The Blue Pool

by Siobhan MacDonald

  “Mr Queally, can you please get to the point?” Ruth was impatient.

  “Easy, Ruth,” said Richard. It was the first time he’d spoken since returning to the meeting room.

  “You haven’t lived with this day-in, day-out, for the last twenty-five years, Richard,” Ruth snapped. “Lived with the guilt of leaving Sarah and wondering what the hell ever happened to her and now this… this… this guy here tells us he knew all along what happened. There was appeal after appeal, it was all over the news and the papers for months, not days or weeks. It was bloody months. Do you know the sheer bloody hell I’ve been through? I’ve been in therapy for years over this. It’s alright for you, Richard!”

  “You can leave Richard out this,” Charlotte said quietly. “None of this is Richard’s fault.”

  Ruth turned slowly to face Charlotte.

  “As for you… as for you…” Ruth trembled with emotion. Her voice was black with anger. She slumped back in her chair leaving the rest unsaid.

  Kathy knew how she felt. Of course she did. She felt the same. Stephen Shaw sat there, calmly. Watching them all.

  “Mr Queally,” Shaw now indicated that Queally should carry on.

  “There wasn’t another soul up at those cabins except me,” Nathan Queally began. Dark patches had appeared under the arms of his suit. “There was a strange kind of quiet about the place,” he said. “The k-kind of quiet that comes after a death.” He paused. “The mist had come down heavily. The weather had taken a turn for the worse.”

  Kathy could tell that time had rolled away and that Nathan Queally was back there now. Back at the Blue Pool.

  “Once I figured that there was nothing I could do, that that poor wee girl was dead, all I wanted to do was run,” said Queally. “I couldn’t take the chance, you see. What would happen to my wife? That’s what kept running through my head. Alice was unwell and Alice needed me.”

  A sick feeling hit Kathy. This was going to be hard.

  “I knew what I had to do. I didn’t want to d-do it. You have to believe that. I didn’t have a choice. I was a s-strong man. Used to hard work. Look at them, they’re still like spades.” He extended his hands, flipping them this way and that. “That slip of a girl should have been easy to carry. But she was heavy… carrying the dead… twice she slipped on me. Somehow I managed.”

  Suddenly Stephen Shaw pulled his phone towards him, flipped it over, checked it, and flipped it over again. He’d heard all this before.

  “I d-did what I had to,” Nathan continued. “I put her over my shoulder and carried her out of the c-cabin. I locked the front door and put the key under a f-flowerpot. I couldn’t see much at that stage as the mist had turned into rain. It was coming down in sheets. I knew I had to hide her quickly.”

  The meeting room had once more fallen deathly quiet.

  “I didn’t have a choice, so I did the first thing that came into my head. It seemed like a s-solution,” he cleared his throat “The f-floor. The floor was all dug up already… I had the materials. The leveling compound, the cement, the brand new floor tiles. I panicked –”

  “You buried her under the floor?” Kathy whispered.

  “Yes,” Queally whispered too, unable to look up. “That’s where I put her. Wrapped up in towels, in the ground.”

  Silence.

  “Sarah’s been there all this time?” Kathy asked eventually.

  Charlotte looked at Richard. “Sarah’s buried in the O’Hagan’s cabin? But I thought the police searched the O Hagan’s at the time?” she said sharply.

  “They did search it,” said Richard, responding numbly to his sister. “They searched the O’Hagan’s cabin. That’s where Mr Queally was putting in the patio door –”

  “What the police didn’t realise was that I was also working on another cabin,” Queally interrupted. “Further up. I was taking up the flagstones and laying a new tiled floor,” he explained. “And the police never asked me about that other c-cabin. They never checked that one. I thought they were on to me that first time they interviewed me. I thought they’d d-dig up the floor for sure. But then I realised they only knew about the patio work in O’Hagan’s. They didn’t realise I was working on another cabin as well. And they appeared to know n-nothing at all about Egypt. I don’t think they even knew I’d been in the army. They seemed much more interested in those lads from the north of Ireland. Wanted to know what they were d-doing around the cabins the previous night. There was a lot of IRA activity at that time, if you remember. I think they thought Sarah may have stumbled onto something.”

  Nathan Queally suddenly looked like a tired old man. The malevolence that Kathy had convinced herself that lurked behind the cheap suit was gradually melting away as the likelihood of him being a murderer and a rapist had all but disappeared. However harrowing it was to listen to, the story Queally had told them was plausible.

  “Is that it, Mr Queally?” Ruth wasn’t letting him off so easily. “Is that all you have to say to us? You buried our friend Sarah in a concrete floor because you didn’t have a choice?”

  “But, miss, I had everything to l-lose. That’s the point. I had my wife. Alice was everything to me. I thought about it then. I thought about handing myself in. I was s-sick with worry. It wasn’t going to look good for me either way. I was goosed. Imagine I walk into a police s-station and tell the truth. Imagine it for one second, put yourself in my shoes…” his eyes implored her to do just that.

  Ruth didn’t answer.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, why now?” Kathy was feeling brave. “Why come forward at this moment in time, Nathan?”

  “Well, I read that the Nugents had died. And my Alice had also passed away. That was when I decided it was time to tell the truth, to tell the p-police. Even if they didn’t believe my s-story and locked me up, sure what harm? No one needs me anymore. We had no family, Alice and I, and now she’s g-gone. I’m no g-good to anyone any more. I wanted to let yourselves and the rest of the family know there wasn’t any f-foul play all those years ago. Not on my part anyway. I wanted to say that I was sorry. So very sorry. And… and… I want the girl to have a decent b-burial. She deserves that. She should have that at least.”

  Nathan Queally looked sad and spent. For the first time since he’d entered in the room, he sat back, shoulders straight, and exhaled loudly. He had confessed. As if on trial, he put one hand on top of other, awaiting a verdict.

  The last hour or so had been harrowing and Kathy felt traumatised. But it also occurred to her that she’d no longer have to view her past through the prism of guilt. However hard it was to accept, Nathan Queally’s explanation had the ring of truth. For the first time that day, Kathy was glad she had come in person because she doubted she could have believed all she’d heard if she’d heard it second-hand. The evidence presented so far, if that’s what you could call this garbled rendition of events, pointed to Nathan Queally being an unwitting bystander, forced into the role of Good Samaritan, rather than a sinister predator.

  Stephen Shaw’s mobile vibrated.

  “Jesus Christ!” Kathy jumped.

  The mobile spun on the table like a token on a Ouija board.

  “Here we go.” He looked across at Richard with a dark expression. He stood up swiftly and left the room in a swish of coat-tails.

  “Do you mind?” Nathan Queally looked at Richard. “I don’t feel very well. I think I’ll step outside a moment.” Without waiting for an answer, Queally made his way to the French doors and stumbled on the step outside.

  “What’s going on?” Kathy looked at Richard who suddenly looked petrified.

  Before he could answer, Stephen Shaw burst back into the room with a swagger. He sat down drumming his fingers on the table.

  “Queally?” he asked Richard, looking around the room.

  “Having a breath of fresh air.” Richard pointed to the figure pacing up and down outside the French window.

  “Well?” said Richard, looking at Stephen Shaw with a
raised eyebrow.

  “We’re sorted,” said Shaw, sliding his mobile across the table to Richard. Instead of reaching Richard, it hit the water jug and spun back towards Kathy. She caught it just as it was about to career off the table. Her heart skipped a beat. She saw a three word message:

  Forensics have it.

  A dart of adrenaline shot through her.

  “Thank you,” Stephen Shaw leaned over and pocketed the phone.

  “Get him back in here now, will you?” Shaw said to Richard. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “Nathan.” Richard beckoned at the door. “It’s time.”

  “Remote?” asked Stephen Shaw, looking animated. “Where’s the remote for the TV?”

  Reaching up, Richard found it on top of the set and handed it to him. Kathy and Ruth exchanged puzzled glances. Since her revelation, Kathy found herself completely unable to look at Charlotte. And then it hit her. Kathy knew exactly what was about to happen. She felt sick. She imagined it all unfolding before her eyes before Shaw even got the right channel. She grabbed Ruth’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

  Newsroom backdrop.

  “… a retired labourer working in the area at the time is helping the police with their enquiries. A file has already been sent to the DPP.”

  “Shit! I think we missed it,” hissed Stephen Shaw.

  Shaw was wrong.

  The coverage cut to an outside shot. White tents. Vans. Squad cars. It was raining. Clusters of people are milling around with umbrellas. The camera pans around to a shot of the water. Eerie and still in the drizzle. Ruth’s hand feels clammy. Just as the camera pans back to the cabin door, a swarm of camera-men surge forward. They are forced back as a cortege of white robed bodies bear a covered stretcher out into the open.

  Beside her, Kathy gasped.

  “Well, as you can see, Tony, it’s breaking news from here in North Clare. A forensics team have just excavated what’s believed to be the remains of Sarah Nugent – a young twenty-one year old student who went missing on holiday here twenty-five years ago –”

  “Oh God,” said Kathy.

  Ruth’s fist was clenching, nails digging into her palm.

  The camera panned to a couple hugging one another outside the perimeter tape. Two women. Kathy recognised Ava and Penny Nugent.

  “More on this story in today’s six o’clock bulletin. But for now, back to you in the studio, Tony.”

  Click.

  Stephen Shaw powered the TV off.

  Tears were streaming down Nathan Queally’s face. He didn’t try to hide them. He held his handkerchief in his hands but he didn’t even try to stem the tears. His shoulders heaved. “Thank God. Thank God,” he whispered. “It’s over… It’s over now… over at last.”

  It was an hour later when they all left the meeting room. Charlotte leaving first with Richard and Inspector Shaw. She left without even a backward glance. Even though she found it hard to do so, Kathy followed Ruth’s lead – she shook Queally’s hand. He tried to speak, to say something, but there was nothing. Nathan Queally swallowed hard and looked away.

  Ruth

  Adare

  Present Day

  Sitting at the counter of the hotel bar, Ruth felt as if her emotional compass had suddenly and violently been recalibrated. Richard and Inspector Shaw were accompanying Charlotte to the police station in Limerick to give her statement.

  It was difficult to know who she was more furious with – Nathan Queally or Charlotte. Nathan Queally’s explanation had the ring of truth. But Charlotte’s account of what had happened was disturbing. Ruth was still reeling from the revelation.

  Had Charlotte never once thought of what the other women must be going through? The hell she’d left behind? A molten surge of hurt and fury pulsed through her.

  Yet bizarrely, on another level, Ruth felt cleansed. Absolved of blame for the tragedy that had befallen her friend. That shame that had made Ruth feel an outcast long after she left Ireland had begun to ebb. In truth, Ruth had little to berate herself for. She’d been nothing more than childish and petulant in her behavior over the medal. Somehow, she’d blown that incident up out of any reasonable proportion. By comparison, what Charlotte had done was far worse. How could she have done it? Ruth felt uneasy and suspicious.

  The mystery that had surrounded Sarah’s disappearance was now supplanted by an even greater intrigue. Why hadn’t Charlotte disclosed what had occurred that day in the cabin immediately after it happened? What was Charlotte hiding? She’d only compounded matters and made things worse for herself by not reporting Sarah’s death straightaway.

  Ruth thought back to Charlotte’s revelations. At the look of shock and horror on Richard’s face, the contours of his face pulled into pain like he had a toothache. At Nathan Queally – looking like someone had commuted his death row sentence.

  But there was something missing in all of this. A layer of something else that remained unseen. Ruth was wrestling with it now. Sarah had been hare-brained, careless in so many things, but in Ruth’s recollecting, Sarah had always kept her inhaler with her. Sure, Sarah smoked and that was dumb, but she’d always carried that blue inhaler.

  And why had Charlotte never once confided in Ruth and Kathy? They were her trusted friends. Look at all they’d shared together over the years, the good times, the miserable times, the downright horrendous times. Unpalatable as it was, Ruth could only surmise one thing.

  “What do you make of all of this?” Ruth asked Kathy, placing her hand on Kathy’s. Kathy was staring into her gin and tonic. Her expression hard to decipher. She’d said little so far.

  “How could she?” Kathy asked, shaking her head slowly. She looked at Ruth with mascara-stained eyes. Tears had ploughed dark furrows down her cheeks. “Charlotte knew all along. How could she do that to us?” Shifting on the bar-stool, Kathy tried to pull her skirt down over her thighs. “I feel duped. I feel I was betrayed, as if Charlotte tried to frame us for this… this tragedy.”

  “I feel exactly the same,” admitted Ruth. Looking back over the years it felt like she and Kathy had shouldered most of the opprobrium for Sarah’s disappearance. “And I know when the shock wears off, I’m going to feel as mad as hell.”

  “That must have been quite some argument she and Charlotte had over Richard,” said Kathy quietly as she fished the slice of lemon from her glass.

  “Sarah was so unwise,” said Ruth, shaking her head. “I never fancied Richard.” She paused to sip her drink. “But if I had,” she added, “I sure as hell would have had the sense to keep my mouth shut about it. Charlotte never said as much, but it was pretty obvious to me how protective she was of him. Sarah crossed the line with Charlotte there.”

  Ruth thought back to a conversation she’d had with Sarah all those years ago, back at the Blue Pool. Had Sarah been about to tell Ruth about her feelings for Richard? And thought the better of it when Charlotte had interrupted them? Richard was undoubtedly the key to whatever had happened up at the cabin that day.

  “I had a thing with him once you know,” Kathy said with a smile.

  “You’re kidding!” Ruth said laughing. “You know, I always wondered about that.”

  “Yeah, I know. I was a bit of a slut back then. But like you, Ruth, I knew to keep my mouth shut. I guess Richard never said anything either.”

  “Oh, he’d be discreet. And I think he’s always been bit afraid of Charlotte,” said Ruth having seen the way he’d looked at his sister as she confessed to what she’d done.

  “I’m afraid of her too,” said Kathy softly.

  Ruth knew what she meant. Both women were silent a moment.

  “There’s something else isn’t there?” asked Ruth.

  “There has to be,” said Kathy, nodding. “I just don’t get why Charlotte didn’t say a thing over all these years. Unless of course, she isn’t telling the truth.” Kathy thought a moment. “And Sarah always kept that inhaler with her. That’s the thing. And the police did find one in a ditch
on the road by the pub.”

  Ruth agreed. “I think that something else happened in the cabin that day, Kath. You could tell from Charlotte’s body language she wasn’t telling everything. She’s hiding something. I just know it. I don’t trust her story.”

  “It’s creepy isn’t it?” asked Kathy. “You think you know someone and sometimes you don’t know them at all,” she said softly. “Maybe, it’s that we choose not to see what’s staring us straight in the face, Ruth. All I know is that I’ll never trust Charlotte ever again. The way she spoke in there – it was just so cold and so detached. I don’t think I could ever look her in the same way again.”

  “Me neither,” said Ruth.

  It was time for a new beginning. For them both. The time for guilt and recrimination had passed. Ruth’s therapist had been telling her that for years. Up to now, the blight of guilt had cast a shadow over every aspect of Ruth’s life.

  If they were to take what they heard at face value, Sarah’s disappearance had been the result of a twisted series of events, each one compounding the other. The way Ruth saw it, they had little option but to believe what they had just heard. Ruth and Kathy had been the casualties in this whole tragic episode, that poor hapless creature, Nathan Queally included. He’d stayed quiet only to protect his sick wife.

  “I wonder if they’ll charge Charlotte with anything,” Ruth said as she toyed with the cardboard drink coaster.

  “Is what she did a crime?” Kathy asked, looking at Ruth. “I don’t know. And you can be sure as hell that Richard will make sure that she gets a good lawyer,” Kathy added, wryly.

  “I don’t know about that, Kath. You should have seen the look on Richard’s face in there,” said Ruth. “And I’d say his career trajectory could be in jeopardy. Did you see the way Inspector Shaw was looking at Richard? Shaw was not happy that Richard had never mentioned meeting Sarah in Dublin that summer.”