The Doll's House (43 page)

Again they nodded, then turned their backs on Maloney and O’Connor to re-enter the building.

‘Maloney, who are you getting to do the negotiations?’

‘Anne Holt. She’s already on her way, and she’s one hell of a negotiator. I don’t need to tell you, O’Connor, if the guy up there is psychotic, the odds are stacked against this having a happy ending.’

‘Will the sharp-shooters aim to kill?’

‘They’re armed with SSG69 sniper rifles, and SIG pistols. There’s a floating corpse inside, and based on what you’ve told me, it’s not his first killing. In such close proximity to the hostage, an injured killer is dangerous, but we do have options.’

‘Exactly what are they?’

‘Things changed a couple of years back, when we had a siege, not unlike this one.’ Maloney paused, but kept his gaze firmly on number 74. ‘It went badly wrong. There were mental difficulties involved there too. Ever since, our shooters are also armed with non-lethal weapons, Taser, both close and distant. The cartridges can reach a target twenty feet away. They’ve twelve-gauge shotguns too, again non-lethal, but they will take a target down, and keep him down long enough for us to get inside and render him harmless. But make no mistake, O’Connor, I’ll be making the judgement call, and I won’t be sitting on the fence waiting for any sideshow.’

‘Right, I’m going to update Kate Pearson. If anyone can get this
bloody mess to a safe conclusion, hopefully she and Anne Holt can. I’m going to ring Matthews too. I want to let him know it looks like Alister Becon has taken a hit.’

‘Okay, let’s get this show on the road.’ Maloney walked away from O’Connor to brief the remainder of his team, including Anne Holt, who was now waiting at the ERU van, parked further up the street.

‘Matthews, O’Connor here. Are you doing the McKay interview?’

‘No, Quigley and Patterson are.’

‘Alister Becon looks to have taken a hit.’

‘Shit.’

‘I know it’s not good news, but tell Quigley and Patterson to let McKay know the score. It might make him more talkative.’ O’Connor hung up and phoned Kate. Everything now depended on ERU, including Anne Holt, and whatever Kate could bring to the table.

Dominic tells me to be quiet. He says he needs to work something out. Part of me thinks he wants to talk more, but another part is wondering if even now it’s too late for both of us.

Even within this madness, at times I feel it’s just him and me, the same way as we have been our whole lives. At others, I feel I’m here with a stranger, someone out of control. He’s quiet and still now, but I know he could turn back into the monster I saw earlier, the one who stabbed Alister Becon, the one I’m most afraid of.

I need my brother, and to get him back, I need him to talk. On my hunkers, I move until I’m flat against the attic wall, beneath the eagle, saying, more calmly than I feel, ‘Dominic, you were going to tell me why Alister Becon expected Martin.’

‘Was I?’ He sounds as if he can’t remember what happened a few moments earlier, his anger again replaced by confusion.

‘Yes, you were.’ I try to sound reassuring.

‘Your husband is a fool.’

‘Please tell me, Dominic.’

He pulls his fingers through his hair, looking down to the floor, a chilled edge returning to his voice as he says, ‘Alister had Martin keep an eye on you. He was never fully sure what you’d seen or heard back then, even if you were only a child. People were less guarded around you. You had gaps in memory, and he preferred it that way. This hypnosis business had him spooked. He wasn’t worried about either of us witnessing the attack on Mum, that was immaterial to him, but he had played his role in covering up the death of the baby.
He couldn’t afford to take that risk. Alister Becon doesn’t like people or things he can’t control.’

‘When did you find out Becon had covered it up?’ But I can already guess the answer.

‘Mum told me before she died. She swore to Becon she would never tell anyone, especially Keith Jenkins. But Becon had come to see her at the hospital. She said she needed me to know.’

‘What has Martin to do with it?’

‘Money – he was feeling squeezed. Martin was Alister’s backup plan.’

‘How do you know all this?’

He stares at me, and I’m not sure but I think there are more tears in his eyes.

‘I’ve been watching everyone for months, since Mum became ill, you, Martin, Becon, Jenkins, Gahan,
everyone
.’ Again he runs his fingers through his hair, as if to calm himself. ‘I haven’t been able to sleep. I haven’t been able to do anything much, except …’

‘Except what, Dominic?

‘Sort things out, Clodagh. Mum might have shared some secrets with me, but she never said Dad’s death was suicide. Finding that out changed everything. I no longer had any other choice.’ He looks at Becon’s blood drying into the floorboards. ‘That arsehole thought he was using me, telling me how he was the good guy, blaming Jenkins for the affair, and Gahan for the rest of it. He figured I was like the old man, easy pickings. But he didn’t know I’d recognised him for the sick fucker he was.’

‘But he used you, Dominic.’ I know my words are dangerous.

‘No, Clodagh, you’re wrong. I used him. All along I was using him. One by one, each of them needed to pay the price.’

‘But I still don’t understand. He expected Martin today? This doesn’t make any sense.’ Again I know I am walking some kind of treacherous tightrope.

‘I made Martin send a text to Alister,’ Dominic says slowly. ‘He
told him you’d worked something out. Alister would have known that meant something dangerous for him. The plan was that if you got too close to something, Martin would make it look like suicide.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Believe what you like. It didn’t take much to get Martin talking. He was always a snivelling baby at heart. Clodagh, you were an easy target. It wouldn’t have been difficult for him. Goddamn it, you don’t think he loved you?’

‘No, not any more.’ I take a deep breath and exhale.

‘Money makes people do lots of things.’ The harshness is back in his voice. ‘Alister would have found Martin easier than most. I’d have killed him too, only Alister had to be next, then …’ He turns the bloodied knife in his hand.

‘Dominic, this is crazy. You need help, do you hear me?’ I move closer to him, pulling myself across the floor. ‘You’re not thinking right – you’re distraught.’ I’m pleading again.

‘I chose her over him, Clodagh. I kept her secrets.’

‘But you didn’t kill him, Dominic. You weren’t the reason Dad died. He killed himself. We were only children.’

‘Only children,’ he repeats, as if the words are alien to him. ‘Everyone killed him, Clodagh.’ The crazed look is back in his eyes. ‘Mum, Jenkins, Gahan, Becon and finally …’ He stops, as if he has already said too much.

‘Dominic, don’t shut me out.’ My voice is filled with the hurt of being excluded for years, the truth hidden from me for as long as I can remember.

‘Don’t you see, Clodagh? There is no other way.’ He tilts the knife again.

‘There is another way, Dominic. There has to be.’

‘Clodagh, I have to right the wrong, make amends for it all. I turned my back on him too. I also have to pay the price.’ He then points the knife at me. ‘I have to cleanse the sins of the past, Clodagh. There is no other way. Our lives have been built on lies and secrets.’

‘That’s not a reason to die.’

‘Isn’t it?’ He smirks, and again I sense him drifting.

‘Afterwards, Clodagh, I became the man she leaned on most.’ He looks away from me, again almost in a trance. ‘Her trusted ally. I nailed my colours to the mast, taking her side over his. You have no idea, Clodagh, how suffocating it was. Her constantly over-compensating for what had gone before, almost as if keeping our relationship sweet held everything else at bay.’

I can almost taste the anger rising inside me. ‘And what about me, Dominic? What did that make me? The fucking traitor?’

He stares at me.

I can hear dogs barking outside.

‘She always loved you.’ His voice rises above the noise.

‘She didn’t!’ I roar, wanting to hit out at him.

‘She loved you. She just couldn’t show it.’ He lowers the knife. ‘She wasn’t well after the baby, and then every time she looked at you, she saw …’

‘Saw what, Dominic? What did she see?’ And again I’m screaming at him.

Our eyes lock.

‘She saw her own failings, Clodagh. How one day you might work it all out and know everything.’

‘I don’t understand. Why would that matter?’

‘Don’t you see? Mum knew she had me, lock, stock and every fucking smoking barrel, but
you
– she never knew when you would remember. She thought by keeping you at a distance, in a strange way, she was keeping you with her. Better to have a distant daughter than none at all.’

‘And the baby, Dominic? Did she blame me for that too – did she?’ For the first time since this crazy conversation has begun, my body is shaking uncontrollably, the urge to heave so strong that I don’t know if I can keep on talking. ‘Tell me!’ I roar, ‘DID SHE?’

His anger gives way to softness. ‘I don’t think so.’

But I can’t let it go. ‘Do you know what I think, Dominic? I think when Emmaline died, I died for her too.’ At this, my body gets a new form of stillness. ‘It’s a funny thing, the truth. When you hear it, really hear it, it’s as if a bloody loud silence slots everything into place.’

‘It ends here, Clodagh. It ends with the two of us.’

I don’t doubt him, and I know what he means, with him looking down at the knife, as if it’s an extension of his arm.

‘We’re damaged goods, Clodagh, both of us.’ I see him tense, determination returning to his face. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll be fast. I know you’ve already suffered enough.’

Whatever anger I had collapses inside me. I’m finding it hard to think, but I latch on to one single thought: I won’t abandon my daughter. I won’t abandon Ruby. And as Dominic drifts into another half-trance, my eyes are drawn to the narrow strip of daylight beneath the attic door, as I watch it go from light to dark, then light again. The dogs have stopped barking.

Kate sat in the back of the unmarked police car as it sped from the city centre towards Ringsend. Although the siren was blaring for most of the journey, she did her best to keep focused.

On reaching the outskirts of Ringsend, she got the call from O’Connor.

‘Kate, it looks like Alister Becon is down. McKay is being questioned by Quigley and Patterson at Harcourt Street. We have a male and a female in the attic space, presumably Dominic Hamilton and Clodagh McKay. The sharp-shooters are resuming a position inside the house, hopefully with a decent view of Hamilton.’

‘How was Becon killed?’

‘Stabbed. Same MO as the others, so we know our man is armed with a knife. We’re not sure of what else. The sharp-shooters reported hearing a male and female voice inside.’

‘Assuming it’s Clodagh and Dominic Hamilton, considering what Valerie Hamilton said about her husband’s state of mind, and what we already know about the killings, he may be at the point of advanced psychosis.’

‘Anne Holt will be doing the negotiations. She’s here already with the rest of the ERU. Once Maloney gets the all-clear from the sharp-shooter inside the house, we’ll be good to go.’

‘How long have you been there, O’Connor?’

‘Here in Sandymount?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Three-quarters of an hour. What are you getting at?’

‘If he hasn’t killed Clodagh yet, it tells us something. Even in a
heightened level of psychosis, moods can swing back and forth, one side of the brain looking to dominate. But if he was clear about wanting Clodagh dead, she would be dead by now. Something’s stopping him. He may not even be aware of it but he’s looking for something.’

‘Most hostage-takers usually are, Kate. At the basic level, it’s all a form of bloody bargaining.’

‘This isn’t your standard hostage situation, but no action means something, and that is what we have to work on.’

Kate could see the barriers that closed off Strand Road. Within moments she would be in the thick of it. ‘We’re just there, O’Connor. I’ll see you shortly.’

Kate met Anne Holt and Maloney upstairs at number 75, the adjoining house. The first thing that surprised her was how young Anne Holt was – but she soon realised the young woman beneath the anti-ballistic vest was well able for the job in hand.

‘I understand we could be dealing with someone suffering from psychosis.’

‘That’s correct, Anne. His mental state would be both desperate and volatile.’

‘Have you ever been in a hostage situation before, Kate?’

‘Not from this standpoint, no.’ Kate didn’t care to elaborate, and Anne Holt didn’t press her on it.

‘Kate, all hostage situations are desperate acts. It’s the last chance for the taker to gain power. I don’t know the exact reasons why Dominic Hamilton is holding his sister, but his objective is important, even if he is psychotic. Once he knows we’re here, and he continues with the hostage situation, he will also know that one of the possible outcomes is his own death. He knows he’s taking a huge risk, but he feels that he has no choice. In many ways, he’s already helpless.’