Authors: Jennifer Fallon
‘Are you hurt?’ Pete realised it was a stupid question the moment he uttered it. Of course she was hurt. She was in hospital at a time when every hospital bed would be at a premium. If she was even remotely well enough to go home, she’d have been out the door the moment they judged her ambulatory.
‘Just a little bit,
cherie
.’
‘How badly are you hurt?’
‘They’re not sure yet,’ she said, evading the question. ‘They have some more tests to run first. You must not worry,
cherie
. And you must tell your brother and sister not to worry, either. I have excellent insurance, many excellent doctors, and I will be home as soon as they let me out. Now promise me you will not overreact, or do anything silly, like flying over here.’
‘You’re in hospital in a foreign country, Mum,’ he pointed out.
‘I am in Chicago, Peter,’ she replied with a small, bittersweet laugh. ‘That is no more foreign to me than Dublin.’
She had a point, but it didn’t seem right to just leave her there without any family support. Especially at a time like this. ‘Even if I listen to you and I can convince Logan, Kelly’s going to want to drop everything and come over.’ His cousin and his mother were more like mother and daughter than aunt and niece. Since she arrived to live with them when she was sixteen, Delphine had treated Kelly like she was a close member of the family.
‘Then you must tell her not to. I don’t think they would let her on a plane this close to her confinement, anyway. I am counting on you to contain her, Peter. And Logan, too. Promise me.’
‘I promise,’ he told her reluctantly.
‘That’s my boy. Now you give everyone my love, and stay safe until I get home, yes?’
‘Okay.’
She told Pete she loved him several more times before she hung up, leaving him wide awake and wondering if he should contact the others now, or let them sleep and break the happy news to them in the morning. Delphine was right about that much, Kelly did like to panic and Logan loved to sensationalise everything.
That decided him. He would tell them in the morning. Perhaps even lie a little and tell his brother and cousin he had applied his skills as a detective and located Delphine and not the other way around. Logan might not care so much, but Kelly would be devastated to learn his mother had chosen Pete to deliver the news she was alive, rather than ringing her in person.
The decision made, Pete was still wide awake and knew he wasn’t likely to sleep again tonight. He glanced at the clock. It was almost three. The roads would be clear, and he could be at work in ten minutes, where the office would be quiet and probably empty. The time he’d spent searching for Delphine meant he’d missed Darragh’s arraignment. He still had all Darragh’s statements to go through, reports to be written, and leads to be tracked down. Despite his mother’s disappearance, and the horror of the attack in New York, Hayley Boyle was still missing.
The transcript of Annad Semaj’s interview with Darragh was on Pete’s desk. Up on the noticeboard were the gruesome crime scene photos of another murder that must have been handed to the squad while he was trying to locate Delphine. He studied
them for a moment, wondering what had happened. The victim was a middle-aged man who’d had his throat cut while putting out the garbage.
He sighed when he saw how thick the interview transcript was, glad he would have a chance to read through it while the office was deserted and the phones weren’t ringing. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He’d sat through most of the interview in the observation room. He’d missed a couple of questions when Inspector Duggan came in, and that was what he looked for now. It was unlikely, but Darragh may have said something useful while Pete was distracted.
Pete flicked through the document until he came to the part of the interview just before Brendá Duggan had walked in.
DARRAGH: I see. You believe I am making this up.
SEMAJ: Are you?
DARRAGH: If I was, would I confess to it?
SEMAJ: You might, if you were trying to fake insanity and discovered you can’t keep it up. It’s harder to do than it looks.
DARRAGH: What reason would I have to pretend insanity?
SEMAJ: You’re facing some serious charges. You might prefer the thought of a nice padded cell to a prison one.
DARRAGH: Neither prospect bothers me, Doctor Semaj, because sooner or later, they will come for me. Some discomfort in the meantime is tolerable.
SEMAJ: Who is
they?
Do you mean your friends from the other reality?
DARRAGH: Of course.
SEMAJ: The reality where you sent Hayley Boyle?
DARRAGH: Yes.
SEMAJ: What was her reaction to your intention to send her through to another reality?
DARRAGH: She was sceptical, I’m sure, but she trusts Rónán, or she would not have voluntarily gone with him. Truth is, I hardly spoke to her, so I couldn’t say what her feelings were, one way or the other.
SEMAJ: How did she get away?
DARRAGH: Trása drove her back to the stone circle in Warren’s car.
SEMAJ: Trása? That’s the girl claiming to be Jack O’Righin’s granddaughter?
DARRAGH: She has no family in this realm. She’s half-
Beansídhe.
She is Amergin’s daughter …
Pete read it through twice, wondering what it was that bothered him about the conversation. It was something about how Hayley got away. Something that didn’t sit right.
He read it through again.
SEMAJ: How did she get away from St Christopher’s?
DARRAGH: Trása drove her back to the stone circle in Warren’s car.
Pete finally worked out what was bothering him. It was the stolen car.
Trása drove her back to the stone circle in Warren’s car.
Why did he say that? Why not ‘the car’ or ‘the Audi’. Why
Warren’s
car?
How did Darragh
know
it was Warren’s car?
‘Jesus Christ,’ Pete exclaimed aloud to the empty squad room. He scrambled through his file notes until he came to the sheet reporting the Audi stolen, filed by Warren’s wife late Thursday afternoon. According to the statement, her husband, Warren Maher, walked home across the golf course on Wednesday night because he believed he was over the legal blood alcohol limit, and came back on Thursday to discover the car missing. She claimed he knew nothing about who had stolen it. She stated he hadn’t even been aware the car wasn’t sitting in the car park of the Castle Golf Club, waiting for him to collect it.
Trása drove her back to the stone circle in Warren’s car.
Darragh knew the name of the man who owned the Audi. Which meant Darragh had probably met Warren, perhaps knew him well enough to address him by name.
Was Warren the missing piece of the puzzle? Could this innocent financial analyst shed some light on what had happened to Hayley Boyle? Or know where Darragh had appeared from?
Pete glanced up at the clock on the wall. It was just after four thirty in the morning. Too early to appear on Warren’s doorstep to make a seemingly casual inquiry about his stolen car.
He stifled a yawn. He’d only had about three hours’ sleep. Time for a strong coffee and some checking into the not-so-innocent financier who claimed he knew nothing about what had become of his vehicle after he parked it at the golf club on Wednesday evening.
Grabbing his coffee mug from his desk, he looked inside and discovered a gelatinous goo at the bottom, the remains of the almost-finished coffee he’d left several days ago. It was going to take some scrubbing to get that out, and it was disgusting enough that even Pete wouldn’t drink out of it until it had been washed.
He took the mug and headed for the kitchen, glancing at the bloody photos on the noticeboard as he passed them. The killing clearly wasn’t an open and shut case. Most murders were committed by family members, friends or acquaintances. Despite what TV police shows liked to pretend, Pete was well aware that less than twenty per cent of people murdered were killed by strangers. This new case must fall into that minority. Someone — probably Frank Murphy who was fond of things like that — had drawn a rough layout of the crime scene on the whiteboard. There were other notes scribbled beside the photos. One of a bloody pile of clothes found next door. Another of the murder weapon discarded at the scene.
Pete wondered who’d been assigned to the case but didn’t worry about it too much. He needed coffee and he had his own
problems with the Hayley Boyle disappearance. It was going to take …
Pete stopped and turned to stare at the board again. The words
Castle Golf Club
caught his eye on the diagram. This new crime scene backed onto the course. And then he saw the victim’s name scrawled beside a rough flowchart Frank had started, tracking the victim’s last known movements.
‘Oh, my God,’ Pete muttered in disbelief.
The victim’s name was Warren Maher.
The Empresses made no attempt to pretend they had arrived at the Ikushima estate for any other reason than to find Ren. They didn’t spare Namito or his family a glance. They made a beeline for Ren, staring at him as if he were some rare and marvellous artefact they’d stumbled across.
The fireworks were dying down, the night growing colder as the little girls approached.
‘Why did you come early?’ the one on the left asked, not in Japanese, but in a language almost indistinguishable from the Gaelic spoken by the
Tuatha Dé Danann
of Trása’s realm. ‘And here? To this place?’
The girls were identical, almost impossible to tell apart. Despite their traditional Japanese dress, Ren doubted they had a drop of Asian blood in them. They looked Scandinavian, not oriental.
‘We’ve been expecting you,’ the one on the left announced, looking him up and down curiously.
‘But we thought the
Matrarchaí
were going to send a woman,’ her sister agreed, looking a little puzzled. She walked around Ren, as if to study him from every angle.
‘I am … what I am …’ Ren said carefully, turning to follow the movements of the one who was checking him out so
thoroughly. They had mistaken him for someone else, someone they seemed anxious to meet. Someone sent by the
Matrarchaí
, whoever or whatever the
Matrarchaí
were. He had a memory he thought must belong to Darragh about an organisation known as the
Matrarchaí
, but according to his brother’s recollection, they were midwives, not inter-dimensional travellers.
‘You didn’t say why you came here?’
‘To this realm?’
‘To this godforsaken backwater colonial pocket of our empire,’ the twin on the left announced, looking around with disdain. ‘We had everything ready for you in our palace back in
Nara.
Well, nearly ready. We weren’t expecting you for a while yet. Not until after
Higan No Chu-Nichi
.’
Great … I’m probably destined to die on the autumn equinox in this realm, too.
‘The
Matrarchaí
thought it better I keep a low profile,’ Ren told them, hoping it sounded plausible. He had no idea who they’d been expecting — other than probably a woman. He could only hope that for the time being, he would be able to convince them he was the messenger sent by this mysterious
Matrarchaí
, and that whatever the messenger was coming here to do, he could persuade them to believe he was here to do the same. At least until he could get out of here, preferably without Aoi having to disembowel herself to preserve the precious honour of the Ikushima.
And before the real messenger turned up would probably be advisable, too.
‘That’s not what Lady Delphine told us,’ the little girl on the left said, looking a trifle miffed. ‘She said there would be a great celebration come
On Higan No Chu-Nichi
… the autumn equinox. You’ve spoiled all our plans by coming through the rift in this place. We were going to have such a grand party in your honour.’
‘Lady … um … Delphine thought it would be better to come through the rift here,’ Ren said, with no idea who Delphine was, other than the woman from the
Matrarchaí
who had arranged for somebody to visit the Empresses.
‘She should warn us before she changes things like this,’ the right one said. ‘Do you have a name?’
‘Ren Kavanaugh,’ he told them. He was about to ask the same question of the little girls but realised if he was sent here by the
Matrarchaí
, he should already know their names. ‘You’re very hard to tell apart,’ he added, smiling. ‘Which one of you is which?’
‘Guess!’ the one on the left demanded.
OK … now I’m screwed …
The twin on the right nudged her sister. ‘Bet he can’t tell.’
Ren made a great show of studying each girl closely for a moment. It
was
possible to tell them apart. In the flickering light from the torches, it seemed the one on the left had slightly bluer eyes, and the one on the right had a smattering of fine freckles across her nose, barely noticeable in this poor light. After a moment, he threw his hands up. ‘I give up. Tell me, which one of you is which?’
The girl on the left responded. It was as if they were taking turns. She was grinning broadly at him. ‘I am Isleen and this is my sister Teagan.’
Teagan and Isleen. He wondered if they were the equivalent of this reality’s Undivided, that made them TeaganIsleen or IsleenTeagan. Or maybe they didn’t subscribe to the idiotic naming conventions of Darragh’s realm in this one. That would be a relief.
‘What happened to your pet?’ Teagan asked, looking around. A small crowd of curious onlookers had gathered in the compound, watching the exchange with awe. Besides the numerous members of the Empresses’ entourage, quite a few of
the
Shin Bungo
residents, along with Namito, Masuyo, Aoi and Kazusa, were standing by the main house, their mouths agape. They hadn’t known what to expect, he realised. The Empresses visiting their humble fireworks factory might set them up for generations, or destroy them utterly, depending on the whim of these two children.