‘Do you think they’re the same people who killed Micky Crounan?’
‘It wouldn’t surprise me at all. And it wouldn’t surprise me if we never saw Derek Hagerty alive again, either.’
Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán said something in reply, but at that moment the Holmatro generator started up, and Katie couldn’t hear what it was. Inside the Mondeo, Garda McCracken had been completely covered with a thick fawn blanket to protect her from debris and the firefighters had started to cut away the roof with their lobster-claw cutters.
The noise of the generator and the sound of tearing metal and plastic drowned out any possibility of conversation, and when Father Burney came puffing up the ramp Katie could do nothing but clasp his hand and point to Garda McCracken, hidden under her blanket as if she were already dead.
12
It had started to rain again by the time Meryl turned into the driveway of her house on the Boreenmanna Road, south-east of Cork City. It was a large detached house almost completely hidden from the road. The rain crackling in the high hedges that surrounded it made them sound as if they had just caught fire.
As soon as she switched off the engine, the man in the back seat snuffled and opened his eyes and looked around him.
‘Where are we?’ he asked. ‘Did I fall asleep?’
‘Yes, Denny, you did for a while,’ said Meryl. ‘This is my house. I’m going to take you inside and you can clean yourself up and then we’ll decide what to do with you.’
‘You won’t be calling the guards?’
‘No, I promise you. But first you need to have a shower and change out of those filthy clothes. I’m sure Norman will have something to fit you.’
‘That’s your husband, yes?’
‘That’s right. Like I told you, the other fellow was just an old friend, that’s all.’
She helped him to heave himself out of the car and up the steps to the porch. As they reached the front door, it suddenly opened and Meryl’s husband appeared. He was stocky and bespectacled, with grey wings to his rust-coloured hair, and wearing a check shirt and beige trousers held up with bright green braces. In one hand he was holding a folded-up copy of the Examiner, with the cryptic crossword almost completed.
‘Meryl!’ he said. ‘Where in the name of Jesus have you been all day? Who’s this? My God, look at the condition of him!’
‘This is Denny,’ said Meryl. ‘I’m really sorry I haven’t been answering any of your calls, darling, but while I was shopping I met an old friend and we went for a little drive around for a catch-up. On the way back we saw Denny lying by the side of the road and we couldn’t just leave him there.’
‘For the love of God, Meryl, you could have called for an ambulance, couldn’t you? What did you bring him home for?’
‘Because she’s a good Samaritan, your wife, sir,’ said Denny, clearing his throat. ‘She and her friend did not pass by on the other side of the road and leave me lying there.’
‘What friend?’ frowned Norman. ‘Why did you have to drive around with her? You could have brought her back here, couldn’t you? I’ve been worried.’
‘Can’t we get Denny inside, Norman?’ asked Meryl. ‘The poor fellow can barely stand up.’
Norman peered at Denny over his spectacles, his mouth puckered in distaste. ‘I suppose we don’t have much option, now that you’ve brought him here. But I think we should call for an ambulance. I don’t see what we can possibly do to help him.’
Together, they helped Denny shuffle into the house. They took him through the hallway into the living room and Norman spread sheets from his newspaper over the red brocade sofa so that he could sit down. Denny looked around, blinking. Norman had owned the house before he and Meryl were married and the living room was decorated in 1970s style, with a red-brick fireplace, an oak cabinet with all of Norman’s golf trophies inside it, and a large reproduction painting of Blackrock Castle on a stormy day.
A long-case clock ticked wearily in the corner, as if it were tired of life.
Meryl said, ‘I was hoping that Denny could have a shower and maybe you could lend him something to wear. That old maroon sweater of yours and a pair of trousers.’
‘That old maroon sweater is what I wear when I’m gardening,’ Norman protested.
‘Well, I’ll buy you a new maroon sweater and you can do your gardening in that.’
‘I’m going to call an ambulance,’ said Norman.
‘No, please, no,’ Denny interjected, lifting his hand. ‘I know you’re not at all happy about taking me in like this, and believe me, I appreciate your Christian kindness more than I can tell you. But I wasn’t knocked over, or involved in any kind of a road accident. I was taken hostage by a gang of criminals so that they could demand a ransom for my release.’
‘You were what?’
‘It’s true. They snatched me and blindfolded me and took me somewhere near to Fermoy, as far as I can guess. Then they contacted my wife and said they wanted two hundred and fifty thousand euros or else they were going to kill me. And to prove they had me, they pulled out all of my front teeth, with no anaesthetic at all, and they sent them to my wife in a jam jar.’
Norman stared at him, then took off his spectacles and leaned forward and stared at his bloated lips even more closely. ‘Holy Jesus.’
‘They beat me, too,’ said Denny, lifting up his shirt to show Norman and Meryl the angry crimson bruises on his ribs. ‘They warned me that if my wife told the Garda what had happened to me, even after they let me go, they would kill us both. In fact, if we told anyone else about it, they would come after them, too. That’s the reason I don’t want to tell you too much. ‘
‘So what happened?’ asked Norman. ‘Your wife paid the ransom and they let you go?’
Denny shook his head. ‘I have no idea whether she’s paid it or not, because I managed to escape. The last time they fed me I hid a spoon down my sock, and I used it to force the catch on the toilet window. It was a fifteen-foot drop down from the window to the garden and I think I cracked one of my ribs when I fell, but I ran off and I kept on running, and then walking. After that, I don’t really remember what happened until your wife and her friend came across me.’
‘So who are they, this criminal gang? What name do they go by?’
‘It’s better that I tell you nothing at all. You know what they say – what you don’t know can’t knock on your door in the middle of the night.’
Norman looked across at Meryl with a mixture of exasperation and bewilderment. ‘I don’t know whether to believe any of this or not,’ he said. ‘Either you’re telling us the truth here, Denny, or else you’re stringing us along something rotten.’
‘I swear to God,’ said Denny. ‘But I can’t tell you any more for your own safety.’
Meryl said, ‘Please, Norman. Just let him have a shower and a change of clothes and something to eat and drink if he wants it. Then I can drop him off wherever he wants to go to, and that’ll be an end to it.’
Norman breathed in noisily through his nose. ‘All right. But I don’t like this one bit. And I’d still like to know what you were doing driving around with this friend of yours. And you’ve taken a drink, haven’t you? I can smell it.’
‘I’ll talk to you after, Norman,’ said Meryl. ‘Meanwhile, why don’t you take Denny upstairs to the bathroom and give the poor fellow a towel and something to wear.’
‘I have that yellow sweater I’ve never worn, the one with the zig-zag stripes that your mother gave me.’
‘All right, whatever. He only needs something to go home in.’
Norman turned to Denny. ‘Do you think you can manage the stairs?’
‘I think so. You don’t know how grateful I am. You’re a saint, sir, believe me.’
With Norman grasping his arm to support him, Denny climbed to his feet and stood between them swaying. ‘You’ll get your reward in heaven for this,’ he told Meryl. ‘The angels will be applauding you as you walk through the pearly
gates.’
‘Just come along,’ said Norman testily, and guided him into the hallway.
Denny heaved himself very slowly up the stairs, clutching at the banister rail and wheezing with every step. Norman led him along the corridor to the bathroom.
‘Be wide of that shower,’ Norman cautioned him. ‘Sometimes it runs ice-cold and then without any warning it starts to run boiling hot, so you may have to do a bit of adjusting if you don’t want to get yourself scalded to death. If you hold on a second, I’ll bring you a towel and some fresh clothes.’
Norman went to his dressing room to fetch the yellow sweater with the zig-zag stripes and an old pair of olive corduroy trousers that were now too tight around the waist. Then he went to the airing cupboard and took out a bath towel that he had stolen years ago from Ballybunion Golf Club. When he returned to the bathroom he found that Denny had completely undressed, apart from a droopy pair of Y-fronts stained with yellow and a single pale blue sock. He had bundled up his suit and his shirt and perched them on top of the clothes basket.
It was not only his ribs that were patterned with bruises. There were red and yellow and purple contusions on his shoulders and his arms and his legs, most of which looked as if they been inflicted with a thick stick or a metal bar.
‘Jesus, they certainly gave you a clatter, didn’t they?’
‘They said I deserved it. They said that I was one of the worst examples of the bad businessmen who had brought Ireland to its knees. Borrowing too much, running into debt that I couldn’t pay back.’
‘Well, you weren’t the only one, by any means,’ said Norman. ‘We all thought that the boom times were going to last for ever, didn’t we? If your criminal pals manage to beat every businessman in Ireland who got himself involved in rash speculations in the Celtic Tiger days, I’d say that at least two thirds of the male population will be walking around in the same state as you.’
Denny patted his puffy, scab-encrusted lips with his fingertips. ‘It makes no sense to me at all. Why did they think they could get so much money out of somebody who doesn’t have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of? Like I told you, I don’t even know if my poor wife’s managed to raise that much. I hope to God she has or else our lives won’t be worth a thrawneen.’
‘Well, take your shower now and think about that later,’ said Norman. The sight and smell of Denny was making him feel like going out into the garden, for all that it was teeming with rain, and taking a deep cold lungful of fresh air.
‘Thanks again for doing this, sir,’ said Denny. ‘I know how rank I must look to you now, but you should see me when I’m all dickied up.’
Norman gave him a brittle smile. ‘I’ll leave you alone, then,’ he said, although he was thinking, I must make sure to throw that bar of soap in the bin after.
***
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Meryl asked him when he came back downstairs. ‘I’ve just brewed a pot.’
‘Wouldn’t you better off with a strong cup of coffee?’ Norman demanded. ‘You go out drinking with some anonymous friend and come back home bringing some stinking beaten-up tramp with you. I think you owe me an explanation, don’t you?’
Meryl said, ‘Very well. I won’t lie to you, Norman. It was Eoghan.’
Norman stared at her in disbelief. ‘Eoghan? Eoghan Carroll, you mean? What in the name of God were you doing going out drinking with Eoghan Carroll of all people?’
‘I told you. We were catching up, that’s all.’
‘I hope that was all you were doing. No wonder you didn’t answer my calls. Eoghan Carroll, for Christ’s sake. He’s a married man now, just like you’re a married woman.’
‘We went for a drink and a laugh, that’s all. I’m not your prisoner, Norman, and just because we’re married that doesn’t mean I can’t have an innocent conversation with a man who used to be my boyfriend.’
‘Jesus. I don’t believe it. And to think I trusted you. And I’ve only gone and left my phone upstairs in my dressing room.’
‘Norman – ’
‘Oh, don’t “Norman” me, girl. I thought we had a marriage as solid as a rock.’
‘We do, Norman! Eoghan wanted us to get a room in a hotel, but I said no. I told him it was long over, me and him.’
‘I’ll kill him! I will personally strangle him, I swear it! I have to get my phone.’
Norman went back upstairs, leaving Meryl in the living room with her eyes filled with tears. The power-shower motor in the attic was still rumbling, but as Norman passed the bathroom door he could hear that the shower itself had stopped clattering, so Denny must have finished washing himself.
He had taken only a few more steps along the corridor when he heard Denny say something like, ‘Yes, okay, that’s grand.’
Norman tiptoed back to the bathroom door and inclined his head towards it.
There was a moment’s silence, and then Denny said, ‘Okay, yes. I have you. Yes. I’ll see you at five at Michael’s.’
His voice was gummy and indistinct, and he said ‘yesh’ instead of ‘yes’ and ‘shee’ instead of ‘see’, but there was no doubt that he was talking to somebody on a mobile phone, and that he was making an arrangement to see them later.
For a while he said nothing but ‘yesh’ and ‘yesh’ and ‘I deck that, yesh’. But then he said, ‘No, no question at all, they’ve shwallowed it one hundred per cent. I should hope sho, any road. The husband especially, Norman. He’s really getting thick about it, sho I think he will. Yesh. For sure, yesh. Okay. I’ll shee you after.’
Norman felt like bursting into the bathroom and demanding to know who Denny had been talking to, and what he and Meryl were supposed to have swallowed one hundred per cent. Instead, though, he gently eased down the door handle and pushed the door a little way open so that he could see inside.
The bathroom was still humid from Denny’s shower. Denny was standing in front of the washbasin with his back to the door, towelling his neck and his shoulders, but the mirror was steamed up so that he couldn’t see Norman looking in at him. A black mobile phone was resting on the shelf next to Norman and Meryl’s toothbrush mug.
Denny had been abducted, thought Norman, and yet his abductors hadn’t taken his mobile phone off him? That made no sense at all. More remarkable than that, though, almost all of his bruises had disappeared. He still had a few faint red marks on his back, but all of the darker bruises had vanished completely. Norman could only conclude that they hadn’t been real bruises at all, but make-up of some kind, and that Denny had soaped them off in the shower.
Tempted as he was to confront him, Norman quietly closed the door. He hurried to his dressing room to collect his phone and then went back downstairs. Meryl was standing by the window, looking miserable.
‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she said. ‘I never should have gone with Eoghan for a drink. It was only for old times’ sake.’
‘Don’t worry about that now,’ said Norman. ‘Your man upstairs is an impostor. He has a mobile phone up there with him, and all of those bruises he showed us, they’ve all washed off. He was talking to somebody about how he’s managed to fool us, and he’s arranged to meet them at five o’clock.’
Meryl stared at him. ‘You’re serious?’
‘I heard him and I saw him for myself. With a bit of luck, though, I don’t think he saw me.’
They heard the bathroom door open. Norman put his finger to his lips and whispered, ‘The best thing we can do is act as if we don’t suspect anything. He might turn violent if we let him know that we’re on to him, or call his friends to come round here and give us a beating, or worse.’
‘So what are we going to do?’ Meryl whispered back.
‘Act natural. Give him a cup of tea and then I’ll drive him into the city. But I’ll call the guards before I go so that they know all about him, and where I’m going to drop him off. I can’t imagine what kind of a game he’s playing, but it seems to me like it could be very dangerous.’
Denny appeared in Norman’s yellow zig-zag sweater and his olive corduroy trousers, carrying his old clothes rolled up under his arm. He was smiling as much as his swollen lips would allow, although they were bleeding a little where the scabs had washed off and he had to keep dabbing them with a folded piece of toilet paper.
‘Feeling better, Denny?’ Meryl asked him, trying hard to sound natural.
‘Grand altogether, thanks to the both of you. I’ll never forget this.’
‘Well, sit down and I’ll pour you a cup of tea. Do you think you could manage some brack?’
‘I don’t know about that. My gums are fierce sore. But the tea would be welcome.’
‘I’ll drive you into the city after,’ said Norman. ‘Any place special you want me to drop you?’
‘Grand Parade, right outside the old Capitol Cineplex, that would be perfect.’
‘No problem at all,’ said Norman. ‘I’ll go and get my car out. You take your time with your tea, Denny. After what you’ve been through, you need to take it easy.’
13
Katie was sitting in the waiting room outside the intensive care unit at Cork University Hospital when her iPhone rang.
Dr Owen Reidy was calling from his pathology laboratory in Dublin. He sounded unusually amiable, as if he might have taken a glass of wine with his lunch, or maybe two.
‘We’ve finished examining your man’s head, Detective Superintendent. So far as we can tell, it was severed with a chainsaw. It’s impossible to say without the rest of his body whether this was done before or after life was extinct. Even if it was done before, it certainly would have been extinct after.’
The fluorescent light in the waiting room flickered and made a buzzing noise like a bluebottle, and the rain pattered sporadically against the windows.
‘Any other marks or bruises?’ Katie asked him. ‘Presumably somebody must have held his head still while they cut it off, even if he was dead already.’
Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire) Page 9