The Ruin

by Dervla McTiernan

  Danny had spent the same years working his small-town beat, getting married and having kids.

  The ease with which he and Danny had renewed and improved on their former friendship had been the nicest surprise about Cormac’s return to the West. Cormac thought that was probably due to his own reduced intensity about work, and Danny’s recent promotion in equal measure. It helped also that Danny didn’t report to him, but to Sergeant Melanie Hackett, or at least he did when he wasn’t seconded to the task force. Cormac had called Danny on his first weekend in Galway, a weekend that Emma had spent in the lab, feeling slightly embarrassed about getting in touch out of the blue, but hopeful that Danny would be willing to go for a pint and catch Cormac up on local politics. It ended up being a late one. They traded war stories, Cormac avoiding the serious and telling some of the more scurrilous inside gossip from Dublin. Danny had a few stories of his own. His transfer to Galway and to more challenging work had happened the year before, and was a direct result of Danny more or less single-handedly busting a drugs operation run out of a nightclub in Mayo.

  ‘It was a local guy. Had a nightclub he’d opened in the back of beyond. He ran buses to all the local towns and virtually every kid for fifty miles around turned up every Friday night. Name was Jim Kavanagh. Big Jim, he likes to call himself. Fat as fuck.’ Danny’s lip curled, and he spoke with barely repressed disgust. ‘He was selling all sorts. I heard it from more than one source.’

  Cormac was a little surprised at Danny’s vehemence. He had a sudden image of Danny passing a joint around a party, and that had been at Templemore, if he remembered correctly. But even Danny had to grow up eventually, and he had kids now of course. The oldest, Luke, would be what, six? The little girl two or three.

  ‘I couldn’t get much traction,’ Danny was saying, ‘so I started watching the place myself. I figured out when he was likely to be getting deliveries, and the next time it happened I just walked straight in – he had the stuff spread out over the desk in his office. Stocktake day.’ Danny was shaking his head, a vicious grin on his face. ‘Ten kilos of coke if you can believe it. For a small country club? He must have been running it all over the place.’

  ‘Fair dues, Danny.’ He meant it. ‘Any luck getting up the supply line?’

  He regretted the question when Dan raised an eyebrow and said, ‘Not yet.’

  The arrest got Danny his long overdue promotion, and he was transferred to Galway, to work on the drugs squad. The promotion meant seniority, better pay, and a change to plain clothes, which Danny clearly enjoyed. It also meant that he was away from his family a few nights a week, though now that the family had moved to a rental in a family friendly suburb of Galway that should change.

  ‘How’s Sarah?’ Cormac asked now.

  ‘Grand, she’s grand.’

  ‘Any chance we could get out, now that you’ve moved in? I could check when Emma’s free, we could have dinner or something.’

  ‘She’d love that,’ said Danny. ‘Tricky with the kids, but Sarah’s mother might take them.’

  ‘Will we try for Saturday so?’ Cormac asked. He’d asked before but the timing had never been quite right. If the wink Danny had tossed him earlier meant what he thought it did, the time would probably never be right. Was Danny cheating on Sarah? If he was Cormac was going to stay well and truly out of the whole thing. The last thing he needed was to get dragged into Danny’s marital problems.

  Danny didn’t answer the question. He was looking over Cormac’s shoulder, watching something or someone.

  ‘What?’

  Danny shook his head.

  Cormac turned to take a look. Someone he thought he recognised was taking a seat at the bar.

  ‘Is that Liam Hearne?’ he asked. Cormac started to stand, but Danny put a hand out to stop him.

  ‘He won’t thank you for it,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  Danny grimaced. ‘He’s had it rough since he retired. Hit the bottle very hard. Doesn’t want to see anyone from the old days. I’ve heard his wife has asked people to stay away. Makes him worse, apparently.’

  Cormac glanced once again, then away, conscious of a sinking feeling in his stomach. Liam looked younger than his, what would it be now? Seventy years? He was dressed well enough, looked put together, his grey hair cut tight to his head in a style that hadn’t changed in twenty years.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said. The words felt inadequate. Liam Hearne was a man he admired. A detective for almost forty years, he’d taught a class on interview techniques when Cormac and Danny were at Templemore. He’d returned to active duty soon after, and had spent the last ten years of his career dealing with the worst of crimes. He’d been part of a major investigation into a paedophile ring that operated in the West of Ireland for over twenty years. It would have been brutally difficult work, made harder by the fact that most of the victims who came forward to give testimony were now adults, badly damaged by their experiences. Many of them were alcoholics, some had mental health problems. Their testimony was inconsistent and this and the passage of time made it harder to get convictions. Cormac had a friend who’d worked a similar investigation in Cork the year before, and he’d gotten off it as quickly as he could. Even so he’d been haunted by it. Haunted by all the victims, and by the feeling that they were being let down by a system that had already failed them so badly. And Liam had done that work for ten years. What would that do to a man? Cormac looked back in his direction.

  Liam was alone at the bar, a pint in one hand.

  ‘Don’t,’ Danny said again. ‘Leave it.’

  They finished their food and left the bar in a very different mood.

  Thursday 21 March 2013

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sleet had spattered miserably all day, and the clouds promised more to come. It was an awful day for a burial. The cemetery was at Bohermore, just over a kilometre from the city centre, and traffic had been brutal before the cortege had added to the congestion. There was no pleasure to be taken in the freezing air – it was cold but not fresh. The heavy smell of car exhaust hung in the air from traffic idling at the lights at the top of the hill, and storm drain overflow ran down one side of the street.

  The group that followed the hearse into the cemetery was not large. Perhaps thirty mourners clustered loosely around the open grave, breath fogging the air, as the pallbearers took the coffin from the hearse and placed it gently, awkwardly, on the pine supports laid across the grave. The priest said his prayers over the casket. His words gave no insight, answered no questions. He spoke on – prayers and generic condolences, sprinkled with the few useful specifics about the deceased that could be picked up in a hushed five-minute conversation with a bereaved family member. Finally, the obligatory reference to the death itself. An accident – and here the priest stumbled. For in the Catholic Church suicide is still a sin, and a suicide could be denied burial in consecrated ground, unless it could be proven that they were of unsound mind when they took their lives. Easier by far to pretend.

  Jack’s body was in that coffin. His beautiful body. Every part of him that was hers. He was so precious to her, she wanted to scream out for them to stop, to open up the coffin so that she could hold him, embrace him one last time. To think that she would never hold his hand again, never feel the warmth of his lips on hers, the strength of his arms around her. She wanted to tell them that they didn’t understand. Didn’t they know that she and Jack were supposed to be together forever? That this body they were burying, as if it was something that could be discarded, was one she knew as well as her own, and was far more precious?

  ‘Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.’

  The faithful departed. But what about the souls of the unfaithful? Jack hadn’t been Catholic, not really. He’d been baptised by his parents, brought up in the Church, but he’d never been to Mass in her memory and
he certainly didn’t have much tolerance for the Church’s views on homosexuality and a lot more besides. So. A suicide, and not particularly faithful. She felt a wave of dizziness, of disconnection. Was this how she would say goodbye to him? In a muddy graveyard, surrounded by people and some of them strangers, led through a ceremony by a priest of a faith that neither of them believed in?

  And yet, as the priest looked towards her, and as she stepped forward to place her single lily on the casket, Aisling felt the hard knot of pain in her chest loosen as her tears came again.

  She stepped back and the priest waited a moment before nodding to the gravediggers, who stepped forward. The outer ring of mourners started to drift away, some of them coming forward to shake her hand, or to murmur condolences to Jack’s parents. Brendan didn’t respond – he’d been wheelchair-bound since his stroke the year before, and he spoke very little. But Aisling saw tears leak and run down his face, and she wished – fiercely and with a sudden shocking anger at Jack – that he’d been spared this.

  Mark approached her, hugged her, held her hand, while Fergus hung back. She’d seen Fergus twice since Jack had died, and both times he hadn’t been able to talk through the tears.

  ‘We’re going across the road, me and Fergus, a few of the lads. We thought we’d have a drink and talk about Jack. Will you come?’ Mark said. Jack, Fergus, and Mark had grown up together, had gone to the same country primary school. They were still close . . . had been close. She liked Mark, Fergus she’d always thought of as a bit self-involved. She watched him bend down to hug Brendan over Mark’s shoulder. Maybe she’d been wrong about him. She’d been wrong about so much.

  ‘Aisling?’ Mark said.

  She refused the invitation, politely, firmly. The thought of sitting in the pub and reminiscing made her feel sick. It would be too much like a wake, make it all too real. She wasn’t ready for that.

  Her friends were there too – David Murray distracted her from her grief for a moment when he stepped forward and trying to kiss her cheek, kissed her on the side of her mouth instead, then flushed scarlet like a schoolboy. She’d seen David deal with death. He’d lost patients. She’d seen him give the news to bereaved family members; watched him answer questions and hold a hand with professionalism and a sincere, adult, compassion. What was it about this situation that caused all his poise to desert him? Was it that he’d known Jack? Liked him? Or maybe it was because Jack had killed himself, and no one had any idea how to handle that. There was a reason, after all, that there were so few at the graveside. A reason that so many of Jack’s friends sought refuge in convention – I’m sorry for your loss – and avoided eye contact as they kissed her cheek, and gave her a one-armed hug.

  Aisling watched as the priest took his leave of Aggie, then accepted the murmured condolences he offered her. Aggie squeezed her hand too, before turning back to Brendan and walking beside his wheelchair out of the cemetery. That was a good idea. He shouldn’t be out in the cold like this. It wasn’t good for him. Their departure was taken as a cue by everyone who remained, and soon Aisling was alone with the gravediggers. They waited for a time, but when she made no move to leave they stepped forward and started their work, removing the pine supports and lowering the coffin into the grave, their movements smooth and unhurried. The coffin in the ground, they rolled out a length of green felt, securing it in place so that it covered the gaping hole. All four of them stood with heads bowed, for a few respectful seconds, before turning and walking towards a cabin at the back of the cemetery. Aisling realised that they wouldn’t replace the dirt while she was standing there, but they’d find a warmer place to wait than the graveside. Somewhere they could get a cup of tea to warm their hands, and a bit of friendly banter to lighten their hearts. Was she delaying them? They probably wanted to get home, and the fact that she was standing there was making them late. She still couldn’t move. She couldn’t leave Jack. Aisling was aware that her body was shivering, but it felt like an abstract thing. She didn’t really feel the cold. Didn’t really feel anything.

  The graveyard was empty now, except for another woman who stood alone at another graveside. She was watching Aisling. There was something about her. Something familiar. Maybe a family member of a patient they’d lost? The woman took a step towards her, and Aisling quickly looked down at Jack’s grave. Not today. Just not today.

  Suddenly, she felt someone take her arm, and heard a familiar voice in her ear.

  ‘I don’t know about you but I’m freezing my arse off out here.’ Mary Dooley. ‘Will we go to the pub?’

  Aisling gave a half-laugh, half-sob, and Mary gave her a hug, then pulled her gently but firmly away from the grave and towards the exit.

  ‘I don’t know what the hell I’m doing Mary.’ But she allowed herself to be led.

  ‘You’re doing great. Honestly. There’s nothing left to do now. We just need to get you warm, and get you to eat something, and then . . . I suppose we just figure out what comes next.’

  What comes next? Her cold house. Their bedroom, with all Jack’s clothes in the wardrobe, his toothbrush on the sink. Just this morning she’d found a print-off he’d left for her, stuck to the fridge. It was an ad for a puppy – a disreputable-looking pup someone wanted to offload – Jack’d been mad to get a dog. She’d thought it was a crazy idea because they were never at home. He’d said that he could take the dog to work sometimes, and maybe it’d be company for her on the evenings he wasn’t there. She’d laughed at him and it had become a bit of a joke, but he’d still stuck the photo of the puppy to the fridge. Aisling had found herself staring at the picture, milk carton in hand, and wondering if Jack would still be alive if she’d said yes to the pup.

  ‘I’m not sure I want to go home,’ Aisling said.

  Mary gave her arm another squeeze. ‘Grand so,’ she said. ‘Stay in my place as long as you like.’ There was a long pause, and Aisling could almost hear Mary trying to figure out where Aisling would sleep, in the house that Mary had shared with her boyfriend and three other med students since they were in college. Not much had changed in their lifestyle since, except that their hours in the hospital were far longer. The house looked – and smelled – like a student house, and all of the bedrooms were taken.

  ‘Ah no,’ said Aisling. ‘Thanks. Thanks a million. But I’m just putting it off.’

  ‘No harm in putting it off for a few days. At least a few days.’

  They started to walk together towards the city. Aisling’s feet were freezing. The toes of her boots were soaked through and water squelched between her toes. There was nothing good about a Galway winter.

  ‘No wake?’ Mary asked.

  Aisling shook her head. ‘Aggie and Brendan didn’t want it. I think they would have found it hard in any circumstances, but . . . with the suicide.’ Aisling swallowed. ‘They just couldn’t handle the questions.’

  There was a pause before Mary said, ‘People say stupid shit.’ But the unspoken question hung in the air between them.

  ‘I had no clue,’ Aisling said. ‘Not a clue. I thought he was happy. He never said. I have no idea why he did it.’ Except that maybe she did. But if that had been the reason, she didn’t think she could handle it, so she wasn’t going to think about it. Not yet.

  ‘Your parents couldn’t make it?’

  ‘Dad can’t fly with his heart, and Mum didn’t want to leave him.’ Aisling was an only child, born late to parents who’d long since let go of the idea of children, and for whom, she’d sometimes wondered, the unexpected arrival hadn’t been entirely welcome. They lived in Toronto, where her mother still lectured at the University, and her father, until his heart attack the previous year, had practiced medicine.

  They came to the bottom of the hill and crossed the street into Eyre Square. It wasn’t much of a public space, just a postage stamp-sized park with a bit of lawn and a few trees around the margins. The square didn’t look like much in winter, but in the short Galway summer it could be pretty enough. Peo
ple would sit out and eat their lunches on the grass in the chilly sunshine, and there was usually at least one busker to provide a bit of musical atmosphere. Today it was all but deserted; just a few shoppers walking with heads down, making their way as quickly as possible from carpark to shopping and back.

  As they crossed the square Aisling felt a sudden wave of nausea and her vision darkened at the edges. She stopped walking and stood still for a moment, putting a hand to her forehead and blinking to try to clear her vision. Her legs felt weak.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Mary put an arm around her waist, looked at her more closely. They were only a few metres from the Skeff and after a moment Mary tugged her towards the pub. ‘Come on. You need food and drink and somewhere a bit warmer than this.’ Aisling allowed herself to be led, grateful that her vision had cleared and that she wasn’t about to faint in the street.

  The pub was gorgeously, overwhelmingly warm. Mary found a pair of armchairs close to the fire that burned in an ornate grate at the back of the bar. Aisling just about managed to pull off her wet coat before she sank into the chair. The lunchtime rush had passed, and the evening rush hadn’t begun, so the place was near empty; just one couple sitting with heads together in a corner and a man reading his newspaper at the bar. It was all so normal. Aisling wanted to pretend, just for a minute, that everything was normal for her too. Mary went straight to the bar and returned a few minutes later with a cup of tea for Aisling and a coffee for herself.

  ‘I thought about something stronger but figured you need food first. It’s only toasties, but they’ll be here in a minute.’