The Doll's House (8 page)

I turned away from the alley, leaving the jerked-off Stevie McDaid behind me, knowing I had a long path ahead. That wouldn’t include good old Stevie. For now, at least.

When Kate got back to the apartment after her run, she put on Sky News, deciding to grab a sandwich before Charlie came home. In less than fifteen minutes the first full police briefing would be under way in Harcourt Street. Lynch had agreed to give her an update afterwards.

Each bulletin posted on Sky News glossed the reports as if they were offering something new about the murder. Various psychologists had been lined up and interviewed about the downside of celebrity culture – subjecting your professional and personal life to public consumption. The merits, or otherwise, of reality television, where ordinary people hung out their dirty linen in public for their fifteen minutes of fame, were well thrashed out on account of Keith Jenkins being the latest addition to the fallen stars.

Kate wondered how many people, including Imogen Willis, looked up to these celebrities, aspiring to copy them, not for any particular skill but for their status. The world might think they knew Keith Jenkins, but his television persona was most likely very different from reality.

Keith Jenkins may have been known to many, but behind the makeup and the flashy lifestyle there was simply a man. Even if this killing was random, the psychological inner map of Keith Jenkins and the killer was part of the reason why their paths had crossed. The voice inside the killer’s head, formed through life experience, was the route to his identity, and the map that had led him to the murder of another.

There was no doubting, even in the early hours of the morning,
that it was an open and exposed location. Why had the killer driven there? Why had he chosen drowning over stabbing, and why had he risked killing in the open with no attempt to hide his identity?

Monica Bramble from Sky News began interviewing ex-contributors to Keith Jenkins’s television show. According to his fans, Keith Jenkins made them feel he was their friend, a good mate to have in your corner. Of course, not everyone got the same treatment. Some participants in
Real People, Real Lives
received the sharp end of Keith Jenkins’s tongue. Monica Bramble might not be interviewing those participants on live television, but Kate was fairly sure the detectives investigating the murder would.

Walking back along the strand, I feel like a thief. I have my mum’s old papers and photographs hidden in my bag. If she was alive, I wouldn’t have dared take them. I had planned on removing just one photograph, the one with Dominic and me standing on the strand, with the twin red-and-white chimneys of Sandymount behind us. In the photograph, our arms are wrapped around each other, me with my wild ginger hair blowing across my face, him wearing a pair of flashy black sunglasses. I was five, and he was ten. We both look happy.

I pass row after row of houses overlooking the sea. When I was younger, if the tide was out, I used to look back at them in the distance. Their different-coloured doors reminded me of toy houses. Even now, all these years on, there is something about the sound of water that conjures up my father. If I try hard enough, I can imagine his voice floating in the rhythm of the waves, his words soft, calling me, saying things will be okay. During my eight weeks of rehab at Rosses Bay, I thought about a great many things, including how everything changed once he was gone.

At the house, the drawer in my mother’s dressing table had resisted when I first tried to pull it open. I needed to give it a good tug. It was filled with papers, chequebook stubs and old bills. The contents, unlike the rest of the house, were a mishmash of everything – an old television licence, bills, bank statements, and a diary from 1967, the year Dominic was born. It was full of handwritten notes about childhood injections, when both of us had measles and other illnesses. I took the diary with their marriage certificate, Dad’s death certificate and a clutter of old photographs stuffed into a large brown
envelope, including the one with me and Dominic on the strand. I don’t recognise that little girl in the photograph. She doesn’t seem real to me, but real or not, I’m not ready to let her go just yet.

That was another thing I realised in rehab. For all the parts of my childhood that I can remember, huge chunks are completely lost to me, gaping black holes, especially around Dad’s death, and also Emmaline’s. I’m ashamed of being jealous of her. She was only a baby. Five days old. Cot deaths are tragic. I can’t imagine losing Ruby. I was seven when Emmaline died, shortly before Dad, but I remember little of it. Sometimes it feels like things were much easier when I was drinking. At least back then I could choose to opt out for a while.

As I round the corner onto our road, I see Martin’s car pulling into his side of the double garage, my own car permanently parked in the other. The thought of facing him concentrates my mind. Martin is so bloody moody these days. He is another part of my life that I need to work out.

I turn the key in the front door, knowing I don’t want to face him. Suddenly I feel drained again. Perhaps he won’t stay long. Grab a bite of lunch and go. The house seems so quiet since Ruby left for college. At first I worried about her, she being only seventeen. She seemed far too young to be away from home. Yet at that age I’d thought I could change the world. I worry about her more than Martin does. I know the trouble she can get herself into.

We have lunch together, Martin and I. Not that ‘together’ exactly covers it. He doesn’t mention my trip to Mum’s house last night, or this morning, and neither do I. We’re like mechanical clones that happen to live together. As I clear away lunch dishes, he says, ‘I never checked the postbox last night.’

‘Really,’ I say. I couldn’t care less.

He is still cool with me when he returns to the kitchen, putting the
letters into his briefcase. Then, for no good reason, his mood changes, as if he’s a different person. He kisses my cheek and says, ‘All I want for you, Clodagh, is the best, and that you’re safe.’ He has been keeping the mail from me lately. I can’t even be trusted with that. Right now I’m not bothered what game he’s playing. I ignore his words and the kiss.

As Martin closes the front door behind him, I wonder if seeing Gerard Hayden will give me the answers I need. I’m not sure I can trust anyone now. At times, I don’t even trust myself. Last night, walking back along the strand, I hadn’t felt safe. Listening to the tide coming in, I had a sense of foreboding, convinced someone was following me. I looked behind me briefly. He reminded me of a guy I used to know. I kept walking but faster until, thankfully, I couldn’t hear him any more.

I pull the piece of paper with Gerard Hayden’s address out of my purse, checking it again. As if looking at it will make some kind of difference. There is no denying I feel apprehensive. But I’m not running away. As I told Val, I’m done with that.

O’Connor mulled over his meeting with Kate as he approached Harcourt Street station. He hadn’t liked her reference to his late nights. The last thing he needed was Kate putting him under some kind of emotional microscope. Nor did he want to allow any personal feelings towards her to get in the way. Professional and personal lives shouldn’t cross. He had made that mistake a few months back, and he had no plans to speed down that road again. It made sense to bring Kate into the investigation, but any ideas he might have about their relationship going anywhere were off limits. She was married for one thing.

Passing the corner shop, he was relieved that, with the newspapers going to print before the killing the previous night, Keith Jenkins’s face wasn’t plastered all over them. O’Connor had enough painkillers in him to ease the tension of a horse but, headache or no headache, he loved this point in an investigation. The pace of information flooding in, facts, rumours, data from witnesses, possible sightings, the team moving at top speed to find out everything and anything people might know about the victim and how they managed to end up dead: each segment was raw, fresh and full of potential.

Detectives Quigley and Patterson had pulled in a pal called Johnny Keegan. They had already set up shop in one of the interview rooms at the back, the video cameras hanging high in the corners of the room, recording every word, movement and change of expression. One of the lads would be sitting opposite Keegan, the other moving around. Keegan might keep them company for a while, but he wouldn’t be the only invited guest. Plenty would follow in his footsteps.

Pushing open the double doors to the side of the building, O’Connor waved to the two uniformed officers stationed outside. Both wore their full Garda apparel, including luminous yellow-striped jackets and navy cloth hats. Striding through the corridors of Harcourt Street, the closer O’Connor got to the incident room, the more he felt he was being sucked into the centre of things. In perfect synchronicity, O’Connor and Chief Superintendent Mick Butler met outside the door.

Butler had only a couple of months to go in the force. After fewer than half a dozen meetings with pension advisers and accountants, he’d made the decision to take the current early-retirement package, before those cowboys of politicians in Leinster House decided to cut his well-deserved salary even more. O’Connor heard Butler had set himself up with some media contacts. Rumour ran that he had a nice juicy income organised with one of the Irish tabloids for post-retirement. But there were two things O’Connor was sure of. Even with Butler’s imminent retirement, he would maintain his status, and with an unsolved murder from ten years ago still blighting his glorious career, he wasn’t about to add a second. That would be considered sloppy. The killer of Keith Jenkins was the highest thing on Butler’s agenda right now, so O’Connor and everyone else had better deliver.

‘O’Connor, fill me in on what’s happening.’

‘Quigley and Patterson have pulled in a Johnny Keegan, an ex-participant in Jenkins’s TV show. The two of them have history.’

‘What about the autopsy?’

‘Morrison will begin it this afternoon. That’s my next destination after here. Hopefully we’ll have a full update from the guys on the CCTV footage later as well. The briefing will cover whatever witness statements we have in so far, but I understand there’s a canary at the club in Kildare Street. It’s always good to have a talker.’

‘Go on.’

‘Mick French has been allocated as family liaison officer. He’s out in Malahide now.’

‘He’ll need help. The fucking media will be everywhere on this one.’

O’Connor didn’t mention Butler’s prospective change of career. ‘I’ve put two crews operating around the clock at the victim’s residence.’

‘Matthews is the bookman on this one.’

‘Good choice.’ When it came to interactions in the incident room, the right bookman, O’Connor knew, was critical. He was the one person who saw everything worth seeing, and in allocating tasks, and shifting through material, could turn an investigation.

‘Your approval as the senior investigation officer pleases me,’ Butler’s tone loaded with sarcasm, ‘so make sure you keep it that way.’

‘I’ve every intention of it.’ O’Connor smiled at the puffed red face of his superior. Butler would want to watch that weight of his when he retired, or his heart, if it existed, might decide to stop beating.

‘Anything else, O’Connor, before we go in?’

‘We have a hotel receipt.’

‘Brilliant. I can’t wait to hear all about it.’ And with that he pushed open the incident-room door.

All heads turned as the men walked towards the top table, and the sound of multiple voices lowered, as if the room had its own audio control button.

The chief superintendent cleared his throat, then bellowed, ‘I’ll let you kick start the proceedings, Matthews. Let’s hear what everyone has to say.’

Sitting beside Chief Superintendent Butler, Matthews’s frame looked like a matchstick. His strong Cork accent was very much still in place despite more than thirty years in Dublin. It had a harsh, no-nonsense sound to it.

‘I see you there at the back, Quigley. Is the interview over? Is Mr Keegan talking?’

‘Patterson’s getting his girlfriend Suzanne Clarke in for a chat. Keegan’s adamant he was with her all night.’

‘And your take?’

‘There’s a history of domestic abuse there. She’ll say whatever he wants her to say. We’ll put the squeeze on both of them. Chances are she’ll be the first to crack.’

Matthews, checking the next job number in the file, turned to O’Connor sitting directly to the left of Butler. ‘O’Connor, fill us in on Morrison.’

‘Post-autopsy, he’s hoping tests will confirm substantial amounts of liquid in the lungs. If the heart was still beating when Jenkins was plunged into the water, then the pathology reports should confirm diatoms travelling from the bloodstream into the kidneys, brain, and perhaps even the bone marrow.’

Butler interrupted, ‘If Jenkins has some of the killer on him, under his fingernails or anywhere else, O’Connor, tell Morrison we need that information ASAP.’