Can Anybody Help Me? (7 page)

‘
Life goes on
.'

‘
Yes,' he said again, and waited
.

‘
What we talked about …' She began to cough then and he held the smeared glass to her lips for a moment, before she waved it away. ‘It's fine. All of it. As long as she's looked after
.'

‘
Good. Good woman.' He patted the hand then before releasing it. ‘You won't regret it. I'll bring in the forms tomorrow
.'

‘
Tomorrow?' Her face, taut against the pillow, clouded. ‘Will I still be here tomorrow?
'

‘
Ah, yes
.'

He stood up. Dust swirled
.

‘
You're not going anywhere. Not yet
.'

Her eyes had closed before he reached the door
.

DH LOST JOB – can anyone help???

Pearse Street was jammed and Claire didn't hesitate to flick on the siren and swerve the Mondeo out into the bus lane. Sitting in the passenger seat, Flynn's foot jerked towards an imaginary brake pedal.

‘I don't think she's going anywhere.'

‘Witness might be.'

Enjoying his unease, Claire sped up, nose to arse with the double decker in front of her. Aware she was being childish but enjoying it anyway she waited for the bus to come to a lumbering halt before making use of a gap in the right-hand lane to speed ahead of it. Traffic on Nassau Street was lighter and within a couple of minutes she was negotiating the one-way system on the south side of the city. Flynn was still fiddling with his seatbelt as they pulled up outside the Merview complex.

‘Must have been built by a Galway man.'

Unable to think of any response, Claire drove the car as close as she could to the heavy metal gates and waited as a uniformed Guard stationed just inside pressed the button that allowed them to enter. Driving through, she nodded her thanks before slotting her car between a low wall and a sign that promised to bring the wrath of clampers down on anyone
who dared to park there. She grabbed her bag, opened the door and realised, too late, that she'd forgotten to add ten extra pounds to the space she needed to exit. Unwilling to let Flynn see her discomfort, she inhaled, made a silent apology to her baby and wriggled her way out of the car, past the wall and onto a footpath which linked the car park and the main body of the apartment block.

From the outside it was clear that ‘Merview' had once had pretentions. A huge billboard stretching halfway across the front of the complex showed young couples playing tennis, drinking wine and gazing into each other's eyes, while cooking a gourmet meal in kitchens which were lit, it seemed, by nothing more than the warmth of their love. ‘Designed for Your Life' was written underneath the pictures, along with the phone number of ‘O'Mahony Thorpe', one of the city's leading estate agents.

The contrast between the picture and reality was stark. Claire stepped back and took in the full view. Built in a tan-coloured brick, the three blocks that made up the apartment complex might have looked attractive when first built, but the complex had aged quickly and not well. Weeds poked through the cobble-locked grounds, and shrubbery that had been planted near the exterior walls had been allowed to grow ragged and unkempt. One window in a downstairs unit had been patched with cardboard while several others were dressed in tatty lace curtains rather than the wooden blinds which had been the architect's intention.

‘These were going for half a million at the height of it.'

Unable to find anything annoying in that statement and more occupied with catching her breath than being sarcastic,
Claire just nodded. Flynn was right. The name of the development was familiar. She vaguely remembered that there had been queues round the block when the first phase had been released. She'd even seen a young one interviewed on the news, giddy with excitement, having slept in her car all night to put her name down on a one-bed apartment that she'd still be paying for in thirty-five years' time. A couple of months later the economy had crashed, the building boom was over and the IMF had come looking for Ireland to hand back the keys. The remaining sixty per cent of Merview was probably available free with a litre of petrol now.

Still, they weren't here to reflect on Ireland's burst property bubble. She hitched her bag up on her shoulder and nodded at the uniformed cop who had resumed his stance on the footpath. Then, Flynn trailing in her wake, she walked towards a white PVC door set between two large windows in the front wall. Another guard stood inside and he nodded hello.

‘Third floor, detective.'

Claire looked around for a lift, sighed, and headed for the stairs. With Flynn at her heels, she was forced to take them at a faster pace than normal and by the time she reached the top of the second flight, she could feel beads of sweat gather at her shoulder-blades and trickle slowly down towards the small of her back. Praying the moisture wouldn't show through the back of her blouse, she pulled out her phone and checked an imaginary text in order to let the younger detective get in front of her. But even taking the third flight at a much slower pace didn't help.

Reaching the final landing, she glanced at her phone again and moved closer to the wall as her head began to swim. Beside
her Flynn was giving a running commentary on the area, but she was too busy trying to catch her breath, get her heart rate down and control the vein that was pulsing at her temple. The sweat was flowing in rivulets now, and she shivered. There were black spots in front of her eyes. She had read about them in the baby book Matt had left casually on the bedside locker, she couldn't remember what they meant but doubted they were a positive sign.

Moving slowly, she put her back to the wall and took a bottle of water out of her bag. Taking a small sip, then another, she concentrated on her breathing as her vision began to slowly return to normal. Thanks be to Jesus. Flynn was still talking but she felt well enough now to answer him and looked at her mobile again, doing a final text check as her breathing returned to normal. Within seconds she felt ready to go again. She'd want to watch that, take the lift the next time. Felt grand now though.

It was clear that whatever pretensions Merview had stopped with the billboards. Inside, the block was furnished in greyge. Dirty grey walls, a damaged wooden stair rail, a brown carpet that was probably meant to be hardwearing, but didn't come close to masking the dirt from hundreds of mucky feet. Claire walked along the dimly lit corridor, followed closely by a now silent Flynn. There was no need to look at the flat numbers. Yellow-and-black Garda tape hung on the door of number 123.

In a housing estate, particularly in the working-class areas where Claire had worked while still in uniform, that tape would have attracted huge attention. There'd be three or four young kids for a start, asking endless questions. Mister, is there
someone dead, mister? Ah, mister, give us a shot of yer hat. Their older brothers would be there too, balancing on bikes, talking less but far more interested in the details. And then there'd be a couple of women, babies wrapped like cloth parcels in brightly coloured buggies, queuing up to tell each other and any reporters that it was a quiet area and that nothing like this had happened here before.

In Merview, it appeared the tape had gone unnoticed. In fact, it was difficult to imagine that there were any other residents in the block at all, so silent were the corridors. Claire assumed that anyone who did actually live there was out at work all day, probably doing the childminder/commute/childminder dance. The likelihood of witnesses to the crime would be small.

‘Ghost estates.'

‘Wha?'

She looked around at Flynn.

‘Ghost estates. Isn't that what they call them?'

For a moment she thought she saw a flicker of humour in the impassive blue eyes. Claire considered a grin.

And then turned her attention to the body slumped outside the apartment door.

‘Detective. This is Mr Berry. He … reported the discovery.'

Claire nodded at the young female guard who was stationed outside the apartment and stretched out her hand towards the figure on the ground.

‘Mr Berry, I'm Detective Sergeant Claire Boyle.'

The young man took his face from his hands and stared up at her, two brown eyes staring out of one the whitest faces she had ever seen. No doubt the ‘discovery', as the young Guard had put it, had added to his pallor, but even leaving that aside, the man looked as though daylight and fresh air were strangers to him. He sat awkwardly on the floor, spindly legs bent at an awkward angle, pinstripe suit and large, polished shoes doing nothing to hide the fact that he was young and terrified.

Claire thought about bending down to his level, decided against it and smiled instead. After a moment he blinked, levered himself up off the floor and returned her handshake limply. His face was as white as his glistening shirt cuff, she noticed. Lives with his mammy, she decided.

‘We'll need to have a chat with you about what happened.'

The young man looked at her again, his blank stare leading Claire to wonder if he needed a doctor rather than a guard. And
then he blinked again, a nervous tick that seemed to allow him the space to gather his thoughts.

‘I'm just, like, the estate agent?'

‘Mmm.'

Technically she was supposed to pack him off to the station at this stage. But she hadn't actually asked him for a statement yet so she made use of her old friend, the non-committal pause to see what else he could come up with.

‘We, like, let this place?'

Ow, that accent. Claire wondered just when the memo had been sent out to every Irish person under the age of thirty that they had to end every sentence with a question mark.

‘I was just checking. To see why the rent hadn't been paid. I mean we have a key, it's totally okay for us to let ourselves in …'

The young man's face crumpled. He was even younger than she first thought, Claire guessed, maybe closer to twenty-three. She reached out again and patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.

‘We're going to have to take an official statement from you, is that okay?'

He nodded, tears streaming down his face.

Claire turned and winked at Flynn who was staring at the carpet as if a clue to the crime had been mashed in along with the chow mein.

‘Detective Flynn will show you down to the car …'

Flynn looked up and gestured at the man to follow him. Claire watched as the two departed, Flynn's erect figure dwarfed by the loping gait and sagging shoulders of the young estate agent. Usually at this stage people were beginning to
realise the seriousness of the situation they had come across, might even manage a brave ‘this has nothing to do with me, you know!' but this poor fecker couldn't even manage a line ripped off CSI. He just seemed … empty. Broken by what he had seen. By whatever lay behind the door of number 123. The young Guard, Siobhan O'Doheny Claire thought her name was, had once again taken up a position outside the apartment. Claire jerked her head in the direction of the door.

‘Dr Sheehy inside?'

O'Doheny nodded.

‘Grand.'

She ducked under the tape and pushed open the apartment door, which swung smoothly on its hinges, opening silently onto a small empty entrance hall. The place looked like it had been furnished by a computer. Bare magnolia walls, a clean laminate wooden floor. There was just one element ruining the clean lines though. The smell that was prickling against her nostrils.

Moving slowly as if afraid to disturb the very atoms in the air around her, she walked through the entrance space and into what she assumed was the main living room. Three white-suited members of the Garda Technical Bureau were deep in conversation with the tall, dark-haired Deputy State Patholo-gist. Dr Helen Sheehy looked up at Claire, nodded briefly and continued her conversation. Claire had attended enough crime scenes to interpret the signal. Come in, have a look, don't mess with anything. That was an instruction she would be happy to follow.

With five of them in the sitting room, the space was almost comically overcrowded. As had been the case with the hallway,
there was no personal touch, no sign that anyone other than the carpet fitters had ever been inside. The furniture was scant, one brown leather sofa, one long low coffee table which contained neither books nor magazines. A letter from a telephone company offering cheaper bills lay on top of the dusty mantel-piece. Claire walked over, looked at the address. ‘To the Occupant', printed in bold black letters. Her nostrils flared and she swallowed. She didn't think the current occupant cared much about high speed broadband.