I Saw You (22 page)

‘Sorry.’ She bent down and scratched behind the little animal’s ears. ‘I seem to spend all my time in tears, these days. I’m sick of it. I feel so angry too. Angry
with Marina. But that’s one of the reasons why I’m sure she didn’t kill herself. She would have known the effect it would have on me. And I’m sure she wouldn’t have
wanted to hurt me like this.’

He stood up.

‘Don’t go.’ She reached out a hand as if to stop him. ‘I’m sorry – I just can’t seem to cope with anything these days. And listen, there’s
something else.’

He perched on the edge of his chair. ‘Something else?’

‘After you phoned me about Marina’s house, Vanessa and I went to check it. It had been trashed. It was in a terrible state. Everything all over everywhere. We cleaned it up and I got
a locksmith to come, but . . . but it hadn’t been broken into, and as far as I know the only people with keys were you, me and Mark Porter. I know Marina had given him a set.’ She drank
some more of her wine. ‘Why would he do something like that?’

McLoughlin cleared his throat. ‘Anger? Grief? People do strange things in strange circumstances.’ He stood up again. ‘I don’t know him, but I thought his behaviour was
very odd when I met him at the house. He was carrying on as if he was Marina’s partner. He told me he’d more or less arranged her funeral. Picked the music, that sort of thing. Is that
right?’

‘You’re kidding?’ she exclaimed. ‘Vanessa and I chose the music, the readings. We went through all her CDs. Picked out her favourites.’

‘Purcell’s
Dido
, was that one of them?’

‘Yes, it was. It’s lovely, and there was a poem, special, for all of us. ‘Hinterhof’ by James Fenton. Do you know it?’

He shook his head. She began to speak:

Her voice choked in her throat.

‘Marina really liked it and Vanessa read it at the funeral. It was fitting.’ She stroked the dog’s rough head. ‘Anyway, what’s more to say, really?’ She
picked up her glass and raised it to him. ‘I’m sure you’ve other things to be doing with your day. Janet was telling me you’re off on a sailing trip. Sounds
lovely.’

‘I hope so.’ He took his car keys from his pocket. ‘Just one other thing I wanted to ask you. Your son, Tom, where is he these days?’

‘In Darfur. He works for an aid agency. He came home for Marina’s funeral. I wanted him to stay but he wouldn’t. He’s dedicated to his job. Why?’

‘Nothing in particular, but do you have a contact number?’

‘Sure.’ She stood and walked back into the kitchen where she scribbled something on a scrap of paper. ‘Here, email, the best way to get in touch. They use satellite phones but
they’re very unreliable.’

‘Was he close to his sister?’ he asked.

‘Close? Once they were, but they drifted apart. The way siblings do.’ She picked up one of the framed photographs on the mantelpiece and held it out to McLoughlin. ‘I wish
he’d come home.’

McLoughlin took the picture. Tom Spencer was as handsome as his sister had been beautiful. He put it down on the table. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Mind yourself.’

The road to Wicklow had been widened and improved recently. The traffic was moving fast. Ahead, the Sugarloaf’s crystal summit sparkled in the sunshine. He took the exit
at Kilmacanogue and slowed as he turned on to the old Roundwood road. His ears popped as he drove higher into the Wicklow hills. The countryside was beautiful. The grass was an improbable green,
speckled with the white dots of grazing sheep. And beyond the dun-coloured slopes of the mountains, lowering against the blue of the summer sky. The road uncoiled in front of him. He slowed to
negotiate the sharper bends. There was a surprising amount of traffic today.

Just outside the village of Roundwood there was a right turn, signposted ‘Sally Gap’. Picnickers had taken up residence on the narrow verge. Their small table was covered with a
bright chequered cloth and an array of sandwiches and drinks. A little girl waved vigorously at the passing cars. He waved back. She jumped up and down, a broad grin on her cheeky little face,
stuck out her tongue and waggled her fingers in her ears.

He drove slowly up towards the summit of the hill. Tall pines cast their shadow across the road. And just beyond he saw a high gate set back in the entrance to a driveway. He pulled in and
stopped. The gate was locked. A keypad was set into the wall and, above it, a camera. He pressed the key that bore the symbol of a bell. He waited.

He pressed the bell again, leaned against the wall and waited. A truck passed, painted regulation khaki, two young soldiers in the cab and the shadowed shapes of others, gazing out of the open
back. There were always soldiers around this part of the mountains. There was a firing range not far away. On still, windless days the boom of the guns was often heard. Now he looked up into the
video-camera and smiled. ‘Come on, open up,’ he said. Still no response. He stepped away, out of the camera’s range, and to the opposite side of the gateway. A large sign, painted
in dramatic red and black, stated ‘Private Property. No Entry except with Owner’s Authorization.’ But below it the wall was damaged. Some of the stones were loose and had fallen
to the ground, leaving foot- and handholds. He looked around, then pulled himself over, dropped to the other side and began to walk quickly down the steep hill.

It was quiet. Silent. The lake, visible now through the trees, shining, like polished metal, a sudden shadow rushing across the surface as the wind pushed up a small shivering wave. He turned
off the drive. The trees were tall and beautiful. The ground beneath his feet was springy with decades of leaf mould. And everywhere there were huge boulders, sateened with moss of the most
delicate green. He stopped dead. What was that he could see between a huge beech and a Sitka spruce? He held his breath, tried not to move, and watched as the two deer, who had spotted him first,
stared at him, their heads turned, their ears pricked, their bodies statue still. Then they began to walk slowly up the hill, over the road and away into the distance. He let his breath out in a
rush. He’d never been so close to deer before. Now he could see their almond-shaped eyes, their mottled backs, their delicate pointed faces.

He moved away, conscious of his clumsiness as a twig snapped beneath his foot. The sound was like a fire-cracker in the absolute stillness of the wood. The slope towards the lake was steep and
uneven. He scrambled over rotting logs and tumbled rocks, sat down for a moment to wipe his sweating face on his sleeve. It was surprisingly hot, even with the broad canopy of the crumpled beech
leaves and the deep shadows cast by the pines, spruces and larches. Across the lake, the valley wall, bare rock, unwooded, rose steeply. A different landscape, harsh and forbidding. He knew what it
would be like here in the middle of winter when the winds would scream down the hill, flailing all before them.

But today the breeze was light, southerly. He stood up and looked down through the trees to the water. Below, there was a clearing, a small flat promontory, surrounded by a group of the tallest
pines. And in the middle he could see a circle of stones, blackened by fire, charred branches and beside the stones a couple of large logs pulled up, like sofas at a hearth. He scrambled down
towards them, his feet slipping on the mass of needles. Here and there ferns poked their fronds towards the light. They were still fresh and green, not yet tinged with the brown decay of late
summer. He reached the clearing. He squatted and stirred the heap of ash with a burned stick. Bottle tops, Heineken’s red-star logo, winked up at him, and the charred remains of foil from
cigarette packets, with scattered butts and the tell-tale remnants of joints. He picked one up carefully between his fingertips and bent to sniff it. Sure enough, the pungent scent of cannabis. He
sighed. And felt the cold hardness of something metallic pressing into his skull, just behind his right ear. The pressure increased. Now there was a hand on his head, forcing him to his knees. He
tried to jerk away but he could feel the bite of what seemed like a gun barrel. A long time since he had felt anything like it.

Now he tried to shout: ‘Hold on, I’m a guard. I’m here on official business. Let me up.’ But his voice was feeble.

‘A guard, is that what you are? Official business, is that what you call it? A funny way to go about it. Breaking and entering. Climbing over a wall without so much as a
by-your-leave.’ And now there was a booted foot, a toe under his buttocks, pushing him so that he toppled forward and landed with his face pressed against the roughness of a fallen
branch.

‘Now.’ The boot was close to his face. It was polished, brown, the leather soft and well worn. ‘You were saying?’

The figure above him seemed huge. The boots gave way to long legs with large thighs encased in whipcord jodhpurs. A solid body, big round breasts beneath a checked shirt. The rolled-up sleeves
showed arms that were suntanned, with the appearance of strength. The woman seemed somehow familiar. Her hair, unnaturally black, was pushed back from a high forehead. Her face was fleshy,
striking, with a jutting nose. Her dark blue eyes were accentuated with liner and her wide mouth was a vivid crimson. He noticed her fingernails. They were long, manicured and painted the same red
as her mouth. She held up a walking-stick. Its tip was sheathed in metal. She examined it carefully. ‘Give you a fright, did I?’ She smiled. ‘Thought this was something
else?’ She leaned down and held out her hand. ‘Enjoying yourself down there? The view OK? Or would you fancy a change?’

He allowed himself to be pulled upright. Close to, she wasn’t as formidable as she had seemed from the ground. But she was still a big woman. Roughly his height, he reckoned, and with a
build to match. Not fat as such, but strong, almost muscled.

‘Now,’ her voice was amused, ‘will we start again?’

She walked him down the road towards the house. He felt foolish, embarrassed, humiliated. She struck the ground with the stick as she walked, her stride long and full of
purpose. A dog had joined her. A large, lean German shepherd, with wary amber eyes and a huge mouth. Its teeth shone with a yellow gleam and its long pink tongue flopped wolf-like from side to side
as it loped beside her. McLoughlin tried to explain what he wanted. He told her the ‘auditing the suicides’ version of events. She didn’t reply.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘for not phoning ahead. I was in the area and I thought I’d chance my arm. I was actually looking for Dominic de Paor. I thought he might be
here. Do you know him?’

‘He’s my son. I’m Helena de Paor.’ She leaned down and laid a hand on the dog’s heavy collar.

‘Your son? Oh, of course.’ He glanced at her. He could see the resemblance. ‘And is he around?’

‘No. He lives in the city. He only comes at weekends. Unfortunately. He misses out on so much.’ She waved her arm in a semicircle that took in the lake, the woods and now the
house.

‘Wow.’ McLoughlin stopped. ‘How beautiful.’

It wasn’t very big, or very grand, but it was very lovely. Two storeys, long and low, painted a pale washed pink. A slate roof, shades of grey and purple. A smooth green lawn running to
the margin of the lake. A cluster of trees, more beeches, he thought, to one side, and between the road and the house, a field. And in the field, the herd of deer. Thirty or forty, at least. They
stared at the intruders, so still they could have been a photograph. He drew in his breath. The dog was still too.

‘Good boy . . . there’s a good boy.’ Her voice was low and soothing. The dog whined and licked his pink lips as the deer stared, motionless, then suddenly, like a knot of
starlings in an autumn sky, wheeled and scattered, reaching the trees and disappearing.

‘Wow.’ McLoughlin whistled. ‘I’ve never seen anything like that before.’

‘Haven’t you?’ She let go of the dog’s collar. He trotted forward and stood with his nose outstretched, nostrils flaring. ‘You’ll find lots of surprises
here.’ Helena started walking again. ‘Now,’ she looked over her shoulder, ‘I don’t know about you but I could do with a drink.’

She brought him through a cobbled yard with a barn and a couple of looseboxes, opened a door and led him into a small room. A row of coats was hanging from hooks on the wall,
boots lined up beneath. There was a rack of fishing rods and a shelf stacked with reels, hooks and boxes of flies. A long glass-doored cabinet held guns. McLoughlin peered at them. Two shotguns and
three rifles. A Sauer 243. Perfect for deer. ‘They’re my son’s. He’s a very good shot.’ Helena prised off her boots and placed them neatly with the others. ‘He
does the cull every couple of years. The deer have no natural predators so they have to be controlled. The old, lame, sick. Makes you think. The same should happen to people.’

The walls were covered with framed photographs. Men with fishing rods. Men with guns. At least three generations. Moustaches and whiskers in the earlier ones. And in the more recent photographs
McLoughlin recognized James de Paor, standing knee deep in a river, a huge fish, a salmon, hanging from a gaff. And beside him a small boy, thick wavy black hair and a broad grin. ‘So,
hunting’s in the family, I see.’ He gestured towards the gun cabinet.

‘Yes. James taught Dominic to shoot when he was very young. I used to shoot too, but I don’t any longer. My hands aren’t as steady as they once were. Come on. This
way.’

She pushed open the door and ushered him into a large kitchen. It had the air of a traditional farmhouse, but McLoughlin noticed that no expense had been spared on fittings and appliances. They
were all new and state-of-the-art. Helena poured a glass of Bushmills for herself and waved the bottle in his direction. He shook his head. ‘Driving.’ He smiled with what he hoped was a
rueful expression.