The Kindness of Psychopaths

by Alan Gorevan

  “Twenty-seven.”

  Joe nodded. “I remember being that age.”

  “How was it?”

  Joe shrugged. “For me, not great. But young enough that you don’t think about lying.”

  According to his watch, it was well after eight, but the sky was still bright. That had fooled him into thinking it was earlier.

  “Where are you living?” he asked.

  Dunne finished her burger and dabbed her lips before replying. “I’m crashing at my friend’s place at the moment. It’s so hard to find a place to live in Dublin. Rent is crazy.”

  “Where does your friend live?”

  “Ranelagh.”

  “That’s handy. Not too far from the station.”

  “Yeah. Where are you based?”

  “Rathmines. That’s pretty close to Ranelagh.”

  “I know where it is. Maybe we’ll see more of each other.”

  “Maybe. At the local take-away.” Joe wiped his hands again. He was eager to get moving. Lisa was going to be furious. “Ready to go?”

  Dunne finished her drink. “Yeah. Thanks for dinner. I owe you.”

  They left the restaurant and headed back to the car.

  “I can get a taxi,” Dunne said. “If this is taking you out of your way.”

  “No. It isn’t.”

  On the way to Ranelagh, Dunne told him a little about her time being stationed in Cork. It had been in her home county, but far from the town where she grew up. That was just how it was. The force transferred you all over the damn country. Everywhere except where you were from. O’Carroll had worked some magic to get Joe in Donnybrook, and Joe was starting to wonder if he should feel grateful. Getting to know Christopher had been good.

  “This is me,” Dunne said, pointing to a terraced house just off the main street. Joe pulled over right outside her door.

  “See you tomorrow,” he said.

  She got out, gave a wave, and closed the passenger door. Joe set off for Lisa’s place, bracing himself because he was very late.

  Chapter 39

  Detective Garda Alice Dunne stood on the footpath and watched as Joe Byrne’s car disappeared from view. It had been fun to meet him. She thought he was more handsome in real life than in the photos she’d seen in the media. She liked the way his suit fitted him, liked the look in the blue pools of his eyes.

  Interesting that he had a kid and an ex. Of course, he didn’t seem like the father type. What a nightmare it must be to have children. Dunne certainly wouldn’t have been interested in raising one.

  When Joe’s car had gone, she took out her phone and dialled a number. A man answered. She listened while he spoke.

  “Of course not,” Dunne replied. “He didn’t suspect a thing.”

  Dunne listened for a few more seconds. She ended the call, then glanced up at the house that Joe had dropped her outside. It was a nice building. Dunne wondered who lived there.

  She turned and started walking down the road to her own apartment, which was a ten-minute walk away.

  Chapter 40

  Joe eased the Honda onto Belmont Avenue. For these mature red-bricks, property prices started in the seven figures, which was about six figures more than he could afford. Lisa’s parents owned the O’Malley’s chain of souvenir shops, but Joe reckoned that she didn’t need help buying the house. Over the years he’d Googled her more often than was healthy. She’d been good at computers when they met, and Joe wasn’t surprised to see her emerge as a successful web developer. She had a freelance business but also helped out her folks at O’Malley’s.

  Anyone who had walked around Dublin city centre in the last twenty years had probably passed a dozen branches of O’Malley’s, and they’d have known all about it too. The shops were hard to miss, what with the fluorescent green leprechauns screaming from the window display, and traditional Irish music blaring from the speakers. Tourists seemed to like it.

  As Joe parked at the curb outside Lisa’s house, he noticed a handyman standing on a stepladder, trimming the garden hedge. The man turned his head as Joe approached. He looked to be a few years older than Joe, pushing forty and with a slightly flabby face and a belly that strained tight against his pink polo shirt.

  “How much are you being paid?” Joe asked.

  The guy squinted at him, the evening sun in his eyes.

  “What?”

  He was doing a terrible job. Just terrible.

  “Whatever Lisa’s paying you, it’s too much.”

  “She’s not paying me anything,” the man said. “I offered to help.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  He watched as Joe walked up the driveway. The door stood open, the wire from an extension lead disappearing down the hall. Joe rapped his knuckle against the doorframe. Down the hall in the kitchen, Lisa stuck her head out.

  “Come in,” she said after a moment.

  Joe walked down the hall, past pictures of Lisa and Christopher.

  There was a painting on the wall too, one Joe hadn’t seen before. An original work, by the look of it. He wondered if Christopher had done it. He figured only a mother would want to hang up such an eyesore.

  “Hey,” Joe said as he entered the kitchen.

  “Give me a minute,” Lisa said, typing furiously on her laptop.

  He took a seat beside her at the kitchen table. Lisa guided a loose strand of hair over her left ear and continued working.

  When they’d first met in the college library, she’d worn her hair longer. Now, it only came to the top of her shoulders, and it was curly. Joe preferred the old look. At least she hadn’t dyed it, though she’d said a few times that she was sick of her natural toffee colour.

  Joe was still getting used to the fact that she was back in his life. Still trying to balance out the mixture of hope and resentment. The last few months had been weird. The awful fallout from messing up the Aidan Donnelly case, the abject failure to find Valentina López Vázquez’s body. But there had also been the gradual acceptance of the idea that he had a son. There had been the tentative encounters with Lisa, who still seemed to make a point of keeping her distance.

  A streamer hung over the window.

  HAPPY SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY!

  A pleasant aroma hung in the air, like she’d made Christopher’s birthday cake herself. If Joe hadn’t eaten, he’d be drooling.

  He said, “Something smells delicious.”

  “It’s all gone.”

  “Are you kidding me? Nobody ever finishes a birthday cake on the day of the birthday.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re two and a half hours late. I guess you forgot the candles?”

  Joe winced. He’d completely forgotten her text message. And he hadn’t got Christopher a present yet either.

  “I’m sorry, but it’s not my fault.”

  “It never is.”

  Lisa slammed her laptop shut and turned her icy gaze on him at full blast. The temperature in the room dropped by about ten degrees.

  Joe poked his thumb towards the front garden. “Where did you find that idiot, by the way? He’s making a mess of your hedge.”

  “Graham? He lives just down the road. Haven’t you seen him before?”

  Joe searched his memory banks. Maybe he had seen him, but he didn’t remember.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Graham Lee? I think I told you about him before.” Lisa lowered her voice. “His wife left him last year. Remember? I told you she just walked out the door one day and left him. He was very upset.”

  The story sounded vaguely familiar.

  He said, “All I know is, you should find someone who can actually use a hedge trimmer.”

  An indignant voice came from behind.

  “I know how to use it just fine.”

  Graham lumbered into the kitchen. It was his belly that Joe noticed first, at eye level. Then his sweaty pink face.

  He leaned down next to Lisa and kissed her cheek. She turned away.

  Joe was on his feet at o
nce.

  His chair banged back against the fridge.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Joe said.

  He gave Graham a shove, and the other man returned it.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Graham said.

  Joe slammed him back against the fridge.

  Then Lisa was beside him. Her hands were on Joe’s shoulder. “Joe, stop it!”

  “Give me one reason I shouldn’t beat the living shit out of this asshole. You think you can just go around forcing yourself on women, huh, Graham?”

  Joe was just about choking with rage.

  “We’re dating,” Graham hissed. “She’s my girlfriend.”

  “You wish.”

  “Joe, stop. It’s – it’s true,” Lisa said.

  “What?”

  “Graham and I are going out.”

  “What?” Joe repeated, not quite believing what he’d heard.

  “Seeing each other. Dating. You know.”

  Joe loosened his grip on Graham, who pushed Joe away. It was tempting to punch him, but Lisa’s words had broken the spell. “You’re dating? You’re dating him?”

  “Yeah. Graham and I have been seeing each other lately. I was going to tell you.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “What do you mean?” She put her hands on her hips. “It’s not like it’s any of your business. You think I should run my dating choices past you? Maybe you could vet them at the station?”

  “I didn’t mean that. I just thought—”

  “You had to be dragged here just to spend five minutes with Christopher.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “And you didn’t bother to come on time, despite me reminding you literally a dozen times.”

  “It’s not like that.” Joe had let his voice get too loud. He regretted it at once.

  Lisa said, “Please don’t shout at me.”

  “Yeah, Joe. Cool it,” Graham said.

  The handyman put an arm around Lisa.

  “I don’t believe this,” Joe said.

  He felt like he had to get out of there. But he’d only arrived, and he still hadn’t seen Lisa’s son. Their son. Whatever.

  “Where’s Christopher? What does he think of this?”

  “Up in his room,” Lisa said. “He kept asking when you’d get here.”

  “I was working. I’ll explain that. Can I talk to him?”

  “You can try.”

  “Make sure you knock on his door,” Graham added.

  Joe said, “Shut up, Graham.”

  He made his way out to the hall and started up the stairs. Graham and Lisa’s voices carried up to him as he climbed the steps.

  “That guy’s a real jerk.”

  “He’s just surprised.”

  “You saw how he assaulted me. I should sue the arse off him for that,” Graham said. “But I wouldn’t. It would be too much for Chris.”

  Sanctimonious prick.

  At the top of the stairs, Joe headed down the hall on the right.

  KEEP OUT, said the sign on the door.

  He knocked.

  “Christopher, it’s me.”

  There was no reply, so he knocked again.

  “Sorry I’m late. I got held up at work. Can I come in?”

  Nothing. Only silence.

  He reached for the knob, turning it slowly.

  “I’m coming in.”

  Joe pushed the door open. For a second, he thought the room was empty. But then he saw Christopher was on the floor on the far side of his bed.

  “What are you doing over there?” Joe asked.

  When he stepped closer, he saw. Christopher was kneeling on the floor beside his bed, stuffing pills down his throat.

  Chapter 41

  Aidan Donnelly let himself walk slowly along the bank of the Grand Canal, enjoying being close to the gentle flow of the water. He watched mallards bobbing on the water’s surface. Sometimes one of them would dive for food, submersing its head and leaving its hindquarters and legs pointing at the sky. Then it would resurface with a dignified expression on its beak and look around to see what it had missed. Aidan loved watching them.

  His tracksuit was loose and his runners hung from his fingers, with his socks rolled up inside them. He was far from home. No one would ever know that he was walking barefoot along the canal. No one except strangers, the happy young ones lounging on the grass verge next to the canal, and the motorists passing by on the nearby road.

  Aidan liked to go for long walks, ones which lasted two hours or more. If he went a day without taking one of these walks, he found it difficult to get to sleep.

  More difficult.

  As he got to the bridge at Dolphin’s Barn, Aidan spotted a bare strip of grass where he could lie down. Many people were sitting on the canal’s banks, enjoying the sun. Most were clustered in groups.

  Aidan took a can of cider from his backpack and set it down on the grass. Then he took out his wildlife guide. He lay down, using the backpack as a pillow. His jumper inside the bag, useless on such a hot evening, gave Aidan some cushioning.

  He had brought a few slices of stale bread for the swans. He’d give it to them when no one was looking. Even though his family would never know what he was up to, Aidan felt ashamed. His family were not swan-feeders or barefoot walkers.

  They would have approved of, or at least understood, the can of cider. That, at least, was a bit more normal.

  But what on earth was normal anymore?

  It was shaping up to be another week without work. Before the Spanish lady went missing, Aidan had been busy from morning till night, painting, decorating, assembling flatpacks, fitting out homes. Now no one wanted to hire him. When he offered to do a paint job for half the going rate, there were no takers.

  What was he supposed to do?

  He rubbed his eyes and looked around.

  Two girls sat nearby on a beach towel. One of them got up and walked off, leaving her friend alone for a moment. The girl’s outfit was real vintage stuff: baggy, dark trousers and a loose white shirt, plus a waistcoat. It was like something Buster Keaton wore in old movies.

  Aidan sat up.

  “How are you?” he said.

  The girl squinted at him. “Okay.”

  “You’re a lovely-looking girl.”

  “Oh Jesus. Go away.”

  “What’s wrong? I’m only trying to pay you a compliment. I mean I like your style. Your fashion sense. I wasn’t making personal remarks.”

  “Please stop talking to me.”

  “I didn’t mean any offence. I’m not trying to be an arse or anything.”

  The other girl came back and joined her friend. They exchanged a few words, glanced at Aidan, and began folding up their towel, preparing to leave.

  “Ah, don’t go,” he said. He rubbed the centre of his upper lip, where the skin was beginning to irritate him. He’d started chewing his lip during the trial, and a round section of skin was now constantly regrowing and being chewed off. He said, “I hope you’re not going because of me. I didn’t mean any harm.”

  Neither girl replied.

  When they were gone, Aidan’s breathing got tight. He could feel a panic attack coming. His first of the day, thank God, but one was more than enough.

  He started doing the breathing exercise, the thing the prison psychologist taught him. In and out, nice and slow. Stupid, really. He already knew how to breathe. He didn’t need a psychologist to tell him. But it helped. And sometimes, if he did it enough, he felt like he might survive the attack.

  Chapter 42

  Over the previous months, Joe had got to know Christopher a little. Once he had processed the idea that he was a father, Joe had taken Christopher out for pizza a couple of times, and they’d gone to the cinema once. They’d begun to develop a rapport. But Joe never realised that he’d developed an attachment to Christopher until that moment in his son’s bedroom, when he saw Christopher trying to end his own life.

  Ther
e, surrounded by posters for bands Joe had never heard of, and video games Joe had never played, it hit Joe so hard it scared him silly.

  Christopher had a bottle of mineral water in his hand and two packets of paracetamol open on the floor in front of him. He was stuffing pills into his mouth while trying to pour water in, frantically chewing and swallowing at the same time, his eyes wide as he stared at Joe.

  Joe ran around the foot of the bed and grabbed Christopher by the scruff of the neck. It wasn’t easy to drag him to his feet – he was a big boy – but Joe did it. He knocked the pills out of Christopher’s hand and dragged him down the hall to the bathroom.

  He kicked open the door and hurled Christopher at the toilet.

  Christopher started to crawl away, but Joe wasn’t about to let that happen. Dropping to his knees beside him, Joe stuffed his fingers down Christopher’s throat until the teenager was coughing and spluttering and retching, and the contents of his stomach were spilling into the bowl.

  When there was nothing more to come up, Joe collapsed back against the bathtub.

  Footsteps pounded up the stairs.

  “What’s going on up there?” Lisa called.

  “Cool it, Joe,” Graham shouted.

  Joe didn’t answer.

  He couldn’t.

  The cool ceramic of the bathtub pressed against his back. He focused on that as he caught his breath. When he looked up, tears were rolling down Christopher’s face.

  “You idiot,” Joe said.

  Then Lisa burst into the room.

  *

  The four of them sat around the kitchen table. A bare bulb hung overhead. Darkness had fallen all at once, like a light switch had just been flicked.

  Lisa wanted to take Christopher to the Accident and Emergency Department at St. Vincent’s, but Joe told her they’d be waiting all night to see a doctor. They went back and forth about it. It was Lisa’s choice. In the end she decided not to go.

  They figured Christopher hadn’t swallowed many pills, and those that had been swallowed had been quickly brought up. He told them he’d only taken a few by the time Joe found him. Joe went up to Christopher’s room and counted the number that were missing from the packets. The boy was telling the truth.