Clearly reassured that she wasn’t a double agent, Garda Coughley finally handed back her ID and turned his attention to Philip Flynn’s. Pale, with stubble breaking through on his left cheek, her colleague didn’t look as if he had had much more rest than Claire herself, but he hadn’t protested when she’d told him about the early-morning interview. They both knew it was impossible to overestimate its importance. Of course Sean Gilligan’s work had uncovered the fact that ‘Richard’ was Alan Delaney’s father but, according to Inspector Byrne, he hadn’t been able to follow through with an address or even a full identification. The emails between Richard and Eileen that had been stored on her laptop had been brief and guarded, mostly concerned with details of the kidnapping that they knew already. At no stage had ‘Richard’ revealed his surname, his email address had been a randomly generated series of numbers and letters, and the messages had been sent from an internet café in Perth, Australia, of all places. In fact, his knowledge of online security had left Gilligan convinced he’d probably had some IT training.
Police in Oz had been contacted and were offering assistance, but at this stage, getting information out of Eileen Delaney was still going to be the most direct way of finding out who he was and, most importantly, where he was.
‘You ready?’
Flynn retrieved his card, glanced at her and nodded.
‘Right, so.’
Claire opened the door. On the way over in the car they’d discussed how to handle the interview. Eileen was still very ill, and were it not for the seriousness of the situation, they wouldn’t have been let near her. As it was, Claire had got the impression they’d be lucky to get one or two words out of her. But as they stepped into the room she saw not the thin figure lying under the sheet she had been expecting, but a woman in a green cardigan, sitting up in bed, glasses perched on the end of her nose.
As Claire stared at her, wondering if she was in the right place, a short stocky woman in a white fitted nurse’s top and straining navy trousers bustled past her and walked over to the bed.
‘Your visitor is here, so.’
Eileen Delaney – Claire could now see she was definitely the woman who had held her at gunpoint just two days previously – took her glasses off and laid them down beside the newspaper.
‘Thank you.’
‘You won’t keep her long.’
The nurse looked at Claire in a manner that made it clear that, if she had her way, Claire wouldn’t be speaking to her patient at all. She reached up and made an adjustment to the drip, then turned and spoke, it seemed, to both of them.
‘Miss Delaney hasn’t been up for long. She’s doing remarkably well considering, but she is very tired.’
The nurse inhaled sharply, a snort. But Claire had dealt with more intimidating gatekeepers than this one, and offered in return a bright, bland smile that didn’t encourage further conversation. How would the nurse feel, she wondered, if she knew about the misery Eileen Delaney had caused, the grieving parents who were waiting by the phone, desperate for any news of their child? Then again, maybe she did know and maybe that didn’t matter to her right now. It was quite possible that the welfare of her patient was her only concern, regardless of the sequence of events that had brought her to the hospital in the first place. It would be nice, Claire thought, if all jobs could be that clear-cut.
With an ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes’ to Claire, and a ‘Press the bell if you need me’ thrown over her shoulder to Eileen Delaney, the nurse left the room, giving Flynn an equally dismissive look as she left.
The small, dimly lit room managed to smell both of disinfectant and unopened window, and as Claire walked towards the bed she felt the walls start to close in on her. Oh, come on, woman, get a grip. You’re in charge now. Without asking permission she scraped a visitor’s chair across the floor towards the bed where Eileen Delaney’s hand lay on the blue cover, a cannula raising a bruise on its back. Flynn also moved closer, but remained standing behind her.
Eileen Delaney looked up at Claire, a frown replacing the small smile on her face.
‘They said a guard was coming in, but . . . I know you, don’t I?’
Claire nodded.
‘Hello, Miss Delaney. We met – I was in the doctor’s surgery the other day. When you were injured.’
The woman looked suddenly panicked and a heart monitor by her side began to bleep rapidly.
‘The baby – there was a baby with you? Is the child okay?’
The last thing Claire wanted was the premature return of the nurse so she plastered what she hoped was a soothing smile on her own features.
‘The baby is fine, Miss Delaney, no need to worry yourself.’
There would be no advantage, Claire decided, in revealing it had been her own child in the room. Instead she continued in as level a tone as she could manage.
‘No one – no one else was injured in the incident.’
The woman seemed somewhat reassured and nodded slowly.
‘So who are you? Why are you here? I thought – I thought they said they were sending a guard to take a statement.’
It was best, Claire decided, to dole out the information on a need-to-know basis.
‘My name is Detective Sergeant Claire Boyle, Miss Delaney. I was in the surgery yesterday on private business, but I’m here now as a police officer. I have a few questions, if you feel up to answering them?’
Eileen Delaney looked at her for a moment, then nodded again.
‘Of course. I suppose – I know I’ll probably go to prison for what I’ve done and I’m sorry. I’m not going to deny anything. You were there – there wouldn’t be any point anyway. But, yes, ask away. Whatever you need to know.’
‘Miss Delaney,’ Claire began, ‘the man you refer to as Richard – am I right in thinking he’s Alan’s father?’
The woman bit her lip.
‘Yes. We were never a couple or anything, but he got back in touch with me when Alan died. Surely you can ask him all of this yourself, though.’
Claire’s stomach lurched. Avoiding the cannula, she reached over and lightly touched the back of the other woman’s hand.
‘Miss Delaney – Eileen. Do you know where Leah Gilmore is?’
‘Leah? Isn’t she at home? Surely Richard has let her go by now?’
Oh, shit. Claire knew exactly where the conversation was going now, but she had to tease it out.
‘No, Miss Delaney. Leah isn’t at home. Richard still has her. He has told her parents he wants a lot of money to return her. Do you know anything about this?’
The face of the woman in the bed was bleached now, almost the same colour as the sheet and she plucked ever more anxiously at her cardigan button.
‘No, of course not! It was all supposed to be— Look, I know this sounds daft, sitting here, talking to you. But it was all . . . not a joke exactly, that’s the wrong word, but put on, you know? It was an act. We only ever planned to hold her for a couple of hours, long enough to send Heather and Marc a few photographs. Richard was going to let her out, of course he was, at the side of the road somewhere. Somewhere she could get a taxi home. He did, didn’t he?’
She peered hopefully at Claire.
‘He did let her go?’
Claire’s headshake brought forth more alarming beeps from the monitor.
‘Oh, Jesus. What are you saying to me?’
Claire could see beads of sweat breaking out on Eileen Delaney’s forehead now and she knew she had only minutes before the nurse came back to declare the conversation at an end. There was so much she wanted to ask, but she had to ration the questions now.
‘Where is Richard, Eileen? Where has he taken Leah?’
When Eileen spoke it was in little more than a whisper and Claire had to strain to hear her as she addressed her answer to the sheet. ‘I’m so sorry. I never thought . .
.’
Claire hadn’t time for patience now. ‘We know he’s Alan’s father, Eileen, but we don’t know anything else about him. Does he live in Australia? Has he family here? Please, you have to tell me everything you know. Leah is in serious trouble.’
‘He left me a message on Facebook, when he found out Alan was dead.’
Eileen’s voice was now so quiet that Claire had to lean over the bed to hear her. Behind her she could hear Flynn scratching in a notebook.
‘It turned out he and Alan had been in contact for a while.’
Eileen’s face was glistening with sweat now and Claire was afraid to interrupt her.
‘Alan had traced him – I don’t know how, but I suppose I wasn’t very surprised, really, when I heard. He was such a bright boy. Richard was married in Australia but he and his wife couldn’t have children and the marriage didn’t last. He was so excited when he found out he had a son! I’d never told him, you see, that I was pregnant. Never really thought about him, to tell you the truth. It was just a one-night thing. Anyway, there was a campaign on social media when Alan disappeared and Richard saw it. Someone shared his photograph as far away as Australia, imagine! When he heard he was dead, well, he was devastated, of course he was. To have found out he had a son and then to have him whisked away from him like that – he was shattered. So he contacted me through the “Find Alan” Facebook page. He said he just wanted to talk to me, to talk about Alan with someone who knew him. We started chatting on the phone. I got the impression there wasn’t much going on in his life . . .’
Her voice dropped away and Claire picked up the glass of water on the bedside locker and offered her a drink, taking a quick look at her watch as she did so.
As if reading her mind, Eileen Delaney coughed again and made a visible effort to hurry.
‘I was so angry – you have to understand how angry I was. The anger was the only thing holding me together, really. So I told him that all I wanted was to make the Gilmores suffer the way I had suffered. Just for an hour or two. If I could make Heather and Marc realize what it was like not to know where their daughter was, just for a little while, then I thought that would make me feel, not better exactly but . . . I just wanted to feel some sort of relief. Honestly, Detective, you have to believe me. I only meant for this to last an hour or two. So we came up with this plan, me and Richard. It needed two people to make it work. We would take Leah, bring her somewhere for a while, take a photograph of her, send it to Heather. I swear to God that was all we wanted to do. I wanted to be there, when she saw the photo, to see her reaction. I wanted to send it on to Marc too. I didn’t know he’d be out of the country. Richard was going to keep the girl somewhere safe for a couple of hours, then let her out. I’m not even sure why he turned up at the surgery at all – I couldn’t understand it when he burst in like that. That was never the plan. I was just going to frighten Heather and then I was going to leave. Then we were going to let Leah go . . .’
Her voice was shaking badly now and Claire knew the interview was well into injury time.
‘Richard suggested the gun. He told me we’d never have to fire it. He has a cousin who knew how to get these things. Oh, it sounds mad, sitting here talking about it like this, but I was a bit mad, really, I was so caught up in it all, I wasn’t thinking straight. I was in this long tunnel and it was like he was offering me a way out. I felt if we did this thing then I could begin to heal. He was the only person I was talking to and I believed him. I believed this would really help me.’
Her pallor was tinged with grey now and Claire realised that whatever energy she had had at the beginning of the interview was now drained. Right now she looked every inch the woman who had just gone through a major operation and it was clear she needed to stop talking and to rest. But she also had to answer a few more questions.
‘So you both took Leah.’
Eileen nodded, staring at her hands.
‘We’d been watching her for weeks. My son had been a Facebook friend of hers and I traced her through his account. She used to post about her runs online. It was very easy to track her. She went the same way every day.’
So much was falling into place now but there was still a lot Claire didn’t understand.
‘You say, Miss Delaney, that you were going to let her go – that all you wanted to do was to give Heather and Marc a fright. But surely you knew, once it was all over, that they’d come looking for you? Even if this hadn’t happened, you would have been arrested for false imprisonment, you knew that.’
The woman shrugged.
‘It didn’t matter. I’m sure that’s hard for you to understand. But I felt that once it was over I’d have achieved something. And what happened afterwards wouldn’t matter a damn. I didn’t ask for money, money had nothing to do with it. You know, in a way, when you burst into the surgery like that, when you came in, I felt a bit relieved, actually. I just thought, Well, that’s it, then, it’s over now. I thought I’d probably go to jail, but I wasn’t frightened. I’d had a plan and carried it out and that was something, you know, to take with me.’
Claire bent closer.
‘Where is she, Eileen? Do you have any idea where Richard has taken Leah?’
‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know. He didn’t tell me anything. I don’t even know his second name. I’m so sorry. I don’t think I can help you any more . . .’
There was a sudden draught as the nurse swished back into the room, but Claire didn’t need her to confirm that the interview was at an end. Eileen lay back on the pillow, totally drained. But as Claire stood up to go she opened her eyes again, reached out and touched her hand.
‘Will you tell Heather that I’m sorry?’
Claire could only imagine what Heather Gilmore’s reaction would be if she delivered that message. But it seemed important, somehow, to give the woman in the bed something to hold on to, so she nodded.
‘I’ll look after it. Get some rest now.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Philip Flynn reached for the file on the desk in front of him with his right hand, then changed his mind and dragged it across with the left. He was grand once he remembered to favour his good side. Not a bother on him, really. That was what he’d told the Garda doctor anyway, when he’d suggested Flynn take a week or more off sick. He’d just grinned at the chap and told him he’d hardly any pain at all, as long as he took it easy. Then he’d gone a bit further, told him he’d actually seen online that a bit of gentle exercise could be good for broken ribs, but the sharp look he’d got from your man had told him that was pushing things too far. Still, the chap hadn’t banned him from the office, that was the main thing. He’d just given him another prescription for painkillers and warned him not to ‘go making a hero of himself’ again.
There were two chances of that, stuck behind a desk all day. But, Flynn had to admit, anything was better than being at home. He’d have more than his ribs to worry about: his head would melt clean off him if he had to sit in front of daytime TV while young Leah Gilmore was still missing. At least in the office he felt like he was contributing something to the effort to bring her home.
The interview with Eileen Delaney hadn’t been half as useful as they’d hoped it would be but the woman had at least confirmed that ‘Richard’ was her son’s father and that he had been in touch with Alan before the young fella died. Boyle had gone off to brief the IT chap, Gilligan, on what they’d learned. She was hopeful he’d be able to trace online contact between Alan and his dad, although that task had been massively complicated by the fact that the young fella had sat in a café for most of his internet usage and it had closed six months ago.
Meanwhile Boyle had asked Flynn to go over the files relating to Alan’s death, to see if there was any clue as to Richard’s identity there. She hadn’t given him specific instructions – in fact it was fair to say she really didn’t know what she was looking for
– but there was always the chance there’d be something in them, something the initial investigation had missed because they hadn’t been looking for it. It was like building a sandcastle, Flynn thought, adding layer upon layer of information to the bucket, then turning it upside down to see what shape it took.
So, Alan Delaney. Flynn looked at the name written in black pen on the cover of the cardboard file, his pathetically recent date of birth scrawled underneath. Seventeen. The poor craythur had only been a child when he died, he mused. No one deserved to go that early. He opened the file and began leafing through the pages. There was a decent number of documents in it, considering how short the investigation had been. Eileen Delaney had reported her son missing on a Sunday morning and his body had been found a couple of days later. She’d kicked up a right fuss, as far as Flynn could recall. The investigation hadn’t taken place out of Collins Street, but he remembered the press release all right, and the huge amount of shares the boy’s photograph had attracted on social media. When he’d been found, and it was clear he had died the night he had disappeared, his poor mother must have thought she’d been wasting her time. Funny, though, how things had worked out. All of her efforts, all of her campaigning, at least ensured that a large pile of paper had been left behind to mark the boy’s passing. Maybe now that paper would help bring another woman’s child home.
Right so, what had he? Nothing unexpected, really. The first pages were notes taken by Garda Della McDonagh on the morning Eileen Delaney had first reported her son missing, and stapled to that were details of a second phone conversation they’d had later that afternoon. All standard stuff. There was a short transcript, too, of an interview with Alan’s friend, a fella called Michael Taft, whom Alan had been in contact with before he’d headed out that last evening. Fair play to the chap, as soon as he’d heard Alan hadn’t come home he’d done the right thing by his friend, presented himself at the Garda station and given them the full story. Flynn peered more closely at the notes in Della McDonagh’s small but very legible handwriting.
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