Blink

by Niamh O'Connor

  ‘I doubt it, but I have seen people done for withholding information pertinent to an investigation before.’

  ‘So I could face charges too?’

  ‘Not on my watch.’

  ‘What about Nigel and Nancy?’

  Sexton blinks. ‘What about them? Come to think of it, if you were Rory’s source, why did you tell him that Nigel was a pervert?’

  ‘You know … for being someone he’s not?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She hesitates.

  ‘Don’t stop now, not when I’ve just offered you immunity.’

  She takes a drag. ‘Lucy found this dodgy passport Nigel had hidden one day, and these receipts for money he used to wire to a nursing home to pay for the upkeep of his dear old ma, since deceased.’

  Time started moving in slow motion for Sexton. ‘So what name was on it?’ he asked, as it begins to sink in.

  Beth shrugs.

  ‘Do you know where they came from, originally?’ Sexton’s tone is urgent.

  Beth sticks the fag in her mouth and strikes a pull-out match. ‘They were Yanks from some West Virginian hillbilly, banjo-strumming shit-hole. That’s where the nursing home was anyways.’ She rubs the dog’s head.

  Sexton jumps to his feet. ‘So why didn’t you tell me about them before?’

  ‘I was scared Lucy would be the one who suffered. They are taking such good care of her.’

  61

  Sexton refuses to believe that he could have been duped by the Starlings. He speeds from Grafton Street to see Lucy’s consultant, Dr Anthony Dean. Could Nigel and Nancy possibly be involved in what has happened to the other girls? He’s here to double-check. The doctor sits opposite him, on the far side of a walnut desk. He has Michael Heseltine eyebrows and when he opens a glasses case on his desk and puts a different pair on, they poke over the frames like an owl’s. He takes a Manilla file from his secretary.

  ‘I remember Lucy, of course I do, it’s just I’ve never been good with names. Ah, here we are, Lucy Starling. I’ve no idea what clinical trial you’re talking about, though.’

  Sexton tilts his head. ‘Isn’t Lucy still under your care?’

  ‘No, her mum made it clear to me that she intended to take over the management of Lucy’s case.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Before you ask me if it’s strange that Lucy should have been released so soon after surgery with such a serious diagnosis,’ the doctor continues, ‘I want you to know we’re bursting at the seams here, in case you hadn’t noticed. Her mum was adamant she should be the one to take care of Lucy following the op, and to be honest, the way litigation has gone in the profession, I wasn’t about to object.’

  ‘What does that mean? Lucy did have an operation to reduce swelling on her brain, didn’t she?’

  ‘Yes, of course, but we record everything now, and the last thing I wanted was her mum requesting the tape and bringing it to an independent expert who would tell her whatever it is she wants to hear because she would of course be the one paying him the bobs.’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t follow.’

  ‘Look, in many ways, the brain is the last frontier of medical science. We know so little about such a complex organ. What today might have been the right thing to do might not be tomorrow. What on this side of the Atlantic is common practice is medieval in other parts of the world. For instance, in the States, freezing is now considered the best way of preventing the brain from swelling. A bilateral decompressive craniotomy is carried out, leaving only a strip of bone down the centre of the head. The exposed brain is then treated with ice. Initially, the skull was often transplanted into the stomach until the time came to replant. But hindsight showed that the bone leaks calcium, so now it’s considered best to stick it in the deep freeze. In terms of us catching up with these advances, we haven’t even got to the point of putting the skull in the stomach yet. Do you see where I’m coming from?’

  Sexton has to swallow to stop himself retching. ‘You’re saying you let Dr Starling take her daughter home rather than be accused of doing something wrong?’

  ‘I’m saying we’re neither equipped nor trained here to carry out the best international-practice procedures yet.’

  ‘And you feared, if you’d botched it, she might object to something you’d done and decide to sue?’

  ‘I stand by everything I did, but I think you can read between the lines.’

  ‘Is that why you haven’t continued to monitor Lucy?’

  The medic moves uncomfortably on his seat. ‘Once the patient leaves the hospital, it is entirely up to the parents to decide how she should be treated.’

  ‘So who decided on Lucy’s course of treatment?’

  ‘Whatever neuro-specialist they hired after me.’

  ‘But did she have Locked-in syndrome?’

  ‘According to her mother – but it’s highly possible she was just recovering from brain surgery. There’s no way I could have diagnosed that without, well, watching her progress over a period of time.’

  ‘You’re saying you didn’t diagnose Locked-in syndrome?’ Sexton asks slowly.

  ‘No, her mother did.’

  Sexton stands up. He can’t believe this. ‘But Lucy was supposed to have been on some kind of clinical trial. I know you haven’t heard of it, but is there anyone you can think of who might know, someone you could ask about it?’

  ‘There’s no point. If I haven’t heard of anyone doing anything like that here, there isn’t one. I promise you, if it was legit, I would know,’ he says.

  62

  Sexton runs through Dublin Airport’s departures hall, crashing into people but blundering on. He had gone straight to the Starlings’ house from the hospital, and pounded at the door to no avail. A smirking Gok had emerged from Damm and casually told him. ‘You missed them. They got in a taxi, all three of them, couple of hours ago. Suitcases and all.’

  He has to find them. He stops to study the flight-info display board, sees that a flight to Orlando is about to take off and bolts for the area where the Aer Lingus desk is located. He bends under the rope controlling the queues, stepping over suitcases and shoving trolleys out of the way, panting like a sprinter. His heart is not up to this. He needs to get fit.

  ‘Take it easy,’ a man says.

  ‘He’s skipping the queue,’ a woman complains.

  There is no sign of the Starlings among the dwindling stragglers at the desk demanding to be allowed to check in and being told they’re too late. Sexton barges his way up, apologizes to a couple who are trying to argue they can still make it – the woman bursting into tears in frustration. He slaps his hands on the counter to get the stewardess’s attention. She’s clearly adept at ignoring what she presumes is another impatient traveller, and she remains completely focused on the task. She studies her computer screen and speaks over Sexton’s shoulder to the couple. ‘I can get you on the six o’clock flight this evening. There are still a few seats available.’

  ‘Hey!’

  She looks back at Sexton witheringly. He holds up his ID. She doesn’t turn away from him but she doesn’t stop what she’s doing either. She’s on automatic.

  ‘Did Nigel and Lucy Starling board this flight?’ Sexton demands.

  She sniffs and uses a perfectly painted finger to hit an arrow on her keyboard. ‘Nope,’ she says eventually.

  ‘What?’ Sexton asks.

  A woman taps him on the shoulder. She’s got a crying child in her arms. ‘What’s your problem? We could have boarded already’ – she glares at the stewardess – ‘if we didn’t have to put up with shite.’

  ‘Gardaí,’ he says, turning back to the counter.

  ‘I don’t care who you are,’ she continues to rant. The child is screaming and she changes arms and keeps yapping in Sexton’s ear.

  ‘Have they even booked?’ Sexton asks the stewardess.

  ‘I’m going to make a complaint about you,’ the aggravated woman tells Sexton. The couple let out a fina
l expletive and give up.

  The stewardess is jabbing her arrow key. ‘Nope,’ repeats.

  ‘Bloody cheek,’ the disgruntled mother says, abandoning the effort too.

  ‘Get his number, that’s what you’re supposed to do,’ someone grumbles.

  ‘How can a couple travel with someone incapacitated, someone in a wheelchair?’ Sexton demands, glad he’s got the stewardess to himself. ‘Would they have used a separate gate? How does it work?’

  She’s confused. ‘I’ve already told you there’s nobody like that on the plane. If there was …’ Her phone is ringing. ‘Sorry, I have to take this.’ She picks up the phone.

  ‘Yeah, that’s it,’ she says into the receiver, glaring at Sexton. ‘I know, but what am I supposed to …’

  He reaches over, grabs the phone, slams it back down. Now he has her attention.

  ‘Check your list again. I want to know if you have any couples travelling with a teenage daughter.’

  ‘Jesus, take your pick,’ she says. ‘It’s a Boeing 747; there are 520 of the 524 passengers already onboard. They’ve closed the gate.’

  Sexton pushes his hair back. ‘How many, roughly?’

  ‘I don’t know!’

  ‘Right,’ he sighs, ‘how many couples in their late fifties, early sixties?’

  She glances at the screen. ‘Off the top of my head, fifty. I don’t keep track.’

  ‘But no disabled teenagers?’ he asks urgently.

  ‘No,’ she states categorically. ‘There was a teenage girl we thought was drunk, but her parents explained it was her medication. She was able to walk with their help.’

  Sexton blinks. ‘What age were the parents?’

  ‘Late fifties, early sixties, like you said.’

  ‘And the plane hasn’t taken off yet?’

  ‘Not yet. There’s a backlog on the runway.’

  ‘Which gate?’

  ‘109, area B,’ she says.

  Sexton starts to run. It’s one of those bloody gates that takes a quarter of an hour to get to, he realizes, panting again. He spots a motorized wheelchair and jumps on board. It’s almost as slow as he is. He sees a golf buggy and hops off, waving the driver down.

  ‘Gardaí,’ he says, squeezing in. ‘Get me to 109.’

  The guy stares at him blankly.

  ‘Now!’ Sexton roars.

  A couple of minutes later, they pull up at the gate. The stewardess on the desk refuses to let Sexton out on to the airfield; she doesn’t care who he is.

  He tries to barge through but the gate is locked and he can’t get out. Through the window he scans the passengers in the plane and spots Lucy. She is sitting upright, looking dazed but curious, turning her head, pointing out something that has interested her on the runway to her mother.

  63

  McConigle listens with a frown as Sexton fills her in on the phone. ‘Dr Dean said he never diagnosed her as Locked-in,’ Sexton concludes.

  McConigle nods and puts him on speakerphone. She walks to the top of the room and claps her hands to get everyone’s attention. She wipes the whiteboard clean then writes Nigel and Nancy’s names on one side of the board and Rob Reddan’s on the other, with chunky markers that squeak. Under Rob’s name she lists Melissa and Anna, and under Nigel and Nancy Starlings’, she writes Lucy.

  ‘It’s not over,’ she begins, briefing the team on the latest development. ‘We need to establish before Sexton gets them back here for interview if these cases are linked. Personally, I don’t believe in coincidences.’ She draws a double-pointed arrow in the space between the columns.

  She lists the gangsters Nigel was consorting with at Anna’s funeral and dispatches some officers to go and interview them, to find out if they know Rob Reddan. Then she hurries over to a computer and takes a seat, propping the phone against the computer as she types the words ‘inducing Locked-in syndrome’. She stares at the screen and then reads aloud, for Sexton’s benefit: ‘According to Wikipedia, curare is a paralysing poison used by indigenous South American people. Prey was shot with arrows or blowgun darts dipped in curare, leading to asphyxiation, owing to the inability of the victim’s respiratory muscles to contract. Recovery is complete if the animal’s respiration is maintained artificially. Acts on the voluntary muscles rather than the nerves and the heart. Introduced into anaesthesia in the early 1940s as a muscle relaxant for surgery. The patients, however, reported feeling the full intensity of the pain, though they were not able to do anything about it, since they were, essentially, paralysed. The time of onset varies from within one minute to between fifteen and twenty-five minutes. And there’s an antidote.’

  She lifts the phone, switching off speakerphone, holding it to her ear. ‘Do you think Nigel and Nancy were involved with Rob Reddan in hunting down those kids?’

  ‘I want to believe all they did was induce their daughter into a coma,’ Sexton replies.

  ‘They would have needed all kinds of criminal connections to get the paperwork they have to create new identities,’ says McConigle. ‘Which may be where the Conquest Church comes in. Think about it: if you set up a church, you can approach all kinds of morally dubious people to come on board.’

  Sexton doesn’t answer; he starts giving out orders. ‘McConigle, get on to the Medical Council. Nancy must have had documentation to set up a practice, right? And something else …’ Sexton clicks his fingers, summoning the memory back from last night. ‘Nigel mentioned he went to Venezuela in 1985, which may be where he learned about curare. Maybe he was using his real name back then.’

  ‘Sure,’ she reacts.

  ‘When Rob Reddan was charged with the murder of Melissa Brockle, where did they take him?’

  ‘He was remanded to Mountjoy,’ McConigle says.

  ‘Get out there, see if he had any links to the Conquest Church’s choir himself, or can fill in the blanks.

  ‘I’ve got to go. They’re letting me on to the tarmac now.’

  McConigle stands up. ‘Right, I need a team of ten to take apart the Starlings’ house in Rutling Street. Spacesuits, people.’

  64

  Sexton sits in Interview Room 1 opposite Nigel, who has yet to meet his gaze and has so far only sighed in response to questions. Nigel stares at a spot on the ground between his feet, flat on the ground.

  ‘There must be a lot of pressure being a dad today,’ Sexton says, watching him closely. ‘You’ve got to be your kid’s friend, if you want to keep the lines of communication open. You need to know what they’re thinking so you can anticipate for them. Otherwise …’ Sexton pauses, but nothing.

  ‘Then, you’ve got to protect your kid from all the evils you know are out there in the world,’ he goes on. ‘You’ve experienced them yourself, because you’re older, you know what’s best for them, but how do you enforce your take on the world on a teenager? And if your child is a daughter – an only daughter – it must be that bit harder, right?’

  Nigel is showing remarkable restraint. He hasn’t run a finger along the inside rim of his tightly buttoned shirt, he hasn’t loosened his tie, he hasn’t taken off his anorak, or the V-neck jumper over his shirt.

  ‘Why? Lucy wasn’t paralysed as a result of the crash. You and your wife did that to her. What were you afraid of?’ Sexton asks. ‘Sex? Lucy was an attractive girl. There must have been any number of horny males out there sniffing around her. She was sexually active. Her handbag was right there in her room for you to see that. Don’t tell me you didn’t look. It’s human nature.’

  Nigel sighs again, but doesn’t say anything.

  ‘What is the Conquest Church stance on teen pregnancy anyway?’ Sexton probes. He leans forward. ‘Maybe your own feelings for her were changing. She’d become a young woman. Maybe you started seeing her differently, couldn’t control your own feelings for her. She was young and nubile and – no offence to Nancy, but she’s getting on a bit. You were watching her inappropriately when she came out of the shower. You’d taken her underwear. Were you peek
ing through the keyhole when she got dressed? Lucy was calling you a pervert on the chatrooms. A bit strong, isn’t it, that choice of word? Why would she say that about you, her own flesh and blood? Had you touched her? Was she going to say something? Was that what you were afraid of? Why you forced her into that state of living death?’

  Sexton stands, puts his hands in his pockets and walks behind Nigel. ‘Then again, maybe you did it out of sheer concern for your finances. Maybe you thought she was out of control. She’s stealing drugs from the surgery, money from my account … she’s brought all these nasties to my door … she’s making life hell. I’m going to teach her the ultimate lesson. I’m going to slow her down for a bit.

  ‘All those drugs you’d learned about in South America. You just couldn’t help yourself, could you?’ Sexton bends to speak directly into Nigel’s ear. ‘Was. That. It?’

  Nigel turns his head sharply to give him a sidelong glance. Their faces are inches apart. ‘We did it to get her through puberty,’ he hisses. ‘We did it to get her through the teenage years. So she wouldn’t top herself. We did it to save her from herself. To keep her alive.’

  65

  As Sexton crosses the corridor, McConigle takes him aside to fill him in on their progress.

  ‘All the crims are saying the same thing. They knew him from the church, considered him an oddbod, but that he doted on Lucy. They’re all denying knowing Rob Reddan.

  ‘Nancy used the name Norah Starling to register with the Medical Council,’ she continues. ‘She’s qualified in the States, according to the records, but had changed her name by deed poll from Norah Bantam, and she practised as Norah Bantam in Venezuela and Turkey for most of her career, before moving to Bridgend in Wales three years ago. Mean anything to you?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Should it?’

  She pauses. ‘There was an American couple named Bantam who were suspects in a big child-abduction case years back in Turkey. I don’t know if you remember?’

  ‘It’s ringing a distant bell,’ he says.