After a second’s hesitation, Baz shrugged. ‘Okay. But I don’t have long.’
Harry led him to the fire exit at the far end of the room and lifted the bar. It gave onto a space floored with concrete at the foot of an emergency staircase: a cold and gloomy place, with one barred window barely letting through the dull glow from a riverside lamp outside. The echoing of their footsteps contrasted oddly with the muffled noise coming from the other side of the door; the antics of the party-goers seemed suddenly absurd.
Baz leaned against the wall, nonchalant. ‘So what’s all this about?’
‘Your twin. John.’
Baz gnawed at his lower lip. ‘What possible interest can you have in my brother?’
‘He was killed by Irish terrorists, isn’t that right? And specifically, I would guess, by a man called Pearse Cato.’
Baz straightened and clenched his fist. Even mention of the name seemed to anger him.
‘So people say. No one was ever convicted and the victim’s family is never told exactly who tore them apart. But you’re right - the powers-that-be, as well as the media, always reckoned Cato was responsible.’
‘You know he died a couple of years ago?’
A bitter smile twisted Baz’s lips. ‘The news I’d prayed for ever since John was murdered. I wish I could meet the men who gunned him down, simply to shake them by the hand.’
‘You wanted vengeance?’
‘Who wouldn’t? I loved John. There’s a special bond between twins. We went our separate ways, of course. He joined the Army, all I wanted was to work in the music business. Even so, we stayed close - never rivals, simply the best of friends.’
‘What do you know about his death?’
Baz shut his eyes. Harry wished he had not needed to put the question, forcing recollection of the past. He guessed that the memory of John Gilbert’s murder was never far from the disc jockey’s thoughts.
‘He was shot through the head. Not before Cato had hurt him cruelly. It was all so cowardly, so sick. How any human being can - ’
Baz broke off. His eyes were open again and filling with tears. ‘What is it to you? John’s dead, Cato’s dead: we’re talking about history.’
‘Don’t they say old sins cast long shadows?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Harry sucked in his cheeks. He’d reached the point of no return.
‘Finbar Rogan came from the same street as Pearse Cato. Were you aware of that?’
Baz stared at him. ‘No. Not at all. But - what of it? Finbar was many things, by all accounts, but you’re surely not telling me he was a terrorist.’
‘No, but...’
Something inside Baz seemed to break. His face grew tight and ugly, as if he were wearing the wicked mask again. He seized Harry’s wrist in a painful grip and spoke in a croaky whisper. ‘Christ knows why you’re raking over the old embers, but I don’t like it. Take my advice, Harry Devlin - keep your nose out.’
‘Darling, you’re wanted!’
The soft urgent voice of Penny Newland startled both men. She stood behind them, framed in the doorway. At the sight of her, Baz released his hold. Harry rubbed his wrist; when he looked at the girl, she turned crimson.
‘You’re due on soon,’ she told her boyfriend. ‘Sophie wants you behind the mike. Come on. I’ll stay here for a bit - I need to talk to Harry.’
As Baz moved back towards the party, Harry looked straight at the girl; something in his expression seemed to hypnotise her. Baz brushed her neck with his lips, but she remained motionless.
As soon as her boyfriend had disappeared, Harry nodded at Penny. ‘Over here,’ he mouthed.
As if in a trance, she shut the door behind her and walked towards him, her high heels clicking on the concrete. She too was clad as a vampire, all in black with flowing cape, minidress and patterned stockings. The whiteness of her complexion contrasted with the scarlet of her lips and talons. Beneath the neck of her cape he caught a glimpse of ivory shoulders.
She stopped within touching distance of him. ‘What do you want of me?’
‘I think you know.’
‘You tell me.’
She folded her arms, as if determined to test her will against his.
His whole body tingled with excitement and fear. He sensed that during the next few minutes, the course of a human life would change.
‘Let’s start with how John Gilbert died.’
She was standing in shadow. It was too dark to read her expression.
‘Now then,’ she said in her soft Irish accent, ‘what more is there to say about John Gilbert’s death?’
He ran his tongue over his lips. Any man would find her attractive, he thought: the thick dark hair, the almost perfect features, the bare white skin and the body-hugging dress. Penny Newland was an exciting woman.
‘I believe there’s a link with the killing of Finbar Rogan.’
‘And what might that link be?’
He leaned forward. She took a couple of steps back, pinning herself in a corner by the bottom of the stairs. Advancing, he felt her shrink away from him.
‘You,’ he said. ‘Finbar remembered you.’
She closed her eyes, seeming to hold her breath for a long moment before answering.
‘And I ... I could never forget him. Hard though I tried, it simply wasn’t possible.’
She breathed out and bowed her head. It seemed to him that she had come to a decision.
‘You see, Harry, he left his mark on me.’
As he watched in silence, she fiddled with the strings knotted at her neck and the cape slipped silently to the floor. Taking the narrow straps of her dress in the crook of each forefinger, she eased them downwards. With the straps off her shoulders, she began to peel the velvet from her, pausing only when her large dark nipples were exposed. His mouth was dry and when at last he spoke, his voice was hoarse.
‘The elusive butterflies.’
And he ran the tips of his fingers over the exquisite insects that, long ago, Finbar Rogan had tattooed on the breasts of the woman who would one day run him down.
Chapter Twenty-Six
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The tattooed breasts rose and fell. The butterflies were beautiful; Harry contemplated his dead client’s artistry with something close to wonder. After a little while she pulled the dress up again, concealing the final clue he had sought. Opening her eyes slowly, she spoke in the softest of whispers.
‘When I saw you lead Baz out here, I knew you’d discovered my secret. I was afraid you would. From the moment I met you, I could tell you were determined, that you never let go.’
‘I don’t know the whole story, though I’ve worked out a great deal.’
‘And the police?’
‘I haven’t told them about you.’
‘They’ll find out before long, won’t they? Someone caught sight of me last night. God - last night! It feels like a lifetime ago.’
‘Who saw you?’
‘A courting couple. They came driving up as I stood over Finbar’s body. Why I needed to check he was dead, I can’t explain; I’d not only run him down, but reversed back and forward over his body to make sure. I could ... I could feel him beneath my wheels.’
She shuddered. Harry could sense her re-living the moment when she snuffed out a life.
‘Anyway, this car trapped me in its headlights. I was temporarily blinded, but then I made out a girl in the passenger seat, staring at me. She turned to the driver and he put his foot down and accelerated out of sight. They had plenty of time to get an idea of my appearance. I expect they’ll come forward, once they hear the police appeal for witnesses.’
‘Not necessarily. They may have something to hide.’
‘Don’t we all? For a short while last night, I thought I could trust Finbar to take his pound of flesh, then leave me in peace. Stupid of me. And soon everyone will know.’
‘That you were Pearse Cato’s lover?’
Penny shivered. ‘He was an evil man.’
‘So how did you get mixed up with him?’
‘I was only a kid from a village in County Limerick: a seventeen-year-old virgin by the name of Edna Doyle. I’d not been able to find work near home, so I decided to try my luck in Dublin - the big city. In the end, I took a job in a bar near Trinity College. I was so naive. I didn’t realise it was a haven for men with more of a thirst for blood than for booze. And that’s where I met Pearse Cato.’
‘He picked you up?’
‘Oh, he made it clear from day one he was doing me a favour. I was nothing - a colleen from the countryside - while he was a big shot. In more ways than one, though I didn’t learn for a while how handy he was with an Armalite. He had other women, he was too vain to bother to conceal the truth. I was a possession. He even had me branded as his personal property.’
‘The butterflies?’
‘Yes. He said tattoos on women turned him on, but I think it was something more than that. He wanted my body to bear his insignia permanently, so that although one day he would tire of me, I would never be free of him.’
A tremor ran through her body. He wanted to put his arms round her, but knew it would be the wrong thing to do.
‘I’ll never forget the pain. I thought it would never end and I screamed in agony - it was like an injection coupled with a dentist’s drill. But even worse was watching my body being disfigured forever on a psychopath’s whim.’
Harry flinched. He could almost feel the tip of the needle entering his own skin. So much for the romance of carrying your life history on your flesh.
‘And you got to know Finbar?’
‘Yes. He twitched at the mention of Cato’s name - no shame in that, most people did. He’d grown up in the same street, he knew what Cato was capable of. I could tell he fancied me, but he didn’t dare do anything about it. If Cato had found anyone messing around with me, he’d have gone berserk. A word out of place could cost a man his kneecaps. Try to take Cato’s woman and he’d have you begging for a swift end.’ She touched the place where her cheek was marked. ‘This scar is the legacy of a small disagreement we had. I had the temerity to argue with him about the armed struggle. He soon put me right.’
Nausea swamped Harry. ‘How could you stand living with him?’
‘Strange what you can get used to when you have no choice. Cato wasn’t a man you jilted. I once heard of a girl who did exactly that, before I met him. One night, a couple of masked men jumped out on her as she was walking home. They threw acid in her face and ruined it, as well as blinding her in oné eye. Then they crippled her new feller for good measure.’
‘So how did you get away?’
‘He wanted me to do something, to stay in Belfast with a friend of his called Fitz. I was to go with Fitz’s sister one night to a bar in a Prot area. British soldiers used to frequent the place, you see. We were supposed to chat up a couple of them, let them think they were in for an easy lay. We had to invite them home, then lead them instead to Fitz’s flat.’
‘And?’
‘Cato never told me more than he thought I needed to know. All the same, you didn’t need to be a genius to guess what would happen to the Brits. He was ordering me to lead them to their deaths.’
‘And did you?’
‘No!’
Her denial was passionate and he did not doubt its truth. Next door he could hear Baz chatting to the audience. The party was in full swing.
‘So you disobeyed Cato?’
‘I pretended to be sick, feigned bad stomach pains. I managed to convince the doctor I was dying and he rushed me into hospital. Cato didn’t visit me. He’d wanted his killings to coincide with some bloody Republican anniversary or other. He left for the North, to make sure someone would die on schedule, whether I did his dirty work or not.’ She winced at the recollection. ‘First chance I got, I discharged myself from hospital, headed for Dun Laoghaire. I’d taken a case with me and I’d packed all the clothes and money I could lay my hands on - precious little it amounted to. I caught the ferry to Holyhead and hitched all the way to Liverpool. I reckoned it was time to begin again.’
‘So you became Penny Newland?’
She contrived a faint smile. ‘Because I found a bedsitter in Penny Lane. Could have been worse - I might have become Miss Upper-Parliament, if I’d lived a couple of roads away.’ The smile faded. ‘I had to bury the past. If Pearse Cato had ever caught up with me, I’d have been dead meat. And as soon as I got off the boat I couldn’t miss the story in the papers, about the murder of a young soldier over in Northern Ireland. He was called John Gilbert. The surname meant nothing to me then, of course.’
‘When did you get into local radio?’
‘At first, I tried what I knew best, working behind a bar. I served pints morning, noon and night till I’d saved enough to take a secretarial course so I could find myself a better job. A year ago I fetched up at Radio Liverpool and met Baz. The rest you know.’ She paused. ‘Or do you? Exactly what was it brought you here?’
A long trail, he thought. Debbie, of all people, had given him a clue; she’d spoken of the kind of man a woman could die for. Might a man who engendered such strength of passion also be one that a woman could kill for? He’d been thinking idly - perhaps enviously - of the devotion Penny showed at every turn to Baz. When Melissa told him Finbar’s acquaintance with Sophie did not in fact date back over the years, he had puzzled over the identity of the girl whom Finbar had hoped to meet at the Danger, after running into her again on the day of the fire. The day of his appearance on Pop In.
Could it have been Penny? She had an Irish accent and in the theatre bar Baz had implied that she’d dropped into the studio - in the way people often did - whilst Finbar was on the air. Harry recalled Finbar having a private word with Penny during the exhibition; he’d hinted he knew her. And Harry recalled what Debbie had said about changing her identity, making a new start. A new start - in a new land?
So he’d checked with Dermot McCray, who made gruff reference to rumours that Finbar had once tattooed the breasts of Pearse Cato’s girlfriend and that when she’d run out on the terrorist, he’d vowed to kill her. But she had disappeared for good.
Harry remembered Finbar mentioning a butterfly tattoo whilst he’d dozed in the flat on the night of the exhibition. Try as he might, he couldn’t recall details, but once back from the De Valera, he’d uncrumpled the picture Finbar had swiftly sketched to illustrate a story: something about a girl he had an interest in.
When Sophie told him about the song Finbar had chosen on impulse just before going on air, he had hardly needed to confirm that Penny Newland was the marketing manager’s secretary whom Finbar had, according to the receptionist at Radio Liverpool, spoken to on the last afternoon of his life. No prizes for guessing that he’d tried his luck with her. But at last that luck had run out.
‘Finbar brought me,’ he said, finally. ‘I felt I owed it to him, to understand why he was killed.’
Penny gazed at him steadily. ‘He was a selfish man. Not wicked, like Pearse Cato - I don’t claim that I rid the world of a monster, whereas I’d have been glad to fire the bullets that blew out Cato’s brains. When I heard the news he was dead, I could scarcely contain my joy. I thought I’d succeeded in destroying my own past.’
‘Your path and Finbar’s never crossed in Liverpool?’
‘Not once. I’d been told Melissa had a new man, but she and I never had much to do with each other. She sat at her desk outside the MD’s office and I was downstairs, so I didn’t hear the new boyfriend’s name and it never crossed my mind it might be F
inbar Rogan. I hadn’t even heard he’d moved over to England; as far as I knew he was still plying his trade back in Dublin. That’s not to say I’d been able to put him out of my mind. After all, I carried his handiwork around with me every day of my life.’
‘Didn’t Baz ask questions about the butterflies?’
‘He’s always loved them - poor fool. So perhaps something good did come out of my time with Cato, after all.’
‘I suppose it was simply bad luck so far as you were concerned. You dropped in to Pop In and, lo and behold, who should be there goggling at you but Finbar Rogan.’
‘We knew each other at once. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was too crafty to greet me when Baz and Sophie were there, so he talked about a song called “Elusive Butterfly” and finally plumped for “I Remember You”.’
‘To leave you in no doubt he knew who you were.’
‘When he gave me a ring later that day, he was in high good humour. He seemed to think that having tattooed me gave him some claim over my body. He asked me to meet him at a dive, but though I tried giving him the cold shoulder, it didn’t work.’ She sighed. ‘I was so afraid that if I antagonised him, he’d let it slip that I’d once been the lover of the man who had killed Baz’s brother.’
‘Did you know about the connection before you became involved with Baz?’
‘It cropped up during my earliest days at Radio Liverpool. There had been some outrage in Northern Ireland and Baz seemed very moody when the news was broadcast. Someone said his twin brother had been murdered by a terrorist gunman. The surname rang a bell, so I checked the old newspaper files - and there it was, in black and white, like something out of a nightmare. John Gilbert was Baz’s twin. I couldn’t believe it.’
‘Yet you still got together with Baz?’
‘Yes. You’ll think this is the stupidity of a callow Irish girl, but I felt somehow it was meant. Already by then I fancied him like mad, though he’d never asked me out - at the time, he was getting over a relationship with a girl from a group which used to tour the clubs. John’s murder brought us closer together, if anything. Call it fate, if you like. After all, we’d both been victims of Pearse Cato.’
I Remember You Page 20