He watched her try to take his measure. When she spoke her expression was unsympathetic. ‘Look, I didn’t speak to Murphy. But I think his reasons are obvious. You know what I’m talking about.’
‘You think I slept with Maude Blake.’
She shrugged.
‘I’m not sleeping with her, Mel. I shouldn’t have to say this. I’m in a long-term relationship, but even if I wasn’t I wouldn’t sleep with a key suspect in a murder case.’ His tone was matter of fact, and seemed to hold her attention. ‘It’s a bullshit rumour, and I’d like to know where you heard it.’
He could see her think about telling him, then decide against it. But she was listening. It was a start.
‘I’ve heard you have history. Maude Blake wouldn’t be the first,’ she said.
‘That’s bullshit too.’ He could have said more. Could have explained that his relationship with Emma began after she had been cleared, after the case was closed. That his superiors in Dublin knew about it as soon as they started dating. But fuck her.
‘Maude denied killing her mother?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she mention anything about a neighbour, a Miss Keane? Or a Simon Schmidt?’
Hackett shook her head.
‘Okay.’ He stood up, started to walk away, then turned back as something occurred to him.
‘If you didn’t speak to Murphy, who did?’
She hesitated, then shrugged. ‘Daniel McIntyre.’
He stared at her. ‘Danny McIntyre told you that Murphy wanted you to arrest Maude Blake?’
‘Yes.’
Danny again. And again no call to give him a heads up. Cormac looked around. ‘Where is he?’
‘He’s gone.’ For a moment it looked like she wasn’t going to say any more, then she relented. ‘Danny went home to his parents. I think he’s going to take some time off.’
It was an explanation of sorts, giving Cormac a heads up would hardly have been a priority for him under the circumstances. But Cormac had the strongest feeling that with Danny, it wasn’t that simple.
‘The bail hearing’s on Monday,’ Hackett was saying. ‘In the morning. I’m working on the file now, if you have anything you want to add?’
But it was her arrest. Her file. Her cock-up to defend. She wasn’t his enemy, but they weren’t on the same side either, and whatever else happened he wasn’t going to stand over this arrest. Cormac left the squad room. He made for the exit. It was hard to believe that he’d only had the case for five days. Two days ago he’d interviewed Katherine Shelley, and felt he had a handle on it. How had he lost control so completely? Where could he go with things from here? For the moment, at least, he had no idea. He shoved his hands into his pockets and made for home.
He didn’t get far. Carrie O’Halloran was coming up the stairs, stripping off a high-vis jacket, and looking exhausted. They saw each other at the same time and stopped.
‘It’s official now,’ Carrie said. ‘Danny’s finally caved. Search parties are out, near her parents’ place in Ballintober. Only two fucking weeks too late.’
‘Search called off for the night?’ he asked.
‘No. Now that the family has finally copped on, they’ve gone into overdrive. All the neighbours are out with torches, people from the school.’
‘You’re not with them?’ he asked. That surprised him. She seemed like the type to worry at an investigation until it was done.
‘I’m working something else, a domestic violence case. Wife denies the abuse, though it’s been reported more than once by others. They have two young children.’
Her tone caught his attention. Her tiredness was less evident as she focused on him and her expression sharpened. She had something to tell him, he could feel it. She was trying to decide if he was trustworthy, if telling him whatever was on her mind would help or hinder her. He opened his mouth to speak, and her phone rang, loud in the echoing quiet of the stairwell. She answered the phone, listened for a moment.
‘Where?’ she asked.
Whatever she heard in reply got her moving. She turned on her heel and was gone, phone still pressed to her ear.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
It had definitely been deliberate, that slight stumble of Maude’s that pushed the backpack under the shadow of the table. Aisling felt its weight against her ankle. She kept absolutely still, as if moving a muscle would bring the gardaí back. People were turning to look at her as the story spread through the pub to those who had missed the action. The noisy buzz had dropped to an unnatural hush and now it picked up and redoubled. Aisling stood, as casually as she could manage, picked up the backpack and slung it over her shoulder. She took a drink from her glass, but nervousness made her hasty, and she ended up coughing. She left the rest behind and walked from the pub.
Sleet was coming down sideways. She zipped her jacket against the cold, took her hat from her pocket and pulled it low over her forehead and ears. She turned her face to the wind and rain, and walked down Quay Street, crossing at the Wolfe Tone Bridge, where the river started to widen before it emptied into the sea. The wind buffeted her and the rain turned to icy needles on her face, but she welcomed it. She wanted to lift her head to the sky and scream out her frustration, her anger, and her loss. Instead, calm, ever outwardly calm, she made her way home, let herself into the house, and put the kettle on for tea. She leaned against the counter, head resting on her hands, listening to the whistle of the kettle on its way to boiling. Then she took a mug from its stand on the counter, turned, and threw it as hard as she could against the wall.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
She put her face in her hands, closed her eyes, felt the thunder of her pulse in her ears. Then she took out her phone, called Mary Dooley, and asked her to let the hospital know that she would not be in the next day. She was taking some time off. Sorry for the lack of notice, but she needed at least a week. She cut short Mary’s expression of concern and support, ended the call, then went to put on a fire in the living room. She showered – a blessedly long, hot shower that leached her pain and distress away – and dressed again in pyjamas and an old jumper of Jack’s. Finally, she gathered the backpack, a bottle of wine, an open packet of supermarket hummus and the end of a loaf of bread, and settled herself into the living room couch. The room was lit only by the flickering of the firelight, and she switched on a reading lamp.
She poured herself a glass of wine, took a drink, then rested her head against the couch and closed her eyes. She let everything stop. Jack’s death. Maude’s quest for vengeance or answers or forgiveness. The constant brutal competition she engaged in at her job. The pregnancy. Everything. She sat very quietly for five, everlasting minutes, then she turned and picked up the backpack.
It was new. A plain navy canvas bag, with a separate cushioned section to protect the newish-looking laptop that sat inside. She took that out first and turned it on, but it was password protected. Besides the computer there was an A4 lined notebook, with additional loose printed pages tucked inside.
Aisling opened the notebook. Maude’s handwriting was a soft, rounded cursive. She had written out everything that had happened, what little she had discovered, and a range of possible theories, all in a tidy blue ink that made the whole thing look like a child’s project. Aisling turned the pages slowly, reading the notes with deliberation. Was this the work of someone obsessed? The work of a sister overcome with guilt and looking for someone to blame? Or was it the work of someone who simply loved her brother, albeit from a distance of years and kilometres, believed with good reason that he had been killed, and desperately wanted justice for him?
Aisling turned another page and came across the stub of a boarding card for a flight from Perth to Dublin, and two photographs that had been tucked inside the notebook. The date on the card was Tuesday 12 March. Aisling looked at it for a moment, feeling unsettled. She’d assumed that Maude had booked her flight to Ireland on hearing of Jack’s death. Now it seemed she’d come back ear
lier. Aisling tried to remember if she had ever spoken to Maude about her return to Ireland, and couldn’t. She set the boarding card down, and picked up the photographs. They were dog-eared and dirty. The first showed a girl, maybe twelve or so, with a baby sitting on her lap. The girl was smiling. The baby, rounded and sandy-haired, cuddled protectively in her arms. The other photograph showed the same girl, but older now, and the little boy was standing beside her, holding her hand. In this one neither of them smiled, but stared back at the camera with a sort of blank distrust that Aisling found disturbing. Aisling drank from her wineglass, then took the photographs and sat back on the couch. She crossed her legs and held the photographs out on her knees. Jack and Maude. Maude and Jack. It felt like she was prying . . . getting a glimpse into a life Jack himself had not remembered. The face of the little boy in the second photograph was haunting. Surely that child carried within him memories enough to scar him for the rest of his life? Looking at the photograph, at the lost look in his eyes, at the clasp of their hands, she wondered what the children had lived through. Could Jack have remembered more than he pretended? Maybe he carried the scars of those years in his subconscious. She put the photographs away, tucking them back into the notebook and turning a page so she could no longer see them.
Christ. Maude was probably being questioned right now. Could she have done it? Jack had been told that his mother died from a heroin overdose. It was hard to see how the gardaí could have changed their minds about that. Hilaria was dead twenty years, it wasn’t as if new forensic evidence could have suddenly come to light. And if she had died from a heroin overdose it was hard to see how a fifteen-year-old girl could be held accountable for it. The whole thing seemed farfetched. On the other hand, she’d had motive enough. And if she was guilty, it would explain why she was so wary of police. Aisling lay back on the couch, the notebook held to her chest in an unconscious embrace. Her mind clear of distraction and distress for the first time in weeks, she considered. She did not believe that Jack had killed himself. On the other hand, she found it hard to believe he had been murdered. So perhaps an accident. Maybe even an accident involving a friend, who had panicked, and in guilt and fear made a stupid phone call to try to hide the truth. Did she need answers? Did she need every specific about how and why Jack had died? No. She believed now that Jack had not killed himself and that was enough. She wished she could leave it at that. Maude was so fearless. Aisling didn’t know if she wanted to know the details, to know if Jack had suffered, been afraid, before he died. She didn’t know if she could carry that pain too, with all the rest. But Maude had been right about something. She owed Jack more than the turning of her cheek. She owed him her best attempt at getting to the truth.
What could she do? What was within her reach? She’d gotten the postmortem report, and that hadn’t helped. She hadn’t done anything about his phone messages, and she would have to wait until Monday to do anything about it now. She could call the police, find out if they had traced any of Jack’s calls that day. Rodgers wasn’t the only garda in Galway. Reilly. Could she trust him? Maybe. If she talked to him, properly this time, would the CCTV and the postmortem report be enough to prompt him to get a warrant for the phone records, if Rodgers hadn’t already done it? Her phone buzzed and a long apologetic text came in from Mary. She was really sorry, but Cummins had requested a formal handover of her patients before Aisling could take leave. Could she come in on Sunday evening? Cummins would meet her at 8.00 p.m. on the ward. Aisling sent back a quick yes, and tried not to think about how Cummins and the other consultants might react to her sudden absence.
Aisling rubbed at her eyes. If someone had contacted Jack, had asked to meet that day, it would have been by phone or email. Jack didn’t use social media, or at least none of the big platforms. She took a second sip of wine, then pulled her own laptop over from the coffee table. She knew Jack’s email password. She could start there. A moment later and she was skimming through seventy unopened emails. She didn’t need to click on any of them – they were promotional, mostly, one or two from friends sent in the first few days after his death, before the story got around. The little blue ‘New’ boxes started to disappear from beside the emails, and she felt a wave of grief that Jack would never see these messages. Then she felt an equally strong sense of the ridiculous, and hiccupped out something resembling a laugh. Jack wouldn’t be too bothered about missing a buy-one-get-one-free coupon from the pizzeria down the street.
God. This felt weird. There were a lot of emails from hiking friends – someone had sent a group photograph from their last trip and everyone had replied with a comment or a joke. A couple of iTunes receipts. A few new linked-in requests. Nothing much else. Nothing helpful. She rested her fingers on the keyboard, and looked at the neat list of emails on the screen. Something was nagging at her. She didn’t use Gmail herself, and had been glad of it recently. Because of something Mary had told her. About a friend who’d used her boyfriend’s Gmail account to figure out that he had not, in fact, stopped seeing his ex, but was going around to hers for a shag every Friday like clockwork, when Mary’s friend worked a late shift. The cheating boyfriend had been so careful – no emails, no text messages. Because he’d cheated before, and been caught, he’d taken to leaving his phone out where his girlfriend could look at it whenever she wanted, even shared his email password. But the girlfriend had managed to catch him anyway, by tracing his phone.
Aisling picked up her phone and dialled Mary’s number. It rang six times before she answered, and then it was with the roar of music in the background. She’d obviously finished work for the day.
‘Hang on,’ Mary said, as she took herself to a quieter spot. Then, ‘Aisling? You all right? Do you need me to come round?’
‘That friend of yours. The one with the shitty boyfriend. How did she trace his phone?’
Mary was silent for a moment, but she didn’t ask any questions. That was good. Aisling couldn’t have answered them. ‘He had a Google account – Gmail. He used Gmail on his phone. Didn’t realise that when he put his email account on his phone he accepted all sorts of shit. Google keep a record of everywhere you go, how long you spend there; they keep it for, like, years. He gave her his email password, to prove how straight down the line he was. Didn’t realise that all she had to do was click on Timeline and she could see exactly how often and how long he was spending at his ex’s place.’
‘Timeline.’
‘Yep. It’s in Maps or something.’
‘Okay, thanks.’
‘Aisling, what’s going on? Are you saying . . . was Jack cheating on you?’
The thought had honestly never occurred to her. It did then, for just a moment, before she dismissed it.
‘Not Jack,’ she said, ‘not his style.’ She got off the phone by promising to call Mary the next day, hung up and turned back to her laptop, and Jack’s email account.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Hackett had ended the interview as soon as Maude asked for a lawyer, and brought her straight down to the holding cells. The custody sergeant took her details, her handbag, the contents of her pockets. His matter of factness was reassuring, but maybe it shouldn’t have been. The place smelled strongly of disinfectant. Someone in a cell was singing rebel songs, tunefully enough, although he kept losing his place and starting again. She was put in a cell by herself, and told that she would be brought to Limerick Prison in the morning, until her bail hearing which would be on Monday. She asked again for her lawyer and was told he’d been called, then the cell door was closed and she was alone. Maude was grateful, at least, that she had that privilege.
She sat on the bunk. The sheets were clean. Lights were turned down low, but then it was late now, wasn’t it? She’d met Aisling at about six o’clock. Maude lay down and closed her eyes. She could pretend to be somewhere else, while she waited, and thought. In her hotel room, or better yet, back on the station in the Kimberley, before it had been sold. She’d heard Nancy Spain sung there too
, more than once. She might have drifted off. She was woken by the custody sergeant, who opened her door without warning or ceremony.
‘Your solicitor’s here,’ the sergeant said. He’d spilled something on his uniform; a dark splodge that might have been ketchup stained his trousers right up near his crotch. His eyes followed hers, then he frowned. She opened her mouth to explain and he cut across her.
‘I don’t have all night.’
He showed her to an interview room, then shut the door. She took a seat at the table, wondering at the fact that her hands were free. Probably the door was locked. She didn’t check it. Five minutes later, it opened, and a man walked into the room.
Tom Collins, but so different now, and it wasn’t just the width of his shoulders, the grey at his temples. The difference was in his manner, his self-possession. As he walked in his eyes were on her, assessing, examining. He gave a friendly nod of dismissal to the guard, and took a seat opposite her.
‘Maude,’ he said.
Maude felt the distance between them, felt his caution. She couldn’t miss his reserve and it should have prompted her to be careful, but a smile came to her lips unbidden. She pressed her fingers to her lips but the smile grew until it took over her face. It came from somewhere inside, from the part of her that was still a girl and knew that Tom was her true friend. And perhaps it was fed by her adult self too, which understood how rare and precious that sort of love is. Tears blurred her vision and she blinked them away.
‘Maude,’ Tom said again, but this time was different. He reached out a hand to her and stroked a tear from her cheek. ‘Don’t cry.’
But she caught her breath and fresh tears fell at the touch of his hand. The Tom she’d known would never have done that. He had hated to be touched. She caught his hand before he could take it away and squeezed it hard before releasing him.
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