by Brothers
‘Michael, it was a lovely idea of yours, so welcoming to invite us.’ She smiled, giving Tim the look that told him she was okay.
Tim watched on in loving admiration as Rose spoke with her son, he had to pinch himself that it was really happening.
‘You’ve done wonders with the place,’ she offered, wondering what to say next. ‘My daughter,’ she paused, she felt almost guilty at using the word, ‘Lizzie, really loved how you’ve done all the restoration and decoration, she loves all that type of stuff.’
‘I can’t take credit for that, I’m afraid, that was all Marie,’ he said.
Marie overheard her name, the anticipation of Michael meeting Rose had overwhelmed her and now, as she saw them smile into each other’s eyes, engrossed in each other’s words, her own eyes glistened, how magnificent that they finally got to meet.
‘She tends to have very good ideas, even if she does meet a bit of resistance along the way.’ He scrunched his face, admitting his own stubbornness. ‘She has plans to build chalets, small retreats in the field below.’ He drew a deep breath, he wondered had it been a little insensitive to mention the digging in the field, it was because of the groundworks for the chalets that the body of Patrick Fitzpatrick had been found. ‘The whole area of agri-tourism is booming down here,’ he added. ‘The government are throwing money at anyone who is mad enough to take it.’ He chuckled.
‘I heard that.’ Marie floated by with a plate of cakes.
‘That’s fantastic, Marie,’ Rose said. She could imagine the vision she had for the place. ‘Artists and writers and all sorts of creative people would love that, not to mention the Americans, or city families, it’s a superb idea.’
‘Outside is more my area, though,’ Michael added.
‘Outside looks lovely too, the sheds have been rebuilt, by the looks of them,’ Rose said. She watched Michael, the way his eyes widened in excitement when he spoke lovingly about his wife, the way the corner of his mouth curved enigmatically when he made a comical remark. She watched the sparkle in his eyes when he spoke about his kids, she was so relieved to see how fulfilled his life had become.
‘A few new walls, new roofs, that type of thing, no major new builds, though. Although, there was an old cottage down below,’ Michael smiled awkwardly. ‘Who am I telling, of course you know there was an old cottage,’ Michael added. ‘I sometimes forget that people lived in this magnificent house before me, I never met any of you, you see, I was much younger than all of your generation, my mother tells me, I was God’s doing, not hers.’ He let out a laugh, the memory of his mother still warm in his heart. ‘That was her dignified way of telling me I wasn’t planned,’ he said, grinning as the memory of his headstrong mother flashed into his head. ‘My mother and Marie were very close, they got on like a house on fire.’
‘I remember your mother well,’ Rose said and cleared her throat. ‘Mrs McGrath was one of life’s angels.’ Rose raked her stiff hands through her grey hair and a pang of jealousy curved its way into her heart fleetingly. She knew she had no right to be jealous. ‘That’s lovely that they were good friends,’ she added. She had the pleasure of knowing the warmth of Mrs McGrath and both she and Michael were both the better for it. Michael was reared in love and warmth as one of Mrs McGrath’s sons and Rose was spirited away from the drudgery of the Fitzpatricks on a make-believe scholarship to a wonderful boarding school in Dublin, close to her brother in college and faraway from all the harm that Fitzpatrick Farm could do to her. Even though they never spoke from that day she left for school, Rose knew the depth of love Mrs McGrath had for her and Michael, she would never be forgotten. When news had filtered through that Mrs McGrath had passed away, for one brief moment, Rose had considered coming back to pay her respects but didn’t, it wouldn’t have been fair, not to Mrs McGrath and not to Michael.
‘That they were, I’d say Marie knows more about my mother than I or even George ever knew,’ Michael answered. ‘Mind you, I don’t know if that was a blessing or a curse, there were times, they’d both gang up on me, they’d have me agreeing to all sorts of things.’ He laughed.
They sat momentarily in silence, both remembering the woman that had meant so much to their very existence.
‘You were saying about the old cottage?’ Rose said eventually, reminding him, eager to establish if it was still there.
‘Oh yes, I was saying we knocked it down, we plan to build a bigger milking parlour, state-of-the-art machinery onto the shed that’s already there. We want to get the agricultural stuff on that side.’ He pointed west. ‘And then all the tourist stuff, chalets and food hall to that side.’ He swung his arm around and pointed east.
‘Oh, good idea.’ Rose was content to know that it and all the evil that had seeped into the walls in the cottage had been levelled to the ground. Whatever it was about the house getting a new lease of life, she knew it would never have been possible with the cottage. Now, she knew, she could relax a little more. ‘Eve brought us on a tour. She was very charming.’
‘Ah, my Evie, she’s a force to be reckoned with,’ he smiled as an equally charming young boy stood by his shoulder. ‘And this man here, is Jack.’ His son had found him in the crowd like a magnet. ‘Say hello to Mrs Fitzpatrick.’ He smiled encouragingly at Jack.
‘Actually,’ she smiled, ‘it’s O’Reilly now, and anyway, call me Rose.’
Jack was the image of Tim when he was young, Rose couldn’t pull her eyes away from him.
Chapter 30
Saturday Afternoon – 2016
It hadn’t taken Louise long to order her usual lunch to go in the deli and with the paper wrappers scrunched on her lap and Kelly beside her having finished his, they made their way back to the station. Louise flinched as her phone buzzed for the third time since Kelly had sat into her car. ‘Jesus Christ, can I just get a minute.’ She looked at him exasperated. ‘Why is it that as soon as I need a minute to myself, everyone else thinks they’re more entitled to it than me?’ She looked at the missed calls on her phone. ‘It’s the Inspector.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll have to answer him.’
Kelly checked his own phone, mirroring her sentiments. ‘Let’s just sort this out, get him off our backs,’ Kelly said, Louise nodded.
‘Inspector, you were looking for me.’ Quietly she got out of the car, throwing Kelly a knowing look. It was a routine that they had run many a time, she would make the call and get herself back into the office as though she had never left, convincing the Inspector that she was there for ages, and Kelly would take up the rear, locking the car, throwing coats on the back of chairs and readying the desks as though they had been there all day. It was familiar, reliable and dependable, just what their relationship had been, up until yesterday that was. She handed Kelly the keys as she left. ‘Yeah, I’m in the station,’ Louise answered, knowing McCarthy was on a mission to find her. ‘What do you mean? I’ve been chasing you around the building for an hour now.’ Kelly’s footsteps caught up on hers as he took the steps two by two. ‘Well, every time I go up to your office, you’re not there.’ Kelly smirked as he overheard Louise’s stretching of the truth. She was brash enough to pull it off and clever enough to know when to stop. ‘You must be in the lift, every time I go up the stairs, I’d say that’s how we keep missing each other.’ They both smirked at how she had just insinuated that the Inspector was lazy and got away with it. ‘Right then, stay in your office now, I’ll come to you, I’ll bring Kelly with me and we’ll finalise it then.’ She looked at Kelly who had already left his jacket on the back of his chair to make it look as though he hadn’t left and hung up the call. ‘He wants us both up to discuss the Fitzpatrick case.’
‘I told you that,’ Kelly answered and they both grabbed their files and headed for the stairs. ‘Shit,’ Kelly remembered.
‘What?’ Louise asked.
‘I meant to say. Just in case it comes up. Car trouble, just go with it,’ Kelly whispered as Louise tapped loudly at the Inspector’s door. Catching a glim
pse of her reflection in the office window, she smoothed down her white blouse and stepped inside the room when they were bellowed at. She looked at him perplexed.
‘Update.’ The Inspector was as gruff in personality as he was in appearance. ‘Seeing as you couldn’t get back in time on Thursday.’
‘As I said, sir,’ Kelly threw a knowing glance at Louise, hoping that she had picked up on it, ‘we were stuck on the N4 till around two a.m., bloody nightmare.’
‘Yeah, bloody nightmare, sir,’ Louise added, she wasn’t sure what she was becoming complicit in but trusted Kelly enough to follow his lead.
‘Yes, well, I waited here till one and when I got your text I headed home.’
‘Yeah, sorry about that sir, bloody nightmare in Dublin and on the motorway. Kelly threw Louise a glance that said he would explain everything to her later. ‘We did try and get into you yesterday too but, I believe you were off?’ Kelly was deliberate in turning the fault back to the Inspector.
‘Yes, which is why I’m here today’. The Inspector was less than pleased about having to explain himself to Kelly.
‘Well, the update is…’ Louise was always the first to speak and Kelly always trusted her to do so. She could articulate their intentions much more concisely than he ever could. ‘We have the preliminary report, we have a suspect, the body identified.’ She looked at Kelly for confirmation. ‘And given the circumstance, although unsubstantiated, of the lives of both the suspect and his sister at the hands of this man, we have motive, what we don’t have is a confession or statement or a guarantee that this was the event that killed him, the so-called, victim. Nor have we ruled out, Liam or Maeve Fitzpatrick, who are also deceased.’
‘The so-called victim?’ The Inspector raised his brown bushy eyebrows and narrowed his eyes.
‘Well, he was a bit of a bastard, sir,’ Kelly interjected, he could never have been as delicate with his words as Louise had been.
‘That’s coming from His Honourable Judge Kelly, is it? I wasn’t aware of your appointment.’ The Inspector was an inpatient man. ‘Have we or have we not enough evidence to charge Timothy Fitzpatrick with the murder of Patrick Fitzpatrick in 1970? Simple question.’
‘Technically, we have enough to charge him with Unlawful Killing,’ Kelly said. Louise glared at him, he had an awful knack of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Kelly knew that arresting Timothy Fitzpatrick would serve absolutely no purpose other than to bolster the Inspector’s profile, not that he’d admit to it. But if Tim was the man, or boy at the time, that put his uncle in the ditch for what he did to his sister, he sort of respected him for it.
‘Right then, make it so.’ The Inspector was eager to finish the case out.
‘They are at a funeral today, sir.’ Louise threw Kelly a look as though it was his fault. ‘Of the so-called victim, who did in fact rape his fourteen-year-old niece, I might add, who just happens to be an old woman now.’ Louise’s composed edges began to fray and Kelly could sense it. ‘I don’t think they will be fleeing the country on a super yacht bought with the proceeds of their crimes, surely we could do it in the morning.’
‘It will take me a few hours to catch up on the paperwork anyhow, so I might not get to him on time,’ Kelly added, his partner instincts kicking in.
‘This is really not good enough,’ McCarthy hesitated. ‘I don’t want this dragging on any more.’ He hawed in annoyance. ‘I want an arrest before the weekend is over, clear?
‘Right,’ Kelly answered as he and Louise stood to leave the room.
‘And Louise, can we keep the emotion out of it.’ The Inspector started up his computer. His condescending words fell short before they reached her and she continued out of the room.
‘I thought you were going to lose it with him.’ Kelly waited until she had closed the Inspector’s door. He was impressed by the way she had held her temper.
‘It is infinitely more satisfying to stay silent when someone expects you to be enraged,’ she said; her first foot on the top of the black covered stairs, Kelly was behind her.
‘It’s a pity then, you wouldn’t stay more silent with me,’ Kelly chided, he couldn’t stand the atmosphere between them.
‘Kelly, what are we doing, what is going on?’ Louise stopped at the bottom, Kelly one step behind. She was still so annoyed. ‘I think we need to seriously talk, don’t you?’ The hustle of phones and the bustle of voices could be heard inside the main door from the landing.
‘Come with me.’ Kelly stepped past her and placed his hand on the small of her back, guiding her past the second floor door. It was the first time they had connected since they had slept together. ‘Outside.’ Daringly, he kept his hand where he had placed it. He wanted her to know that he cared.
She let him guide her back to her car.
‘Here, I still have your keys.’ He reached inside his pockets and pulled her bunch of keys aloft. ‘Actually,’ he sidestepped her car and strode to the driver’s side, ‘I’ll drive, get in before, anyone sees us.’
She liked Kelly, she really did and the connection between them excited her. She loved the way they worked together, instinctively knowing how to wade in to each other’s situations or more importantly, how to wade out, she was finding it hard to understand why he would just leave.
‘Kelly.’ Louise waited until Kelly pulled out from the carpark onto the main road.
‘Listen, don’t say a word, I need to be looking at you when you are talking to me and I can’t do that when I’m driving, just wait till I park.’ Kelly said.
‘Why, do you need to read my lips or something, is the old hearing gone that bad.’ Louise couldn’t help herself. A wide grin spread across her face, she couldn’t fight it.
‘Seriously, now you joke about my age.’ He looked at her and couldn’t help but smile back.
‘Where are you driving to?’
‘Jesus, Louise, would you just have a bit of patience, my god, you’re a torment.’ He pulled into a parking space outside his house a mere kilometre from the station. ‘My place,’ he said, knowing how significant bringing her inside for the first time would be to her. She didn’t comment.
She followed him through the front door, realising that of all the times she had dropped him home or passed his door, this had been the first time she had been invited inside. He looked at her in silence for a moment as he closed the front door behind her.
‘Coffee, or something stronger?’ The interior of the small terraced house on Castle Street was not what she was expecting. He turned and walked through the short hall to the kitchen, she followed.
‘Eh, coffee,’ she answered, unsure of where to put herself. She stood just inside the doorway. ‘I wasn’t expecting this.’ She unfolded her arms and relaxed her shoulders. The kitchen extension was white, bright and airy with ultra-modern white gloss units.
‘Why, because I’m old?’ He had always wanted to bring her home, but had never found a way to ask her.
‘No, I didn’t mean that.’ Her voice was soft, she hadn’t intended to be insulting. ‘I mean I had no idea, how you lived, I just didn’t expect it to be so sleek and well kept. Your house is actually lovely,’ she added. She ran her hand along the white painted sideboard, it looked antique.
‘In comparison to me?’ he added, looking back at her. ‘Sit down.’ He pointed to the beige covered sofa that was positioned by the oversized windows overlooking the garden. ‘I’ll bring your coffee over.’
‘Thanks.’ It was all she could muster. She walked towards the sofa, her soft black pumps gliding quietly across the polished concrete floor. ‘I just want to say…’ Louise started, unsure of what it was she intended.
‘Don’t,’ Kelly raised his hand in a stopping motion and smiled at her. ‘Just let me start, if you don’t mind.’ He sat across from her and placed his mug on the coffee table in front. ‘It’s my mistake and I want a chance to fix it, if that’s okay.’ He was still unsure about the exact nature of what he had done wrong bu
t he had a notion it was something to do with the way he’d left Dublin. It was only now on reflection he could see how it might have seemed.
‘I suppose it’s my fault.’ He searched frantically to find the words to explain to her what had happened. ‘I was actually trying to do the right thing, but I fucked up.’ He lifted his mug and sipped. ‘McCarthy wanted us both back in the station. That was him ringing when we arrived at the restaurant.’ He scratched his chin. ‘He was pushing for an arrest, he wanted to do it there and then, announce at some function or other that he was going to, that we had made an arrest. He wanted us both back in Kilkenny, he was going to meet us in the station at midnight.’
‘And?’ Louise was somewhat relieved that Kelly’s disappearance could at least be explained. She supposed that it was a good sign too that he cared enough to try and explain but most of all she was interested in his reasoning, what would make him just abandon her in Dublin?
‘Well, I suppose, I decided to go on my own, because when I went back in to the restaurant and I saw you…’ He looked at her, his eyes pleading, she could tell that he was genuine. ‘I saw you with Alex, and I thought, or made the decision, that you should stay with her; there was no need for both of our night’s to be ruined.’ He sighed and continued speaking before she could answer him. ‘I know I shouldn’t have made the decision for you, I know that it wasn’t my decision to make, but I was trying to do the right thing.’ He placed his mug on the coffee table in front of him. ‘It’s hot in here, I’m just going to open that window.’ He rose and stretched to the window handle and unlocked it.
‘I’m not annoyed that you made a call without consulting me, well I am but I’ll come back to that. What’s pissing me off is that you just sent a shitty text and pissed off back to Kilkenny, what was I supposed to think?’ She made a mental note to come back to him on the ‘making her decisions for her’ bit.