Darkest Truth

by Catherine Kirwan

  ‘It might be. But whether it’s Gill or someone else …’

  ‘I can’t help thinking that, if I hadn’t started all this, she’d still be alive.’

  ‘Maybe she would, and maybe she wouldn’t. It’s terrible that she’s dead. It’s an awful thing. But you didn’t kill her.’

  ‘That’s all well and good,’ I said. ‘I didn’t wield the actual weapon. Doesn’t matter. I’m the one responsible.’

  ‘You’re not. Look, I understand where you’re coming from. It goes with the territory. At home at night, if I’m on my own, if Jack’s out, or working late, I’ve got dead bodies piling up around me, fighting for room on the couch. The people I could’ve saved. If I’d done my job right. If I’d been a bit faster. A bit cleverer. A bit some fucking thing that I’m not. This one woman, though.’

  Sadie stood up from the table, and walked to the kitchen island.

  ‘I’ve told you about her before. She’ll haunt me for ever. Jacqueline Delaney. It was when I was working over in Gurran station. If we’d answered the call a couple of minutes sooner, then, maybe … But we were sick of her by then. The husband had a barring order against him. Timmy Delaney, a weed with one of those bum-fluff excuses for a moustache. A horrible man. And she kept saying he was going to kill her, barring order or not. She kept calling the station. We’d go and investigate. It was a cat one time, a bird on the Velux another time. The wind blew over the washing line one night, one of those roundy twirly things, and she heard the bang and called us in a panic. And it was nothing. It was always nothing. Until the night he killed her. I’d started at ten, it had been busy, and it was coming up to one in the morning, and we were in the patrol car eating our supper that we’d just got from the chipper on Baker’s Road. A sausage and chips with curry sauce I was having, I remember. We moved when we got the call, we did, but we weren’t killing ourselves with speed, we took it handy. Lost a couple of vital minutes. Only down along Cathedral Road and off to the left, a short spin, but by the time we got there Jackie’s head was half hanging off and Timmy was sitting on the floor in a pool of his wife’s blood, still holding the shovel he’d battered her to death with. Crying, he was, penitent, the fucker. He found God in prison after. He’s out now on licence, did his twelve years. I see him sometimes in town handing out leaflets for that dopey church he’s taken up with, whatever it’s called, some born-again shower of gobshites. So when you talk about Rhona, I know what you’re feeling. Or something like it. But the thing that keeps me sane, the only thing, is that I know I didn’t kill Jackie Delaney. Like you didn’t kill Rhona. You have to keep remembering that, Finn, or you’ll go mad.’

  28

  I didn’t bother with breakfast. The Law Society had provided a convenient resting place for my Friday night flit but I didn’t know who I might meet in the dining room and what questions I might have to answer.

  After Sadie had left the previous afternoon, I had booked the non-stop Aircoach to Dublin, and a taxi to take me to the bus stop on Patrick’s Quay. A call to the Law Society had secured a reservation for the night. The rooms weren’t much cheaper than a mid-range hotel or B&B, even at members’ rates, but there was a permanent security presence and I hoped that I’d be adequately protected there. When I got off the bus at Bachelor’s Walk, in Dublin, I hailed a taxi to Blackhall Place, instead of walking as I normally would have. I had taken the non-stop bus instead of the train for the same reason, banking on there being less chance that I’d be intercepted by person or persons unknown. I hadn’t been as confident about my safety as I had pretended to Sadie.

  I had spent my time on the bus thinking about Rhona and I wasn’t able to let go of the idea that I had played a big part in her death. Talking to Sadie had helped, but only up to a point. I had all those extra layers of guilt and shame that she knew nothing about; that none of my friends did.

  But if I’ve learnt anything in my life, and at times I think I haven’t, it’s that going over and over something in my head only makes it worse, and prevents me doing anything that might improve the situation. So I put all of it away as best I could: it would still be there when I got back to it, which was another thing I’d learnt.

  On the LUAS now, heading for Connolly Station, I didn’t know if I was being followed. I scanned the tram carriage. No familiar faces. Maybe Gill had changed personnel. Or maybe he wasn’t bothering to have me watched any more. That seemed more likely: that he reckoned he was off the hook. Untouchable – now that Rhona had been disposed of.

  Especially as he had an alibi for the time of her death.

  I thought back to the conversation I had had with Sadie the previous night. I had been sitting on the bed in my room at Blackhall Place, running through notes, when I’d got the call.

  ‘It’s not him,’ Sadie had said.

  ‘Not Gill?’

  ‘No. He’s got an alibi. The murder team took what you said seriously. At first. They went out to his house in … doesn’t matter where. But at the time Rhona was being murdered, Gill was at home having breakfast with his mother. He showed the team the security tapes. He has CCTV covering his front door and his cars. He’s got two, a Range Rover and a Mercedes SLK. He lives in a terrace, and there’s no back gate, so he couldn’t have got out that way, and the cars never moved from the front. The gates are electronic, they leave a digital trail. It’s incontrovertible proof that they stayed shut until he left the house at around eleven, when he brought his mother to the hairdresser’s. He had a pot of tea and a scone and read the papers in a cafe across the street, then he drove her back home and stayed in until the Dublin lads arrived to interview him.’

  I was stunned into silence.

  ‘That’s not the behaviour of someone who’s just committed a brutal murder, is it? Em, there’s something else. He mentioned you, asked if you’d been the source of the complaint. He said he’d been having trouble with you. That he’s had to take legal advice. That you’re obsessed. He showed the team a copy of the letter his lawyers sent you.’

  ‘Fuck,’ I said.

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘What about his security guard? Did they ask him about that?’

  ‘He denied having you followed.’

  ‘How can he? I recognised the man from the workshop at the Firkin Crane. I saw him in the coffee shop before I went to Rhona’s house. Unfortunately it was only after I saw him again in Cork that I realised who he was. If only I had recognised him sooner …’

  ‘Gill says that if you saw his temporary security guard again, it was either paranoia or coincidence. His name is Pawel Zdziarski, by the way, a freelancer, originally from Gdansk, living here eight years, squeaky clean, fully registered with the Private Security Authority, no convictions of any kind. Gill said he had no reason to have you followed. He said he was confident he’d be able to deal with any threat from you to himself, but was worried you’d target his mother. That’s why he cancelled his appointments for a few days. Stayed home with her. So as he could see how dangerous you were. But he made it clear that he doesn’t want to make a criminal complaint. He actually said that he would prefer if you got the help you need.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘He and Mammy are going to go away for a while to his home in LA. He’s sorry that he’s going to miss Rhona’s funeral, though of course he’ll send flowers. Ireland has always been his home but he’s very upset by all this and blah blah blah.’

  ‘So as far as the Gardaí are concerned, Gill’s out of the picture for Rhona’s death? Are they not even going to talk to his security guy? What’s his name again?’

  ‘Pawel Zdziarski. Nope. Gill’s not on the radar. In fact, the edict from on high is that he’s to be left alone. All loose ends to be left unfollowed. Jeremy is absolutely not a suspect. Not now. Not ever. So we’re back to the mugging-gone-wrong theory. Though, to be honest, only that you were in Cork at the time, you’d be in the frame yourself.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yeah. They found your busines
s card in Rhona’s kitchen and her mother told the investigation that you’d been looking to talk to Rhona the day before she got killed. And there’s what Gill said about you and all the Twitter stuff. You’re famous, and not in a good way, trust me. We’ve all been told to keep an eye on you. To watch for erratic behaviour.’

  ‘This is getting worse. I mean, it’s completely ridiculous.’

  ‘I know. Best to lie low all the same. Where are you, by the way? At home?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re in Dublin. Please don’t tell me that.’

  ‘Okay I won’t tell you so. Better you don’t know where I am, anyway. Don’t worry. I am lying low.’

  ‘Be careful,’ Sadie said.

  At Connolly Station, I got a flat white from the kiosk and sat on a bench, waiting for the DART. The platform was bright, bustling with shoppers and suburban kids in town for the day. But normality felt distant. I was inhabiting a different space now, my reputation in tatters, in pursuit of a quarry who was a lot cleverer than I had given him credit for. I couldn’t attack him head-on. Rhona’s death had proved that beyond doubt. I needed to go around him, to head in a direction he mightn’t expect.

  In this case, south. I got off the DART at Sydney Parade and made for the seafront.

  29

  Sandymount was popular with writers, perhaps because the suburb lies next to the beach where Stephen Dedalus had strolled. But it was popular with lawyers too and it hadn’t been hard for me to find out exactly where Christopher Dalton lived. I had seen him, and his house, in a Sunday newspaper magazine feature, and knew it was somewhere in Sandymount. Before leaving Cork, I had phoned Ronan Teehan, a gossipy senior counsel that I’d briefed a few times, who lived facing the strand. It was close to five on a Friday. Which meant, I calculated, that he had been for a late lunch and a bottle or two of very expensive red wine, and that he might be receptive to questions. He was. At the end of twelve minutes, I knew not only where Dalton lived, I knew the time he walked his dog and the breed. That was another thing about Sandymount. It was really popular with dog-owners.

  I reached the seafront as Christopher Dalton was turning for home. He looked preoccupied, and I wasn’t surprised. By now, he would have heard about Rhona Macbride. He had to have known her. He had been friends with Gill back then, had worked on his short film too, co-wrote the script, and acted as ‘Best Boy’, according to the credits, whatever that meant. Another one of Gill’s little jokes, I assumed.

  I fell into step beside Dalton.

  ‘You’ve a gorgeous dog,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘A long-haired German shepherd, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s a she, though.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Brünhilde.’

  ‘Great name. What’s her temperament like? I’ve heard they’re aggressive.’

  ‘Not at all. A real family pet. I think they’ve bred out those traits.’

  ‘Good to know.’

  ‘I’m crossing here, so, em, nice talking to you,’ Dalton said.

  ‘I’m crossing too.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Yes, Mr Dalton, I’m sorry for bothering you. But it’s urgent.’

  ‘Excuse me, do I know you?’ Dalton asked.

  ‘No, you don’t. But I’m hoping you’ll talk to me about Jeremy Gill.’

  Dalton took a step back.

  ‘I’m not talking about Gill to anyone, least of all you, whoever you are. That’s in the past. I’ve never spoken about it before and I’m not going to start now. What newspaper are you with? I’ll complain to your editor. This is completely out of order.’

  ‘No, Mr Dalton, you’ve got it wrong. I’m not a journalist. I’m a solicitor.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I held out my business card. He bent his head to read it, but didn’t take it.

  ‘I know that name from somewhere.’

  ‘If you’re on Twitter, you probably know me as hashtag lawyerbitch.’

  ‘That’s it. You got into some spat with Jeremy down in Cork. I couldn’t quite get what it was about.’

  ‘It makes sense only if you know the truth about Jeremy Gill. That’s why I’d really like to talk to you. I think you know the truth.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘I think you know exactly what I mean.’

  ‘What are you trying to do, subpoena me for something?’

  ‘If you talk to me now, maybe I won’t have to subpoena you.’

  ‘Talk on or off the record?’

  ‘Off the record, until you say otherwise.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dalton said.

  ‘Please,’ I said. ‘For Rhona’s sake.’

  At the mention of her name, Dalton winced and shut his eyes. When he opened his eyes again, he nodded.

  We crossed the road together in silence.

  Christopher Dalton’s house was an estate agent’s dream: a recently decorated double-fronted, double-bay period house in mint condition with a sea view and off-street parking. I hadn’t had any idea that writing paid quite this well.

  ‘Fabulous house,’ I said.

  ‘I have Jeremy to thank for it, actually,’ Dalton said. ‘He gave me a percentage of the back-end of his second movie, the one that really broke him into the big time.’

  ‘59 Seconds.’

  ‘Yeah, that one. I bought the house with the payout. I’m still making money out of it, in fact. And meanwhile, the writing’s gone all right as well. So we’re doing okay.’

  We were sitting in Dalton’s study, a downstairs room that opened into the left front bay window. Muffled noise was barely audible from the rest of the house and I wondered if the room had been soundproofed.

  Dalton handed me a coffee from a Nespresso that he kept on a marble-topped antique side table, within reach of his writing desk.

  ‘Black okay?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  I didn’t want to give him an excuse to leave in search of milk.

  ‘Me too,’ he said.

  ‘Lovely place to work.’

  ‘Why are you here and what do you want to know? Saturday is family time, the kids off school and all.’

  I knew that Christopher Dalton and Jeremy Gill had been contemporaries at UCD, that they’d collaborated artistically for a while, but had had an oft-reported, though mysterious, falling-out and had never worked together again. Dalton was rich and, by the look of his house, he enjoyed a lifestyle out of reach to most. But it didn’t sit well with him. He had a pot belly, and despite daily dog-walking, he didn’t look fit. His hair was thin, in need of a wash and he was sickly-looking, pale except for a few red patches of psoriasis on his face and another few on his arms that he scratched every so often. For all his wealth, he looked like a man under severe stress.

  ‘I’m instructed in a civil case by the parents of Deirdre Carney,’ I said. ‘She met Jeremy Gill at Cork Film Festival when she attended a workshop given by him. I have come into evidence that leads me to suspect that Deirdre was raped by Gill some weeks after the festival.’

  ‘You’re instructed by this girl’s parents?’

  ‘Yes. You see Deirdre had a severe nervous breakdown and never identified Jeremy Gill publicly as her assailant during her lifetime. But in her suicide note …’

  ‘She’s dead?’

  ‘Yes. And so is Rhona Macbride, as you know. I spoke to her the night before she was murdered and she confirmed my suspicions about Jeremy Gill. Told me that Gill had raped her, savagely beaten her, too. She was too frightened of him to speak out. Now, as you know, she’ll never be able to.’

  I watched Dalton take in the implications of what I had said.

  ‘I’m here about the Deirdre Carney case,’ I continued. ‘But from what I know about Gill’s behaviour with Deirdre and Rhona, I suspect that they’re not Gill’s only victims. I think you know that too.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about Deirdre C
arney. I wasn’t even in Cork for the festival that year.’

  ‘What do you know, Mr Dalton?’

  ‘I read in the Irish Times that the Gardaí are treating Rhona’s death as a random, drug-related crime.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘It’s not what I think, but you’re right, it’s what they think.’

  He stayed quiet, but he was tearing at the rash on his arm again.

  ‘Christopher, two women are dead,’ I said. ‘Rhona told me she’d been expecting someone like me to call for years. For ever, she said. It’s the same for you, isn’t it?’

  I waited for Dalton to fill the space.

  ‘You said that Rhona Macbride told you that Jeremy had raped her.’

  He paused, then continued.

  ‘I didn’t know it was rape, but I knew that he’d met her, some time after the film wrapped. That they’d been intimate, sexually intimate.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Because he told me.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He boasted that she’d forced herself on him, that he hadn’t been able to keep her off him, that eventually he’d had to submit to her advances and that they had had sex.’

  ‘Is that how he described it, that they’d “had sex”?’

  ‘Not exactly. He told me he’d fucked her hard, taught her a lesson. Said that that’s what these girls needed, except he called her a slut. He said she’d fooled him for a long time but she was the same as all the rest of them.’

  ‘What do you think he meant by that, “all the rest of them”?’

  ‘Females in general. Jeremy doesn’t like women. He has some in his films, depending on the script, but not many. And he doesn’t employ women in any responsible roles. It’s one of the reasons he never uses a casting director, it’s a female-dominated profession. But there are other reasons he doesn’t use a casting director.’

  ‘The casting couch?’

  ‘Yes. He’s old-fashioned that way. He always had a Neanderthal approach. Whoever was available. Anybody would do. When we were in college, he was a legend. Any night out, Jeremy always scored. He boasted about his method. He’d spend time doing a recce of the party, or the pub or club, until he found the drunkest woman in the place. He used to say it was an art: to be able to find the girl while she was still mobile and transportable. In other words, before she collapsed or started vomiting. He was much the same when he was working in advertising, as far as I know, though I wasn’t out much with him then. I was trying to write, on the dole, didn’t have the money to go to Lillie’s or wherever he was hanging out back then. Once he started making films, starting with Another Bad Day at the Office, he got back in touch with me. I was thrilled. Jeremy’s always been great to work with. He’s a gifted film-maker, truly gifted. But when he gave up the day job, he didn’t need to target drunk women any more. He held auditions and private callbacks. Once shooting started, he could have any woman on set. Droit de seigneur. Actresses. Extras. Catering staff. Make-up artists. Costume department. You get the picture. No repeats, though. For him it was always one night only. There was something mechanical about it.’