Deadly Intent (18 page)

‘How about Maureen herself?' Sal shifted her earphone to join in the discussion. ‘Let's say she killed Oscar because he tried to force himself on her – or more likely, because he refused her desperate offers of hanky-panky? And then she got into a state and rang Dominic, who came hotfoot to the boreen to help her out, at which point they concocted a plan that Dominic would knock
her
out, to throw the gardai off the scent?'

‘If that happened, Dominic had a lot of work on his hands, hiding Oscar's body in some ditch until Friday night, and then returning in his car to carry it off to the mountains. And that had to have happened either before or after …' Nessa became agitated as she remembered her own experience. She still had to decide whether to make a formal complaint against Dominic. ‘That was the same night he assaulted me in our house, so maybe it would explain why he was so aggressive with me, but on the other hand … I don't know, I can't really imagine it. He and Maureen are not the most well-organised pair, are they?'

‘It doesn't look as if it was a cold-blooded plan, though? And dumping the body in full view of the road shows that the killer wasn't thinking very clearly.'

‘Well, maybe so. And maybe nobody saw Dominic driving to and fro on Friday night because the roads were quiet then. But I don't really see it.'

‘Let's not forget another possible factor – the Lotto loot, as Marcus calls it.' Sal was clearly keen to mention Marcus at every opportunity. ‘His pet theory is that Dominic attacked Maureen up on the hillside during a row about the money, but that Oscar was nearby and heard them shouting. So he rushed to defend Maureen, say, at which point Dominic killed him to keep him quiet.' She glanced from Nessa to Darina and smiled. ‘Pretty cool theory, really, wouldn't you both agree?'

Darina smiled slightly in return, but remained serious when she spoke. ‘The rumour going around Derryowen is that Dominic has given the gardai an alibi for Thursday lunchtime, but that they don't believe it. It's something about a boat that was anchored on the water near Pooka Rock, where he was fishing.'

‘Why do the gardai not believe him?'

‘I'm not sure, but maybe they haven't tracked down the boat. I went for my usual swim that day down at the hotel pier, soon after I'd called in to Ambrose, and the gardai asked me a few times whether I noticed any passing boats. They quizzed me about Dominic and Oscar too, of course, and whether I saw either of them on my way to the sea, or on my way home, or at any other time.'

‘And what did you tell them?'

‘Very little, really.' Darina paused as they drew up at a busy roundabout, and Nessa reflected that she'd missed out on a lot of the rumours wafting around Derryowen. She would have to sit down with Caitlín at the weekend, to try to separate solid facts from speculation.

‘I wish I could come up with something really useful,' said Darina then. ‘But, after a while, they'd asked me so many questions that I couldn't remember who I saw on which day. They must think we all keep little notes by the hour, accounting for our comings and goings.'

‘That is so totally true. Marcus says he hasn't got a clue anymore what he did on Thursday.'

‘It would be very different during the winter,' said Darina. ‘I definitely notice each and every stranger then, because there are so few of them around the place. But Derryowen is still quite busy at this time of the year, ever since we got tourist facilities like the walking trail and the hotel's golf course.'

‘Yes, you're right,' said Nessa. ‘And of course, we're all hoping that the murder was carried out by a stranger, and not by someone we've met.' She grimaced. ‘Even if that someone was Dominic.'

‘Isn't it terrible that we think like that? I suppose it's a kind of self-protection, to keep the thing at a distance from ourselves? But I also keep wondering whether Oscar was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, or whether someone was going to get him, regardless of his own actions on the day?'

Nessa and her two young companions lapsed into silence as they drove into the western suburbs of Cork city. They had no answer to Darina's question, and another dilemma nagged at Nessa's mind instead. Some of her guests had solid alibis for the day of Oscar's death – but the absence of an alibi was not in itself a useful indicator of guilt.

At least five of her guests seemed to have been excluded from garda inquiries as a result of their alibis. The French couple, Sébastien and Béatrice, had taken the ferry from Castletownbere to Bere Island on Thursday morning, and had plenty of witnesses to say that they had not returned until teatime. Similarly, the three Dutch people staying in Cnoc Meala's lodge had been shopping in Kenmare until mid-afternoon that day. As for Fergus Malden, gardai had interviewed him at great length, but Nessa herself could vouch that he had had no opportunity to kill his father up until at least seven o'clock in the evening.

If Oscar was killed between one and two o'clock, those who had difficulty proving their whereabouts at the crucial period included Dominic as well as Maureen. Two others in the same category were Zoe and Stella, the sisters who had been sitting on the hotel terrace when Oscar arrived at eleven thirty. A short while later, they drove some distance to the centre of Beara's main peninsula, where they spent the day walking in the Caha Mountains. Nessa remembered well two of the peaks Zoe had talked about that evening: Tooth Mountain and nearby Knocknaveacal, an anglicised spelling of the Irish words for the same image, literally, ‘the toothed hill'. It was quite an isolated area, and Zoe and Stella had met no other walkers who could verify their account of the afternoon.

But Nessa reminded herself again that a lack of such witnesses could not in itself be construed as a cause for suspicion. As far as she knew, there were no connections between the two of them and Oscar before they found themselves in the same holiday group at Cnoc Meala: following her adoption, Stella had grown up in England and had only met her half-sister Zoe for the first time the previous Easter; and while Zoe had had a few vociferous political arguments with Oscar during the week, they had hardly caused her to murder him.

Nessa had remembered a conversation with Zoe as she racked her brains about Oscar's business, and what likely enemies he may have had. His company provided security installations in a number of countries, including alarms and electronic spyholes. But Nessa knew that such useful civilian equipment could also have more sinister uses, for example, in military or intelligence operations. She had written an article a few years previously on dual use manufacturing, and how certain companies in Ireland were suspected of circumventing the country's avowed policy of military neutrality by claiming civilian use for products that could equally be sold to groups or countries intent on war. Zoe had reminded her of the article on her second evening in Cnoc Meala, when she told Nessa that she was a longtime admirer of her journalism, and was thrilled to meet her. She added effusively that as a result of that particular piece, she had joined an international campaign against the arms trade and met some amazing people taking on that massive issue.

Nessa decided in Dunmanus that she would do some digging about Oscar's company, making use of her former journalistic contacts. But as she reflected again on her conversation with Zoe, a new idea occurred to her, and when Darina drew in at a service station near Cork Regional Hospital, she took the opportunity to phone Zoe.

‘Great to hear from you, Nessa. Yes, we're on the road now. A friend from Tipperary is giving me a lift to the funeral.'

‘I'll look out for you after the Mass then, in case we're a bit late arriving. Text me if I don't spot you in the crowd, because I'd love to talk to you about some info I'm trying to check out.'

‘Is it about Oscar, Nessa? I absolutely knew you'd get to work on him as soon as you could. In fact I was thinking of talking to you about it myself, because when I saw Jack Talbot's photo showing him with the Saudi officials, I felt really sick. There I was being all cheery with someone who'd filled his pockets by cosying up to such an oppressive regime. So yes, I'll do anything I can for you.'

‘I'm sure the gardai are working on his business links already,' said Nessa carefully. She wanted to tap Zoe's enthusiasm, but was wary of being cast in a heroic role by her.

‘Yeah, sure. But I'll bet our PC Plods won't ask too many hard questions about bribery or corruption, will they? And actually, Stella could help us out too, Nessa, because she goes to all these conferences in the Middle East, and watches Al Jazeera, and probably knows a few people in Russia too, which is another nasty regime that Oscar got pally with.'

Nessa smiled ruefully. She hoped her energy levels would be up to Zoe's that afternoon. ‘You mentioned a campaign group on the arms trade that you're involved with. So I wondered—'

‘Fantastic idea! They're based in London and I'm actually going over to stay with Stella in a few days, so I could call in to them on Monday. I'm at a bit of a loose end, as you may remember, because my advice worker job in the inner city was axed this summer, which is just typical of the kind of cuts this shoddy government is making to services for the most vulnerable people. So yes, that's exactly the sort of thing I'd like to be doing, and I'm raging mad at the way Jack Talbot is picking on Patrick …'

Nessa signalled to Darina that she would pay for the fuel. ‘Great, let's talk about it later then, Zoe. But I'd appreciate it if you could keep this to ourselves. We have to remember that Jack Talbot and his ilk will be sniffing around at the funeral, hoping for any scrap of info that can be turned into a front page story.'

‘I
'm so jealous of you, I wish I could go too. I mean, it's sure to be the funeral of the year!'

Maureen was sitting up in bed, supported by a heap of pillows. Her soft bedjacket was festooned with pink rabbits, with a matching pattern on her hairband.

‘I hope the staff won't mind us coming in so early in the day?' Nessa looked around, trying to decide where to sit. There were two chairs by the bed, but one was piled high with gossip and fashion magazines, and the other was strewn with discarded underwear, sweet wrappings and other detritus.

‘Don't you pay any attention to the nurses, I've to outwit them every time I go out for a smoke. Just make yourselves at home, if that's humanly possible here.' Maureen beamed at her visitors. ‘Oh, and look what you've brought me, a lovely box of chocolates. Mind you now, I hope they're low fat, low sugar, the way we all have to eat these days?'

Sal removed the pile of magazines and pulled up a chair close to Maureen. Nessa perched on the opposite side of the bed, to give herself a good view of the door. But as Maureen was in a single room, sidling out unseen was not an option if Dominic arrived.

‘Hand me over my little mirror, there's a good girl.' Maureen gestured to Sal, who found the mirror behind an enormous Get Well card on the bedside table. Maureen fished in a pocket for her lipstick and applied a generous pink smear. ‘It's important to keep up appearances, you know,' she said conspiratorially. ‘After all, the gardai are watching me day and night. I wouldn't be surprised to find out they've put a camera right here in my room.'

Nessa smiled, pretending not to notice Maureen's last comment. She was unsure how to begin her own questioning. ‘I suppose the gardai have interviewed you a few times?' she asked cautiously. ‘It must be hard to remember everything that happened.'

‘Oh, you can say that again! I've tried my very best for them but I still don't know what answers they really want from me.' Maureen sighed loudly. ‘I should have stuck to the motto my poor mother had long ago. “Whatever you say, say nothing”; that's what she recommended.' She turned and searched under the pillows until she found a large album, bound in red leather. ‘But just wait till you see what I've been up to. I haven't been idle, anyway.'

She turned over the pages of the album, showing her visitors a collection of cuttings from newspaper coverage of Oscar's murder. They included a large photograph of herself, published several times since the story broke and showing a sleek and rather younger Maureen, smiling attractively and holding a large lottery cheque in her hand.

‘I thought I was dreaming when I saw the papers the first time. It's like a film you'd see at the cinema, isn't it, except that myself and Dominic are in the lead roles?' She continued to turn the pages, emotions flickering on her face like swift cloud shadows on a hillside. ‘So here we are, fame at last, as they say!'

‘Do you remember what happened to you that day?' Nessa asked, hiding her surprise at Maureen's tone of voice, and at her album.

‘Do I remember? How many times have I been asked that same question – do I remember this and do I remember that?' She threw her head back on the pillow, closing her eyes tightly as if she had been seized by a sharp pain. She looked so much older than she had a week earlier, and sounded exhausted when she resumed. ‘It's just horrible and unbelievable, isn't it? Poor Oscar dead, and me lying injured on a lonely laneway.' Maureen opened her eyes and looked from Nessa to Sal. ‘God help me, I might have died that same night, and never even been found.'

Nessa nodded quietly, trying to keep up with Maureen's unpredictable moods, which seemed more extreme now than they had been in Cnoc Meala. She wondered what was coming next.

‘When I think back over it, I wish I'd stayed put in that nice hotel down by the sea. I was safe enough there, wasn't I?'

Sal regarded her sympathetically. ‘You had a chat with Oscar at the hotel, I believe? Everybody said you got on really well together.'