Too Close For Comfort

by Niamh O'Connor

  Liz did as she was told. A second later a sting on her arm made her eyelids spring open.

  Ellen jabbed a second syringe into her arm and removed the first.

  ‘Ow … what are you doing!’ Liz shrieked.

  ‘I prefer to do it myself, though Jack always used a machine. He called his first one his “Thanatron”. It’s Greek. It means suicide machine. He was only able to use it twice, though, because they took away his medical licence, so he could no longer get access to the drugs he needed. That didn’t stop him. He was a genius. He called his second invention the “Mercitron”. You needed a mask with that one, to release the carbon monoxide. It worked the same as connecting a hosepipe to your exhaust and trailing it inside your car.

  ‘That’s how we met. I contacted him to assist me into the next world, because I was too big a coward. I wanted him to take my life for me. But his machines need the client to press the button or flick the valve switch. I couldn’t even do that. He talked me around. He said all I needed was a new life, not the next one. He even offered it to me. I became one of his disciples, so to speak. Thanks to him, I know what it means to be divine, to be omnipotent, to be loved more by strangers than my own family. You wouldn’t understand unless you’d had someone look into your eyes the way they look into mine. The trust, the subjugation, the gift to me of the most precious thing they possess, even when what’s waiting on the other side might be the flames of hell. Afterwards I lie with them – wash them down, and hold them as all mothers do their children. What better way is there to die than as if you were being born?’

  Liz slid off the bed and started to push her legs, trying to back up. They were like lead. ‘What?’

  ‘It’s the sodium thiopental – barbiturates. The first one was saline. The sodium thiopental will just calm you down. Some describe the sensation as a Nirvana. The third injection is the last. It contains potassium chloride to stop the heart, and pancuronium bromide to prevent your muscles from spasming and jerking.’

  ‘Why did you come back?’ Liz asked, trying to think straight through the haze. She had to wake Conor and get him out of here. Ellen was a foot away from his neck, and her horrific bag of tricks was now sitting on the bed.

  ‘A journalist contacted me and told me he was going to write a big story unless I paid him off. He’d hacked into Derek’s email and got my contact details, and from that he was able to hack into my account and find out about my private business … Jack’s business. He said it was the story of the decade, and told me I’d have to give him what he could get for it from a news corporation to stop him running with it. I agreed to come back to Ireland and meet him. Secrecy is the only way we can exist in most of the world. We angels are not about to trade up our lives to go to prison. What would happen to all the souls we have to save?’

  ‘You’ll never get away with this,’ Liz said. Her words were slurred.

  ‘I already have.’ Ellen moved to the wardrobe and opened the door. The movement caused Paul Bell’s lifeless head to slump on to his chest. ‘Murder is a meaningless word for us. The greatest gift you can give someone is a life free of pain.’

  Liz tried to bolt for her son but everything was out of kilter. The room was swaying.

  ‘Not much longer,’ Ellen said, watching. She tilted her head and gave a strange smile, then headed for the bathroom door between Liz and the door out on to the corridor and opened it. Liz could see an arm dangling over the rim of the bath. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.

  ‘Don’t worry about him. He’s already passed. He’s a reporter, too. I wasn’t expecting either of them when I went to the house that had belonged to the one that tried blackmailing me. I’d brought the solicitor in the boot of your car, Liz, and I’d kept her under sedation in a bedroom while I quizzed her to find out if she’d told anyone else. I had to kill her because Derek had told her about me. But I couldn’t do that until I’d established if anyone else knew. I got Amanda in without being seen, through the grounds of the old convent.

  ‘It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because while I was hiding out waiting for my opportunity, they thought Amanda was dead and they decided to dump her body. I’d cut myself – it’s become a ritual now when I’m with a subject – and he just presumed the blood was hers without even looking for a wound. I hid out in another of the rooms while he argued with the guy who’s in the bath.

  ‘I felt bad that they took her out of the house alive, because I pride myself on making the passing painless,’ Ellen said. ‘I was glad of the chance to punish them, knowing I had to kill them anyway because they knew too much. Today, I rang Paul and told him I wanted to meet in my hotel room. I told him I was going to pay him to keep quiet. Jack was always afraid of some weirdo summoning us to a hotel room with an ulterior motive, so I always carry a gun, that’s how I managed to persuade Amanda to get into the car in the first place, on Friday night. But when it came to my meeting with Paul Bell, the weapon jammed and he and his pal were able to wrestle it off me. They drove me to the mountains and almost killed me, but they didn’t have the balls, and the promise of money got me safely back to my hotel room again.’

  Liz tried to move her eyes to Conor, but even they had turned to stone. Nothing moved. She was locked in the prison of her body.

  ‘When I met them, I let them think I was playing along, got them to tell me everything, who else knew. They tried to turn Jack’s work into something evil, when it’s holy. He was a God. Don’t worry, Liz. There’ll be no pain. I’ll give you the fatal dose once you slip under. Not long now. And I’ll visit Derek again before I go. It was too risky when I was there earlier. The only other one who knows I’m still alive is the cop from all those years ago. They’re the last people I need to send on their way. If the press find out I’m alive, they won’t stop sniffing until they find me. That would be a catastrophe.’

  A rap on the door made Ellen turn quickly.

  Liz’s eyes moved to Conor.

  ‘That’ll be one of them now,’ Ellen said, quickly. ‘Can’t have you acting all weird on me and giving the game away.’ Hurrying over to the wardrobe door, she banged it shut, then roughly started to push Liz through into the bathroom, where she piled her on top of a very dead Niall Toland.

  65

  WITHIN A FEW hours, Jo had relocated the incident room to her kitchen, which quickly filled with the core members of her team. She wasn’t leaving her family exposed again, not until she’d worked out where she’d gone wrong on the case. Cuddling Harry on her lap, she organized a set of crayons to colour in a picture of Dora the Explorer, while spoonfeeding him some alphabet spaghetti – his favourite.

  ‘Doesn’t Dora have a little cousin called Diego?’ Joan asked, giving Jo a wink.

  ‘I only love Dora,’ Harry answered, giving the page a kiss.

  ‘Bless,’ Joan said, putting a hand to her heart.

  Jo kissed the top of his head, nuzzling his blond curls with her face. She promised herself never to let a case come before her family again.

  Foxy carried five mugs with spoons jangling inside and a teapot to the table. ‘Can you get the milk and sugar?’ he asked Aishling, who was surveying Jo’s framed family snaps on the wall.

  ‘And biscuits,’ Joan said.

  ‘Derek’s been discharged from hospital,’ Sexton said, finishing up a call on his mobile. ‘Alfie’s going to have him charged this afternoon.’

  ‘What with?’ Jo objected. ‘Amanda wasn’t murdered, and they haven’t got any of the missing women.’

  ‘With attempted arson, attempting to wipe out his family, oh, and with extortion,’ Sexton said.

  ‘Can you find out if Alfie’s interviewed Liz yet?’ she asked. Harry turned to check her tone, unsure if he was being scolded. He looked so deeply into her face it gave Jo a jolt. With one reassuring smile, he went back to colouring, and Jo acknowledged yet again that she was going to have to tone it down. She sighed.

  Foxy slid a mug over to her, out of reac
h of Harry’s hands. It didn’t matter, as he wriggled down to the floor, telling her he wanted to watch CBeebies. After settling him in another room, Jo returned to the team, reaching for her mug.

  ‘Right, where were we?’ She took a sip and looked at them expectantly over the rim.

  ‘The techies have been going through Derek’s email. It looks like Alfie does have a case of extortion against him,’ Foxy said.

  Jo tilted her head.

  ‘But not against the other residents of Nuns Cross,’ Foxy went on. ‘Derek was blackmailing Mervyn. That’s where he got his hundred grand. Liz’s car was towed from the hospital car park. It had been sitting there with no sign of an owner. I had it checked for tampering, because I presumed you’d have wanted that to be done, too.’

  Jo nodded. ‘Excellent deduction. How did you get on?’

  ‘They found some device linked to the starter wire that would have caused an explosion’, he said, ‘if they hadn’t accidentally cut the starter wire in the process. They must have done it while Liz was in the hospital with Derek. The same sort of device has been used before by mobsters, so I couldn’t work out how Liz could have crossed people like that until I found out Derek had taken on Mervyn. Derek’s brakes had been cut, by the way, which explains his crash.’

  ‘If Mervyn and his crew were putting the squeeze on Derek, if they wanted their money back that badly, maybe they started the fire at Amanda’s office,’ Jo suggested. ‘You need to get on to Alfie, Sexton, and tell him no visitors for Derek.’

  ‘He’s already had one,’ Sexton said nonchalantly. ‘Any bickies? I’m starving.’

  He looked up. ‘Don’t worry, Jo. First off, it was a woman. She said she was Derek’s sister. And secondly, Liz recognized her.’

  Jo pounced. ‘Liz showed up at the hospital?’

  ‘Yeah, sorry, I forgot to say.’ Sexton pulled a face.

  ‘Anything else?’ Jo asked, glancing from face to face.

  ‘You’ll love this,’ Sue said. ‘Helena Moriarty, the woman entitled to the newspaper reward is the mother of Niall Toland’s girlfriend.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ Jo said. ‘How did he think he’d get away with that?’

  ‘Helena claims it was only because of Toland that she was so interested in the story of the missing baby in the first place, and that that was why she acted on her suspicion and phoned in the information.’

  ‘Oh, and Hawthorne was looking for you,’ Joan piped up.

  ‘Makes a change,’ Jo reacted.

  ‘The lab results turned up something in Amanda’s blood he hadn’t foreseen.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Enough sedative to stop a horse, and a rare one. He said he’s only ever heard of Jack Kevorkian using it.’

  ‘Jack who?’

  ‘You know, Dr Death. The guy who killed his clients for cash.’

  ‘You mean euthanasia?’ Jo asked.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Sexton, get on to Hawthorne ASAP. Find out the exact name of the drug he’s talking about. Then contact the medical team monitoring Derek, and tell them they need to run tests for its presence in his bloodstream.’

  ‘Are you saying that you think Derek’s sister is trying to kill him?’

  ‘I’m saying we presumed that Ellen was dead after we found out that it was her blood in the room.’

  Rory arrived into the room. ‘Mum, Dad rang. He’s got the all-clear. They’ve given him a list of things to watch out for, and they want him to come back if he shows any signs of the symptoms, but he said he feels fine. Nothing’s broken. He’s just sore.’

  ‘I’ll collect him,’ Jo said, standing.

  ‘No, I offered for you but he said he wants to go and see someone first.’

  ‘Who?’ Jo asked.

  ‘He said you’d know. He said it was a blast from the past.’

  Jo stood up so quickly her chair upended. ‘Ring him now, Rory. Ask him where he’s going?’

  ‘I don’t have to …’

  ‘Just do it,’ Jo snapped.

  ‘No, Mum, I don’t have to because Dad already told me. He’s meeting someone called Angel in the Shelbourne.’

  ‘Ellen,’ Jo said.

  66

  CONOR OPENED ONE eye, and estimated the distance Anakin Skywalker would have to travel through space and time to rescue Princess Leia chained in a dungeon in the City of Flies. The queen fly wanted to put worms in Babia’s nose to turn her into a fly, too, but Skywalker realized what she was trying to do. He ran really quickly at the queen fly and jumped on her back. She started screaming and thrashing and trying to slam his back against the wall, but Anakin grabbed her spare injection from her bag on the bed, and he stabbed it into her neck, making her scream. She fell on her face and dropped the injection she’d been carrying and he stabbed that into her, too. His leg was trapped under her, but he managed to free it and get into the bathroom where Princess Leia was making sounds like a crazy woman. She was lying on top of a huge, ugly green spider. Maybe there were flies in her mouth already, Anakin thought, and if so, all flies would have to be burned underground to stop them spreading. Anakin reached for Babia’s arm and she made a noise that sounded like ‘Water’. Anakin turned the taps on and filled a glass and held it to her mouth. She drank like a woman who’d just fought a million evil droids in a desert, and then she poured the rest of the glass over her head.

  ‘More, son,’ she said, ‘more, more,’ and Anakin kept filling and passing over the glass until she started to get her strength back and sound more human and less fly-like. But then a door outside burst open and General Oogway – a good guy – called his mom’s name.

  67

  ‘WHAT HAPPENED?’ DAN asked Liz, limping up to Ellen’s body. ‘I heard shouting from outside, and the door wasn’t locked, so …’

  ‘My sister came back from the dead,’ Liz answered. Her speech was coming back slowly. She still sounded like a stroke victim.

  Dan cleared his throat. ‘You OK, son?’

  Liz glared. ‘Can we get out of here? I don’t want him traumatized any more than he’s already been.’

  ‘What happened?’ Dan asked the kid.

  ‘I HATE injections,’ he said, ‘and earrings, needles for sewing, and safety pins, anything that could make someone bleed. Mostly injections, though …’

  ‘He’s in shock,’ Liz said, flapping. ‘He’s got … issues. I don’t want to have this discussion in front of him.’

  ‘I really, really hate needles,’ the kid said. ‘Brooches and badges do it, too. They totally freak me out.

  ‘There’s a goner in the wardrobe and another one in the bathroom,’ the kid went on. He leaned towards Dan, and said with emphasis, ‘Bodies.’

  Dan limped to the bathroom door and looked inside. He headed to the wardrobe door and took a step back. ‘What the fuck …? ’

  Liz was pacing. ‘My sister worked for Jack Kevorkian, helping people to take their own lives. She wanted to take her own life from her teens but couldn’t go through with it. She said our dad abused her, but I don’t believe it. She invited us here for a big reunion to explain why she’s been missing for the last twenty years, and then to tell me that she wanted to take her own life. She said these men were her clients. I was trying to talk her out of it, but I couldn’t stop her.’

  ‘No, Mum,’ Conor said. ‘The fat lady was here with the dead guys when we arrived, and she tried to kill you, so I killed her, remember?’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ Liz snapped. ‘Go.’ She pointed to the corridor.

  ‘No, it’s all right, you can stay,’ Dan said. He fiddled with his watch and handed it to the boy, showing him the stopwatch function.

  Conor started timing himself to run the length of the back wall.

  ‘So what’s the truth?’ Dan asked her.

  ‘OK,’ Liz said. She put her hands to her mouth. ‘I killed her after she’d bumped off the other two and tried to kill us.’

  ‘Mum, don’t be a dick, th
e guy said he wants the truth,’ Conor said, bolting past.

  Liz looked panic-stricken.

  Dan shot her a pull-the-other-one look.

  ‘I did it … in self defence.’

  ‘Actually, General Skywalker should get the credit,’ Conor said cheerfully.

  Liz shot a look of sheer terror at Dan. ‘What are you going to do?’

  He didn’t get a chance to answer. They both turned at the sound of a hard single rap at the door. It was followed instantly by a shout, ‘Gardaí, open up!’ and then it crashed open.

  Somehow, in the commotion, Liz managed to cock the gun she’d taken from the man in the bath, held behind her back, and pointed it at Dan.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ a woman’s voice said from the doorway. She was pointing a gun too, at Liz.

  Liz fired to show her she was serious; plasterwork from the ceiling came spattering down in clouds of grit, and when the dust cleared she was pointing the gun at Dan’s head.

  ‘Put it down, Jo,’ Dan said, extending an arm towards the door.

  Jo took a second to size up his request and then dropped her weapon. She told someone out of view standing beside her in the corridor to back up.

  ‘You know her?’ Liz asked.

  ‘She’s my wife. I knew your sister, too.’

  ‘Ellen was going to kill you,’ Liz said, sliding down the wall and sitting on her hunkers, still pointing the gun at Dan. ‘He’s just a kid,’ she said about Conor, who was under the bed.

  ‘It’s all right, I know, I believe everything you’ve told me,’ Dan said.

  ‘What happened?’ Jo asked.

  ‘Liz came here to meet her sister, Ellen,’ Dan said in a flat, unconvincing tone. ‘Two of Ellen’s clients were in the room and already expired when Liz arrived with her son. But, it turns out, Ellen just wanted to say goodbye.’