Blood Tide (Paula Maguire 5)

by Claire McGowan

  ‘No. Nothing from the day before that, till I was in here.’ So she had amnesia. Was that a feature of post-partum psychosis? There was a blankness about Andrea that told Paula she was heavily medicated, and she pitied the woman, for the inevitable horror that would descend when she could fully feel what she’d done. ‘Mairead’s out of here now, God love her . . . they said the plastic surgeon did a good job. I can’t see her. I won’t be allowed.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Andrea. Thank you for telling me.’

  Andrea beckoned her closer. ‘Doctor? Will you be going back over there? To the island?’

  ‘Probably, yes.’ How could she not, now? When the first person on that list had such a terrible story?

  Andrea was whispering now. As if she might be overheard. ‘Shh. They’ll hear. They listen, you know. They won’t let me see my kids – not Mairead, not Tomas. I need to get a message to them. Will you tell my husband – tell him he needs to get them off there. Off that island. Tell him it’s not safe.’ And now she was leaning forward, Paula could see what it was Andrea had been looking at out the window. Through the fogged-up glass, across the car park, was the distant gleam of the bay, and in it, far away, the dark hulk of Bone Island could just be seen.

  Chapter Eleven

  The local Gardaí were putting Paula up at the pub in the harbour, the place where the island folk crashed when they missed the last ferry or it didn’t run. The tiny room had swirly red carpet that didn’t quite hide the stains, and a shower that dripped. When Paula opened one of the little cartons of UHT milk they’d left beside the minuscule kettle, it poured lumpy sludge into her tea. Disgusted, she rinsed the lot down the tiny sink and checked her phone.

  A picture message came through, slowly and expensively – roaming charges took no account of the fact it was the same country to many. Saoirse’s big husband Dave, crashed out on the sofa beside Maggie. Her red curls were a tangle and she had juice stains on her top, a normal state of affairs. Paula smiled – Dave, a big rugby-playing bear of a man, was fast asleep wearing a pink plastic tiara. Then her smile faded. Aidan had often been made to wear the same one. Princess Bogtrotter, he called himself, a name Maggie found endlessly hilarious. Paula could stand most things, but not thinking of the two of them together, Maggie and the man she called Daddy. She pressed the Facetime icon on her phone and after a while staring at her own pale, tired face, Saoirse answered, saying, ‘It’s Mummy, Maggie.’ Saoirse was wearing jeans and a baggy grey jumper, her dark hair loose.

  Paula could see the top of Maggie’s red head and hear the film they were watching – inevitably, Frozen. The scene with the fella and the reindeer in the shed, which she couldn’t help but feel was a little suspect. ‘She has you on the Frozen, then? God love you.’

  ‘I kind of like it. Dave’s gone to sleep in protest. How’s it going?’

  ‘Mmm. Not sure. It’s a strange one.’

  Saoirse had known Paula a long time. ‘It’s fine if you need to stay longer.’

  ‘No, no, I’ll be back tomorrow. Probably. How is she anyway?’

  ‘She’s a wee dote. No bother at all.’

  Paula highly doubted this. ‘Will she talk to me, or can she not tear her eyes away from that bloody film?’ The phone was passed over. Paula tried not to mind that Maggie’s gaze kept skipping back to the TV. ‘Hi, pet. I miss you.’

  ‘Mummy, Auntie Saoirse let me have ice-cream.’

  ‘Aren’t you lucky? How’s Granny and Grandda?’ Of course Maggie called Pat Granny. It wasn’t like she had any other grandmas popping out of the woodwork.

  ‘Mummy, the ice-cream melted like Olaf.’

  Olaf? Of course, the bloody snowman. ‘Well, you have to eat it quick, pet.’

  ‘OK, Mummy. Bye.’ The phone was dropped, and Saoirse only just grabbed it in time.

  Paula said, ‘I see I’m competing with Elsa and Anna here – I’ll give you a buzz tomorrow, let you know what happens. Listen, eh, bad timing on this question, but . . . what can you tell me about post-partum psychosis?’

  Saoirse sighed. She knew better than to ask why Paula wanted to know. ‘Always the cheery stuff with you. I’ve seen it a few times. Usually the mother tries to kill the kid and herself. Pets too, for some reason.’ She’d lowered her voice.

  ‘They always kill themselves?’

  ‘They try, yeah.’

  But by all accounts Andrea had calmly carried on with her chores after putting her baby in with the dogs, and she certainly hadn’t killed the pets. Paula shivered at the images. Slavering farm dogs, and the child in there with those yowls and teeth . . . And Andrea had used the same word as the poor sailor: devil. ‘OK, ta, Glocko. Hope the storm’s not doing too much damage up there.’

  ‘Och, it’s desperate. Dave says the roof of the shed might go. Say bye to Mummy, Mags.’

  ‘Byeee,’ came the voice. Paula could see Maggie was now engrossed in the My Little Pony Canterlot Castle Saoirse had got her for Christmas, which was so big they’d not managed to move it up the road yet. She was fine. She was in the best place she could be.

  ‘Bye, pet,’ Paula called. ‘And bye, you, Glocko. Take care of yourself, OK? Don’t be running around after Miss Maggie there.’ She’d not asked about it for a long time now, but Saoirse’s main goal in life was to have a baby of her own. Paula hoped it wasn’t upsetting, looking after Maggie, whose birth had been so spectacularly unplanned and chaotic.

  ‘We’re fine. Don’t worry.’

  Hanging up, Paula got up to try and distract herself from missing Maggie, raking the curtains back to look out across the bay towards the island. The sea had calmed now, milky with moonlight, and it was hard to believe she’d been almost afraid of it on the way back. If only she could calm her mind too, tossed as it was by so many questions. Did she tell Guy Brooking he was Maggie’s father? Did she keep paying Davey Corcoran to look for her mother, and then maybe find her, and risk overturning that last stone? Risk destroying her father and Pat, who likely wouldn’t be able to stand another blow? Did she try to get Aidan out of prison, or leave him to the mercies of the police? Hope they would look harder, see beyond the neat solution that offered itself? She just didn’t know. And out there in the bay was Bone Island. She remembered Andrea’s whispered words – tell him it’s not safe. She could hardly give credence to the paranoia of a sick woman, but still. Weather or no weather, she was going back to Bone Island the next day.

  ‘Maguire? Are you decent?’

  Bleary-eyed, Paula pulled back her door to see Fiacra Quinn in the hallway, scrubbed and suited. His lilac tie was pulled tight against his shaved throat, but she noticed with some affection he’d missed a small patch. ‘Just about. Why so early?’

  ‘Press conference. They’re all over it for some reason – I’d have thought the storm would keep them busy. Even some of the English nationals have sent people. Like as not they came over to report the weather – it’s their lucky day with a nice juicy missper.’

  Paula wasn’t surprised. People disappeared every day in the UK – 600,000 a year or thereabouts, one every two minutes on average – but only a handful ever made the news. A middle-class English couple, though, and an isolated Irish island – that was enough to pique the interest. She followed Fiacra down the stairs of the pub, noting the dust in the corners. She hoped she wouldn’t bring bedbugs home to Maggie. ‘Any word on José the sailor?’

  ‘Doing OK. He’ll live, at any rate, though chances are he’ll be deported as soon as he can walk onto the plane. Coastguard picked up the rest of the fishing boat’s crew last night.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Same. All raving, one of them with quite bad wounds to his arm. Doctors think they’re dehydrated and exhausted.’

  ‘What kind of wounds?’

  Fiacra answered reluctantly. ‘They look like . . . well, they said bite marks.
’

  Paula stared at him. ‘Bite marks?’

  ‘Aye. Maybe your man wasn’t mad after all. Anyway. The boat sails off the mainland here but it’s owned by an islander, a Brendan Meehan. Someone else we’ll have to question when all this dies down. You saw Andrea Sharkey?’

  ‘I did. Fiacra – she tried to kill her baby.’

  ‘I know, I looked it up. And guess what – there was a murder on the island a few weeks after that happened and all.’

  Paula stopped in her tracks for a moment. ‘Connected?’

  ‘Not so’s anyone could see. It was before my time, but I do wonder why it didn’t come up sooner. Like, isn’t that the kind of thing you’d expect a local Garda to mention, when you’re out investigating a missper on a wee tiny island?’

  ‘It is, yeah. What happened?’

  ‘Some ould boy cut his mate’s throat. In that pub, Dunorlan’s. Guess what his name is?’

  It took her a second. ‘Jimmy Reilly?’ Another name from the list.

  ‘The very same.’

  ‘Jesus. I think – I wonder if something’s going on out there.’

  ‘Like what?’ He was ushering her out the door – clearly there’d be no time for the pallid sausages and eggs she’d seen the other guests eating.

  ‘I don’t know. Fiona has this list and one of them’s her own boyfriend, one of them’s a murderer, and one – well. Andrea nearly was, too. It’s just a bit weird, like you said. I want to go back out there today. The storm’s dying down, right?’

  ‘They say it’s gone out across the Atlantic for now. Should be fine for your flight.’

  Her flight back to her daughter, and her own safe, warm home where the milk was never on the turn. She should be itching to get on it. ‘So we can go over?’

  He squinted at her. ‘You got a theory?’

  ‘Maybe. Fiona Watts totally missed the fact Andrea was psychotic. How do you think those islanders would feel about that? Andrea’s husband was raging. Then there’s that blood in the kitchen.’ Not that this accounted for the delirious sailor or the murder in Dunorlan’s. Coincidence, perhaps. All Paula knew was she was getting the feeling strong as ever – something wasn’t right out there. Her searchlights were trained on Matt and Fiona, and whatever or whoever had caused them to be gone, with blood in their kitchen and a strange list of names left behind.

  Fiacra scratched at his stubble. They were in the car now, heading to the hotel where the conference would take place. And why the Gardaí couldn’t have put Paula up there she didn’t know. It even had a swimming pool. Tight-wads. ‘The blood’s Fiona’s, they think,’ Fiacra said. ‘Same type, anyway.’

  ‘Right. And someone cleaned it up.’

  ‘Anne found some blood round the back of the lighthouse too, outside on the rocks. Smears of it. She said it looked like someone maybe fell onto them from a height.’

  ‘So . . . maybe one of them went over the side? Could explain how the bulb got shattered. A fight or something, they fell off . . .’

  ‘Or they were pushed,’ said Fiacra quietly, watching the road as he pulled out.

  Bob

  1986

  The crime scene – until an hour ago just the offices of the Ballyterrin Gazette – was quiet. The quiet ones were bad. That meant there was no point rushing, no point shouting, no point at all. No hope. The uniformed officer on the door – Frankie Davies, good fella, only twenty years old – shook his head briefly and Bob’s heart sank. John O’Hara was dead, then. ‘Forensics?’

  ‘Held up. Bomb scare out the road.’

  ‘OK.’ They were whispering, though no one could hear them. ‘Don’t let anyone in after me, all right?’ Bob started to take a step forward, then turned back, grabbing Frankie’s arm. ‘I mean it. Don’t let Maguire in, whatever you do. Not if someone puts a gun to your head. OK?’ He gathered PJ had gone first to check on John’s wife – widow now. The hopelessness of it all dogged his steps.

  He moved in. The place was so quiet. Nothing even knocked over. He had his gun out, just in case the killer was still here – the Provos would love to take out an RUC man, especially one with an Orange sash at home in his wardrobe. Another step forward. His foot crunched on something, and he jumped. Just a pen. Cheap plastic one, shattered under his boots. Then he saw the hand the pen had rolled from.

  The head, caved in. The puddle of blood spread out on the dusty floorboards. A large footprint in the middle of it, man’s size eleven or so, with a strange ripple pattern. Bob recognised that from somewhere, he was sure, but couldn’t think just now. Careful not to add another footprint to the mess, he bent, felt the cold neck for a pulse just in case. No hope. John O’Hara was a man he’d had little time for – always whipping the town up, crying corruption and cover-ups, exposing the RUC and IRA alike, as if they were remotely the same – but Bob grieved for him anyway. A good man, quiet and dry and stubborn, now just a shrivelling body on the floor. Those stains’d not wash out. The pointlessness of it.

  Voices in the doorway. ‘DC Maguire, I can’t—’

  ‘I’ll see you out for this, Davies, swear to God I will. Fecking let me in.’

  ‘But DS Hamilton said—’

  PJ swore, loudly and horribly. ‘Move.’

  Bob went back the five paces to the door, putting himself between PJ and the blood. ‘Maguire, man, you don’t want to see. You don’t.’

  ‘John—’

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Shite. SHITE. The wee lad. Where’s the wee lad?’

  Bob didn’t get it. ‘Who?’

  ‘His wee boy. Aidan. I went to the house, neighbour says Pat O’Hara’s in the hospital so John was minding the boy tonight. Where is he?’

  Bob had thought finding the man dead was bad, but he realised as his stomach sank further there were levels beneath bad, miles of them. A wee boy. And not a sound in the place. ‘They don’t hurt weans,’ he said, trying to sound sure.

  ‘Unless they get in the way. Aidan. AIDAN! It’s me, son, it’s PJ, Paula’s daddy. You’re safe now, son, come out!’

  Nothing. Not a sound. Bob grabbed PJ’s arm, was shaken off. The eyes of his partner so cold, shoulders vibrating with rage under his dinner suit. ‘You do that side. Come on, man. Please.’ Meaning the side of the room away from the body.

  PJ tensed for a moment, then went. He was ranting, more or less to himself. ‘Margaret’s fecking raging, why didn’t they call us if they needed help, she’d have minded the wee lad, for Christ’s sake who cares about the fecking Christmas do . . . Aidan! AIDAN!’

  Bob had reached the last desk. No sound. No small dead body either.

  ‘Aidan!’ PJ’s voice roared, cracked. Bob pushed a chair aside. Eyes. He’d seen eyes, down there in the dark beneath the desk.

  ‘He’s here! He’s here!’ He stood up to call his partner, and too late realised PJ was bounding across the room.

  PJ stopped. He was staring down at his feet. Bob turned away from the child – who was motionless, but looked unhurt – and saw PJ frozen beside the body of his friend, up to his ankles in John O’Hara’s blood.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘Sergeant Quinn, is it correct you found blood in the couple’s home?’

  Fiacra was very assured answering the press questions. Paula had assumed Rory McElhone might do it, but he was nowhere to be seen. On the island still, she assumed. She’d been roped into sitting on the panel too, though she wasn’t planning to speak. It was too soon to say what she was thinking – she didn’t even know what she was thinking. Some vague sense of half-formed unease was all she had so far. Blood. Shattered glass. Diablo. She looked around the shabby room with irritation, annoyed at the heavy drapes and cheap laminate floor that must have seen the first dances of a thousand brides. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to be out on th
e island, hunting for Matt and Fiona.

  Fiacra was explaining carefully that yes, they’d found blood, but it could have an innocent explanation. No one in the audience looked convinced, and Paula could see the reporters making avid notes. They always reminded her of Aidan, press conferences. He’d have been the first one in with the difficult questions. ‘At the moment we’re keeping an open mind. The bad weather means an accident is extremely likely.’ Again, Fiacra didn’t sound like he believed that for a second. ‘The search will resume today if the weather holds. At the moment that’s our main line of enquiry – an accident of some kind.’

  ‘So why was the light shattered, then?’ A clear Dublin voice cut through the throng. One Paula recognised. At the end of the row was a blonde reporter with a walking stick.

  ‘Ms Cooley, isn’t it?’ Fiacra looked down at his papers. ‘I’m afraid I’m only going to say what I said before. It’s likely that, sadly, they’ve met with some accident, and we’ll keep searching for them as much as we can in this weather. We’d like to thank the islanders who’ve been looking so hard in such inclement conditions and urge you all not to attempt a trip over, as it’s highly likely you might not make it back again. That’s all I have to say for now.’

  ‘Well, you can’t blame a girl for trying,’ the reporter said pleasantly, and a gentle laugh broke up the conference.

  ‘Well, Cooley. Always throwing a spanner in the works, aren’t you?’ Paula greeted Maeve with a hug. They were close still, somehow, despite the fact Maeve was really Aidan’s friend, and Aidan and Paula hadn’t spoken in months, and also despite the fact that the last time Paula had seen Maeve was at her own stupid hen do. Maeve wore a trouser suit, as usual, and underneath, a flash of red Converse.

  ‘It’s what I do. You OK?’

  ‘I’ll do. Need to get back to Mags, but as you were quick to point out, I don’t really buy the accident idea either.’

  ‘Nah, I don’t think anyone does. They just have to say something, toss us a few bones. Listen, have you looked at Enviracorp yet?’