I Saw You (2 page)

He sighed heavily. He put the plastic bag back into the box, carefully replacing the thin wooden panel. He laid the cigars over it, then closed the lid and locked it with its small brass key.
Then he turned away. It was time to go. It wouldn’t do to be late tonight of all nights. He opened the front door. It was such a beautiful evening. He got into his car and started the engine.
The sun dazzled his eyes. He put up his hand to block it out. And thought he saw Mary. As she must have been when she was alive. Dancing through the rays of the evening light.

‘Goodnight, Mary. Goodnight,’ he whispered.

He put the car in gear. Then he drove slowly down the hill towards the sea.

So lovely to be back in Monkstown. On a cool clear morning to stand on the doorstep and gaze across the narrow road to the sea wall and the sea beyond. Margaret could smell the
salt and the seaweed and the tang of the black mud. It was a fresh smell, washed clean by the twice daily sweep of water in and out of Dublin Bay. She glanced up at the sky. She had forgotten how
the light here was always different, how it changed from one minute to the next. How clouds formed, dissolved, re-formed, filtering the sun’s rays so the light moved through the spectrum. So
different from the hard, unchanging blue of the Queensland sky where she had lived since she left Dublin the last time. When she had driven Jimmy Fitzsimons’s car from the cottage in
Ballyknockan to the car park in Dun Laoghaire. Waited until it was time to board the ferry for Holyhead, taken the train to London, then the tube to Heathrow. Boarded a plane for Brisbane.
Wouldn’t go back to New Zealand where Mary had grown up. She’d shed all her ties there. Sold the house, closed down her medical practice. Told anyone who asked that she was going back
to Ireland. But didn’t say anything else.

She’d rented a car at Brisbane airport and driven north, first to Sunshine Beach, then to Noosa where she stayed in a small hotel on the beach. Just long enough to get her bearings. Then
bought a house near the small town of Eumundi. A low wooden house with a wide veranda on three sides and five acres of land around it so nothing was visible from the road. And there she had stayed.
And counted out the days. Until she knew that Jimmy would be dead.

Now she walked back inside. This house, where she had grown up, had been empty for the last year or so. There had been tenants but they had moved out and she had not replaced them. So when she
decided to come back it had been simple to get a taxi from the airport and come straight to Monkstown, to Brighton Vale, open the gate, walk up the path, climb the six steps to the front door, put
her key into the lock and turn it.

Not much had changed. Her tenants had been happy to get such a lovely house in a beautiful place for a modest rent. They hadn’t minded that it was shabby and poorly equipped. Sometimes
they talked about their landlady.

‘The poor thing . . . Can you imagine losing your only child like that?’

‘I know. I couldn’t bear it. Bad enough that she would die, but to be murdered. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘And then that trial. The guards have a lot to answer for. How did the guy get off?’

‘Something to do with the length of time they kept him for questioning. I didn’t realize the rules were so strict. It doesn’t seem right somehow.’

‘It’s a civil-liberties thing. I suppose you have to have some safeguards. Innocent until proven guilty.’

‘Yeah, well, maybe, but it sounded as if he did it. Didn’t it?’

And a few years later they’d heard it on the news.

‘Wow, incredible. Are they sure it’s him?’

‘Apparently. It looks like his body’s been locked in that shed for years.’

‘So how did he die? Was he murdered?’

‘Starvation, the pathologist reckons.’

‘But who – who would do it? And how?’

Why, how and who? The obvious questions.

The last time Margaret had seen Mary alive it had been here in this house. That hot summer evening ten years ago. It was Saturday. The August bank holiday. She had been sitting in the garden
reading the paper. She had been about to go inside and prepare some food for her mother. She had wanted Mary to stay and help her.

‘It’s not much to ask, for God’s sake. You know how hard it is to lift her.’ She had been angry and irritated.

‘She doesn’t want me to help her, Mum, you know that. She doesn’t like me to see her in bed. She doesn’t even want you to see her. I think you should get a full-time
nurse or, better still, why don’t you see if you can get her into hospital? Or what about a hospice? They do have them here, don’t they?’ Mary was already fiddling with her bag,
checking her keys, her wallet, her make-up. She was already walking back into the house.

‘That’s not what I want to do. You know that. That’s why we came back. Because she’s my mother and she’s dying and it’s my responsibility to look after
her.’ Her voice had risen.

‘Yeah, yeah, so you keep on saying.’ Mary stopped in the doorway and turned to her. ‘Why won’t you be honest? You don’t even like her and it doesn’t seem to
me as if she likes you very much. So why don’t you call it quits? Get her into hospital and then we can go home. Or, better still, to Paris or Rome or even Berlin. I’m bored with
Dublin. I need a bit more excitement in my life. Anyway,’ she moved out of sight into the darkness of the house, ‘I’m off. Don’t wait up.’

‘Mary,’ Margaret had stood up and followed her, ‘don’t go like that. Wait. Phone me if you’re not coming home. Do you hear me? Phone me.’ But even as she
spoke she heard the front door slam.

She heard it slam now as she opened the back door into the garden and a draught rushed through the house. She’d thought she had closed it, but the lock was loose and sometimes it slipped.
Another job to be done, she thought, as she walked out into the sun. Grass to be cut, the beds to be weeded, the hedges to be trimmed. The place was a mess. Her father would have been appalled, if
he could have seen it. She would deal with it tomorrow. She would deal with everything tomorrow. Today she was too tired. An old wooden deckchair with a canvas seat was opened out on the flagged
terrace. She sat down on it and lay back. Her fingers reached beneath it and found a glass of wine. She lifted it to her mouth and drank. She drained the glass and put it back carefully on the
stone. Then she closed her eyes. Her head lolled to one side and her breathing slowed until it was barely audible. There would be plenty of time tomorrow to do what had to be done. Or maybe the
next day, or the next or the next. It was only the beginning of July. Nearly a month to go until the anniversary of Mary’s death. So much to think about. So many memories. But for now there
was the comfort of sleep.

McLoughlin woke with a jump. He sat up straight, heart pounding, mouth filling with saliva. Christ, he felt bad. He got up slowly and staggered as his weight shifted forward
from the bed. He reached out and grabbed hold of the edge of the chest of drawers and saw his face in the crutch mirror on top of it. Not a pretty sight. He stepped over his clothes, which were
scattered on the bedroom floor, and pulled his dressing-gown from the back of the door. Light flooded down the corridor, making his eyes smart and his head pound. He stumbled into the kitchen and
opened the fridge. He needed orange juice with ice, followed by painkillers and a pint of water. He slid back the glass doors and stepped out on to the terrace, then slumped on the bench and drank
deeply. Another beautiful day. Not that he cared much. He wasn’t going anywhere except back to bed. The glory of retirement. No one to answer to.

He closed his eyes. It had been a good night. He had drunk far too much, of course, but so had everyone else. He didn’t think he’d committed too many indiscretions. He’d been
tempted to tell the assistant commissioner who’d come along to do the honours what an arsehole he really was. But he’d bitten his lip and smiled and said nothing. He’d accepted
the cheque and the presentation of the Waterford crystal decanter and the half-dozen glasses and stood up and thanked them all for being there. He’d told a few funny stories from way back,
and remembered to single out for special mention the lads he’d stayed friends with ever since Templemore. He could sense there was a certain expectation in the air. What would he say about
Finney? Finney, who’d fucked up the detention of Jimmy Fitzsimons, Finney, who’d been the reason that Fitzsimons got off. And Finney, who somehow, through some incredible
string-pulling, arse-licking and cute hooring, had managed to streak up the ranks, way past McLoughlin, his old boss, and was now poised to make chief superintendent within the year.

McLoughlin had wondered if he’d show up. It would have been just like the fucker. He wasn’t the only one who’d been expecting him either. He’d seen the looks on some of
the faces and heard the muttered conversations. It would have been something to talk about for years to come. Finney and McLoughlin, the young pretender and the old dog, facing each other for the
last time. But in the event Finney didn’t appear. It was just as well. It wasn’t only that McLoughlin didn’t have the energy for the fight. There was also the fact of the body
that had been found a few years ago in the cottage in Ballyknockan. Finney had been put in charge of the investigation. He hadn’t got far with it. A post-mortem had established that it was a
young male approximately six feet in height. Cause of death was dehydration and starvation. A search through the missing persons on file revealed no matches with the dental records. A sample was
taken from the remains for DNA testing. But it was such a slow process that Finney got impatient. He found a forensic archaeologist. She took the bones of the face and head and made, first, a
model, then from that a computerized image. McLoughlin remembered the consternation in the office when the email arrived.

‘Jesus, would you look at this? I don’t fucking believe it. Hey, where’s McLoughlin? He needs to see this too.’

McLoughlin had been waiting for something like this ever since he’d snapped the padlock shut and walked away from the shed door that cold, dark night. Sooner or later that door would open
again and Jimmy would be found.

Now he sat beside Finney and stared at the screen. ‘What do you want me to do? Talk to his mother?’ He tried to sound helpful.

Finney stood up. ‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing. My guys will follow it up. I just wanted you to confirm my identification that the body is that of Jimmy Fitzsimons.’

‘OK.’ McLoughlin’s voice was neutral. ‘Yes, from what I can see, from the reconstruction done by Professor Williams, that is Jimmy Fitzsimons. Do you want it in
writing?’

McLoughlin drained his glass of orange juice. He stood up and walked back into the kitchen. There was a large bottle of San Pellegrino in the cupboard. He untwisted the metal cap. Bubbles rushed
upwards to freedom. He filled his glass, and added a handful of ice with a squeeze of lemon, then put the bottle into the fridge. He walked outside and sat down again. The sea looked so beautiful
today. When his hangover lifted, he’d head down the hill to the club and see if he could get some sailing. It was the height of the racing season. There’d be bound to be a berth for him
somewhere.

And then he remembered. There was something he’d said he’d do. What was it? Oh, shit, it was all coming back. Why did he let himself get talked into doing favours? It must have been
the drink. That wonderful feeling of expansive happiness that overtook him after the third pint. ‘Of course, anything you want, I’ll do it. Of course I will, don’t worry yourself.
I’ll look after it.’ He always meant it at the time. It was only afterwards that he realized what a mess he’d got himself into. He struggled to remember. What kind of a mess was
this one? He stood up and stretched. He’d go back to bed now before he began to fret about it.

But as he lay down, the pillow accepting his aching head, his phone beeped. Twice. He picked it up and flicked open his messages. There were two. Both from Tony Heffernan. Of course. Now he
remembered.

‘You’d be doing her a huge favour.’ Heffernan had cornered him. ‘She’s devastated. She’s really in a bad way. Now you’re officially retired you could do
it for her. Just a few basic enquiries. Nothing too taxing. You know who she is, don’t you?’ Heffernan had moved closer and was practically whispering in his ear.

‘No, I don’t know who she is. What did you say her name was?’ The noise in the bar was rising. It was the after-dinner crush. They were all loosened up now. Plenty of wine with
dinner. A brandy or two, and now a few more pints before the wives dragged them home to bed.

‘Sally Spencer. She was married to James de Paor. You remember him, of course. The barrister.’

‘De Paor, the senior counsel? Of course I remember him. I came up against him a few times. He was a savage. How do you know her?’ McLoughlin was interested now.

‘Janet, my wife – my second wife.’ Heffernan grinned with pleasure as he said her name and gave her the title. ‘She went to school with her. One of those Protestant
boarding-schools. All gym slips and hockey. Anyway, Sally had a hard time. Her first husband died of cancer when he was very young leaving her with two small kids and no money. She opened up a
little shop selling knick-knacks, ornaments, that sort of thing. Just about keeping the wolf from the door. Then she met de Paor. He’d just got a divorce from his wife. Not a real one, of
course. One of those English not-quite-legal ones. But, anyway, they hit it off big-time and the next thing she’s gone to London with your man and they’re married. Everyone, all her old
friends, her family, was very surprised.’

‘I’m surprised. She’s a Protestant, you say? And she marries de Paor, the friend and protector of every Provo on the run?’

‘Yeah, it was a bit of a shock. Anyway, to cut a long story short, you know de Paor died, about twenty years ago? Drowned in the lake where he had that beautiful house. In
Wicklow.’

McLoughlin nodded. ‘Is that what happened? I kind of remember.’

‘Yeah, it was some sort of a boating accident. Anyway, poor Sally, her daughter, Marina, drowned there too, just a couple of weeks ago. From what I know, Johnny Harris did the post-mortem
and he reckoned it was suicide. And she left a note. But Sally’s convinced it wasn’t suicide. So, I was wondering . . .’ Heffernan’s voice trailed off.