Blink

by Niamh O'Connor

  ‘Good God,’ Jo says, shoving him out the door and turning back for a last word. ‘You haven’t heard the end of this,’ she tells Sexton.

  Sexton sits down in Jo’s seat and opens Lucy’s handbag, turning it upside down and shaking it. Straight away they both see the flash of metal foil.

  ‘Bubblegum flavour,’ Sexton says, after picking one up to double-check it is a condom.

  He rummages through the make-up tubes, sticks and powders and plucks a medicine vial from the items. Pushes off the white lid with his thumb and empties the contents into the palm of his hand. He examines the white tablets with little heart shapes in the palm of his hand.

  ‘Serozepam,’ McConigle says, arriving in the room. ‘They’ve replaced Chardonnay as the number-one preference of bored housewives.’

  ‘Thought that was Valium,’ Sexton says, trying to scrape the pills back into the container.

  ‘Too addictive, and a lot cheaper than Xanax. I take those babies for flying. They zonk fear, block all anxieties, worry, self-doubt.’ McConigle stares at Sexton. ‘I hate flying … So whose are they?’ she demands, hands on her hips.

  Sexton reaches for the heart-padlocked journal. ‘I need you to give me long enough to read this, and if I can’t convince you, or myself, by then, that it took great courage for the person who owns them to come clean and tell me what she did, you can presume whatever you want.’

  He knows McConigle won’t let it go now, but he’s out of choices, because he can’t get something out of his head, a reason why Lucy could have crashed the car that night. And ever since the thought struck him, he’s known that he’s going to have to let McConigle know exactly what Lucy said she did. If Lucy did hire a hitman because she wanted to end her own life, presumably the killer has to finish the job in order to be paid the balance.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ McConigle demands impatiently.

  ‘I’m talking about the one characteristic bullies never have,’ Sexton answers. ‘Courage. The one thing the person who owns this stuff has in spades.’

  42

  ‘What’s a bucket list?’ Sexton asks McConigle, flicking through the diary.

  McConigle glances over his shoulder. ‘It’s a list of things you want to do before you die.’ She taps a foot. ‘Who wants to die? Why won’t you tell me?’

  ‘What does this mean?’ he asks, showing her the page.

  ‘It’s a hashtag. It’s sort of a way of summarizing a concept, or shortening things. What exactly did this person want to shorten?’ She scans the diary, and reaches out for it.

  Sexton backs away. ‘So it says here on the bucket list,’ he reads: ‘“Pitch my matching wellies and tent concept to Dragon’s Den so nobody ever need lose their way back during Oxegen or Electric Picnic again cos everyone will be able to signpost you home.”’ Sexton makes bunny ears with his fingers. ‘“Hashtag minted.”’

  ‘Hashtag greatidea,’ McConigle answers. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘It says,’ Sexton reads, ‘that if she can persuade her mother to pay for a six-week blow-dry, she’ll be saving her the same amount in unused GHD electricity.’

  ‘Hashtag the kidsgotsavvy,’ McConigle says. ‘I presume it is a kid, even if she is sexually active and on drugs.’

  ‘And also,’ Sexton continues, ‘she is trying to persuade her father to buy her a home-spray-tan kit, says she could do her friends for a fee, pay him back and make a profit. Is it just me, or is she obsessed with making money?’ he asks.

  ‘Money’s the bane of every teenager’s life. Phone credit, make-up, concerts, it all costs spondulicks. Now are you going to start filling me in?’

  ‘They told me she’d no friends,’ Sexton says aloud to himself. He looks up. ‘Does this sound like a girl with no friends?’

  ‘The opposite,’ McConigle says. ‘She sounds popular.’

  ‘Which bullies aren’t,’ Sexton points out.

  ‘Who is she?’ McConigle demands.

  Foxy enters the office with his jobs book. ‘Who do you want to take the Brockles’ statement?’ he asks McConigle.

  Sexton shoots her a puppy-dog look.

  ‘Forget it,’ she tells him, turning to Foxy. ‘Put Oakley on it.’

  ‘Sexton,’ McConigle says impatiently. ‘Are you going to tell me who owns that diary and those drugs voluntarily, or am I going to have to organize the relevant paperwork?’

  ‘No need to arrest me, it’s … Melissa Brockle’s stuff,’ Sexton lies. If McConigle is prepared to choose Oakley over him to interview the Brockles, there’s no point in giving her the full picture yet. Sexton is still Lucy’s only hope. He holds the diary up. ‘And since I now know exactly the way her mind was working, I’m the one who should interview her parents.’

  ‘Fine,’ she says dismissively, putting a hand out.

  Sexton clutches the diary tighter. ‘It’s all yours … once I’m finished talking to them.’

  43

  The Conquest Church is located in a squat prefabricated warehouse in an industrial floodlit park off exit 10 for Ballymount on the M50.

  Eric Canon is sitting in the car park behind the wheel of his gleaming, 5 series, 131-registered BMW, waiting for Nigel Starling to emerge. Beside him, Gok’s seat is almost fully reclined. His eyes are closed, but every now and then he opens them to shoot Rihanna – in the back – a murderous look. She is twiddling her thumbs madly on her Nintendo DS, apparently oblivious to the bip-bip noise that’s driving Gok mad, and taking regular glances up, to scan the scene outside.

  ‘How the fuck can they call that a church, in anyway?’ Canon asks Gok, staring straight ahead. ‘There’s no steeple, for one. No bell, for two. There isn’t even a window in that yoke … you need stained glass. You go into a church, you expect certain things – like Frankenstein, for instance. Am I right?’

  ‘It’s frankincense, Da.’

  Gok grins and stretches his arms out zombie fashion.

  Rihanna yelps.

  ‘Whatever,’ Canon goes on. ‘The point is if they brought you in there you’d be more likely to come out in meat packs than a coffin. Am I right?’

  Gok doesn’t answer. An overweight woman with large glasses in a floral skirt and fussy white blouse emerges. Her hair is scraped back in a severe hair band. She is wearing frilly ankle socks under her shoes.

  ‘And another thing, how come you never see trendy Opie Dopies?’ Canon continues.

  Gok turns his head. ‘What’s Opie Dopie?’

  ‘You know, the funny handshake crowd … Opus Dei … like in the Dan Brown book? And how come, no matter what the church, they all look like they should be playing a tambourine or a triangle? Also, how come you never get women who look like strippers arranging flowers?’

  ‘Da, there he is,’ Rihanna says.

  With a sudden movement, Canon leans across Gok’s legs and pulls open the dash, reaching in for the 9mm Glock automatic. He flicks the magazine release with a thumb, catches the released cartridge and jams it back in, all in a second.

  ‘Back in a sec,’ Canon says. ‘Mind her.’

  Gok opens his eyes sleepily to register Nigel Starling walking across the car park towards his Volvo – and then closes them again.

  Nigel glances up and starts to run towards his car.

  Canon takes off after him and within ten paces has twisted his arm up behind his back and slammed him against Nigel’s own car. He tucks the gun in the waist of his jeans.

  ‘Give me the keys,’ Canon says. ‘We’re going for a little drive, buddy.’ He reefs them from Nigel’s balled fist. ‘What did you tell the cops?’

  Nigel thrashes but can’t connect. ‘I told you this already: nothing! They were there because of Lucy’s crash.’

  Canon uses his full weight to keep Nigel pressed against the car as he zaps the key fob. The car’s indicators flash.

  ‘What are you doing? Where are we going?’ Nigel asks, frantic.

  Canon doesn’t get a chance to answer.

 
‘Get off, you animal,’ a woman is shouting.

  Canon has to use both his arms to fend off the blows from an umbrella that are raining down on his head. One lands an inch from his eye, making him drop the car keys. It turns out the heavy-set woman from earlier has one hell of a swing.

  Rihanna sprints over from the car and bites the woman’s arm. Gok runs after Rihanna, grabs her by the waist and tries to pull her off, but she holds like a terrier.

  Canon is screaming for everybody to calm down. When that doesn’t work he fires a shot in the air. The commotion stops, and Eric stares in disbelief as he realizes Nigel is speeding off in his car. He raises his arm to shoot at it, but with a jab the umbrella knocks the gun out of his hand.

  44

  Jo bites the inside of her cheek for most of the car ride home. Much as she wants to talk to Dan about what has happened, Rory is in the back of the car. She knows she will say something she regrets when her emotions are running this high, so it’s better to say nothing. But by the time they get home, she’s still bloody furious with Sexton for encouraging Rory’s obsession. She leaves Dan to organize dinner with Rory while she bathes Harry. The little lamb had fallen asleep in the car but is wide awake now, and she kisses her young son’s angelic face. Rory was this size only yesterday. Where have the years gone? He is independent and a man now, but her instinct to mother him is as strong as ever. In her mind Rory is always going to be her baby, and she knows she will have to let him go or she will lose him, but she needs to make sure he’s ready before she does that.

  After drying Harry and getting him into his jimjams, she brings him to Dan to feed and heads into the study.

  Jo closes the door behind her. How dare Sexton involve her son in the city’s suicide-cluster probe? It was a mistake to ask him to speak to Rory. She has been trying to undo his interest, not widen it. Nobody can afford to be arrogant and think this horror will not happen to them, because of the rate it is happening to families just like Jo’s. Every expert is saying, and Jo agrees, that kids are under too much pressure to grow up ahead of their time these days. The stress on kids Rory’s age is relentless. At least, when Jo was growing up, kids could escape a difficult home life when they went to school, or a difficult school life when they got home. But for the Internet generation, there is no escaping peers, or the pressure. Popularity is measured in numbers of Facebook friends. Humiliations happen in public. If you are bullied, it is in front of the world, not just the schoolyard. Bullies thrive on the Internet because they can hide behind anonymity or fraudulent identities.

  Jo gathers up her paperwork on Sexton’s wife’s case and methodically spreads the documents of note across the desk. The answers are in here somewhere …

  ‘Dinner?’ Dan calls down the hall.

  ‘Not tonight, love,’ Jo calls back. She goes back to work, mumbling, ‘I’d choke on it.’

  45

  ‘What happened to your eye?’ Sexton asks as Eric Canon opens the door of Damm.

  The gangster attempts to slam the door shut, but Sexton wedges his foot in the gap and the pair wrestle on either side of the door.

  ‘You’ve been holding out on me,’ Sexton says breathily as he pushes. The door gives and he pins Canon to the floor. ‘You were there, you bastard. In the wood on the night Melissa Brockle died. She had deer blood all over her clothes. If I find a Taser in your house, I can put you there with Anna Eccles too. You live opposite Lucy Starling, which I expect you’re going to tell me is purely circumstantial. That’s three of them – how many more were there?’

  Sexton sees the way Canon’s eyes flick behind him, but doesn’t have time to turn before someone knees him in the kidneys and gets the crook of an arm around his neck. He has to move with the arm holding him, and its owner is pushing him inside, where Canon delivers a blow to his solar plexus that makes him cough for air and his eyes water.

  ‘Get some rope,’ he tells Rihanna.

  ‘We can’t keep him here,’ Gok says behind Sexton’s back.

  They all freeze at the sound of a siren, and suddenly the air is flashing blue through the curtains on the street outside. Sexton is as surprised as they are, but he doesn’t show it. Rihanna runs to the curtain and peeps out.

  ‘Let him go, Da. It’s his backup.’

  ‘What were you going to do?’ he asks. ‘Take me to the wood, like the others?’

  There is a pounding at the door, and a shout of ‘Gardaí, open up!’

  Rihanna opens the door, and holds her hand up to McConigle to be high-fived. ‘All right, Inspector?’

  ‘It’s past your bedtime,’ McConigle tells her.

  McConigle stares at Sexton in the middle of the room. ‘I’ve got a search warrant,’ she tells Canon, gaze still fixed on Sexton.

  ‘Since the conditions of his bail for operating a grow house have just been revoked, you can also arrest him,’ Sexton says, adding, ‘And him, for assault,’ about Gok.

  As officers pace into the room and cuff the pair, she takes Sexton aside. ‘You’ve got some explaining to do.’

  ‘How did you find out?’ Sexton asks.

  She speaks slowly, as if she’s trying to work something out. ‘Foxy decided to play back the tape of your interview with Canon to find out what it was that led you to snap this time. He thinks you can still be helped, but the jury’s out on that, as far as I’m concerned. I saw you try to turn that recording off. Why didn’t you pass on the information about the deer? And what are you doing here? You are supposed to be at the Brockles’, taking their statement.’

  ‘I was on my way, but I wanted to … pay a visit to Canon first.’ If Sexton tells her the truth – that he thinks Lucy might have hired Canon to bump someone off, his whole plan to protect her from prosecution will unravel. Melissa Brockle is dead, it’s too late for her. Sexton has had every intention of telling McConigle that Canon was linked to Melissa’s death, he just intends to find out exactly what his links to Lucy were first.

  In any event, McConigle doesn’t seem to be waiting for an answer. They both know if she hadn’t taken the credit for informing Dan about the suicide video being sent to the kids’ phones, she’d never have been put in charge of the investigation.

  ‘If I find out you’re withholding information pertinent to this investigation, I’m going to make sure it costs you your job. Now is there anything else I need to know?’

  Sexton blinks, and then shakes his head.

  46

  Sexton sits on a couch with Marie Brockle, the mother of Melissa, who is scrolling furiously on her iPad now the conversation has dried up. Her sixteen-year-old niece, Beth, who has silver piercings in her face, is on the couch, watching the late news intently. Beth sighs a lot, Sexton realizes. He knows since the introduction on first arriving a quarter of an hour ago that she moved in with the Brockles a few months ago after her mum, Martin Brockle’s sister, died of cancer. Her body language suggests she would rather be anywhere else. They are waiting for Melissa’s dad to get home from work, even at this hour. He’s a portfolio manager in a bank, Marie explains. ‘They’re under a lot of pressure.’

  Sexton looks over his shoulder at the sound of a key turning in the lock. Martin Brockle is a tall man with dark circles around his eyes. He glances into the room, registers Sexton’s presence but doesn’t say anything before taking his suit jacket off and hanging it on the coat stand in the hall. Sexton waits for a ‘Hi, love, I’m home,’ or a ‘How was your day?’ or a ‘Dinner’s in the oven,’ but nothing.

  When Martin enters the room, he shoots his wife a look that suggests he thinks she’s a waste of space, which is at least more than Beth gets. She may as well be invisible.

  ‘The detective is here to talk to us about the bullying,’ Marie says, barely looking up.

  Beth stands to leave the room, but Sexton asks her if she wouldn’t mind sticking around.

  Martin unbuttons his shirtsleeves and folds them back. ‘I need a drink,’ he tells Sexton. ‘I’ve seen enough cop shows to kn
ow you’re on duty.’

  Marie clicks her tongue disapprovingly.

  Martin loosens his tie and heads out of the room. When he returns, he’s got a stiff whiskey in a tumbler. ‘You want to know how I find out about my wife’s day?’ he asks Sexton, giving Marie a disparaging look. ‘I look up Facebook.’

  Beth squirms.

  ‘The night my daughter died …’ he says.

  ‘Our daughter,’ Marie corrects.

  ‘The night my daughter died, I came home and asked my wife where she was, and she said, “I’ll check her Twitter feed”. You know why they call it Twitter? Because it’s for twits.’

  Marie shoots him a pleading ‘Don’t start’ look. Martin knocks back his drink.

  ‘You made a complaint that Melissa was being bullied,’ Sexton prompts.

  ‘Yeah, and I told the school, and the HSE, and anyone who’d listen when she was alive. Nobody cared. Now she’s gone, and’ – he motions to Beth – ‘she’s still here.’

  Beth stands and leaves the room, silently. Sexton lets her go this time. The atmosphere in here is too toxic for a kid.

  ‘Do you know who was bullying Melissa?’ he asks.

  ‘A gang of bitches in the school,’ Martin says. ‘They were jealous of her.’

  ‘But did you ever hear any names?’

  ‘Plenty.’

  ‘What about the ringleader?’

  ‘Lucy Starling.’

  Sexton swallows. Martin stands to refill his glass.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive,’ Marie adds.

  ‘It started after Amy Reddan took her own life. Lucy got the others to gang up on Melissa, because she – Lucy – had been so friendly with Amy. That Reddan girl’s death had nothing to do with Melissa. They scapegoated her. I wanted to take her out of the school, but her mother—’

  Marie’s eyes fill up. ‘I thought it would settle down. I thought it would cause more problems than it would solve.’

  The front door slams in the background.