Claire herself had no doubt that Anna’s problem, whatever it was, would resolve itself eventually. Every other twist in the tale of babyhood had done so, from wind to colic to the nappy rash they’d finally linked to pureed veg, ensuring that those ‘smears’ of carrot so beloved of posh restaurants would turn her stomach forever more. All just ‘phases’, as her mother called them, endless when you were in them and gone in what seemed like a heartbeat when you were safely out the other side. Anna would start sleeping again, eventually. Claire was in no doubt about that. But would her sanity, and indeed her marriage, survive the wait?
Motherhood. And all that. Claire turned on the radio, flicking through the stations, trying to find something to fit her mood. Eminem – that would do it, she thought, and turned it up, ignoring Flynn’s side-eye. She just hadn’t realised how different motherhood – or parenthood, she should say – would be. How intense. How never-bloody-ending. That feeling of never being off, of never having nothing on your mind, because there was always something. Being shouted at when you least needed it – at three a.m. or while trying to get ready for work in the morning – by the person you loved most.
That wasn’t in doubt, thank God. Claire loved Anna alright, loved her to distraction, adored her with a ferocity she hadn’t thought she was capable of before the baby arrived. But there was no denying it, the little girl was hard work at the moment and it had been with no small sense of relief that Claire had handed her over to the crèche worker that morning and watched her become Someone Else’s Problem for the rest of the day.
And she’d be Matt’s Problem that night. She and Flynn would be gone till early evening, maybe even later, depending on how things went. They wouldn’t be back till after Anna’s bedtime, anyway, that much was certain. Matt had been muttering about going for a run that evening, but it’d probably be far too late by the time she got back. Not to worry. She’d make sure he got some time to himself at the weekend.
Claire’s headache was starting to lift and she nudged the sun visor upwards while making a, technically illegal, left turn out on to the quays. Beside her, Flynn winced, but remained silent. Wishing she’d thought to grab a coffee before starting the journey, Claire changed stations again, zipping through static before stopping at the loudest and bubble-gummiest pop she could find.
Flynn preferred Lyric FM. Claire knew this, and wondered how many winces she could elicit before they left the city centre. Then she shot him another look, longer this time.
‘D’you do something to your hair?’ she asked.
‘No!’
The answer was huffed out through his nostrils but Claire was entranced to see the hint of a blush emerge. Most excellent! A bit of Flynn baiting would wake her up better than any coffee.
‘You did! You got a hair style, Philip Flynn! I bet you went to a hairdresser and all. Did they put conditioner in it for you?’
‘It was just a dry cut.’
He stared out the window of the car, studying the landscape as if James Mannion’s killer was likely to come up and jog alongside them at any moment. Ah, it was no fun slagging him if he wasn’t going to play along. Claire fell silent again and, as Taylor Swift urged her to ‘Shake It Off’, she guided the car smoothly through the suburbs that led to the Naas Road.
The sunny morning had brought out lots of pedestrians: mothers with buggies, kids crawling unwillingly to school, and several old women, all of whom looked to be either coming from or going to Mass. No old men. Claire hadn’t given much thought to old men before. But now, with James Mannion’s murder front and centre in her mind and Tom Carthy’s interview transcribed on her laptop, she couldn’t help wondering about them. Where did all the old men go during the day? She pulled up sharply at a set of traffic lights outside a giant Lidl and watched a woman, who must have been in her seventies, tug a huge tartan shopping trolley behind her and then hoist it effortlessly up on to the path. There were women everywhere, shopping, chatting, stooped over in their front gardens deadheading roses. But no elderly men. Tom Carthy with his refuge, or whatever you called it, had seen a gap in the market alright. But why the hell would you want to take a man with one foot in the grave and push him fully over the side?
The phone in her lap jangled. Claire thought about answering while she drove but, casting a sideways glance at her colleague, decided it wasn’t worth the lecture. Instead, she pulled into the shopping-centre car park, clicked on her hazards and rested the car lengthways across a mother-and-baby space. Sure, she’d only be a minute. The voice on the other end of the phone made her glad she’d answered the call.
‘Hi, Claire.’
‘Helena! Good to hear from you.’
The deputy state pathologist’s voice was crisp: ‘I’m emailing that P.M. report through to you now, but I thought you’d appreciate the bullet points?’
‘That’d be great.’
Claire loved working with Helena Sheehy. No bullshit. No need for five minutes of ‘How are the kids?’ ‘Isn’t it a lovely day?’ ‘Any holiday plans?’ before she came out with the information that was required. The way the other lads went on sometimes, she couldn’t figure out if she was working in a police force or a hairdressers’. But Helena sounded like she was always in a hurry, which suited Claire just fine.
‘James Mannion was dying.’
Claire tried to keep the smile out of her voice: ‘Well, I’d nearly figured that one out myself.’
‘Ho ho. No, I mean he was dying anyway. Pancreatic cancer. The technical stuff is all in the report, but it was late stage four; he hadn’t a hope. Didn’t look like he’d had much treatment, either; you’ll have to check his medical records, but I didn’t see any sign of chemo or radiotherapy. He’d painkillers in his bloodstream, alright – massive amounts of them – and alcohol. He must have been fairly out of it most of the time. But it wouldn’t have made a huge amount of difference. I’d say he’d weeks left, maybe a couple of months at most.’
‘You’ll email me that, so?’
‘Sure. Gone to you now.’
And, with a click, the pathologist’s voice disappeared.
Claire put the phone back down on her knees, hauled the car out of the space and waved cheerily at an apoplectic young woman in a people carrier who had been mouthing, ‘You have no children!’ at her for the duration of the call.
She rolled down her window. ‘I do, actually – just the one, but she’s gorgeous!’
Another illegal left and they were back out on the Naas Road. For once, every green light on the dual carriageway was on their side and, within minutes, Claire – while filling Flynn in on what Helena Sheehy had told her – had navigated the Red Cow roundabout and got the journey properly underway.
‘So they were right. Tom Carthy and Mrs Delahunty. James Mannion was a sick man. Dying, in fact.’
Flynn, clearly delighted that the conversation had finally turned to work matters, looked animated for the first time that day. ‘Only he doesn’t seem to have told anyone about it.’
‘Interesting, isn’t it?’
Claire drove quickly and smoothly, under- and overtaking her way along the M7. They were well out of the city now, horses and the odd sheep dotting the green fields on either side of the motorway. That was the funny thing about Dublin: how big it looked when you were in the middle of it, but then how easy it was to get away. Too easy, sometimes.
There were times Claire wished she lived in a metropolis somewhere, an urban jungle, where you’d need to get on a plane to get anywhere near a farm animal. And, although she’d never asked him straight out, she had a feeling Flynn felt the same way. She didn’t actually know where he was from; he’d only ever replied, ‘The far side of Athlone,’ any time the topic came up in conversation. But she had a feeling his home place was somewhere similar to her own. Somewhere rural, somewhere where more than two streets and a Supermac’s was considered a town. Claire had legged it as far away as possible from her own home as soon as she hit eighteen, and her instinct
told her Flynn had done the same thing. And now it looked like they could add James Mannion to the list of people who’d come to a city to find . . . what? Salvation was too strong a word. Privacy? A sense of self? Sanctuary?
Mrs Delahunty reckoned he had been gay. No one else they had spoken to about the victim had made that suggestion, but, if she was right, that would have given Mannion an even better reason to move to the Big Smoke. Maybe he had come to Dublin to find love – or simply somewhere to call home, somewhere where the smell of cow shite didn’t linger in the nostrils. Or maybe Mannion had left home because he’d fucked up so badly he wouldn’t be welcome there again.
‘What’s the plan today, so?’
Rolling up the window in order to hear Flynn better – besides, all that fresh air wasn’t doing her headache any good – Claire outlined her plans. Following some extremely helpful and efficient contact with the police in Bristol – some of her own colleagues could do with going over there on a training course, Claire had thought, uncharitably – she’d found a phone number for James Mannion’s niece, Angela Jefferies, and had spoken to her the previous day.
Mind you, she could have found her a hell of a lot quicker if she’d kept her maiden name. Drove Claire mad, that carry-on. She herself had only agreed to marry Matt once they realised they wanted a kid, and had grudgingly admitted that it would be easier for all concerned if they were legally bound before that happened. Then she’d even walked up a church aisle to keep her parents off her back. But change her name? Not a chance.
It had only taken a short conversation with Angela Jefferies to realise that that wasn’t the only way in which they differed. James Mannion’s niece was the scattiest person Claire had ever spoken to and so lacking in focus it was a miracle she’d made it to Dublin, let alone Darcy Terrace. She had been able to confirm most of the details Mrs Delahunty had given them, but had little new to offer. All she could say was that her father – and, presumably, his late brother – had been born in a place called Rathoban and that the solicitor who’d looked after his affairs had been called McBride. The paperwork was back in her mother’s attic, she’d admitted, and it would take hours, if not days, to find the right file.
What Mrs Jefferies was sure of, however, was that, after the abortive trip to Dublin, she’d never tried to contact her uncle again.
‘He made it quite clear he didn’t want to talk to me.’
She sounded very young, Claire had thought, but that could have just been the high-pitched English accent.
‘I thought it was a good idea, you know? To come over. Thought it might help me deal with Dad’s death a bit better. But it didn’t. Mum was furious when she heard what I’d done. My dad cut all ties with Ireland – he had his reasons – I should have left it like that. I’m sorry Uncle James is dead. But it doesn’t feel like anything to do with me, quite frankly.’
At least, thought Claire, Angela Jefferies hadn’t tried to squeeze out a tear when she heard how her uncle had died. James Mannion’s niece had merely said, flatly, ‘Oh, that’s a shame,’ as if she was hearing a particularly dull story at a dinner party.
Ending with the request that the woman contact her if she thought of anything else of importance – ‘Of course, absolutely, although I really don’t think there is anything’ – Claire had ended the call none the wiser as to why James Mannion had cut off all ties with his family and died alone.
There was, of course, no reason to believe that the tensions in his family history had anything to do with his violent death. It could have been a coincidence. The attack that left him bleeding and dying on his kitchen floor could have been nothing more complicated than an aggravated burglary, but initial investigations at the house did not point in that direction. There was no evidence of money or anything else having been taken. The front door hadn’t been damaged and the initial forensic examination pointed to Mannion having invited his killer in. The only struggle appeared to have happened in the living room, and even there the disturbance had been limited. Thank Christ. Claire shuddered to herself when she imagined the damage – and the smell – that could have been caused if the pyramid of milky doom had toppled over. But nothing, not one dusty book, had been disturbed. The only item out of place was the vase she had spotted under the sofa. It was a very ordinary vase, the type you buy in a tourist shop and get engraved. The legend, Teacher of the Year, 1978, had been etched on the side. A gap in the dust on James Mannion’s mantelpiece marked the place it stood before it killed him. The line of blood leading from the sitting room to the kitchen was the only other sign of disturbance.
Flynn’s phone beeped and he took it out of his pocket, muttered an apology and started to compose a text. Not to worry. The car was almost driving itself now, the road straight, and Claire was enjoying being alone with her thoughts, or the closest thing to alone she’d been in a while. Not that there was that much to untangle. Door-to-door enquiries, which had been carried out around Darcy Terrace, had, so far, yielded little. James Mannion had been seen on the morning of his murder, that much they were able to establish. A harassed au pair working in the house two doors down had confirmed to a couple of uniforms that she’d seen him sometime after eleven. But the rest of her information had been so vague as to be practically useless. Struggling to contain two toddlers, with a baby tucked under one arm, she’d barely been able to hold a conversation with the two uniformed members at the door, let alone give them any detail other than that she’d seen Mannion on the pavement outside his house, and that he’d seemed ‘OK’. She’d been changing the baby’s nappy, she told them. Had been gazing out the window, but then the child had wriggled dangerously and she’d had to look away again. He was a nice man, she’d told them distractedly, trying to stop her older charges from making a break for freedom. He’d always smiled at the children when they met him on the road. But how he had been that morning – or even which direction he was heading in – she just couldn’t say. She was sorry to hear what happened. He was a nice man, she repeated, her accent becoming stronger as she grew more upset. She’d say a prayer.
The interviews with the other neighbours had been even less useful, most of them being at work during the day. James Mannion’s house was situated right at the end of Darcy Terrace, with Mrs Delahunty’s home to the right-hand side. To his left, and extending to the back of the entire terrace, was a large wild green area, once earmarked for apartments but now, judging by the cans littering the ground, used only for cider parties. The people who socialised in those places weren’t usually the type to come forward to Gardaí with information, Claire knew. Mrs Delahunty hadn’t returned from Mass until after one p.m. and, according to Helena Sheehy, the murder had almost certainly been committed before then. When they’d spoken to her, Margaret Delahunty had wondered out loud if the killer had known her movements and waited until she was away to commit his crime.
Claire hoped that, for her own peace of mind, she never realised how close to the truth that probably was.
‘So, now.’
Flynn put away his phone ostentatiously and cracked his knuckles, just falling short of sticking a Ready for Action sign on the dashboard. Claire sighed. His enthusiasm was touching. Her own wasn’t far behind. But the fact was, they knew shag all. A probable murder weapon; a possible time of death. Was the gay thing relevant? She didn’t think so. Even if Mrs D had been correct, nothing they’d learned about James suggested he was the type to bring some young fella back with him. No, they had nothing, really – nothing of any use, anyway. Hence the day trip to the Mannion family solicitors in Rathoban, to see if they had anything they could tell them. Mannion’s niece had claimed he had lost all contact with the place thirty years before. For the sake of the investigation, Claire was hoping that this simply wasn’t true.
Chapter Eleven
Five streets, a church, two sweet shops, twenty-seven pubs and an incomprehensible one-way system. If you Googled ‘Small Irish Town’, you’d probably come up with a picture of Rathoban, Clai
re thought as she abandoned her search for on-street parking and manoeuvred her car through the gates of St Anthony’s. She pulled in beside a sign that warned her she’d be clamped if she was using the facilities for anything other than Catholic worship, and scowled at Flynn to pre-empt his objection. Police business was next to godliness and, anyway, the local cops would surely give her a dig-out if anyone had a problem with her use of the facility in her time of need.
Grabbing her briefcase from the back seat, she exited the car and told her colleague to get a move on. There was no need to rush, really. The journey out of Dublin had taken less than two hours and their appointment with Gavin McBride wasn’t for another fifteen minutes. But the day was nice, the air was fresh and Claire felt like moving at speed. It was one of the things she had missed while on maternity leave, that lovely crisp sense of urgency, the adrenaline rush, the ability to gallop ahead without checking to see if she had snacks in her bag and a muslin cloth thrown over her shoulder. Just one thing, though: she turned and took a quick look at her reflection in the car window. Her short dark hair, newly cut and coloured thanks to the joy of baby-free lunch breaks, looked pretty good. Her second-best navy jacket went well with the new black Marks & Spencer’s trousers and, most importantly, everything fitted. Excellent. Her body was back, and so was she.
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