by Jo Spain
Tom withdrew the keys from his pocket now. His hands were wet and the metal slippery. He inserted the key in the lock and turned it as gently as he could.
Silently the two men moved into the vestry, swiftly shutting the door behind them to block out the sound of the heavy downpour.
They heard it immediately: two raised voices and a baby crying. Tom couldn’t discern what was being said, but immediately picked up from the tones that one voice was threatening and the other was pleading.
He crossed the room to the next door, smoothly sliding the second key into its lock. He held his breath as it turned, but it barely made a sound. Thank God the priest was on top of the church’s maintenance.
Tom opened the door a fraction and peered through.
A marble pillar yards away from the altar obstructed his view of the two women beyond it.
He turned to Ray.
‘They’re in there,’ he whispered. ‘I have to go in. Stay here and keep the door ajar. If you hear anything out of the ordinary, come in behind me.’
‘Shouldn’t we wait for the Emergency Response Unit?’ his deputy hissed back.
On cue, the baby screamed.
‘Do you hear that?’ Tom hissed. ‘We can’t wait.’
The inspector opened the door just enough to slip through. He was still invisible to anybody on the other side of the pillar but he ducked anyway as he crept towards the altar. He crouched behind the alabaster slab for a moment, then crawled to its edge to see around it.
From here, he had a view of what was happening in the mahogany pews below.
Kathryn Finnegan stood facing him. Beth was in her arms, thrashing angrily against her mother’s firm grip. The young woman’s face was pale, her eyes wide with terror and anguish as she tried to physically envelop the squirming baby to protect her.
Sara Blake was facing Kathryn, arms stretched in front of her.
Tom strained to try to see around Sara.
In that moment, his worst fears were confirmed.
Sara was holding her father’s gun, the illegal Glock.
And she was pointing it at Kathryn and the baby.
‘I said, put her down!’
Tom didn’t recognise Sara’s voice. It was loud and harsh, a world away from her usual soft-spoken timbre.
‘I can’t,’ Kathryn wept. ‘Please. I’m begging you. I’m all she’s got. Don’t do this. You’re scaring her. Let us go.’
Neither woman was aware of the inspector’s presence. Tom’s heart raced. If he rushed Sara, would he startle her into firing the gun? He weighed up his chances of getting close enough to stun her with the butt of his weapon or wrestle her to the ground.
He didn’t even know if she had the weapon primed. Would she take that risk, while it was pointed at a baby? He knew Sara was a proficient shot. They’d found no evidence of shooting lessons, but she’d picked up the skill somewhere. In these circumstances, however, with emotions charged and her hands shaking as they were, was she fully in control of the gun?
If he were to draw his own weapon, should he chance firing at her and hope her reaction wasn’t to pull the trigger? Could he scare her with his gun or would that exacerbate the situation?
One thing was certain – if she spun round and he did shoot her, it would have to be fatal or he risked her firing at Kathryn.
Tom only had one option. He didn’t want to have to kill this woman. He just wanted to make sure she didn’t harm anybody else before he arrested her for Ryan Finnegan’s murder.
He had to get her to point the gun at him and then try to talk her down. Despite his Kevlar vest, he was aware that he was about to take a massive gamble. The presence of the baby and the fact Sara hadn’t fired yet meant it was a calculated one, but a risk nonetheless.
Tom drew a deep breath, stood up and spoke her name softly.
‘Sara.’
*
How the hell did he find us? Had Kathryn somehow managed to ring for help? But, no, the other woman’s hands haven’t moved from the baby. I’d have seen if she’d taken out her phone.
I don’t shoot him. He’s holding his hands up to show me that they are empty. That wouldn’t stop me. If I wanted him dead I’d fire straight at his stupid, calm head without hesitation. All that’s preventing me from firing is the unexpectedness of the situation. I hadn’t factored him into the equation and now I’m not sure what to do.
‘What are you doing here?’ I say.
‘I’m sorry if I scared you,’ he replies.
He’s trying to look non-threatening, when his very presence is alarming.
I know I look a state. I tried to smooth down my hair before I approached Kathryn, wipe away the smudged mascara. Still, she looked at me with eyes full of concern, just like he’s looking at me now. He doesn’t give a shit about me though. Not really. All his thoughts are for Kathryn and her baby.
‘How did you know we were here?’ I demand.
‘This is where Kathryn and Ryan got married, Sara. She mentioned it to me the other day. She said that this was the only place she had been able to find peace. I imagine she had planned to come here today and then you rang.’
He’s correct. We’d agreed to meet here but I didn’t know she’d have the baby with her. Why did she bring the baby?
He’s still talking.
‘When she was at your house it was obvious she knew about the pictures of Aidan. You were worried she’d go to the media. I know everything, Sara.’
I laugh.
‘What do you mean, everything?’
‘I know what happened with Ryan. I want you to talk to me. But let Kathryn and the baby go. I’m pleading with you, Sara. Look at the child. She’s terrified. She’s tired and upset and probably hungry. Let Kathryn take Beth outside.’
‘I don’t want to hurt the baby,’ I shout in Kathryn’s direction. ‘Put her down.’
‘She can’t,’ the inspector pleads. ‘Kathryn is all Beth has left. Would you really take away both that baby’s parents?’
I lower the gun a little. I know he’s deliberately focusing on the baby, repeating her name to me. It’s a tactic and it’s working. He knows I’d never hurt a child.
But her mother . . .
‘I have to do this!’ The scream that comes out of my mouth takes even me by surprise. He doesn’t get it. ‘You don’t understand. Everything I’ve done – it will have been for nothing. She’ll expose Aidan and everything will be ruined. She won’t let it go.’
‘What will be ruined? Sara, look at me. Talk to me.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, unable to drag my eyes from Kathryn. ‘All I ever wanted is what you have. A child.’
She’s standing there, dumbstruck. She looks paralysed, unable to comprehend what’s happening. The baby, exhausted from crying, is now mewling quietly, relenting to her mother’s strength and letting her body collapse against Kathryn’s.
I can’t bear to look at it. I crave that intimacy. I hunger for what they have.
‘You say you know everything.’ I turn to Tom. ‘You can’t. I loved Aidan Blake.’
And I did. When we were married, I didn’t think I could be happier. He was my world. At last – I had a man who cared for me as much as I cared for him. It was only a matter of weeks after our wedding that I started to notice things weren’t right. He had told me he’d been a bit wild when he was younger, that he’d slept around. He assured me that part of his life was over. But he tricked me.
Aidan is a sex addict. My husband. He wanted me to pity him and I did in the beginning when I didn’t know what it was. When I thought I could help him. Before he gave me my first STD.
What a fool I was. I should have left him but I felt so trapped. Everyone expected us to work. How could the inspector understand that? I don’t even understand the shame I felt. Like it was my fault I wasn’t enough for Aidan. Like there was something wrong with me that he had to seek out sex with others.
‘I know you loved him,’ Tom says. He keeps talking.
Why won’t he shut up so I can think? ‘But you were only prepared to stay if he gave you something in return.’
He isn’t asking me. He’s telling me.
‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘A baby. That’s all I want.’
It sounds so simple when I say it aloud. It’s just a little word – baby.
If it had been Aidan’s fault that I couldn’t get pregnant, I’d have left him. I know that much. But I’m the one who can’t have children.
‘We’re adopting,’ I say and summon up the image of the gorgeous baby boy that I’ve only held once but feel like I’ve known forever. I have everything ready for him. It’s almost finalised after years of waiting, an eternity of paperwork. Even with Aidan’s job and what I do, there have been so many layers of bureaucracy. It’s so damned difficult to adopt in this country.
‘Did Aidan want to adopt from abroad?’ the inspector asks, like he’s reading my mind. ‘With the help of Carl Madsen?’
I nod. Yes, my darling husband thought the whole thing could be that easy. I had put my foot down. I know what goes on in Third World countries. Kids bought and sold. It’s inhuman. I could wait for a baby in Ireland. I was willing to do that. And then Aidan messed everything up.
‘You had everything planned but you didn’t know your husband was being blackmailed,’ the inspector says.
The rage inside me when I remember finding out is so strong I want to pull the hair from my head. I want to howl. If I’d known, maybe I’d have gone with the Madsen idea. We could have moved somewhere. But Aidan kept everything from me until he was forced to come clean.
I stare at the inspector, wondering how much he knows. Does he know that I tracked down the Thai blackmailer and spoke to him? It took me all of five minutes to realise he was no professional. He was blackmailing Aidan to get money to buy drugs. So I paid him a bonus and the following weekend he was dead. An overdose. Anyone could have seen it coming.
Then there was just Ryan to sort out.
There was no way the adoption authorities would let us complete the process if those images of my husband were splashed all over the tabloids. And it would have just been the start. I’d told Aidan when I found out about his habit that he was to keep it to men and women who wouldn’t be believed if they made claims. That silly bitch in his office, prostitutes – whatever. But if there was photographic proof out there, they would have started to come forward and they’d be believed. Our adoption plan would be in tatters and I couldn’t let my little boy down like that.
‘What Ryan planned to do was wrong.’ Tom says it like it’s a fact. For a moment, I feel like he’s on my side.
‘Yes!’ I exclaim. ‘Why would you ruin someone’s life over some stupid piece of legislation? And Aidan had told Ryan that we were planning to adopt. What he was threatening to do would hurt me the most.’
Oh God, how quickly I went from being Ryan’s champion to hating him with a passion.
Not that my husband was blameless. I will never forgive him for not agreeing to what Ryan wanted. Aidan’s real problem was that he didn’t think Ryan was capable of betrayal. He figured he was in the big league and Ryan wouldn’t be able to take him on. I wasn’t willing to take that chance.
‘Did you talk Aidan into driving into him?’
I shake my head.
‘I would never have suggested anything so utterly stupid. I told him to get rid of Ryan, not try to kill himself in the process.’
Aidan lost the plot when I told him he had to take Ryan out. He thought we should pay somebody to do it, until I pointed out that we’d have no way of ensuring that person wouldn’t reveal our secret, or blackmail us later, keeping the whole cycle going.
‘So, he failed once and you couldn’t risk him failing again.’ The inspector is trying to move closer, but I point the gun more firmly at him. My arms are quivering from holding it up so long and I know that this too is part of the strategy. Keep me talking until reinforcements arrive. What can I do, though? It’s like my brain has ceased to function. I’m trying to think of a way out and I can’t.
I answer honestly.
‘I took the gun from Aidan in anger and went back to Leinster House. He came over with me, said he’d help me find Ryan. We split up. My husband went to the media rooms to check if Ryan had gone there and I went directly to his office. He’d left his emails open and I had what I needed.’
‘Grace Brady saw you checking the emails, didn’t she?’
I nod. I’d got such a shock when that ugly woman barged into the office and found me at Ryan’s computer. But I turned the situation on its head. The idiot was labouring under the delusion Aidan loved her. I told her I knew everything. I left her in no doubt as to how her life would pan out once I’d finished destroying her reputation. She was sobbing and snotting all over her desk when I left.
The inspector is staring at me. He pities me, but he can’t figure out if I’m calculating or just unhinged.
It doesn’t matter, because now I know what I have to do.
And I don’t mind talking for a few more minutes before I act.
*
‘For God’s sake, won’t you tell me what’s happening?’
Laura ignored Aidan Blake’s question and crossed over to the back door. They’d take him in soon. Tom had asked her to stay at the house in case Sara returned but Ray had sent a text minutes ago saying they’d figured out where the minister’s wife was and were en route.
The rain made a tremendous din as it battered the decking outside. Michael pulled the sliding door shut fast behind him as he stepped in from the downpour.
‘Shit, I’m soaked through,’ he said. ‘Any idea what’s happening?’
‘Tom reckons they’re at the church the Finnegans got married in. Will I stick on the kettle and make you a hot drink so you can warm up? There’s no point in continuing your search in that weather. I guarantee we aren’t going to find the Glock out there.’
‘I need to go to the toilet,’ Aidan Blake interrupted.
Laura sighed.
‘Will you take him to the bathroom?’ she called out to the guard stationed in the hallway.
‘I really hoped we’d find that gun,’ Michael said.
‘I know.’ None of them could bear to think of Sara loose with the weapon. ‘But even if she has disposed of it, I doubt she’d choose the woods behind her house. We’re looking for a needle in a haystack. Come on, we’ll call it a day here. Let’s bring Blake in and leave some officers behind just in case.’
‘I’ll round up the lads. Go on, throw on the kettle; we’ll get everybody a cup of coffee first. Half the squad will be down with pneumonia at this rate.’
A yell from somewhere in the house startled them both.
The two detectives rushed across the kitchen and out to the hall.
‘Where did it come from?’ Michael asked frantically.
‘Down here,’ Laura answered, moving quickly towards an open door at the end of the corridor. She held her breath. Had Tom and Ray got it wrong and Sara was back at the house?
They burst into an empty bedroom. The door to the ensuite was open and through it Laura could see the blue-trousered legs of somebody half in, half out of the window.
‘What the hell?’ she cursed as she rounded the bed.
‘He pulled the window down on my back when I leaned out,’ the guard groaned in agony. ‘I didn’t hear him open it, but when he didn’t answer me I looked in and he was escaping.’
‘Jesus Christ!’
Laura turned and sped with Michael back through the house towards the front door, shouting to another guard to help their colleague. What a bloody amateur error. She’d assumed Blake was still drunk and useless. They’d never live this one down.
There was a loud bang outside. Michael threw open the front door just as a car flew around the side of the house, two officers running after it in futile pursuit.
‘He drove through the garage doors,’ one of them roared.
‘Shit! Shit! Shit
!’ Laura felt like crying. Now they had a proper crisis on their hands. ‘Call for backup – a 2010 dark blue Volkswagen Passat speeding down the Hill of Howth, most likely heading towards the Coast Road in the direction of Raheny. Tell them we’re giving chase.’
She and Michael dashed through the rain to her car.
‘What the hell is his game?’ Michael was incredulous. ‘Tom is going to kill us.’
‘Let’s worry about that later,’ said Laura, as she swung the car around, spraying the house with gravel. ‘I suspect Blake is gone to try to stop his wife from harming Kathryn. Maybe he thinks that will save him on Judgement Day. Anyway, buckle up. We’re going to catch this dickhead before he causes any more damage.’
*
Tom was afraid to move an inch. He sensed Sara wanted to talk, but he wasn’t sure if she wanted to get it off her chest or if, like him, she was stalling for time. He’d underestimated her before and didn’t want to repeat the mistake.
It had started when he accepted her alibi too easily. Over the course of the last week it was apparent that people had come and gone from the busy Dáil bar on Friday night without being noticed – Damien Reid slipping out without Jarlath O’Keefe seeing, Madsen not noticing Blake had come in.
The fire exit had got him thinking. It led out to another Leinster House corridor. Tom had established it was never locked but discounted it because the fire alarm hadn’t gone off that night. But Sara had known the alarm wasn’t working and that’s how she’d slipped in and out of the bar unnoticed. She’d made sure to keep circulating so she wasn’t part of any specific group and wouldn’t be missed. The woman was so small and plain that she was less than conspicuous to begin with. Then, when Aidan had entered the bar at 9.45 p.m., he helped with the smoke and mirrors effect, telling people he was up the back with Sara, even buying her a mineral water.
And Tom had made silly assumptions. The killer had chased Ryan Finnegan down flights of stairs. In Tom’s old-fashioned mind, Sara Blake had come over to Leinster House from a ball and was probably wearing a dress and high heels. Linda pairing her gown with a pair of running shoes at his birthday party had triggered something in his brain. Laura had told him this morning that in the group photo of the ball, Sara was wearing a floor-length gown. It would have been easy for her to have worn trainers and nobody would have noticed.