Too Close to Breathe Page 6

  She takes a sip. “Thank you. The air’s dry in here.” She’s back on track. “Peter has had a few other problems.”

  “Oh?”

  “They’re a bit personal and he’ll be angry for me saying, but when you said you had to take the laptop, I thought I’d tell you so you wouldn’t get the wrong idea. He’s just a man. They’re all at it.” She stops, remembers who she’s talking to, then: “Sorry.”

  Baz spreads his hands. “No offense.”

  “The last time I was there—must be a good six months or so ago—he was in the kitchen making a cup of tea and I saw his hand-computer thingy, the tablet, on the side. I was considering getting one so I picked it up, and I don’t know what I touched, but the screen filled with this”—she recoils as if confronted with the image again—“filth, is all I can call it. Porn.”

  “You didn’t talk to him about it?”

  Her eyes widen. Round. Horrified. “Would you? He’s my brother. No, no. I put the tablet yoke back and that was that. Never mentioned it. Just want to vouch for him, though, in case it puts him in a bad light. He’s as straight as an arrow in every other way and the gentlest of souls. Peter wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “And you think that Mrs. Costello was seeing someone else?”

  She makes a snorting noise. “No! I’m not sure another man would’ve tolerated her snootiness. No. Peter. Peter is seeing someone else. He says it’s nothing serious, but I can tell he’s smitten. Maybe now he’s free of that . . .” She pauses, then quickly blesses herself. “I guess one shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, should they?”

  “Have you met his new partner?” He’s being charitable again. “Partner,” not “lover” or “mistress.” Words can win another’s trust in many ways.

  “No. And she’s not that new. It’s been going on quite a while. I’ve no idea why he hasn’t moved in with her and sought a separation from Eleanor, but as I said, she was controlling. I was never happy with the power she held over him. Oh, she came across all meek and demure, but I can tell an actress at work. Sure haven’t I had to do enough of it over the years.”

  Baz raises his eyebrows at her and it’s enough to set her off again. “You don’t stay married next to thirty years, Detective, by telling the truth, let me say that.” She rocks back in her chair again, pleased with herself. “Amy. That was it. He mentions her a lot. Don’t know a last name now.”

  “Do you think he might be with her now?”

  She laughs. “I hope so.”

  CHAPTER 6

  THE BONSAI IS already suffering. Eleven days since I brought it home. Twelve days since Eleanor Costello’s death. Mrs. Fagan’s interview was at once useful and useless. We have been unable to trace the history on the laptop or discover who his lover might be. There is still no sign of Costello; he has disappeared like a stone dropped in the ocean.

  I have positioned the tree beneath the window. It has the best of Dublin beaming through the pane at it. It looks like it may well die on me. I stare down at it, armed with a glass of Rioja and a cheese biscuit.

  The ambers and yellows of Dublin’s nightlife play on the windowpane. Silver fog rolls up off the Liffey and into the chill city, a suitable backdrop for the night: Halloween. A few sirens sound off in the maze of streets below. Fireworks screech and pop in the distant damp sky; backyard fireworks that are launched by the light of family bonfires, children hidden behind plastic ghoulish masks. Trick or treat.

  There are clippers on the floor at my feet, a tiny spool of soft thin wire, and a sachet of plant food. They’ve not moved since I brought the tree home.

  Sighing, I put the glass down and collect the plant from the window. I thumb through the not insubstantial hardback I’ve bought on bonsai care. There is one chapter on maintenance. I should’ve checked the contents before buying it. It shows how to bind the tree, steer its growth. It talks of deciduous and evergreen.

  I check the triangular label that’s wedged into the soil at the foot of the plant. Evergreen. Of course it is—we’re almost in November, and the foliage is still high. Ligustrum bonsai: full name. They are not unlike everyday trees, I’m surprised to learn. They’re not dwarflike miniatures but are created by manipulating growth, pruning, so that they become shrunken versions of their optimum selves. On one hand, it feels wrong to restrict a natural thing’s growth, to bind it and cut into its leaves so that its shape may be admired for neatness. On the other, I’m entranced by the aesthetics of it all.

  The image in the book shows how my tree could look. I compare the two: Mine is unchecked, wild, unsculpted. Taking up the copper wire, I clip off a length. I lean back from the tree, take in its height, its shape; then, not really sure what I’m doing, wind the wire around a branch. Once the branch is secure, I bend, move the narrow wood, encourage, coax, persuade nature to work with me.

  Afterward, I feel surprisingly satisfied, calm, in control. I fill a small jug with water, mix in the sachet of plant food, and tip it into the base of the pot. There. The tree already seems happier. I replace it on the windowsill, throw the remaining wine down the sink, and head for bed. It’s only nine, but my body is heavy with exhaustion and sleep is tugging at my limbs.

  My eyes have barely closed on the darkness when my phone rings. It’s Clancy.

  “You up?”

  “Of course I’m up.”

  “What’s new!” He sighs. “Listen, there’s another body to look at. I’m not able to get there. At a blasted anniversary do and I’ve had a few too many. Pretty grisly this one, from the sounds of it. Take an empty stomach.”

  I push my legs out of the bed. “Right.”

  “And Frankie?”

  “Yes?”

  “It’s quite close to your folks’.”

  It takes a moment for this to sink in, and when it does it feels as if an invisible hand is gripping my throat.

  * * *

  —

  THE FIRE IS still smoldering, even though it’s sitting in a pool of water. A pool that probably contains precious evidence and is now trickling away into the undergrowth, seeping into the warm earth, and feeding the scorched grass. The man responsible for the bonfire is apologizing for drowning the area so assiduously.

  He had not reckoned on a murder scene, although what the fuck came to his mind when he saw that there was a body in the middle of his bonfire I don’t know. I can understand where his instinct came from—he had thought only to try to save whatever or whoever was burning within—but it’s clear that whoever is in the midst of the broken-down bonfire is dead.

  The man, Mr. Quinn, grabs my hand, shakes it hard. I know his face as well as I know that beyond the whispering grass that brushes my legs is the very sand where Ireland’s last high king defeated the Vikings. I know, in the winter, flocks of oystercatchers pick their way through cockles thrown up by the waters of Dublin Bay. I know, when the tide is out, at the southern end of the promenade there’s a good chance of spotting the blackened wreck of the Windrise sinking for eternity in the brown sands. Clontarf. Home. My child self runs out from the darkness, into the summers of yesterday, tumbling, screeching toward the rolling bay. I hear her laughter fade into the darkness, fade to the sting of nostalgia.

  “Frankie, how’ve you been, love? I thought it might be you.” Mr. Quinn’s face is grim.

  I know every stretch of this coastline, every leaning tree and hedgerow that stands up against the might of wind tearing in from across the Irish Sea. I know Mr. Quinn is seeing the wobbling, sensitive child who cried so hard when her brother pinched her arm that she threw up.

  Mr. Quinn works at Keegan’s Garage in our little neighborhood. A grease monkey. He can’t be more than fifty-five, but he’s worked at the local garage since he was pimple-faced and sweaty-palmed. He’s no family, not many friends apart from the Keegans, who have tacked him onto their life like a shadow; he’s always there, always trailing somewh
ere behind.

  His hands have kept my folks’ old banger on the road for two decades. Even above the smell of the doused fire, I pick up the sour, metallic scent of oil that blackens the nails on his hands.

  I remember those hands. One summer day I found a tiny brown rabbit alone along the side of the road. It sat quivering on the curbside outside Keegan’s. I crept closer, saw its eyes were red and swollen. It didn’t move, frozen with pain, ears flat on its back. Its rib cage flickered thinly beneath brown fur. I thought it had been struck by a car and, unwilling to leave it alone, called out to the nearest adult. Tom Quinn was bent over the bonnet of a van, but he emerged from under the hood, dirty-faced and smiling.

  “You all right there, Frankie?” he shouted.

  From my crouched position, I waved him over. At my side, he understood quick enough what the emergency was.

  “He’s got the myxi, love,” he said.

  In one swift movement he scooped the baby rabbit up. He didn’t see that I followed him back to the garage, unwilling to be separated from my new charge, already imagining the rabbit well and deciding the best place in my room for it to sleep. I had no idea then what Tom was about.

  If I close my eyes, the sound of the animal’s screech still haunts me. My hands, too late, flew to my ears. The sound was brief, but the echo bounded about my head for the rest of the day, turning me inside out with fear. After, the rabbit dangling from his hand, he dropped its supple wasted body in the bin outside, and as he returned, he squeezed my shoulder.

  “You saved her from a lot of suffering. Well done.” Even at that young age I could tell he was speaking more to himself than to me. Solutions don’t always greet us in the shape we imagine, but no matter the shape, they solve a problem.

  The crowds must have been here for the bonfire, but now I can see more making their way down the promenade to join the queue of rubberneckers. My parents could very well be somewhere among the masses.

  In the background, the sea is rolling on. The sound of waves turning on the shore, an eerie reminder that whatever heinous thing we discover here, not one ripple of the sea will be affected. It’s humbling and oddly comforting. No matter how you’ve fucked up, your existence makes not a blind bit of difference to Mother Nature. And thank fuck for that.

  Tom Quinn leads me toward the scene.

  “It was a shocking sight, I tell you,” he says. “I’d the parents take the childer away before they realized what they were seeing, but I can’t promise ye that some of them didn’t get an eyeful. Shocking. Just shocking.”

  The bonfire is an annual Halloween event for the town. Even though bonfires have been illegal in the Dublin area for years, in Clontarf the tradition rolls on and the Gardaí cast a blind eye. Local children build it on the wide stretch of sandbank sheltered by Bull Island. I remember. The gathering of anything that might burn begins sometime in the middle of October. Businesses and neighbors contribute spare tires, fallen bracken, trees, pallets. It’s all dragged toward the site, ready for Halloween night. The Keegans have always taken ownership of the event, and Tom, their trusted friend and colleague, lights the tinder at eight p.m., manning the fire until the last glittering ember goes cold.

  “There was a bit of a heavy shower yesterday evening, and I reckoned on the stack being a bit damp, so I’d used a bit of petrol to get it started.” He shakes his head, visibly paling. “I didn’t know. I mean, I couldn’t see anything in the stack. Now, though, you know yourself, there were pallets and the like thrown in and it was pretty dense all right. By the time I came up here this evening, sure, the night was already set in.”

  I put my hand out, squeeze his shoulder, a shadow of his actions years ago. “Don’t upset yourself, Mr. Quinn. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “Who’d do such a thing? People these days, there’s some odd ones about. She must’ve been dead, though—surely? Whoever it is.”

  His face is pleading. He wants reassurance.

  “She?” I ask. The sound of the dying rabbit echoes in my head.

  He rubs a hand over his face. “It’s often women, isn’t it?”

  I lift my eyes, try to read something other than confusion in his gaze. “Sometimes,” I answer.

  I lift the ribbon of crime-scene tape, duck beneath it, and wait for him to follow.

  “How long after you lit the fire did it take to get to full blaze?”

  “Well, ’cos of the petrol, now, not long. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes. There was a fierce northeasterly wind come across the bay and it took the flame to the side, like. That was the only reason I got sight of the body.”

  I turn, face into the wind, and walk toward the remains of the fire. The smell of burning flesh hits me in patches on the salty seaweed air.

  A young uniformed officer greets me. I can see he’s struggling with keeping his hand from his face. He wants to block the stench of charred flesh entering his nose. But professionalism or fear stops him.

  “They’re ready now, Chief.”

  Paramedics are standing, redundant, nearby.

  “Should we send the ambulance on?” the officer asks. “I guess the city’s van is on the way.”

  “No. The ambulance will do,” I reply.

  Scenes of crime officers move slowly over the area, collecting, gathering up the scene on film, in bags, on paper. Massive spotlights have been erected around the scene, and I spot Keith Hickey putting up a screen at the back end of the bonfire, but the wind is getting the better of him and the plastic flaps about unchecked.

  I give Tom another smile, then turn my back on him. I know he’ll creep forward. Curiosity or morbid fascination, whatever the fuck makes people want to stare at death, I don’t know, but today that desire is playing on my side. I can’t ask him to look, but I want him to see. There is little more telling than watching potential suspects view the victim. Their reaction can be enough to sway entire cases. In my view, there is no better test of guilt.

  A white sheeting is laid down on the grass. I take out a tissue and press it over my mouth. The smell would not be so galling were it not for the knowledge that it’s human flesh I’m inhaling, microscopic particles of the deceased clinging to the inside of my nostrils, lodging in my throat. I swallow.

  They remove the outer layers of the bonfire, charred branches, half-burned pallets, the skeleton of an old mattress. Immediately, the forensic team are investigating, sharing thoughts with the fire department. Examining the course of the fire, the suddenness of the flames. Finally, they extricate the body. The arms are flexed in a pugilist attitude; bent at the shoulder, elbow, and wrist. Nitrogen, oxygen, human gases—the mysterious ingredients that go to make a person—expand; internal pressure, along with muscle shortening and contraction, has pulled the limbs into the defensive state.

  Along the rib cage there are long pink striations, gashes where the skin has shrunk and the underlying tissue has broken through, the subcutaneous fat becoming fuel for the flame. The hair has fizzled away. The head is flexed, chin almost to chest; more muscle shortening, or maybe an indication that the victim was dead before the fire was lit. Hope rises in my chest. It’s a cruel kind of hope, but it would be merciful for the victim to have died before burning. The feet and lower legs are blackened but relatively whole and suggest that the victim was indeed female; the shoes are present, low-heeled, probably pumps. The ankles are thin enough to wrap a hand around. The team lay the body down gently as if the remains could light off on a breeze.

  I move closer. On the wrist is a thick bracelet, partially sunken into the skin. It’s one of those charm bracelets that have become popular over the past decade. Whoever has deposited the body was not so worried about the identification of the victim. A cold shadow passes over me. Whoever did this wanted a big show. It could be the killer acting out a fantasy. I sigh. Or it could just as easily have been a convenient manner of disposal.

  I can sense
Tom behind me, stretching, craning his neck. I move a little to the side.

  The young officer approaches again. “Sorry, Chief?”

  He’s waiting for instruction.

  I nod. “Yes. Get her to Whitehall. I’ll follow as soon as—”

  There is a deep groan at my ear. Tom is shaking his head. Stepping back. His eyes are on the charm bracelet. He holds out his palm, as if he can push away what he sees. Then all of a sudden his face crumples and he rushes forward so fast that I have to grab him to stop him falling onto the body.

  “Amy! Amy! Amy! Amy!” he shouts. Over and over again. Each time getting louder.

  The young officer helps me drag him from the scene, then hurries back to direct the remains away.

  A tall, thickset man has pushed under the tape. He strides toward us, his face pale, his hands clenched. Eamon Keegan. The owner of the garage, community pillar, a constant at Sunday Mass, at the local, pint-and-chaser kind of man. His hands have worked over cars in Clontarf since before I was born.

  “Tom!” he shouts. “Who is it? Tom?”

  I turn to Tom. Keep my voice low. “Is that Amy Keegan?”

  He doesn’t have a chance to answer. Eamon Keegan has him by the shoulders. “Tom? Who is it?” He roars into Tom’s face, tries to shake the answer from him.

  I push between them.

  “We don’t know anything yet, Mr. Keegan. Please, step back behind the tape.”

  But Eamon Keegan pushes on toward his daughter and I’m a discarded thought in his wake.

  “Amy? Amy?”

  I run after him, pull at his arm. “Please, Eamon. Please, there’s nothing you can do.”

  Whether it’s fear, denial, or both, Eamon Keegan stops and I stand weakly beside him, a pathetic grip on his arm. The team pull a sheet over her body, and in a few swift moves they lower her onto the stretcher.

  Eamon falls to his knees on the damp sand.