Ailish lived less than a kilometre away, at the top of a hill overlooking the river. Katie had only just turned into her road when she saw flashing blue and red lights up ahead. Patrol cars, and an ambulance. Oh God, she thought. What’s happened up here? She changed down and accelerated up the hill until she reached the first patrol car. She parked halfway up the kerb and opened her door.
A guard came over to her with his hand raised. ‘Nothing to see here, ma’am.’
‘Detective Superintendent Maguire, from Anglesea Street,’ she told him, and showed him her badge.
‘Oh, okay. A car’s gone off the road, that’s all, and into somebody’s garden.’
She followed him up to the scene of the accident. Deep tyre tracks ran diagonally across the grass verge, showing where the car had left the road. It had crashed through a low brick wall and plunged down a steeply sloping garden, hitting the front of a bungalow. The impact had been enough to damage the brickwork and dislodge one of the double-glazed windows.
Katie saw at once that the car was hers. The driver’s door was open and a paramedic was kneeling beside it, while a second paramedic was standing close by. Three more gardaí were standing around, talking to the owners of the bungalow, a couple in their mid-fifties, and a tall, lugubrious-looking man who was probably their next-door neighbour.
Katie stepped over a flower bed and made her way around the back of the car. She went up to the driver’s door and saw that Ailish was still sitting behind the wheel. The airbag had deployed, but Ailish was slumped forward with her face turned sideways so that she was staring at Katie with her eyes wide open. She was deathly pale except for a red mark on her forehead where the airbag had hit her.
‘Detective Superintendent Maguire,’ said Katie, as the paramedic looked up at her. ‘I know this woman. In fact, this is my car. She just borrowed it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the paramedic, standing up. He was a short, stubby young man, with a very slight squint, so that Katie wasn’t sure if he was looking straight at her or not. ‘I can’t tell the cause of death for certain, but I’d say it was probably cardiac arrest. She was already dead when we arrived.’
‘Aren’t you going to get her out of there?’
‘Her feet are trapped under the pedals. We’re waiting on the fire brigade.’
Katie stood and looked at Ailish and Ailish stared back at her with her pale blue eyes, unblinking. Ailish with her braided hair and her splashy summer dress and her necklace of big glass beads. Her arm was lying across her lap and her watch was still working. It was almost impossible for Katie to believe that this had actually happened. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how her father was going to take it, or how she was going to tell him. There’s something in this life called happiness, but not many of us get to enjoy it.
After a few seconds she turned away and stepped back over the flower bed. Two of the gardaí were crouched down now, examining the back of the car with their flashlights. The rear bumper was split and scuffed, and there were three deep dents in the bodywork.
‘All that damage is new,’ said Katie. ‘There wasn’t a scratch on this car when she took it away.’
‘When was that exactly?’
‘About forty minutes ago. She looks after my father, who lives at West View House. She borrowed it to go back to her own house to fetch a stew for us, for supper.’
‘But it was totally undamaged before then?’
Katie looked at the split in the bumper. ‘I’d say that she was rammed by another vehicle, and very hard.’
‘So what? You think this could have been deliberate, like? I mean, she could have suffered a heart attack and stopped unexpected and whoever was coming up behind her crashed into her but they didn’t want to stay around when they saw her go careering down into this garden. They could have been over the limit, like. That’s the usual pattern.’
‘No, this car has been violently rear-ended more than once. Even if you’re drunk you don’t do that.’
‘Road rage?’
‘Possible, but not very likely. Why would anybody have road rage halfway up an empty street in Monkstown?’
‘But why would they do it deliberate? It doesn’t make sense.’
Katie looked around. ‘Were there any witnesses? Did anybody see this happen?’
‘No. They was either in their gardens or indoors eating or watching the telly.’
‘All right. But I don’t want this car moved until the technicians have taken a look at it. I’ll call them myself. Make sure that you tape it off and that nobody touches it.’
A fire appliance arrived, with its diesel engine roaring and lights flashing. Katie climbed up the garden steps and went back to her father’s car. She sat in the driver’s seat and called the Technical Bureau. When she had done that, she sat for a while and tried to think what she was going to say to her father.
It was going to be difficult enough to tell him that Ailish was dead, only two days after they had toasted his announcement that they were going to be married. But her father had been a police officer, too, and after he had recovered from the initial shock he would be urgently asking her the same question she was now asking herself.
Who would have deliberately rammed Ailish? She was a 64-year-old widow, a cook, and a home help. Who could have wanted to do a woman like that any harm?
The only conceivable reason she had been targeted was because she had been driving Katie’s car.
Thirty-seven
Michael Gerrety was sitting in his basement office at Amber’s when Trisha came down the spiral staircase from the shop and said, ‘Michael, there’s somebody up here wants to talk to you. It’s a girl.’
‘Did she say what she was after?’ he asked, without looking up. He was busy totting up his accounts. There was usually a fall-off in income during the summer months, but this year business had been very steady. He guessed that fewer Corkonians had been able to afford a foreign holiday and so they had been obliged to get their jollies at home. His Washington Street premises didn’t compare with brothels in Gran Canaria or Magaluf, but you didn’t have to fly to get there, and if you wanted to get hammered after getting laid it was only a short walk to the Long Island Cocktail Bar at number eleven.
Trisha shrugged. ‘All she said was, she was looking for work.’
‘She’s white, is she?’
‘Yeah, why?’
‘No reason. What does she look like?’
‘Not too bad at all, I’d say.’
Michael turned around to his minder and said, ‘Sounds harmless. Let’s get a sconce of her, shall we?’
Charlie was sitting in the corner by the large grey safe, reading the Sun. His black hair was neatly cut and he was dressed in a crisp white short-sleeved shirt and well-pressed black trousers. He could have been handsome, but his face was unnaturally beige and there was a deadness about it, like a dummy in the window of a menswear store.
‘Molloy says it’s a darkie you have to watch out for,’ he said. He had a distinct Limerick accent but no intonation in his voice at all. When one of Michael’s creditors had threatened him, Charlie had said, ‘Come here, boy, and I’ll kick the heart outa ya,’ but he had said it so flatly that it was difficult to tell if he meant it or not.
There was a loud clumping of wedge-heeled sandals on the spiral staircase and then the girl appeared. She was young, about seventeen or eighteen Michael would have guessed, because she still hadn’t quite outgrown her puppy fat. She was pretty, though, with a heart-shaped face and curly ash-blonde hair. She was wearing a very short white mini-skirt and a sleeveless black satin top. Michael sat back in his chair and noted with appreciation that she was very big-breasted.
‘Well, hello,’ he said, dropping his ballpen on to his desk. ‘And what’s your name?’
‘Are you Mr Gerrety?’ the girl asked him, glancing nervously from Michael to Charlie and back again.
‘That’s me,’ said Michael. ‘Don’t be taking any notice of him, he’s just
part of the furniture, aren’t you, Charlie?’
‘That’s me,’ said Charlie, without raising his eyes from his newspaper. ‘Charlie the chair.’
‘My name’s Branna. A friend of mine told me you could help me find work.’
‘Here, sit down, you don’t have to be nervous,’ said Michael. ‘What kind of work are you after?’
Branna sat down on the very edge of the bentwood chair on the opposite side of Michael’s desk, with her knees together and her feet splayed out. ‘Like, you know, escort services, that kind of thing.’
‘Have you done anything like that before?’
‘No, never. I was working at Dunne’s up at Ballyvolane for a while, but then they accused me of taking make-up which I never did but they sacked me anyway. I did a bit of waitressing and then a bit of bar work but the money’s rubbish, and my friend said that you paid really good money.’
Michael smiled. ‘You can make good money if you work through me, but you have to earn it. You have to meet a lot of different men and you have to be nice to them, which is not always easy.’
‘I think I’d be good at it. I really do. I’ve always been a great listener. Anyway, they take you out and stuff, these men, don’t they? Buy you meals and drinks and all that. I wouldn’t mind if some of them were boring.’
‘Sometimes they want something in return for taking you out.’
‘You mean like sex?’ said Branna. ‘I’m not a total innocent, Mr Gerrety. If a man’s given you a really good evening out, there’s nothing wrong in it at all. He deserves a cuddle, you know, or whatever.’
When she said that, she parted her knees a little. Michael didn’t look down, but kept his eyes fixed on hers.
‘What if that’s all he wants? What if he’s not interested in taking you out for the evening, but just wants the sex?’
Branna lowered her eyelashes for a moment and gave a small, self-satisfied smile that Michael couldn’t interpret. He liked to believe that he could read women better than books – not that he ever read books. Branna’s expression, though, was like a hieroglyph. It meant something. It might even have meant something significant, but he couldn’t understand what.
Charlie said, ‘Ten past eleven, Mr Gerrety.’
Michael checked his watch. ‘Shite, I didn’t realize it was so late. I have an important meeting at the Maryborough like ten minutes ago. Listen, Branna, why don’t you come and see me at home so that we can discuss everything in detail? I can tell you how you can use my website to advertise your escort services, and what it’ll cost you, and what you’re likely to be earning after all of your expenses. I won’t try to finagle you at all. I’m the straightest guy in the business. You ask anyone.’
‘Expenses?’ asked Branna. ‘What expenses?’
‘Well, for instance, do you have a place of your own, a place that’s suitable for bringing a man back to? If a feller’s bought you dinner at the Hayfield Manor he’s going to expect something a bit classier than a bedsit with a single bed heaped up with teddy bears and a poster of Pa Cronin on the wall.’
‘I’m sharing with a friend at the moment. You know, because I’m so broke, like. It’s my friend who suggested I come to see you. I expect she can’t wait to see the back of me.’
‘There you are, you see, you’ll need a decent room, and I can provide you with that, but I can’t let you have it buckshee. That’s what I mean by expenses.’
He stood up, took his wallet out of his back trouser pocket and handed her a business card. ‘That’s where I live, The Elysian. I can’t see you tonight because I have to go to a charity banquet, but make it tomorrow evening, say around seven? There’s guards on the door outside but I’ll let them know that you’re expected. Show them that card and they’ll let you in.’
Branna stood up, too. ‘I’m excited now,’ she told him.
‘Well, you’re a very good-looking young lady if you don’t mind my saying so. I think you’ll be raking it in. How old are you, incidentally? You don’t mind my asking but some girls these days look a whole lot older than they really are.’
‘Yeah, like my girlfriend,’ said Charlie.
‘I’m nineteen,’ said Branna.
Michael gave her a paternal pat on the back and guided her towards the spiral staircase. He stood at the bottom as she went back upstairs so that he could see up her skirt. Charlie came and joined him and said, ‘Yes or no?’
‘Thong,’ said Michael.
‘Oh well. Halfway there.’
‘Come on,’ Michael told him. ‘We’re going to be late, and you know how much I hate to be late. It gives people the chance to cut the back off you before you arrive, and then they’re all sardonic smiles and you don’t know why.’
‘If I catch anybody smiling at you like that, boss, I’ll give them a kick in the back of the forehead, don’t you worry.’ He hesitated, and then he said, ‘What’s “sardonic”? Is that looking at you like a fish, like?’
Thirty-eight
‘We’ve found the vehicle,’ said Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán, solemnly.
Katie was standing by her office window, staring at the Elysian Tower with its dull grey concrete and its shiny green glass. It made her feel like a knight in a fairy story – a knight who can see the wicked king’s castle in the distance, but who is bound by a spell not to enter it, and so is powerless to put an end to his reign of evil.
It was raining, but only softly, although the hooded crows that were clustered on top of the car park would occasionally flap their wings in irritation.
‘Where?’ she asked.
‘The shopping centre car park at Ballyvolane, burned out. The only thing was, the front wasn’t too badly burned, and there was damage on the bumper that matches the rear of your car, as well as traces of blue metallic paint, which we’ve already sent off to be analysed.’
‘What was it?’
‘Nissan X-Trail 4×4. It went missing from Nolan’s Construction at Dennehy’s Cross two days ago.’
Katie turned away from the window and went back to her desk. ‘Whoever stole it, they were after me. I don’t have any doubt about that. Nobody saw it being stolen, I suppose?’
‘It happened at night, apparently. The wire fence around their building yard was cut through.’
‘I wonder if it was Obioma,’ said Katie. ‘Like, it was a very terrorist thing to do. Take out the leader of the people who are looking for you, and throw them into a state of fear and uncertainty. While they’re all flapping their hands and running around in circles, she can go in quick and complete her mission – which is to kill Michael Gerrety.’
‘You really think she would target you like that?’
‘Yes, I do. She looks beautiful, and she’s already eliminated four people without whom we all agree the city of Cork is a much better place, but she’s utterly and completely ruthless. What’s more, she’s totally unafraid. I really believe that if I had shot her in that flat in Washington Street, she would have blown her own brains out just to make sure that I suffered for it.’
Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán came a little closer. ‘How’s your father?’ she asked.
Katie made a face. ‘How do you think? He’s in bits. I stayed the night with him last night and all I could hear was him howling. I’ve never heard a man howl like that before. It was like a dog baying at the moon.’
‘And how are you?’
‘Me? I’m very upset, of course. I didn’t know Ailish very well, but she took such good care of my father and I hadn’t seen him so happy since my mother passed.’
‘I wasn’t talking about Ailish,’ said Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán. ‘I meant you and John. How are you coping with that?’
Katie frowned at her. ‘Me and John? What about me and John? That’s none of your business, Kyna.’
Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán said, ‘I’m sorry, ma’am. I apologize. I didn’t mean to stick my nose in, considering your rank and all. It’s just that your John phoned me this morning and aske
d me to keep an eye on you and make sure that you were okay.’
‘I don’t believe this,’ said Katie. ‘I’m surprised he didn’t phone the Echo as well. Then everybody would have known about us.’
‘I’m really sorry, but he said you had mentioned my name to him and seemed to believe I was reliable. Which I take only as a compliment – not as a free pass to interfere in your personal life.’
‘Go on, then,’ said Katie. She was finding it hard to keep her voice steady. ‘What did he say to you?’
‘If you’d rather I just backed off—’ said Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán.
‘No, tell me what he said to you. Please. I want to know.’
‘All right. He said that you were breaking up, the two of you. He said that he couldn’t stay in Cork because he didn’t feel at home here any more, but he couldn’t expect you to go to America with him because of your job.’
Katie took a deep breath, and then she said, ‘Well, yes. That’s right. That’s about the shape of it. Was that all he said?’
‘He asked me to make sure that you were all right. Just keep an eye on you, like.’
‘Well, thank you, Kyna. I expect I’ll survive. I don’t really have much of a choice, do I?’
Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán’s eyes were glistening with tears.
‘He also said that he loved you more than life itself, and that whatever happened he would never forget you, ever.’
That was more than Katie could take. Standing in front of Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán she started sobbing, her fists clenched in frustration that she couldn’t stop herself. She simply stood there with her eyes squeezed tight shut and the tears pouring down her cheeks,. Her chest hurt so much that she was hardly able to draw breath.
Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán put her arms around her and hugged her very close. Katie knew how wrong this was, but she desperately needed somebody to hold her, whoever it was. Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán shushed her and stroked her hair and very gently rocked her. Katie could smell her floral deodorant and feel her breasts pressing against hers. She hadn’t felt so comforted for as long as she could remember, and perhaps the wrongness of it made it all the more comforting.
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