‘He talks like he’s hallucinating, but he doesn’t act like it?’ Pete asked.
‘Exactly,’ Annad said. ‘He displays no disturbances of affect, volition or speech. On the other hand, he appears to have delusions of persecution, believes he’s of exalted birth and that he has a special mission. He is Darragh of the Undivided, he says, and claims to rule this alternate reality he comes from.’ Annad walked over to the coffee vending machine and began to fish around in his pocket for coins. ‘Have you checked the local mental hospitals for missing patients? That could explain where he’s been all this time.’
‘Not a bad idea. You think he’s been institutionalised?’
‘I have no idea, to be honest,’ Annad admitted. ‘I would have expected him to display more awareness of the process, if he had. Do you have any change on you?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Annad shrugged. ‘Oh well … it’s crap coffee in that machine anyway. Where was I?’
‘You were telling me Darragh doesn’t act like someone who’s been institutionalised. Or he does. To be honest, I’m not sure.’
‘There’s the rub,’ Annad said. ‘I don’t know either. The paranoid schizophrenia may be episodic and we’ve got him on a good day. He might be in partial or complete remission. He might be chronic, although I doubt it. In chronic cases, florid symptoms tend to persist over a number of years. It’s difficult to distinguish discrete episodes.’
‘We have to arraign him in the morning.’
Annad pursed his lips thoughtfully for a moment and then nodded. ‘Well, if it’s a preliminary assessment you want, then he’s probably sane enough to appear in court. He knows right from wrong and he would be more than capable of assisting with his own defence. Today, at any rate.’
‘Did he give you any clue about where to find Hayley Boyle?’
Annad shook his head. ‘His story never wavered on that point. She has been sent to another reality to have her blindness healed, along with his twin brother and the girl, Trása. He insists she’s half-Faerie.’
Pete sighed, shaking his head. ‘Christ, the tabloids are going to have a field day over this when he appears on tomorrow’s docket.’
‘Only if they hear about it,’ Annad pointed out. ‘If there is anything positive to come out of that awful business in New York, it’s that nobody is interested in anything else at the moment. Our boy may slip under the radar, if we’re lucky. Does he have a solicitor yet?’
‘He’ll get a court-appointed one in the morning, I suppose. Kiva Kavanaugh has washed her hands of the whole affair, so at least we don’t have the dreaded Eunice Ravenel to contend with any longer.’
‘Shame,’ Annad sighed. ‘I have this recurring fantasy about Eunice Ravenel cross-examining me.’
Pete smiled briefly, but then his smile faded as he asked, ‘Between you and me, do you think he killed Hayley?’
‘My gut feeling is “no”.’
‘Then where is she?’
‘In an alternate reality,’ Annad said with a grin. ‘Having her blindness cured by the Tuatha Dé Danann.’
‘You’re a big help, Annad. I’ll be sure to put that in my report.’
‘I’m here to help you, Pete,’ the psychiatrist reminded him, clasping his shoulder comfortingly. ‘You can be sure my remarkable contribution to your case will be reflected in my bill.’
‘You’ll have something for me for court in the morning?’
Annad nodded. ‘I’ll write something up about the delusions and how they’re characteristic of schizophrenia, but that’s about all I can give you at this stage.’
‘It’ll have to do,’ Pete said. ‘In the meantime, I’ll send him back to the cells. Maybe another night in remand will jog his memory.’ He glanced at his watch, and cursed when he remembered he was supposed to be meeting his brother at his grandmother’s house.
‘Is there a problem?’
‘I have to be somewhere,’ he said. ‘Can you be in court tomorrow morning, in case his lawyer tries to pull a fast one and get him released because he’s crazy?’
‘I’ll be there,’ Annad promised. ‘And not just for you. This young man intrigues me. I want to see how he acts in court when he’s not so aware he’s being watched.’
‘See you then,’ Pete said.
‘You can count on it,’ Annad Semaj said.
There were almost as many people gathered at his grandmother’s house as there had been the night of her birthday party. Logan’s Ferrari was parked in the drive. His cousin Kelly’s Volvo was pulled in behind it, blocking him in. Pete took a deep breath — as he always did — before he knocked on the door. He needed to brace himself for whatever family celebration or catastrophe he was about to step into.
Logan opened the door. Pete stared at him, knowing instantly that he wasn’t here to celebrate anything.
‘Is Mamó okay?’ he asked, thinking that the most likely explanation for this summons. She was an old woman, after all. It wasn’t out of the realms of possibility that something had happened to her since Pete saw her last.
‘She’s fine,’ Logan told him.
‘Then why the summons?’ Pete asked as he stepped into the hall and Logan closed the door behind him.
‘Come inside,’ Logan said. ‘I don’t want to have to explain this over and over.’
Pete thought his twin was being dramatic just for the sake of being dramatic, but he followed him into Mamó’s stifling living room without telling him he thought that. Mamó was in her chair, as usual, Kelly was sitting on the sofa, her husband, Xavier, was standing by the window. Everyone was looking like someone had run over the family dog. In fact, the only one missing was his mother, who should be on her way back from her trip to America by now, probably with some young ingénue in tow, ready to unleash her on the European world of high fashion.
He crossed the room, kissed Mamó’s papery, wrinkled cheek and then turned to his family. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I got a text message from your mother on Tuesday,’ Kelly said, reaching for her husband’s hand and squeezing it. She seemed on the verge of tears.
‘Really?’ he asked. ‘You made me take the afternoon off work in the middle of a really high profile kidnap case for that?’
Xavier leaned forward, offering Pete the phone. ‘Read it.’
Pete flipped open the phone. The message was already on the screen.
Will call you Tuesday, cherie, the message read.
He read the message a couple of times, and then shrugged and handed the phone back to Kelly’s husband. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘She never rang.’
‘After the World Trade Center was hit, Kelly tried ringing her,’ his cousin-in-law explained. ‘When she couldn’t contact her, she called me and I called her office here in Dublin. They told me she was due at the New York office that morning. Apparently it’s not uncommon for her to disappear for days at a time when she’s travelling.’ He glanced around the room. ‘Did any of you know that?’
They all did, but it was such a part of their lives, none of them had given it much thought until now.
‘I’m not sure you know this, but the New York office is located on the hundred and sixth floor of the World Trade Center,’ Kelly announced.
‘Do we know if she made it to her office in New York that morning?’ Pete asked. He hadn’t known about the office. The first tendrils of dread were starting to thread through his veins.
‘Nobody has been able to contact her since Tuesday,’ Logan said in a toneless voice that was more disturbing than Kelly’s overt grief.
Pete suddenly felt himself go cold all over.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, giving voice to what everyone here seemed to know but was too afraid to say outright. ‘You think she was in the World Trade Center when it was hit?’
‘If she wasn’t, why hasn’t she rung us to let us know she’s okay?’ Kelly asked, her eyes filling with tears. ‘She must know we’d be beside ourselves if we di
dn’t hear from her.’
Kelly had a point, but something bothered Pete more. He turned to his brother. ‘Did you know she had an office in the World Trade Center?’
‘Can’t say I ever asked,’ Logan said. ‘Why?’
‘Seems a bit over the top, doesn’t it? I mean … a Dublin modelling agency with a penthouse office in what was probably the most expensive piece of real estate in the whole of New York?’
‘For chrissakes, Peter,’ his grandmother growled. ‘Stop being a detective for five wee minutes and take a moment to grieve your poor dead mother.’
‘When did we decide she was dead?’ he asked, alarmed at how quickly everyone had jumped to that conclusion. ‘You don’t know that.’
‘They’re saying nobody on the floors above where the planes hit made it out,’ Kelly said, sniffing back her tears.
‘And you don’t know she was anywhere near the place on Tuesday. Have you tried the consulate in New York?’ Pete loosened his tie. The room was stifling.
‘First thing I did after Kelly called me,’ Xavier assured them, smiling down at his wife sympathetically.
‘Which one?’
‘The Irish Consulate, of course. Why?’
‘Because she’s French,’ Logan answered, slapping his forehead. ‘Of course! If she’s laying wounded or unconscious in a hospital somewhere and she’s been ID’d from her passport, they wouldn’t even think to contact the Irish authorities.’
Pete pulled out his cell phone and dialled his work number, without saying anything further to his siblings. They watched and waited as he got through to Brendá Duggan after a moment or two, explained the situation to his boss, and asked if she could pull any strings to cut through the red tape and find out if the French Consulate in New York had any news of their mother.
Pete could have rung the consulate himself, but he knew from experience that the higher one went up the chain of command, the more likely they knew someone who knew someone in the right place. The flow of information at Brendá’s level would be more like water and less like treacle.
‘I’ll see what I can do, Pete,’ Brendá Duggan promised, when he’d finished telling her what he knew. ‘Do you need some time off until you find out what’s happening?’
Pete shook his head, even though she couldn’t see the gesture. ‘Thanks, boss. But right now, I think I’d rather be at work.’
‘I understand,’ she said. ‘But don’t come back before you’re ready. I’ll make a few calls for you. I did a course on cross-border internet crime with Interpol last year in Paris. I have some contacts over there who might be able to find out if there is any news of your mother. You’d better give me her full name and date of birth.’
Pete covered the phone with his hand for a moment and looked at Kelly. ‘Do you know Mum’s date of birth?’
‘March eight, nineteen fifty-one,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘Trust a boy not to know that.’
Pete poked his tongue out at his cousin and repeated the date to Brendá Duggan.
‘And what’s her full name?’ Brendá asked, after she’d obviously written it down.
‘Adeline Monique Delphinia Sybilla Marguerite Bouvier Doherty,’ Pete said, amazed he could remember his mother’s complicated full name but not something as simple as her birthday. ‘That’s the official name on her passport, at least,’ he added. ‘But she rarely uses it. Mostly she goes by Delphine.’
CHAPTER 37
The massive wooden gates of the Ikushima compound opened slowly to reveal the source of the drums. The Empresses’ arrival was heralded by a platoon of drummers, dressed traditionally in momohiki pants, a wide red haramaki around the midsection, bare chests (despite the cold) and hachimaki headbands depicting a logo that was disturbingly similar to the traditional rising sun of Imperial Japan in Ren’s realm.
Inside the compound, the place had erupted into chaos, and for a moment, Ren was forgotten. There were people running back and forth, children being dragged from their beds and hastily dressed as they rubbed the sleep from their eyes. Namito was shouting orders, Masuyo shouting other orders that directly contradicted her grandson. Aoi and Kazusa had both emerged from the main house. Kazusa was still dressed in all her finery, Aoi was smoothing down the wrinkles in a kimono Ren had not seen before. It was a shimmering green and red floral design edged with gold which reeked of an outfit saved for a special occasion.
If he’d been planning to escape, now would have been the perfect time. Amid this chaos, he could wane out of here without being noticed and never be seen again.
It was a tempting thought. Now he knew the name of what he could do, Ren was quite sure he could do it. But it meant Aoi would have to die.
He didn’t want her blood on his hands.
And in truth, he was curious to meet the Empresses.
Daichi, Namito’s commander who had joined them for dinner the first night Ren was a guest here, seemed to be trying to form his samurai into an honour guard along the wall, dragging those off-duty from their beds, haranguing them with shouts and insults about their poor family origins to get them moving.
Over by the main house, Namito was yelling at somebody else to bring fireworks. This was a fireworks factory, after all. What better way to greet the Empresses than with a fabulous display of Ikushima wares?
The theatricality of the Empresses’ entourage made Ren wonder if the long line of drummers and the noise preceding their arrival was designed specifically to allow this sort of panicked preparation. He guessed they wanted their subjects to have advance warning of their imminent arrival. Ren had lived with a drama queen all his life, and knew a theatrical production when he saw one. It was hard to make an ‘entrance’, after all, if nobody had been given time to roll out the red carpet. There really wasn’t a need for any of this nonsense, that Ren could see, other than providing their hosts plenty of notice of their approach, so nobody could be accidentally dishonoured — and perhaps required to commit Seppuku — by not having time to prepare.
The drummers — and there seemed to be scores of them marching through the gates, pounding away at their instruments — reminded Ren of the taiko performance he had had to sit through when he visited Japan with Kiva. The performance was preceded by a tour of the troupe’s community at Kodo and a lengthy discourse about the nature of Taiko and the wide range of percussion instruments common to classical Japanese and European musical traditions. Ren had zoned out a few minutes into the tour, paying little attention to the lecture, something he regretted later that day when they actually got to hear the musicians, because it turned out they were quite amazing, given they were making music with sticks.
The only thing Ren remembered clearly from that day, other than the drummers, was the story their guide told them about the origins of taiko. Ren remembered the goddess’s name well, because Kiva had been so taken with the legend she tried to buy the rights to it, with the intention of playing the sun goddess, Amaterasu, herself. Her manager, Jon, had eventually dissuaded her from attempting to hijack a story so steeped in a culture she didn’t understand or have any claim on, pointing out that in a Japanese legend, it was unlikely audiences would accept a blue-eyed, blonde Caucasian playing the role of a Japanese sun goddess, even if she had an executive producer’s credit.
That hadn’t stopped Kiva insisting everybody refer to her as Amaterasu for a week or so, until she gave up on the idea. The thought made Ren wonder what Kiva was doing now. He hadn’t had time to spare his mother — his adopted mother — a thought. Was she upset? Thriving on the drama? Genuinely concerned about what might have happened to her son, or trying to word a press release that put all the blame on him? Had Kiva done another feature in OK Magazine, to let the world know how devastated — and not responsible — she was for her errant son’s criminal behaviour?
Thinking of Kiva sparked more than an uncomfortable wash of guilt. What about Kerry and Patrick Boyle, his pseudo-parents from his own reality? What had his impulsive but well-intentioned a
ctions done to them? What about poor Neil? How did he respond to his sister’s disappearance? Had he even noticed it? Were the Boyles worried that Hayley was missing, or did they trust Ren, confident he would never bring any harm to their daughter?
Ren realised he hadn’t considered how Hayley’s parents might react to her disappearance, something he was regretting, now he had time to think. Perhaps he should have left them a note. Should he have called them before stepping through the rift? He probably could have done something to reassure them Hayley was safe and would not come to any harm.
Don’t worry, Kerry and Patrick, he could have written in a note, I’ve taken Hayley to another reality to have her sight healed by magic.
Yeah, Ren thought. That would have worked.
It was a testament to the impressive length of the Empresses’ entourage that he had this much time to think before the drummers leading the parade had taken up position in the courtyard, followed by an escort of heavily armed samurai surrounding four muscular Caucasian men carrying a wide litter decorated in gilt and coloured gemstones that reflected the torchfire across the courtyard in a spray of speckled rainbow light.
There was a loud bang on his right where the first of the mortar-fired shells were set off. A moment later the sky lit up with a glorious burst of red light as a starmine exploded overhead. Ren glanced up at the sky. The drums were reaching a crescendo. There was no sign of Trása. She might have been scared off by the fireworks in avian form or be watching from the trees.
Another brilliant starmine exploded overhead.
Ren was relieved beyond words that Trása — for once — had listened to him when he warned her to get clear of the place. What he’d seen wasn’t a clear vision of the future. That sort of vision was quite rare, according to the knowledge his brother owned on the subject. And this vision wasn’t exactly clear. He’d seen a glimpse of the Empresses arriving in the compound and seen a glimpse of something else that might have been the future … or maybe the past.
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