I manage to keep my voice steady. “Can you remember anything else about the article? What he wrote, for example?”
She pulls herself straight. “It was good, you know. Finally, a real story he could sink his teeth into. And when you’re writing these kinds of things, you need an angle, you know. You set your stall out, pick a camp to sit in. It went well for him. But, I think in time, he was sorry. He began to think he got things wrong. Hindsight being twenty-twenty and all that. But he’d known the dad, John Hennessy. I knew him. John Hennessy was a good man. Everyone thought so.” She looks me in the eye. “He was a bank manager, you know. Sponsored the local kids’ football teams with the jerseys, the lot.” She stops. “Fuck. It must be, what, ten years ago?”
“Seventeen.” I give her a thin smile.
She removes another cigarette, lights it. “The pressure got to him, you know. He wasn’t sure whether the lad had done it after all.” She takes a sharp drag. “Don’t know why it bothered him, really. I mean, he got a shedload of freelance work out of it; what did it matter to him? It’s up to you lot to charge the right bloke, isn’t it? Anyway, he wallowed about for months in the house, drinking, under my feet. Not working. He wouldn’t go down to the local pub, he felt ashamed, you know.”
The tears have settled. Her hand is steady as she brings the cigarette to her lips. I look at the flat slope of her forehead, unmoving despite her grief. I think for a moment that she’s not all that sad about the death of her ex-husband, that she may enjoy the notoriety of it. Either that or she’s got enough Botox fed into her skin to fell a small animal.
A quick sip of coffee then she looks up from under her lashes. “Do you think whoever did this might come after us? Are we in danger?”
I think of Geraldine Shine, cold and vulnerable on the church floor. I think of her dead husband next to her. I glance over at the kids’ football, beneath the chair across the room. And I know I’m about to lie because I’ve no idea where this case will end up or if there’ll be more victims but I do know that Jane Brennan will have enough nightmares to deal with over the coming weeks without adding a murderous phantom to her worries. So I offer her a weak smile and say: “There’s no reason to think so, Mrs. Brennan.”
She pulls a face. “No reason to think so! My husband’s just been murdered!” She looks down, sniffs again.
I swallow down the urge to correct her, to remind her that Conor was her ex-husband. Instead, I change the subject, attempt to seek out a connection between Sheridan and Healy. “Mrs. Brennan, do you go to church at all?”
She frowns. “No. Maybe for the odd wedding.”
“Do you know the priest there?”
“I’d see him about but I wouldn’t be able to name him. Why?”
“How about Conor?”
She gives a short laugh. “I don’t think Conor’s been to Mass since his First Communion.”
I nod, get to the final question on my list. “And did he ever talk about his flatmate, Jimmy Lynch?”
Her head drops a little, her expression slowly closing over, fatigue and the reality of Conor’s death drawing down her features. “No,” she says, “he never mentioned him.” She looks up, tears tipping over onto her cheeks, running tracks through her makeup. “I never asked.”
I retrieve my card from my pocket, leave it on the table between us. “I’ve contacted the family liaison officer,” I say quietly. “Her name’s Joanne; she’ll be in touch shortly. She’ll answer any other questions you have, how to break the news to the children—”
She crumples forward, her hands over her face. “Oh God.”
I stand, put my hand on her shoulder. “If there’s anything else you can tell us about Conor that may help our investigation, anything at all, please phone. No matter how trivial it may seem to you. Once we know more, I’ll be in touch again.”
She nods into her hands.
“I’m sorry for your loss. Thank you for the coffee.”
Back in the car, I pull the door shut and sit for a while. The connection to the Seán Hennessy case is perched in my chest, sharp claws closed tight. Jane Brennan’s face appears briefly in an upstairs window, phone pressed to her ear, then she’s gone again. I look out at the quiet street, smooth, freshly surfaced road, the sweeping redbrick driveways. I imagine Conor Sheridan shaking hands with a neighbor, talking about the weekend’s match. The Dub colors beating in the wind from the gate. Or his work boots scuffing unsteadily up the pathway, each drunken footfall hitting its mark just in time to stop him from crashing into the road.
I wipe exhaustion from my face and take a steadying breath. Mid-morning and the day ahead is long.
* * *
—
OUR PLAINCLOTHES HAVE found their way to Conor Sheridan’s place. Jimmy Lynch is secure. On my way to Whitehall, I take a detour by my flat to step under a hot shower. Drive tiredness from my eyes, the dead from my skin. The image of Conor Sheridan on the beach lives under my eyelids. Dark hair glowing in the moonlight. The stench catches my breath anew, as if I was still standing on that beach. I dry off, go to my bedroom. It’s a mistake to sit down. Exhaustion wraps its thick arms around my chest. I force myself up, go to the wardrobe. Another pair of work trousers, the same as before, another sweater to fend off the wind. Then it’s food. Fuel, tasteless. A frozen meal of some sticky chicken curry. Not breakfast fare, but the mornings, days, and nights have melded into one. I eat the meal like it’s meant to be eaten, without thinking, without sitting. Standing over the kitchen counter. I throw the container in the bin, take up my bag to leave.
But on the breakfast bar, a white envelope that I found in my postbox. The package from Owens. I take it up, sit on the sofa, and tear it open. As promised, the remainder of Hennessy’s file. A cassette tape and another C4 envelope marked WSP in Owens’s stiff handwriting.
I flick through the thin folder. There’s not much. Maybe ten to fifteen pages, transcripts of the confession interview. I think of Conor Sheridan, whose words written for a local rag so many years ago are reaching out again. Linking his name to Hennessy’s. The past unfurling.
Taking up the cassette, I turn it over, read Interview with Seán Hennessy 13 August 1995 on yellowing tape across the back. I get up, go back to my bedroom. In the bottom of the wardrobe, I find a cassette player. Bringing it back to the living room, I put it on the coffee table, blow dust from the buttons, and plug it in. I set my phone to record and press play.
The tape squeals to a start then with a deep warble I make out the sound of crying.
A voice speaks out. The senior investigating officer at the time, Derek Ríordan.
Seán, you know why you’re here? We talked about it in the car?
A cough, a jagged breath. “Yes.”
It’s okay, it will be okay.
There’s a garbled sound then another choking cry. “I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t there.”
Okay. Okay. We’re just going to have a chat.
A sniff. “Okay.”
We need to ask you some questions, all right?
“Yes.”
And you’ve already agreed to that?
“Yes.”
Seán, so we’ve spoken about how you can have a lawyer, if you’d like one?
“I don’t know anyone.”
We can assign one for you, if you’d like, but you’ve said you are happy to talk to us without one, right?
“I think so.”
You know that at any time you can stop and we can get you a lawyer, right?
The voice calms. “Yes.”
Okay. Interview with Seán Hennessy on 13 August 1995, conducted by Detective Derek Ríordan. Interview started at 9:17 P.M. Seán, can you tell me what happened to your family?
“They were killed. I don’t know.”
Who killed them?
“I don’t know.”
“I didn’t. I didn’t. I wasn’t there.”
Did you see it happening?
“No.”
Who killed them?
“I don’t know. When I came back they were all dead.”
You turned up and they were already dead?
“Yes.”
What did you see?
“Mam, on the lawn, Cara, my dad.”
How did you know they were dead?
“I don’t know. There was a lot of blood. They weren’t moving. But maybe Cara . . .” Another choking cry.
What happened to your family?
“Someone killed them.”
Who?
“I don’t know.”
So you came home, found them already dead on the back lawn. Gardaí everywhere?
“Yes.”
Seán, we found your mother’s blood and your sister’s under your nails, all over your clothes. All the evidence suggests you murdered them.
“I didn’t.”
Seán, I understand why you’d want to do this. You didn’t do badly. I know your dad was a violent man. I know how hard that is, living with someone like that. And you didn’t do badly. You held off. You got to fifteen. That’s a lot of pressure on your young shoulders. You’ve a few minors, yes, but nothing major. You’ve done well, living with the family you had. The situation as it was in your home. It was hard, right?
“Yes.”
But you’re not like your dad. I know that. This is not who you are; you didn’t plan for this to happen, right?
“No.”
But your dad, he was pushing you around. Anyone would snap living with that.
“I didn’t do it.”
Seán, no one understands what it’s like to grow up in a home like yours. It was you or him, right? And your mam, why did she put up with him? Something had to give, to change. Your sister, she was too young. That leaves only one person to save things, right? That leaves only you. But you didn’t plan this?
“No.” [sound of crying]
It wasn’t planned. Your dad, he must have come at you. Provoked you or went for your mam again. He did that sometimes?
“Yes.”
So he went for your mam and you had to protect her.
“Yes.”
So it was in the heat of the moment. You were protecting your mam. And maybe she got in the way a bit. Things got out of hand. The heat of the moment. So you struck out. But I need you to tell me: You didn’t plan this, did you?
“No. I didn’t.”
Where did you get the knife, Seán? We found your collection under the bed. Was it one of your collection?
“Yes.”
You’re doing great. You’re doing great. That’s all I’m here to do is to help you let it out. Get your side of things. So you took the knife from your collection because you heard your dad start up?
“I guess.”
You need to say it. For the tape, Seán.
“Yes. I took the knife.”
And because you were frightened. Because your mam and sister were calling for help, you had to stop your dad, right? You killed him.
Another tremble of tears.
“I don’t remember.”
Okay. Okay. Take me through it. You had the knife?
“Yes.”
Your dad was at your mam again. You were scared. Wanted it to stop, right?
“Yes. Yes, I wanted it to stop.”
Then what happened?
“I hit him.” The words come out angry. Petulant.
With the knife?
“Yes.”
Where?
There’s a shuffle of noise and I imagine Seán’s shaking hand, still childlike, still thin with youth, reach up and act out the kill.
“Here and here.”
His chest?
“Yes.”
Did you hit him again? With the knife?
“I kept stabbing him.” More energy to his voice, a fearful kind of anger. “His chest, his arms.”
Then what happened?
“He fell.”
I stop the interview. Rewind the tape and eject it. There are so many problems with his confession, I don’t know where to begin. No caution. Inducement and the promise the suspect will “be okay.” It’s no surprise it was buried, but not before the damage was done. And physically, surely Ríordan should have noted there wasn’t a single wound, superficial or otherwise, found on Seán Hennessy’s body. With such a violent attack, that should have been a red flag.
I go to my laptop, open a search engine, and key in “Conor Sheridan” and “Seán Hennessy.” There are only three results, all leading to the same page. I click on it. The article is with the Clontarf Gazette, the title reading:
CLONTARF STRUCK BY TRAGEDY. TROUBLED SON MURDERS PARENTS.
I scan down the page.
Sunday evening brought the most heinous of crimes to Clontarf’s quiet sunny doorstep. Much-loved banker John Hennessy and his wife, Bríd, were brutally attacked by their son, Seán Hennessy, 15, in the backyard of their home on Sunday afternoon. Their young daughter, Cara Hennessy, 10, was also grievously injured and remains in critical condition at Dublin’s Mater hospital. Residents of Clontarf will remember John Hennessy’s generous persona in relation to community.
I lean back from the screen. It’s a story that I’ve heard countless times before. The tyrant husband, angel on the street, devil at home. The article goes on and Bríd disappears into the narrative completely, as does Cara.
Seán Hennessy, who is not a stranger to the hand of the law, is said to have murdered both his parents with a knife taken from a personal collection. A source close to the investigation reports that he remains in custody after confessing to the murders.
I tear open the white envelope from Owens. Remove Cara Hennessy’s details. I’ve a twinge of guilt, like I’m looking at something I shouldn’t. Her new identity, or not so new any longer; she has been Eva Moran for the majority of her life. Twenty-seven years old. She’s a receptionist at a dental surgery. Nine to five. Her address, 130 kilometers west of Dublin in Athlone town.
I check the time. Work out the logistics of the day. Conor Sheridan’s grisly death is heavy in my gut. The empty net of the Shine case. And now a fine, silken thread between the Hennessy conviction and these murders.
CHAPTER 14
ABIGAIL IS PICKING her way over Conor Sheridan’s body. A surgical mask shields her mouth. Perspex goggles protect her eyes. Baz is white-faced, his lips pale and sealed shut. We’re in the viewing area that overlooks the postmortem examination room.
I offer Baz a coffee and he shakes his head. “I can almost smell him from up here,” he says. More color drops from his face. The case is eating hollows beneath his eyes, a fine dark stubble over his jaw. “Almost as bad as poor Alan Shine. Whoever is doing this killing has a strong stomach, all right. Can’t imagine it was a bloody bed of roses, laying him out on the beach.”
“No.”
Abigail comes round the body, places a ruler along Conor Sheridan’s chest, measures the wound from the bullet. The center of the wound is dark; a purple web of bruising fans outwards over pale pink skin.
“Why through the heart?” I say, thinking aloud.
It takes Baz a moment but he follows my eyes to the hole in Conor Sheridan’s chest. “Why not?”
“It’s a little soft, isn’t it? You truss your victim up like a turkey, tie his wrists behind his back, strip him naked, to the waist at least. Kneel him before you execution style and then you go for the chest shot?”
“Could be personal, you know, like those victims you find slaughtered with a blanket over them, placed there by their killers in a sick act
of kindness or some shit. It would make sense being that he was dressed up in his Sunday finest. A fucked-up gesture of respect or something.”
“But if you hated someone that much, were eaten up by so much anger you stored their body in your home or wherever for days just so that you could lord it over their corpse, why wouldn’t you spatter their brains all over the floor if you were going to shoot them?”
Baz is staring at me, his eyebrows high. He breathes out slowly. “You go dark sometimes, Sheehan. Too dark. Anyway, to blow his victim’s brains out? Where would be the grace in that? I mean, thinking from the killer’s perspective, you know.”
It surprises me how much he’s picked up on the mind of our killer. He returns his attention to the autopsy.
“He wrote an article, years ago, on the Hennessy case,” I say.
Baz lifts his gaze away from the window, tilts his head to the side. “Oh?” And I hear it in his voice. A quiet little note of suspicion.
I rub my hands over my arms, try to warm the chill that’s sweeping through my body. “Sheridan came down pretty heavy on Seán Hennessy. I think we might need to look at him again.”
Baz draws in a long breath, his chest expanding under his suit. “Where’s the motive?”
“Some people need nothing other than their own desire to kill.”
“He has an alibi for the Shine murders. And we know this is the same killer.” He turns to look at me. “The Shine murders took place somewhere between five and six on that Sunday. He took Geraldine’s blouse back to her house around six thirty, when Hennessy says he was having his tea by the promenade and then also managed to be down the road at the pub with you by seven?” He lets out a puff of air. “He’d need to split himself in two to accomplish that.”
I nod. “Maybe he could give us some more background on that article. On Conor.”
“We need all we can get on this one.” He stands, rubs the base of his back, straightens his spine. “Abigail has retrieved a synthetic fiber from an abrasion on Sheridan’s cheek; could be from when he fell after being shot.”
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