Peter closed his eyes. He could hear Anna moving about the kitchen. He could smell onions frying. For a second he was transported back to his childhood. He opened his eyes quickly. It was all too close to home. Except this time, instead of his mother, it was Maggie in a bed upstairs, slowly dying. He stood up, paced the room. How much longer would Barrett take? Peter’s eyes fell on some small plastic jars of medication, lined up on the mantelpiece. He went over, read the labels one by one. They were all prescribed for Maggie. Prinivil. Norvasc Amlodipine Besylate. The brand names of the various drugs meant nothing to him.
A door opened behind him, and Peter turned.
‘Doctor Barrett,’ he said. ‘How are you?’
Barrett looked tired, like he’d aged a few years since Peter had last seen him.
‘Good,’ Barrett said. ‘Busy. The weather makes it harder, you know yourself.’
They shook hands in greeting, sat by the fire.
‘Where’s Anna?’ Barrett asked.
Peter nodded towards the kitchen. ‘Would you like me to get her?’
The doctor shook his head. ‘Why don’t I bring you up to date about Maggie’s condition, and you can talk to Anna afterwards? I’ll let you decide how much you should tell her.’
Peter felt his heart sink.
Doctor Barrett sat back, his face grave, eyes sympathetic. ‘I’m very sorry, Peter, but Maggie is no better today. If anything, I would have to say that her condition has deteriorated.’
Peter sat with his arms resting on his legs, hands clasped together.
‘Is it her heart?’ he asked.
‘Maggie suffers from hypotension,’ Barrett said. ‘Low blood pressure. Hypotension can be difficult to treat in the elderly. It often requires more than one drug to keep it under control, and it’s very important that patients take the correct dose at exactly the right time.’
‘Are you saying that Maggie hasn’t been taking her medication?’
‘I don’t want you to leap to any conclusions like that. It’s possible that Maggie has been taking her medication exactly as I’ve prescribed it, and her condition has just progressed.’
‘Or . . .?’ Peter asked.
‘She may have missed some doses or taken too much. It’s difficult for me to know for sure. But her condition has certainly worsened rapidly over the past few weeks. Poorly controlled hypotension can lead to kidney problems, and in elderly people that leads quickly on to other issues. I see symptoms of kidney problems in Maggie.’ Barrett paused. ‘And I think she may have had a small stroke.’
‘Christ,’ Peter said. ‘We need to get her to a hospital. Get her blood tested, and get her medication sorted out. Right?’ He wanted to stand up, put Maggie in the car and set off straight away. There was a small hospital in Clifden, but he wouldn’t bring her there. He’d drive straight to Galway. Back to civilisation. Aoife was there. She’d fix her.
‘Maggie is eighty-two years old,’ Barrett said, very gently. ‘What’s wrong with her . . . well, there’s no cure for it. We can look at her medication, certainly, but at this point that can only have so much impact. Peter, I understand that this is very hard to accept. I know this may feel very sudden for you. Can I just urge you to take some time before you consider treatment that might be very uncomfortable for Maggie?’
Peter felt tears thicken his throat. ‘Are you . . . you’re telling me that she’s dying?’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Barrett said. ‘It’s never easy news to deliver.’
‘How long does she have?’
Barrett sighed. ‘It’s impossible to be exact about these things. I would say weeks, but it might be less.’
Peter couldn’t talk. He swallowed back more tears and tried to pull himself together.
‘I’d urge you, if you can, to keep Maggie at home. She’s happy and comfortable here. I’ll come every day to check on her. I think you’ll find that she’ll sleep more and more over the coming days.’ Barrett’s voice was very quiet, very steady. ‘And then the day will come when she won’t wake up, and she’ll slip away from us.’
Peter tried, but he couldn’t find words to respond. Barrett sat with him in silence for a minute, then stood and put a comforting hand on Peter’s shoulder.
‘There are worse ways, Peter. She’ll be home, comfortable and happy, surrounded by the people she loves.’
Peter thought about his mother’s pain in her last days of life and could only nod his head.
He found Anna in the kitchen. She had something baking in the oven, shepherd’s pie maybe.
‘That smells good,’ he said.
‘Maggie taught me,’ she said, without turning around. Her hands were busy in the sink, washing up. ‘I wasn’t much of a cook, before.’
‘Well, it smells good,’ he said again, lamely. He put his hands in his pockets, didn’t know where to start.
‘What did the doctor say?’ she asked.
He didn’t know if he wanted to tell her. Didn’t know if he trusted her. What Barrett had said about the medication – could that be Anna’s fault? But no. If anyone was to blame, it was him. He should have been here. Should have looked after his grandmother so that she hadn’t had to rely on a twenty-something-year-old stranger to cook her meals and make sure she took her pills.
‘Do you want to sit down, or something?’ he said.
‘I’d rather if you just told me.’ There was fear in her eyes, and he could tell it wasn’t for herself.
‘Anna,’ he said. ‘Please. Just take a minute.’
She took up a tea towel and slowly dried her hands, then joined him at the kitchen table, taking the seat at the other end so that they were sitting as if at an interview.
‘Well?’ she said.
It was hard, suddenly, to find the words. ‘Doctor Barrett thinks that Maggie is getting worse. He says . . . he thinks she won’t recover from this.’
She was staring back at him, expectant. She hadn’t understood.
‘He says that she may only have a couple of weeks left. Maybe less.’
It took another moment, a long moment. And then she shook her head rapidly, once, twice, then she put her hands to her face and clenched her eyes closed, like a little girl trying to shut something out. He wanted to reach out and hold her, but he couldn’t do that, so he sat there, helpless, feeling her pain and his own until finally he cried a few hard and painful tears. There was no relief in it.
Anna stood in a sudden rush of energy. She wiped away tears with the back of her hand, found a tissue box on the counter, blew her nose and mopped her face. When she spoke again, her face was dry but she looked brittle, as if she had been hollowed out.
‘It’s impossible,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘I mean, it’s impossible. She was fine only a few weeks ago. You don’t know. You haven’t been here. We were here, every day, and everything was fine. Everything was lovely.’
Peter took in a deep breath. Let it out. ‘I know,’ he said. He almost crumbled then but caught himself. ‘I know.’
His acknowledgement seemed to suck all the fight out of her. She raised a shaking hand to her mouth and gnawed at the corner of her thumbnail.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It seems like you’re very close to her. Maggie can be very kind.’
She flinched.
‘Maggie’s not kind.’ Anna spat the word out as if it were an insult. ‘Kind means you’re doing something to make yourself feel good. It’s handing someone on the street a tenner and congratulating yourself all the way home. I don’t want kind.’
Peter was utterly drained. He felt battered by the day, by the terrible news. His weekend in Galway was disappearing fast – even if the roads were passable, he couldn’t leave Maggie like this. Anna was all hard edges and resentment and he didn’t want to deal with it.
‘What do you want, Anna?’ He didn’t really expect her to answer. She was so private, so closed off. But she was upset too and her barriers were down.
She took two quick breaths.
‘I want a place of my own. I want my own money in the bank, my own food on the table. A job that pays me better than a living wage. I want Tilly safe and smiling. And Maggie understands that because she was in exactly the same boat herself when she was my age.’ Anna drew in a shaky breath. ‘Maggie’s been helping me, yes, but I was helping her just as much. And it wasn’t kindness. It was better than that.’
‘What was it, then?’
She searched for the words.
‘Friendship,’ she said simply, in the end. Her eyes flooded with tears, and she wiped them away with the back of a hand. ‘What happens next?’ she asked.
‘Doctor Barrett’s suggested that we keep her at home. Keep her comfortable. It’s where she’d want to be.’
Anna nodded. She turned back to the salad she was preparing. ‘I’m so stupid. I don’t know why I’ve made all this. Maggie’s not going to eat it. Tilly just wants pasta. I’ll end up throwing it all in the bin.’
Peter stood up and bent down to look into the oven. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m absolutely starving. If you’ll have me, I’d love to share it with you.’
She didn’t smile. Neither of them was capable of it in that moment. But after a moment she nodded, and some small thing changed between them. They finished the work of making the food together. Tilly had her dinner while Peter sat with a sleeping Maggie, and then, with Tilly in bed, Peter and Anna sat down together in front of the fire, their dinner plates on their laps.
‘Wait a minute,’ Peter said. He stood up, went to rummage in the bottom of a cupboard in the kitchen and emerged a moment later brandishing a bottle of wine and two glasses. ‘Maggie isn’t much of a drinker, but she always has one stashed somewhere.’
He poured for both of them.
‘Thanks,’ Anna said.
‘Do you like wine? Sorry, I should have asked.’
‘It’s good,’ she said. ‘I like it.’
They ate in silence for a few moments. She’d been quiet all evening. When the food was finished, he took the plates to the kitchen, came back to the living room and poured them both a second glass. They sat in front of the fire and drank.
‘It’s getting heavier,’ Anna said, looking out at the snow. It was dark outside now, but the snow was thick and constant, great flurries of it blowing up against the window.
‘Yes.’
‘You should stay,’ Anna said. ‘It’s too late and too cold to be walking around out there. You could sleep on the couch here, if you don’t mind a couch . . .?’
He smiled a small smile. ‘A couch is brilliant. This couch, in particular, would be brilliant. Thanks, Anna.’
She looked away. ‘You don’t have to thank me. This isn’t my house.’
The words hung in the air.
‘Anna,’ he said. He waited for her to look at him. ‘I don’t know what decisions Maggie has made about this house, or anything else. But I just wanted to say to you, if I have any say in it, you don’t need to worry about finding somewhere new to live. I’m sure Maggie would want you and Tilly to stay as long as you need to.’
Why had he said that? Was it the wine? The tiredness or the bad news? Or the fact that for the first time since he’d pulled that trigger, he didn’t feel alone?
Anna’s brow furrowed. ‘I wasn’t . . . I didn’t mean… Look, I can work. I’ve been saving. Tilly and I will be fine.’
‘That’s good,’ Peter said. ‘But I just wanted you to know that you have a home here, all the same. As long as I have a say in it, I mean.’
‘Well, it’s all right,’ she said. ‘You don’t need to worry about us.’
They fell silent again for a while. The room was so warm and so quiet with the snow drifting down outside. There was something very calming about it. It soothed away rough edges.
‘Maggie and Tilly get on?’ he asked. There was no edge to the question.
Anna smiled. ‘They do now. You know Maggie. She’s no-nonsense, but she can be kind.’ Her eyes shot to his as soon as she said the word, and she flushed. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘I do,’ he said. He didn’t smile but it was there in his voice.
‘They went for walks together, in the beginning, before Maggie stopped going out. And they did a bit of gardening together.’
‘Jesus,’ Peter said. He raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s not exactly Maggie’s thing.’
Anna laughed. ‘She did it to please Tilly. They’d clear a bit of ground, plant a few seeds. Nothing ever grew, as far as I could see. Or not for long anyway. But they had fun with it.’
Peter smiled properly this time. ‘That’s nice,’ he said.
‘Maggie didn’t do that with you?’ Anna asked.
‘Ah, no. But times were different then. Maggie was working, you know? And she was nursing my mother, most of the time we lived with her.’
The curtains were drawn now. Only the corner lamp was lit, and the fire had died down. Shadows played across Anna’s face as she spoke.
‘What happened to your mother?’ she asked.
The question took Peter by surprise. ‘Maggie didn’t tell you?’
Anna shook her head.
‘She died,’ he said. ‘She had cancer.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Anna said.
‘I was eight,’ Peter said. ‘It was hard.’ He’d barely spoken to anyone about his mother. Only to Aoife, and then only once, when they were kids. It must be the shock of the news. Or maybe it was Anna’s stillness.
She was nodding. ‘I was six when my mother died. She was hit by a car. My brother ran out into the street and she ran after him. He was fine, but she died.’
‘Jesus. Anna, I’m sorry.’
‘Our father hadn’t been around for years, so after that we went to live with my grandmother.’
‘Just like me and Maggie,’ he said.
‘Not like you and Maggie,’ she said. ‘Not at all.’ She was twisting her wine glass around in her hand, her eyes far away.
‘You weren’t close to your granny?’ Peter asked carefully.
‘I think she blamed us for our mother’s death. Or maybe that was just the excuse. She was always angry. She kicked us out the day Niall turned eighteen.’
‘What age were you?’ Peter asked.
Her eyes were dark, very calm, unreadable. ‘Fifteen. Niall looked after me. It was better, for a while.’
‘I’m sorry, Anna,’ Peter said.
She looked into the fire. ‘It’s all in the past now,’ she said. ‘I don’t ever think about it.’
‘Still,’ he said.
‘Still, what?’ She looked up at him, a softness in her face.
‘Just. Still,’ he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Rebecca Murray and Aiden Kennedy had been ordered not to approach Niall Collins on the grounds that he was an informant whose life would be put at risk by any garda contact. In Cormac’s experience, there were two methods of initiating contact in such sensitive circumstances – either very, very quietly or very, very loudly. Given that he had no access to a surveillance team and very little information about Collins to go on, Cormac thought that the best approach would be the latter. He would make little or no effort to disguise the fact that he was a garda looking to speak with Collins. If Collins really was an informant – and the chances of that must surely be slim – it would be easier for him to explain away an overt garda approach than a botched covert one.
The search for Collins took Cormac out of the city centre, towards The Liberties. The address Murray and Kennedy had provided was a flat in an area he knew well from his early days as a uniformed garda, and he found it easily enough. A fourth-floor flat in a block of social-housing apartments, paid for by the government, and occupied by people who needed a bit of support to get by. Single mothers mostly, a few old-age pensioners. It was a relatively new building. The building it had replaced had been an eyesore and a no-go area colonised for years by drug de
alers and their customers. The kind of place gardaí didn’t visit without stab vests and plenty of company. Out of old habit Cormac avoided the lifts – back in the day they had never worked, had functioned instead as an informal toilet. This building was different though, everything seemed well maintained, clean and tidy. He didn’t miss the security cameras on every floor and at every stairwell.
Cormac knocked on the door of the apartment. It was opened after a minute by a young woman in her mid-twenties. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She wore elaborate make-up on one side of her face – heavy eyeliner that flicked out from the outer corner of her left eye in a perfect curve, a lipsticked mouth, an immaculately groomed dark eyebrow. The other side of her face was entirely bare. It was very disconcerting.
‘Yeah?’ she said.
‘I’m looking for Niall Collins,’ Cormac said. ‘Is he about?’
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