by James Nally
A couple of guys hadn’t so much come out as been flushed out by local gossip, mostly spread by Tullamore’s only openly gay man. Maybe he resented the competition because, once outed, none of them hung around for long.
As for those who made it to third-level education, most were already abroad. Every year, Ireland dished out 120,000 degrees/diplomas to people who then had to emigrate to get a job. We were the leading supplier of over-educated barmen, waitresses, labourers and cab drivers to the world.
I couldn’t begrudge Eve the merciless relish with which she imparted these grim allegories. As far as she was concerned, there was only one difference between her and the rest of us: her life went off the rails first, and very publicly.
‘Fintan tells me you’re sharing with Aidan Walker.’
I nodded.
‘Jesus, Aidan “Stalker” Walker. Is he still falling in love every week?’
‘Three times a week now, what with all the random women he encounters in London.’
‘How does he find time to write all those bad ballads? He still writes bad ballads, I presume?’
‘I can confirm that he still writes bad ballads. Though he’s been seeing the same girl for over three weeks now, so he’s got a double album of new material all about Ruth. Or is it Rachel?’
‘Rachel’s hard to rhyme. It must be Ruth. He could knock out a song a day with a name like that. Just think of the possibilities: truth, forsooth, youth …’
‘Phone booth. Bucktooth. Uncouth.’
‘He should call the album Now That’s What I Call Moothic.’
We both laughed again, hard. We used to laugh so much.
We recovered to find ourselves in that awkward post-joke void. I sensed Eve’s green eyes molesting me. She had something to ask.
‘Listen, Donal, I need a favour,’ she said sadly.
I stopped myself from saying, Name it.
‘There’s a photographer sniffing around the hostel, someone must have tipped off one of the papers that I’m staying there. They’ve agreed to move me to another hostel but there aren’t any free spaces at the minute. Could I stay at yours? Just for a few nights, until I get myself sorted?’
‘Of course,’ I smiled. Surely this meant she still had feelings for me?
‘Thanks, Donal. When I get back on my feet, I’ll buy you all the beer you can drink,’ she said, pointedly planting her empty glass on the table.
It felt good drinking with a woman who could keep up, even if it was costing me a fortune. But I needed to know what she had in mind for us. How would we move on from here?
I slung her the gin and cut to the chase: ‘What are your longer term plans, Eve?’
‘I don’t really know,’ she said quietly.
‘But you’re staying in London?’
‘I can’t go back,’ she said, slightly panicked. ‘I’m like the scarlet bloody woman over there. I could never live in Ireland again, not after all that’s happened.’
‘What about the bungalow?’
‘We tried to sell it but no one can afford to buy such a monstrosity. Some of the neighbours put in offers way below the asking price, because they knew we were desperate. Can you believe that? That’s why Mum and the boys had to go back to New York, to pay the mortgage.’
I wondered why she hadn’t followed them; then remembered that the Land of the Free doesn’t admit people with criminal records.
‘We’ve got a company that hires it out to tourists but we don’t get a lot of takers. I mean, who in their right mind would want to spend a week in a big damp bungalow in the middle of the bog?’
‘What about your dad? Maybe he could help …’
‘Do you honestly think I could bear to set eyes on that home-wrecking bitch Sandra Kelly? I’d rather sleep on the streets. She broke my mother’s heart.’
I felt confused: she had seemed happy enough to accept a favour from Frank three years ago, when we were planning our move here.
‘Don’t worry, Donal, I won’t be a burden on you for too long,’ she spat, her red fuse fizzing.
‘That’s not what I mean, Eve …’
‘I signed on today, and I’m seeing the probation people Thursday, so it might just be for two nights. Hopefully you can stand me for that long.’
‘Stay as long as you like, Eve,’ I said, ‘honestly. We’ve got so much to catch up on. And so much we didn’t get a chance to talk about before I left.’
I thought to myself: ‘Where could we even start with that?’
But Eve seemed to know exactly where she wanted to kick off our darker reminiscences. ‘You know the other night, when you mentioned Meehan?’
I nodded.
‘Tell me again, Donal. Everything you saw that night.’
‘God, Eve, are you sure you can handle …’
‘Tell me,’ she demanded.
She listened intently as I ran her through the sequence of events in graphic detail: scored as it was inexorably on my memory.
When I wrapped up, I asked, ‘What I saw, Eve, is that actually what happened?’
She nodded gravely.
‘Did he …?’
She kept nodding.
‘God, I’m so sorry.’
Eve looked at me with those big watery eyes: ‘You said you couldn’t hear anything?’
‘No, it was all in total silence.’
‘But you can hear everything when Marion comes to you?’
I nodded, surprised she could remember minutiae like this from our booze-fuelled night at the Archway Tavern.
‘The way you talked about it, you sounded really convinced that she is actually coming to you with clues?’
‘Even more so now.’
‘Why?’
I explained how my dual sighting of Marion on Sangora and Strathblaine Roads the previous Friday turned out to be pivotal to the case, exaggerating the impact, but not wildly. I next reiterated my absolute certainty that the identity of Marion’s killer lay on a door somewhere at number 21.
‘My God,’ she said, troubled, uncomfortable, ‘that’s so specific.’
Meehan flashed into my mind suddenly; the way he came for me as I lay in Tullamore General Hospital, hours after Eve had killed him. I couldn’t remember if I’d told her about this the other night. I decided it would do no good telling her now.
‘Will you ever go back?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Only to see Mum, probably after Dad croaks it.’
‘I heard what he said,’ she took my hand and squeezed it, ‘I don’t blame you.’
I explained that I felt no loss for Martin, just regret that we’d failed to find a way to tolerate each other, if only for Mum’s sake.
As we left the Wheatsheaf, Eve sensed my gloom and resurrected a running joke from the old days. No vocabulary on the planet has more words for being drunk than Ireland’s: clattered, flootered, ossified, mangled, locked, stocious, scuttered, manky to name just a few. As we staggered into the night, we traded them just like we used to, until one of us could think of no more.
I felt this connection to Eve that I doubted I’d ever develop with Gabby. We’d grown up together, in a way. She knew me inside out. Because of what happened to her that night, we had a bond that would never be broken.
She dozed off on the couch as I sank a Shiraz. The crook of my shoulder felt as if her head had never left it. When she stirred, I raised her gently to her feet and walked her to my bed.
‘So soft,’ she slurred as I laid her out. I pulled off her shoes and sandwiched her in duvet.
She rolled over and giggled. ‘Soft,’ she whispered again.
I watched her grind her face into the pillow and thought about lying down behind her, throwing my arm over her slender shoulder like the old days.
Retreating to the door, my mind raced: what did this all mean? Could we pick up where we left off? Why not? But what were we to do about the missing three years? Maybe we could start again, from scratch?
I didn’t know the answers,
but decided that if Eve wanted to give our relationship another go, then I owed it to her – to us – to try. After all, external forces split us up last time. By getting back together, we’d find out ourselves, once and for all, whether we were meant to be. If it didn’t work out, then at least we’d know, for certain.
Chapter 27
Clapham Police Station, South London
Wednesday, August 14, 1991; 10:00
Next morning, Mick and Colin joined us in the bleachers, pre-interview, to take a good one-way look at Peter through the two-way mirror. He sat slumped and unmoved, still fumbling with his fingers, still wearing his wedding ring.
He’d made an effort, wearing a freshly pressed blue striped shirt tucked into a pair of beige chinos. I wondered if Mother-in-Law Mary had ironed them for him this morning. On his belt sat a bright blue pager, standard-issue in any hospital or care home. They would have seized his cash, keys, belt, any potential makeshift weapon. Why hadn’t they seized his pager?
‘Who the fuck let him in with that?’ barked Shep, his contemptuous squint peeled on Peter.
‘It’s work-issue,’ sighed Mick, ‘the rule is they have to be contactable at all times.’
Shep growled. ‘Look at that narcissistic prick,’ he sneered through an upturned punk lip, ‘I want you boys to give this fucker a real good going over. Let’s face it, his pursuit of a bit on the side is the reason Marion is in the morgue. No matter who wielded the knife, it’s Peter who killed her. Since day one, he’s lied through his teeth. We’ve had to drag every last piece of information out of him. Today he finally tells us the truth.’
Peter’s face shot up as the door burst open. Mick and Colin strutted in, chests out, fists clenched, flexing their clamped-shut jaws. If Karen had been a sardine can that needed peeling, Peter was a coconut begging for a hammer.
There was no ceremonial organising of papers, no, ‘so Peter, tell us about …’
Colin read the tape recorder its rights. Mick read the most damning revelations from Karen’s interview. Peter looked on, wide-eyed and bewildered. By the end, his face had twisted into the grotesque grimace of a hooked fish.
‘Karen has told us all about your sexual relationship. We’d now like to hear all about it from you. And don’t leave anything out,’ said Mick.
Peter took his time, obviously treading carefully. He’d got to know Karen soon after he started working at the Pines.
‘I didn’t consider her any more than a work colleague,’ he said.
The boys made it clear they weren’t here for an am-dram production of Brief Encounter.
‘Did you fancy her, Pete? Did you want to sleep with her?’
‘I found her to be pleasant, outgoing, friendly, but not pretty. Not like Marion, who was beautiful.’
Peter started to crack, which earned him no respite.
‘How did your sexual relationship develop?’
‘I became responsible for stocking the nurses’ quarters and that brought me into more contact with Karen. We spoke about twice a day.’
‘Don’t stop,’ barked Colin.
Peter winced and carried on. ‘Around the end of 1988, Karen had to have an operation on her knee and was recovering in her room. I went to visit her a couple of times a day. Then I attended her twenty-second birthday party at her family home in Lee, in the spring of 1989. I met her mum, dad, her sisters Laura and Stacey.’
‘Did you bring Marion along?’
‘No.’
‘Karen tells us she introduced you as her boyfriend.’
‘I don’t remember her ever calling me her boyfriend, to anyone.’
‘She said that at weightlifting and aerobics classes, you told everyone she was your girlfriend.’
‘That’s not true. Go and ask them yourselves. I never introduced Karen as my girlfriend. She never was my girlfriend. She was just … casual.’
‘Your bit on the side. Yes we understand, Peter. When did you start having sex with Karen?’
‘It was around that time.’
‘So you’d been going out with Marion for over two years by now. You started sleeping with Karen in the spring of ’89, a few months before you got engaged to Marion.’
Peter nodded, shame rising through him like red sap.
‘And how did it happen with Karen, that first time?’
‘I can’t remember the details.’
‘What do you mean, you can’t remember the details? You can’t remember the first time you gave one to your mistress?’
Peter’s eyes flinched.
‘Did it mean that little to you? I bet Karen remembers every detail.’
‘We did it in my room at the Pines one evening. I honestly can’t remember how it came about.’
‘So you don’t remember who initiated it?’
He shook his head.
‘You have to speak,’ screamed Colin, making everyone jump.
‘No,’ whined Peter.
‘And what were your feelings for Karen?’
‘I thought it was just casual. Nothing serious.’
‘And did you tell Karen the news, that you saw her as a piece of meat? That in the meantime you’d got engaged to Marion?’
‘I didn’t tell her,’ said Peter.
‘But she must have found out?’
Peter nodded, too quickly, too often, flushing, cracking under the pressure again.
‘How did she find out?’
‘The matron threw an engagement party for us. Karen was there.’
‘How did she react?’
‘She didn’t make a scene or anything. She cooled it for a while.’
‘When did you resume your sexual relations with Karen?’
‘She moved into a room in the home around May of last year. We started sleeping together again.’
‘Let me get this straight: a month before your wedding to Marion in June of last year, Karen moved into the staff accommodation at the Pines residential care home?’
Peter nodded. ‘I advised her to move.’
‘Oh I bet you did, Peter. You could have sex on tap then, couldn’t you, with your unsuspecting fiancée and your 24/7 fuck buddy.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ groaned Peter, ‘she needed to get away from her family.’
‘And why was that, Peter?’
He blinked twice, then let his head drop, resigned to giving away a confidence: ‘Her dad, Terry, when he gets drunk he picks fights with them. He was hitting her, hitting all of them. He’s been doing it for years. She stayed to protect her sisters, but I told her they were old enough to look after themselves now.’
‘So while she was looking for a shoulder to cry on, you provided a bed for her to lie on. What a gentleman you are, Peter. How many days did it take you to get your end away with poor old vulnerable Karen in her new accommodation?’
‘I … we … look, she wouldn’t leave me alone. I told her to meet someone else, but she was always there.’
‘And did Marion know Karen during this time?’
‘I thought they were quite friendly, but after a while Marion started to make certain comments like “we know what she’s after”. But as the wedding got closer they seemed to get friendly again. It was Marion’s idea to invite her over for it.’
‘Tell me about that, Peter,’ said Mick, ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like having your mistress at your wedding.’
‘She came over to Ireland with us, in the hire car.’
He broke down and sobbed.
‘Gives a whole new meaning to Hertz,’ cackled Shep to me behind the one-way mirror, ‘and Budget rental. That’s all Karen was to him, a Budget rental fuck. And what a masochist she is. Karen kept taking this punishment until she snapped. He’s spilling his guts because it’s all clicking together in his thick fucking skull, at last. Karen was obsessed with him. He’s finally realising that he drove Karen to it. What I want to know is: did he know she was going to kill Marion?’
I couldn’t believe that for one sec
ond. He’d been crushed on the night he found her. He was broken now.
‘Did you spend any time alone with Karen on your wedding weekend?’ asked Mick.
‘The night before the wedding, she came into my hotel room. There were two single beds. She lay on one and fell asleep. She woke up and went back to her room. We didn’t have sex.’
‘Denying yourself pre-marital sex until the bitter end, Peter, wow, how very Catholic,’ chirped Colin.
Peter was now on a confessional slide.
‘After the wedding, we got back to my room at the Pines to find that Karen had cleaned it and put up balloons and good-luck messages. She invited Marion and me to dinner at her family’s home. I really thought that she’d finally accepted that we couldn’t carry on. But we still did the fish tanks together every fortnight and one Monday, a few months after the wedding, we had sex again.’
‘Is it true that you told her you’d made a mistake in marrying Marion? That you really loved Karen?’
‘No, God no,’ said Peter, ‘I would never say anything of the sort.’
‘She said you told her that you loved her.’
‘I did one night when I was drunk, but I never loved her. I loved Marion. She knew that. She knew I would never leave Marion.’
‘So what were your feelings for Karen?’
‘I cared for her. But that’s all. Like I say, it was a casual thing. She wanted it as much as I did.’
‘So every second Monday, she invited you to her room at the Pines for sex?’
‘Not her room. It’s next door to the matron’s and we didn’t want to get caught. She had the key to Bethan’s room. We preferred to do it in there.’
Shep leapt to his feet: ‘Bethan’s room was next to Marion and Peter’s. He must be talking about after they moved out. After January this year. Karen said they finished two months earlier, in November.’
Colin and Mick had already homed in on this anomaly.
‘Karen says that by the end of last year she hated you, and that she and Marion had become friends.’
‘You could say they were close around the time of the wedding. They maybe went out for a drink together twice late last summer. But by October last year, it was cooling between them. The three of us didn’t get together very often. When we did it was awkward. There was an atmosphere. They knew they didn’t like each other.’