by Des Ekin
He was getting angry again. He hurled the net’s marker system – the buoy and the twenty-fathom sling rope – over the stern.
‘Maybe it’s just as well I found out about Paris,’ he said. ‘I really was thinking of settling down here with you. For the rest of my life.’
She could hear the same dangerous tone of aggrieved self-pity in his voice. He grunted with effort as he stooped and lifted the huge anchor-stone that would send the net plummeting into the depths of the ocean.
‘Don’t get me wrong, Tara,’ he said, turning to look at her directly as he left the big concrete block balanced precariously on the six-inch wide wooden gunwale. They both knew the slightest push would send it plunging into the sea, and all three hundred metres of net would go shooting inexorably after it. ‘Don’t get me wrong. You’re a good-looking girl. And you’re a great lay. But much as I like screwing you, there’s no way I’m going to waste the best years of my life caring for some crippled, dribbling imbecile.’
As he turned his head pointedly towards her father’s chair in the wheelhouse, Tara felt herself electrified by anger. Within a single transforming instant, all her pain and weariness were swept aside in a power-jolt of sheer fury. She knew she’d only a split second in which to act.
Now!
Her foot drew back and lashed outwards and upwards towards his unprotected groin. Her aim was perfect. And the vicious kick contained every ounce of her remaining strength.
But at the last moment Fergal glanced back, saw the advancing blow, and turned sharply to avoid it. Her foot landed harmlessly on his thigh, but it caught him off balance and sent him flying backwards to land sprawling against the stern of the boat.
‘Do you never give up?’ he snarled.
And then he’s lunging at her, and they are struggling again, rolling together on the deck.
Tara clawing, hitting, kicking, biting, trying desperately to break free from his grizzly-bear grip. Fergal, hampered by his injured fingers, lashing out at her and trying to push her backwards on to the ground so that he can get a clean blow at her face with his fist.
Tara scrambling free, pushing him back. Fergal, sliding and skidding on a deck made slippery by seawater and fish-gut. His feet suddenly giving way under him, sending him sprawling face-down on the heap of netting.
Tara, in desperation, throwing heaps of the tangled net on top of him, twisting it around him, trying to bury him in it. Fergal thrashing like a captured eel, turning, his head emerging through a hole in the chaotic heap of net. Tara close to exhaustion, fighting through a daze of white fog, managing to struggle clear but unable to move fast enough to escape as he forces her back towards the stern.
Fergal, crawling towards her on his hands and knees, taking his time, knowing she can’t get away. Then pausing, finding himself unexpectedly constrained by the hank of twisted netting that has become looped around his neck.
Fergal, reacting with mere irritation as his hands move upwards to tear off the noose of netting. It’s hanging loose around his neck, it’s no big deal. It’ll only take him a few seconds to get free.
Then, suddenly, both of them becoming aware of a noise that shouldn’t be there at all – the harsh metallic sound of the Róisín Dubh’s engine crunching into forward gear.
Tara sussing it out first, looking forward with disbelieving eyes towards the wheelhouse. Fergal’s eyes following hers, first with incredulity and then, when he finally understands, with naked terror. He hears the dull bass throb of the engine rise to a powerful roar. He feels the sudden forward surge of the boat. The bow of the craft rising sharply, the stern descending behind him. His frightened eyes go back to the stern just in time to see the heavy concrete block dislodge itself from its narrow shelf of wood and fall backwards over the edge. As the anchor-stone plunges into the ocean, drenching them both with its splash, the netting follows, flying outwards at incredible speed. The ropes at either side buzz like angry hornets. Fergal pulls desperately at the mesh wrapped around his neck, but it’s too late.
For a second his eyes meet Tara’s, begging for life, pleading.
And then it happens, faster than anyone could have believed possible. The shooting net tightens around his neck, and his entire body flies backwards like a puppet’s, slamming up against the woodwork of the stern. His head jerks to the side, his neck gives a sound like a cracking branch, and then his entire body is catapulted over and across the stern, like a cork over a waterfall.
Tara scrambling to her feet, sprinting forward towards the wheelhouse, towards the throttle control that’s located just beside the wheel. But she takes only a few steps before the white fog smothers her brain in a dizzy, overwhelming rush, engulfing her, blanking everything out. She finds herself fainting, swaying, falling, hurtling downwards towards the wooden deck just before the inside of her head explodes in pain and the world turns black and silent.
They located the Róisín Dubh about three miles off the coast, moving at nearly full speed and locked on a course that would ultimately have taken her to Newfoundland.
Steve McNamara hailed her several times as he manoeuvred the Orkney Fastliner closer and closer amid the treacherous swell of the open Atlantic. There was no response. At last he managed to steer the smaller boat alongside, and Andres Talimann put the Orkney’s rubber fenders over the side to prevent one craft smashing the other as they rose and fell at their different angles.
Then Andres took over the wheel of the Fastliner while Steve judged the moment and leaped across the heaving gap between the two boats.
He scrambled to the wheelhouse and cut the engine, bringing the fishing boat’s relentless transatlantic journey to an end. Had her course had been landwards instead of seawards, he thought to himself, the Róisín Dubh would have been a wreck by now.
Grabbing a rope, he strapped the two boats to prevent them drifting apart. Then he took a deep breath, steeled himself, and looked around him.
The big garda sergeant was used to confronting death in all its forms. But nothing could have prepared him for the horrific scenes he was to witness on board the Róisín Dubh that day.
The area around the deck and wheelhouse was a bloody, chaotic mess of overturned fish-boxes and buckets.
The aft section of the boat was a scene of breathtaking devastation. It looked as though a maniac had run amok with a chainsaw. The stern had been half-demolished where the second anchor-stone, attached to a rope at the end of the shooting net, had torn huge chunks out of the woodwork as it catapulted free of the boat.
In the wheelhouse, his invalid chair still fixed solidly to the woodwork, was John Ross. The old man sat stock-still, in exactly the same position as Steve had last seen him at the harbour, and with exactly the same vacant expression on his face. He heard nothing and saw nothing. His open eyes remained focused on nowhere.
And only a few feet away from him, Tara lay motionless on the deck, an irregular red-brown stain surrounding her head like a halo.
It took them more than four hours to find Fergal’s body.
They knew he was out there somewhere, trapped in the tangle-nets, but they didn’t know exactly where.
It wasn’t until late afternoon that the Róisín Dubh, crewed by volunteers from the Claremoon Marine Rescue Service and helped by local fishermen, located the floating buoy that marked the spot where the nets had been shot.
From that point on, it had been a routine exercise to haul them in.
Within a few minutes, Steve was on the radio to base.
‘We’ve found Kennedy,’ he said.
‘Is he dead?’ asked O’Rourke. The static on the radio failed to disguise the anxiety in his voice.
Steve looked over towards the net-hauler, the large mechanical drum they’d used to haul in the first thirty metres of netting. The body was suspended from it like some macabre puppet. The meshes around the throat had been twisted and pulled and warped to the hardness of steel-cable. The darkened face still retained its expression of ghastly, hopeless ple
ading, but one glance at Fergal Kennedy had confirmed that he was beyond all help.
‘He’s dead. How’s Tara?’
‘She’s in pretty bad shape. But she’ll be okay.’
Steve McNamara heaved a sigh of relief. He’d done what he could to stop the bleeding, but he knew that Tara would require emergency treatment for the ugly gash on her head. And her pulse had been frighteningly weak.
‘What the hell happened?’ asked O’Rourke.
‘I know exactly what happened,’ Steve replied slowly. ‘But you’re not going to believe it.’
Steve McNamara had always been quick on the uptake when it came to mechanical matters. Within seconds of hauling in the net he had worked out what had happened to Fergal. He’d understood how the shooting net had tightened around his throat and snapped his neck like a twig. He’d understood, too, that this had happened after someone had thrust the Róisín Dubh into forward gear and had pushed its throttle lever to its utter limit, deliberately dislodging the anchor-stone that had been balanced on the stern.
He’d also realised, as he’d carried out a cursory medical examination shortly after boarding the boat, that the old man seated in the invalid chair would never see the sky, hear the crash of the waves, or breathe the salt air of the ocean again.
But what he couldn’t understand, what he would never be able to explain until his dying day, was how John Ross’s paralysed right hand had somehow left its position in the wheelchair and had moved a full eighteen inches to the right, across the controls to the throttle-lever…and how the cold hand had become locked there in such a solid death-grip that it had taken all of Steve’s strength to prise it free.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘FERGAL KENNEDY was obsessed with the belief that his real father was the artist Michael de Blaca,’ said Inspector Phil O’Rourke. ‘It wasn’t just a fantasy – it was his very reason for living. It made him feel special, superior. And it gave him an excuse for not trying very hard at school, for failing to hold down a job for any length of time, and for his chronic inability to sustain any meaningful relationship.’
He held out a nicotine-stained hand and began listing points on his fingers. ‘According to all the romantic clichés, artists are rebellious, quick-tempered, unfaithful, and easily capable of betraying personal friendships and trust. Those also happen to be the personality traits of Antisocial Personality Disorder. Any artists who behave like that can get away with it because they’re talented. Unfortunately for him, Fergal was far from talented.’
‘And he wasn’t Michael de Blaca’s son, either.’ Tara shifted uncomfortably in her hospital bed, trying to ignore the pain of her injured head and battered body.
Outside the glass door of the private ward, a nurse looked daggers at O’Rourke and mouthed the words: ‘No excitement.’
The detective gave her a reassuring nod. ‘I’ve always known that, Tara,’ he said. ‘It’s obvious when you check the dates. Which makes you wonder how he was able to sustain this delusion for so long.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t want to risk finding out the truth. And perhaps everyone else in the village just preferred to forget it.’
‘Yes. Small communities have a habit of developing collective amnesia when it comes to shameful episodes from their past. Particularly when it might involve recalling their shoddy treatment of a woman who went on to become a national heroine.’ O’Rourke shrugged. ‘In any event, all Fergal did was put together a lot of local gossip, some of it misheard and some of it just misinformed, add a few facts that his mother reluctantly gave him, and use these few shaky bricks to create an entire fantasy castle. Here, let me help you with that.’
Tara was shifting her pillows in a bid to find a position that didn’t make her back hurt like hell. It was difficult. Her body seemed to be one massive bruise. Her forehead, where she had fallen and hit the gunwale of the boat and knocked herself out, had turned a rich purple. But at least, she consoled herself, there had been no permanent damage. The doctors sympathised, but they had seen a lot worse injuries in victims of minor car shunts. Within a week or so, they assured her, she would be well on the way to recovery.
‘So he lived in fantasy land,’ she said at last. ‘A lot of people do. But it still doesn’t explain why he was driven to kill his own mother.’
‘I’ll come to that in a minute. Let’s order tea.’ O’Rourke was becoming irritated at the nurse’s fixed stare. He opened the door and politely asked for a pot of Earl Grey. The nurse didn’t move from her desk. She simply lifted a cream-coloured phone, notified the catering staff, and continued her task of ensuring that this intrusive policeman did nothing to damage her patient’s stress level.
O’Rourke returned to the ward. There could be a lot worse places to recuperate, he thought as he glanced around the cheerful, sun-filled room with its TV, stereo and minibar – all facilities on a par with those of a first-class hotel. The air was heavy with the scent of more than a dozen bouquets of flowers sent by well-wishers. Some of the most elaborate were from neighbours and friends in Claremoon Harbour.
Tara, lying on top of the blankets in her silk dressing-gown, thought it was all a bit over the top. But it had all been provided courtesy of Andres Talimann’s gold Amex credit card, and she deeply appreciated it. She’d never felt so pampered and cosseted in her life. From its gentle piped music to its gourmet menu, the Whiterock Clinic definitely deserved the Egon Ronay Award for Best Place To Recover from a Murder Attempt.
‘I’m going to need a bit of help to answer your question,’ O’Rourke said at last. ‘Do you mind if I bring in a couple of other visitors?’
Tara shook her head. ‘If you think it’s necessary.’
‘I’ll just be a moment.’
O’Rourke left the room again. When he returned, he had two people with him.
The first was Andres Talimann, carrying a bunch of long-stemmed red roses. The second was an equally long-stemmed black woman in a red leather miniskirt and a figure-hugging black polo-neck. She had what the advertising industry describes as a ‘bob and gob job’ – that is, hair in a trim sexy bob, bright-red lipstick emphasising sensual lips.
Tara sighed inwardly. Thanks a million, O’Rourke, she thought. My face looks like an apple that’s been kicking around the floor of a greengrocer’s for three days and my body’s so bandaged-up I could get a starring role in The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb. And just to make me feel better, you introduce me to Andres’s supermodel girlfriend.
But O’Rourke was busy rearranging chairs. His usual old-world courtesy had deserted him and he had forgotten all about introductions.
‘Hello, Andres,’ said Tara, after an awkward moment during which all three of them waited for the detective to do the necessary. ‘It’s good to see you again.’
‘It’s good to see you again, too. How are you feeling?’
‘Oh, not so bad. According to the hospital bulletins, I’m “comfortable”, but I must say that isn’t the word I’d choose.’
‘I am sorry about your father. Please accept my condolences.’
She nodded. ‘Thanks. He had a good life, all in all. And I suppose, in a way, it was fitting that he should die at the helm of the Róisín Dubh, back in control of things, rather than wasting away in a hospice. It’s how he would have wanted it.’
And at least, she told herself for the hundredth time, the massive coronary attack that had stopped the lifeblood flowing through John Ross’s courageous heart had also made his death quick and painless.
Tara felt her eyes sting with tears and she tried to blink them away before they began to flow again. ‘Well,’ she said, smiling at the supermodel. ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?’
‘I’m sorry. Tara Ross, I’d like you to meet Madame Mathilde Bresson.’
Madame. So she was married.
‘Mathilde. How do you do.’ Tara’s voice was polite but unenthusiastic.
They shook hands. The brunette, sensing that some misunderstan
ding was in the air, began talking rapidly in French. It was much too fast for Tara to understand, but she’d spoken only a few words when she was sure of one thing – this was the voice of the French woman who’d left a message on her phone. The woman she’d taken for a French journalist.
Andres translated. ‘She says she feels for you at this time, and especially so because she herself has suffered the same ordeal at the hands of Fergal Kennedy,’ he said.
Tara was totally, absolutely, profoundly lost. ‘I don’t understand,’ she whispered weakly.
Andres looked quizzically at O’Rourke. He’d obviously assumed the policeman had already explained everything. But O’Rourke smiled apologetically and shook his head.
Andres placed his hand gently on Tara’s.
‘I’m so sorry, Tara,’ he said. ‘I thought you already knew.’
He nodded towards the beautiful black woman. ‘Mathilde is from Canada,’ he explained. ‘She’s Fergal Kennedy’s wife. Or should I say…his widow.’
Tara turned ashen-faced as she heard the full, horrific story of Mathilde’s nightmare marriage to Fergal. Her hand trembled as she reached for a glass of water.
‘Are you sure you’re able for all this, Tara?’ O’Rourke’s gravelly voice interrupted the silence that followed. ‘Just tell me if you find it too upsetting. There’s no hurry. We can come back tomorrow, if you like.’
Tara shook her head. ‘No, I’m fine. I want to know the truth. All of it.’
Glancing across the bed, Tara noticed that Mathilde’s brown eyes were dissolved in tears and her mascara had started to run. The effort of reliving her ordeal had obviously left her emotionally drained.
It was obvious, now, that Mathilde was much older than she’d seemed. Stripped of their protective make-up, the eyes were surrounded by tiny wrinkles.
Tara leaned forward and squeezed her hand reassuringly. Andres placed his arm around her shoulder.