‘Leave him alone!’ screamed Meryl, scrabbling even more frantically at the sand all around her. ‘He won’t tell anyone, I swear to you! Leave him alone!’
‘You can shut your mouth, too, missus, unless you want some of the same,’ snapped the carroty-curled young man. He slapped the shoulder of the stocky middle-aged man and said, ‘Go on, Phelim, get to filling in, would you, boy, before this fecking weapon gives me a headache.’
Meryl stopped screaming. She could see that the bouncer-type who had punched Norman in the stomach was now bundling him bodily into the second hole. Norman was still whining for breath and for a few seconds he disappeared completely. When he eventually managed to stand up straight, chest-deep in sand, as Meryl was, his eyes were still bulging and his mouth was agape, like a stranded mullet.
Phelim went over at a leisurely pace to the rock where he had been sitting and waiting, and returned with his spade. Meryl looked up at him with what she hoped was a pleading expression, but his eyes were such slits that it was impossible for her to tell if he was moved or not. Without a word he began to shovel up some of the sand that he had excavated from the hole, and drop it back into the hole all around her.
‘You can’t do this,’ she said, shakily. ‘Do you hear what I’m saying to you? You can’t do this. If you leave us like this the tide is going to come in and we won’t be able to get out and we’ll drown!’
Phelim said nothing, but kept on dropping sand around her until the hole was filled right up to her underarms. Not only was she panicking now, but the weight of the sand against her chest was making it hard for her to breathe.
‘I’m making one last appeal to you as a Christian and a human being,’ she said. Still Phelim remained stony-faced, and now he began to bang the sand flat all around her with the back of his spade. Meryl tried to snatch it, but he simply gave it a sharp, vicious twist and she had to let go, with blood welling out of a deep diagonal cut on the side of her thumb.
When he had finished he walked over to the hole where Norman was half buried, and without any hesitation he started to shovel sand into that hole, too.
O merciful God in Heaven how can this be happening? thought Meryl. It was worse than a nightmare because she knew that she wouldn’t wake up and find that she had dreamed it. It went on and on, and it was so real. The tireless shushing of the sea, and the hark-harrk-harrking of the gulls, and the monotonous chopping sound of Phelim’s shovel as he filled in the hole to make it impossible for Norman to escape.
Who could have imagined that my life would end like this? Perhaps it was God’s punishment for my going out with Eoghan again, and realizing that I still had feelings for him. But I wasn’t unfaithful to Norman, not even in my mind.
She looked around and she could see from the dark brown seaweed that was draped on top of the rocks how high the water would rise when the tide came in. She had never liked swimming in the sea, and she could already imagine the cold, salty brine slapping into her face, and then splashing into her mouth, and filling up her lungs.
She saw that Phelim had finished flattening the sand around Norman and it was then that she started to cry. Not loudly, because she was finding it so difficult to breathe, but a thin suppressed mew, like a kitten left out in the rain. Tears slid down her cheeks and gave her a foretaste of seawater.
She pressed her hands together and closed her eyes, and whispered all that she could remember of the prayer that Father Dolan had recited when her grandmother was on her deathbed.
O most merciful Jesus, Lover of souls, I pray thee, by the agony of Thy most Sacred Heart and by the sorrows of Thy Immaculate Mother, cleanse in Thine Own Blood this sinner who is to die this day.
Heart of Jesus, once in agony, take pity on the dying.
She knew there was more, and she wished she could recall it, but she was in too much distress, and in any case the carroty-curled young man was walking back towards her and she didn’t want him to see how frightened she was.
‘Well now, there’s the two of you both ready,’ he said. ‘I told you that we didn’t make threats. Only the weak and the cowardly make threats.’
‘So you’re just going to leave us here to drown?’
The carroty-curled young man blinked at her in mock-surprise. ‘Is that what you think? Of course we’re not! What kind of eejits do you think we are?’
‘Then what?’ she said, with her lower lip trembling.
‘If we left you here, Jesus, we’d never get to see that justice was done, would we? And what if somebody was to chance along the beach and saw you here and dug you out?’
‘Then – what?’ she repeated, and now she couldn’t stop herself from sobbing. ‘What are you going to do to us, tell me!’
‘Show her, Phelim,’ said the carroty-curled young man. ‘The auld feller first, so that she can have a preview.’
Phelim went back to the rocks and picked up the jerrycan. It was obviously full and heavy because it hardly swung at all as he carried it over to the place where Norman was half buried in the sand. As he levered the lid off it, Meryl realized what he was going to do, and her sobs became a low, continuous moan.
‘Come on, Mrs Pearse,’ said the carroty-curled young man. ‘There must be worse ways of going, although for the life of me I can’t think what they are, like. Not off the top of my head.’
The two bouncer-types both stepped well back while Phelim lifted the jerrycan and poured petrol all over Norman’s head and shoulders. Norman held his hands up in front of his face to prevent it from stinging his eyes, but he didn’t utter a sound. Meryl kept on keening with grief, as if he were already dead – and in a way he was.
She didn’t want to watch what was going to happen next and she didn’t want to hear it, either. Although they were only metres apart and Phelim had buried them so that they were facing each other, she could have closed her eyes and pressed her fingers into her ears, but she didn’t. These were going to be Norman’s last few seconds of life and she had to be a witness. Even if these men were going to kill her, too, she could take her testimony to Jesus, so that when their time came, they would be punished as they deserved to be.
‘Any last words, Mr Pearse?’ the carroty-curled young man called out, above the screaming of a seagull that was swooping low overhead.
Norman said nothing, but stared at Meryl with pity and sadness in his eyes. Then Phelim took a purple plastic cigarette lighter out of his pocket, flicked it alight, and calmly touched it to the back of Norman’s hair.
Still Norman said nothing, and still he didn’t flinch, even as flames were flickering in the wind from the top of his head and turning him into a human candle. For a few moments the flames died down, and smoke drifted towards the car park, and for a moment Meryl thought that God might have heard her and extinguished the fire with His merciful breath. Then, however, Norman’s petrol-soaked jacket suddenly burst into flames and he was engulfed. He let out a single hoarse scream, but then he must have breathed in blazing petrol vapour, and all he could do was flap his arms.
Meryl could only watch him as he burned. Sometimes he was barely visible through the sheet of flames, but then the wind would blow the flames to one side, like a waving yellow banner, and she could clearly see his face blackening and his jacket turning into tatters of carbonized wool, clustered with tiny orange sparks.
Gradually his blackened face cracked, revealing the scarlet flesh underneath the skin, and then that blackened, too. He stopped flapping his arms and instead they began to stiffen. After a while the flames died down and his head and shoulders were left smouldering. Parts of his skull were exposed and he was baring his teeth in a hideous grin. Only then did Meryl lower her head and close her eyes.
The carroty-curled young man came back to her and said, ‘There … what did I tell you? Not one word of a threat, but we won’t have him blabbing to the law any more, will we?’
Meryl opened her eyes and looked up at him. She wanted to curse him, and call him the devil incarnate, but he
r stomach tightened and all she could do was bring up her breakfast, watery shreds of scrambled egg and pulpy blobs of half-digested toast.
‘The state of you la,’ said the carroty-curled young man. ‘First you piss yourself and now you’re puking your ring up. If your dear mother could see you now.’
Meryl wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. If your dear mother could only see you, you murdering little bastard, she thought, but she was too sick to speak, and what good would it do?
Phelim brought the jerrycan over. Meryl realized now that within the next few minutes she really was going to die, and that she was probably going to suffer greater pain than she had ever suffered in her whole life. All the same, she felt detached and calm, almost as if she weren’t here on this beach at all, but somewhere far away and long ago, on a hillside overlooking Blarney Lough, and the cries that she could hear weren’t seagulls at all but the sounds of children playing.
The first splash of petrol came as a shock. It was stunningly cold and it smelled so strongly that she coughed and spat and inadvertently sniffed some up her nose, which made her retch.
‘For feck’s sake,’ said the carroty-curled young man. He tugged the jerrycan out of Phelim’s grasp and emptied it over Meryl’s head himself. She gasped and choked and felt that she was drowning. She even swallowed some, which made her retch yet again, but all she could do was stay where she was, imprisoned in sand, with petrol clinging to her eyelashes and dripping from the end of her nose.
When he had finished, the carroty-curled young man gave the jerrycan one last shake and then slung it aside. He held out his hand to Phelim and said, ‘Lighter.’
Phelim passed him his cigarette lighter and the carroty-curled young man snapped it alight. The flame was blown out by the wind so he had to snap it alight a second time.
‘Well now, like I said to your auld feller, any last words?’
She didn’t answer him. Her eyes were closed now and she was sitting on the hillside overlooking Blarney Lough. He waited five more seconds, and then he leaned forward and held the lighter underneath her chin.
She jerked her chin upwards, but then her whole face burst with agony. She was blinded instantly, and the world went black. Even though she couldn’t see, she could hear a crackling sound as her hair caught alight and her skin shrivelled. Then her sweater started to burn and the pain in her shoulders was so intense that she felt as if her whole being was on fire, her soul as well as her body. She tried to struggle herself free from the sand but it was hopeless. All she could think to herself was that nothing had ever hurt her like this, ever, and please God, take me now.
Soon, however, the worst of the pain began to subside, as her nerve-endings were burned away. She was still aware that she was alive, and alight, but she began to feel peaceful, as if she were a huge autumn flower with yellow petals, rather than a burning woman. Even as her skin flaked away and her tendons tightened, a strange calm filled her mind, like the tide coming in – a feeling of acceptance.
The carroty-curled young man and the two bouncer-types and Phelim all stood around until her head dropped on to her chest and it was clear that she was dead. She looked like a bald shop-window mannequin painted in patchy orange and brown and red. Her fingers had left deep furrows in the sand in front of her, but the sea would soon wash those away.
Phelim took out a packet of Carroll’s and passed them around, and they all lit up with the same lighter that they had used to set fire to Norman and Meryl.
19
Katie was standing in the living room finishing her coffee when she heard a car horn tooting outside. She went to the window and drew back the net curtains. David was sitting in his silver Range Rover outside her front gate. When he saw her, he gave her a wave and blew her a kiss.
She raised her hand to acknowledge that she had seen him, but then she let the curtain fall back. The sight of him had made her feel faintly nauseous, and she went through to the kitchen and emptied the rest of her coffee down the sink.
In the light of day, she couldn’t think how she had let herself give in to him. Now that she had slept, and had time to think how she was going to deal with Acting Chief Superintendent Bryan Molloy, as well as the High Kings of Erin case, she felt much less vulnerable. She still thought that in his lean, wolfish way, David was strikingly handsome, and she had to admit to herself that he was one of the most charming men that she had ever met, but she recognized him for what he was. It had been the taking of her that had aroused him; he wouldn’t be interested in a long-term relationship, and she was sure that he wouldn’t leave Sorcha for her. Something kept him tied to Sorcha, although she couldn’t think what, if she was so violent and such a header. He had told Katie that he felt duty-bound to stay with her, but that didn’t ring true.
In spite of that, she had been feeling rejected and frowzy for so many months now, ever since John had left her. She had put on over two kilos in weight and her hair never seemed to behave itself. Even if she couldn’t trust him, David had reassured her that she was still attractive and sexy.
She said goodbye to Barney and drove into the city. The day was blustery but bright, which made her feel even more confident. Today I’m going to sort out Bryan Molloy, and today we’re going to make some real progress with the High Kings of Erin, or whoever it was that was responsible for murdering Garda Brenda McCracken and Micky Crounan and kidnapping Derek Hagerty.
She switched on the radio and it was playing ‘Banks of the Roses’ by the Barra MacNeills. O Johnny, lovely Johnny, don’t you leave me, they sang, but this time she remained dry-eyed.
***
Bryan Molloy was out when she arrived at the station, which she found partly frustrating and partly a relief. His secretary, Teagan, said that he had gone for a meeting at the city council offices about the Cork Foyer housing scheme for homeless young people, and that he probably wouldn’t be back until very much later.
‘All right, thanks, Teagan,’ said Katie. She glanced around Bryan Molloy’s office and noticed that his golf clubs were missing from the corner where he normally kept them propped up. She had been meaning to confront him as soon as she came in, but she could use some extra time to prepare her case more thoroughly.
There were three folders waiting for her on her desk – a report on yet another drugs ring, which had been operating out of Knocknaheeny, and an update from social services on three young Nigerian girls who had been brought into Cork last week by Michael Gerrety, allegedly to work as ‘escorts’. There was also a warning from Garda headquarters in Dublin that hackers were locking people’s computers, then sending them an official-looking demand, which appeared to come from An Garda Síochána, telling them that they had been logging in to unauthorized websites, or child pornography, and would have to pay a 100-euro fine to have them unlocked. This scam was called ‘ransomware’, which Katie thought highly appropriate, considering the cases she was working on.
She had picked up her phone to call Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán when Kyna herself knocked at her office door and came in.
‘What’s the story, Kyna? I was just about to ring you. Have we sent Derek Hagerty home yet?’
‘No, he’s still here. He’s afraid to go home for what he thinks these High Kings of Erin are going to do him.’
‘You’ve told him we’ll give him protection? We can even arrange for him and his family to go to a safe house if he’s that freaked.’
‘He knows that, but he seems to think that they can get to him wherever he goes. He kept saying, “You guards can’t keep me safe, you’re worse than they are.” I asked him what he meant by that, but he wouldn’t say. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a man as scared as he is. He’s like shaking with terror. Absolutely planking it.’
‘Did he give you any more clues that he might have been faking his abduction?’
Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán said, ‘I still haven’t asked him outright about the bruises that Norman Pearse said were washed off. That’s if our i
nformant really was Norman Pearse. I haven’t asked him about his mobile phone, either. Well, you did say not to.’
‘I want us to interview the Pearses again before we do that. I’m sure it must have been them. How many other drivers called Norman drove past the Cineplex at that particular time, do you think? I can understand that they’re probably just as scared as Derek Hagerty, but we can protect them, too, if we have to.’
‘One problem,’ said Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán. ‘O’Donovan and Horgan went to Ballinlough only half an hour ago to talk to them, but they’re not at home. Most likely they’re out shopping or something, so they probably won’t be long. O’Donovan said that they’d hang around and wait for them to come back.’
Katie checked the clock on her desk and said, ‘All right, we’ll give them an hour or so. I’ve a rake of paperwork to get through, anyhow.’
At that moment, Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán’s iPhone let out a shrill, high-pitched ringtone. She took it out and said, ‘Yes, Patrick?’
There was a lengthy pause while Detective O’Donovan spoke to her. She nodded a few times and said, ‘Right,’ and then, ‘Right you are. Right. Just hold on a second, would you? I’m here with the super right now.’
‘What is it?’ asked Katie. ‘Have the Pearses come back home?’
‘Still no sign of them. But a woman just turned up at their house and when O’Donovan asked her what she wanted she said that she was a friend of Mrs Pearse from the same church, Our Lady of Lourdes. She said that Mrs Pearse had invited her for coffee this morning.’
‘Any chance she might have simply forgotten?’ asked Katie, and Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán repeated the question to Detective O’Donovan.
‘Very doubtful,’ she repeated. ‘According to this friend, they meet for coffee at the same time every week.’
Taken for Dead (Kate Maguire) Page 16