Last Kiss (31 page)

She had left the Devil card for me – his hands were strange too, one held up, the other downwards in the flames. My bloodied hand starts to shake violently, blurring more, turning into the blood red of the card. I open and close my eyes a few times, realising my mind is tricking me.

Reaching down, I frantically search for my iPhone in my bag. I’ve four bars of an internet signal. I type ‘Devil card’, and the image I saw on the card appears on the screen. Under it, the words read,
The Devil Card from the Tarot Deck, when found upright, means bondage, addiction and sexuality
. None of that makes any sense to me, so I scroll further down to a longer description:

Are the man and woman on the card supposed to be Edgar and this other woman? He never mentioned the Cassie4Casanova link on the computer. How would he explain that? He couldn’t deny it.

The phone rings, jolting me. At first I’m relieved it’s Karen. She’ll know what to do. I press answer, but say nothing.

‘Sandra, are you there? Can you hear me?’

‘I’m here, Karen.’ I sound crackly, barely audible. ‘I’m very frightened.’ I start crying, the tears streaming down my face. I don’t think she can understand what I’m saying, so I try again. ‘I’m scared, Karen. Edgar is making up lies. I think I’m going mad.’

‘It’s okay,’ she says.

‘It’s not okay, Karen. You don’t understand. He’s with somebody else, but he’s denying it.’ I remember what he said about the house in Greystones.

‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this.’ Her voice is too calm.

I roar at her: ‘There bloody well isn’t. There’s nothing reasonable about any of this.’ I wipe the tears away, trying to pull myself together. ‘Karen, do you know about the house in Greystones?’

‘Yes.’

‘Edgar says it’s our house. Is that true?’ I’m full of fear for her response.

‘You and Edgar loved being by the sea.’

‘Is it true?’ I ask again, this time shouting.

She doesn’t answer, not immediately, as if she’s trying to work out what to say next.

‘Don’t you remember, Sandra?’ Her voice is softer. ‘You bought it with the money your parents gave you, after you came back from Europe. When you and Edgar moved to Blackrock, it was a weekend retreat for you both.’ Her words are drifting. ‘You haven’t used it much lately …’ She keeps talking, but I can’t make out what she’s saying, something about it being good to know it’s there if we need it. So, it’s all true. Edgar says it is, and now Karen – unless she’s lying as well.

‘Karen, I can’t talk any more. I have to go.’

‘Sandra, you don’t sound well. We’re all worried about you.’

I hang up the phone, like it’s the enemy. The car windows are steaming up again, but this time, I daren’t risk opening them. Instead, I put my phone back in my bag, taking out the diary. I flick through the pages, looking for my last entry. It doesn’t take me long to find it, but stuck inside the page is a black-and-white photograph. In it, there is a large dark shadow to the right, and I can see the back of a young girl. Looking closer, I can make out her face reflected in a window. I’ve no idea how old the photograph is, but something about it feels familiar. The sunlight is shining on the glass, fracturing her face into obscure shades of black, grey and white. I drop the diary, before the photograph falls out of my hand like the Devil card had done and once more I’m consumed by the dark.

THE BIBLE SAYS many things about sex. A man shouldn’t have sex with the daughter or granddaughter of any woman he has had sex with. But there are plenty of inconsistencies within the various versions, an error by a scribe here, a misinterpretation there, the belief that something is obvious when its absence leads others to think it’s fair game. Leviticus 20 doesn’t prohibit incestuous relations with a granddaughter. This is believed to be oversight, a corresponding document lost, but it’s irrelevant either way. People use the Bible to make any argument they want.

Unfortunately, Edgar is now trying to take charge, navigating between his idea of the truth and so many lies. Sandra is cracking.
I feel her fear stronger than ever, her desperation: obliteration is close. The witch is following me again, watching my every move, sensing there might be another killing. It’s a favourite pastime of hers, stalking me when she thinks something is about to happen. She doesn’t let go easily. She still haunts the old house in Leach, even though it’s boarded up, rotting from the inside out. A house has a soul, you know, with history everywhere. It doesn’t take a lot to unlock the memories. The recall of a raised voice, the sound of a cane being lashed, harsh words –
You’re a disgusting animal. You’ll rot in Hell. The devil has a place for little whores like you
.

The witch always had things to say. She messed me up. I used to think she messed him up too. My incestuous step-father, grandfather, call him whatever you like. I dare say the witch hated sex. She probably couldn’t wait for my mother to perform, the herded goat to the slaughter. I’ve no doubt that between my mother’s death and my readiness, he travelled for his pleasures further from home.

In the end, I hated him more than I hated her. With the witch, I soon recognised the false attempts at affection, and the pleasure her withdrawal of it gave her. He was different. I sought his love, believed it to be real. Did you ever love someone so much that you were prepared to be destroyed because of it? I cannot abide weakness now. It is such a debilitating trait. I found love in his tears of guilt, and stole joy when, afterwards, he would ask for my forgiveness. I would comfort him, as a parent would a child. The lies were harder to take when his mask of deception finally became apparent to me.

I need to go back to the woods. I always gain strength from
their place of death. The Devil card has decided Sandra’s fate, but there is still another to be drawn for the spread. I’ve asked the Reader to reveal it many times, but she can be difficult when she wants to be. She isn’t meek like Sandra, but believes she has the upper hand.

I remember picking the Hangman card before I killed Rick. We had sat in the restaurant that last night, him thinking I would go back to the hotel room with him, assuming I had forgiven him for the gang rape at his precious party, and that I needed him more than he needed me. The arrogance of the ego is another debilitating characteristic. I instigated the argument, knowing which buttons to press. If you know how to pleasure someone, you know how to cause them pain. The Hangman card was perfect: I needed the wisdom from the Well of Wyrd. I took the master number as another sign in the denouncement of God and his book of biblical lies.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when he booked that whore. He wouldn’t have wanted to waste the bed that he planned to share with me. It had delayed things, but time wasn’t of any consequence. Once the card was drawn, his fate was sealed.

My new lover has proved a disappointment too. Maybe it’s all for the best. As I’ve told you before, I’m a believer in destiny.

MARK LYNCH WASN’T sure about Kate’s theory on the mental condition of the killer, but she had proved herself in the past, and any fresh angle was a good thing. It meant broadening the background checks to anyone connected with Sandra Regan’s early childhood. If Kate was right about her, and the extra pressure accelerating the risk of an adverse reaction, then he needed to adopt a more direct approach.

Both Alice Thompson and Edgar Regan had denied any knowledge of Rick Shevlin, but he had no doubt the two of them were holding something back. Kate wanted him to concentrate on Sandra, but Alice Thompson was also at the forefront of his mind. For a start, Sandra and Alice were by far
the most attractive of the four women involved, and therefore more likely suspects. Working backwards, he contacted their professional colleagues, using tax records to access previous employers or associates, going all the way back to their early school days. His investigative juices began to flow when he discovered gaps in their personal records. They had disappeared from Irish records in their late teens and had both come from the same rural village, Leach, in Wicklow.

The more phone calls he made, the more he discovered. The girls had gone to the same primary and secondary schools. The local schools in Leach weren’t large. With the girls being of similar age, the chance of them knowing each other from an early age was high. The then principals of the schools had retired, but they still lived locally, one in a remote location near Elliot forest, the other in the town. The first, Barry Lyons, the primary school head, would have known the girls from when they were four. He was the one living near Elliot forest and, unfortunately, didn’t have a landline. If he had a mobile phone, it wouldn’t have worked so close to the dense woods.

With no other option, Lynch rang the second school principal, James Gammon. He already knew from the records that Gammon had served in the police force in the earlier part of his career. Before leaving, he had gained a reputation as a troublemaker, questioning the big brass in Dublin on all sorts of murky stuff, including bad management. Still, Lynch thought, he’d probably used the discipline of the force to run that secondary school like a well-oiled machine. He hoped Gammon didn’t hold grudges against the rank and file or it might prove to be an uncomfortable conversation.

He rang the number Fitzsimons had given him. ‘Could I speak to James Gammon?’

‘Speaking – who’s asking?’

‘Detective Mark Lynch, Special Detective Unit, Harcourt Street.’

‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’

‘We’re doing background checks on a couple of people from your community. I was wondering what you can tell me about Alice Thompson and Sandra Regan. Sandra’s maiden name would have been Connolly, when she attended the Sacred Heart School. They were pupils between 1994 and 1999.’

There was silence at the other end of the phone.

‘Mr Gammon?’

‘Yes?’

‘I was wondering …’

‘I heard your question the first time.’ Another pause. ‘I knew both girls, yes. Intelligent, hardworking, neither of them ever gave the school any bother.’

‘How would you describe them individually?’

‘Alice was the more outgoing of the two, much more confident than Sandra, who was a shyer girl, with a quiet demeanour …’ another pause ‘… but she was unusual.’

‘How so?’

‘I always felt there was more to her than she would let others see. Funny, I still think about her at times.’

‘She must have made quite an impression on you.’

‘They all stay with you in one way or another. If I’ve any regrets about Sandra Connolly, it’s that I never managed to get her to come out of her shell. I can’t say I ever saw the girl smile.’

‘And Alice Thompson?’

‘Different again. As I said, she was more confident and outgoing, but the two of them were as thick as thieves.’

‘So, they were close from the beginning?’

‘Sandra depended on Alice. She was a kind of shield for her.’

‘I’m not getting you.’

‘Alice became the mouthpiece for the two of them. At times, Sandra was more like her shadow than a separate person.’

‘Anything else odd strike you, Mr Gammon?’

Another silence. Lynch waited.

‘There was something else …’ Gammon sounded hesitant.

‘Tell me anything that comes to mind, no matter how irrelevant you think it is.’

‘After the girls left the Sacred Heart, they faced the world alone.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘They were both only children, and when the parents left Leach, one because of work commitments, the other for personal reasons, the girls stayed on in the village alone.’

‘What were the parents like?’

‘It’s a small place, Detective, and, I’ll be honest with you, none of them mixed well. They were odd folk, keeping themselves to themselves. The two men were okay, both quiet individuals, but there was something unsavoury about the mothers, each cold in the extreme.’

‘Were there any issues with social services, Mr Gammon?’

‘None that I know of.’

‘That doesn’t mean there wasn’t a problem.’

‘It was a long time ago, Detective. In the mid to late nineties,
people tended to leave well enough alone. They still do, I suppose. Anyhow, it’s all water under the bridge now, but I often thought it was the reason the girls struck up such a strong friendship, their common bond the oddity of their respective families.’

‘I appreciate your frankness.’

‘Have you spoken to Barry Lyons?’

‘No, not yet.’

‘You’ll have your work cut out for you.’

‘How’s that?’

‘Barry didn’t take his retirement well. Teaching was his life. Afterwards, he pulled back, became withdrawn. He goes for weeks now without seeing anyone.’

‘A recluse?’

‘He has become a man of the woods, and once the woods have you, they say, they take your soul.’

Hanging up, Lynch thought again about his conversation with Kate. With Barry Lyons being a recluse, the mountain might have to go to Muhammad – and useful to have a psychologist tag along. He preferred working alone, but if he needed someone, he had no problem using them. He dialled Kate’s number.

‘Kate, something’s come up.’

‘What?’

‘It turns out that Sandra Regan and Alice Thompson were friends practically since birth. They’re both from Leach in Wicklow. I’ve spoken to their ex-secondary school principal, a James Gammon, and he’s told me enough to make me curious.’

‘Like what?’

‘There was a stark contrast between the two girls, one an
introvert, the other much more confident, Sandra being the introvert. The ex-principal’s description of both sets of parents was strange, especially what he said about the mothers. I want to find out more.’