As they pushed through a door leading on to the ward, Brogan put a hand out, stopping him. ‘Before we get into this, I need you to know that I’m the one who’s directing the interview, not you.’
‘Fine with me,’ he said. Territoriality was part and parcel of life in the Garda Siochana, everybody guarding their own patches like chained dogs. ‘It’s your bag,’ he added. ‘And by the sounds of it you’re welcome to it. I might need a minute or two to build a rapport with the girl, y’know, but otherwise she’s all yours. Like you said, I’m only the translator.’
‘Good.’ A brief smile lit up Brogan’s face, only for it to darken again. ‘Look, there are a couple of ground rules I need to go through with you before we go in. But first I’ve got to warn you. I’m sure you’ve been in the job for years, Mike, and you’re a hard man and all. But I’m telling you, this guy did a right job on the poor kid.’
2
Siobhan Fallon waited outside her apartment while the delivery guy clattered down the stairs. Only when she heard the downstairs door slam shut did she go back in and close hers behind her. As far as she knew, there’d never been any actual intruders discovered in Ballsbridge Court. It was much too nice a block for that. But the busybodies in the residents’ association would be on her back about ‘security’ if she didn’t toe the line. And the last thing she needed was to rock the boat in this, the one place she could retreat to for a bit of peace and quiet. Hampered by the huge basket of flowers in her arms – pink and white roses, starburst lilies, and God knows what else – she gingerly made her way over to the small pine dining table by the living-room window. Setting it down beside the newspaper already laid out there, she thought about getting her camera to record the moment, then noticed the envelope taped to the basket. No one but Harry Heffernan, her editor, could have organised a Sunday delivery. Still, she wanted to see it for herself in black and white.
As it was, the card was a bit of a let-down: ‘To our very own top striker! Love and appreciation – Harry.’ How lame was that? It was worse than his duff headlines.
Siobhan stared down at the copy of the Sunday Herald spread out on the table. A classic paparazzi shot took up most of the tabloid front page, the colours washed out by the flare of a flashgun in the night: soccer international Gary Maloney frozen in time, exiting an elegant Georgian doorway, his dyed-blond hair tousled like a sleepy six-year-old’s, his eyes rimmed red with excess of one sort or another – or quite possibly more. But, from a news point of view, all the magic was in the background where, peering out, caught in the act of blowing a kiss, could be seen the easily recognisable, blonde-haloed face of Suzy Lenihan. As in the celebrity, ex-model wife of Maloney’s boss, the Republic of Ireland team manager Marty Lenihan. Which might have been fine, even quite charming, had it not been for those two perfectly lit curves of shoulder and hip also jutting out from behind the door, attesting to the fact that Suzy was buck naked. In the circumstances, the blaring headline – splashed in reversed-out 72-point white down the left side of the picture: MALONEY SCORES WITH MANAGER’S MISSUS – was pretty much surplus to requirements.
All the other words on that page were Siobhan’s. She looked them over, if not exactly with pride, then at least with a heartfelt sense of satisfaction. In particular, she liked the four words picked out in bold at the head of the story: Siobhan Fallon, Chief Reporter. It had taken a heck of a lot to win that title, and all too often it was only when, as now, she saw it in print that she felt it was worth it. Every element of the story was down to her. She’d sniffed it out from one of her best sources, tracked down the lovers, told Franny the snapper where to meet her. All he had to do was sit in the car with her and wait until Maloney came out. Flash, whirr, flash – pics in the bag. And then she’d dived in with the voice recorder. No hassle, no fists, no abuse. Maloney was too startled, or too coked out of his tree. And when she asked him for a comment, the dim hunk gave her one to die for. ‘Did the wife send you?’ he’d asked. Christ, you couldn’t make it up. If she was the editor, that would have been the headline.
Not that it mattered. It was the biggest scoop of the day by a long shot. Siobhan grinned to herself, ran her eye over the page again, and went to fetch her camera from her bag. The story had been picked up by every newsdesk in the country and it was one of the lead items on RTE radio’s Ireland on Sunday, to which she’d contributed by phone earlier. After which, it was prominent on every other radio and TV bulletin she’d seen and heard. Even made it as high as the number-three item on Sky News at one point. And still Harry thought he could palm her off with a bunch of flowers?
She tried to hold out against the thought, didn’t want to spoil the moment. She looked again at the profusion of blooms in the basket. Flowers were all well and good but they wouldn’t pay any bills. She wondered what Heffernan would have sent one of her male colleagues in the same circumstances. Tickets for a big match, probably. At least you could flog those on eBay. But she pushed the idea away impatiently. It wasn’t about that. It was about getting her due. That long-promised pay rise, she thought, as the frustration began to build again.
She flopped on to the sofa, feeling suddenly defeated. Around the room, newspapers and magazines, most weeks out of date, were strewn everywhere. The few sticks of furniture she possessed were buried under stacks of unironed clothes, half-read books and discarded packaging from things she mostly couldn’t recall buying. It was worse in the bedroom, where stuff got dumped and left for weeks on end before being washed or else picked up, brushed down and re-worn after a decent interval. Every moment she had, she gave to her job. There never seemed to be time for all the other bits and pieces.
Siobhan stared up at the white, uncluttered ceiling. The only trapping of success that would mean anything to her right now was a cleaner. If only for one or two mornings a week, just to tidy up, do some ironing, take a tiny bit of the burden of living from her. But the mortgage payments, even on this shoebox, were already crippling. She’d bought at the height of the boom and, even if she wanted to, wouldn’t have a hope in hell of getting rid of it now without losing out big time. If she were chief reporter on the Irish Times or Irish Independent her finances would be very different. But on the piddling, cash-strapped Sunday Herald…? Dream on, Siobhan, dream on.
*
Brogan hadn’t been exaggerating.
Mulcahy stopped by the metal bed-end and drew his breath in sharply on seeing the mottled mass of bruising, clotted blood and stitches that was Jesica Mellado Salazar’s face. The dark, purpling flesh around her eyelids was so swollen, he couldn’t tell if she was awake or asleep. The nurse sent in to supervise the interview, a thin, careworn but kindly looking woman, went over to the far side of the bed, smoothing her pale blue uniform under narrow hips as she sat down. The plastic name tag on her chest said, simply, Sorenson.
‘Dr Baggot said to remind you to keep this short, Inspector,’ she warned Brogan. ‘Jesica’s not really well enough.’
Brogan muttered something about the need to act fast and that she’d keep it as brief as possible. Then she took a chair and placed it in a position by the bed where she could be in the girl’s eyeline. She drew another over beside it, for Mulcahy. Cassidy remained standing by the door. As Mulcahy sat down, he felt a momentary flicker of uncertainty. His Spanish was fine for most situations. He’d lived in Madrid for seven years, worked, socialised, and even romanced in the language. But could he be subtle enough for the delicate handling this situation would require? He’d just have to keep it simple. By the look of her, the girl wouldn’t be able to say much anyway. He could always shut the interview down if it wasn’t going well.
Mulcahy looked up to make sure Brogan hadn’t spotted his hesitation, but she was busy asking Nurse Sorenson to wake up Jesica.
The nurse nodded and touched her patient gently on the shoulder. ‘Jesica, love, some people are here to see you.’
A low moan came from somewhere deep inside the girl, but she didn’t move. Mulcahy coughe
d gently, to clear his throat. The narrow adolescent body beneath the sheets stiffened visibly, and the girl’s head jerked round on the pillow. One puffed eyelid flickered open fractionally, then the other, fixing on Brogan who was first in her sightline.
‘Hello, Jesica,’ Brogan began. Calm, soft and steady. She smiled at the girl. What little white was left in Jesica’s eyes shone with anxiety as they flicked from Brogan’s face to Mulcahy’s.
‘Buenos días, Jesica,’ Mulcahy said, trying to keep his voice low and reassuring. Even so, she flinched when she heard his voice.
‘Tranquilo, niña,’ he said, as softly as he could. ‘No te preocupes. Somos policías. Queremos ayudarte.’
Don’t worry. We’re police. We want to help you.
The girl trembled at every word he spoke. Instinct urged him to reach out and take her hand, to try to comfort her with something other than words. But Brogan had been very specific, and he knew it himself, from long experience: no physical contact. Words would have to do.
It took a while for him to know for sure that she understood him. At first she wouldn’t reply in any way, evading even his eyes by closing her own and keeping them that way. So he asked her to nod if she agreed that her name was Jesica… that she was from Madrid… that she was sixteen years old. With each question that followed, her head moved a touch more surely on the pillow. Then, when he asked her to confirm her father’s name, her eyes flickered open again, narrowly, tears welling along the lids, and she mouthed her first words. So indistinct, so full of fear, that he could barely catch them.
‘Dónde está… dónde está mi padre?’
A little girl looking for her daddy.
Mulcahy didn’t want to destroy what little trust he’d built up, so he said he was sure her father was on his way. That seemed to reassure her. He then looked over at Brogan, whose expression left no doubt of her frustration at being left out of the loop. He nodded encouragingly at her, but said nothing. He wanted to broach the main issue with Jesica without breaking the mood. So he turned back to the girl and asked what had happened to her.
‘Fuiste asaltada?’ Had someone attacked her?
She turned away, her swollen eyelids blinking as rapidly as they could, as if trying to fend off some terrible thought. Then she nodded. It was a tiny movement, replete with emotion.
‘What’re you saying to her?’ Brogan whispered, plucking at his sleeve. He mouthed at her to wait a second, then turned back to face Jesica. The girl looked more uncertain than ever, glancing up, then the tears started to flow.
‘Un hombre me golpeó… No sé que pasó.’
Beside him, Brogan wouldn’t remain patient.
‘What’s she saying?’ she hissed at him, beneath her breath.
‘A man hit her. She doesn’t know what happened.’
‘Ask her did she know the man?’
Mulcahy turned back to Jesica. ‘Este hombre, lo conoces?’
‘No vi nada…’ She didn’t see anything, Jesica replied, as haltingly as before. The blow had come from nowhere. Straight in her face. So hard, so unexpected, that she fell to the ground.
‘What did he look like?’
Mulcahy translated Brogan’s question.
‘No, no sé,’ the girl insisted, the tears now in full flow.
‘She doesn’t know.’
‘Did he say anything to her?’
Mulcahy’s heart took a dive as he watched Jesica’s swollen features seize up with fear again.
‘Todo se puso oscuro,’ she said, her facial muscles contracting until the tendons in her neck stood out like cables under the effort of voicing her fear.
‘Everything went dark, she says. The man threw something over her, and dragged her somewhere inside. He kept punching her, over and over again.’
Mulcahy stopped as Jesica subsided into a long coughing fit, grasping for a bowl on the cabinet beside her as the terror within tried to work its way out, though nothing emerged but a long dribble of blood-streaked saliva. The nurse helped her up, then wiped her lips gently with a tissue as the girl lay back against the pillows, each heave of her chest a fraction shallower as she slowly found calm again.
‘She shouldn’t be having to be put through this now,’ the nurse complained. ‘Can’t it wait until she’s a bit stronger?’
‘I don’t think the bastard who did this to her should be on the streets for a second longer than necessary, do you?’ Brogan snapped at her.
The nurse flushed and looked like she was going to say something back. Instead she tutted to herself and turned to Jesica, stroking her forehead and holding out a beaker for her to sip from.
‘Okay,’ Brogan whispered to Mulcahy. ‘Steer away from the attack or she’ll get too upset. Ask her what she was doing just before? We’ll go for detail again in a minute.’
‘Are you sure about this?’ Mulcahy asked her. Bugger Healy. Bugger the bloody Minister, for that matter. This girl was in no condition to be interviewed.
‘Just ask the question,’ Brogan insisted. ‘It could be the only shot we get for days.’
He held her gaze, turning things over in his mind. She was the sex crimes expert. She had to know what she was doing. How would he feel if some shoe-in tried to tell him how to operate? He turned back to Jesica and asked. But they didn’t get much more from her. She said she’d been to a club, but didn’t know where. When they asked her if she’d left on her own, she became distressed.
‘Me golpeó’ – he punched me – ‘me golpeó,’ was all she would say, over and over. Then something new and even more terrible seized her, and her eyes rolled and she whimpered something Mulcahy could only just make out: about hellfire, a flaming sword and the vengeance of God. Could that be right, though? Mulcahy repeated the words in his head, and was certain he’d heard correctly.
But, even as he did so, the girl cried out and curled herself into a ball, rocking and sobbing in the nurse’s arms.
Mulcahy turned to Brogan again. ‘What the hell did he do to her?’
Brogan met his eye with a fierce glare. ‘He tortured her, the sick fucker. Burned her, or branded her more like, all across her stomach and genitals. We don’t know what with, yet, maybe a knife and a blowtorch. Whatever it was, he absolutely destroyed her.’
‘Jesus wept,’ Mulcahy said, struggling to hold back the shock.
‘You’re really going to have to leave it at that now,’ Nurse Sorenson insisted to Brogan. ‘She’s too upset. She badly needs to rest.’
Brogan nodded in agreement, but wasn’t done yet.
‘Okay, yeah. Just one more thing.’ She plucked at Mulcahy’s sleeve again. ‘Tell her it would really help us if she could remember one small detail, anything at all, about the guy who did this. About his clothes, his hair, his shoes – or where they went to. Anything.’
Mulcahy spoke as gently as he could but, almost instantly, panic rose in the girl again – as if his words were smashing through all the barriers of analgesia she’d been given, worming out the pain, sharp as the first time. He cursed quietly and stood up, unable to imagine what she was reliving and unwilling to provoke it any further. Quickly he told the girl it was okay, he wouldn’t ask her any more questions. Then he pushed past Brogan towards the door. He’d had enough.
‘Where’re you going?’ Brogan was staring at him like he was crazy.
‘Okay, that’s it,’ the nurse said. ‘Out now, all of you. No arguments.’ But even as she was standing up to shoo them out, Jesica erupted. Like a burst dam it came, flooding out, a torrent of tears, snot and terror. The nurse struggled to control her, to stop her tearing at herself beneath the sheets. Mulcahy’s first thought was to step in, too, but Brogan was there before him, lunging to restrain the girl’s flailing limbs. He stepped away, mesmerised by the ferocity of emotion.
Just as he did so, a small, elegantly dressed man swept into the room. In his late thirties, jet-black hair slicked back, he took one look at the distressed girl, another at the scrum around her and launche
d straight into a heavily accented diatribe against both Brogan and the nurse.
Having encountered a few excitable Spanish diplomats in his time, Mulcahy instantly recognised the type. Detective Sergeant Cassidy, however, was not so subtle. Rounding on the newcomer, shoulders hunched, palms raised to block his approach, he warned him to step out of the room. When the Spaniard became only more incensed, and tried to push past, there was a blur of brown, a groan of pain, and in an instant the man was on his knees, bent over, his right arm twisted and locked upright behind him. The look of agony on his face mirrored the one of flushed triumph on Cassidy’s.
Beside them, it was alarm that was now paralysing Brogan’s features.
‘Jesus, Andy! Let him go, for God’s sake. He’s from the embassy.’
By now even Jesica had been startled into silence by the scuffle at her bedside. She looked on uncomprehendingly as Brogan and Cassidy helped the man to his feet, dusting him down. Meanwhile the nurse, flushed and outraged, was forcing all three towards the door, demanding they take their appalling behaviour elsewhere.
Mulcahy dragged his disbelieving gaze away from them and found it connecting with Jesica’s. He shook his head, smiling as reassuringly as he could. But she appeared to have forgotten the ruckus already and made no response other than to hold his gaze intently as she touched a red weal on her neck, anxiously checking for something, a look of pleading in her injured eyes.
She whimpered to him that her cross and chain was missing.
‘Quizás lo tienen las enfermeras,’ Mulcahy suggested. Maybe the nurses had it. But looking at the severity of the injury on her neck, he guessed it was more likely it had been torn off during the attack. She wasn’t really listening to him, anyway, just staring at him, playing something out inside her head.
‘Recuerdo una cosa,’ she said, her voice so fragile he could see her fighting hard to stay in control. She remembered something.
The Priest Page 2