Last Kiss (38 page)

‘I thought I’d join you for a bit of moon-gazing. Where’s the Lone Ranger?’

‘You mean Mark?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He’s up at the house. I’m to stay put here until he gives the all-clear.’

‘Looks like we’re about to get it,’ he said, pointing at the torchlight approaching the car. When Lynch was level with him, he asked, ‘What’s the situation up there?’

‘They were here, all right. There was a fire lit in the grate and the car is still there, but no sign of either of them.’

‘So they’ve gone for a night excursion?’ Adam lit his own flashlight.

‘Wherever they are, they travelled by foot. I’m going to call in more back-up and spread the search as far out as we can. In the meantime, I’ve left three of the guys at the house. I want Kate to take a look upstairs. There’s a shitload of art stuff and photographs in the rear bedroom. Maybe she’ll be able to make sense of it.’

‘Will I go with her?’

‘Yeah, walk her to the house, but let the guys take over. She’ll need to be booted and gloved as a precaution. After that, I’ll want you back in the village – see if you can get some of the locals to give us guidance on the terrain. Any help we can get will increase our chances of finding them sooner.’

‘A bit of a risk using locals?’

‘We’ll only use them to get a bearing on possible tracks. If necessary, we’ll keep it to one local with two armed officers. Our killer may be crazy, but she hasn’t yet used firearms.’

‘Still?’

‘O’Connor, I don’t need to remind you, I’m the one in charge.’

‘Grand so.’ Opening the car door, Adam said to Kate, ‘It seems I’m your guide.’

It didn’t take them long to reach the house. Although similar to a farmhouse in design, it was taller and narrower, looking more like a townhouse than something you’d see in the countryside. The chipped windowpanes were painted a murky grey, against what had once been bright, whitewashed walls. Two detectives were positioned at the front of the house. One stood beside Edgar Regan’s car, the other at the front door. Kate assumed the third detective was stationed at the rear.

‘Are you okay?’ Adam asked, handing her the protective gloves and booties.

‘Yes, I’m fine. You go on.’

‘The guys here will make sure no one gets in.’

‘Stop worrying. It’s an empty house.’

‘Okay, but don’t take any chances.’

Once inside, Kate tried to familiarise herself with the surroundings. Thankfully, the guys had turned on all the lights. Despite her bravado, she wouldn’t have fancied going through the place with a torch. She could see the burning embers in the grate, two sleeping bags and blankets on the floor. An opened door led to the kitchen.

Lynch had wanted her to look in one of the bedrooms, so she climbed the stairs. It was impossible to walk through the house and not imagine Sandra Connolly and her grandparents living in it. If walls could talk, she thought, as she stepped onto the landing. The house had not been lived in for some time, and was completely at odds with the opulent surroundings the killer had chosen for her victims.

There were three doors off the landing. One led to a small bathroom, in which the sink and bath were full of mildew. There
was a large bedroom at the front, but Lynch had mentioned the one at the rear.

With her gloved hand, she opened the door, immediately seeing the artwork spread out on the bed, but it was the photographs pinned to the walls that drew her attention. All in black-and-white, the multiple images of Sandra Connolly stared back at her, one after another, reproduced in mirrors, windows or other reflective objects. The use of shadow was extraordinary, and her facial expressions, although varied, were distant and unhinged. Kate stepped into the room, and realised the photographs were reflected against a large mirror on the side wall and a smaller one angled in the corner. Over and over, the images were multiplied.

One set of photographs in particular caught Kate’s attention. They were Polaroid snapshots, depicting a young girl. In one, the girl looked into a window of this house, the sun splintering her reflection, and in another, her body threw a large shadow across flattened ground.

Kate walked over to the bed, finding dozens of paintings on canvas. Some were similar to those she had seen in Barry Lyons’s place, segmented, cubed and projecting the subject matter from different perspectives. Others showed almost childlike fantasy images, a red cloak flying through a darkened wood, two young children holding hands, with what looked like breadcrumbs beneath their feet. ‘Grimms’ fairy tales,’ she muttered. Hadn’t Barry Lyons mention Sandra’s obsession with them? The more paintings Kate studied, the more aware she became that the artist was developing her talent, but also drifting further into black fantasy. There were depictions of the devil, with ‘XV’ stamped
on his forehead, and at the bottom of each a Bible, seeping blood over a baby’s face. There were sketches too, again depicting Tarot images; others showed contorted faces without eyes, all layered with numbers, varying sizes and contrary angles, and each with the constant use of shadow. The biblical references, the Tarot, the fairy tales, the contorted faces all pointed to an alternative world, an alternative self, a dark, shadowy escape from reality, but every one mapped out, numbered, re-created, controlled and endlessly duplicated.

I STARE AT Edgar’s dead body, his facial skin sinking into his bones. He is already taking on the appearance of the black skeleton of the Death card. It was tricky engraving the number thirteen, in roman numerals, on his forehead, but I’m glad I did it. Soon the sun will rise and I can start afresh.

As I apply Carmine to my lips, ready to kiss Edgar for the last time, I hear the intruders above me, moving through the house like a pack of hungry wolves. I hold my breath, as I did in this cellar when I was a child. I’ve become accustomed to the low ceiling over the years, but the witch and her huntsman didn’t like it, unwilling to crawl and bend.

It isn’t long before the silence returns. Should I remain hidden,
or should I take their visitation as a sign that I should flee? It’s then I hear movement outside, their voices low, muttering secrets.

When the talking stops, I creep to the cellar door, barely opening it, the rug beneath the kitchen table sliding back. I’m surprised to see a woman standing at the fireplace. She doesn’t stay long. I hear her walking up the stairs, opening the doors to each of the rooms. I check that I still have the knife. Pulling myself up, I wipe Edgar’s blood off it, crawling across the floor out of sight of prying eyes.

I see her go into my bedroom, the meddling bitch. Just like the witch, she thinks she can intrude, pry, plunder and take what’s mine. As I climb the stairs, away from the windows, the light of the bare bulb behind me, I see my shadow creep beside me, and I smile.

LOOKING AT THE photographs and paintings, Kate was getting a real sense of Cassandra Connolly, and the madness that engulfed her. Was she capable of killing her grandparents? Most certainly. Was she at risk of killing again? There was no doubt that she was. Things had advanced too far for any hope of a normal life for her. Maybe if she had received help earlier, if someone, anyone, had intervened, stuck their neck out and taken her away from an environment that was warping and maiming her, she might have had a chance.

Kate walked back to the smaller photographs on the wall and lifted the one of the young girl partially reflected in the window. Was it Sandra, Cassie or both? The answer didn’t matter now.
What mattered was that back then the girl had been scared. She had needed to make sense of her world. She had desperately sought answers by experimenting with fantasy, using numbers to gain a level of control, and later her sexuality to grasp the faintest glimpse of emotional connection. It had led her to forge a way out of the terror: she had split her mind to protect herself, creating an alternative self, one who could walk in the dark without fear, a self who had become her damnation.

Not for the first time in her career, Kate lamented the harm humans do to one another. How evil within families can breed a fresh incarnation in a vicious self-fulfilling prophecy, with the innocents suffering the most. She pinned the photograph back to the wall in the exact place the killer had left it. Her work was done. With any luck they would find Edgar and Sandra soon, and another sordid case would be over. She could go back to Charlie, tuck him up in bed, and use the leftover ingredients to make pancakes for their breakfast.

Turning, she saw what looked like a diary on the bed. Lifting it, she felt the knife glide across her throat and the warm breath of another close behind her. ‘Put it down,’ the woman said, and a droplet of blood slid down her neck, touching her breast, as gentle as a moth.

THEY HAD MANAGED to get a number of volunteers from the village, mainly because of Barry Lyons’s involvement. As the ex-school principal, he still wielded power, and the vast majority of the search party was made up of ex-pupils of his school. With the back-up arriving from Dublin, each local was teamed with two detectives, with the strict instruction to act only as guides: no heroics were required.

Mark Lynch’s mood had deteriorated, the difficult terrain starting to bother him.

‘Maybe we should leave this until daylight,’ Adam suggested.

‘We could have a dead body by then, O’Connor. I’m not taking the risk.’

‘Barry knows the woods better than anyone. He’s divided the area into six key blocks.’

‘Good,’ Lynch replied, looking into the woodlands. ‘By the way,’ he turned back to O’Connor, ‘there’s a car bringing Alice Thompson down.’

‘What for?’

‘She and Sandra lived in the woods as kids. If Sandra has a number of places to go, Alice will know them.’

Adam heard a car pull up near the gate. ‘Perhaps this is her now.’

When she stepped out of the car, and Adam saw her bright blonde hair blowing wild and free against the backdrop of the woods, she looked even more beautiful than she had done earlier. She nodded to him.

He joined her. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘you think you know your friend, but she isn’t the little girl you grew up with, not any more.’

‘I know her better than anyone else does.’

‘Maybe so, but you need to remember she’s a killer.’

Again, her response was silence, but her face told him she understood that she was in unknown territory.

‘Right, O’Connor,’ Lynch yelled over the night breeze. ‘Get whatever information you can from Alice, and then let’s move.’

‘TELL ME WHY I shouldn’t kill you,’ I ask the bitch, as I hold the knife tight to her throat.

‘Maybe there has been enough killing, Sandra.’

‘Sandra’s dead,’ I hiss in her ear. ‘Do you hear me? She’s dead. I killed her.’

I look across my old room, seeing the two of us reflected in the mirror on the far wall. ‘Interesting pose, don’t you think?’

‘What?’ she asks.

‘The shadow on the wall of the two of us entwined, but I’m the larger shadow, more powerful.’

‘What shall I call you?’ she asks.

I laugh at her. ‘Why? Are you looking to be my friend?’

‘I’m Kate.’

‘Lovely name,’ I say. ‘There once was a man called Frederick. He had a wife called Kate! He said, “I’m going to work in the fields. When I come back, I shall be hungry…”’

‘Grimms’ fairy tales?’ she replies.

‘Very good – that buys you a few more seconds.’

‘You never said what I should call you.’

‘Cassie.’

‘Your work is extraordinary, Cassie.’

‘Complimenting the lunatic, are you?’

‘I’m speaking the truth.’

‘Ah, yes, Kate, the precious truth.’ I rub the knife up her neck, causing more blood to trickle down. ‘One false move, and you’ll be a dead Kate. That has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?’

I can see torchlights outside. ‘We’ll need to go down below,’ I say. ‘No funny stuff until I work out what to do with you.’

When she turns, and I see her face, I say, ‘You’re that shrink?’

‘Yes, that’s me.’ She’s nervous.

‘Good, you’re not stupid, then. Now, do exactly as I tell you, or I’ll ruin your pretty face.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘We’re taking a trip to the basement. It will require crawling.’

She does as I say, but I keep close to her. She has made things complicated, but I’ve been tested before. ‘Keep making your way out onto the landing and down the stairs,’ I tell her. ‘I’m right behind you.’

‘Okay,’ she answers, barely above the sound of a mouse.

‘I’ve only ever killed one woman,’ I say. ‘She was a witch – a nosy, prying, sadistic bitch – but I can make an exception for you.’

WITH EACH OF the search teams coming up empty, Adam couldn’t help but think that Mark Lynch had gone about this the wrong way. The empty house had turned their attention outwards, to the surrounding terrain, but what if Kate was right, and Sandra Regan had needed to stay close to home, the very place she had suffered most? Nor was he happy leaving Kate there, armed guards or not.

‘Listen,’ he said, turning to Barry Lyons, ‘I think we should head back to the house.’

‘That’s up to you.’

They soon reached the rusted gate at the end of the pathway. Adam saw the team with Alice Thompson coming towards them,
ready to search the far side of the woods. He flashed his torch in their direction, signalling for them to come over. ‘Alice,’ he said, his voice low, when she was within hearing distance, ‘I’m going up to the house. I want you to come with me.’ Then, to Barry Lyons, ‘You stay here with Fitzsimons. I’ll be taking the other two detectives with me.’

He had a bad feeling, even though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. Approaching the house, he looked around for Kate, and the bad feeling got worse: he could see no sign of her.

‘Where’s Dr Pearson?’ he asked the detective stationed by Regan’s car.

‘She’s still inside.’

‘What? She’s been there nearly an hour.’