Why She Ran

by Geraldine Hogan

  Ten

  ‘But surely you can see, this isn’t worth a thing to us,’ Iris pleaded. Marshall had stage-managed the press conference so the media were running with a photograph of Eleanor that might have been taken four years earlier. It was an image of her that more closely resembled the virgin Mary than it did the spirited teenager they were getting a sense of. She could see why he’d done it. He didn’t want a potential jury convicting her before they’d even managed to warm their seats in the courthouse. Iris wanted to shout that they wouldn’t have to worry if she was guilty or innocent if Eleanor was dead. It may not have been Byrne’s intention to have this conversation, but she wasn’t leaving his office without raising it. She wanted another press conference and she wanted to be in control of it.

  ‘The answer is still no. It’s out of our hands,’ he said firmly, and then he sighed; he agreed with her, but couldn’t admit it. ‘Look, Marshall has done the press conference, our only other shot at this is circulating something fresher when we have it. We really don’t have a choice. The best you can do for the Marshall girl now is figure out what happened that night and make sure Tony Ahearn is doing his job out at Curlew Hall.’

  ‘But you saw the image, she doesn’t look like that now, she couldn’t have been any more than twelve years old when it was taken…’ It was screamingly obvious why Marshall had done it; did she really need to spell this out for Byrne?

  ‘Look, I can see you’re upset, you’d have liked to be there, get a chance to show that you’re in charge and all that, I get it, but, she’s his daughter, he has the right to go on TV and—’

  ‘Dear God, it’s not about that.’ Iris exhaled; she couldn’t lose her temper here. ‘Don’t you see? It’s so not about getting our faces on TV – it’s about Eleanor and putting out an image that people will recognise. We can’t let them get away with this.’

  ‘Away with what?’ Byrne’s voice had dipped into unfamiliar territory.

  ‘Oh, come on, you can see it as well as any of us. He’s trying to make her out to be some fragile little girl, so if we do make a case against her, it’s going to take a bit less effort on his part to sweep this under the carpet like he’s done every other time for her.’

  ‘I must warn you, Iris, if that’s a sentiment you repeat in public, it’s highly libellous.’ Byrne’s tone had turned to ice.

  ‘It’s not libellous if it’s the truth,’ she said stubbornly.

  ‘Look, I asked you to take on this case because I thought we would work well together…’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but if working well together means covering up so a rich kid gets away with murder, then you picked the wrong sergeant,’ she said, but she stood firm, because tempted as she might be to storm out the door, she knew it wouldn’t get her what she wanted.

  ‘Are you saying that Sergeant Slattery would?’ He was playing games with her now.

  ‘No, I’m not saying that. Ben Slattery is one of the most honourable detectives I’ve ever worked with. In spite of his faults, he would always do the right thing.’ The words came like a default sentence, but when she said them, she knew they were true.

  ‘Well, I admire your loyalty—’ He stopped, because they both knew he was about to compare her to Jack Locke and comparisons to the man she’d believed was her father didn’t apply anymore – it seemed at any level.

  Iris was treading on thin ice, the last thing she needed was to make an enemy of Byrne; it already looked as if they were up against the whole establishment on this one, no need to bring him down on top of her too. ‘I don’t get it…’

  ‘It’s simple. If we proceed with something against her parents’ wishes, we’re going to get their backs up and we really don’t want Kit Marshall playing against us. God knows what he’d pull out of that big purse of his. We can’t forget she’s a minor and he’s her legal guardian.’ He shook his head, put his hand up to stop her. ‘Don’t blame me, if anyone is to blame here, it’s bloody GDPR and all the trip wires that go with it. If we so much as whisper her name in the press without her parents’ consent, Marshall will tie us up in a legal battle that you can guarantee will spell the end of all our careers while somehow ensuring he comes out smelling of roses.’ Byrne shook his head; at least it was good to see he wasn’t taken in by Marshall either.

  ‘And what if something happened to be leaked?’

  ‘You can try, but if he finds out, I’m warning you, you could find yourself transferred to the Blasket Islands for the rest of your days.’ He wasn’t joking and she knew it.

  ‘I could be in worse places,’ she said flatly.

  ‘Look, I know it’s your first case and that’s always a big pressure, but as long as you’re following procedure, making sure you don’t miss anything coming in from your team and trying to build up a picture to guide the investigation along – then you can do no more.’ Byrne’s face creased into a smile but his eyes were chary. ‘That’s the job, Iris. No one gives you superpowers just because you get a fancy new title.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Surely, she’d misheard him. ‘There’s a young woman missing, sir, I think that’s all the reason we need to feel under pressure.’ Damn it, this tightness in her chest, the drumming out of every second wasn’t just about this case and how things might look to the powers that be. A year ago, that might have been the case, but things had changed. She had changed and now the old standards no longer held any bearing on her.

  ‘I’m just saying, you’re… well, you have a long career – perhaps a glittering career – ahead of you on the force, if you play your cards right. Whereas Slattery… well… you need to be careful that he isn’t influencing you on this case, because we all know, he’s going to have little time for the Marshalls of this world and his bleeding heart is likely to drive you both into career meltdown.’ He raised his eyes to heaven as though they were discussing a naughty toddler. ‘I’m just saying that decisions have been made, some very influential people are watching your progress, so don’t step on any well-heeled toes, all right?’

  ‘With respect, sir, Ben Slattery has probably solved more cases in his career than anyone else in this station and if his approach is a little unorthodox, I hardly think that it should take away from the fact that he’s a good detective.’

  ‘Yes, well, that’s as maybe, but he’s never going to be anything beyond sergeant and I thought your ambitions lay a little further up the line.’ His glare hardened and almost immediately Iris regretted her outburst – after all, she wasn’t sure Slattery would speak up for her if the situation was reversed.

  ‘Sorry, sir, I’m probably just a bit wound up.’

  ‘Well, if you’re not fit for the job…’ He turned his attention to the desk before him. ‘There are plenty more out there who’ll get on with it and bring in the same result as all this flapping will.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Iris made her way back to the incident room with as much poise as she could muster. There was no undoing the certain knowledge that if she didn’t keep Marshall sweet, and Byrne too, she could be out on her ear faster than she’d have thought possible. But, as she stood before the case board facing the images of Rachel McDermott and Eleanor Marshall, so many other arguments began to play out in her mind.

  In the last few hours, locals out at Curlew Cross had begun calling to the station asking if extra police cover was available because Eleanor Marshall was on the loose. Her reputation preceded her. Her father might have kept her out of court, but this was small-town Ireland and everyone knew everyone else’s business, no matter how much you paid to keep things quiet. The more Iris thought about it, she couldn’t help but feel Eleanor was the victim of prejudice, the most dangerous kind of ignorance in the world. The kind that got you killed or drove people to kill. Still, as Byrne said – and Iris knew – she had a job to do, and if Eleanor killed Rachel McDermott or hurt anyone else, there would be no covering it up, she’d make sure of that. Then, all the big brass would do their best to pass the blame along the line.
Marshall would be well out of the frame and the food chain could stop at her door. After all, she’d already seen Slattery was like Teflon and Byrne had never taken the blame for anything in his life.

  God, all of this was making her head pound. She grabbed her jacket and headed for the small coffee shop nearby. She needed to stop thinking, just for as long as it would take her to walk there. On the way, she wasn’t even sure if she’d brought enough change to pay for a small coffee, but it didn’t matter, she felt her head clear with the breezy traffic fumes that knot-weeded their way about the city.

  She ordered and paid for her coffee, took a seat staring out at the bus stop, waiting as the evening traffic passed by. Iris allowed her mind to empty for just a while until a loud thud against the window brought her back to reality. Outside, an old woman stood, fixing a scarf about her neck, probably; the shopping bags which lay spilling over against the window had startled her. It didn’t matter, it was time to get back. As she passed the woman, she stopped, there was something familiar about her, not that she’d met her before, but she reminded Iris of someone. She took half a dozen steps when it came to her like bolt – Anna Crowe. There was something in her expression that reminded her of Anna. She turned back immediately, but the woman was just stepping onto a parked bus. For a moment, she stood in a no man’s land, unsure if she should move forward or back, but then the door of the bus closed and it began to indicate before being sucked into the snaking traffic out of the city.

  The short walk back to the station left her breathless; of course, she knew it wasn’t the distance, but rather the shock of what she’d just seen. She’d never thought about it before, but perhaps there were other relatives out there – people she’d never met, Anna Crowe’s people. Her people.

  Iris reached into her bag and took out the case notes Bobby Nestor had carefully handwritten almost two decades earlier. In the end, they hadn’t even been deemed important enough to commit to a database. She’d pulled them before she had met with Byrne. She hadn’t mentioned the suspicious death of William McDermott all those years earlier – felt a little guilty about it, but it was only background reading so no harm done. Iris’s phone rang just as she was about to settle into the file.

  ‘Iris.’ Pardy’s voice was flat. ‘I’ve hit a wall with Eleanor Marshall’s file.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘According to their records most of her notes were archived. They haven’t been looked at in years. In fact, they’re pretty well permanently locked unless you get the parents’ permission.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Well, three weeks ago Rachel McDermott signed out the file, with the permission of Susan Marshall.’

  ‘Have you talked to Mrs Marshall?’

  ‘No need, we have her handwriting here and a blind man can see the signature on the file release is a forgery.’

  ‘Do we know where the file is now?’

  ‘No. I’ve checked at Curlew Hall. I’d say they’re in for a cart load of bother now from the Marshalls. Slattery’s going to call into Mrs McDermott, see if Rachel might have left it somewhere in the house.’

  ‘Good work. Let me know how you get on.’

  Eleven

  Slattery hadn’t worn a wedding ring in years. Actually, he’d lost it when he and Maureen went on honeymoon. He’d left it in the toilet of a little pub near the B&B where they started out on married life. At the time, Maureen had been beside herself; back then she was prone to superstition about the oddest things. How could he have known that skipping around ladders and blessing herself at every turn would one day turn into a commitment to the church which was grounded as much in guilt as it was devotion? She was convinced that losing that ring was an omen. Slattery figured the worst of it was he hadn’t actually paid for the bloody thing. Now there would be six weeks of turning up at the jeweller’s and handing over money that might be better spent on rent or beer with nothing to show for it. He’d only searched for it half-heartedly, after all, where Slattery came from, real men didn’t wear jewellery – apart from the Bishop, but then since he wore robes that resembled an old woman’s dress, he was hardly the most obvious male role model. Funny, when he looked back at it now, perhaps she’d been right; their marriage had almost run out of steam before the honeymoon was over.

  In hindsight – well, thirty years later is bound to make you a little wiser – Slattery could admit that spending their honeymoon in a pub while his wife sat on a windy beach alone probably meant he had to shoulder most of the blame. That week, all those years ago, it was the only holiday they’d ever had as a couple, and if it hadn’t entirely slipped from his mind, he’d certainly done his best to bury it beneath anything that could be deemed more pressing. And there seemed to have been plenty over the years that he could call more deserving of his time. Looking back, their marriage had been a fast rush of murder cases, countless late nights – spent mostly at the Ship Inn – and a long argument that had eventually settled into a simmering bitterness between them. Regrets? Sure, Slattery knew, sitting here watching Maureen nod off in the living room that should have been theirs, he regretted plenty. Still, there was no way of admitting he could have changed anything – he was far too stubborn for that. Maybe, his biggest regret was marrying her in the first place. It wasn’t that he resented her now, the truth was, he felt an uncomfortable mixture of pity and guilt. She’d fired it at him once, the accusation that he’d thrown away her life with his own and he supposed that was true, but what he hadn’t shouted back was she could have walked away. Of course, walking away, separation, divorce wasn’t in her make-up. Even now, her wedding ring, thin and worn beneath the cheap engagement ring dug into her swollen fingers. There was no getting it off, not without cutting it, and Slattery had a feeling she’d lose a finger before she’d go out without her rings, miserable and flimsy as they were.

  A slight harrumph signalled a drift towards wakefulness. It was almost nine thirty, the evening news at an end and Maureen had slept right through it; of course, the highlight for her had always been the weather forecast. A delivery of tomorrow’s clothes-line pronouncements which Slattery’s brain shut down for. He always figured he’d know what the days’ weather was, soon enough when he got up in the morning.

  ‘Uh, I must have just drifted off,’ she said, straightening a little in her chair. ‘Is the news over already?’ she asked crossly, as if they might have had the decency to pause until she was ready to give it her full attention.

  ‘Aye, fancy a cuppa?’ he asked, knowing that tea at this hour kept her awake; she’d been saying it for years.

  ‘No. It’s time I was turning in,’ she said pointedly. ‘I’m sure you have better places to be too.’ She flicked the remote control so it felt as if the only words likely to fill the air between them had been cut short abruptly.

  ‘Right, well, I’ll be going so,’ he said getting up. He’d already checked doors and windows, unplugged anything that might be vaguely considered a fire hazard and tucked in drawers and chairs so there was little chance of her tripping. He couldn’t think of anything else he could do, bar sitting in the garden all night to make sure she didn’t fall out a window. So far, she hadn’t taken to wandering about in her nightdress, but she had managed to get lost on her way to the supermarket. She’d ended up on the other side of town, forgot to get off at her stop on the bus and Angela had been beside herself, giving off yards to Slattery as if it was entirely his fault. He didn’t tell her that they were only lucky she wasn’t driving, but then they all knew– even if her car hadn’t been smashed up in that tragic accident – thanks to the dementia, Maureen wouldn’t ever be driving again.

  ‘If you want anything…’ He pulled his jacket on so it slipped over him at an angle. No matter if it had been made for him, clothes never seemed to quite sit properly – that was the thing about Slattery.

  She smiled a half turn of her lips when she looked at him. He still seemed as if he’d just fallen out of the school gates, tie askew, shirt hanging out,
and jacket only half pulled on. It was a mixture of disinterest and his unfortunate lumpy shape. He was never going to do a suit any favours, but if he took the time to straighten himself out before a mirror it would have made all the difference. Of course, like so many other things that had annoyed his wife over the years, they both knew that he couldn’t give a flying kite about how he looked and cared less how other people thought he looked.

  ‘Kit Marshall,’ she said the name, it almost echoed away from them.

  ‘That’s right,’ Slattery said, searching his pockets for car keys that were much too bulky to lose.

  ‘He had an eye on me,’ she said a little fondly, as if she had drifted from him to a time many years before.

  ‘I knew that,’ Slattery said, glancing at her. He didn’t add that Marshall had his eye on every other girl in Limerick at some point. Always was a smooth fecker. Well, it hadn’t got him any further than a marriage that looked as if it had more to do with his money than his sex appeal in the end. ‘He still looks in good shape, not like…’

  ‘Yes, I’d imagine he takes care of himself.’ Maureen raised her hand to her hair self-consciously. ‘But you have to live, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose,’ Slattery said, amused, because it never occurred to him that Maureen had ever given much of a thought to anything beyond cleaning the church and making the dinner.

  ‘You know, I always saw through him,’ she said thoughtfully.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, just that. He wasn’t half as sweet as he pretended. There was a dark side to Kit Marshall that I think a lot of the other girls didn’t notice.’ She shook her head now. ‘I’m just saying it, because well, if you’re depending on him to help you figure out anything about the McDermott girl, I’d take it with a pinch of salt. I think Kit Marshall would sell his granny for a bunch of hydrangeas so he could come up smelling of flowers, that’s all.’