Darkest Truth

by Catherine Kirwan

  ‘Tonight? It’s Monday.’

  ‘Exactly. Which is why I could get a reservation at such short notice. Get dressed or we’ll be late. The table is booked for 7.30.’

  ‘Davy, I can’t,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I just can’t. I’m not in the form. I’m distracted, I spent a lot of the day on the sofa listening to country music and the rest of it …’

  ‘You love country music,’ Davy said.

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  ‘So where’s the problem except that your day got even better because your wonderful friend – your “just good friend”, nothing more – booked your favourite restaurant?’

  ‘Davy, I appreciate the gesture …’

  ‘Whoa,’ Davy said, and sat up in bed. ‘Gesture? Is that what this is to you?’

  ‘I don’t mean it as an insult. I’m just not up to it. I want to do a bit of work, if I can, I haven’t been able to all day, but now I think I could, I have to, there’s so little time …’

  ‘Great,’ Davy said. ‘Glad to have been of service.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. But you know how important this case is to me.’

  ‘I do,’ Davy said. ‘But I thought we were important too. Or is this how it’s going to be? You working, and fitting me into your schedule when you feel like a quick shag?’

  Then would have been the time to tell him about Gill’s visit, and about Carmel.

  ‘I’m not going to be controlled by you, Davy,’ I said instead. ‘Or emotionally blackmailed. I’ve said I’m not going out, and I’m not.’

  ‘So I’m blackmailing you now, is it, just because I’ve booked a fucking restaurant for dinner? Where we could actually talk, for a change, or would that be so wrong? Jesus Christ.’

  Davy got out of bed and looked down at me.

  ‘I’ve news for you, Finn. Label it what you like, be it “friends with benefits” or “just good friends”. But whatever this is, it’s not going to cut it with me. We’re either fucking each other and having a relationship, or we’re not. And when you decide what you want, let me know and I’ll see if I’m still available.’

  He got dressed in silence.

  ‘Don’t go,’ I whispered. ‘Not like this.’

  ‘Oh I’m going all right,’ Davy said.

  He left the bedroom without saying goodbye and I heard the front door shut behind him with a soft click. He was gone, he couldn’t be, but he was. In my mind’s eye, I saw him walking away and never coming back. I jumped out of bed and ran down the stairs, pulling on my robe as I went. By the time I reached the gate, he was most of the way down the lane.

  ‘Davy, stop,’ I shouted. ‘I can explain.’

  He turned.

  ‘Explain what?’

  ‘Explain why I can’t go out tonight,’ I said. ‘Come back.’

  He thought about it, then walked halfway back.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I had a bad day,’ I said. ‘Starting with my visitor this morning.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Who do you think?’

  ‘Haven’t a notion.’

  ‘Him.’

  ‘Gill?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I’ll kill him.’

  ‘Don’t kill him,’ I said. ‘Just don’t leave me. Not tonight.’

  40

  How hard could it be to call and update me on what was happening? It was over twenty-four hours since I had told Lenihan that Gill owned the house next door, and emailed him my theory about Esther Gill’s car. I was doing Lenihan’s job for him. The least he could do was keep me informed. I hoped that he was following up on the leads, but who knew?

  I spent the morning, after Davy had left for work, intermittently reviewing the file I had on Deirdre’s case. I didn’t get far. There was no sign yet of the DNA results or the medical records. The longer they took to arrive, the more pessimistic I became. The drinks coaster was probably hopelessly cross-contaminated and the medical records were probably silent on anything that might identify the rapist, be that Joey O’Connor or Jeremy Gill. My case was hopelessly stalled, and it was impossible for me to concentrate while I was waiting for news on the murder investigation.

  The doorbell rang at 10.15. I jumped.

  ‘Morning, Finn, is it?’ the voice on the intercom said.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Andy O’Mahony, electrician, your fella sent me up to fit the security light on the gate, like.’

  I buzzed him in. I had mentioned to Davy that I agreed with him now that I needed a security light. Had there been one, Gill wouldn’t have been able to conceal himself unseen, where I assumed he had been, in the recess to the left of the gate, while I took out the bins. But I hadn’t asked Davy to organise it for me, and part of me was annoyed that he had; the part that didn’t like people taking care of me, the same part that liked being in control of all things at all times. But another part of me had wanted Davy to be with me last night, had asked him to stay.

  So I scowled at Andy O’Mahony, but I let him do the job. I even brought him down a mug of tea with the three spoons of sugar he had specified.

  ‘He’s not my fella, by the way,’ I said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Davy Keenan.’

  ‘Oh right,’ Andy said. ‘What is he so?’

  ‘I’m not sure any more.’

  ‘That sounds interesting.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

  After Andy left, I remained in the garden. I took a brush from the shed and swept the paths clear of snipped electrical cable and leaves. For a time, I leant against the stone wall and remembered the previous Tuesday night, when Davy I had stood in this place in the rain and, later, slept together for the first time.

  Since then, Rhona had been murdered, and so much else had happened. And yet, in the middle of all the chaos, Davy and I hadn’t been able to keep our hands off each other. Worse, he had been to my parents’ house for Sunday lunch. Now he had started organising home improvements for me. It had to stop, I knew that. And soon.

  But not yet.

  Upstairs, I started thinking about the case again. I was going to make no progress here. And I had to get out of the house before I started kicking the walls.

  Now, I was walking towards UCC, looking for Lorcan Lucey who had been on the festival youth jury with Deirdre. I had left a couple of messages for him but he had never returned my calls. According to his timetable, he was giving a lecture in the west wing of the Quad right now. I wasn’t expecting much from him but I had to cross him off my list. Going by Fort Street was the more direct route, though, if I went that way, I would be confronted with the charred corpse of my car. Instead, I walked up Barrack Street, the ancient road in and out of the city from the west. At one time, almost every house had been a shop or pub. Now, many were derelict or vacant, while others had been converted into rough living quarters for students and other renters. Dotted amid the wreckage were well-cared-for owner-occupied homes. And the few remaining businesses traded with pride and defiance. Halfway up, Tom Barry’s pub glowed like a sapphire.

  At Denroches Cross, the road divided. I took the lower fork and looked behind me before turning sharp right through the gap on to Wycherley Terrace. If anyone was going to jump me and drag me into a car or split my cranium with an axe, this was where they’d do it, a short low passage underneath and between two houses. But the road was clear.

  The closer I got to College, the more stolen road signs and heaps of empty beer cans were visible inside grubby windows. Formerly a leafy suburb, most of the area had been colonised by students now. For eight months of the year, the ordinary residents had to endure the horror of Thursday nights in term time, and Rag Week, and Hallowe’en, and the ‘Twelve Pubs of Christmas’ vomit fest. It was all very far from Newman’s Idea of a University.

  But at weekends, and out of term, and coming up to exam time, the streets were as quiet and pleasant as they
had always been, and the student presence meant that there were cafes, well-stocked local shops, hairdressers, even a bank, that might have closed otherwise.

  I skirted the edge of the Quad – the abiding superstition was that to cross it would result in certain exam failure – and entered the stone corridor. Leaning against the wall opposite the door to W5, I could hear the lecturer’s voice. Though I was unable to make out the words, his timetable had told me that today he was talking about the philosopher George Berkeley who, two centuries or more before, had been bishop of Cloyne, half an hour east of the city.

  Within a couple of minutes, the cold of the limestone had permeated my jacket. I stood out from the wall and shook myself warm as students began to file out of the lecture theatre. I went against the flow, not wanting to miss the elusive Dr Lucey. He was standing by the lectern, being subjected to the anxious attentions of two students. Presumably no older than his early thirties, Lorcan Lucey was prematurely grey, with tired-looking white rabbit eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. I waited until his glance fell on me.

  ‘Are you waiting for me?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘You are?’ he said, after the students had gone.

  ‘Finn Fitzpatrick. I left you a couple of voicemails.’

  ‘I don’t listen to them. Waste of time.’

  There was no point mentioning the message left with the department secretary. Before I had a chance to speak again, Lucey fired another question.

  ‘You want to talk to me because …?’

  ‘It’s about a workshop that I think you did in 1998 at Cork Film Festival, with the film director Jeremy Gill. I represent the parents of one of the other participants, Deirdre Carney. Do you remember the workshop and do you remember her?’

  ‘I remember both,’ Lucey said. ‘Is that it? Are we done?’

  ‘No,’ I said, through gritted teeth. ‘If I can buy you a coffee I’ll explain.’

  ‘Well, as long as it doesn’t take too long, I suppose I could go for coffee. Though when I say coffee, I mean tea. Earl Grey, to be precise. Come along now. Let’s go to the staff common room. That’s our best bet at this time of day, methinks.’

  Lorcan Lucey sped off like a beetle, his black gown billowing after him. He dodged around the corner into the north wing, under the stone arch, past the Ogham Stones and up the stone steps. I had to keep up a good pace to stay with him. By the time I got to the common room, he had already taken a seat at a window table. I loved this room, the vaulted ceilings and wood panelling, the views onto the wooded heights of Sunday’s Well. Lucey made no move to join me at the counter. It looked like he was used to being waited on. By his mother, presumably.

  ‘You’re fit,’ I said as I laid the tea things on the table in front of him.

  ‘Fencing,’ Lucey said. ‘I was auditor of the Fencing Society when I was an undergraduate, and I’ve kept in practice. Mens sana in corpore sano.’

  ‘Dead right,’ I said.

  Tosser, I thought. Lorcan Lucey was so self-obsessed, he wouldn’t notice anything beyond his own nose. This was going to be a complete waste of time.

  After Lucey had poured his tea, he spoke again.

  ‘I’m intrigued,’ he said.

  I repeated the history that I’d given to other potential witnesses, told him about Deirdre’s death and asked about his recollections of the workshop. As expected, he had nothing to add to what Jessica Murphy and Joey O’Connor had told me.

  ‘Thanks for your help. I take it that you didn’t keep in contact with Deirdre?’

  ‘No, not at all,’ Lucey said.

  ‘Different schools, of course,’ I said. ‘And her life changed considerably after she became ill.’

  ‘So sad, really. I had no idea. I think I only saw her once after the festival, and that wasn’t very long after it.’

  ‘Can you remember where you saw her?’

  ‘Out at Muskerry Castle Hotel. We were there for a family occasion, my grandfather’s birthday in fact. His seventieth.’

  ‘Did you talk to her?’

  ‘No I didn’t. But it stuck in my mind. I was in the lobby and she was walking upstairs towards the bedrooms. I thought it was unusual because I knew she was from Cork. I remember wondering why she was staying in the hotel but I can’t say I thought much more about it than that.’

  ‘Was she with anyone?’

  ‘No, she was on her own.’

  ‘Dr Lucey, do you remember when this was?’

  ‘Well, my grandfather’s eighty-five now, so …’

  ‘The date, Dr Lucey? Can you remember the date? It’s very important, or at least it might be.’

  I held my breath.

  ‘Well, he has the same birthday now as he always had. That hasn’t changed,’ Lucey snorted. ‘So, yes, it was the 12th of December. The 12th of December 1998.’

  41

  ‘Need big favour! Call me ASAP.’

  I had sent the text to Davy as I was leaving the university campus, but I was home a while now, and still hadn’t heard from him. He was probably at meetings or teaching classes. It could be hours before he saw my message. Still, it was worth waiting for him. He had an ‘in’ at Muskerry Castle with Ned Foley, the concierge, who could check the hotel’s records for the 12th of December 1998. If they still existed. Though they mightn’t. But if there were records, and if they showed a room reservation for Jeremy Gill, or for his then employers Thomson AdGroup, or for Joey O’Connor – he would have had enough money to pay for a room too – then that, along with Lorcan Lucey’s sighting of Deirdre at the hotel, was a breakthrough in identifying her rapist. That was something to take to Sean and Ann Carney, something real.

  Eventually, Davy called back. When I told him what I wanted, he was matter-of-fact.

  ‘We can’t do this over the phone,’ he said. ‘Meet me at the end of Barrack in ten.’

  He was the same when we got out to the hotel.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll do a bit of preparation work with Ned. He wasn’t too fond of you last time we were here, as I recall.’

  I bristled, but I knew Davy was right. I went to the bar and ordered a pot of tea for three, hoping that he would be successful in getting Ned to join us, though I had no real doubt that he’d get somewhere with him. People did things for Davy, often without being asked. Ned Foley would roll over and let Davy tickle his belly, but if I asked the same questions he’d double-lock the door and call security.

  I looked out the window into the misty, mossy, grey-green of the day. I was close now, I could feel it. But what about Lenihan? Was he following up or ignoring the leads I had given him? He hadn’t called me back. And I had been forced to stop texting and calling him after my conversation with Sadie O’Riordan a couple of hours earlier.

  I winced at the memory. I was just home from UCC, waiting for Davy to call, when she rang.

  ‘Hiya, listen, Finn, one of the Macbride murder team was on to me to say that Lenihan, well, he wants you to stop contacting him. Except he didn’t put it as politely as that. He said you were to let him do his job or he’d have you arrested and charged with interfering with an active investigation.’

  ‘That bastard. He’d have no investigation only for me.’

  I stopped then, realising how true that was, in more ways than one. Sadie didn’t notice my pause.

  ‘Leave it, Finn, for fuck’s sake.’

  I knew that I had to. For now, at least. It was just as well that a new avenue had opened up in Deirdre’s case or I would have been seriously depressed.

  Davy’s charm seemed to be deserting him. The tea was stewed and there was still no sign of him, with or without Ned Foley. But, just then, Davy came to the door of the bar. He raised his eyebrows and signalled me to follow him. In the lobby, I found him standing by an open door at the far side and down a short hallway. I crossed to him and shut the door behind me.

  We were standing in the library. A fire blazed, and standard lamps illuminated a
rmchairs and sofas set in cosy groups. Ned Foley stood to one side, before a glass-fronted cabinet. Gone was the professional bonhomie of our previous visit. Foley looked serious and determined.

  ‘It’s better if I don’t know any more than Davy told me. But what he said is enough. I can’t get you the room reservation records. They’re all archived. Anyway, I don’t have that kind of access. But you’ll find what you need in here. Make sure to close the case when you’re finished and drop the key back to me at the concierge desk. This never happened. But at least you’ll know where to look if you come back with an official request for information. Good luck to you.’

  Ned Foley glided out of the room in silence, a silence Davy and I didn’t break. I made my way towards the cabinet. If there was something in there, it could take days to find it. But, as I got closer, I saw that the leather-bound books had years etched in gold on their spines. They were guest books, I realised. I ran my finger along the row until I reached 1998. There were three volumes. I plucked the third one from the shelf and paged through it until I got to December.

  The 11th.

  The 12th.

  A few entries. Then a full page of angled signatures and autographs.

  Thanks for a fantastic shoot, we’ll be back.

  Thanks Muskerry from Thomson AdGroup.

  T.A.G. says TA.

  Gill’s name or signature wasn’t there. Nevertheless, I photographed the page. I could check if any of the comments were in his writing – but it wasn’t what I’d hoped for. I turned the page.

  The 13th.

  Brilliant few days folks. Thanks. Jeremy Gill 13/12/98.

  I exhaled slowly. The 13th. Evidence that he had stayed overnight on the 12th, the same night that Lorcan Lucey had seen Deirdre walking up the stairs to the bedrooms. It hadn’t been Joey O’Connor. Jeremy Gill was the one who had raped Deirdre. And his pattern of behaviour was an almost exact copy of what he had done with Rhona. I photographed the page and took a close-up of Gill’s message. I felt Davy at my shoulder.

  ‘Who’d believe it?’ he said. ‘A guy rapes a schoolgirl and takes time to write in the Visitors’ Book next morning. Unreal. But, hey, you’ve got proof now.’