Darkhouse

by Alex Barclay

  Duke knew Bill didn’t get along with his mama.

  ‘Mama’s OK. She’s…she’s OK.’

  ‘Good to hear,’ said Bill, his head bent to study his bow.

  ‘Think you could teach me how to shoot?’

  Bill looked up.

  ‘Are you serious, son?’

  ‘Sure am, sir,’ said Duke. ‘Am I old enough?’

  ‘Long as you can listen, hold a bow and be safe.’

  Duke saluted him.

  ‘OK, then. Let’s start with how you’re gonna hold the bow. This here’s a compound bow. A beauty. More power, less effort. Now, we need to find out which hand you’ll use to hold the bow and which—’

  ‘I write with this hand,’ said Duke, holding up his right hand.

  ‘Doesn’t much matter,’ said Bill. ‘It’s all in the eyes.’ He pointed with two fingers.

  ‘Which one of your eyes is the dominant one.’

  Duke shook his head.

  ‘OK. Do this,’ said Bill. ‘Pick out some object in the distance.’

  ‘That old garbage can?’ said Duke.

  ‘Perfect. Now point at it, then close your left eye. OK? Then close your right eye. Now when you close one of those eyes, your finger seems to shift to one side. Which is it for you, Duke?”

  ‘My right eye,’ said Duke.

  ‘Then you’re right-eye dominant, just like your Uncle Bill.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ asked Duke.

  ‘Means you hold the bow in your left hand and pull the bowstring with your right. Now,’ he said, putting a hand on Duke’s shoulder and turning him towards the trees. ‘Stand up straight, feet apart. You comfortable?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘OK. Now hold this.’ He handed Duke the bow, laughing as the boy rocked forward with the weight.

  ‘Heavy, isn’t it?’ said Bill. Duke smiled.

  ‘You’d probably use somethin’ a little lighter,’ said Bill. ‘Anyhow, next thing you do is nock the arrow, meanin’ you put this part here on the bowstring where you see this.’ He took the bow from Duke and pushed the nock back onto the bowstring. ‘The shaft rests here.’ He pointed to a notch on the bow. ‘You’re probably better off watchin’ for the rest of this.’

  ‘OK,’ said Duke, disappointed.

  ‘What?’ said Bill. ‘You think I’m crazy, lettin’ a boy loose with a dangerous weapon?’ He smiled. ‘Now, put your pointin’ finger on the bowstring above the arrow and your next two fingers below, but don’t touch the nock. Relax the back of your hand and pull back just a tiny bit.’

  He brought the bow up slightly, gripping it between his thumb and index finger, nodding towards Duke to watch how he held it.

  ‘Now stretch out that bow arm and raise up your drawin’ arm, keepin’ that elbow high. Then pull your arm back until your drawin’ hand is against your jaw, keepin’ your body still all the while. Now move the sight pin over the centre of your target. I’m aimin’ for the steel bear over by that tree. Line everything up, the string, the bow and the sight pin, keepin’ it all on the vertical. You got this?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Duke, frustrated by the interruption. ‘Do it! Shoot!’ He hopped from foot to foot.

  ‘Hold your horses,’ said Bill through clenched teeth, keeping his jaw rigid.

  ‘And release,’ he said. The arrow flew straight, reaching its target, springing gently from side to side on impact.

  ‘Cool,’ said Duke. Bill hooked an arm around his shoulders and hugged the boy to his side.

  ‘You wanna try?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ said Duke, beaming.

  ‘What you need to remember at all times is the target,’ said Bill. ‘Be steady and focus. Think about that target, watch that target, every step of the way. Never lose sight of it.’

  The bow rocked Duke again, but he moved until he steadied his weight, keeping his legs wide. Bill stood behind him and smiled as Duke struggled to bring the bow to shoulder height.

  ‘This is all gonna happen a bit faster for me, Uncle Bill, ’cos I ain’t gonna be able to hold the bow too long.’

  Bill laughed loud, a friendly booming laugh. Then he watched, amazed, as Duke followed every step. The arrow stopped short of its target, but only because the weight of the bow tilted Duke forward at the last second. Duke kicked the earth. ‘Damn,’ he said, twisting on his feet. ‘Damn.’

  ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself, son. Only thing wrong with that was the weight of that bow. Once I get you one of your own, I think you’ll be doin’ just fine.’

  ‘Get me one of my own?’ asked Duke.

  ‘Sure. I’ll get you a bow, long as you can promise me you’ll work hard at school, show up every day, don’t be swimmin’ around that creek when you should be sittin’ in class.’

  Duke smiled. ‘Busted,’ said Bill. ‘Now, get along. I’ve got some shootin’ to do.’

  FIFTEEN

  Anna was alone on the sofa, lying on her back, rigid, when her eyes suddenly shot open. Her mouth was clamped shut and she couldn’t move. Eventually, she was able to lift her hand to the centre of her chest where she felt a pool of sweat soak into her T-shirt. Her heart thumped. Vague, broken images flashed through her mind, then slowed until she could see their true terror. Her heart beat faster. She knew what it was – sleep paralysis. It gripped her like this at stressful times, usually in the middle of the night when she never wanted to look at the clock in case time would root her in the moment until morning. She would turn to Joe and wonder if she’d ever wake him and let him know about the intense paranoia that followed each episode. But she didn’t like to wake him. So she would stay staring at the ceiling until her breathing slowed, then turn on her side, reach over him, lay her arm on top of his and pull herself close, kissing his shoulders, his back, closing her eyes and willing herself to sleep away the fear. This time with Katie and Shaun and everything else that weighed her down, she felt she was losing her grip. She couldn’t live with it all. Since she heard Katie had been murdered, her mind was taking horrifying turns and the paranoia seemed frighteningly real. She walked into the bedroom. Joe was lying on the bed with his arms stretched behind his head.

  ‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ she said. ‘I don’t think it’s relevant to anything, but it might be and I don’t want to take that risk.’

  ‘What? Relevant to what?’ asked Joe.

  ‘It’s about John Miller,’ said Anna.

  Joe frowned.

  ‘I wasn’t just with him for eight months when I was in college,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t care how long you were with him.’

  ‘It’s not how long, it’s when,’ said Anna.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Joe.

  ‘I was with him again, when I came back here…’

  Joe slowly realised what she was saying.

  ‘That time we were engaged?’ he asked, sitting up.

  ‘Yes,’ said Anna. Her eyes filled up with tears. ‘Yes. For the two weeks I was here. I don’t know why.’

  ‘Why?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know why,’ she repeated. ‘He was there and—’

  ‘I was miles away and you didn’t give a damn,’ Joe finished, his voice rising.

  ‘No. It wasn’t like that. I just, what can I say? It was a long time ago—’

  ‘Why are you telling me this now?’ But Joe knew how emotional traumas impacted on people and made them purge their souls. Dark secrets came out in dark moments.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Anna. ‘Maybe…I don’t know.’

  ‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this.’ He shook his head. ‘Has he done something?’

  ‘He’s been weird. He pushed me up against a wall. He asked me to have sex with him. Then he was talking to you that time in the bar…’

  ‘He asked you to have sex with him?’ Joe was on his feet, furious.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, what did you say to that?’

  ‘No! What do you think I said?’
<
br />   ‘I don’t know. Yes, maybe?’

  ‘It was a long time ago, what happened,’ she said again, her voice louder.

  ‘Great. Well then it doesn’t matter. Hey, I slept with someone, but it was five years ago, so let’s all just keep going on as normal,’ said Joe.

  ‘Did you?’ said Anna, fear in her eyes.

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud – no, I did not! My point is it doesn’t matter when you are unfaithful, it matters that you were and that you lied and that there was some schmuck who married you anyway, without having all the facts. Do you think that’s fair? Do you think that’s a good basis—’

  ‘Do you regret marrying me?’ asked Anna.

  ‘Don’t you dare try and turn this around. You know what the answer to that is. But I’m not going to let this go. I have been faithful to you for twenty years, Anna. And not a lot of cops can say that to their wives. We have pros flashing their tits at us, exotic dancers who’d do anything to beat a drugs rap, women who get off on the goddamn uniform, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Good for you!’ shouted Anna, jumping up from the bed. ‘Good for you! Thank you! You didn’t sleep with some whore!’

  ‘Oh, I think I did,’ he said.

  She stared at him. ‘You bastard.’ He grabbed her arm as she strode past. She jerked it away and kept going.

  D.I. O’Connor stood at the top of the room in front of Frank Deegan and the thirty guards working on the case out of Waterford station.

  ‘Right, lads. Listen up. Here’s what we’ve got so far on Katie Lawson: time of death is consistent with the time of her disappearance, but she could have been held somewhere for days before her murder – putrefaction makes the estimate more difficult, as you all know. We also should consider the possibility that she was killed elsewhere and her body was left at that spot for a particular reason. Cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, caused possibly by a rock and preceded by strangulation. We can’t rule out or in sexual assault, but the removal of clothing from her lower half would be suggestive thereof. Little was found at the scene that particularly grabbed us as significant, but trace evidence taken from the body has been sent to the lab, including fragments from a foreign object found in the skull. The results will be provided when received. For now, we are continuing to review our original questionnaires, follow up on vehicles that may have been seen in the area, root out further witnesses – we’ll be getting help from the media on that – and in the meantime, we’re looking at the boyfriend, Shaun Lucchesi. We know that his father, Joe Lucchesi, a detective from New York and on whose land the body was found, visited the scene late last night and possibly removed evidence that may have been overlooked during our initial search…’

  The stereo filled the Jeep with a loungey Gainsbourg track. Joe slammed it off and sped away from the house in silence, with no idea where he was going. He was sick and panicked with anger over something he could do nothing about, an overwhelming anger that he knew would leave the situation exactly the same in the end. Anna had cheated on him. Unbearable thoughts and images crawled into his mind. He knew he had felt just a little smug when marriages were falling apart all around him and he could go home to his beautiful wife and know that they were different. Now they were just the same as everyone else: delusional, betrayed, angry, guilty, scarred. Gripping the steering wheel tighter, he drove faster and faster until he knew he needed to pull over. He found himself at the end of the lane that led to Millers’ Orchard. He reclined his seat, leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes, opening them quickly when he heard a hacking cough from the other side of the road. He turned his head slowly to see John Miller standing there, tapping a cigarette on the back of a box. He tried to picture him eighteen years ago when Anna, with her engagement ring on her finger, had risked those two weeks. She was young, just twenty-one, but Joe thought she had known what she wanted when she said yes to him so quickly. When she was going to Ireland, he had brought her to the airport and cried in a stall in the mensroom when she left. For John Miller. Joe watched him light his cigarette like a pro. John was tall and broad and over the years had packed an extra forty pounds over his old rugby build. Joe could only see what was there now – a pathetic man in sagging grey pants, crumpled shirt and cheap shoes. And this almost hurt him even more.

  Katie wouldn’t have stood a chance against a man that size, even one who was out of shape. His weight alone was enough. John Miller was a bitter man. He couldn’t have Anna, so he had gone for someone close to her, a young girl almost the same age as Anna was when he had first met her. Miller only had to go a mile down the road and he could watch the traffic in and out of Shore’s Rock. Katie would have no reason not to trust him. She probably would have felt sorry for the guy.

  Joe waited for him to turn back, then he started the engine and drove away.

  Anna ran out of the house into the laneway when she heard the horn beep. Ray climbed out of the van and moved around to the back doors.

  ‘Hi, Ray,’ said Anna. ‘Well done.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I’ve actually got all three of the steel panels with me. I can slot them right in to where we cut out the rusty bits.’

  ‘That’s fantastic,’ she said. ‘Would you mind bringing them down to the lighthouse?’

  ‘No problem. I’ve got the kerosene tanks as well, if Sam gives it the all clear.’ He stared at the ground. ‘Are you OK? You look…’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘It’s just, this evening…’

  ‘I know,’ said Ray. ‘It’s awful. It’s so hard to believe…’ He slapped the side of the van. ‘Anyway, I’ll get started on all this. Hopefully it won’t take too long. And, sure, I’ll see you at the funeral home.’

  ‘It’s funny,’ said Anna. ‘I think when it’s a child who dies, people want every chance to say goodbye. So they do all the parts: go for prayers to the funeral home, then on to the removal service, then again the next morning for the funeral. It’s a good thing, I think.’

  Joe’s Jeep pulled up behind them and he walked past quickly, grunting a hello at Ray.

  He went straight for the phone in the den, flicking open an 01 phonebook for Dublin to find a number for Trinity College.

  ‘Hello, Zoology department?’

  ‘Hi, I was wondering if I could speak with an entomologist?’ asked Joe.

  ‘That would be Neal Columb, but he’s in class at the moment.’

  ‘Could I leave a message for him to call me?’

  When he got off the phone, he checked his watch and looked in on Shaun before taking a shower and getting dressed. He was standing in the bathroom, his foot on the toilet lid, rubbing the corner of a white towel over his black leather shoes when Anna walked in.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she snapped. ‘There are cloths under the sink.’ He looked up at her.

  Tears welled in her eyes. ‘I don’t know how he’s going to get through this.’

  ‘With us,’ said Joe. His voice was tight.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Shh.’

  Frank stood with O’Connor by the gates to the funeral home. O’Connor wore the same rimless glasses he was wearing the night Katie’s body was discovered. Frank noticed his eyes were clear for the first time.

  ‘What happened to your contacts?’ he said.

  ‘I got rid of them,’ said O’Connor. ‘Did you know ninety percent of the crimes our boys are dealing with are alcohol-related public order offences? It’s out of hand. That’s what’s keeping them busy. And the public’s going mad. People are ringing in to radio stations moaning about the drinking going on, but no-one is actually stopping their kids going out and doing it. No-one thinks their own kids are part of the problem. It’s unbelievable. Paul Woods dropped a child home the other night who was too drunk to make it out of the car, let alone walk up the drive. He had to go and get the mother, who didn’t believe him until she eventually came out and saw the girl lying there, fifteen years of age, passed out,
wearing a mini up to her arse that her mother didn’t even recognise. Meanwhile, what these people don’t realise is the huge problem we’ve got with drugs. A problem my men can’t deal with because they’re too busy cleaning puke out the back of their cars. Yet there’s a very organised gang of criminals pumping drugs around the city and beyond.’

  ‘Really,’ said Frank flatly.

  ‘Last month, for example,’ he went on, ‘we came close to our first even small break in months with this one particular crowd. We’d been hanging around, watching a youth club disco every Saturday for a couple of weeks before then. Next thing, a van pulls up and two young lads go up to it. We approached it, casually, but the van flew out of there like a bat out of hell. Of course the lads would say nothing, but the story was all over the town the next day, parents calling the station, as if this was the first time this guy had ever shown up. One of the papers ran a front page story. So the pressure is on. I can’t add to that a nutter on the loose, going around taking young girls.’

  ‘We’re doing everything we can,’ said Frank. ‘We’re out there taking statements, we’ll be going over old statements after this—’ He stopped as he saw Richie approach.

  ‘Late night last night from what I heard,’ said O’Connor, smiling.

  Oran loved arriving in to work with wild drinking stories.

  ‘Yeah,’ muttered Richie, flashing a brief smile. ‘But at least I don’t have a hangover to show for it.’

  ‘Good man, yourself,’ said O’Connor, throwing his eyes up at Frank.

  Joe watched Shaun walk over to the side door of the funeral home. He was six inches taller than most of his friends and looked strangely mature beside them in his new black suit. They were all trying desperately to cope with their grief, but everyone looked too stunned to talk.

  Joe’s gaze moved to the guards standing by the gate. He wondered what the dynamic was between them. The D.I. from Waterford was deep in a one-way conversation with Frank, who was giving polite nods every few minutes. Richie looked uncomfortable beside the two older men. They had turned their bodies away from him, subconsciously, but enough that he was visibly excluded. Frank was in the middle in more ways than one. He seemed pleased to have a break from Richie, just not with a man who made him cock his head at an awkward angle to create some space. Only O’Connor was watching everyone who came in and out of the funeral home.