‘Just a minute,’ she said. She disappeared back into her home, reappeared a minute later, this time with a pair of boots on her feet and a set of keys in her hand. She climbed the fence between the two houses and approached him. ‘Can you believe the snow?’ she said. ‘I can’t remember it ever being this bad before. Except in 2010. Was it 2010? Whichever it was, anyway, I think we were snowed in for a week. Will it be the same, do you think?’ She reached him and offered a hand and a smile.
‘Alisha,’ she said. ‘I’m James’s daughter-in-law. We live just next door. And you’re Peter Fisher? I heard you were back.’ Her eyes drifted to the fuel Peter’d left at the front door, the bag of food still in his hands. ‘What’s all this?’
Peter explained, and she looked dubious. ‘Well, that’s really kind,’ she said. ‘You’re welcome to bring everything in, but you can let Des know that we’ll be looking after James, of course, as we always do. He likes to stay on top of things, doesn’t he, your father?’ The words were friendly enough, but Peter didn’t miss the irritation beneath them. She clearly considered Des’s gesture to be unnecessary interference.
She walked past him to the front door, talking all the way.
‘I don’t know why anyone would think James is in any danger. We just live next door. We look after him. I drop his dinner over to him every day and he comes to us every Sunday. I’d like him to come more often but he can’t be persuaded. Ever since Sheila died, but that’s lots of years ago now, and you’d think he’d be better at seeing other people. That’s not a judgement, now, just for his own sake, you know?’
She unlocked the front door. ‘He must have fallen asleep,’ she said. ‘But I have a key to the place. I’d have to, really, to keep a proper eye on him. Did you know his wife? You must have met her. Sheila was a great friend of your granny’s. They used to spend a lot of time together. You know, since James withdrew into himself a bit, Maggie was the only one who would go to the trouble of calling over and spending time with him. He had lots of visitors in the beginning, but they all fell away. Fair-weather friends. Not Maggie. She comes at least once a month, gets a little group together to play a few hands of cards. She’s a good woman.’
Alisha finally stopped talking, stepped into the hallway, stood waiting for an answer.
‘Yes, I remember Sheila,’ Peter said. ‘She and Maggie were very close.’ Sheila had been a talker too, to the best of his memory. Maggie had always said you’d have had to put a hand over her mouth to get a word in edgeways. Maybe James Madden kept to himself because he was grateful for the quiet.
Alisha closed the door behind them. ‘James?’ she called. The house was warm, and Peter was grateful for it. It was seriously cold outside now.
‘James?’ Alisha called again. Then, to Peter, ‘He must be really out. That’s not like him, not at this hour.’ Peter felt the first stirrings of foreboding. He put the food down on the hall table. Alisha opened a door off the hall, and led the way into the living room. James Madden was seated there, in an armchair pulled in close to the fireplace, where a fire burned low in the grate. He had a blanket folded neatly across his lap, an empty cup of tea and a large-print paperback on a table at his knee. His eyes were closed.
‘James?’ Alisha said again, and her voice was uncertain. James looked . . . odd. His face was slack, his mouth open. His head lolled back against the chair, almost, but not quite, as if he was sleeping. Peter put his fingertips gently on the old man’s neck. There was no pulse, and his skin was cool to the touch.
‘I think . . . I think he’s passed,’ Peter said.
Alisha looked at him, eyes wide. ‘But he was fine this morning. I came over after breakfast. We had a chat about the weather, about what he should get the children for Christmas. He was absolutely fine.’ She was very pale, but there were no tears in her eyes. She was in shock.
‘I don’t know,’ Peter said. ‘I’m so sorry. Maybe it was a heart attack. Or a stroke. We should call Doctor Barrett. He said he would be in Roundstone today. Maybe he came, despite the weather.’
Alisha nodded. She sank down onto the couch. ‘Poor James,’ she said weakly. ‘He died all alone. He couldn’t have wanted that.’
‘Had he been in pain, at all?’ Peter asked.
‘He was as healthy as a horse. Well, he might have been a bit depressed. It wasn’t normal, to want to spend so much time alone.’
Peter looked around the room, but there were no empty pill packets. Nothing to suggest that this had been anything but an entirely natural death. So why did he have the strongest feeling that something wasn’t right?
‘Is there someone I can call for you?’ he asked Alisha, as gently as he could. ‘Or, I can wait for the doctor if you’d like to go back to the house.’
She stood up. ‘Yes. I think I need to go. The girls are at home. John is on his way.’ Her face crumbled. ‘He’s going to be devastated. Sorry. Sorry . . . I need to go.’
She all but ran from the room and Peter heard the front door close behind her. He took out his phone and called Richard Barrett’s surgery. Spoke to a nurse who confirmed that he was already in Roundstone, making house calls, and she would redirect him to the house. The doctor’s red Nissan Patrol pulled into the drive five minutes later. Peter went to meet him and they shook hands at the door.
‘Are you all right?’ Barrett asked.
‘I’m fine,’ said Peter.
‘The timing of this could be better for you,’ Doctor Barrett said.
Meaning that he thought it could be Maggie next, for a call like this. Peter felt the blow of that, then shook it off. Barrett examined James gently and efficiently.
‘It was almost certainly a stroke,’ the doctor said. He straightened up. ‘It’s very sad. James was a good man, but I suppose it isn’t a great surprise. He’d been unwell for some time.’
‘Had he?’ Peter asked, surprised. ‘I spoke to his daughter-in-law. She said he was healthy. As strong as a horse, I think she said.’
Barrett shook his head as he packed away his stethoscope. ‘He didn’t want them to know. Didn’t want the fuss. But he wasn’t afraid of dying. He was quite a religious man. He believed that he was going to see his deceased wife in heaven.’ Barrett looked up at Peter. ‘That’s not something I understand myself, that sort of belief, but I suppose there’s no arguing that it’s a comfort for those who have it.’
‘I’d better call the coroner’s office,’ Peter said. ‘Though I don’t know if they’ll be able to get anyone out in this weather.’
‘You can if you like,’ Doctor Barrett said. ‘But there’s no need. There won’t be an autopsy in this case. As I was treating James, I’ll be signing the death certificate. This isn’t a case for the coroner.’
‘All right,’ said Peter. ‘I suppose I’d better call the morgue.’
‘I’d better go,’ Barrett said. ‘The weather’s getting worse, and I want to call in on Maggie before I go back to Clifden. I’ve got a four-wheel drive, but another few hours of this and I think we’ll all be snowed in.’
‘I’ll just let the family know,’ Peter said. ‘It’ll be tomorrow before they can send someone out from the morgue to get him, I’m sure. They might want some help laying him out at home.’
‘That would be good of you,’
Barrett said. Barrett took his leave. Despite the cold, Peter stood in the doorway and watched him go.
After a few minutes Peter went back inside and sat on the couch that Alisha had so recently vacated. James looked smaller, somehow, than he had when they had first come into the room. Diminished already by death.
‘You poor man,’ Peter said quietly.
He stood up and let himself out of the house, pulling the door closed behind him. Alisha had left her keys behind; they were still hanging in the door. He followed her footprints across the snow-covered lawn, over the fence to next door. His boots sank into the snow, which was now well above his ankles. She opened the door to him with puffy eyes, and a bundle of
tissues clutched in one hand.
‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have run away. I’ll make you a cup of tea. John’s inside with the girls.’
In the kitchen he found John Madden, sitting on a kitchen chair. He was a big man, all muscle, with a wiry beard. The girls, both blonde like their mother, were hugging their father as tightly as they could and he had his arms wrapped around them, holding on. It took them a minute to realise that Peter had joined them. John drew a shaky breath, untangled himself, and stood up. He offered his hand, and his thanks for Peter’s visit.
‘I don’t want to intrude,’ Peter said. He held out the keys. ‘Alisha left these in the door, and I wanted to drop them over.’ He put them on the kitchen counter. ‘Also . . .’ His eyes dropped to the girls, and he lowered his voice. ‘I wanted to see if you needed any help with him.’
It took John a moment to understand, then his face blanched as the reality of the situation struck him. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Right.’ He looked at his wife for guidance. For a moment she could only look helplessly back at him, then seemed to gather herself.
‘I think it would be best if we move James to his bedroom for now,’ she said.
‘I can do that,’ Peter said. ‘If that would help.’ He wanted to spare them the memory. He took up the keys from the counter again. John Madden cleared his throat and nodded.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I’ll come with you.’
John lingered in the hall while Peter checked upstairs and found the right bedroom. It was unbearably neat and tidy, everything just so with a pair of navy striped pyjamas folded at the end of the bed. Peter pulled the covers back and went downstairs. James Madden wasn’t heavy. Peter lifted him easily, and carried him upstairs, laid him gently on the bed, and tucked the covers over him. He thought about carrying Maggie up to bed just a couple of nights before, and his heart ached. He was grateful that rigor mortis hadn’t set in. At least now, if the family wanted to visit James, to sit with him overnight, it wouldn’t be a horror.
John shook his hand again when he went downstairs. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ said Peter.
‘What happens now?’
‘I’m not sure anyone will be able to make it out this evening, with the weather. Maybe tomorrow you’ll be able to have someone come and collect him. Doctor Barrett’s already been. He’ll arrange for the death certificate.’
‘Barrett’s a good man. To think he was here only this morning. If he’d come an hour later, maybe Dad would still be with us. Or if I hadn’t gone out to fucking work. Today of all days. I could have stayed home.’
‘Who was here only this morning?’ Peter asked.
‘Doctor Barrett. Allie said he called in on his rounds. He was great like that. Dad could always talk to him. He wasn’t much of a talker – Dad was slow to trust people, you see. He liked your Maggie, though. I think he had a bit of a soft spot for her, to tell you the truth.’
Peter could tell that John was talking just to prevent himself from crying.
‘I’ll go,’ Peter said. ‘I’ll leave you to get back to your family.’
John offered his hand again. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘We’re very grateful.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Cormac had planned to try to track Niall Collins down on Saturday evening, but before that he had something else he needed to do. He made his way over to the south side of Dublin, to a rugby pitch, where an enthusiastic game of tag rugby was being played. Tag rugby had been a thing long before he left Dublin. It was rugby with no tackling, no rucks and no lineouts. Players wore special shorts with coloured flags on each hip, attached by velcro. Players were deemed tackled when a flag was removed. Teams were mixed, and a try scored by a woman was worth three points to the single point that could be scored by a man. Essentially, it was speed dating on a rugby pitch for Dublin’s young professionals and it attracted every skill level from off-season near-professionals to rank beginners. The woman he was here to see – Orna Cox – was a fine player and her team appeared to have structured their gameplay around the very basic strategy of getting the ball to Orna as often as possible. It kept her busy and she didn’t notice Cormac watching from the sideline until a couple of minutes before the whistle blew. Afterwards, Orna shook hands with the opposing team, chatted briefly with her teammates, collected her jacket from the sidelines, and wandered in his direction.
‘Cormac,’ she said. ‘This is a surprise.’
‘That was a good game,’ he said. ‘What was the score in the end? I missed the beginning.’
‘Twelve–seven, I think, or something close to it. We won, anyway.’
‘Well done.’
Orna pulled on her jacket and undid her ponytail, retied it. She was pink-faced and warm from exercise, but it was bloody cold. The sun had gone down and floodlights were on. Without a jacket, she’d be shivering in minutes.
‘I thought tag was a summer sport,’ Cormac said. ‘For the off-season.’
‘It is, mostly. Just a few of the more serious teams have set up a kind of mini-league. We play year-round, when we can get space on the pitch.’
Cormac nodded.
‘So . . . have you spoken to Tara lately?’ she asked. ‘She’s married now. They have one little one, another due in March.’
Tara was Cormac’s ex-girlfriend, had been Orna’s best friend. Still was, as far as he knew. ‘I knew about the first, not the second.’ Cormac said. ‘That’s great news.’ He cast his eyes skywards, where black clouds were gathering. ‘Listen, Orna, I was hoping to have a chat with you about something. Can I buy you a drink?’
‘In the bar?’ She glanced towards the clubhouse.
‘Might be a bit busy. Would you mind if we went somewhere quieter?’
She glanced over her shoulder to the other side of the pitch, where another player was gathering up markers and rugby balls, and taking his time about it. ‘I’d like to, but I have . . . I suppose I have a date.’ She looked pleased and slightly embarrassed at the same time.
Cormac nodded. ‘Right, I won’t keep you.’
‘You need a favour, don’t you?’ she asked.
He shrugged and gave a half smile.
‘If I said it’s a data kind of favour, would I be right?’ Orna zipped up her jacket, pushed her hands into its pockets. ‘Can’t do that anymore, Cormac. You know. Everything is tracked on the system. Every time I run a search it’s tagged, and I have to have a formal garda request and warrant to reconcile every search to or I’ll get myself fired.’
‘Yes,’ Cormac said. ‘I get that. And I wouldn’t ask you to break the rules. There should be a warrant for this in the system already, or there will be shortly. I’m just asking you to add a little more to the picture.’
‘I don’t understand. If there’s a warrant, then why can’t you just add the request to the official channels?’
Cormac grimaced. ‘It’s complicated.’
Orna crossed her arms. It was clear that she wasn’t going to give him anything unless she heard more.
‘It’s not my warrant request, that’s the first problem. And the team who did submit it, well, my concern is that they aren’t that motivated to get to the truth. They’ll do the bare minimum, tick the boxes, but they won’t go the extra mile.’
Orna made a face. ‘Is this some kind of internal politics drama? Because, honestly, Cormac . . .’
‘No,’ Cormac said. He didn’t want to lie to her. ‘There are politics, but it’s bigger than that too. Look, I can’t tell you any details, but this is about a little girl, at the end of the day. And the safety of other little girls in the future.’
Orna’s eyes searched his. She wasn’t stupid. She knew he wasn’t telling her everything. But she would be better off if he didn’t.
‘Orna, you know I wouldn’t lie to you.’
She nodded reluctantly. ‘Tell me what you need.’
‘I’m looking for a data filter. There shou
ld be a warrant on your desk for the call records of a man called Francis Loughnane. Address on the Headford Road, Galway. You’ll be asked for a record of all calls and texts made, sent and received over a period of time. We think he called someone, tipped them off. The only thing is, I doubt that the warrant will show anything. He would have been careful. I think he would have used a burner. Can you run a data filter for the same period? Pick up any phones that were in close proximity to Loughnane’s phone for whatever period the warrant covers?’
She thought about it. ‘I can do it. But I’m going to give the information to the team that sent in the warrant.’
‘That’s fine,’ Cormac said.
Orna hesitated. ‘You’re not going to ask me for a copy?’ she asked.
Cormac shrugged. ‘I’d love a copy,’ he said. ‘But as long as the information gets to the team it should be okay.’
‘Okay,’ she said. Then paused. ‘How dodgy is this, Cormac?’
‘I’m not going to pretend that it’s all above board, Orna,’ he said. ‘But if anything went astray with what I’m doing, none of this would land at your door. Check to make sure that you have the warrant. Just respond to it and add on the data filter. If you need to, if anyone ever asks you about this, just tell them straight that I asked for it and you thought it would be okay.’
She gave him a look. ‘Come on, Cormac. That wouldn’t wash and you know it. You’ve come here to have a quiet chat with me, off the record. How did you even know I was here, by the way?’
He smiled at her. ‘I Googled you,’ he said. ‘The first hit that came up was a site with tag rugby results and fixtures. I thought I’d come by, have a good chance of finding you here.’
She shook her head. ‘Just as well I don’t have a stalker then, isn’t it?’ She made eye contact and held it, and he thought then that it would be all right. She hadn’t had a stalker, exactly, just an obnoxious ex-boyfriend who hadn’t been happy about their break-up and was intent on making sure Orna knew it. Cormac had stepped in with a little show of garda interest, some light intimidation and the ex had fucked off.
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