by Claire Allan
‘Okay, Ingrid. We’re going to get you out of here and go somewhere we can talk. Somewhere more private.’
‘What’s happened?’ I ask, wondering if she thinks I’m too stupid to realise there is more going on than she has revealed.
She raises an eyebrow. ‘We just think it would be better to go somewhere away from all the noise and all the nosy parkers. Is there a family member or friend we can take you to?’
‘I’d really rather go home,’ I tell her, and really, it’s all I want, despite what she is saying to me. Despite the fact it may or may not be safe to do so.
‘Ingrid,’ she says, her voice calm as she leads me by the arm to a waiting police car, ‘we really don’t advise that at the moment.’
I look at her, blinking, as I take my seat and she shuffles in beside me, away from prying eyes.
‘Tell me what’s happened,’ I say, even though there is a part of me that doesn’t want to know.
‘Okay. I’m not sure I should be telling you this, but in light of what has just happened here, I don’t suppose I’ve a choice. There’s been an incident at the Doherty house.’
My eyebrows raise. The Doherty house? ‘What kind of incident?’
She takes a deep breath. ‘Mr Doherty has been injured – quite seriously, I believe.’
‘How?’
She pauses for a moment as if she’s not quite sure what to say next, or if she should be saying anything at all to me.
‘He’s been attacked, Ingrid. I don’t have all the details, but it would appear he is in a bad way.’
‘Mr Doherty?’ I ask, incredulous. ‘Liam Doherty has been attacked? Why would anyone attack him?’
This makes no sense. Surely it can’t have anything to do with the story in the paper or Kelly’s anniversary? The only person who could possibly be aggrieved by that is Jamesy Harte. He’d been angry and emotional on the phone earlier, but surely not?
‘We’re trying to find out more,’ DS King says. ‘But, Ingrid, there is reason to believe it is connected to the recent interest in Kelly’s murder. In light of what has happened, and what has been done to your car, we really don’t think it would be wise for you …’
Something clicks in my mind. I need to get to Creggan. I’m not sure who else will have heard what has happened, but if I can be at the scene first, maybe … This is a big story. I reach for the car door to get out.
‘I appreciate your concern, DS King, but really, I’ll be fine. I should probably be letting you get on with things. Sounds like you’ve bigger fish to fry than the tyres on my car,’ I add.
I think of Bernie Doherty’s face, gaunt and lost. She knows me. She might talk to me about what happened. Unless she has gone to the hospital. Maybe I should go there instead …
‘Ingrid, we really think … I really think that you should consider your actions very carefully. We don’t know who did this to your car. We don’t, at this time, know who attacked Mr Doherty. We do know there is a link between the pair of you and, given what else has happened over the last week to you and your property …’
DS King has adopted a very stern voice. There’s a hint of concern there, but more than that, there’s a very clear message that she doesn’t want me out of her sight just now. Maybe she knows more than she is letting on.
I need to get to the heart of this story, I decide, even as the panic is still ebbing from my body, and preferably before anyone else. DS King is not going to be easy to get past, though.
A thought strikes me and I take a deep breath.
‘Actually, I don’t feel well,’ I tell DS King, clenching my muscles tightly and jiggling my legs, doing my very best to adopt a ‘stricken with panic’ look. ‘I don’t feel …’ I let my words taper off, breathe in and out in short, sharp bursts, trying to control the flow of oxygen to my lungs.
‘Is it another panic attack?’ DS King asks, her voice thick with concern.
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know,’ I say, putting my hand to my chest as if I’m in pain.
‘I’m taking you to the hospital,’ she says, issuing the order for DC Black to drive on.
He looks into the rear-view mirror just as I raise my head to look up. I catch his gaze, his raised eyebrow. I suspect he knows exactly what I’m doing, but I know he won’t have the guts to call me out on it.
If DS King won’t let me go home, and won’t let me go to Creggan, I’ll hedge my bets on Bernie Doherty being at the hospital waiting for news on her husband. If I happen to be there at the same time, and I happen to bump into her there, that’s just a coincidence, isn’t it? I can’t be accused of anything. Not when I’m clearly unwell.
I turn my gaze from his quickly, sit back in the seat and allow a tear to roll down my cheek. It isn’t hard for me to make myself cry when I need to. I’m well versed in doing exactly what I need to do to get a scoop. As a second tear follows, I realise that I’ve been holding my emotions in over this past week. It’s not hard, at all, to let some out. If I’m not careful, I’ll lose control of them altogether and start sobbing.
‘We’ll be there soon,’ DS King says, taking my hand in hers and instructing DC Black to switch on the blues and twos.
I almost feel bad for lying to her, but I push those feelings back.
I spot Bernie Doherty as soon as we arrive at the emergency department in Altnagelvin. Her face ashen, a bloodstained coat in her arms. She is being led down the corridor away from the main doors of the department by a uniformed police officer, and a man with a stethoscope around his neck who appears to be a doctor. I know the relatives’ room is at the end of this corridor and sure enough, I see her led to the door of it.
I feel a hand on my arm and I jump, pulled from my reverie by DS King, who is leading me to a seat in the main waiting room on the left. As much as I want to follow Bernie Doherty and talk to her, I can’t just feign a miraculous recovery. The room is full to bursting and is uncomfortably warm.
‘You’ll get help soon,’ DS King says as we sit down.
There’s a degree of agitation in her voice. She’s tense. She probably wants to see what is happening with Liam Doherty as much as I do. My name is called by a nurse. Before I can speak, DS King jumps in, giving my history so that I don’t have to speak. The nurse visibly relaxes, having assessed that I’m not a dangerous criminal. But DS King doesn’t, and the tension coming off her in waves is making me feel uneasy.
I follow the nurse through to the treatment bays and she asks me to hop up on the bed.
‘We’ll do some checks,’ the nurse says. ‘Give you a little oxygen to regulate your breathing.’
She slips some rubber tubing around my head, poking two little valves into my nose. I feel the gentle flow of oxygen. I lie back and close my eyes as she slips a blood pressure cuff on my arm. I feel it tighten. DS King speaks and I open my eyes.
‘Right, Ingrid, I’ll leave you here for a bit. DC Black will be just outside. I’m going to check in with my team about the Doherty incident.’
The nurse raises an eyebrow. DS King leaves the room and I take a deep breath of oxygen while the nurse takes my temperature.
‘It’s all go tonight,’ the nurse quips. ‘And we can’t even blame the pubs. Sure, it’s not even eight yet. Must be a full moon or something.’
‘Is that true?’ I ask between breaths. ‘Do full moons really bring out the crazy people?’
She nods. ‘As far as I’m concerned, yes. But you know, we’re only ever a few beats away from crazy all of the time. You never know, morning, noon or night, who is going to come through the door next.’The nurse scribbles some notes on my file. ‘Your temperature is fine, but your blood pressure is a little high. We’ll repeat this in fifteen minutes to see how you are.
‘For some people, it’s just being in a hospital that causes the jump. Your oxygen levels are coming up, so we’ll just get you to rest here for a bit. I’ll see if I can find that police officer you were with and let her know.’
‘My car was v
andalised,’ I say, keen to let the nurse know I’m not one of the ‘crazies’ she speaks of.
She looks at me quizzically.
‘That’s why I’m here,’ I gabble. ‘My car, and then I had a panic attack and I’m probably okay and really it looks like you are all busy enough and I don’t need to be wasting your time.’
‘It’s not wasting our time. Don’t be worrying yourself,’ she says, her voice gentle. ‘Now, try and rest a bit.’
She pulls back the curtain on the cubicle just enough to slip out before she pulls it closed again and I’m left listening to a cacophony of noise all around me. Someone is screaming somewhere – in pain. They don’t want to be touched. A male voice, slightly slurred, shouts, ‘Don’t fucking touch me,’ while a doctor or a nurse is trying to soothe them. How that medical professional can keep their voice so calm is beyond me. My patience wouldn’t last long.
A baby is crying. A nurse or doctor is talking about how she is desperate for a cup of tea. There is lots of chat about test results and meds and X-rays. A whole world exists outside this cubicle and I want to get out and see it.
This area of A&E is too far from the resus ward or the family room for me to be in with any chance at all of seeing Bernie, or finding out more about what has happened to Liam. I don’t care if my blood pressure is raised – if I don’t get on top of this story quickly, it will only rise further.
DS King has not returned, so I pull off the blood pressure cuff and the nasal canula that has been feeding me oxygen and sit up. Rifling through my bag, I find my phone and slip it into my pocket. I’m going to go and investigate.
No one so much as gives me a sideways glance as I walk through the bay of curtain-lined cubicles towards the relatives’ room. I’m just one more person in the department and as long as I’m not making a nuisance of myself or demanding attention, I’m the least of their worries.
There’s a corridor that separates the main department from the resuscitation ward. I keep my head down as much as possible, while trying to look around. There are a number of uniformed police officers standing around and no obvious sign of Bernie Doherty. Thankfully, there is also no sign of DS King, so I brave it to walk towards the family waiting room. Chances are, she will be ensconced there – perhaps with other family members or the police. Can I risk knocking on the door? What will her reaction be?
I hear whispers of conversation around me.
‘It was pretty brutal,’ one police officer says. ‘I’ve not seen the likes of it before. Someone has it in for him.’
‘It’s the wife I feel sorry for. She’s in an awful state. Imagine seeing that and not being able to do anything.’
As I walk past them, they stop speaking, perhaps aware they have been speaking inappropriately and they have no idea who will walk past them or what they might know. Derry is a small city and it’s still the case that everyone knows everyone else’s business. News like this, if it got out, would spread like wildfire.
There’s only one thing for it really. I should be brazen. The worst that can happen is that I’ll be told to get lost. If it happens, it will hardly be the first time and it certainly won’t be the last.
I walk to the door of the family room – that private space, with the comfy seats and boxes of tissues on the table to help mop up the tears when the bad news is broken. The place no one wants to be shown to. The place where pain and grief are contained.
Although I half expect to feel a hand on my shoulder to stop me, or to be asked by one of the police officers who I am and where I’m going, it doesn’t happen. Before I know it, I’m knocking on the door, turning the handle and letting myself in.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ingrid
Bernie Doherty is still holding the bloodstained coat, only now I can see clearly that it is not her own. It must be Liam’s. Her grip is so tight, her hands stark white – a direct contrast to the darkness of the coat. Small specks of blood are luminous against her pallor. There is a streak of blood on her forehead. As if she wiped the back of her hand on her brow, mopping away her own sweat with a trail of her husband’s blood.
Her trousers are wet, I notice, and her face is as white as her hands, framed by tendrils of her hair, which is now a mass of frizz. Her blue eyes are ringed with red. She has been crying, but now she is rocking – expending her nervous energy in what little way her body will allow her. Her eyes flash directly to mine as if she both hopes and fears that I have news for her on her husband’s condition.
‘Bernie,’ I say, ‘I heard what happened. My car was attacked, too.’
She blinks at me as if trying to place me.
‘How is he? How is Liam? What did they do to him?’ I ask.
‘Ingrid Devlin, from Leenan Gardens,’ she says, to herself as much as anyone.
Several sets of eyes from around the room focus on me and I look at the other people gathered. There is a man – one of her sons, I think. It’s been a long time since I saw him. And a woman, pregnant, rubbing her stomach as if she is polishing a bowling ball. Her eyes are red-rimmed, too, and she is holding a well-worn Kleenex in her hand. Little pieces of disintegrated tissue fall to the floor like sad confetti.
‘Ingrid that wrote the story?’ the man says. ‘The one in the paper today? The girl that started this up again?’ He stands up and before I can even register the moment, he is powering towards me. ‘Scumbag bitch!’ he shouts, and I flinch, awaiting the physical blow that I’m sure will follow this verbal assault.
‘Christopher!’ Bernie hisses, and it’s enough to stop him in his tracks, his hand frozen somewhere between his towering frame and my face. ‘It’s not her fault. You can’t blame her for what happened to your da. She’s only doing her job. What happened … It was all my fault.’
Christopher Doherty is over six foot tall. He’s of stocky build. It’s clear he works out and by the look of his biceps, he might take a little something to help him along. I can tell he’s normally a guy who wouldn’t be seen outside the house without being groomed to perfection, so to see this giant of a man so dishevelled as he starts to cry in front of me, shaking with anger and pain, feels like a physical blow.
I step back.
‘I’m sure the only people who are at fault are those who did this,’ I say as the pregnant woman places her hand on Christopher’s arm and gently guides him into a hug. ‘It’s okay. He’ll be okay. He’s a strong man.’
Bernie looks down, releasing the coat from her grasp at last. ‘He’s not. He’s not a strong man. He wasn’t strong enough for this and I did it. I only wanted to tell her story. To keep a part of her alive.’
Christopher pulls himself from his wife’s embrace, punches the wall – the sound his bones make as they smash into the solid brick is sickening.
The pregnant woman looks crestfallen. She shrinks back into herself, rubbing the roundness of her stomach in a protective manner. I feel for her. She was clearly only trying to help and here she is in the middle of this nightmare.
‘And people are talking about her. Remembering her. That’s a good thing.’ I say.
I want to reach for my phone to show Bernie and Christopher the Facebook likes and the retweets, but sense kicks in before I do. What do they care about stupid numbers on the Internet when Liam is in God knows what state.
Bernie just shakes her head. Tears are rolling down her face. ‘No … No.’
‘We’re in shock,’ the pregnant woman says. ‘It was just so unexpected. So brutal.’
Christopher sits down beside her, like a child in need of comfort, and she takes his non-bruised hand and squeezes it gently.
‘Did they tell you what they did?’
It’s Bernie’s turn to talk. My eyes flick to hers. She is ashen, her fingers still blanched white, wrung together.
‘No. No, I just heard he’d been attacked. The police were with me at Foyleside. My car was vandalised. A threat left for me. I took a panic attack and they brought me here.’
Bernie is
n’t listening to what I’m saying. I can see that. She drops her gaze from mine, looks down at the floor.
‘There were three of them. Three big men in their balaclavas. They beat him, right in front of me. I tried to stop them, but one of them pushed me into the chair. Liam kept trying to reassure me he was okay, but all I could do was beg them to stop. One of them, a man with a Belfast accent, said if I spoke again it would be worse for Liam. If I so much as made a noise they would finish him off. So I had to watch … and listen … And then …’ she pauses as if trying to find the words, ‘one of them went out into the kitchen. I could hear it, you know.’
Her voice cracks. ‘Oh, Jesus, I could hear it and he could, too. The kettle boiling.’
She brings her hand to her mouth as if she is going to throw up. It’s all I can do to keep standing myself. Dear God, what have they done to him? I watch as Bernie steadies herself, takes a deep breath.
‘The other two of them held him down and the third man came back in with the kettle in his hand. I wanted to beg them to stop, but the Belfast one, he just looked at me and told me again to keep my mouth shut or he’d pour it right down Liam’s throat and into his eyes. So I had to sit tight and I was afraid to move – and God forgive me, I closed my eyes because I didn’t want to see it. I couldn’t see it and I heard the screams of him.
‘They scalded him with that boiling water all over his chest, right up to his neck, and they held him down while they did it. And I … I let them … I didn’t stop them.’
Her body convulses into sobs and Christopher, this big lump of a man, simply drops his head and cries, too.
I can’t deny that the scene, and the news of the barbaric nature of the attack, has my stomach twisting, too. There’s a darkness to this that I can’t comprehend. Why Liam Doherty? What had he done to deserve this?
‘Do you have any idea who did it?’ I ask, but Bernie won’t or can’t answer.
She looks at me and her eyes widen as if she is realising something else. I see it. The fear, stark, as if I’m posing a direct risk to her.