by Anna Sweeney
He stopped and broke into a sweat. Something had moved beside him. A quick darting sound, followed by a thud or two. Noises that were magnified in the darkness, his nerves on edge in unfamiliar surroundings.
It was nothing, just a small animal or bird frightened by the arrival of a human at close quarters. He was stupid to be startled by such things.
He heard another sound just then. Not a scuttling creature but a loud voice as the front door was opened. Marcus ran out of the house, swearing angrily. He ran up the wooden stairs and fumbled at the attic door. He disappeared into the upper area for a few moments. Katya came out the front door, heels clacking as she went towards the car.
Redmond tried to melt into the trees, while keeping Marcus in his sights. The young man seemed to be unsteady on his feet. He pulled open the driver’s door of the car, but Katya was already sitting there. She held her ground as they argued over who should drive. Redmond waited in the shadows until Marcus opened and closed the gate, his laugh jangling in the dark night as he got into the passenger seat.
Redmond flew up the wooden stairs as soon as they had driven away. The door did not budge but when he shone his torch around him, he saw that the key had fallen on to the top step.
There was a narrow corridor inside, separated from the attic room by a heavy-duty curtain. Redmond tugged at the curtain, and was almost blinded by the lights in the room. His heart thumped against his ribs as he took in the scene.
He took seven or eight pictures on his phone, shifting position to try to avoid the glare of the lights. The phone signal was intermittent, but he tried emailing the photos to his home computer. He stooped down to take a few closer shots without stepping into the room.
Redmond did not hear the footsteps that came along the narrow corridor. He did not realise that another person was behind him until he heard a low voice in his right ear. The voice told him that a sharp knife was pointed at his spine and that he would be very sorry if he did not do as instructed.
Beara was as quiet as a graveyard. In the grey dawn of day, nobody stirred. A line of cloud hovered offshore, waiting to make landfall.
On a minor road beside a boggy pool, a small bird hopped down from a bush. She picked at the damp earth here and there on the verge. She twitched lightly as she kept a sharp eye on all sides for predators.
There were fresh tyre marks in the damp earth, made by a car skidding to a sudden halt. The car’s bonnet had rammed into an old hazel tree. Its occupant lay slumped inside against the door, his left hand dangling off the steering wheel.
The bird hopped to and fro in search of food. The sun gained strength in the eastern sky. All over the peninsula, people awoke and set about their daily tasks.
Inside the car, Redmond shifted his hand. As he stirred into consciousness, he felt pains all over his body. An ache in his neck and a sharp stab in his ribs. His skull was like a steel helmet clamped on too tightly, and blades of pain pierced his eyes as he tried to open them.
An old house hidden behind black trees. Steps leading upwards, and lights dazzling in a room. Images flickering in his memory, like faraway stars in the night sky.
A while later, another car drew up beside his. But Redmond’s eyes had closed again and he did not see the driver looking in at him anxiously. His deadened senses failed to register the elderly man’s knocks on the car window, before he drove off to a neighbour’s house to phone the gardai. The sun rose and fresh layers of Atlantic cloud piled up offshore.
When Redmond awoke a second time, shafts of sunlight bored into his eyes. His mouth was as dry as sand and tasted foul. He realised that it was the taste of stale alcohol. He felt sick all of a sudden and lifted his head, hoping to get a door or window open. But instead he found himself throwing up violently onto the clean floor of his car.
He had to get out. Find a clump of grass to cover the mess. Find water. He was thirsty as hell. But he was terribly stiff and sore, and bending over had brought on new spasms. He thought his shoulder was broken.
He looked around and saw an empty bottle jammed down beside the passenger seat. A half-bottle of whiskey. Panic hit him. Even if he was not injured, he would be unfit to drive.
He looked out the window at a bleak mountain view. Fissures of purple-grey rock breaking through the heathery grass at steep angles. A few cottage roofs in the distance. He could be anywhere.
He had to open the window to let in some air. He was drenched in sweat and about to be sick again. At least the key was in the ignition. It felt like a big achievement to operate the electric windows.
The night’s events resurfaced in his memory. A knife to his back, forcing him to walk all the way to his car. Redmond tried to fight back at one stage, but a sharp nick on his cheek convinced him otherwise. There were two of them, that was what made it impossible to resist.
Two men wearing dark glasses, one with a baseball cap and the other in a hoodie. Identical voices. One of them got into Redmond’s car, bursting into raucous laughter as he ordered him to drive. After a mile or two, he was told to stop and the second guy, who had followed in his own car, joined his brother in the back seat.
Marcus and Carl, no doubt about it. They spotted the beer cans Redmond had bought earlier and gulped them greedily.
His memories of the night throbbed uncontrollably. Redmond put his head to the open window and sucked in the mountain air. He closed his eyes for a few moments, trying to remember everything.
Marcus was the worst of the two, he was fairly sure of it. He was the one with the harsh laugh, who produced whiskey and took a slug or two himself before he pushed it up against Redmond’s ear, telling him to drink. When Redmond tried to ignore him, he waved the knife in the rear-view mirror and shouted at him to swallow every drop. Carl laughed too, but he also made a few attempts to calm his brother’s aggression.
They got out of the car at last. Redmond remembered sitting on his hands to stop them from shaking. He tried to steady himself to walk away from the car. Then he heard a shout at the rear door, followed by a string of filthy language. He was ordered to drive again or he was dead meat.
He had only a hazy idea of what happened after that. He drove as slowly as he could, churning with fear. Headlights appeared in his rear window but he did not know whose they were.
The night got darker, that was his impression. Trees swayed towards him. The thought swirling in his head was that he should kill himself before he rammed some other poor sod into a ditch.
A lone tree had rushed out of the gloom. He hit the brake, or maybe the accelerator.
The sun climbed over the mountains. Redmond dozed for a while. Insects and birds flitted about outside the car.
When he came to again, he remembered his phone. He dug into his pockets but they were empty. Marcus or Carl must have found it. But if he had managed to email the photos he took in the attic, it might all be worth it.
He had to get out of the car, away from the smell of vomit. He could walk to the nearest house and ask for help. Conor was in hospital, of course. It felt as if weeks had passed since they had both jumped into the icy water to rescue Maureen and Dominic.
He had to phone Trevor, that was the only option. The grotty bungalow had to be searched as soon as possible. Marcus would be nailed once the attic was opened and Redmond’s discovery revealed to his colleagues. A large room full of cannabis plants, arranged in long rows under powerful heat lamps. Equipment set up to produce the maximum growth in the shortest time – timers to control heating and lighting, and spares kept in the boat if Marcus had to replace a few of them.
It was a valuable haul. No wonder Marcus and Carl had turned violent in order to protect it.
Redmond opened his eyes properly. Somebody was speaking to him. A jolt of terror shook him at the thought that the brothers had returned.
Then he recognised the inspector’s voice. Trevor O’Kelleher was trying to open the passenger door.
Redmond saw disgust in his eyes. Disgust, surprise and, most damnin
g of all, disappointment.
TWENTY
Friday 9 October, 5.15 p.m.
Cancelled. A cold and unforgiving word, Nessa thought, as she marked it on her screen. Six bookings cancelled for the October bank holiday weekend, which should have been their final flourish of the season. Customers who had seen the name Cnoc Meala in the headlines once too often, and did not want to spend their hard-earned holiday cash in the shadow of death, wondering if a crazed murderer lurked behind the next rock.
‘We have to make a decision soon, you know that, don’t you?’
Patrick did not reply immediately. He was frowning at his own computer screen, his desk at right angles to Nessa’s in the small office between the kitchen and the family living room. He flicked through a sheaf of papers set neatly beside his computer. By contrast, Nessa’s desk was covered in disorderly heaps which she swore at least once a week to sort out.
‘We’ll have to call off the weekend very soon, Patrick, if we get one more cancellation. People who are still booked in will need enough time to make alternative plans.’
‘I’m sorry, love, I’m trying to contact the lawyer in Lilongwe, so I can’t—’
‘Oh, never mind, we can talk about it in a day or two. Maybe everything will work out of its own accord.’
She knew that her voice betrayed her frustration. For the past week, she had tried hard to make allowances for Patrick, and all the pressures that had followed his aunt’s death. But she also suspected that he kept his mind on matters in Africa in order to avoid the problems at home.
‘I don’t think we should worry unduly about one weekend,’ he said then. He turned to face her and Nessa noticed the tiredness in his eyes. ‘The public’s memory of these events will fade sooner or later, and we’ll be back on our feet by next spring, I promise you.’
‘I wish I could believe that, but even if Oscar’s killer is caught, things could drag on until a trial takes place a year or two later. Meanwhile, we could find ourselves out of business.’
‘It’s far too soon for that sort of talk, Nessa. You told me yourself last week that we got goodwill messages from some of our best customers.’
‘Yes, but goodwill won’t pay the bills, will it? And our finances are pretty fragile.’
‘Would you prefer me not to send money to Esther’s grandchildren? I know we haven’t discussed it properly, but if you’re worried about helping with their school and medical bills, you should say so.’
‘That’s not what I meant at all, Patrick. Of course we should help them, because we live in the lap of luxury by comparison. But it’s just, I don’t know …’ Nessa stopped as several papers toppled off her desk. She had a habit of gesticulating extravagantly when she got frustrated. She bent to pick them up. ‘I feel as if we’ve been in limbo for weeks now, with no word of progress from the gardai.’
‘I told you I saw Sergeant Fitzmaurice in Castletown the other day? Unfortunately he had no news about the garda checks on me. He looked uncomfortable when I asked him about it, which was not like him.’
Nessa glanced out the window. ‘It’s like the weather we’re having, drizzle and low cloud day after day, and not a puff of wind to bring hope of a change.’
Patrick attempted a lame smile. ‘I suppose Beara has had some extra visitors recently, though. Day-trippers, you know, who walk around the area expecting to see smears of blood on the roads.’
‘I’m sorry, love, I can’t …’ Nessa rubbed her eyes. She seemed to get less sleep each night that passed. Raging fury and grim determination had given way to weariness after three weeks of the murder investigation. Patrick got up and stood behind her, touching her neck gently.
‘We have to believe it will be solved,’ he said. ‘The gardai are under huge pressure to get the killer, and it’s probably best that they move cautiously.’
‘What upsets me most …’ Nessa allowed herself to breathe in deeply as Patrick stroked her skin with the tips of his fingers. ‘It’s not just that I want it to be solved,’ she said then. ‘That’s only part of why I feel so chewed up. The other part is that I’ve begun to think that whoever killed Oscar did the right thing.’
Nessa turned as Patrick stopped his gentle massage. ‘Can’t you understand that?’ she asked. ‘I mean, the evidence that’s coming out now tells us that he was a complete bastard.’
‘The latest accusation of rape, you mean?’
‘Yes, and I bet you there’s more to come too. First, there was his housekeeper, and this week there’s a young woman who got her first job in the marketing section of his company, saying she had to leave the job after he raped her. Oscar had threatened to blacken her name if she reported him, and then he and his admirers in the gossip columns spun the story as another of his broken-hearted conquests. The same thing may have happened to other women he claimed to have seduced.’
‘I agree with you that it’s very nasty. But I suppose we rarely hear the unpleasant secrets of our guests.’
‘Jesus, I bloodywell hope we haven’t harboured rapists here on a regular basis. It’s all very well to be a charmer, as we took Oscar to be, but it makes me ill to remember how we kowtowed to him. In fact, Dominic was the only person who wasn’t taken in by him, and that’s not easy for me to admit.’
‘But you can’t seriously say that Oscar deserved to be murdered? The justice system is there for people like him. Otherwise it’s the law of the jungle.’
‘I know that, Patrick, but justice can’t always be relied on, can it?’ Nessa leaned back her head, closing her eyes to hold in her tears. She felt she understood for the first time how vicious life really was. Lying awake in the lonely hours before dawn, she could wish for the whole human race to be swept away, with all the infinite suffering and tortures that so many people inflicted on others, or tolerated in the world.
She had a few new leads in her researches on Oscar, but no clear answers. Mounting evidence of his cruelties was not the same as finding out who murdered him. She could not sit on her hands doing nothing, but uncovering a snake pit was taking its toll too.
Patrick held her head in his hands, stroking her temples slowly. The phone started to ring, but they ignored it. After a moment, the answering machine clicked into play, and they heard Trevor O’Kelleher’s soft voice saying that he would like to call at the house that evening, to discuss a few matters relevant to the investigation.
‘I don’t want to go tomorrow. It’s going to be boring, I know it is.’
Ronan was seated on the stairs when Nessa left the office. She thought she could escape upstairs, to make a few phone calls before Trevor arrived. She put down her laptop and sat beside her son. She had enrolled him on a sea-kayaking course, to try to get him out among his own age-group more often.
‘Do you remember what we said the other day, when we talked about this?’
‘Not really. I didn’t say for definite that I’d go.’
‘You said you’d try the course if you knew someone else who was doing it. So last night, I made a few calls—’
‘But it’ll be too cold. And too wet. Anyway, you know I don’t really like team things.’
Nessa sat with him for a while, cajoling and encouraging. In the end, Ronan agreed not to disappoint his school pal who had also enrolled on the course, and in return, Nessa promised to buy him a new Playstation game after the first two sessions. The bribery school of parenting, as she muttered to herself.
Up in her bedroom, she opened a file named ‘B-Z’ on the laptop. It contained copies of the material Ben and Zoe had found nine days earlier, as well as follow-up information. Nessa re-read an email Zoe had sent at the start of the week.
Your idea of checking out arms brokers has paid off. Ben’s told me all about these people who buy and sell weapons for their own grubby profit. He’s found out that Oscar got into this in the 1990s, when his respectable operations were going through a bad patch. So much for his entrepreneurial genius!
I can’t believe how easy a busines
s it is. All Oscar had to do was buy a supply of hardware from one crowd, say in China or Kazakhstan, and then sell it on to someone else. He never got dirt under his shiny fingernails, of course, and he could do it nice and handy from Ireland in spite of our great claims of neutrality and suchlike. He was the middleman, you see, and once the internet came along, he could just watch the money pour in.
Meanwhile, the business journalist friend of Nessa’s was looking for links between Oscar’s investments and the Russian ship, but to no avail so far. One of Stella’s contacts had confirmed Oscar’s links with military and intelligence figures in Saudi Arabia and in Egypt. Nessa had also decided to contact James, Patrick’s friend in Bandon, to ask if he could find out anything about Oscar’s investments in eastern Europe, via the organiser of Patrick’s trip to Moscow. It was a delicate request, because she reckoned the recent publicity about the trip could have rekindled bad feelings among that group. So she had said nothing to Patrick about it. But her risky request had paid off, if information relayed to her that morning by James proved to be true.
She hesitated before she picked up the phone. Perhaps she should wait to find out if Inspector O’Kelleher had news of a breakthrough. On the other hand, Oscar’s vile business dealings should be exposed, whether they had contributed to his murder or not. She decided to talk directly to Ben. Her difficulty with Zoe was that she did not fully trust her to keep her mouth shut, or to distinguish fact from feeling. Finding Oscar’s killer seemed to be rather less important to her than denouncing a rich entrepreneur to the world and its mother.
Nessa noticed her own reflection in the darkened window – the auburn glow of youth in her hair disguising the grey underneath. She wanted to keep Zoe at arm’s length, but she also envied her vigorous certainty about right and wrong, and her sense of life’s endless possibilities. At the end of her email, Zoe mentioned that she would stay on in London for a while, to get to know Stella properly and to take up Ben’s offer of regular volunteer work in his office.