by Des Ekin
His companion was a short, dumpy woman in a rain mac. She was in her late forties and her hair, dyed chestnut brown, stuck out in permed curls from beneath a red beret. Her eyes stared myopically from behind bottle-thick lenses.
‘Mind if we sit here, Steve?’ asked O’Rourke. He stared intensely at Tara as only detectives feel they have a right to do, checking her out, matching her to some internal computer database of faces.
‘Come ahead, come ahead,’ invited Steve genially, moving around to create room. ‘Always pleased to give a seat to an expectant parent.’ He patted the detective’s rotund stomach. ‘When’s it due?’
‘Same time as your transfer to the Aran Islands,’ growled the cop. He had a deep, chain-smoker’s voice. A voice like a rusty shovel scraping up damp slack in a coalyard.
‘Come on. If that stomach was on a woman, she would be pregnant,’ persisted Steve.
‘It was,’ said O’Rourke, ‘and she is.’
‘At the risk of interrupting all this male bonding,’ said a cultured voice from directly behind him, ‘may I take a seat before my soup congeals even further than it has already?’
‘Sorry, Rita,’ said O’Rourke, setting down his tray and squeezing himself into a seat. He stuck out a hand towards Tara. ‘Phil O’Rourke. Inspector. Are you a Member, or are you unfortunate enough to have this gobshite as your friend?’
He was asking if Tara was a police officer, or a ‘Member of the Garda Siochána’ as the ponderous official term went. Tara smiled as she shook his hand. ‘Friend, and fortunate to be one,’ she said. ‘Tara Ross.’
‘Tara’s with the Clare Independent,’ explained Steve. ‘But don’t worry. She’s okay.’
‘Well, I’m glad she’s okay,’ growled O’Rourke, ‘’cause nobody else is. I’ve got a pain in my arse with this murder and I’m supposed to be on my rest-day. Tara, forgive me. I’m pleased and honoured to make your acquaintance.’
The woman called Rita was taking off her mac and hanging it over the back of her seat. She sat down to Tara’s left. Tara was now trapped in the corner.
O’Rourke did the introductions. ‘Tara, Steve, I’d like you to meet Dr Rita Barnes, from the State Pathologist’s office. She’s fresh from doing the post-mortem at the hospital, although perhaps fresh isn’t the right adjective to use in the circumstances.’
‘How do you do,’ said Rita with a thin smile. ‘No, fresh is fine. I’ve had a lot less fresh in my time.’ She attacked her oxtail soup.
‘She’s established the time of death from stomach contents,’ mumbled O’Rourke, his voice muffled by a mouthful of bacon, lettuce and tomato.
Rita nodded. ‘We can tell a lot from the process of digestion, which naturally stops at the time of death,’ she explained to Tara. ‘According to witnesses, this victim had supper very late the previous night – roast beef, I understand. The contents were well digested, more or less to the consistency of…well, actually, this oxtail soup would be a good example.’
She took a loud slurp of the soup and smiled proudly.
Tara nodded, determined not to express on her face the nausea she felt inside. Trapped between table and wall, she also felt a terrifying sense of claustrophobia and it contributed to her mounting panic.
‘So what does this tell you?’ Steve was asking.
‘Well…’ Dr Barnes waved her spoon around in a vague gesture, ‘it’s confirmation more than anything else. Combined with other factors such as body temperature, and the absence of rigor mortis at the time her body was discovered, it enables us to establish fairly accurately the point in time at which Mrs Kennedy met her, er, unfortunate demise.’
‘Later rather than sooner?’ guessed Steve.
‘Yes,’ confirmed Dr Barnes. ‘Certainly not before five am. Probably later. And definitely no later than seven.’
She put a large dollop of mayonnaise on her toasted cheese sandwich and spread it carefully. Tara studied the wallpaper, trying to fight back another overpowering wave of nausea.
‘So,’ said O’Rourke, ‘that puts paid to the idea that she surprised a burglar when she came home the previous night.’
Rita Barnes nodded vigorously. ‘My evidence to the inquest will be, death between five and seven. I understand you, Sergeant McNamara, were on the scene by seven-twenty.’
‘And don’t forget that Fergal Kennedy discovered her at six forty-five, as soon as he got home,’ Tara suddenly burst out.
She felt three pairs of eyes staring at her.
‘So he says,’ growled O’Rourke, after a while. ‘All we can establish for sure is that he phoned Steve just after seven, so he didn’t do the job after that. The times fit, all right. I’d say he topped her at around six. That gives him an hour or so to calm down, get rid of the weapon and prepare his story before phoning.’
‘Talking of the weapon?’ prompted Steve, looking at the pathologist.
Rita Barnes finished her sandwich and patted her precise mouth with a paper napkin. ‘Blade, around fifteen centimetres long by around four, five at its widest point. Curved at the business end. Extremely sharp, as keen as a surgeon’s scalpel or a butcher’s knife. Handle made of wood.’
‘What sort of knife was it? Any theories?’ asked O’Rourke.
‘Doesn’t seem like a regular kitchen knife. I would suggest a butcher’s blade, except there was no butcher’s skill involved in the actual killing. It was a frenzied attack, anywhere and everywhere he could reach. She tried to defend herself with her hands and arms – they were pretty badly slashed as well. The man was a maniac; don’t quote me on that. And you’ – she turned to Tara – ‘you don’t quote me at all.’
Steve McNamara tried to get back to the subject of the weapon, which was his main concern. ‘So I’ll tell my men to look for a six-inch bladed knife with a wooden handle,’ he restated.
The pathologist called for a waitress. ‘Coffee? Anybody else? Four coffees, please. Yes, sergeant,’ she confirmed. ‘That’s the basic description. There may be another, rather unusual characteristic – I’m not sure. And there’s something odd about the angle of cut. I want to wait until I get a second opinion from forensic.’
‘Search the house and gardens again, Steve,’ instructed O’Rourke. ‘And the farm outhouses, and all that vegetation down the cliff. We’ll get the sub-aqua lads out tomorrow. Kennedy may even have fecked it out into the Atlantic.’
To Tara’s surprise, the next voice she heard was her own.
‘What about checking along the roads leading out of Claremoon Harbour?’ the voice said. It sounded thin and desperate. ‘I mean, it could have been dumped in a ditch by some killer as he was escaping from the village. Couldn’t it?’
Steve was about to speak, but Phil O’Rourke stopped him. ‘It’s not her fault, Steve. All these reporters, all these media types, they’ve been raised on American cop shows and horror movies. They think the typical murderer is a “psycho”’ – he raised saffron-stained fingers to illustrate quote-marks – ‘someone in a balaclava mask, stalking a stranger. We should be throwing up roadblocks on the county line and putting out APBs to prevent another serial killing.’
‘That’s not what I said,’ protested Tara, taking a drink of tepid coffee just to give her arid throat something to swallow. It tasted terrible. The café’s usual brand had been replaced by instant mild-grade powder, probably because of the volume of demand.
‘No, but it’s the way you’re conditioned to think,’ said the detective. ‘It rarely happens that way in Ireland. Here, we keep it in the family. Or at least within our circle of friends. Most killers know their victims; many are related to them; a significant number are married to them. And the vast majority aren’t thugs or crazies. They’re ordinary decent people, living ordinary decent lives, until one day they work themselves up into a state of fury over something. It often happens after a few drinks have distorted their better judgement.’
Dr Barnes raised a cigarette as though calling for silence. ‘Getting back to the s
ubject,’ she said, ‘what does Fergal Kennedy have to say about his movements on the night in question?’
‘Yes,’ said Steve. ‘What was he doing, out until six forty-five am in the first place? Enjoying the pulsating nightlife of Claremoon Harbour?’
‘He’s a farmer, isn’t he?’ objected Dr Barnes. ‘If you’re a farmer, six forty-five am isn’t early. It’s late. He probably came back for breakfast after he’d finished milking the bullocks or something.’
‘Cows,’ corrected Steve.
‘Sorry,’ said the doctor. ‘Not my field.’
‘Anyway, that’s not the case,’ said Steve. ‘Ever since the father’s death, the working operation of the farm has been contracted out. Fergal Kennedy had nothing to do with it.’
Everyone’s eyes turned back to the detective.
‘So what was he doing before he discovered the body at six forty-five?’ Dr Barnes repeated.
Phil O’Rourke looked at Tara for a long time. Unable to meet his eyes, she stared down at her coffee cup and fiddled with her spoon.
‘Going walkabout,’ the detective said at last. ‘He didn’t feel sleepy, so he went walking.’
‘All night?’ asked Steve incredulously. ‘He went strolling around the village all night?’
‘I must say that’s a hopeful sign from your viewpoint,’ snorted Dr Barnes. ‘No jury’s going to believe that.’
‘Well,’ said the detective, his eyes still fixed on Tara, ‘we do have a statement from a fisherman who was putting out lobster pots and thinks he saw Fergal Kennedy walking down by the shore, near the harbour, sometime between six and seven. But not a single witness has come forward to vouch for his whereabouts before that. Not a single witness.’
‘Tara,’ said Steve, suddenly. ‘Tara, are you all right?’
Tara didn’t hear him. All she heard was the pounding of blood as it rushed through her head. She had the detached feeling of playing a bit-part in a movie with the volume turned down and the other players’ voices sounding far, far away. When she spoke, even her own voice sounded echoing and unreal, as though it was coming back at her on a faulty long-distance phone line.
‘He wasn’t walking all night,’ she said slowly.
‘Tara, do you want a drink of water or something?’ asked Steve. ‘You’re looking pale as a ghost. Rita, can you…?’
But the detective had thrown a large arm in front of the pathologist, preventing her from moving.
‘No,’ he warned. ‘You said he wasn’t walking all night, Tara. Do you have any information about this case? Something you should be telling us?’
Tara took a deep breath. She knew that what she was about to say would shatter the comfortable, well-ordered routine of her life. There would be a sea-change, and after this, things in Claremoon Harbour could never again be the same.
‘Fergal wasn’t walking all through the night,’ she said at last.
‘How do you know that, Tara?’ asked O’Rourke. His voice has become quiet and intense.
‘Because he spent the night with me.’
Chapter Six
THE SUDDEN silence that followed echoed around the tiny café like a quarry-blast. People at the furthest tables felt the shockwaves and abruptly stopped talking, although they had heard nothing of the conversation. Even the Danish tourists looked up in startled surprise.
Steve McNamara laughed self-consciously. ‘You have to get used to Tara’s unorthodox sense of humour,’ he said, his voice running out of conviction halfway through the sentence.
Dr Barnes stood up suddenly, throwing back the last remnants of her coffee. ‘Well, I see you gentlemen and lady will have a lot to discuss,’ she said briskly, ‘and I have a lot to be a-doing. See you anon.’
She directed a quick smile of encouragement at Tara. Then her cup clattered back into its saucer and she was gone. ‘No comment, no comment,’ she sang cheerfully in a confident contralto as she made her way through the gauntlet of coffee-sipping press.
Steve toyed with his spoon. ‘Would you like me to leave, too, Inspector?’
Tara noticed the subtle shift of atmosphere. The casual style of address had gone. This was formal.
‘No, it’s okay.’
The electrically-charged silence endured as O’Rourke continued to stare at Tara, quietly assessing her. At length he put a comforting hand on her arm.
‘I know this is hard for you, love,’ he said kindly. ‘It would have been a lot easier to keep quiet.’
‘It wasn’t that,’ she said miserably. ‘Up until yesterday afternoon I assumed Fergal had told you the truth about his whereabouts that night. I was just waiting for someone to ask me to corroborate. When nobody did, I realised what had happened – that he’d spun you some stupid yarn to cover up for me and keep me out of the whole business.’
She glanced at O’Rourke, but his face betrayed nothing.
‘So I made up my mind to tell Steve McNamara the full story,’ Tara continued. ‘It’s just that I would have felt more comfortable talking to him. I tried to tell him yesterday, I tried to tell him this morning. And I was just about to make a full statement when you and Dr Barnes came in.’
She looked to Steve for confirmation, but the garda sergeant was staring fixedly at his oversized boots.
Tara felt irritated. ‘Look, I don’t give a damn about what people think.’ Her voice sounded hard as flint. ‘Just get it over with, and let’s get Fergal out of there.’
O’Rourke nodded understandingly. ‘You know I’ll have to ask you to come over to my office and make a formal statement,’ he said. He glanced at his watch. ‘And I give you my word Fergal will be released almost immediately.’
‘Of course I’ll make a statement,’ she said. ‘I’ve nothing to hide.’
‘Right. Let’s go.’
The café had reverted to its normal hum of cross-talk. With forced levity, Steve exchanged a few jokes with the reporters as they settled their bills and left.
A short walk down the street – a street that had somehow changed character completely in the last half-hour – and she was back at her old primary school.
O’Rourke had taken over one of the classrooms as his personal office. On the wall, a hand-painted poster said: IT IS SUNNY. IT IS WINDY. IT IS RAINY. WHAT IS IT TODAY?
What is it today? thought Tara as she sat waiting for O’Rourke to begin. It is the worst day of my entire life.
The woman police officer from Donegal sat by Tara’s side as the detective officially cautioned her and began to take her statement.
‘Okay,’ he said formally. ‘You say you spent the night with Fergal Kennedy.’
She thought she detected censure in his voice.
‘Yes. I’m sorry if you disapprove.’
‘What makes you think I disapprove?’
‘Do you?’
‘That’s not my area of concern,’ said O’Rourke, waving a hand dismissively as he produced a packet of Camel Filter. ‘Cigarette? Mind if I do? No, what I’m mostly interested in is times, Tara. Exact times.’
Tara thought carefully. ‘We met at around half nine the night before. We’d arranged to have dinner together. He picked me up from home in his car.’
‘What car?’
‘An American Corvette. It’s an imported model.’
‘Why nine-thirty? Bit late for dinner around these parts, isn’t it?’
It was. Most restaurants and hotels stopped serving meals at around nine. But Fergal had been helping her father on the Róisín Dubh. They hadn’t finished until around eight-thirty, and after that Fergal had to shower and change.
‘He was working late,’ she explained.
‘Okay. So where did you go?’
‘We drove to Ennis for a drink and then a meal.’
‘Long way to go for a meal.’
Tara shrugged. ‘We didn’t socialise much around Claremoon Harbour. People here see you together once or twice and they start asking if you’ve chosen the menu for the wedding reception. I’m a
private sort of person, Inspector, and I’d hate being the subject of gossip and pub-talk.’
O’Rourke nodded sympathetically. If that was the case, then the statement she was giving was about to unleash her worst nightmare. From this moment on, she would be the central subject of gossip and pub-talk in the entire county.
‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘Which restaurant did you go to?’
She told him the name of the tiny late-night Italian bistro they frequented from time to time.
‘Good choice,’ he said. ‘They do a great osso bucca.’
‘I had seafood carbonara with penne. He had spaghetti pesto. And we shared two bottles of Chianti Classico. I’m sorry…you probably don’t need all this.’ She was feeling confused and her tongue seemed to be operating on autopilot.
The young woman garda was looking at her with horrified fascination.
‘That won’t be necessary, Tara,’ said O’Rourke. ‘What time did you leave?’
‘Late. Around one-thirty. They were hoovering around our feet for the last half-hour.’
‘Who drove home?’
‘He did. I know he shouldn’t have, after drinking a bottle of wine. But I suppose a drink-driving charge is the last thing he should be worried about right now.’
O’Rourke didn’t react. ‘We have no evidence of any motoring offence,’ he said. ‘And then?’
‘Straight back to my house.’ She gave the address of the small two-storey cottage on the outskirts of the village. ‘I invited Fergal in for a cup of coffee.’
‘Time?’
‘Two-thirty or so.’
He made a note. ‘So you had coffee.’
She nodded. ‘Coffee and brandy.’
‘Coffee and cognac,’ he repeated, scrupulously noting down everything she said.
‘No. It was Armagnac.’