There was no time for more. Moments later Carrie pulled up outside a semi-d in Salthill. It had the slightly shabby look of a long-term rental. They got out of the car, Cormac loosening his gun in its holster. A little boy stood in the garden, a football in his hands. What would he be – five, six? He was wearing only a T-shirt over his tracksuit bottoms, and his arms were red with cold.
‘My daddy plays football with me,’ he said, as Cormac approached.
‘Does he?’
‘He’s a garda.’
Cormac glanced at Carrie.
‘Is your daddy inside, Luke?’ Carrie asked.
The little boy shook his head, pushed at the ground with one foot. ‘I’m not allowed to talk to strangers,’ he said. Then, after a beat, ‘Do you want to play football?’
‘I do,’ said Cormac, ‘but I need to talk to your mummy.’ He gave the boy the best smile he could manage, and turned towards the house. The front door was open. They could hear a child crying. Cormac didn’t knock, just stepped inside. Terracotta floor tiles, magnolia walls. There were unpacked boxes in the hall, but otherwise it was very clean. There was a faint smell of bleach. Cormac followed the sound of crying. It led him to the kitchen. The room was exceptionally clean, but washed out. Nothing on the counters, nothing personal. No colour anywhere, except for the woman sitting on a kitchen chair. She was very overweight, her hair was blonde and long, and it hung unwashed and loose on her shoulders. She wore a black, long-sleeved T-shirt and a floor-length skirt. Blood ran from a cut above one eye, drying in a scarlet swathe down one cheek and shoulder. A little girl, no more than two years old, sat at her feet, pulling at her legs and crying for attention. The woman sat, unmoving, staring into the distance. She held a mobile phone limply in one hand.
‘Sarah,’ Carrie said. She took a step towards her. The woman – Sarah – didn’t react, but their presence shocked the little one into momentary silence. She looked at Cormac and hiccupped.
‘Sarah,’ Carrie said again. She crouched at her side and picked up Sarah’s hands, held them in her own. ‘Is Danny here?’
Cormac knew he wasn’t. The house held the aftermath of something. Something that had passed. The action had moved elsewhere.
‘Where is he, Sarah?’ Carrie asked. She put her hand to Sarah’s forehead, checking her temperature as if she were a small child. Something in that gesture woke her. She turned broken eyes to Carrie.
‘You’re too late,’ she said. Her voice was husky, little more than a rasp. Cormac’s eyes dropped to her neck, to the smudge of dark bruises, the red marks that promised more bruising to come. This was Danny’s wife. Christ. Had he done this to her?
‘Tell me Sarah,’ Carrie was saying. ‘Tell me, and I can help you.’
‘I think Danny killed her,’ she said. ‘He killed her, and God help me, I think I helped him.’
Carrie flicked her eyes to Cormac’s. He could tell she was thinking about cautioning Sarah, was worried that anything they heard now wouldn’t be admissible. Cormac shook his head.
‘Talk to me Sarah,’ Carrie said, her voice gentle, soothing. ‘Tell me what happened.’
‘He came home from work on St. Patrick’s Day. Told me I had to drive him out to Lough Mask, to collect his car. He didn’t tell me why. I had to bring the children, they couldn’t be left. I didn’t know, he didn’t tell me what it was all about.’
Carrie nodded at her reassuringly.
‘He’d left his car at the quarry. It was well hidden, off the road, but he wanted it home before anyone saw it. I drove him out there to collect it, and I didn’t ask any questions. I never ask any questions. But she was already dead by then, wasn’t she? That’s what I keep telling myself. That what I did didn’t make any difference.’
The toddler started crying again, and Cormac picked her up, shushed her, jigged her gently up and down. She put her thumb in her mouth and looked at him solemnly.
‘Tell me who you’re talking about, Sarah. Who was dead?’ Carrie had to know of course, but it was better that Sarah say it without prompting.
‘I didn’t know,’ Sarah said again. ‘You have to believe me. But it was too late anyway, wasn’t it? There was nothing I could have done to help her.’
‘Did Danny tell you that he killed Lorna?’ Cormac asked. None of this was admissible anyway, and he had such a sense of urgency. This wasn’t over. The child in his arms was too young to understand the conversation, surely.
Sarah stared at him as if she’d just now realised he was in the room, then shook her head slowly. Then she closed her eyes, bent forward, and started to rock.
Carrie squeezed her hand again but the rocking continued, and she closed her eyes.
‘Where is he, Sarah, do you know?’ Carrie asked. She’d raised her voice, and the little girl in Cormac’s arms started to cry again. But Sarah had withdrawn completely, wasn’t reacting. Before Cormac could respond, Carrie stood and took the little girl from his arms, put her into Sarah’s lap, forcing Sarah to take her. Cormac put out a hand to stop the child from falling, but Carrie supported the child herself, then took one of Sarah’s arms and unfolded it from Sarah’s body, helped the child cuddle in to her mother. For a moment Sarah didn’t reach, then her arm tightened around her little one, and she opened her eyes.
‘He’ll find me,’ she said. ‘He always finds me.’
‘Not this time,’ Carrie said. ‘You’ll come to mine until we can find a better place. Danny McIntyre won’t come near my house, I can promise you that. But I need to speak to Detective Reilly for a moment, all right? We’ll just be over there,’ she pointed to the far corner of the room, ‘and when we’re finished, you and I, we’re going to get packing, all right?’
Carrie didn’t wait for Sarah to respond, but took the few steps away, and Cormac followed. They spoke quietly.
‘Christ,’ said Cormac. ‘I had no idea.’
‘He’s very good at pretending,’ Carrie said. ‘You aren’t the only one to miss it.’
‘Christ,’ Cormac said again. He looked back at Sarah.
‘Do you think he’s done a runner?’ Carrie asked.
Cormac thought about Danny, thought about his absolute sincerity when he’d apologised for not coming to Cormac with the Hannah Collins statement.
‘He’s not running. He’s too fucking arrogant to run.’ Something was nagging at him. That look on Rodgers’ face when he’d asked about Jack’s phone. There is no new evidence in the Blake enquiry. Pompous. Officious. Probably he would have been obstructive just for the sake of it. But hadn’t there been surprise in his face when Cormac asked the question? Which meant Rodgers hadn’t seen her, hadn’t met Aisling. The phone had never reached him.
Cormac dialled Fisher directly on his mobile, cut through his greeting.
‘I need to know if Daniel McIntyre was in the station yesterday evening. Find out who was on the desk. Patch me through.’
A minute later he was talking to Garda Stephen Moore, who hesitatingly confessed that yes, Aisling Conroy had asked for Reilly the evening before, and had been told to come back the next day.
‘Danny McIntyre, did he talk to her?’ Cormac asked.
‘No . . . uh . . . no, I was the only one to talk to her, as far as I know,’ Stephen Moore said.
‘But McIntyre was in the station when she came in?’
‘He came in because he heard his sister had been found. He wanted to know what we’d found out so far, you know, about the arrest. Someone sent him home.’
‘Could he have overheard your conversation with Aisling?’
Silence at the other end of the phone gave him his answer.
‘Did he leave at the same time as her?’
There was a pause. ‘A minute or two after, I think.’
Christ. Cormac hung up.
‘What?’ asked Carrie. ‘What is it, Cormac?’
‘The keys,’ he said. ‘Give me the keys.’
They were in his hand before he had to ask a second time. He he
sitated, looking back at Sarah.
‘I’ll look after her,’ said Carrie.
He nodded and made for the door. ‘Call backup,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Tell them the house in the Claddagh. Jack Blake’s place. Right now.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
There was a car parked outside the house – a little grey Mazda that did not belong to Danny. Lights glowed behind curtains in every window and from the road he could hear music playing. Cormac ran for the door, knocked, rang the bell, waited a fraction of a second but no longer. He threw his weight at the door. Once. Again. A third time and the lock gave, the wood splintered, and he was in. Oh Jesus.
‘Danny. Stop, Danny.’ He pulled the gun as he stepped into the hall, aiming it but knowing he couldn’t shoot.
‘Stop. Or she goes over,’ said Danny, almost shouting to be heard above the music. There was no emotion in his voice. No fear.
And Cormac stopped. Because above him, on the half-landing, Aisling Conroy stood, balanced in her stockinged feet but only just, on the banister. Her hands were tied behind her back, and a noose hung around her neck, the rope snaking upwards and tied high above her. Danny was hidden, almost entirely shielded, by Aisling.
‘Jesus, Danny. What the fuck?’
‘Cormac. Terrible start. You’d think you’d never read the manual.’ If anything, there was a laugh in Danny’s voice, hysteria.
Cormac adjusted his grip on the weapon. He had no shot. He locked eyes with Aisling. ‘Talk to me, Dan. Come on. Nothing can be worth this. I know you have your reasons. Talk to me.’
‘There we go. See, Aisling? That was much better. Open questions. Active listening. But you should have made it personal, Cormac, should have said something about our friendship, for example.’ The music stopped as he spoke, the silence abrupt and shocking.
Aisling swayed slightly on the banister; she bent her knees and found her balance, but her eyes never left his. Slowly, she mouthed one word, carefully enough that he couldn’t miss it. Gun.
‘We’re friends, Dan. Of course we’re friends. Take her down from the stairs now, just lift her down, and we can talk. We can sort all of this out.’
Danny started to laugh, the sound relaxed and horribly natural. It was an imitation of a laugh, Cormac realised. A perfect parody. ‘Beautiful, Cormac. Make it personal. Downplay the consequences of my actions. Excellent. Except if you’re here, you know about Lorna, don’t you? You know about Jack. How did you find out?’
The music started playing again. Was it on a loop? The heartbreaking sound of Sia singing that she was bulletproof. Danny’s idea of humour, perhaps.
‘I don’t care about any of that, Dan. You know that. We can work this out.’
‘I want to know how you know. It can’t be to do with Barton, or that bitch O’Halloran would be here with you. It was the phone, wasn’t it? Jack Blake’s phone?’
Christ. Danny was holding back only to find out what Cormac knew. He still thought he could get out of the situation.
‘Other people know about this Danny. Backup is on the way. You need to take her down.’ Cormac’s palms were sweating. If backup didn’t arrive there was only one way this could end. If Danny thought Cormac was truly alone, that no one else suspected him, he would kill them both and try to cover it up. On the other hand, if he thought that other people knew, what was to stop him from trying to kill them both and making a run for it?
Danny said nothing. Cormac adjusted his grip on the gun. Tracked left, then right, looking for a shot. There was no cover here at the bottom of the stairs. He could try for Danny’s legs through the banister, but if he did Aisling would surely go over. How long did it take to die, when hung by the neck? He couldn’t look away from Aisling, not even for a moment. Their eyes were locked together and it felt as if that connection might be the only thing holding her. He could see pain etched on her face. How long had Danny had her standing there? The music soared again and then, horribly, her expression changed, slackened, and her gaze lost its focus. She closed her eyes.
Aisling couldn’t hold her position. He’d had her standing there for twenty minutes, was entertained by her efforts to hang on, to balance. Her muscles were cramping. The pain was all she could feel now, and she had barely recovered from her last slip, her muscles refusing to obey her. Her hands were tied, a tight rope around soft fabric. To stop bruising, she supposed, so that this could be made to look like suicide. There was no way out. Which would be worse, death by hanging or by gunshot? The pain welled again and with it came the music, enveloping her, overwhelming her. She closed her eyes and let it come. She thought of Jack, called her memories to her and then he was with her in the void. She felt the warmth of his hand on hers. Saw his face. Oh, the everlasting dearness of him. She wanted him now with a physical ache that overwhelmed every other sensation. The gun in her back. The hardness of the banister under her feet. The screaming pain of her cramping calf muscles. Her eyes were still closed, and if she kept them closed maybe this moment would last forever.
No. No. Jack was dead. He was gone and he would want her to live. And if she wanted to live she had to fight.
Aisling’s eyes snapped open and she was back in the moment with a jerking violence that made her gasp hard air into her lungs. Her feet slipped, and her eyes locked again with Cormac Reilly’s. He took another step towards her, mouth open and breathing hard. She saw her fate in his eyes, felt it in the pressure of the gun in the small of her back. Had known it almost from the moment she saw Danny McIntyre sitting in her armchair wearing Jack’s clothes. Now there was nothing Reilly could do. Danny was shielded behind her body. When he was ready he could shoot around her and take Reilly out. What could Reilly do to defend himself, with her body between them? He was totally vulnerable, standing in the hall before her, gun raised and eyes desperate. And yet he hadn’t left her. She felt the pressure of the gun leave her back, heard Danny take a long slow breath in, watched Reilly’s face crease with anxiety. She knew what she had to do. Her eyes still locked with Reilly’s, willing him to understand, she mouthed one word at him, and stepped forward into the void.
Reilly watched as she mouthed something. One word. Unmistakable. Now. Then Aisling Conroy took a single deliberate step forward, and fell.
He had no time, no time to think. His gun hand was already up and instinct took over. There was surprise on Danny’s face, a moment of hesitation, before he brought his gun around. Adrenaline heightened Cormac’s senses. He saw Danny’s finger tighten on the trigger, braced himself for the impact of a bullet, even as he felt the shock of the recoil from his own gun. Oh Jesus. Danny was falling backwards. And Aisling Conroy was hanging from the end of a rope, her feet less than a metre from the floor. Cormac dropped his gun and ran, lifted her weight so that she was no longer pulling against the rope. He held her with one arm and used his other hand to loosen the noose around her neck. It was too tight to get over her head. He tried to feel for a pulse, felt her weight slip, so he held her in both arms, as high as he could. It felt like hours that he was standing there, but it could only have been seconds, minutes, before he heard the sirens, and moments more before other gardaí were pouring through the door. Her weight was taken from him, the rope cut, and then the paramedics were there, checking her airway, her pulse, whisking her out of the door and into an ambulance. Another paramedic had run up the stairs to where Danny lay. Cormac took two steps to follow them, then stopped, breathing heavily, and waited for them to come back down.
They didn’t come. A uniform found his way down the stairs and to Cormac.
‘Sergeant?’
It was Fisher, looking shocked and questioning.
‘Danny?’ Cormac asked.
Fisher shook his head, his lips bloodless.
‘Fuck, fuck.’ Cormac couldn’t seem to slow his breathing. Blood was roaring in his ears. It was all he could hear now that someone had finally, finally turned off that bloody music. Cormac turned away and leaned his forehead against the wall, bre
athing slow deep breaths until he was in control again. When he turned around Fisher was still standing there, hands loose at his sides.
‘He’s dead.’
‘Yes.’
‘He would have killed her, but this wasn’t what I wanted.’ Cormac leaned against the wall, let his head fall back against it and looked up. ‘Danny killed his own sister, just to set up her rapist. I don’t fucking get it.’
‘Why did he come here? How did you know?’
Cormac shook his head. Some of it he thought he knew, but he needed time, needed time to put it all together. Danny had killed Lorna, inexplicable though that act was. Then Jack had stumbled across his path as he disposed of her body, that had to be it. Even if Jack hadn’t seen him with Lorna’s body, letting him live would have been too much of a risk, wouldn’t it? Once Lorna’s body was found, and he’d always intended that it be found, there would be publicity. What if Jack Blake had come forward to say that he had seen a man at Lough Mask, a man who matched Danny’s description?
So he’d killed Jack too, and would have killed Aisling, to keep it all from coming out. Christ, she’d come so close to dying, right there in front of him. She might be dying right now, for all of that. Cormac thought back to their conversation at the hospital. If he’d done a better job, if he’d built some sort of rapport with Aisling, would she have come to him earlier? Could he have prevented this? He thought about her stepping off the banister. It had been deliberate, that step. She’d been trying to give him a chance.
Another uniform stepped out of the living room, looked in his direction. ‘You’ll want a look at this,’ he said.
The room was a shrine. A fire was burning low in the hearth, and every other surface was covered in candles. There were photographs on the coffee table, on the floor; photographs of Jack, photographs of Jack and Aisling together. There was a half-empty bottle of wine and a stained wineglass and Cormac wondered if Danny had made her drink it. If he’d sat and watched and forced her to drink while he held the gun on her. How long had he given her? Had he wanted it done fast, or had he enjoyed it? Had he wanted to toy with her, to watch her, and make her talk? There was a sheet of paper on the coffee table too, covered in writing. A suicide note. No. A suicide letter. Long and detailed. So it had been slow then.
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