The Priest (45 page)

Slowly the psychiatrist led a smiling Jesica on from friends to dancing, to dancing with friends in nightclubs, to dancing
with boys, and then to dancing in Dublin on the night in question. Again Mulcahy noted how Mendizabal never said anything
jarring like ‘the night of the attack’ or even ‘that night’, or anything that might foreshadow what had happened to Jesica
later. As a result, he felt he could see her living in the moment as she described the club, the lights, the music and the
grin of satisfaction reproduced on her lips when she started to describe how one boy, handsome and blond ‘like David Beck-ham’,
had approached her so confidently and swept her away from her friends.

Mulcahy only knew Patrick Scully from the video grabs
taken from the GaGa Club cameras but he was struck by the immediacy and accuracy of Jesica’s description. He wondered if people
under hypnosis were always so transparent. Although Scully was no longer a suspect, he felt they would never have pursued
him at all if they could have heard this response from Jesica earlier. But that was now academic: no point in dwelling on
opportunities missed. Not when Jesica was now talking about how happy she’d been when Scully suggested he walk her home, and
how she had left the club on a high. But it wasn’t long before she started feeling uncomfortable, when, leaning against a
wall near the shopping centre in Stillorgan, he’d started putting his hands on her and she’d liked it at first, even when
he put his hands down
there
, but then his hand became rougher and she didn’t want him to do that, and she told him not to, but he tried it again and
she pushed him away and he became angry.

Again Mulcahy noticed a distinct change in Jesica’s facial expressions, the muscles dancing on her face. Dr Mendizabal caught
his eye and pointed to the index finger on Jesica’s right hand, which was wavering now, hovering just above the level of its
fellows. Mulcahy raised an eyebrow but the psychiatrist shook her head, indicating with the flat of her hand that everything
was okay. He realised that she was using the finger like a needle-gauge to monitor Jesica’s anxiety level.

That anxiety stayed fairly stable as the girl described how Scully had finally stormed off, then it slackened as righteous
anger and disappointment took over. She described then
how she’d looked for a taxi. Mulcahy’s hopes flared up then faded as she said she couldn’t see one and had decided to walk
on. And so Jesica continued, crossing road junctions, cursing Scully, passing the video hire shop and the 7-Eleven, and the
walls and gates of what Mulcahy realised was Mount Anville primary school. Suddenly he saw her body stiffen, muscles shifting
like riptides across her face now, in fear or pain, and her index finger was rigidly pointing up again, higher than before.

‘No… no!’ she moaned, her voice cracking, terrified.

Knowing this had to be the result of her first contact with her attacker, Mulcahy looked over at Mendizabal, who was herself
looking concerned. The psychiatrist told Jesica to relax, to be calm, that nothing could hurt her here and now, and the girl
responded, calming slightly. Then she told her to not be afraid but to look around her, to describe what she was seeing and
feeling. Jesica began to speak again. Beyond the school, a car had passed and pulled in up ahead. Mulcahy was already feeling
the tension, but then Jesica paused, her chin jutting out a little, as if she were looking again, harder, and then said: ‘No,
not a car, a van.’

‘What colour van is it?’ Mulcahy asked, not really expecting an answer, but he got one.

‘White,’ the girl said.

‘You’re sure?’

Yes, she nodded emphatically, white with black windows at the back, the streetlights from across the road burning orange reflections
in them.

Mulcahy felt a kind of relief run through him, knowing this pushed things back towards Byrne, and, thinking of her earlier
clarity, he wondered if she might be able to come up with something more specific, a model name or plate number.

‘Can you see any writing on the van, on the back or the sides?’

‘No,’ she said definitely. ‘There is a sign on the roof, across the top, but it’s too dark to read.’

All Mulcahy’s relief drained away, instantly replaced by puzzlement. Byrne’s van had nothing on the roof. But something else
in him was shifting, clawing at recollection until, in a flash of memory so powerful it was all but physical, he felt himself
being pulled back from danger by Martinez at the roadside in the airport again. That taxi! Why hadn’t he thought of it before?
An MPV, a taxi
van
. What if Rinn had his fake taxi sign on a people carrier? He desperately tried to recall the vehicle mentioned in Rinn’s
traffic offence, but it wouldn’t come. He was about to jump in and ask Jesica more about the sign but Mendizabal signalled
him to wait, pointing at the girl’s eyes which were now moving round like marbles under the tightly closed lids.

Suddenly, Jesica snapped her head back and her shoulders raised a couple of inches off the sofa, as if she had been struck
in the face.

‘He hit me, he hit me,’ she gasped, the words so familiar to Mulcahy from her earlier interview. Her bottom lip was
quivering and tears slipped from beneath her eyelids. Still Mendizabal did not intervene. Instead, calmly and steadily, she
told Jesica to relax again, to take herself out of the scene, to rise above it and look down on it. The girl nodded and immediately
went on.

‘He is hitting me,’ Jesica said again, her voice much more distant now. ‘It’s dark, he put something over my head, and it
smells so much I want to choke. I can’t breathe because he’s hitting me, again and again.’

Mulcahy’s heart went out to Jesica as he listened to her describe falling over in the darkness, the sharp pain in her legs
and the back of her head when she hit the floor of the van as she was pushed inside. He remembered now what she had said,
in the hospital room, about the attacker throwing something over her. It must have been to cover her face, to prevent her
from seeing him properly. But that couldn’t be right. She’d said he’d made the sign of the cross.
Like a priest
. It had been so vivid, so visual. She must have
seen
him.

‘The sign of the cross, Jesica,’ Mulcahy whispered. ‘You said he made the—’

He was about to ask the question when Dr Mendizabal shot a hand in front of his face, shooting him a glare full of concern.
She pointed to the girl’s middle finger: it was rising and falling slowly.

‘It’s stopped,’ the girl said, an echo of the terror she was reliving trembling in her voice. ‘I hear nothing but the pain
in my head. Am I dead? No, I hear him moving, crawling
around me, like a snake, like a… aaaah.’ Breath rushed from Jesica like she’d been physically punched again and her hands
leaped to her neck as if she were being strangled. ‘No, no, Mama, no don’t let him hurt me…’

Mulcahy had to look away. He couldn’t bear to see the pain and fear playing out on her face, all nerves and tics and terror
as she relived her struggle, told how the chain around her neck gave way, snapped, and she could breathe again, great whooping
gulps of air filling her starved lungs. And how she must have passed out for a moment then, because all she could describe
was becoming aware, distantly, of violation, of crude fingers parting her thighs, cutting her clothes off, and how she began
to struggle again, harder, so hard that the sack over her face slipped and…

Mulcahy’s gaze snapped back to Jesica’s face in an instant, expectation rising, checking from the corner of his eye that Dr
Mendizabal wasn’t going to stop her now.

‘He is leaning over me, and I can breathe again, feel the air on my face, and hear again… yes, I can hear the words on his
lips are prayers. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name…” He is blessing himself, and staring down at me, and
making the sign of the cross… like a priest. And he’s holding a burning sword in his hands and it is red with fire, there’s
so much heat, and he is praying over me, praying and touching me with the cro…’The girl gasped, her body rigid, snapping up
from the waist for just a second, like a clasp-knife buckling, and she let out a low and terrible moan.

He saw the concern on the psychiatrist’s face, heard her try to calm the girl and ask her if she wanted to come back, telling
her she could come back any time if it got too much. And Mulcahy just couldn’t let that happen, not now, when they were so
close.

‘Tell us about his face, Jesica. Tell us about the priest’s face,’ he pleaded.

He saw a flash of panic cross the psychiatrist’s features, followed by anger. She glared at him again, warning him to stop.
But she didn’t interrupt, because Jesica, brave Jesica, had already begun to answer.

‘No priest,’ she gasped, through teeth clenched in fearful realisation, confusion and fear contorting the muscles on her face,
her body twitching like it was possessed. ‘A devil,’ she gasped, as if she’d wrenched something up from her very soul. ‘A
devil’s face, thin and red, and his eyes are burning fire, and the flames of hell are climbing up around him, on his face,
on his skin. Burning!’

Jesica’s entire body was shuddering with fear now, and Dr Mendizabal was slashing the air with her hands, warning Mulcahy
not to say another word.

‘Enough,’ she said. ‘That’s enough, Jesica, that’s good, very good. Now relax again, good girl, you have nothing to fear.
Come away from that place, relax, take a deep breath… and relax.’

When the psychiatrist looked across at Mulcahy again, it wasn’t with anger but relief, something he now felt washing over
himself in a great wave as he realised what it was the
girl had said. Something must have changed in him, in his expression, because Dr Mendizabal was now quizzing him with her
eyes, as if to say:
Are you alright?

‘One more question?’ he mouthed at her. ‘An easy one, I promise. The last.’

She mouthed the words ‘easy’ back at him, a sternness in her gaze, and he nodded again.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘Jesica, you’re doing so well, so amazingly well. The inspector has just one more question for you, then
it will be time to come back to us.’

The girl nodded imperceptibly, still breathing hard but in every other respect apparently calm again.

‘Jesica,’ he said, as gently as he could, ‘those flames you saw climbing up this man, this devil, tell me, were they on his
face or were they only on his neck?’

Mulcahy already knew the answer. But he wanted to hear it from Jesica’s lips. So that later he could tell her honestly that
it was her, and only her, who had put beyond doubt who it was that had caused her so much pain.

He didn’t notice that he was actually shaking with emotion until he left the room and saw Martinez and Salazar waiting in
the anteroom outside. Salazar creaked to his feet, looking anxiously towards the door behind Mulcahy rather than at him.

‘How is she, Inspector? Is my daughter alright?’

‘Yes, Jesica is fine. Dr Mendizabal is helping her settle again.’

Salazar exhaled a heavy sigh of relief, so much so he seemed to deflate physically. ‘And did you gain any useful information?’

Mulcahy breathed out hard himself, trying to get a grip on what he’d discovered, knowing he’d have to be discreet if he was
going to be able to put it to good use.

‘Your daughter was very courageous, Señor Salazar, and you should be proud of her. I think we now have a partial description,
but the event was, clearly, so very traumatic…’ He broke off, unsure of how much more he should say.

‘Does it match the suspect you have in custody?’

‘That’s hard to say, sir, as I have not met the man,’ Mulcahy said, side-stepping the question as best he could. ‘I’ll pass
the information on to my colleagues, and they will take it forward. Perhaps you would like to go in to your daughter now,
as she was asking for you.’

Salazar grunted and made straight for the door. Mulcahy was relieved not to have to explain further. He fished his mobile
out of his pocket and turned it on. It beeped immediately. A voice message left for him: Siobhan, going nineteen to the dozen,
the whump and rush of Dublin traffic in the background.

‘Jesus, Mulcahy, what a bloody day for you to be out of reach. Why haven’t you called me back? Didn’t you get my text? Look,
it looks like another girl was snatched last night, right in the city centre, just up from the Twentyone Club on D’Olier Street.
Same MO, everything – and all Brogan and Lonergan will do is tell me to go stuff myself,
that it’s an unrelated enquiry. I really need you to get in touch with them and tell them to take this seriously. There could
be another girl’s life at risk here, and they’re just pissing about. Call me back, will you? Soon!’

Mulcahy clicked off and looked around him, the grandeur of his surroundings beginning to feel a bit surreal. What influence
could she imagine he still had over Brogan, or Lonergan who he’d never even met? Who was to say this new disappearance was
in any way connected? And what the hell could he do from Madrid? But the thought of another young woman going through what
Jesica had just described was simply too horrible to be ignored. And he knew that now it came down to it he was just faffing
about, putting himself before the safety of a missing kid. Even if that was only a possibility.

He picked the phone up and dialled Brogan’s number again, expecting to go straight through to voicemail as usual. Amazingly,
she answered within two rings.

‘I just heard another girl’s been taken,’ he said.

‘For fuck’s sake, Mulcahy.’ Brogan cursed beneath her breath. Like she thought she was dealing with a half-wit. ‘Look, forget
about that, will you? Some drunk says he saw a girl being dragged into a van in D’Olier Street. Someone else says it was a
taxi. That’s it. End of story. No body’s been dumped, no kid has turned up laced with crosses. Not even a missing person’s
report. It’s a non-event that’s being whipped up into a story by the press – and especially your pal Fallon.’

‘Maybe this girl just hasn’t been found yet,’ Mulcahy objected. ‘He hid the last one pretty carefully, didn’t he?’