Can Anybody Help Me? (36 page)

And to give Flynn his due, he seemed happy to ignore the pink frills. Instead he pulled out the large brown file, as neatly and efficiently as if they'd been sitting in Collins Street, and sat down delicately on the bedside chair. She pulled herself up straighter on the pillows. She found if she imagined she was wearing a dark suit it helped a little.

‘So, they were drugging her? Yvonne?'

Flynn nodded.

‘For a good while. It was the girlfriend's idea apparently, the nurse. Veronica – he rifled through the file – Veronica Dwyer,
her name is. She was giving her cold and flu tablets, that sort of thing. Dropped into cups of tea. Simple, but they would have made her fairly out of it on a daily basis. Knackered. The grand plan …'

Flynn raised his fingers and put the words in quotation marks. It was a gesture that would have usually annoyed Claire beyond reason, but this time she let it go. She was feeling rather fond of Flynn today.

‘The “grand plan” was that they'd convince everyone who knew Yvonne that she had post-natal depression. Gerry spread a few stories about her, told his family that he didn't think she was coping. Stupid things, like a suit she was supposed to have collected from the dry cleaners, but didn't. When he'd never actually told her about it in the first place. It was all supposed to paint a picture, so that when she killed herself, or it looked like she'd killed herself, no one would be surprised.'

‘And Gerry Mulhern told you this?'

‘Some of it. Once we confirmed it was his DNA on Miriam Twohy's body, he started talking. I think he's quite proud of what he's done, actually. They can be like that sometimes. Scumbags. The lovely Veronica has been filling us in as well, I reckon she thinks if she helps us out she'll get off, or get a lighter sentence.'

Claire frowned. Juries had done stranger things in the past.

‘So, she's admitted it?'

‘Kind of. She says she knows nothing about Miriam Twohy, but she's admitted she was involved with the attack on Mrs Mulhern alright. She's in love with him, of course, Gerry, and she claims he's mad about her too. Met him shortly after the
baby was born, when she called to the house to do a check-up. Reckons it was love at first sight.'

He snorted, and Claire repressed a grin.

‘Anyway. Her story is that Mrs Mulhern was depressed, and neglecting the baby, and that the little one would be better off with herself and Mulhern. They were going to be a right little happy family, the three of them. They just needed Mrs Mulhern out of the way. So they made this plan, to kill her and make it look like suicide. She said something about the Netmammy website …'

He looked down, checked his notes and continued.

‘… Mrs Mulhern used to contribute to it, apparently, and Miss Dwyer and Gerry Mulhern used to read what she wrote on there, to get inside her head a bit more. But we …'

Flynn's voice tailed off and he looked at the ground. Claire remained silent. They'd dropped the ball, or rather she had, by not realising the importance of Yvonne Mulhern's initial call about Miriam Twohy and her Netmammy usage. At five o'clock that morning, lying in bed beside a snoring and oblivious Matt, Claire had tortured herself about the decision not to follow it up. By 7 a.m., she'd rationalised it, sort of. After all, Yvonne had called back and told them she'd been mistaken. It had been a perfectly logical thing to do, not to follow through …

Perfectly fine. A little sloppy maybe. But fine.

Maybe they'd have found the killer quicker. Maybe even saved FarmersWife …

No. She must not think about that. Would not. Could not bear it. She looked across at Flynn, grimaced and then rubbed her hand across her face. Pregnancy was handy sometimes, a murmur that you were feeling tired and you could get away
with a lot of things. She'd have to explain at some stage how she managed to track down LondonMum. Probably when the case came to court. She'd probably get into shit too, when it came out that she'd persuaded Shawn to change the passwords. It was hard, really, to know how this one would play out.

But she'd worry about that in the future.

Flynn looked up again and continued talking.

‘Anyway, Dwyer reckons it was all done for love. She swears she didn't know about Mrs Mulhern's money. Well, that wouldn't be romantic, now, would it?'

‘Hang on.'

Claire raised her eyebrows.

‘Money?'

LondonMum's posts had been similar to most of the others on Netmammy, the odd moan about the price of nappies and how exorbitant babysitting charges meant a night out usually wasn't worth it. She certainly hadn't sounded like someone who had money to throw around.

But Flynn nodded, and turned a page in his notebook.

‘Well, that's the thing. Yvonne Mulhern is all but a millionaire apparently. Only up until today, she didn't know it. Her mother died in a nursing home in England a couple of weeks ago, left her a small fortune. But they hadn't spoken in years, the mother didn't even know she was married. She wrote to her when she found out she was dying, and Mulhern found the letter when he was packing her stuff up to bring it over here. He opened it without telling her and found out that her ma wanted to make amends.'

‘God. Right. Okay.'

Claire nodded. Money. It was starting to make sense now.

Flynn snorted. ‘He's totally broke, Mulhern is. Bought a massive house when he came back from England, but he wanted to play the big man, buy the smart suits, have the nights out on the credit card, that sort of thing. The TV star. And he had to pay for the Merview apartment too, of course, his little love nest as well as his own mortgage. At the back of it he hadn't a bean. Ireland 24 isn't CNN as far as wages are concerned. Now, Veronica …'

He put the emphasis on the second syllable, and rolled his eyes for good measure.

‘Veronica thought he was doing it all for love. But I reckon it was just the money he was after. He had it all thought out. He went over to the hospice in England and pretended to be a solicitor acting on Yvonne's behalf. Made her mother sign a will leaving everything to Yvonne. Told her that Yvonne was insisting on it, that she wouldn't travel over to see her if she didn't sign. So she signed. But he never told Yvonne what he was up to, of course. And they'd already made wills naming each other sole beneficiaries after they were married. She's dead since, the mother. One of the lads phoned the hospice in England. So if you hadn't rescued Mrs Mulhern, Gerry would have been quids in.'

‘Okay.'

Claire nodded again. It was starting to come together now, alright. Of course, she knew more than Flynn about certain aspects of the case. How Gerry Mulhern had used MyBabba's name to lure Yvonne to Wicklow, for example. But she wasn't surprised, now she thought about it, that another person had been involved. Mulhern had used two fake identities, MyBabba and MammyNo1 and some of their posts had been very convincing.
It made sense that he had been assisted by an expert.

She still had a few more questions though.

‘And Miriam Twohy? She and Mulhern were in college together?'

‘Yeah.'

Flynn nodded slowly.

‘They were all in UCD at the same time: Mulhern, Eamonn Teevan and Miriam. Gerry and Miriam had a big barney in the bar one night, he made a move on her and she told him to get stuffed. Caused quite a scene, apparently. He never forgot it, and Gerry Mulhern isn't a man you want to cross. Well, that goes without saying. He recognised her, one night when he was on this Netmammy site, from a photograph she'd posted. Sent her a message, pretended he was one of the other women and wanted to meet up. He's swearing blind that he didn't start off intending to kill her, that he just got mad when she turned him down again. I don't know. We'll leave that to the jury too, I suppose.'

Claire had a headache. But there was more.

‘And the woman in Galway?'

Flynn looked puzzled.

‘What woman?'

She sighed. She'd forgotten no one else had made the connection.

‘You're going to have to get a file reopened.'

She hoisted herself up on the pillows again. She was getting very tired and she knew Matt would be up in a moment, scowling at the clock on the bedside table.

Flynn closed his notebook, and looked straight at her.

‘You saved Mrs Mulhern's life. Twice. I mean, I was heading
back to the room anyway, but if she hadn't had the buzzer in her hand …'

Claire returned the stare.

‘She saved her own life.'

She blinked, then rubbed her hand over her eyes again, harder this time and Flynn nodded gently.

‘If you don't mind me saying, you looked kinda knackered.'

Claire was about to argue, and then felt the pain in her back and swallowed her words. The previous day had left her exhausted. But at least her instincts had been right. She had only spent five minutes at LondonMum's bedside before Matt had burst in and dragged her home. But she had had enough time to place the call buzzer in the young woman's hand and hide it under the bedclothes. She hadn't even known if Yvonne had heard her, or if she knew the buzzer was there. But she had felt responsible for her.

Yeah, it had been a long day. She was paying for it now. The doctor said she'd be lucky if the baby didn't come early. She would be on strict bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy, and she'd be hospitalised if things didn't improve. And this time she wasn't going to argue. Anyway, there was very little left to do.

Her colleague stood up and then pointed at her laptop, which was charging at the bedroom wall.

‘I'll leave you to it, so. Can I get you anything before I go? Do you want me to bring over the computer for you?'

Claire was about to say yes, and then looked over at the pile of magazines Matt had arranged on the bedside table.
Pregnancy and Baby
,
Modern Mum
, good Jaysus, he'd even added in a copy of
Hello
. Then she noticed a cardboard box buried beneath
them. A dark brown cover, jagged silver lettering. A box set, that Scandinavian drama she had wanted to watch, if she ever got the time. Fair play Matty. You know me well.

‘No, you're grand, thanks, Flynn. I think I've got everything I need right here.'

HELP? CAN ANYBODY HELP?? PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks to the fantastic team of women who helped bring this book to life, Sheila Crowley and Becky Ritchie at Curtis Brown, and Katie Gordon and Jane Wood at Quercus. It was a pleasure working with you all.

Thanks to Eimear Cotter, Ciara Ní Laighin and Darina Sexton for your expert advice.

Love and thanks to Ciara, Fachtna, Margaret and Treasa who read everything first.

Thanks to Paula for your support.

Special thanks and much love to Caroline Stynes for your invaluable help and encouragement.

Thanks, and all my love to Andrew, for your advice and encouragement, and to our beautiful boys Conor and Séamus, who inspired me to see it through.
Mo ghrá sibh go léir
.

Finally, this book is dedicated to my parents, Alice and Mick Crowley, who didn't see it published but always believed it would be.