Daly blinked. The memory of the dead man’s face was so barbed he could see its outline transposed onto the shadowy trees. He put the binoculars down. He wasn’t even sure what he should be looking for. He might as well have been searching a fairy-tale forest for the traces of an evil monster.
He stepped out of the hide and followed the path back through the reeds. A bedraggled, bloodstained object caught his eye. He pushed it with his boot, thinking it was a dead bird. But instead it was the first clue that might identify the attackers. He lifted what looked to be a bloody diving glove and dropped it into a forensic bag. Perhaps the wearer had removed it for a better grip. The attack had been meticulously planned and laborious to implement, he realized. He wondered how long it had taken for the victim to die.
By the time the fisherman returned Daly to the mainland it was late afternoon and lights were beginning to twinkle in the cottages. A cloud of midges greeted them as they stepped ashore. The fisherman told him they weren’t as bad as the summer variety. These ones had only one set of teeth.
A
throng of white-suited scene-of-crime officers was pressing through gaps in the blackthorn hedge as Daly drove up the lane to the remote cottage. He exchanged almost invisible nods of recognition with the uniformed men who lined the driveway, and caught a glimpse of Det. Derek Irwin giving a rusted wheelbarrow a bored kick.
The cottage belonged to Joseph Devine, and Irwin had been marshaling the SOC officers since seven that morning.
“I thought you’d left us in the lurch,” Irwin greeted Daly. He had not visited the murder scene, so its shadows were absent from his lively features. In fact, a ripe tantrum was about to burst inside him.
“This is great. I thought you were in a hurry to get started this morning. After your phone call I left without getting a bite of breakfast.”
In the glare of his petulance, Daly’s profile was a lump of blunt granite. He barely spared Irwin’s outburst the space of an eye blink.
“No need to panic,” he said. “Devine’s murderers haven’t just slipped out the back door with minutes to spare. No crime in real life is ever that easy.”
Irwin scowled and brandished his mobile phone, which had started ringing. “Social call,” he declared, tilting his long curly head, and then with the tiredness and irritability vanishing from his voice: “Poppy, hi. Hey, hope I didn’t wake you getting in last night. It took ages to get a taxi.” His voice sank to a hoarse whisper. “Can I come over tonight? You’ll break my heart if you say no.” He walked a short distance away, greedily gathering the phone to his mouth.
Irwin, who was at least ten years younger, represented the youth Daly fervently hoped he had left behind. The regular texts he received and his hushed mobile calls suggested an unruly love life. Daly liked his eagerness and the intense pitch at which he appeared to be living, even if most of his working week was caught up with routine investigations into criminal damage and house burglaries. However, there was a clumsy lack of caution about Irwin’s detective work and Daly feared that on some days his mind strayed from the scenery of the crime to inhabit romantic plots of his own making.
Irwin returned, snapping his mobile shut.
“You look like crap,” he said appraising Daly’s face. “All those lonely weekends are making you as irritable as a monk. That’s your problem you know, you don’t get out enough.”
Daly’s separation was common knowledge amongst his colleagues. It was hard to hide that kind of thing in the police force. Only the sorted and settled rushed home on a Friday night with smiles on their faces. He nodded at Irwin’s comments as though they had provided a crumb of comfort.
“There’s no such thing as fidelity anymore,” Irwin continued, winking. “Everyone’s either just getting on or off the relationship bus. All of us are single, the married ones just a little less so.”
Daly turned away, feeling the discomfort of his marital status encumber him like a broken wing. The breakdown of his relationship with Anna had made her the focus of overwhelming emotions, just as she had been at the start of their courtship. He hoped these were transitional feelings before he adapted to the easy, glamorous life of bachelorhood that Irwin aimed to personify.
However, watching the younger detective saunter up the drive, his hand rolling through his thick hair as he half-garbled, half-sang the words of some pop song, Daly wondered what indignities he would have to suffer along the way.
A young police officer with a nervous expression on his face lifted the tape aside to allow them into the cottage. Daly felt the same way about entering the house of a murder victim as some people feel about breaking into a church. Something to do with disrupting the sense of solitude and peace contained within four walls designed to hold the violent world at bay.
“Devine must have stepped on someone’s corns, someone well connected with a paramilitary outfit,” said Irwin, his enthusiasm returning. “Who do you think it was? The real IRA, the continuity IRA, the INLA, or the truly, madly, deeply IRA?”
“Republican paramilitaries aren’t the only pack of dogs about,” replied Daly. “But I guess that’s where the smart money lies.”
There were no signs of forced entry or a struggle at the front door, or in the cottage’s cramped rooms. Devine had left so suddenly he hadn’t bothered closing the back door behind him. Perhaps he had wanted to give himself a running start. The phone was off the hook, and in the scullery kitchen a pot of congealed porridge sat on the hob.
“Every house tells its own story,” said Daly.
Irwin stuck his finger into the porridge and tasted it. “This one must be ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears.’”
The two detectives walked into a living room with an interior design that could have been delivered complete from the 1950s: On a long shelf, an ancient radio propped up a religious calendar and a dirty bottle of Knock holy water, nostalgic souvenirs of Catholic Ireland. On a table, a portrait of the former pope was winning the equal-rights war with a dusty statue of the Virgin Mary. Even the swathe of sunshine cutting across the room from the tiny window seemed to be frozen in time. Daly noted the picture of the pope was free of dust.
He picked up the statue of Mary and blew off a cobweb. Her eyes were hollow, and her features more harrowed than those of the icons he remembered, as if the Virgin had been having too many sleepless nights. Perhaps it was his imagination. Or maybe it was the effect of all those lost souls keeping vigil and mindlessly chanting their devotions a hundred times a day and night.
Devine had been no better than most at bachelor housekeeping. In the kitchen, empty bottles of stout spilled out of a box under a dirty table. While in the spare room, the sagging cushions of a battered sofa were covered in an old blanket, and another chair was upholstered in cracked black leather. The floor surface throughout the cottage was linoleum patterned with green tiles but the effect was marred by too many years of hard wear.
The only element that did not give the impression of a life in transit was the collection of ducks filling a Welsh dresser and the deep windowsill in the kitchen. Daly did not breathe, believing, at first, they might be real. They were carved from wood and looked to be handpainted. As he moved closer, the room shone with the sporadic glitter of their glass-beaded eyes.
“Duck decoys,” remarked Daly. “People who live alone can allow themselves eccentric interests.”
“They look like antiques. I bet they’re worth a few quid,” said Irwin, casually handling one. He almost dropped it in surprise when the head nodded up and down in imitation of a feeding bird.
“At least they help explain why a duck whistle was lodged in his throat.”
“How come?”
“A moment of inspiration from his murderers. Warped, but at least it fits in with Devine’s personality. They must have known about his interest in duck hunting.”
Daly recalled that the missing man, Hughes, also had a passion for duck hunting. He saw a theme developing.
“Perverse,” said Irwin with distaste. “And there was me thinking Republican paramilitaries had all taken up flower arranging and human-rights campaigning.”
A doorbell rang and they both turned in unison.
Irwin walked off and returned a little later, scowling.
“No one there. One of the men must have nothing better to do than play pranks.”
The house had been dusted for fingerprints, every door handle, glass, drawer, and windowpane. Unusually, only one set of fingerprints had been found. Daly had already surmised that Devine had been the reclusive type.
“According to his nearest neighbor, Devine moved to this hovel at the start of last year,” said Irwin.
“Why do you think he did that?”
For an answer, Irwin opened the back door. A gust of wind blew a swirling nest of old leaves and dried sycamore keys across the threshold. Daly stepped out to a secluded view of Lough Neagh and its labyrinth of tree-lined coves. He could see but not identify a number of headlands stretching away into wind-tossed oblivion. It was the ultimate poacher’s perch, hidden from sight, untouched by the life of roads, fields, or villages. The short walk to the shore, bounded by deep thorn bushes, was like a stroll to the edge of humanity. A line of geese honked overhead, their long necks urgently outstretched. Daly followed their flight and let his gaze wander to the horizon, as this was where nature’s signposts were pointing. He allowed himself a moment of introspection before turning back into the cottage.
The sound of the doorbell buzzing broke the solemn air again.
Irwin’s face was flat and hard as he made his way back down the corridor. This time he was gone for longer.
“I don’t know what type of jokers the force is employing these days,” he said on his return. “They’re all denying it was them.”
“It’s not the doorbell,” said Daly, pacing through the rooms, listening carefully. He looked into the dark hallway and into the silent living room. There was no movement from the holy statue or the picture of the pope, or among the glittering decoy ducks in the kitchen. He watched the dust fall through a ray of sunlight. A thin, fine layer of ancient dust suspended in the air.
The cottage buzzed again, discreet but insistent, calling their attention. “I know you’re there. Why don’t you answer me?” it seemed to be saying. The hairs on Daly’s neck stood on end.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” asked Irwin from behind.
“There are nights when I don’t even believe in myself,” replied Daly. “However, there must be a rational explanation for this. Perhaps Devine has some sort of alarm that keeps being tripped.”
He checked the phone and put it back on the receiver. The line was dead.
They walked up a narrow set of stairs to an attic bedroom. There was a sheaf of papers on a chest of drawers. It consisted of bills and brochures on duck decoys and other hunting paraphernalia. The two of them went through the drawers, searching in the pockets of trousers and shirts. At the bottom of one of the drawers was an envelope, already opened. Daly took out a photograph and a handwritten invitation card. It was for a duck-hunting club reunion that had taken place a year previously.
After lunch and music there will be a lecture given by our president, David Hughes
, it said. The photograph showed a group of old men posing in front of a duck hide with a collection of dead ducks. Daly, who had already examined Devine’s passport and driving license, spotted the deceased in the front row of the photo, his unsmiling face, wary and sad, like that of a man kneeling at his own grave.
Daly had just time enough to register that the postmark on the envelope was local when the buzzing sounded from downstairs again, as though something deep inside the walls of the cottage was vibrating.
“It’s coming every ten minutes,” he said.
Daly opened the hot press and tapped the water pipes. In the kitchen, he checked the small refrigerator and the immersion heater, both switched off. He positioned himself in the living room and waited. Irwin paced restlessly about the house, twitching at imaginary sounds. The house seemed to fret too, creaking and shifting on its foundations.
On the stroke of ten minutes, the picture of the pope began to vibrate, and another ripple of dust formed on the shelf. The buzzing was louder this time—remonstrating, urgent. Daly lifted the picture frame. Wedged behind it was a round black device, vibrating as it moved along the shelf. Daly scooped it up before it scuttled back into darkness. It was a pager, the ring tone switched off. Daly pressed Receive and a message flashed up: eyes on target a to c3 hedge from bld 1. talking to poss ukm. metal object in hand. It had been sent two days previously, but never answered.
Irwin looked at the message and gave Daly a searching glance. “Whose eyes are they talking about?”
“A duck hunter’s? I don’t know.”
Irwin squinted his eyes in concentration, making his face look like a schoolboy’s. “Perhaps the target was Devine. If that’s the case, the eyes got their man.”
Daly searched through the pager’s memory. There was a series of further messages, equally cryptic. Two had arrived in the past week and were written in a kind of code—one that had been carefully devised. They ostensibly referred to the movements of one man around a building, probably his home. eyes on target a from c4 static at gable end, and then a carrying papers to c3 hedge. unsighted. reappears static at c2. then back to bld 1.
Daly wondered why they had been sent. To caress Devine’s sense of paranoia, or warn him he was being watched? He stared through the small window at the fringe of trees bounding the garden, their leafless branches swaying together in the wind. He thought of Eliza Hughes and her wandering brother, shadowy movements in the night and of a pair of eyes that never seemed to rest in this mysterious landscape.
Before they left the cottage, an expensive-looking Mercedes swung into the drive and an elderly man, small and silver-haired, slipped out of the driver’s seat. He had the air of comfort and complacency that accompanies the rich like the smell of cigar smoke and the swish of golf clubs.