“I wasn’t expecting her to turn up here. I’m not even sure how she knew my address but I guess in those days you couldn’t have an extra egg for breakfast without the entire neighborhood knowing about it.” She takes up her tea again.
My mouth has dried. I take a sip of the tea. “What did she come here for?”
“She had the idea that I might know somewhere. He was knocking her about and she was worried for the kids. She wanted to leave him. I don’t think it was easy for her to come here. She was a quiet woman but I could see she knew things were escalating.” She looks down again. “She seemed desperate. She’d heard that I worked in social care, wanted to know that if she did go to a refuge could the kids go with her. Wanted to know if I knew somewhere that he wouldn’t be able to find her. And sure, I didn’t, you know. I didn’t work with women’s refuges. I said I could send out a worker for a chat, an assessment, but I could see the idea terrified her, I guess in case he found out. Then she asked if they could come here. That with Martin being a guard and all, it’d keep them safe. That I could at least get her out. I didn’t know what to say, really. We couldn’t be taking in an entire family. So I said I’d talk to Martin about it.”
“Then she left?”
“She left and I spoke to your father, who didn’t want us to get involved.”
I pull back.
“Don’t judge too harshly, Frankie. It was just after all that business. We’d enough on our plates and he was only beginning to find a bit of balance. His opinion was that we should leave well enough alone. The next week at Mass, I gave her a pamphlet. One for a women’s center. A refuge in the city that had a good rep and would sort her out, help her with the kids until she felt ready to stand on her own two feet. And that was that.”
“That was that?”
“What more could I do? I’d my own family to think about.”
I take a deep breath. “So you think the husband, the father, killed them?”
She pauses for a moment, sadness creeping over her features. “To be honest, I don’t know. It all made sense when it came out. Or it seemed to. The son. Growing up in that kind of environment, sure haven’t I only worked with kids like that all my whole life and through no fault of their own, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and sure isn’t it the same ground that feeds them.”
She pushes out of the sofa. Conversation over. She puts a hand out for my mug and I pass it over. “They should be back any minute now and I’ve the dinner to get on.”
I follow her out to the kitchen. “If you remember anything else, Mam—”
“That was it now,” she says quickly.
I step out into the backyard, light a cigarette. The day is a mess of past and present in my head. Bríd Hennessy’s plea for help. Robbie McDonagh’s arrest. I look out on my childhood garden, small now when once it felt like a rolling meadow. The old swing-set crooked and rusting beneath a craggy apple tree. It’s become part of the unseen view from my parents’ kitchen window. If it disappeared I’m not sure I’d know it, only have a vague sense that something was missing. The last time I sat on it, I was twenty-five and it moaned under the burden of all my adult heaviness.
After I saw my dad in the bedroom that day, I left him to it. I was angry at him. At myself. At the illness that was swallowing him up. So I crept away, out here, sat on the washed-out plastic of the swing and waited. Waited for it to be over.
I finish the cigarette, push it out on a saucer on the kitchen windowsill, then check my phone.
Two missed calls. Baz and a voice message from Owens at Harcourt Street. I dial Baz first and he answers on the third ring.
“Frankie, I was just about to phone.”
“News?”
“It’s not good.”
I take a breath. “Go on.”
“McDonagh’s trainers don’t match the shoe print.”
My hand tightens around my phone. “Fuck.”
“There’s more. The results of the blood droplet found in the house.” He sighs. “It’s Geraldine’s. So no link there.”
I tip my head back, look up at the flat gray of the sky. “What’s going on here?”
“We knew it was a possibility.”
I see him, the killer, coming through the Shine window like a cloud of darkness, the deep orange of a raging sunset behind him. His foot lands heavy in the middle of the floor; the sole squeaks through the quiet house. He puts a hand out for balance and from his sleeve the smallest of drops, a spot of her blood, shakes loose. Geraldine Shine working her way back home.
“We can hold him,” Baz is saying. “I know he said he was sleeping with her but we do have his fingerprints at the scene. We’ve charged on less.”
“It’s weak. We didn’t find any of his prints in the kitchen, only the bedroom.”
“He could have worn gloves in the kitchen then taken them off in the room?” I can hear the hollow sound of defeat in his voice. He knows it’s not enough.
“Ugh. We’re going to have to let him go,” I say.
There’s silence. Both of us trying to find another route into this case. Both of us failing.
“We can hold him until tomorrow afternoon,” Baz says. “I can interview. Push him a bit more.”
“You can try but I doubt we’ll get anything else from him. Fuck.” I pace up and down the small stretch of patio. I remember the kids on the bikes, circling like gulls waiting for a chip to fall. Phones to their ears. “He could be working with someone, for someone. There was a bit of an audience when we brought him out. When we release him, put eyes on him. If there is someone else behind this, they won’t want Robbie here sharing their secrets.” I look back down the garden, my eyes resting on the swing-set. “If anything comes in on McDonagh’s movements after release, let me know.”
“Will do. You talk to Tanya?”
“Not yet. She’s out.”
“Okay, well, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I hang up, stand in the yard for a moment. I walk down the garden. The lawn is soft from too much rain; the damp soaks through my shoes to my socks. I get to the swing-set, sit down. The frame sags a little and gives a weary squeak. I wrap my fingers around the stiff chain, look back at my family home.
Eventually, I returned to the bedroom that day. Sat with my dad. I wanted to cry. That I’d allowed my sense of powerlessness to weaken me so much I wished him gone. I placed my hand over his, stared out at the blank white of the sky beyond the window. And the hatred I felt soured like milk left in the sun and turned toward myself, where it’d really been all along.
I dial my voicemail and Owens’s rough voice comes down the line.
“Frankie, I’ve managed to retrieve Seán’s arrest papers from archives. His statement, unsigned. Filed under S here, fucking admin numpties. It’s a wonder it went walkies, ha?” I can hear the cynicism in his voice. “Anyway, the confession is interesting enough. A recording of it too. And the deets for WSP. I’ll courier it all to your place. I think that’d be best, all round, rather than the Bureau? Send me your address and I’ll get it there first thing. Catch you for that drink soon?”
The line goes dead.
Mam is over a magazine on the kitchen table, pen in hand, attacking a crossword puzzle. I give her shoulder a squeeze and she pats my hand.
“I might hang around, wait for Tanya.”
“Sure, stay over, your dad’ll be pleased to see you.” She aims the pen at the kitchen counter to a bag of potatoes. “Come on then, make yourself useful. There’s spuds to be peeled.”
CHAPTER 10
I CLEAR AWAY THE DINNER PLATES. Dad and Justin are settled into the sofa. Mam is reading on the armchair in the living room. Tanya follows me into the kitchen. The curls of her hair loose, earrings tipping against her shoulders. She leans up against the counter, watches me rinse the plates and load them in the dishwasher.
I’ve watched Tanya in action in court, seen her nudging a playful elbow into a family member’s side during recess and minutes later systematically tearing down a prosecutor’s case, brick by brick; every word a delicately handled but firm hammer. She’s usually good at hitting whatever tone she’s aiming for. In this case, she’s going for casual but she doesn’t quite achieve the right note and instead of the question feeling conversational, it sounds loaded with expectation.
I turn from the sink, give her a slow smile. “I’ve made some notes. I’m maybe halfway through.”
She nods, studies my face for a while, then turns, pulls a bottle of red across the counter. She opens a few of the kitchen drawers, pushes her hand through cutlery. I reach behind her to a large ceramic pot where the kitchen utensils are crammed. I find the corkscrew and hold it out. “Here.”
“Can never find anything in this house.” She throws me a look of feigned exasperation, holds up the corkscrew. “Anything of any use anyways. Thanks.”
I take two glasses down from the cupboard and set them out in anticipation. “You’ll be in your own house soon.”
She unwinds the foil from the neck of the bottle. “Not soon enough,” she says, then pushes her hair back behind her ear. She stops, rests her hands on the counter, looks at me. “Sorry, that came out wrong. Your parents have been great, you know, but it gets a little cramped sometimes, time wise.”
I give a short laugh of acknowledgment, remembering only too well Mam’s persistent manipulation of your time, her inability to hear you when you said you were working late. Her absolute commitment to impose the house schedule on your life, whether you are five or thirty years old, it doesn’t matter. House rules. “You having to check in for dinner every evening?” I ask.
“Oh yeah,” she says as she winds the corkscrew down. She angles the bottle between her hands and removes the cork with a clean pop. She doesn’t waste time filling the glasses, exchanging bottle for wineglass as soon as they’re full. I dry off my hands and she passes me one.
“Cheers,” she says, and clinks hers to mine.
“I suppose it doesn’t help that Justin becomes a lazy fuck when he’s here,” I say, nodding my head in the direction of the living room.
“Jesus, tell me about it. What is that? I feel if I don’t get out of here soon, my husband will have morphed into a dinosaur from the fifties.”
We’re alike, my brother and I, in coloring and looks, but he stole all the calmer genes. Those that existed in our family anyway.
I laugh. “Justin always takes the easy road if it’s offered to him.”
She takes a mouthful of wine. “Don’t know what he was thinking the day he met me then.”
“That was one of his better decisions,” I say with a smile.
She flushes, then after a moment she says, “I bumped into a mate of yours today, well, an old friend, I guess.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, Mike Owens, the sergeant down at Harcourt Street.”
I swallow, wait a second before I allow his name to register on my face. “Mike, that’s right. We were students together. How is he?”
She shrugs as if to say how would she know, then says: “I was inquiring after Cara. Cara Hennessy. I wanted to see if they would release her WSP forms so I could contact her.” She shrugs again. “It was a long shot.”
I look down into my glass. “He couldn’t give them to you?”
“Said I’d need a warrant, which we won’t be granted. I knew as much but you don’t ask, you don’t get, right?”
I give her a half-smile, relieved. It’s not that I don’t want Tanya knowing Clancy was involved in the case. I just don’t want her to know before I understand the extent of his involvement. “How’s it all going? You have anything new?”
Her face brightens, a twitch at her mouth. “The team met today; we had a retired wound specialist come in, a pathologist. Really highly regarded in his day.” She takes another sip of her wine. “He made some interesting observations. Come on,” she says, turning and taking up the bottle. “I’ll show you.”
The sounds of the TV rumble from inside the living room. I hear Mam laughing at something, the echo of mirth from a studio audience.
Tanya leads the way up the stairs. “Mike had some damning anecdotes about you from your uni days,” she says over her shoulder.
“I’ll bet he did. It’s all lies.”
She laughs and opens the door to Justin’s old room, steps aside to let me pass. “Your mam let me set up here, although I’m not sure she knew what she let herself in for.”
The room looks smaller. The bed has been removed. The wall covered in corkboard. Images of the Hennessys look out at me, headlines from newspapers. A rough timeline is stretched across one wall, cataloging the trial, witness statements, and highlighting important moments in the media. Two laptops are open on a desk and on either side, plastic boxes are stacked, filling any other available space in the room.
Tanya picks her way to the desk. “Sorry, find space where you can.”
“I’m liking the homey touches,” I say, moving into the room.
She sits at the desk. “You should see our office in town. You can barely see the floor. Standing room only.” She blows out a long breath. “We have some apprentices coming in next week to go through most of the paperwork. It should help.”
In some ways, Tanya is not so different from me, willing to work to the point of breaking. A dogged determination in the set of her jaw. Eyes pinned on whatever case has caught her attention. That’s where it ends though. Her face is enviably quick to smile; even with the odds threatening to suffocate her, she’ll wriggle hope free. Tenacity has a new meaning on her shoulders. And she needs it. My role is to set a ball rolling; hers is to stop it then push in the other direction. Physics will tell you which is more difficult.
I check my phone, look for any messages on McDonagh, on the Shine case. But it’s frustratingly quiet at the Bureau. I pull a couple of the boxes forward, sit down. “Have you spoken to Hennessy since Sunday?”
“We update every couple of days.” She pauses, pulls at a loose thread on her jeans. “He’s been getting some harassment. Shitheads on the street shouting abuse, graffiti on the door of his flat, that kind of thing. It’s shaken him up a bit.”
“That’s too bad. You don’t think it will make him back out of all this?”
A shadow of something crosses her face and suddenly she looks tired. She reaches for the wineglass. “No. If anything it’s made him more determined to prove his innocence.” She looks at me. “He told me he was asked for an alibi. For the Shine murders?”
I shift my position on the box, try to keep the defensiveness out of my voice when I answer. “We needed to clear him.” The moment I speak, I hear just how ridiculous that sounds, especially to a defense lawyer; hundreds of convicts in the Dublin area with a history of violence and murder but Seán is the one we ask for an alibi. I feel my face growing hot.
But fair play to Tanya. She doesn’t argue with me but moves on to the case at hand. “The reason I wanted to contact Cara Hennessy is because her statement says that Seán did not attempt to kill her until he had already disposed of both John and Bríd. That she was conscious during the attacks and witnessed Seán killing them.”
I remember. It was a key part of the prosecution’s case—doubtless in Tanya’s hands something that will become their Achilles’ heel.
Despite the rising defensiveness I feel on behalf of Cara, I’m intrigued. “Go on.”
“After reviewing the evidence, I think, regardless of who murdered them, Cara was attacked first and therefore there’s a good chance she was already unconscious and couldn’t have seen her p
arents’ attacker. Or maybe even her own if he came from behind.”
“What evidence?”
“Blood transfer. There wasn’t one droplet of Bríd Hennessy’s or John’s blood on Cara’s clothing or around her wounds. A bit of an oddity, don’t you think, if they’d been knifed so viciously beforehand and with the same knife.”
I take a steadying drink of wine. “No blood transfer at all?”
She keeps her eyes on mine. “None.”
For the first time the Hennessy murders play out differently in my head. Cara sitting cross-legged in the garden, her mother kneeling at the flowerbed, the baking sun on her neck and John, angry and glowering, watching them from the kitchen window, the knife waiting in his hand.
“Why would she lie?” I ask.
Tanya’s eyes darken. “Fear, trauma, memory loss, and let’s not forget coercion. The guards thought they had their man, didn’t they? He’d confessed. They needed a witness, so they made sure they had one.”
“But she’s not a child anymore, Tanya. Surely if she knows the truth she’d have come forward by now.”
She reaches across her desk to a pile of papers and files, begins sifting through them. “I guess if you tell yourself something for long enough, you begin to believe it, right?” She pauses in her search for a moment. “You know, I can’t help feeling she’s the real victim in all of this. She loses her entire family in one day and nearly her own life, then she has to testify against her brother. It must have felt like she was losing them all over again.”
I think of Owens’s message, the WSP form that secreted Cara Hennessy away, and think of how she’s lost more than her family; she lost herself.
I refill my wineglass. “John, the dad, you’re saying he killed himself then? That he managed to stab himself in the neck?”
Finally, she unearths from the pile what she’s been searching for and opens up a cardboard folder. She passes me a photo.
She taps the folder with a long nail. “This is John Hennessy’s autopsy.”
I look down at the photo, a close-up of John’s throat, the image extending to just above his mouth; the square tips of his teeth are just visible through stiff parted lips; his skin is covered in light brown stubble.
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