silently groaned. ‘No, Sheila, no, I’m not. I’ll be back in Cross Beg tomorrow. I’ll see you then, okay?’
Where She Lies Page 16