Stone Heart

by Des Ekin

  He stared at her as though everything had been made clear and a logical point had been proven.

  Tara shrugged with exaggerated carelessness. She said: ‘You’ve been through a rough patch, I know, Manus, and so have I. But to tell you the truth, I’m starting to get cold. You know my cottage? It’s just down below. Why don’t we go down there and we’ll talk it all out over a nice hot bowl of soup and home-made bread. Maybe some rashers and eggs?’

  It was worth a try. For a brief moment she saw his eyes flicker with indecision as the hunger gnawing at his stomach almost overcame his willpower. But it lasted only for a split second. He looked at her with a sly cunning, as though she had almost succeeded in putting one over on him.

  ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘That wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.’

  ‘Please yourself.’ Tara affected superficial annoyance. ‘But I’m off.’

  ‘Don’t go YET!’

  The last word was a strangled scream. With surprising speed, he was on his feet, by her side, holding her arm in a grip like an iron clamp.

  ‘Manus! Let go!’ Tara could hardly control her panic. She had mentally rehearsed half a dozen moves to stop him doing exactly this. But she hadn’t had time to do any of them.

  He shook his head, growing more and more excited. ‘I can’t. You have to understand why I can’t. The devil wants you. The devil.’

  Far, far away, more faint voices. Nearer at hand, much nearer, the sound of something rustling through the undergrowth.

  ‘No, you don’t understand,’ she said, trying hard to keep authority in her voice. ‘There are men with guns all round here. They’re looking for me.’

  He paused, as though unsure whether to believe her. ‘It’s not true. You’re lying. Just like all the others. Everybody lies to Manus Kennedy.’

  ‘Listen!’ Her voice was a command. The rustling and crunching of undergrowth sounded again, this time nearer at hand.

  His eyes flickered to the right and he appeared almost to sniff the air like some creature of the forest. ‘You’re lying,’ he repeated. ‘That’s not a man. That’s an animal. Squirrel or a rat – no, not a squirrel. Bigger. A dog, maybe.’

  The ferocity of his grip brought tears to her eyes. She couldn’t play any more roles. ‘Please let me go, Manus. I’ve done you no harm.’

  ‘No, you’ve done me no harm, and you’ve done the devil no harm, but the devil wants you dead anyway.’

  ‘But why? Why does the devil want me dead?’

  ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me, does he? Maybe he doesn’t know himself. But it’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen very soon. You have to come with me.’

  The rustling had ceased and the forest had become eerily quiet once again.

  Then Tara’s eyes open wide with astonishment and disbelief. Behind Manus’s shoulder, at the edge of the little clearing, she caught sight of movement. Painful movement, dragging movement, movement with excruciating slowness.

  ‘The animals that died in the fire,’ she said, a desperate plan forming out of despair. ‘Those animals, Manus. You can still see their eyes in your dreams?’

  He stopped suddenly in the act of dragging her away. ‘How do you know about my dreams?’ he demanded. He began breathing fast, heavily, regularly, as though building up a head of steam of uncontrollable emotion. ‘The eyes are the worst part. I can always see their eyes.’

  She leaned towards him so that her voice became a whisper in his ear. ‘Look behind you, Manus. The eyes are still watching.’

  Still holding her firmly, he spun around.

  The first thing he saw was a pair of large, brown eyes, staring into his with suffering and a dumb incomprehension that could almost have passed for pleading.

  There, half dead with pain and exhaustion, lay the wounded deer, collapsed in an untidy heap after its last few desperate steps. Bluebottles buzzed furiously around the dried blood on its injured, torn haunch. Its broken leg, trailing uselessly behind, seemed to have collected half the debris of the forest in its wake. Now the deer was lying down to die, and its eyes mirrored its anguish and despair.

  The eyes of Manus Kennedy met the eyes of the beast, and his dark nightmares came to life.

  He screamed, a long drawn-out, animal scream of unendurable dread.

  And he released Tara’s arm.

  She pushed him as violently as she could, trying to knock him off-balance before leaping away and plunging into the forest undergrowth. Briars ripped at her skin, pine branches tore her clothes, but she didn’t care as her heart pounded against her aching ribcage and her breath roared through her opened lungs, running, running, running for her life.

  The last thing she saw, from the corner of her eye, as she sprinted out of the clearing, was Manus Kennedy falling slowly to his knees. He wasn’t running after her. In fact, he wasn’t even moving. He was a statue of stone, a kneeling, praying penitent confronting the demons of his innermost soul.

  And that’s how they found him, ten minutes later, after Tara had plunged out of the forest into the protective arms of Sergeant Steve McNamara.

  He was still kneeling there motionless, his blue eyes fixed on the brown eyes of the stricken beast, his face transformed with something halfway between terror and ecstasy.

  As the clearing slowly filled with uniformed men, and the air became loud with the crackling stutter of radios, Manus Kennedy’s expression didn’t flicker and his eyes didn’t move.

  But when the man from the gun club stepped forward and dispatched the panting, suffering deer with one expert, close-range shot, it was Manus Kennedy who collapsed on the forest floor, groaning and whimpering as though a silver bullet had entered his own confused brain and put an end to the turmoil of his own anguished life.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  THEY TOLD Tara that the shock of the ordeal would strike her later, with all the force of a runaway juggernaut, and that it would come when she least expected it. But it never did. Declining Dr Maguire’s offer of a sedative, Tara settled instead for a single stiff brandy, and rode it all out with the help of Dr Remy and Dr Martin.

  She watched the television news bulletin in which Manus Kennedy was shown, looking even more werewolfish in the harsh glare of the TV lights, as he was escorted from Ennis Garda station to a special sitting of the district court, where he was remanded in custody on a holding charge of assaulting Melanie. He had refused to answer the charge and a solicitor had been appointed by the State to conduct his defence. The judge was told that a more serious charge was pending against the defendant and bail was opposed on the grounds that witnesses could be intimidated.

  ‘The arrest and charge follows one of the most intensive manhunts ever mounted in County Clare,’ said RTÉ’s crime correspondent. ‘Involving more than a hundred gardaí and scores of civil defence workers, it was instigated following the brutal murder of a local mother-of-two, Ann Kennedy, and a subsequent assault on a young woman at another house in Claremoon Harbour.’

  The report ended with an interview with the Garda Commissioner, who paid tribute to the outstanding work of the gardaí in the operation and promised that vigilance would be maintained to protect the people of outlying country areas.

  Tara turned off the television. ‘Funny sort of world,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ asked Melanie, absent-mindedly swishing the remains of a measure of brandy in her glass. She had taken the same medical treatment, in a selfless gesture of solidarity with her friend.

  ‘All the times I sabotaged stag hunts during my student days,’ said Tara. ‘I never thought I’d see the day when a deer saved my life in return.’

  Melanie laughed. ‘It must have been a one in a zillion chance,’ she said. ‘You must be the luckiest person in the entire universe, if not beyond. Can you give me six numbers? I’m filling out a Lotto ticket and I want to be sure of winning.’

  ‘Perhaps it wasn’t just luck,’ argued Tara. ‘The OPW man told me that some of the deer in the forest a
re quite tame, so perhaps it heard the voices and came towards us for help. Besides, I think I deserve just a few awards of merit in the quick-thinking and presence-of-mind categories.’

  ‘Which nearly – but not quite – cancels out your incredible stupidity in getting yourself into that situation in the first place,’ Melanie reminded her. ‘Anyway’ – she raised her glass in a toast – ‘the creep is safely behind bars by now, and if there’s any justice he’ll be there for a long time.’

  ‘And so say all of us.’ There was a belated tap on the living-room door. The two women looked around to see a tall, heavily-built figure in garda uniform.

  ‘Oh, hello, Sergeant McNamara.’ Tara’s voice was stiffly formal. She still hadn’t forgotten the hostility Steve had shown towards her after she’d given Fergal his alibi. ‘Have a seat. Melanie, I’d like you to meet Sergeant Steve McNamara, who used to be a good friend of mine.’

  The sergeant’s rough-hewn face turned bright red with embarrassment. ‘Tara, I…’

  ‘Oh-oh,’ said Melanie, sensing the atmosphere, ‘I can see you two have things to say. Excuse me, I’ll just nip out to the kitchen to…check the oven.’

  ‘But there isn’t anything in the oven, Mel.’ Tara was poker-faced.

  ‘Well, I’ll just check that the oven’s still there. There’ve been several cases of unexplained oven abductions.’ Melanie flashed the bewildered sergeant her brightest smile. ‘Cup of tea, inspector?’

  ‘Thanks, love. White, three sugars.’

  There was a long, awkward silence after Melanie left the room.

  ‘Well, Steve, to what do I owe the pleasure?’ Tara asked at last.

  The big policeman shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. ‘I just thought I’d congratulate you on the way you handled that situation in the pine woods today. If you hadn’t kept a cool head, you’d have been another murder victim. I’ve no doubt about that.’

  ‘Comforting to know you had faith in me, Steve.’

  He accepted the reproach with good grace. ‘We took him to Ennis Station,’ he said, changing the subject slightly. ‘He just stared at the wall and said nothing. Nothing at all. Admitted nothing, denied nothing.’

  Tara sipped her brandy. ‘It doesn’t really matter,’ she said. ‘Confessions are pretty useless these days without hard evidence. When you get the right evidence – the DNA results, for instance – it won’t matter what he says or doesn’t say.’

  McNamara nodded. ‘Our main aims right now are to locate the murder weapon and to establish a motive. It’s clear from what you’ve told us that he was in dispute with some pretty heavy Dublin drug dealers over a sum of around three grand. If we can prove that he came to Claremoon Harbour at the time of the murder, we can work on the theory that he came to borrow the money from his mother. He was pretty desperate and not in any mental state to handle a rejection.’

  ‘That’s one theory,’ agreed Tara. ‘But there’s another possibility. Fergal is convinced that Manus was out to get him through the women in his life. First Ann, then me. And that makes some sort of sense in view of what Manus said in the wood – “first the beasts, then the mother, then the lover”. He seemed to believe that Satan made him kill the farm animals first, then Fergal’s mother second, and finally me.’ She looked directly into Steve’s eyes. ‘Mind you, he wasn’t the only one who made my life miserable because of my relationship with Fergal.’

  She fell silent. Cue Steve.

  ‘Tara…’ McNamara was shamefaced. ‘I have to admit I didn’t just come here to congratulate you on your escape and to inform you of developments. I came to apologise.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’ve behaved like a gobshite, and I’ve regretted it ever since. I made a lot of unfounded assumptions about our relationship and where it was going, but you had done nothing to justify that. You said nothing that led me to believe we were any more than friends. It was all inside here.’ He tapped his angular forehead.

  ‘What I’m trying to say is that, if we could only’ – he fought to find a word, then his eyes rested on the video recorder – ‘if we could only rewind things to the way they were before, I would consider it a great honour to be counted as your good friend once more.’

  Tara said nothing for a moment. Then: ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible, Steve,’ she said.

  ‘It’s not?’ His craggy face collapsed like a landslide on Mount Rushmore.

  Tara rose to her feet, walked over to him, and put her arm around his shoulder in a warm hug. ‘We’ll be friends as before,’ she smiled, ‘but Steve, the honour will be all mine.’

  ‘Where’s O’Rourke, anyway?’ she asked as she walked Steve outside to the police car. ‘I thought he’d be here tonight.’

  The sergeant banged his forehead with his fist. ‘Jaze, Tara, I nearly forgot to tell you. The Inspector sends his apologies. He had to dash off to Dublin to interview some druggie. And while he’s there, he’s going to visit his daughter.’

  ‘I didn’t know O’Rourke had a daughter. How old is she?’

  ‘Twenty-six. Same age as you.’ Steve peered at Tara, as though comparing her face to another woman’s. ‘In fact, she looks a lot like you, too. Same black hair, same big brown eyes. Sad case.’

  ‘Thanks a lot, Steve.’

  ‘Oh!’ He looked horrified, as though he’d put his foot right in it again. ‘I didn’t mean you. I meant his daughter.’

  ‘And why do you say she’s a sad case?’

  ‘Well.’ Steve fidgeted with his cap. ‘It’s just that she had everything going for her. Loving family, great university career, whole world of opportunity ahead. But she threw it all away.’

  ‘How?’ Tara was intrigued.

  ‘Oh, she fell for some smooth-talking conman from England. She was really besotted with him. But he was one of these cold-hearted bastards who was only out for himself. One of those fellas, he could carry a shaggin’ bottle of Heineken around in his inside left pocket, and at the end of the day it would be cooler than when it went in.’

  He planted his cap on his head and opened the door of the patrol car.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘the way I heard it, he gave her this hard-luck story about owing money to the banks. Said he was about to lose his house. Wanted to marry her and said everything would be OK if he could just get wipe the slate clean and start again. He talked her into leaving college, getting a job and going guarantor on a big loan for them both. Turned out, all he really wanted was ready cash to skip the country with another woman. He had it all planned out from the start. Last thing she heard from him was a postcard from Malaga with one word on it: “Thanks”.’

  ‘My God. How did O’Rourke react to all this?’

  ‘How do you think? We practically had to scrape him off the ceiling. But there was nothing he could do.’

  ‘So his daughter’s been left penniless?’

  ‘Worse than that, Tara. She owes a fortune, and the banks are determined to screw every last cent out of her. She’ll be spending the rest of her days working to pay off the debt.’

  ‘Her life’s been ruined,’ she said slowly.

  ‘Yep,’ he agreed. ‘All because of one lousy bastard with a heart of stone.’

  The car’s suspension groaned in weary protest as Steve eased himself into the driver’s seat.

  ‘O’Rourke says he has only one regret in his life,’ the sergeant said thoughtfully. ‘And that’s that he was too busy with his police work to spend more time with his daughter. He never had a chance to warn her against people like that.’

  The huge jumbo soared eastwards, away from the midnight of the west and into the rising sun. The last movie had finished long ago, and the first rays of dawn revealed sardine-packed passengers with sleeping bodies splayed at ungainly angles – feet over each other’s ankles, heads rested on the shoulders of strangers as they tried to snatch a few hours’ sleep before a morning that their internal body clocks were not expecting.

  Andres awoke to find a prett
y, red-haired stewardess tapping his shoulder and asking him if he wanted a drink of mineral water or orange juice. Beside him, the brunette was still fast asleep, her head cradled against her hand.

  The freckle-faced stewardess repeated her question, and Andres accepted a Ballygowan mineral water. ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Five o’clock Irish time. We’re due to land in Belfast around seven-thirty.’ She smiled professionally and moved on.

  The brunette awoke in her turn, stretched stiffly and ordered a Buck’s Fizz. She leaned forward. ‘What time is it in Irish currency?’ she asked.

  ‘Five in the morning,’ he said. ‘That delay before take-off cost us two hours. Even if we clear Belfast Airport by eight, we shall not reach my home in Dublin much before noon, and that means late afternoon before we get to County Clare. It’s much the same story if we have to wait around for a direct flight to Shannon. I wish there were some faster way.’

  ‘I wish I could smoke,’ replied the brunette.

  The breakfasts came around, hermetically sealed plastic containers of bacon, sausage and black pudding. ‘Damn. Damn. Damn. We may be too late,’ Andres muttered to himself.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said the navy-suited businessman by his side. He spoke in a broad Belfast accent.

  ‘I apologise. I was just – what is the phrase? – thinking aloud.’ Noticing the man’s puzzled expression, he elaborated. ‘I’m trying to reach Claremoon Harbour in County Clare before noon. It is very, very urgent. Very important. But I have to travel from Belfast and that could take all day.’

  ‘Well, you may have hit it lucky,’ said the businessman, producing a business card. ‘I own a commercial helicopter company. You could always hire one of my pilots. It won’t come cheap, but it’ll get you there in time.’