“Wicklow!”
“Careful my mam was a Wicklow girl.”
“Wicklow’s got poncy gardens.”
“Poncy?” Kate laughed. “Poncy. Now there’s a word!” Still laughing, she went back to the letter. “Where are we? Ah yes, Mrs. Kent.. . I’m hoping she can tell me what’s here and what Mick should or shouldn’t be doing to keep everything in fine shape. I have a suspicion that Mick has done damage again -the shrubs down by the stream are looking hacked about and forlorn. But of course it’s hard for me to say anything from a position of horticultural iliteracy.” Kate looked up with a quick smile. “He’s misspelt illiteracy. Now is the time to come clean and admit that the rhododendrons met with an unfortunate accident last year. Someone said that they were a menace and strangling the trees, so I told Mick to deal with them. The result, I’m afraid to say, was nothing short of slaughter. Mick got a bulldozer, although it may have been a JCB - I found it too painful to ask which particular weapon of mass destruction he had been let loose on. Not only did he uproot the rhododendrons around the trees to the north of the house (the ones I meant him to deal with) but also managed to lay waste to those on either side of the drive. I have not yet recovered from the shock of seeing the devastation, my stomach is still somewhere out by the gates, where it dropped through the bottom of my boots, but it taught me that Mick was not be trusted with shrubs and, apart from those down by the stream, I have curbed his worst impulses to slash at vegetation with a blunt instrument.”
“For heaven’s sake. Why does he write? Why does he bother?”
“What’s that?”
“I wish I knew what he was after.”
“Why would he be after anything?”
“He has to be.”
“Are we stopping or are we going on?” She examined Catherine’s face. “Shall I just whisk through the rest? So when Mrs. Kent comes I will ask her what she recommends for the drive, whether to replant rhodies or to try some other shrubs. Aware of my responsibilities to Morne, I am determined to go cautiously and to obtain advice from every possible quarter. Of course I would dispense with all such opinions if I thought there was a chance of you coming and advising us on how to restore the gardens to their proper glory. I know that you must be thinking only of recovery at present, but once you see your way clear you would only have to give the smallest indication that you might consider it and I would keep all other ideas on hold. There is nothing more precious to me than the thought of restoring Morne to its former glory, as your mamma would have wished it to be, for as you know I hold her memory most dear.”
“Really!”
“The idea doesn’t appeal?”
“What idea?”
“The garden.”
“I’d rather die.”
“Sounds a nice job.”
“That’s my home he’s talking about. He stole it after my mother died.
Got hold of the mortgage. Forced my father out. Everything’s a deal. Everything’s an opportunity to make a killing.” She remembered the expression her father used. “He’d as soon sell his grandmother.”
“Ah,” Kate said heavily. “I see. It couldn’t be that he’s got a conscience about it? Trying to make amends.”
“I doubt it.”
“A guilty conscience can strike us all,” Kate offered solemnly before returning once again to the letter. “I am safer with trees or should I say that trees are safer with me? I have been doing serious homework in the last couple of years and have discovered what you will know already, that there are some remarkable trees at Morne the Irish yews around the hollow, surely older than the house itself, the oak on the south lawn, which Old Patrick from the village estimates to be 300 years old (do you think this is possible?), and the beeches, which seem to reach beyond the sky, but which I am told may go any day in a storm because they have shallow roots. It is a terrible thought, that they may go, so I have had some new beeches planted, ones of good size, already some twenty feet high, so that there will be some equally majestic trees in fifty years or so:
“That’s enough, thanks.”
“There’s only a few more lines. Just’ she scanned the page ‘news of
Maeve, who’s been unwell but is now recovering ‘
“Chuck it in the bin.”
“Why don’t I just put it on the side here?”
“I want it in the bin. If I could move from this bloody bed I would put it in the bin.”
“The bin it is, then.”
Despite the brandy, it took Catherine a long time to get to sleep, and then it was to dream all night, or so it seemed. She revisited the scenes she had described to Wilson, re-enacting them time and again, but with variations and additions that might or might not have been borrowed from other times and other dreams. In the morning two images remained intact. In one, which was recognisably a nightmare, she was in a dark place, making her way towards a series of rooms with half-open doors that radiated brilliant light. The floor was littered with what she took to be debris, but which turned out to be the heavy glutinous leaves of some vigorous plant whose tendrils wrapped themselves tighter and tighter around her legs, pulling her slowly to the floor. When she was completely immobilised something soft brushed against her face and clung to her nose and mouth and eyes, threatening to rob her of air. She would have fought the soft thing off but she couldn’t move her arms. Someone who was Alice and then not Alice was somewhere close by, weeping and wailing softly.
In the other scene she replayed her arrival from France. She ran upstairs as before but, instead of stopping on the landing as she had described to Wilson, she ran on into the room where Ben and the man were fighting and found herself caught up in the struggle, though mysteriously unaffected by it. It was dark, but this didn’t prevent her from seeing a weapon in the man’s hand, a long baton that she identified as a baseball bat. In the instant she saw it, she realised that the man had finished with Ben, or perhaps Ben wasn’t there any more, and was coming for her so fast that she didn’t have time to raise her arms and ward off the blows. In the next instant she was back on the landing and the man was looming over her. As she cowered before him she saw the bat raised above his head, ready to strike.
In the morning the image of the baseball bat stayed with her and she decided to ask Ben if he thought the man might have used it in the attack. While she was about it she would also tell Ben what for some reason she’d failed to tell him the night before, about the blood-stained panties and scarf the police had asked her to identify.
In the event she mentioned neither. Ben arrived late, just behind the ambulance men, and by the time they had the chance to talk she’d realised that the baseball bat was probably a trick of her mind. Ben had always kept a baseball bat under the bed in case of intruders and, by association, her subconscious had in all likelihood transposed it into the dream.
She decided against mention of the blood-stained clothing for a very different reason, because despite police reassurances to the contrary Ben might believe she had been sexually assaulted, and that was one burden he didn’t need.
Chapter Five
TERRY WAITED impatiently while Fergal arranged his long limbs untidily in the chair opposite, arms at every angle, legs skewed out to one side, like an abandoned marionette. Settled at last, he began to speak in a soft unhurried voice. “I am giving you the dry bones of the situation as they see it. You follow me? No interpretation, no perspective. This is the official version, pure and simple.”
Terry could only nod.
“In essence, they have no suspects and no prospect of any suspects.”
“They’re still thinking in terms of a straight burglary?”
Fergal hesitated, which wasn’t like him at all. “I’ll come to that in a moment, if I may. It would be simpler if we could leave the questions till the end.”
Suitably corrected, Terry slid his elbows onto the desk and propped his chin on clenched fists. Thereafter he did not shift his gaze, did not move, as if to will Ferga
l forward by the intensity of his attention.
“The forensic people have found nothing obvious in the house,” Fergal began again, his accent belonging more than ever to some uncharted point midway across the Irish Sea. “No known fingerprints, nothing of that nature. Signs of forced entry on the front door, but a neat professional job, a drill on the mortice, a pick on the latch. As for the alarm ... Here, I have to say, my contact was short on information.” From his time-worn expression of forbearance he might have been a lecturer again, in receipt of a sloppy essay. “He could not say if the alarm was linked to a security company, so we do not know if an automatic alarm call was sent, nor for that matter if one was received. All he could tell me was that the neighbours do not remember hearing an alarm bell ringing. Not of course that this means a great deal. False alarms are two a penny in that part of London.”
Terry remembered that Fergal had lived in London during his Cintel years, and perhaps at other less accountable times.
“However, if the exterior bell did indeed sound, it would have switched itself off after fifteen minutes. That is the law -no more than fifteen minutes. The ambulance people did not report hearing an alarm ringing when they arrived, nor was an alarm audible on the call to the emergency services, which suggests that if the alarm was triggered it occurred more than fifteen minutes before Catherine was .. . discovered. It’s equally possible, of course, that the alarm was never set.”
By an effort of will, Terry remained silent. He tried to see this information through a police investigator’s eyes, tried to find a pattern that would steer a thinking mind in the right direction.
Fergal twisted around in his seat. Any movement for Fergal was a performance: limbs drawn in, tall frame realigned, arms and legs uncoiled haphazardly. He turned his eyes to the thin Dublin sun, revealing the punishment of fifty-five troubled years, a poor diet and sixty a day, only recently abandoned. His sad intelligent face was long and thin, with a nose to match and a flop of lank greying hair. His skin was crisscrossed with deep lines, his eyelids heavy and drooping at the corners, while his forehead was set into a perpetual frown, as if to warn strangers away.
When he began to speak again, there was a rare tension about him which filled Terry with foreboding.
“The place was ransacked. Their word. I’m trying to obtain details. To find out whether every room had been searched, every cupboard, whether papers were rifled, or clothing, or everything. At any rate, things were stolen, though they don’t yet have a complete list of what is missing. It seems that Ben Galitza has been somewhat difficult to pin down on that score. However, so far as they can tell it was mainly light stuff. Jewellery, ornaments, some silver. There was a small strongbox containing a few hundred pounds in cash, which was forced open.
“Just cash?”
“That is what has been reported to the police.”
“Yes, yes,” Terry gasped apologetically.
“They’re not sure what sort of weapon was used to attack Ben Galitza. Some sort of cosh, they think. They haven’t found anything resembling a weapon, at any rate not in the house, not in the surrounding gardens.” Fergal’s voice took on an abstracted tone. “They are no nearer to discovering who made the ambulance call either. The ambulance crew didn’t get a proper look at the man and he wasn’t seen leaving.”
“Presumably, though, they would recognise him again if they saw him.”
“I have no information on that.”
Terry drew in a sharp breath. “All right, but was anyone else seen leaving?”
“No reports of anyone, no.”
“Go on.”
Fergal fixed his sombre gaze on a point just below Terry’s line of sight, and Terry knew that the bad news, whatever it might be, was very close.
“So, we have a burglary, we have a professional break-in. However, the
police have reason to think that there was more to it than that. They
think the intruder might have selected the Galitzas’ home purposely,
that he might have wanted to ... get close to Catherine.” Fergal’s
eyes met Terry’s alarmed gaze and continued stolidly, “There had been
calls for some months, silent calls to her mobile telephone, which
cannot be traced. Also’ the hesitation again ‘certain items were
discovered with Catherine. Close to Catherine.” He proceeded yet more
slowly, weighing each word. “There was a pair of panties .. . found
under her head ‘
“Her own, you mean?”
“Possibly. But not the ones she was wearing at the time. Her clothing was intact. No, the police are thinking that these panties might have been acquired from upstairs. Part of the burglar’s haul, if you like.”
Terry repeated incredulously, “His haul.. .?”
“We have an unbalanced person here,” Fergal informed him sternly. “Someone who has broken in with the intention of thieving no doubt about that but also of getting some vicarious thrill from being near Catherine, from acquiring her underclothing. Are you with me now?”
It was several seconds before Terry managed a feeble nod.
“It was one of the ambulance crew who noticed these panties under her head. He pushed them aside when he fitted the collar to her neck and the police picked them up later. If you can imagine her lying on the hall floor with her head over to one side, to the left, then the panties were found between her ear and the floor. The thought is that these panties were placed against her ear to staunch the bleeding.” He held up an index finger as if to admonish himself. “I should have mentioned that she was bleeding from her ear when they found her. I didn’t mention that, did I? No ... Well, she was bleeding quite profusely. Subsequently, tests have established that this blood on the panties was indeed Catherine’s.”
“So it could simply have been someone trying to stop the bleeding?”
Terry argued hopefully. “Nothing sinister at all?”
“It could have been, yes.” But his tone suggested a very different tale and Terry prepared himself for whatever was still to come.
Fergal’s expression darkened. “Later on, when she arrived at the hospital, a scarf was found. A lady’s silk scarf.” He looked down, his voice grew flat and urgent. “It was found bundled up inside her skirt. Between her legs. This scarf had more blood on it.”
Terry stared at Fergal, groping for understanding. “You mean she was attacked?”
“There was no evidence of that, no. There was no obvious source for the blood, you see ... in that place. Besides which -most significantly the blood was not Catherine’s.”
Again Terry was floundering. “Not Catherine’s?” he repeated stupidly.
“But.. . You mean .. .” Fear lurched in his stomach.
“The blood was old. It belonged to a woman. They are thinking that it might have come from another victim of this attacker.”
It was all too much for Terry. Shuddering, he pushed himself back in
his chair and pressed his hands over his face. “Jesus, Jesus.” Among
the conflicting thoughts that collided and jostled in his mind, one
terrifying notion came roaring to the fore. Dropping his hands, he
began urgently, “Have they considered the possibility that ‘
“No, we are not having random thoughts on this. This is the police, remember? They only know what they know. For the moment it has occurred to them to check the scarf, to find out if it belongs to Catherine. It does not. And if they have not already done so, they will check the DNA on the scarf against the national DNA data bank. They will check known offenders, discover who might have been in the area without an alibi. Then .. .” He lifted his shoulders, he spread his hands.
“But where will it lead, Fergal? That’s the thing. Where will it end?”
He blew out his cheeks. “At a guess? I would say that it will go nowhere. That in a month or so when they have failed to find a suspect they will wind the investigation d
own.”
Terry asked unhappily, “And what will we do when that happens?”
Fergal’s steady gaze contained a warning. “We will do nothing.”
Terry wrestled with this idea, and finally submitted with a long sigh.
“If we must.”
With a last cautionary frown, Fergal pulled a small notebook from his breast pocket and flicked through it. “So .. . the rest. Nothing more on Ben Galitza. He’s generally regarded as a bit of an operator, but good for his debts. A big spender, but not thought to have any serious money worries. Seen as on the up and up, destined for bigger and better things, though likely to sail close to the wind with the regulations, tax laws, etcetera. Some people regard him as a one-man band seem to be unaware of the partnership with Simon Jardine. Others say it’s the link with Jardine that’s the key to Galitza’s success, Jardine being the money man, the steadying influence.” He looked up. “That’s about it. Unless you want a deeper look.”
Again Terry was uncertain. “What about surveillance?”
“That all depends on what you are expecting or hoping -to find.”
“I don’t really know.”
“I think that rather answers your question then. Surveillance is very expensive and if you’re not sure what you’re after, then you could be talking weeks and weeks.”
Terry was already nodding rapidly. “You’re right. Forget it.”
Fergal produced a sheet of paper and slid it across the desk. “The address of the spinal unit. I don’t yet have the room number.” He looked at his watch, keen to get away. He had an invalid mother in a nursing home somewhere near Malahide whom he came back to visit once a fortnight.
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