No Turning Back

by Sam Blake

  ‘Have you worked for the Quinns for long, Mira?’

  Mira nodded. ‘Yes, since Tom was little. Orla had very serious postnatal depression. I came first as a nanny to help out. And then as her business grew I got more involved – became her and Conor’s PA.’ She drew a breath, steadying her voice. ‘I run the house now and co-ordinate the office staff who are based here. Orla works from home; she goes into Dublin for meetings but most of her time is spent here so she can be near the family.’

  Cathy smiled sympathetically. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Sarajevo, I came here during the war. He is – was – such a lovely boy . . . This accident is terrible. Do you know if it was instantaneous?’ Her face was troubled, her imagination no doubt coloured by sights Cathy was sure she didn’t want to remember. She knew Guards, men and women who had served with the UN in Bosnia during the war. Many had returned with PTSD. Man’s inhumanity to man defied imagination.

  Chapter 3

  Friday, 11 a.m.

  Anna Lockharte leaned back on her office windowsill, her mobile phone loose in her hand, unable to focus, the conversation she’d just had still sinking in.

  She’d smiled as Orla Quinn’s name had flashed on to the screen, thinking she was calling about the charity benefit last night, but the moment Anna had answered she’d heard Orla swallowing tears, her voice cracking. The smile had gone out of her own voice as she’d found herself paralysed on the edge of her chair, one hand gripping the edge of the desk, as Orla had taken a breath and launched into what had happened that morning. Anna had watched her knuckles whiten as her grip had tightened, half-hearing what Orla was saying, half of her back in the time when she’d been told her own bad news. Then it had been her brother-in-law Charles, confirming what they had all feared most, that her sister Jennifer had died from the injuries she sustained in the terrorist attack that had changed all their lives.

  Anna turned around, leaning her forehead on the cold window glass, her emotions jumbled, trying to focus on what Orla had said. She’d been surprised when Tom hadn’t turned up for their study group, but she’d assumed he was unwell – or nursing a hangover, which was the usual problem with morning tutorials.

  How could a tragedy like this happen? How could someone hit him and just drive away? She fought away an image of his blood-soaked body lying on the pavement. She knew that picture would lead to more images fighting for her attention – images of a bank in Paris, memories she tried hard to bury – but the awfulness of the news had sent her spinning. The counsellors Charles and the embassy had brought in after that day were the best in the world. They’d explained that post-traumatic shock disorder could creep up on her at any moment. There would always be a trigger, something that took her back to the scenes inside the bank, replaying them like a movie inside her head. A horror movie.

  Anna took a deep breath and wiped away a tear, unsure who it was for – for Tom, for the loss of her sister Jennifer, for Hope, her incredible niece who was rebuilding her life piece by piece, for Charles, for herself? Death touched so many, and violent death left a stain so deep it could never be removed.

  But how could Tom Quinn be dead? Lovely, vivacious Tom who had everything. He looked like a Calvin Klein cover boy, had brains to burn, came from one of the most influential and wealthy Dublin families. His death was just so tragic. He was a perfect pupil, diligent, intelligent, questioning. He’d only been sitting in her office last week discussing his hopes for the coming year, telling her about the fun he’d had at New Year.

  Anna shook her head and pushed an unruly mass of red curls out of her face, sliding her fingers into the roots and grasping a handful. It helped her concentrate, to stay in the moment. She looked out of the rain-smeared window over the central green in the middle of the ancient university. A few bedraggled students were heading to their next lecture, heads down against the January weather.

  Orla had said a detective, a Cathy Connolly, wanted to speak to her. But what could Anna possibly tell her?

  Staring out at the wet quadrangle, Anna thought back to the last time she’d seen Tom – after college a couple of nights earlier. She’d hadn’t been watching the time, had been working in the office late and suddenly realised that she needed to get moving or she’d be there all night. He’d been walking ahead of her with another student. They’d been some distance in front of her, their heads close together, laughing as they looked at a smartphone screen. Unaware of her presence, her Converses silent on the gravel, they were far enough away that she couldn’t catch their conversation.

  The streamlined radiator below her office window gurgled and Anna felt her skin go clammy, the sound echoing to an all too familiar soundtrack inside her head. And the memories that had tried to jump into her mind the moment Orla had told her about Tom came back in technicolour. Broken bodies lying on the ground.

  The first bullet had passed her hot and fleeting. She could feel the path as it seared across her cheek, hear the dull thud as it embedded itself in the chest of the man standing in the queue behind her.

  But she hadn’t been about to turn around to look. Instead she had been in mid-dive, her arm wrapped around Hope, their red curls mingling as they hit the black and white tiled floor of the Banque Nationale de Paris. Through the teenager’s thin sweatshirt, Anna could feel that Hope had gone rigid, fear paralysing her. She’d pulled the girl to her, covering her with her body, focusing, her senses heightened, every sound, every scent magnified. Floor polish and aftershave, the bitter odour of urine. Focusing and hoping with every cell in her body that her sister Jennifer, who was over beside the bank’s lobby, was OK.

  Anna had changed so much since that day in the bank. Life had changed so much. She’d learned later that Jennifer and her personal protection officer had been killed in the first wave of gunfire – had been, when the authorities had investigated, the suspected target. The very thought of Jen being gunned down in order to influence the US government made Anna want to retch. There had been so much confusion, so many dead. She’d tried to help and then she’d had to speak to the police, relaying in detail what she’d seen and heard. Then someone had found her to tell her Charles was trying to call, and when she had finally spoken to him, he had told her the news. Now Anna’s sole focus was Hope, on ensuring that she achieved all that Jennifer had wanted for her. Moving Hope to Ireland had been her own mother’s idea. Even after sixty years in New York – sixty years in which she had never lost her accent or picked up an American one – Anna’s mother still thought of Ireland as her home, an island with a small population, with political neutrality at its core. Her old school, Hope’s new boarding school, was exclusive, intimate and safe. There were other embassy kids there and Hope had jumped at the opportunity to move from her international school in Paris to a place where no one knew her or what had happened.

  Hope had adored Paris but, after everything, it no longer felt safe.

  Anna hadn’t hesitated to step in as her guardian while she was in Ireland, and when an assistant professorship had opened up in Trinity College Dublin, it had been a perfect fit. After school in Boston, a year in the Sorbonne, Cambridge University and then the LSE in London, Anna hadn’t expected to come to Ireland, but it had been a natural move. She had always felt and sounded more European than American, despite being born in New York. It was just what they needed. Anna didn’t want Hope constantly looking over her shoulder, worrying about what might happen next. It was vital she felt safe. After that day, Anna’s own anxiety level was permanently high. She knew how debilitating it could be.

  Charles had organised for Anna to get some high-level personal training, so she could handle herself now, armed or unarmed, and that had helped build her confidence. She’d been trained to see what was going on around her, to question, to look for anomalies and to assume nothing. She’d rejected it all to start with. No one could live with a siege mentality; it had all felt so bizarre. But as it had been patiently explained to her, as long as Charles was a serv
ing ambassador, she and Hope were potential targets for any enemy of America, as incredible as that seemed. Targets who had already been between the crosshairs once.

  Death could come at any time. Look at poor Tom.

  Chapter 4

  Friday, 2 p.m.

  ‘You nearly here?’

  Wherever O’Rourke was standing, Cathy could hear his phone being buffeted by the wind, a sound magnified by her car speaker. That, and the level of irritation in his voice. She didn’t rise to it; it wasn’t like she hadn’t been bloody busy all morning.

  ‘Be there in five.’ She hung up.

  What is it about today?

  She’d been in Blackrock Station checking in with the sergeant who ran the Traffic unit about the Quinn hit-and-run when O’Rourke had called. His words – ‘a body’s been found’ – were still ringing in her ears. She hadn’t asked him for details, had instead headed straight out of the station for her car. Another body? One thing you could safely say about this job was that you never knew what was coming next.

  When Cathy arrived several patrol cars and O’Rourke’s BMW were already lined up along the narrow winding road that passed Dillon’s Park. The park itself was little more than a sloping green that ran down to the cliff edge, patches of trees already beginning to cast shadows in the winter sun. An ambulance had pulled up across the entrance, blocking the path, its back doors open, the paramedics sitting in the back on stand-by.

  Cathy pulled over higher up the hill, and grabbed a grey marl scarf off the back seat as she jumped out of the car. Despite her thick leather jacket, it was wild this close to the sea. Wrapping the scarf around her neck, she realised that the last person who had worn it had been O’Rourke; the scarf still smelled of his aftershave. She’d lent it to him one freezing night to wrap around his face in the hope that it would block the foul stench of the fifty cats who had found themselves locked in a pensioner’s apartment with only his body for food.

  Pulling the scarf up over her nose, Cathy followed the low stone wall dividing the park from the pavement, and nodded to the two paramedics as she skirted the ambulance. A narrow concrete path bisected the grass, a lonely bench in the middle facing out to sea. It never failed to surprise Cathy how close Dalkey Island seemed right here, almost like you could reach out and touch it. Ahead of her, through the naked trees, she could see the heads of seals bobbing out at sea, watching the activity ashore, seagulls swooping above them.

  Cathy stuck her hands deep in her pockets and braced her shoulders against the wind, swinging around to her right and crossing the grass to where she could see flashes of blue and white crime scene tape and white forensic overalls through the thick bushes. She’d played here with her brothers when they were little, scaling the sheer rocky crags like goats, hopping in and out of the huge rock pools. They’d tried to fish, their lines inevitably getting tangled with the thick weed, breaking over and over again. It was a popular spot for sea fishermen, regulars who had staked their pitch and were often here at dawn to cast their lines with more success than she’d ever had.

  Reaching a broad plateau of rock beside the path that was a natural lookout post, Cathy hopped up onto it, looking for O’Rourke.

  To her right the crime scene tape marked the top of a narrow path that looked like it had been recently cleared. It descended into thick bushes. She was about to pull out her phone when O’Rourke suddenly appeared from the undergrowth, ducking under the tape, striding up the steep hill, his coat flapping, phone clamped to his ear. Glancing up and spotting her, he stopped, and gestured to the path that he’d just walked up. She jumped off the rock and headed down to join him.

  ‘Girl’s body’s been spotted on the rocks. Fisherman saw her from the sea and called 999. He reckons we’re lucky she wasn’t washed away by the tide.’

  ‘Jumped or pushed?’

  ‘Only time will tell. We were co-ordinating with the lifeboat to see if they could get her off, but the rocks down there are brutal. We’re waiting for the rescue chopper instead. Apparently there’s a storm coming in. We need to move fast. Go take a look, but be careful.’ He indicated she should follow the path cut between high gorse bushes, and put the phone back to his ear. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute, the bloody mobile reception’s terrible around here.’

  The path was steep, more like a goat track than a path, shreds of ivy, russet fern fronds and exposed roots carpeting the passage. An overhanging bush leaned forward creating what looked like a dead end, but as she got closer Cathy could see the path narrowed even more and changed direction beyond it. She glanced back at the way she had come, at the sight lines from the road. This part of the park was completely hidden from the houses overlooking it, was invisible from everywhere except the near end of the path. Watching her footing, Cathy ducked under the bush to be greeted by Thirsty coming from the other direction, his forensic suit bright white against the foliage.

  ‘Afternoon, lass. Here you go.’ He handed her a pair of blue plastic shoe covers. ‘See what you think. I’ll be back in a sec.’

  Taking the booties and slipping them over her Nike high-tops, Cathy stepped carefully on to the plastic markers that Thirsty had laid down to preserve the scene. She immediately found herself at the top of a sheer drop, the sea boiling below. The wind stung her face as she recoiled. She moved slowly back to take a look over the edge. Patchy grass grew between the rocks, the hebe and ivy losing its grip for a metre or so before it grew wild and thick again further on, purple flowers bright against the dark vegetation and grey of the stone.

  The drop was so steep the body was difficult to pick out at first. About thirty feet below the girl lay face down on the jagged rocks, her padded coat wrapped around her like a black shroud, camouflaging her, making her look like a dark fissure in the rock. Blonde hair straggled across it like tendrils of seaweed. She’d obviously fallen head first and was facing the sea, one arm folded unnaturally underneath her, the angle painful. She was wearing dark tights, must have lost her shoes along the way. It looked to Cathy like she was above the waterline, but she knew the tide was fast in the sound and in bad weather the waves crashed right over this whole outcrop. In summer she would have been found quickly, this area crowded with anglers, joggers, walkers, and every shape and size of dog from early in the morning, but in January it was lonely, only the occasional dog walker venturing this close to the exposed cliff edge. If the fisherman hadn’t seen her, she could have been lost completely.

  Cathy could see clouds gathering in the distance. She didn’t need to be told that heavy rain could obliterate vital evidence and would hamper their chances of getting the girl off the rocks today. Leaning further out, trying to take in the details of the scene, Cathy caught a flash of orange to her right – the Dun Laoghaire lifeboat was anchored off Killiney Bay. The girl was in a precarious position, totally inaccessible from the land without some serious climbing gear. Even with it, getting her up would be a challenge. Waves slapped angrily at the rocks below, the sound magnified by the cliffs.

  Cathy heard a movement in the bushes behind her: O’Rourke and Thirsty returning. She stepped away from the edge, checking where she was walking as she moved further up the path to give them room.

  ‘Any idea who she is?’ A gust of wind whipped the words out of her mouth and O’Rourke had to lean in close to hear her as she repeated the question. He shook his head.

  ‘Not at this stage. No relevant missing persons reports. We can’t even be sure she’s dead until we can get a doctor down there.’

  Cathy shuddered. If the girl was alive but unconscious, hypothermia could set in within hours. And they had no idea how long she’d been here. O’Rourke said something else she didn’t catch but before he could repeat it, he was interrupted by the thup of helicopter blades. The three of them looked up as a red and white rescue helicopter appeared, skirting the coast, nose down, tail rotors whirring. The side door was open, a crew member leaning out, his orange suit luminous. Using the lifeboat as a marker she could se
e him searching the rocks, then as the chopper drew parallel with them, he spotted the girl’s body and them standing above her at almost the same moment. He waved to them and signalled to the pilot to hover.

  The noise from the chopper grew as it closed in above the rocks. Cathy pressed back into the undergrowth away from the edge. The Coast Guard search and rescue team were based at Dublin Airport and regularly practised over the Wicklow Mountains and this part of the coast. She’d met the crews many times. Too many times. Often their missions didn’t have happy endings. Feeling branches pushing at her back, the down draught from the chopper lashed the bushes around her, sending loose tendrils of her hair across her face.

  The winchman appeared at the open door, a body board in his hand.

  Cathy moved a fraction closer to O’Rourke, hoping his bulk would block her from the wind. There was no way anyone would survive for long out here at this time of year if they were seriously injured. Cathy prayed that the fall had killed the girl outright, that she hadn’t lain there conscious, dying of her injuries but unable to call for help.

  They’d know soon enough.

  The question was, what was she doing here in the first place?

  Chapter 5

  Friday, 2 p.m.

  He watched the reflection of the room in the glass screen of the monitor as he got to work. The library was always quiet early on a Friday afternoon, the librarians chatting at the main desk behind him as they wound down to the end of the week. The building was old, broad stone steps flanked by pillars at the front door, but inside it was modern and warm, thousands of books housed in shelves on wheels, low comfortable seating inviting quiet contemplation. And a bank of computers with excellent Internet access.

  Behind him he could hear the staff discussing their plans for the weekend, their accents a sing-song mixture of regions, town and country. He didn’t come here that often; he had a series of libraries that he visited on a random rotation – the busier the library, the less likely anyone was to remember him. People were nosy in Dublin, asked too many questions, but while the Internet wasn’t fast in a lot of places, the libraries were great. He used a VPN, a virtual private network, so he was totally invisible online, but just in case, using a library terminal with a group IP address made him even harder to find. He was polite to the staff but never engaged, just got in and out as cleanly as possible. He glanced at the reflection in the monitor again. He could see an elderly woman had gone up to the desk, was asking a question, keeping everyone busy.