by Alex Barclay
Patrick settled again.
Helen lowered her gaze to the book and read, drawing her finger across the page under every line. ‘It doesn’t matter, the nature of a child’s wounds or their number or size, or their visibility, or depth, whether their flesh was bruised, or burned, cut or torn, whether their faces were reddened by the back of a hand, or the heat of shame.’ She paused and looked up at Patrick, then down again at the book. ‘It doesn’t matter whether they were taken in ways that were never meant for a body so small. It doesn’t matter whether they were poisoned by words that bound them to silence, or convinced them they were nothing or that they were everything, or that they wanted to give willingly what another person wanted to steal from them.’ She paused and looked up at Patrick. Without lowering her gaze, and while her finger still moved under the lines across the page, she spoke the words, her eyes locked on to his. ‘Because it is not our wounds that unite us damaged girls and boys. It’s what came before – the perfection of a pure spirit. Yes, we were wounded, but first, we were as perfect as humans ever are. We still are – you know.’
Patrick let out a breath. ‘What did my eyes do?’
‘Nothing,’ said Helen. ‘Absolutely nothing.’
Behind him, the shadow was a solid black shape in the doorway, poised to step over the broken glass.
‘I’m sorry about Murph,’ said Patrick. ‘You know he was in love with you.’
A frown flickered on Helen’s face.
Behind Patrick, safely, quietly over the glass, stood Murph, his face blackened with smoke, shining with sweat.
Helen tilted her head. ‘He was in love with me?’
Behind Patrick, Murph nodded. He raised his hands in front of his chest and made a heart shape with his fingers.
Tears welled in Helen’s eyes.
‘Edie told me,’ said Patrick. ‘He was meeting you for a drink, dressed up to the nines, ready to confess everything. And poor Murph. All this love stretching between you for twenty years like an elastic band. And he thought it would snap when he finally plucked up the courage to tell you. But it snapped because you told him that you had MS.’
Helen’s lip started to quiver and tears spilled down her face.
‘He didn’t even realize why he pulled back,’ said Patrick. ‘He didn’t even realize that he chose not to love another woman who might leave this life too soon.’ He paused. ‘Poor Murph.’
Behind him, Murph nodded, tears sliding down his face, making pale trails in the smoky black.
‘And you loved him too,’ said Patrick.
Helen nodded. ‘I did. I always did.’
‘Except, according to Edie, you were too busy thinking you deserved nothing better than that prick who left you. And she could never figure that out, how someone as gorgeous as you, could settle for so little.’
Helen cried harder.
‘Unfortunately, Murph is not brave,’ said Patrick.
Behind him, Murph reached for the candlestick, and took it in both hands.
Patrick frowned. He inhaled deeply through his nose.
Behind him, Murph took a silent step forward, the candlestick raised.
‘What is that smell?’ said Patrick.
‘Fire,’ said Murph, swinging the candlestick down, slamming it hard against Patrick’s temple. ‘Fire, you prick.’
58
Sergeant Val James sat at her desk in the garda station, her mobile phone beside her, her computer open on PULSE – the garda’s database. She entered a car registration number and got a hit on the registered owner: PATRICK LYNCH. She clicked on the Driver’s Licence Insurance Production Record – a record of when any person driving the car had been asked to produce their driver’s licence and insurance to a guard. There were two names listed for incidents in the previous year. She clicked on the first one: GRAHAM LANGERWELL who had been pulled over for speeding in Dublin the previous January. She clicked on his production record. On 20 March 2006, he had been caught speeding in a rental car in Kealkill, 50 kilometres east of Castletownbere.
Val fired up her laptop and opened a folder called House Sale, and clicked on a pdf. There was a coastal map that included Pilgrim Point. A small site next to it was shaded in grey. An arrow was drawn from it to the handwritten words:
REGISTERED OWNER: LANGERWELL HOLDINGS
Val grabbed her phone, scrolled to SUSAN and texted her.
Are you out taxi driving too?
She added an eye-roll emoji and hit SEND. Her phone rang.
‘Aren’t we some fools?’ said Susan.
‘I’m here half an hour in the station waiting for him,’ said Val. ‘And it’ll be, “Oh, the battery died, Mam”.’
‘Well,’ said Susan, ‘I can tell you there’s nothing wrong with his battery. I know exactly where your son is, because I get all the goss.’
‘Are your lot home?’ said Val.
‘They are,’ said Susan, ‘that’s why I rang. Cian’s after taking the bus out to Ardgroom. He got fed up waiting for you, but according to the lads, he’s got his eye on some young one out that way and he hopped in for the spin.’
‘I’ll kill him,’ said Val. ‘Are they long gone? Did he forget he was to come to the station or what?’
‘He must have,’ said Susan. ‘But they’re not long gone. Hold on – one of the lads is shouting at me here. So – they reckon three lads are being dropped off in Urhan, two more in Eyeries, another lad in Kilcatherine—’
‘The pup!’ said Val. ‘I’m not waiting up half the night for him to get a tour of Beara. Hopefully, I’ll catch him on the road.’ She pushed back her chair. ‘I was actually texting to ask you a question on the QT. This is going back a few years now, before I was ever here. But did you, by any chance, handle the will for a transfer of one acre of land out at Pilgrim Point – it would have been Sister Consolata’s will, and she died in 2006.’
‘I did,’ said Susan.
‘I obviously looked into the land around ours when we were buying the place,’ said Val, ‘but I only got as far as the registered owner – Langerwell Holdings. I didn’t take much notice. Do you know was there a beneficial owner?’
‘What’s this all about?’ said Susan.
‘Don’t ask,’ said Val.
‘Okaaay,’ said Susan. ‘Yes. It was Patrick Lynch. He’s from here – he used to work up above at the convent, so did his mother. So I suppose this was a token of Consolata’s gratitude. Mind you, someone else was telling me the connection was Patrick’s father – Consolata knew him from Cork city when she was starting out – some delinquent teen she’d been dealing with as part of her ministry or whatever you call that. Apparently, she brought him with her when she moved down here, got him into the industrial school to straighten him out.’ She paused. ‘I’m not sure how much good it did him. I know the wife kicked him out.’
‘So maybe it was a token of guilt,’ said Val.
Susan laughed. ‘Consolata? Guilt? Easy to know you’re not from around these parts.’
59
SISTER CONSOLATA
Pilgrim Point
30 July 1983
The Night of the Rape
Sister Consolata stood in the darkness of the convent laundry room, jaw clenched, lips tight like a pulled seam. Daniel Lynch stood opposite her, his eyes wild, his body trembling. He was wearing a grey T-shirt and jeans that were stained in blood that had been taken and lost in so many ways; pouring from deep wounds, cast from the blade of a knife, flicked from the broken bubbles of saliva it had mixed with, smeared then by tiny, clawing, desperate hands.
The buckle on his brown leather belt hung loose, jangling as his hips rocked. The top button of his jeans was open, and a small yellowy twist of his underpants was wedged into the V of his open fly.
‘You watched her dance, didn’t you?’ said Sister Consolata.
A frown flickered on Daniel’s face.
‘You watched her,’ said Sister Consolata, lifting her arms, and flapping them twice like a bird captu
red in slow motion, moving her hips in the same way; once, twice. ‘You WATCHED her,’ she roared. ‘You WATCHED her.’
Daniel opened his mouth to say ‘No’.
‘And you WANTED her,’ said Sister Consolata, each word snapping like a whip. ‘Same as you want all the girls who move in the sunlight the way you want them to move in the dark.’
Daniel’s eyes moved like trapped flies.
‘How do you think it feels?’ said Sister Consolata.
Daniel ground his entwined fingers against each other, his elbows moving in and out against his sides.
‘How do you think it FEELS?’ she roared.
‘Sore,’ he said. ‘Sore, Sister.’
‘For me!’ she screamed, slamming her fist against her chest. ‘For me!’
The trapped flies stilled, drawn to the only light in the room; the white band of her black veil.
Sister Consolata glared at him. ‘And I the one brought you here, trailing the smell of a hundred foster homes behind you.’
Daniel pulled his hands from their grip.
Sister Consolata looked down at his left hand. ‘And he’s still wearing a wedding ring on his finger! You’ve some cheek, and you kicked out of the house years ago. And that poor child, pining for you like a dog at a window. So, you can swear to me now, on your son’s life, that you won’t come next, nigh, or near this town again?’
‘I swear on Patrick’s life that I won’t come next, nigh, or near this town again.’
‘And if I have to look them in the eye myself, and tell them you’ve died, I will.’ Her eye was caught, and she looked down, pointing to his jacket pocket.
‘What’s that?’ she said. ‘Give that to me.’
‘No, Sister.’
She looked at him, incredulous.
‘I can’t, Sister. You don’t want to—’
‘Give it to me!’ She lunged forward, grabbing the corner of fabric, whipping it free from his pocket. A key came with it, landing with a light, metallic clank but Sister Consolata was focused on the fabric, straightening it out in her hands, seeing the shape of it, like a triangle, and it had a waistband with a little bow on it, and two holes for the legs, and it was so small. She looked up at him, her face lit with anger.
‘You fool!’ she hissed. ‘You fool!’ She threw the underwear at his feet. ‘Put that back! Put it back in your pocket!’ She glanced around. ‘We need to … we need to …’
‘Wh-what …’
‘Whist!’ she said, batting a hand at him. Then it was question after question – what way did you go, could anyone have seen you, where did you get the bike, could anyone have seen you there, don’t lie to me or you’ll be sorry, and he told her everything, apart from the details of his most horrible acts.
She turned to Daniel, staring with disgust into his fearful, pleading eyes.
‘You can get rid of the bike, the clothes, the lot – bury them down by the grotto, where Jerry Murphy’s been digging.’
Relief flooded Daniel’s face.
‘Now get down on your knees,’ she said.
Daniel did as she asked.
Sister Consolata bowed her head. ‘I confess …’
Daniel paused, rubbed the back of his sleeve under his nose.
Sister Consolata’s head whipped up. ‘I confess!’ she roared.
60
Murph held Helen, sobbing in his arms. He pulled back, held his hands to her face, and kissed her firmly, gently.
He grabbed Helen’s wheelchair, pulled it to the side of the bed, and helped her in. She went to the front door of the suite. Murph opened the door and shoved the wedge under it. Helen crossed the threshold on to the walkway.
‘Don’t go anywhere,’ said Murph. He glanced back at Patrick, lying, bleeding and unconscious, on the scattered pages of his notebook. ‘I’m going to lock this prick in the bathroom.’
As he dragged Patrick by the ankles past the shattered door, he heard the sound of a distant fire engine. He backed into the en suite and rolled Patrick into the recovery position. He stood up, stepped around him and, as he walked out the door, caught sight of the emergency pull cord from the corner of his eye. He reached out and pulled it.
He went to Helen. Her hands were over her ears.
‘I’ve always wanted to do that,’ said Murph. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘there’s a you to make safe in the inn. And a Laura in a tunnel with a broken ankle. I got her as far down as I could, but she made me go check on you. Mind you, at this stage, she probably got up and walked on it the rest of the way.’ He gripped the handles of the wheelchair.
Helen glanced around at him, frowning. ‘I can do it – it’s fine.’
‘Not at the speed I’m about to go,’ said Murph.
In the darkness of the bathroom, Patrick’s eyes flickered open. He winced, rolled on to his back. He touched his hand to the wound at the side of his head and pulled it away. He looked at the blood, disgusted, then got slowly to his feet. He tried the door handle, then kicked it.
He felt around the pockets of his jacket, and pulled his wallet from the inside. He went to the window and under the weak glow from the moonlight, slid out a store loyalty card. He went over to the door, crouched down, held on to the handle, and started to slide the card up and down in the gap between the door and the frame, getting more and more angry, pausing to slam his hand against the door before he started again.
Then he heard a click. Then he smiled.
61
Val James drove through town, past the late-night stragglers scattered down Main Street everywhere there was a porch to shelter from the rain. The phone was on speaker.
‘Right, Susan – I’m off to catch my fugitive son,’ she said.
‘He’s a juvenile, now, so go easy,’ said Susan. ‘And I’ll rep him in court if I have to. Don’t make me choose.’
‘You know something,’ said Val. ‘There was a friend of Edie’s up above tonight – a District Court Judge I came up in front of in Dublin when I was starting out.’
‘I know Clare,’ said Susan. ‘She’s from here. Scary bitch.’
‘I’ll never forget her – she tore strips off me for my evidence collection. I was mortified. I’ll tell you one thing, though – it stayed with me. She says to me in this posh D4 accent: “Gawr-da James. My father used to say to me ‘Eyes ahead’, which, of course, was his way of telling me not to dwell on the past.” And she says she doesn’t want me to dwell on my mistakes, which was pretty decent of her, but she wants to drill that phrase into me for a different reason. She goes, “So ‘Eyes ahead’, Garda James. And I’m not talking just about having your eyes on the evidence that lies before you at a crime scene. I mean – have your eyes on that day in the future when you’ll be presenting that evidence.” And here’s the thing that really got me. She says, “Your work will not always be life and death, Garda James. But it will always have a victim. And you want to be able to look out across a courtroom at that victim or their loved ones and know that you have done everything in your power to honour them.”’
‘So she’s why you’re the way you are,’ said Susan. ‘Did you say anything to her tonight? She’s the wind beneath your wings?’
‘I did not,’ said Val. ‘Guards are in one ear and out the other to judges. But I might get Edie to say something.’ She drove through the last of the street lights and turned on her full beams. ‘Right, I’m going to lose you. Talk to you tomorrow.’ She hung up and hit the second preset button on the radio. Billie Eilish’s voice filled the car, beautiful and haunting. There were no other cars on the road. When she got to the turn for Urhan, she drove past it, turned the car back around to face town, and parked on the gravel lay-by close to the ditch. She texted the bus driver.
Missed Cian in the square. Are you still in Urhan? Can you drop him off at the turn before Eyeries – I’m parked up. Thx.
She sat back, turned up the radio, and folded her arms. Her eyes were starting to close when she saw a car approaching, from town, being driven
at high speed. She straightened in the seat. Her heart jumped when she saw the registration number. She turned her head as the black Audi passed, Patrick Lynch at the wheel, something off about his face, caught in the glow of the lights on the console.
As soon as he was out of sight, Val started up the car, turned it around and drove towards Eyeries.
She grabbed the phone and texted the bus driver.
Scratch that. Duty calls. Would you mind dropping him to the house? I’ll sort you out.
When she reached Eyeries Cross, she caught the glow of the tail lights as the Audi disappeared around the bend, heading in the direction of Kenmare. Her phone beeped. She glanced down and saw a thumbs-up emoji from the bus driver. Her shoulders relaxed as her foot hit the accelerator.
She followed the car on the straight, hilly road to Ardgroom. Rain was pouring down and she flicked her windshield wipers to maximum. She glanced down at her phone, checking for it to come back into coverage. When it kicked in, she hit 1 on her speed dial.
‘Hey – it’s me. The bus is dropping Cian home. Can you do me a favour? Can you check if the lights are back on at the inn?’ She waited. ‘What? Smoke? Jesus Christ. There was something fucked up going on there earlier. I knew it. I’m in Ardgroom. I spotted one of the guests – one of their friends – on the road when I was waiting for Cian. He looked like he had blood on his face. Is that the sirens? Jesus Christ. I hope they’re all right.’ She listened. ‘No, no – I won’t, I won’t. I’ll just see if … oh, shit. He’s after going tearing.’
She hung up and slammed her foot on the accelerator. The road was a series of straights, broken with pockets of tight bends. She was driving at 100 kilometres an hour but didn’t pick up his tail lights again until they hit the church at Lauragh and she caught him on the road winding up out of the village. He had no choice but to slow on the steep, narrow incline ahead. She reached the top and rounded the bend, dropping her speed to 30 kilometres to take the hairpin bend that curved into another tight bend and another, the road barely wide enough for two cars to pass. To her left, only a crooked line of wire-panel fencing separated her from a one hundred foot drop into the valley below.