Final Betrayal

by Patricia Gibney

  It must have been only a few moments that she stood like that, and then she screamed.

  Sixty-Two

  Boyd found her on her knees. Screaming inconsolably. He quickly assessed the scene and got to work, checking for vital signs. Backup and ambulances were on the way, and he prayed they wouldn’t be too late.

  He turned back to Lottie. ‘They’re alive. Come on. Help me.’

  She was frozen. Face white with fear and shock.

  He yelled, ‘Lottie! Now. I need help. Ambulance is on the way.’

  She awoke as if from a sudden stupor and, hardly daring to breathe, crawled on hands and knees across the coin-littered floor to reach her girls.

  ‘Katie. Chloe. Dear God.’

  She put a trembling hand under her younger daughter’s chin and lifted her head. Chloe’s eyes were closed and her mouth drooped on one side. Lottie put her face close. Skin to skin. She felt the soft breath ease from Chloe’s mouth. At last she could exhale herself. She did the same to Katie. Her daughters were alive.

  But where had the blood come from? She ran quivering fingers through the girls’ hair until they connected with the wounds. Both had been bludgeoned. A strip of bloody timber lay in the corner of the room. Then she noticed a cut on Chloe’s throat, just beneath her ear.

  Sirens screeched in the near distance as she held her girls close to her breast and shed tears of relief. Though she had no idea how badly injured they were, she was just thankful in that moment that they were alive.

  ‘Chloe was cut,’ she whispered.

  ‘She’ll be fine once the paramedics get here,’ Boyd said. ‘And Kirby will be fine too when whatever he was injected with wears off.’

  She felt Boyd’s hand on her shoulder, and then the room filled with noise and people, and reluctantly she released her girls into the hands of the experts.

  As she cried uncontrollable sobs. She felt as if her body was expunging the fear she’d been keeping under wraps since last night. And she didn’t know if she would ever be able to stop.

  Sixty-Three

  Conor opened the door to Tony and led him past the living room, where his mother was asleep, and into the kitchen. He took two cans of Foster’s from a plastic bag on the floor. They sat at the narrow table, flipped the tabs and drank. Neither man could look the other in the eye.

  ‘Bob Cleary and Cyril Gill are dead,’ Tony said. ‘It’s been confirmed.’

  ‘I heard. Good riddance.’ Conor slurped his drink and burped loudly. ‘There’s blood on your hands,’ he said, noticing Tony’s knuckles.

  Tony appeared nonplussed. ‘Scraped them shifting rubble this morning. Haven’t had a chance to wash. I’m sure I smell.’

  ‘You do. But I’m accustomed to bad odours around here.’ Conor nodded towards the door behind which his mother snored.

  They sat in silence and drank.

  ‘Got another one?’ Tony said.

  ‘You seem nervous. Anything you want to tell me?’ Conor extracted two more cans from the bag.

  ‘I’ll get straight to the point so.’ Tony cradled his can between his burly fingers. ‘Why did you take the blame for the Thompson assault and robbery?’

  ‘How do you know I didn’t do it?’

  ‘Because I know who did.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Conor said, running his hand over his freshly shaved head. He stared pointedly at Tony. ‘So do I.’

  ‘You needn’t look at me like that.’

  ‘Like what? You know what you did.’

  ‘And I think I know what you did too.’ Tony played with the tab on the can, pressing it so hard it cut the edge of his thumb.

  ‘What would that be?’

  ‘You know right well, Conor. Those girls, Amy and Louise. They saw you that night, and you never denied it. Never offered an alibi or a defence.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So,’ Tony repeated. ‘I think you were running from something else. I think you’d done something much worse than assault and rob Bill Thompson.’

  ‘Something? Like what?’

  ‘Like hiding a body in the tunnel.’

  ‘And why would I do that?’ Conor eyed Tony and wondered just how much his friend really knew.

  Tony stood suddenly. ‘Stop playing games. Come on. Tell me.’

  ‘Thought you knew it all.’ Conor was fed up. He’d carried his secret for ten years; he wasn’t about to spout it out now. Tony could feck off.

  ‘You had your eye on that housekeeper up at Gill’s. What was her name? Hannah something or other? Cute little Chinese chick. You were always asking her out but she wouldn’t date you. After that night, I never remember seeing her again. That’s odd, don’t you think?’

  ‘Maybe she went back to China.’

  ‘Maybe she did, but I don’t think so.’

  Conor felt a slight relief in his chest. He sipped his beer, slowly this time, and studied Tony’s plump red face. Did he know or did he just suspect? Probably the latter.

  ‘Okay, the truth is, I had a thing with her. We didn’t tell the Gills because Cyril couldn’t keep his eyes or his hands off her. She threatened to leave them. And I think she did.’

  Tony’s lips curled into a sneer. ‘She was dumped in a tunnel with no escape. You left her there.’

  ‘We both have secrets from that night, Tony, so don’t go making accusations, especially without proof.’

  Tony dug his hand in his pocket and put a silver coin on the table.

  Conor glanced at it, then looked up. ‘Where did you get that?’

  ‘Found it in the tunnel. The day we went down with Bob. When did you go back to build the wall? You must have dropped it then.’

  Conor knew he could deny it, but then who was Tony going to tell without implicating himself in another crime? He put the can to his lips and drained his beer, then opened another.

  He was about to tell Tony the truth when there was a knock at the door.

  * * *

  Lottie felt herself being half carried out to the car. Boyd sat into the seat beside her.

  ‘The blood?’ she sobbed.

  ‘Paramedics don’t think either girl was stabbed. Chloe has a slight cut to her neck as if a knife was held there. Maybe it slipped. No visible stab wounds on Katie. They both took a bang to the head and were most likely drugged.’

  ‘Who did it?’ She furiously rubbed the tears from her eyes. ‘Megan Price?’

  ‘Or Tony Keegan.’ Boyd reversed the car onto the road. ‘Will I drop you home?’

  ‘Just a minute. Think, Boyd. We’ll get plenty of forensic evidence from their clothes, and from Kirby. We need to bring in Price, Keegan and Dowling. We have no idea where Megan is, but let’s send a team to Keegan’s house, and we’ll get Dowling.’

  Boyd grabbed the radio and asked for McKeown. Gave him the instructions and also told him to send a team to Dowling’s house. He eyed Lottie. ‘Can I drop you off first?’

  ‘I’ll see this through and then I’m taking time out for my family.’

  ‘I’ve heard that before.’

  ‘Just drive the car, Boyd.’

  * * *

  The kitchen was too small. Not like when they were younger and his mother was at work and they could all hang out and laugh and smoke and drink vodka from mugs. Megan told Conor to drive her car.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘I want to show you something. Go down past Petit Lane car park.’

  ‘That place is crawling with guards,’ Tony protested.

  ‘Not that exact area. I think Conor knows an entrance to the tunnel that no one else is aware of,’ Megan laughed. She saw his shoulders hunch and knew she was right.

  ‘Why do you want to bring us there?’ Conor said. ‘Back to the scene of the bloody crime.’

  ‘What crime would that be?’ Tony scoffed. ‘I think you’re the one that has blood on your hands.’

  ‘Shut your mouth, Keegan.’

  The three one-time friends got out of the car at the north side of th
e council buildings. Hoarding covered the area where once Gill had outlined his visionary plans for regeneration and renewal. Megan could see the house where Amy and Penny had met their deaths. In the distance, if it wasn’t dark, she’d be able to see her own house, and further beyond that lay the scene where Louise and Cristina had died. Full circle, she thought.

  ‘Open it,’ she said, pointing to the door cut into the hoarding.

  ‘Come on, Megs,’ Tony said. ‘This is mad.’

  ‘Don’t you ever call me that. My name is Megan. I want to hear the truth from both of you and then I’ll be gone.’

  ‘You need to see a doctor,’ Conor offered. ‘You’re losing a lot of blood.’

  Megan eyed the two men. She knew her arm was covered in blood, but she didn’t care. That aggressive blonde bitch had lunged at her and the knife had slipped as she was about to cut her throat. She’d stuck a needle in their necks to subdue them and decided to leave them for later. First she’d deal with the two rats in her life, then she’d take her time with the girls and Detective Kirby.

  She held the knife down by her leg and stood waiting. One or both of them could easily overpower her, but somehow they were transfixed by what she was about to say.

  She pushed past Conor and opened the door. ‘Where is the entrance?’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘The tunnel where you brought Hannah Lee.’

  Conor shifted from foot to foot, his face a ghostly mask in the yellow hue of the street lights. ‘Hannah?’

  ‘I know you killed her.’

  ‘And how would you know that?’ The wind carried his voice across to her.

  ‘Because if you hadn’t been killing her and disposing of her body that night, Tony would never have escaped justice for murdering my stepfather.’

  Tony stood up straight. ‘Hey, just a minute. I never killed anyone.’

  Megan laughed. ‘You stole my key to the safe and you broke in to rob my stepfather. Then you proceeded to beat him to a pulp. He never regained consciousness.’

  ‘He died from a stroke.’

  ‘Brought on by your violence. How could you do that to me?’

  ‘Shit, he was only your stepfather, not your real dad.’

  She lashed out then, striking him on the cheek with the knife. The cut wasn’t deep but the blood ran freely down his face, and he dropped to his knees in the mud, whimpering.

  Conor reacted though, and made to grab the knife from her hand, but she whipped it around in his direction and drew it along his arm, tearing through the stiff material of his jacket. He clutched the wound and yelled, ‘Fuck you, you’re a mad bitch.’

  ‘Open up the tunnel,’ she said.

  * * *

  Outside Conor Dowling’s house, with his mother ranting from the doorstep, Lottie walked around in circles.

  ‘Where did they go?’ she said.

  ‘Vera says she was asleep but woke up when Megan Price near knocked the door down with her hammering. She heard Keegan and Conor talking in the hall and then they were gone.’

  ‘We missed them by a few minutes. Shit.’

  McKeown arrived with a wad of papers in his hand. ‘I think I might know where they are.’

  ‘Let’s get into the car,’ Boyd said as the rain began to beat down harder.

  ‘What have you got?’ Lottie asked.

  ‘I eventually got hold of some old maps from a local historian. She arrived with them earlier when she heard on the news about the body we found in the tunnel.’

  They sat into the car. Boyd switched on the engine to get the heat going.

  ‘And?’ Lottie said.

  ‘There’s a network of tunnels all right, and one of them has an entrance on this patch of waste ground.’ He pointed to the folded map in his hand.

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Cyril Gill bought up the land when he came up with his big project ten years ago. It was laid waste when his plans were scuppered. It’s on the other side of the council buildings, not a million miles away from the house where we found Amy and Penny.’

  ‘But why do you think we’ll find Dowling and the others there?’ Boyd asked.

  ‘Have you got a brighter idea?’ Lottie said.

  * * *

  Conor knew he could easily take the knife from Megan, but he wanted to hear what she had to say. He walked slowly across the ground, holding his damaged arm, wishing there was more light. But maybe he could use the dull hue from the distant street lights to his advantage.

  ‘Why did you kill the girls?’ he asked.

  ‘I killed no one,’ Tony said.

  ‘Not you, you moron. Her.’ Conor had had enough of the pussyfooting. He stopped and turned to face Megan.

  ‘Why do you think I had anything to do with that?’ Her voice was weaker now. That was a good thing, Conor thought. But he had to get the truth out of her first.

  ‘I know it wasn’t me,’ he said, ‘and I don’t think Tony had the wit to carry it out.’

  ‘You always were smarter than him.’ Her sarcastic laugh was carried away on the edge of a breeze as rain poured down.

  ‘But I don’t understand how you knew about this place.’

  ‘Bill, my stepdad, had all the maps. One reason he was such a vehement objector to Cyril Gill’s project was because he knew the medieval history of Ragmullin would be lost if Gill got his way. He showed me ancient maps of the underground network. I couldn’t care less about them at the time. But I remembered them.’

  ‘What sparked that memory?’ Conor had to keep her talking.

  ‘Penny Brogan couldn’t keep her mouth shut.’

  ‘Penny?’ Keegan said. ‘What did she know?’

  ‘She was my manicurist. Always gabbing about everybody’s business. She told me about Cristina Lee coming over to Ireland, following in the footsteps of her aunt who used to work for the Gills. The family hadn’t heard from Hannah in years, according to Penny, but she’d been in Ireland illegally so no formal report had ever been made to the authorities. As it turned out, Cristina was here illegally too. You know, I’d forgotten all about Hannah Lee until that very moment. With the attack on Bill and the court case and all that followed, I never gave her a thought.’ She pointed the knife at Keegan. ‘And then I married you. You let me lead a lie for my entire adult life. Whatever became of the money you stole?’

  ‘I stole nothing.’

  ‘Oh for Christ’s sake, Tony. The time for lies is well past. It had to be you.’

  Conor edged to one side. While Megan was getting angrier by the second, waving the knife erratically with each word, he was figuring out a way to escape. It meant going back down the tunnel, but he could suffer that if it got him out of here alive.

  Sixty-Four

  Boyd silenced the siren as they approached the area McKeown had marked on the map.

  ‘No point in alerting them,’ Lottie said. ‘Look.’ A car was parked with all the doors open outside the hoarding.

  He glided the car up behind a Ford Fiesta. ‘What’s the plan?’

  Lottie wanted this over and done with. She wanted to be at her daughters’ bedsides. She knew she should be there already, but she also knew they were in safe hands. Once she had this wrapped up, they would get her undivided attention. Her heart lurched with guilt, but she couldn’t deal with that right now.

  ‘Let’s see if they’re in there,’ she said.

  They left the car, closing the doors quietly, and made their way to the open door in the hoarding.

  Lottie put her finger to her lips and eased up against the timber. Voices carried towards her as she peered inside.

  * * *

  Tony said, ‘The money was well spent on that lavish wedding you had. You should have known I couldn’t have earned enough as a labourer to afford that, but you never questioned it.’

  ‘Biggest mistake of my life,’ Megan said. She put one hand in her pocket and extracted a handful of coins. She threw them on the ground, where they sank into the grey water of mu
ck and dirt.

  Conor took a step backwards.

  She spun her head around, pointing the knife at him. ‘If you had come clean, I would have been spared a lifetime of misery.’

  ‘But now you know why I didn’t. You made your own decisions. Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘I loved you, you know.’

  ‘You what?’ Conor ran his hand over his head, streaking it with blood.

  ‘Yes, but you only had eyes for that housekeeper.’ She took a step towards him. ‘What did you do to her?’

  ‘It was an accident.’ Conor recalled the night when at last he’d got Hannah alone, down by the railway tracks about a hundred metres from where he now stood. And then she’d changed her mind. Didn’t want him near her and had tried to fight him off. But he was young and hormone-fuelled, and when he forced himself on her, she crashed her head against a rock he hadn’t known was sticking up in the overgrown bank. He hadn’t murdered her, but she’d died and he had panicked. He told Megan this.

  ‘If it was an accident, why did you hide her body?’

  ‘Let’s just say I’m not a methodical killer like you. I panicked. I ran. Afterwards, I went back and hid the body.’ He stared into her hard eyes. ‘Why did you have to murder Amy and Louise and the others?’

  ‘Because I found out the truth,’ she sobbed. ‘Don’t you see, Conor? I’ve had to live my life without you because they gave sworn statements that they saw you that night, and because of that you ended up in prison. You should have spoken up. I left coins at the scenes in memory of what you’d done to me. You betrayed me with your lies. Just like a Judas. Just like those silly girls.’

  ‘But they did see me.’

  ‘You didn’t assault or rob my stepfather.’

  ‘Why does it matter now?’ Conor said wearily.

  ‘When you got out of prison, you never even called to see me.’

  ‘I was in the pharmacy one day and—’

  ‘Yeah, you were. With a note for Amy. Never even asked about me. So I reckoned it was time to make you notice me.’

  It was then that Conor sensed the silence around them. The wind had dipped and the rain had eased slightly, and the three of them, standing in the middle of the piece of waste ground, were like a tripod abandoned by some weary photographer. And he knew they were not alone. He scanned his eyes around and behind Megan. Over at the door in the hoarding, he saw movement.