Where She Lies

by Michael Scanlon

‘I never asked him that. He’s a tortured man, if you ask me. He feels great guilt, running away the way he did; he feels responsible. I don’t think he can forgive himself. Maybe his feelings towards his son are an expression of his guilt. The story seems so far out, I doubt if he exists anywhere other than in his mind. But the person we’re looking for is real. He’s out there somewhere. And we need to find him.’ Beck took a deep breath. ‘Some years ago I participated in an FBI international law enforcement programme…’

  ‘I have to ask, Beck,’ Claire said. ‘But where did it all go wrong for you?’

  ‘… I spent a very cold winter attending classes at the FBI headquarters in Washington DC. I remember a module on serial killers. To cut a long story short, serial killers, most of them anyway, want to get caught. But because they believe they’re too smart, they often think they can’t get caught, so they reach out, as it were, to speed matters along, to help investigators out, because no one is as smart as they are, or so they think. But here’s the thing: despite all this, they still believe they won’t get caught, even when they’re nudging the police to find them. And this dichotomy, this yin and yang, somehow makes an appeal to their inner rational self and sometimes, before they can actually be caught, they realise that “oh shit, maybe the cops are smarter than I think after all”, and they stop. So they disappear, sometimes forever. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Think Jack the Ripper.’

  ‘Did you actually say Jack the Ripper?’

  ‘Just to contextualise the debate,’ Beck said.

  ‘This may make more sense in the morning.’

  ‘It may do.’

  She stood. ‘I’m going to bed. Good night, Beck.’

  ‘Good night.’

  He remained for a while, thinking things over, and as he stood, his telephone rang. He looked at the screen, hesitated, then: ‘Gumbell. It’s late.’

  ‘Yes, old boy, it is.’ The words were slurred.

  ‘I was just about to go to bed.’

  ‘I tried ringing earlier, hic. I thought you were staying here. Where are you? Want to have a drink?’

  ‘I’m not staying at the hotel. They wouldn’t allow me. They thought I stabbed that poor woman to death.’

  ‘Yes. I heard about your spot of bother. Come down anyway.’

  Beck closed his eyes tightly, opened them again. Of all people he should, but did not, have the patience required to listen to a drunk person’s dribble.

  ‘What did you learn?’ he asked.

  Gumbell was smoking. He could hear the undercurrent in his breath as it carried the smoke, then the long wispy sound of the exhale. There were no outdoor sounds, traffic and suchlike. Was Gumbell smoking somewhere inside the hotel?

  ‘I’ve learned that m-mindfulness and positive thinking and everything else they tell me to practise is but an ink drop compared to the beauty of the prose I’m writing.’

  Beck wondered: Is that how I sound when I’m pissed?

  ‘The poor woman was strangled, Beck. Not like young Tanya Frazzali, the other victim – the pressure was constant. He didn’t play around, hic.’

  ‘You need to go to bed. I will talk to you in the morning.’

  ‘I am in bed. Thought I’d go down to the bar again if you were there, seemed like a good idea.’

  ‘It’s not. Go to sleep.’ Beck hung up.

  He went into the spare bedroom Claire had prepared for him, took off his shoes, lay on top of the bed in his clothes and feel instantly asleep.

  Eighty-Two

  She was sitting on a chair in a bedroom. Her head hurt, and the curtains were drawn. Soft light was coming from a floor lamp in the corner of the room. There were two single beds, a duvet on each with brown and purple floral patterns.

  Melanie closed her eyes, remembering. She had run from her house, from her mother, from him. She hadn’t wanted to be there. Hadn’t wanted to be in the same house as him. She had gone through the empty streets of this town. She had walked and walked, trying to rid herself of the image of him, her so-called father. Finally, she had gone down to the river, walked through the high, dead grass, sat there listening to the sounds of the rushing water.

  She had one blister pack. Would it be enough? One by one she took out and swallowed each pill, then lay back, listening to the water, its sound quickly fading, as she began to be carried off, taken to that tranquil place, that place of peace, where nothing could ever hurt her again, and from where she hoped she would never return.

  A couple of hours later she moved, tried to sit forward, not feeling so well, her head heavy, feeling like she might vomit. She couldn’t move. She wanted to move, she willed herself to move. But she couldn’t. Why can’t I fucking move? There was no wind on her face, no tickly brush of grass against her body. Where the fuck am I? She was sitting. In a chair. Again she tried to move. But something was holding her back. In the grey light of the room she saw the rope that bound her wrists to the armrest. Her stomach lurched as if a hidden trapdoor had given way inside her as she realised: I’m tied to the fucking chair.

  Melanie tried to make sense of it. Is this home? Is this a hospital? Is this a joke? She looked about the room. No. This is not home. This is not a hospital. Where the fuck am I?

  And why am I tied to this fucking chair?

  Then she forgot about the dull pain in her head, forgot about wanting to vomit; everything else was pushed to the side by one overriding emotion: fear.

  She pulled against the rope. But it was useless. She tried to move her legs. But that was also useless. She was hog-tied.

  The sound of her breathing, loud and desperate. Melanie could sense someone standing behind her, as a cold liquid sensation underneath her made her realise she was pissing herself. The urine dribbled down the legs of the chair and formed a puddle on the floor.

  ‘You mustn’t be so frightened, Melanie.’

  The voice was soft, yet it seemed to fill the room, to bounce off the walls, the floor, and finally bounced around inside her ears. She shuddered, literally felt a cold, creeping sensation at the back of her neck, moving to the top of her head now, stroking her hair. It was a hand.

  ‘If you scream, I will have to gag you. Don’t scream, Melanie.’

  Melanie’s mouth opened; a whimpering sound emerged. ‘Pleeease. Pleeease. Don’t hurt me.’

  He walked out from behind her now, crossed the room to the curtains, the floor lamp throwing his shadow onto the wall. He turned and looked at her. His eyes bore into her. Small, cold eyes, like a snake’s.

  He looked familiar.

  The collar of his black shirt was open, the end of the white tab inside hanging loose.

  ‘P-p-priest,’ she stuttered. ‘You’re the priest?’

  He laughed, a low, squeaking sound.

  ‘No, child,’ he said. ‘I am not a priest. But my father was. He was a naughty priest. A bit like your father, I suppose. You poor girl. It must be very traumatic for you. I understand, really I do. I was made a bastard, you see. I don’t have a father.’ He laughed again. ‘Now I do have a father. Of course I do. Everyone has a father. Or I did. Until I… well, you don’t need to know about that, do you? Or maybe you do. I shall tell you anyway. Melanie. I believe there is too much fuss made around this whole business of killing. Don’t you agree? Or the “Secret Slaughter”, as the Vikings called it, as opposed to “slaying”, which they lauded, and were very good at indeed. But really, I don’t see the problem. If I don’t like somebody, and even if I do, well, I just kill them. Poof! They’re gone! It’s really that simple. And if you take a few elementary precautions, you can literally get away with it, with murder.’ He laughed. ‘I mean, who’s to catch me? The police? I don’t think so.’ But then he thought of Beck, and his smile disappeared.

  ‘Anyway. I made my father disappear. Around about two years ago. You can put two and two together, I’m sure, Melanie. He never died officially, of course, my father, and yet he has ceased to live. Nor is he missing. I had arranged to meet him when he came
back to Ireland. He had returned to take over as parish priest here in Cross Beg. We’d kept in touch over the years, even while he was in Africa. It is important that a father and son should stay in touch, don’t you agree? But I wanted some stability, I wanted to settle down, as it were. And he owed me, oh yes, he owed me big time. And when he returned it all worked out much better than I ever could have imagined. We looked like twins, you see, which helped. Quite clever to choreograph such a sequence of dance steps, if I say so myself, too. But I did. Then when he was gone, I myself attended at the missionary headquarters in Maynooth in place of my father. No one had any suspicions about my identity, not for a minute. Indeed, I was given a cheque for five thousand euro for charitable undertakings in my new parish of Cross Beg. So, you see, my father is between life and death. Neither dead. Nor alive. That is a condition I always strove to achieve, and now, in a way, I have. I am a person who doesn’t exist. Who is dead. And yet I am alive. Isn’t that fascinating? I mean, isn’t that just fascinating?’

  Despite her dreadful fear, a memory sparked inside Melanie, of a TV programme, a girl, somewhere in America, explaining how she had survived a kidnapping ordeal. ‘I had to become his friend,’ she’d told the camera. ‘I figured he wasn’t going to kill me if I became his friend.’

  ‘I’d like to do the same to my father,’ she said now, surprised at how calm her voice was. Because she had realised in this moment that she didn’t want to die. She wanted to live. Oh yes, she wanted to live. More than anything else, she wanted to live. And she would do whatever it took to make sure she did. ‘Maybe you could teach me?’

  He passed her, holding something in his hands. She saw it was a mobile phone.

  And then she noticed the glittery pink sticker in a corner. Oh, Jesus! The phone was Tanya’s.

  ‘Yes,’ he said softly, ‘this is Tanya’s. But don’t be frightened. I just like to keep… things, that’s all. I often saw them in the forest, you know. Tanya showed no moral responsibility. Nor did your father. His punishment will come. All in good time, my dear.’

  Oh, Jesus!

  She heard his footsteps walk behind her, retreating to the end of the room. There was a rustling sound, like he was searching for something.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, his footsteps approaching again. He came round to the front once more, his head lowered. She saw there was something covering his face. He knelt down before her, then raised his head slowly. She screamed, a short scream, high-pitched and sharp. He was wearing a mask, a grotesque caricature of a bird.

  ‘You like it,’ he said, holding her chin by the tip of a finger, his eyes darting about inside the small cut-outs that allowed him to see. ‘It’s a crow. I bought it at an Africa Day event in Dublin last year. What a great day that was. And such respect for a man of the cloth. I was immediately drawn to it. Because this is a town of crows, you see, they’re everywhere… Have you ever seen a dead crow, by the way? No, neither have I. And yet they’re everywhere. So you see, they are neither dead nor alive, Melanie, isn’t that strange? Don’t you find it fascinating? I know I do.’

  Eighty-Three

  Beck dreamed. Of the classroom, with its high windows that allowed the sunlight in but hid the world outside, removed it, made it something separate, alien. Of the teacher, the one they called the Scarecrow. Brother Pius was his name, with long, stringy hair, a stooped posture, small cold eyes, always dressed in a black soutane and black leather shoes, old and cracked, and which made a squeaking noise each time he moved about. The Scarecrow, with foraging hands that liked to crawl about beneath desks, sweeping his cane across the continents on the pull-down map that covered half of the blackboard, coming to rest on Africa. The class was silent. The Scarecrow stepped forward, approaching Beck, who was sitting in the front row.

  ‘Kinshasa,’ he snarled, ‘is not in the Republic of the Congo, you meandering idiot. It is the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The capital of the Republic of the Congo – a totally separate country – is Brazzaville. What is the capital of the Republic of the Congo? Brazzaville! Brazzaville! Brazzaville! You idiot. Did I really teach you to be this thick? And why would anybody hold a blanket around their neck unless they didn’t want you to see it – their neck, that is! I may be evil, Beck, but you are one stupid fucker. And I know too about covering tracks, don’t I? Because I covered my own for long enough, didn’t I? It takes one to know one, after all.’

  The Scarecrow raised a bony hand and slapped Beck across the face.

  * * *

  Beck awoke suddenly, his eyes snapping open, reaching up to touch his cheek where the Scarecrow had slapped him.

  He played over in his mind the image of Father Clifford rubbing his neck with the knuckles of his hand. Trying to take the edge from an itch. It was hard not to scratch when you really needed to. Because wounds as they heal itched like crazy. And Tanya Frazzali had cut her killer with the nails of three fingers. Three long nails. That would itch.

  A missionary priest, a true missionary priest, could not make a mistake like that. It wasn’t possible. For Father Clifford to say Kinshasa was the capital of the Republic of the Congo, was like Beck saying Belfast was the capital of the Republic of Ireland? Impossible.

  So what, then?

  The sound of the rain falling on the window. It always seemed to rain when he visited Galway. In fact, he couldn’t think of a solitary time he had come to the City of the Tribes when it hadn’t rained.

  He sat up, looked at his watch: 2.35 a.m.

  Eighty-Four

  The Meteorological Office had predicted the low centre of pressure from the north had been lurking out in the Atlantic, where it had sat, warm air swirling about it, building winds to 78 knots, or almost 90 miles an hour. The satellite photographs revealed the weather system static, the equilibrium of conditions dictating that it would likely sit on the water and blow itself out. But that was not what happened. It began to move.

  Eighty-Five

  Beck knew all too well that night shifts made the body colder, more sluggish, fuzzed the thoughts into candy floss. He watched the night sergeant, Connor, yawn and give an involuntary shiver, dancing back and forth on each foot to keep warm, the wind whipping the collar of his hi-vis jacket about his face. They were parked at the bottom of Main Street, at the junction with Bridge Street, standing on the pavement next to the public order van. The Ford Transit, its windows and doors covered with wire mesh, had been sent over from Galway. As it was every weekend.

  Claire had been quiet leaving the station, sitting in the back of the crew cab. Twice her phone had rung, each time Lucy demanding that she return home immediately and look after her. Finally, Claire had tossed the phone into the door well and ignored it.

  Beck did not pass comment.

  ‘The heater’s broken,’ Sergeant Connor said. ‘Turn on the engine and it blows out cold air, can’t be switched off. What I have to put up with.’

  The night was brooding, the sky low and heavy. They stood in silence for a long time, watching the street lights illuminating the black glistening pavements.

  ‘Why am I here?’ Connor asked with all the enthusiasm of an inmate of a Siberian Gulag starting another shift down the coal mines.

  And Beck couldn’t tell him. Because even in modern Ireland, to arrest someone, especially a priest, on suspicion of murder was not something to be done without verifiable proof. And Beck didn’t have that. Beck had nothing, nothing but his dreams.

  Claire folded her arms. She wasn’t comfortable with this herself. Beck stood perfectly still, looking at the shafts of light stretching down from the lamp post up ahead.

  The radio crackled. ‘Smithy, where are you? Come in Garda Smith.’

  Sergeant Connor pressed the talk button on the radio as he unclipped it from his jacket tunic. ‘He still not returned from that shout?’

  ‘No, Skipper, he hasn’t.’

  ‘How long’s it been now?’

  ‘An hour, more.’

  ‘Smithy,�
� the sergeant said into the mouthpiece, ‘come in now. SMITHY! WAKE UP! Are you asleep? Skipper here, Sergeant Connor. Come in, for Christ sake.’

  Connor held the radio in his hand, pressed the talk switch again, heard the crackling of static. There was silence as he released the button, clipping the radio back onto his tunic. ‘He answered a call about a public disturbance. Some fella shouting in the street. Should only have taken a minute…’

  ‘He went alone?’ Beck asked.

  Connor was silent for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said then. ‘It was nothing. He was just going to move the fella on. Tell him to go home and sleep it off. The usual. Get them all the time, can’t double crew for a shout like that.’

  Connor said it like he was trying to convince Beck.

  Beck continued staring at the street lamp, at the way the shadows swung back and forth through the beam of light. And realised that shadows didn’t normally have a length of rope attached, nor did they have…

  He stepped slowly forward. He could see now what it was. Beneath the light, the rope was tied around a neck, the other end slung over scaffolding on one side of a shop door, slicing into the neck, rimming it with blood, the head cast downward to the ground. There was a gash in a corner of the forehead, blood covering the side of the face. The body had the posture of a gingerbread man, the legs and arms slightly angled, moving back and forth. A gingerbread man dressed in the uniform of a guard.

  Beck didn’t say anything right away.

  Connor turned his tired eyes towards him, slowly following his gaze.

  Claire was too busy thinking of Lucy, guilty at having left her alone, irritated that her wife was so damned needy, to notice anything.

  Beck walked forward, stood directly beneath the lamp post, staring at the body in front of him hanging from the scaffolding pole a few feet above the ground. The wide, dead eyes gazed back at Beck.