Full Irish Murder

by Kathy Cranston

  He reached into the pocket of his fleece and pulled out something that shone in the light. Fiona’s brain joined the dots and told her what it was, but she had to blink a few times to make sure she was really seeing them.

  “Handcuffs? Where’d you get handcuffs?”

  He flushed and turned away. “You think you’re very funny, don’t you?” He lashed one side of the cuffs around her wrist and the other around the rail, pulling hard on it to make sure it was securely fastened to the bar.

  Fiona’s eyes widened. They weren’t the kind of handcuffs you got in kids’ cop play sets. Nor were they of the pink and fluffy variety. No, these looked very real. And judging from his reaction when she had asked him where he got them, Fiona had a brief moment of inspiration as to what Mrs Stanley had on the seemingly staid and upstanding Alan Power.

  “The bedside table, you say.”

  She nodded. “It’s only an old pile of rubbish,” she muttered. “You won’t even get ten euro for it on eBay.”

  “I’m not here to rob you, you idiot. How many times do I have to tell you?”

  She turned away. His breath was sour and unpleasant, and he seemed intent on yelling into her face. It crossed her mind to ask him nicely if he could just go swish some mouthwash around his gob, but she didn’t want to incense him more than she already had. She was beginning to take him seriously now she was stuck in the bar with him, with no help at hand.

  “Yeah, it’s on the bedside table.”

  “Good. I’ll be back in a minute. Oh, they’ll love this. Getting a call from you and then finding out it’s me. That’ll teach them to mess with me!”

  “Who?” she whispered, genuinely confused. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your father!” he crowed. “Oh, they think they can blackmail me when I asked quite reasonably for proof that things were square between us. Well, I’m sure they won’t mock me when I want proof in exchange for the safe return of their daughter.”

  “Ah.” When he put it like that, there was a strange sort of sense to what he was saying. It was then that she realised she was in a lot more trouble than she thought.

  “You know, it’s actually a funny story. We were trying to get to the bottom of the murder. We found a Gmail account belonging to Mrs Stanley but we could only see one side of her conversations. I don’t know what she had on you or any of the rest of them. It was all a fishing expedition.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Nice try. Are you sure you want to lie to me? There’s no way I’m giving ye any money. I made that mistake once before. No, you need to just shut up and wait. And hope that your father and grandmother decide to do the right thing and hand me over all the copies of those photos.”

  Fiona shook her head. She was about to protest again when she realised there was little point. It was clear he’d fallen for their lies and wasn’t going to believe they were bluffing.

  Keep him talking, she thought suddenly. She didn’t know what time it was, but if she could stall him for a few hours, then someone might pass and suspect…

  The button.

  The little doorbell that was wired through to the hardware shop.

  Her relief was short-lived. There was no way Marty was going to be in work; not for at least another few hours. Could she stall Power and keep him talking for that long? She didn’t have a lot of confidence.

  But that was her only option. She took stock of her surroundings. There was a chopping board within reach—the knife she used for chopping limes must have been in the dishwasher at the other end of the bar. Otherwise there were straws and bar napkins. A box with numerous chalk pens and stickers she used to update the blackboard outside. In other words, nothing useful except for the bell.

  “Stay there,” he hissed. “Don’t try anything funny.”

  She tried to smile as ingratiating as she could. “So how did you get to work in IT? Did you do computer science in college?”

  He did a double take. “What?”

  “You heard me. There’s no money in bars. I’ve been thinking for a while about how I might go back to college and study something useful.”

  “I’m not a careers advisor,” he sniffed, turning and stomping towards the door to the flat.

  Left alone, Fiona pressed the buzzer to the hardware shop. She knew it was futile, but it felt better than doing nothing. In the silence of the night, she imagined she could even hear the faint buzzing sound through the wall.

  She smirked. Mrs Davis on the other side wouldn’t like that, she thought.

  And then it struck her. She turned around, praying she had left it in its usual spot along with the controls for the heating system. Sometimes she carried it around with her when she was closing up.

  She hissed a great sigh of relief. It was there alright. She pushed forward. She had about a metre of wiggle room along the section of the rail she was cuffed to. She jiggled the cuff right to the join and reached across.

  Yes, she thought as her fingers closed around the remote control for the sound system.

  Knowing she didn’t have much time, she poked the power button. Then she turned the volume as loud as it would go and turned the remote over in her palm.

  Music blared out of the speakers around the bar as she flipped the remote in her hand and awkwardly tried to remove the battery cover with one hand cuffed. It was so loud that the building seemed to be vibrating around her, but she told herself not to rest on her laurels just yet. After all, Power was surely on his way down.

  Sure enough, he appeared at the door a moment later, his face the very picture of rage.

  His lips moved, but there was no way she could hear his words over the thumping music. He marched across the floor and her shaking, sweating fingers fiddled with the cover until it finally came loose.

  She wasted no time at all tipping the batteries into her palm and feeding them one-by-one down the sink. The last one dropped from her fingers just as Power reached her.

  32

  HE PULLED the remote from her hand and jabbed at the buttons before pausing to look at what he was pressing. Fiona tried not to look too smug: after all, she was cuffed to the bar and in the company of a mad man. And she wasn’t even certain the plan would work.

  After another few seconds, he stopped and pulled off the cover of the battery compartment. His lips moved again, but even standing close to him she couldn’t hear him.

  “What the hell did you do?” he screamed into her face. “That was stupid!”

  Next, he hurried over to the wall where the largest speaker was mounted and frantically moved around it. Fiona knew he was looking for the plug.

  This time, she couldn’t help but allow herself a little smile. She had wanted to save money and place the speakers close to existing power outlets, but Marty had nagged her for days that it was a better idea to have the wires out of sight, especially in a bar where someone might spill a drink or attempt to pull the speaker out of the wall after a few too many. She had tried to convince him that her bar wasn’t going to be the type to attract customers like that, but he’d been uncharacteristically insistent about it. She had agreed mainly to shut him up, and she had moaned for days about the cost of getting an electrician out to wire the speakers into the walls.

  She wished she could hug Marty now. It was possible he’d bought her another few minutes—her plan might just work after all…

  “Turn it off!” Power cried, red-faced and sweating.

  “I can’t!” she roared back, just as one song faded and the next came on. Her voice sounded startlingly loud in the silent pub.

  “Well do if you know what’s—” The music prevented her from hearing what he said next—not that she wanted to know.

  Fiona’s palms were beginning to sweat again. It had been silent when the music stopped. She had hoped it might have drawn attention, but there hadn’t been a sound inside the pub or out of it.

  It’s not going to work, she thought. And if it’s not…

  She looked over at Power.
He still had her phone in his hand. Knowing him—and she didn’t really, but she’d seen enough of him to get the measure of the man—he would have wanted to make the call to her parents in her presence. She had deprived him of the opportunity—for now, at least.

  But he’d figure it out. He had just completed a circuit of the bar, searching in vain to find a switch for the speakers. He marched over to her, angrier than she’d ever seen him.

  “Where’s the fuse board?”

  Fiona shook her head. “The what?”

  She knew well what he was talking about, but forced herself to play the fool.

  “It’s your bar. You must know where it is.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t. Sorry.”

  The truth was it wasn’t far from them at all. It was in the bar kitchen, right behind where they both stood.

  The music must have been going for several minutes, she calculated. And still nothing had happened. Had she made a mistake? She hoped not—this was her last hope.

  “I’m running out of patience with you!” Alan Powers shouted, stepping from foot-to-foot, clearly in a panic.

  “Well I’m not exactly brimming with patience at the moment either, to tell you the truth,” she muttered, her voice totally drowned out by the music.

  The next moment, his eyes lit up as if he’d been struck by inspiration. Fiona didn’t like that look at all.

  He hurried towards her, but instead of shouting, he reached under the bar for a glass.

  “Move,” he said, exaggerating the movements of his lips so she’d understand.

  Fiona looked from his face to the glass and back, as it slowly dawned on her that he’d figured out a way to turn off the music. She flattened herself against the sink.

  “Sorry, what? I can’t hear you.”

  She was well aware of the knife in his hand, but she couldn’t allow him to do it. True, he’d said he wouldn’t harm her, but she doubted he’d be so calm when her father told him he couldn’t hand over the photos because he didn’t have them. There was simply no way he was going to believe that, and it wasn’t as if he felt any goodwill towards the McCabes after they had kept him prisoner in his home earlier that evening.

  “Move,” he said, shoving her.

  Fiona steeled herself to try and resist, but he was strong despite his paunchy, office-drone look and he soon shoved her out of the way.

  She watched in horror as he filled the glass before hurrying across the floor. Her stomach lurched as he flung it at the speaker before scurrying away. The music seemed to slow down and become distorted. The speaker fizzled and cracked before there was a loud popping sound and the bar fell silent.

  “There,” he said, after he’d taken his hands away from his ears. “You thought you were clever, but I’m smarter than you. We can tell that to your father when we ring him, can’t we?”

  Fiona bristled with pure dislike as he walked towards her. The ruined speaker system continued to make popping sounds, but that was the least of her worries then. She wished she’d taken the few minutes to sit down and put a lock code on her phone. As it was, he was able to unlock the screen and access her contacts within a few seconds.

  At least the lights hadn’t been knocked out, she thought. As maddening as Alan Power was, she’d far rather be able to keep an eye on him than be left in the dark wondering what he was up to.

  “Here we go. ‘Dad’, I presume.”

  “You’re very smart, alright,” she snapped.

  His face scrunched up, but he returned his attention to her phone without saying anything. Her mind raced with possible ways to distract him, but she could think of nothing.

  “These handcuffs seem well worn anyway,” she said, trying to inject her words with a bravado she didn’t feel.

  He glanced up at her, eyes narrowing to slits. “Don’t think you can mock me and get away with it.”

  She closed her eyes. This was either a very brave approach or a very stupid one, and she didn’t have the benefit of hindsight to tell her which it was.

  “Ah sure why wouldn’t I? It’s all around town, you know. Straight-laced IT professional with the secret dark side. You should have thought about that before you handed over your not-hard-earned euros to Mrs Stanley.”

  “What?” he spluttered. “You’re lying. No-one knows.”

  She shrugged. “You keep telling yourself that.”

  He glared at her for a few seconds before returning his attention to her phone. “You’re lying. Trying to bluff.”

  “If that’s what you want to believe…”

  This time, he didn’t take his eyes away from her phone. She knew all was lost.

  “Here we go. I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to this call,” he said, eyes gleaming.

  Fiona’s pulse raced as his index finger tapped the screen and she heard the dialling tone.

  She didn’t know whether she wanted her father to pick up or to not—it seemed like whatever happened, she was doomed.

  The phone rang and rang and it seemed as if they were suspended in the silent, too-bright pub.

  Then there was a loud groan. Fiona froze.

  “Oh it’s off now,” she heard a very agitated voice say. “But it was so loud, Garda. It’s not acceptable.”

  Fiona’s heart swelled. She knew that voice—she’d already had a run-in with the woman behind it. But was it too late? Depending on who was out there with her, they might notice the silence and decide to leave it alone. She wasn’t sure how Alan Power had managed to get in: now she hoped he’d had the decency to leave obvious signs of a break in.

  Not only that, but the dialling tone stopped and the phone made a shrill beep sound before going silent. Francis McCabe had disabled his voicemail the week before, complaining that he didn’t want to pay good money for the privilege of listening to telemarketers’ nonsense.

  Alan seemed to sense her optimism.

  “We’ll try him again in a few minutes,” he whispered. “And you better stay very quiet. No one knows I’m here and I’d like to keep it that way.” He held up the knife. She didn’t like the way it glinted in the light. She was still handcuffed to the rail—it wasn’t like she could run for help, even though it sounded tantalisingly close at hand.

  If only Mrs Davis would stick to her guns and demand that Fiona be taken to task for the noise. Fiona could never have imagined she’d be willing her neighbour to complain about her!

  She closed her eyes and listened hard. It was silent out there now. She still had no idea which of the guards was out there with Mrs Davis. What if she’d decided to give up? The music was off. Maybe she had decided to let it go. Fiona’s heart sank.

  Time for a new plan, she thought.

  “What time is it?” she asked Alan.

  He opened his mouth to answer and then clamped it shut again. “I told you to be quiet,” he muttered, barely moving his lips, like a very angry ventriloquist with a knife.

  “Sorry,” she whispered. “I just want to know the time.”

  His brow furrowed, but he did indeed glance at her phone. “You don’t need to know,” he muttered.

  She sighed. It couldn’t be more than an hour since she’d gone downstairs. That meant that Marty wouldn’t be at work for another two hours. And realistically, it could be another three before he got to the shop.

  Fiona’s options were beginning to look very limited indeed.

  “We’ll try him again,” Alan Power whispered.

  “Can I at least make us a cup of tea?” It was a last desperate attempt and it was obvious from his face that he knew that.

  “No. Just stand there and be quiet. Oh, look. It’s ringing.”

  The sound of wood shattering drowned out the dial tone. Fiona leaned across the bar as much as she was able; staring in the direction of the door to see what was going on. It had been silent for several minutes: she had assumed Mrs Davis had left.

  “Sorry, Miss McCabe,” Garda Conway said, coming through the inner door. �
�But we’ve had reports of a disturbance of the peace. You can’t play music at that volume in the middle of the night.”

  “No, you can’t,” Mrs Davis said, folding her arms and looking very reproachful indeed.

  Fiona reached for the chopping board just in case Alan decided to try something stupid. She wiggled her other wrist so the handcuffs rattled.

  “I couldn’t think of any other way to call for help. He’s handcuffed me here. And he’s got a knife.”

  Garda Conway looked stoic. “I can see that alright. Hold on there, Fiona.”

  “It’s not like I can go anywhere, is it?”

  “No, indeed,” Conway said. “I suppose not.” He cleared his throat. “Now, son. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

  Fiona snuck a reluctant glance at Alan to see how he was coping with the pressure. He seemed stable, but she had no way of knowing for sure. He’d been half-mad before Garda Conway even arrived.

  “Mrs Davis. Go outside and call Garda Fitzpatrick,” Conway muttered.

  Fiona’s heart sank as she saw Alan Power take in this information. Then she caught sight of something else.

  “Yeah,” Fiona said loudly. “You tell Garda Fitzpatrick to get down here and arrest this man for breaking into my pub. Tell him to come right away before there’s any more trouble.”

  Alan sneered. “I never broke in anywhere. I think you’ll find that this big oaf here did the damage. Now.” He took a step closer to her.

  Fiona’s heart leapt into her throat. “No. What are you doing? Can’t you see? He’s not armed.”

  “But Garda Conway,” Mrs Davis protested. “I don’t have Garda Fitzpatrick’s number. I called 9-9-9 earlier. They warned me I shouldn’t do that again unless it was an emergency.”

  “Go on, Mrs Davis,” Garda Conway said, looking flustered. “Get outside. Tell them I said it was alright. I don’t care how you do it: get Garda Fitzpatrick. Now!”

  Fiona glanced at Power’s hand. Her phone was still lit up. “You’ve a choice here Alan,” she yelled, even though he was standing close to her. “If you come for me, they’ll have backup here before you can uncuff me and get away. If you run now, you can get back to your car and be long gone before they come.”