THE NEXT MORNING I opened my eyes just as my phone beeped on the bedside locker. Sleepily, I reached out to pick it up, knocking over the alarm clock and the glass of water with one swipe. This was becoming a bit of a habit. I read the text.
Dinner again, or am I pushing my luck? Simon X.
I texted him back. Bit early, isn’t it?
The reply came a few seconds later. Play hard to get if you like! I’ll try again later.
I leaned out of bed to pick up the clock and glass from the floor and replace them on the bedside locker, then buried myself back beneath the covers, replaying the night before in my head. Miraculously, I had no hangover. We’d only had the one drink in the pub before Simon had walked me back to my gate, kissing me again on the cheek before making sure I got in safely: the perfect gentleman. Away from his company, I was annoyed with myself that I hadn’t managed to ask him about Marguerite, but I consoled myself with the fact that it looked as if I would get another opportunity.
I found myself singing in the shower; I felt lighter than I had in a while, as if a dark cloud had finally shifted. Downstairs, I fried up some French toast, made a pot of tea and settled down at the kitchen table with the previous day’s paper, knowing that my first appointment wasn’t till eleven.
An article on the front page caught my eye. It was a follow-up to the one Phyllis had been reading on Saturday about the Council row on re-zoning.
A County Council vote on re-zoning for Inishowen required by the new Donegal County Development Plan has proven to be more controversial than expected. A stalemate has arisen with regard to the re-zoning of certain areas of the peninsula, with unnamed lobbyists attempting to gain support across party lines for the status quo to remain. A final vote is expected in the next fortnight.
As I opened the paper to read further, I wondered which “areas of the peninsula” were at issue. They weren’t specified in the piece. Would the Council vote affect Gallagher and Dolan’s purchase? If Malin Head were affected, there was a possibility it could delay the issue of planning permission or even scupper it completely. That wouldn’t make them too happy.
A short taxi-ride to Glendara later, I called in to Hal’s to check on my car before I went to the office. My poor old Mini looked pretty sad with her left wing still bashed in, but Hal assured me that she would be ready by Monday and he gave me a black Golf to see me through the weekend. It was an old diesel car and it sounded like a tractor, but I was relieved to have some sort of wheels again.
I made it to the office by half past ten and checked my messages. Quinn still hadn’t called me back so I tried his office number again, but it was engaged. His mobile was engaged too. While I waited to call again, I did a quick Google search to find out more about the conduct and ethics of medical practitioners and their patients. It confirmed my feeling that medical practitioners should never form any kind of personal relationship with patients, their partners, or their close relatives.
I checked my diary; the following Tuesday was the first day of the new legal year. The Circuit Court was sitting in Letterkenny, and I had to be there for some settlement meetings at lunchtime. So I dialed Quinn’s mobile again and this time reached his voicemail. I left a message for him to meet me at the courthouse at two. I hoped my tone indicated I wasn’t giving him a choice.
I was settling into some work at my desk when Leah buzzed.
“Phone call for you, Ben. It’s that sculptor friend of Marguerite’s. He won’t tell me what he wants.”
I hadn’t yet told Leah about my dinner with Simon. “That’s okay. Put him through.”
He sounded cheerful. “Benedicta, I’m ringing to see how you feel about Antrim.”
“Antrim? Any particular reason?”
“I was wondering if you’d like to spend the weekend with me – in Antrim, in case I wasn’t making myself clear.”
“Which weekend?”
“This one.”
I felt my panic level rising. “Today is Friday.”
“I meant tomorrow night,” he said, as if that made a damn bit of difference. “I’m in Belfast tonight for an exhibition, but I could meet you tomorrow evening about halfway – there’s a little place I have in mind. If you take the ferry from Greencastle across to Magilligan Point, it should only take you an hour or so.”
I stalled. “Can I think about it?”
“Nope. I have to ring them back straight away. They have another booking waiting if I don’t get back to them in ten minutes. Go on,” he urged. “Live a little. There are two bedrooms.”
I could hear the grin in his voice. Now I was embarrassed.
I screwed my eyes shut while I gave him my answer. “Okay. But you’d better give me some more details if you expect me to actually get there.”
“Will do. I’ll send you a text.”
He rang off, leaving me feeling dizzy. Neat technique if you want something, I thought – just don’t give the other person a chance to turn you down. I should have tried that with Quinn, if he had actually answered his phone.
But I had just agreed to spend the night with a man I barely knew in an unknown location. How wise was that?
On my way to lunch I called in to the book shop to find Phyllis dressed in bright orange and green, and balanced precariously on a stepladder shelving books. She looked like an enormous piece of fruit.
I held the ladder for her, although it felt as if something considerably sturdier than me was needed to keep it steady. I scanned the shop and lowered my voice. “Are you on your own?”
The bookseller eyed me curiously from above. She nodded.
“Would you mind if I asked you some more questions about Marguerite?”
“No, of course not. Tea?”
I shook my head. “No, thanks. I don’t have long.”
She struggled down from the ladder, breathing heavily when she got to the bottom. “To be honest, I haven’t been able to get her out of my head either. What do you want to know?”
I had decided to simply come straight out with it. “Was she having an affair?”
Phyllis sat down on the footstool at the base of the ladder with a sigh. “Yes, I think so.”
“With Aidan Doherty, the County Councillor?”
“Yes. I didn’t want to say anything to you before. Anyway, I thought you might have heard the rumours.”
“Did she tell you about it?”
“God, no. But it was fairly obvious. He used to come in here a lot. In fact, this is where she met him, I think.”
“Is that why you said you blamed yourself?”
“Partly,” Phyllis said sadly.
“What happened?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. It seemed to end badly, as these things often do. They were found out, or guilt got the better of him. One or the other, I suspect. I was very conflicted about it.”
“Why?”
She sighed again. “Because Clodagh was my friend.”
My expression must have betrayed my surprise. I couldn’t imagine two more different people than Clodagh and Phyllis.
“It was a long time ago now,” Phyllis explained. “We haven’t been close in years. Poor girl. She didn’t have it easy.”
“I thought Clodagh’s background was pretty privileged?”
“Wealthy, yes. But that father of hers was a complete bastard. The famous Big Hugh O’Connor.” Phyllis spat the name out. “It was never spoken about openly, of course, but he was a misogynist – cheated on his wife constantly. Clodagh’s mother had a terrible time with him.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Sounds as if her daughter didn’t fare much better.”
“I’m sure most people would think that,” Phyllis agreed. “That Clodagh married a man like her father, that Aidan cheating on her was history repeating itself. But it didn’t seem like that to me.”
“Why not?”
“Aidan is a very different kind of man to Clodagh’s father. I’m no fan of cheaters, mind. If you don’t want to stay with someone, then have some balls and tell them, is my view. But with Aidan and Marguerite …” She broke off suddenly.
“What?” I said curiously.
She frowned. “I’ve just realized it’s rather a strange coincidence – who he decided to cheat with. Funny, I hadn’t thought of that before … that house again.”
“What house?”
“Clodagh used to go out with Seamus Tighe. The man who lived in Marguerite’s cottage before she did.”
“Really? The man who drowned?”
“Yes. Seamus was Clodagh’s boyfriend when they were teenagers. He lived in that cottage with his mother, just the two of them. God, Aidan having an affair with Marguerite seems even more like fate playing a cruel trick now. But Clodagh is a tough woman.”
“So I believe.”
“She’s had to be. Her upbringing did that to her.” Phyllis tried to explain. “She and Aidan got married when they were still teenagers. I always thought she was on the rebound, that she married him with a broken heart. Sometimes I even wondered if she ever really loved Aidan. She could be pretty cruel to him. He seemed rather diminished around her.”
“And Marguerite?”
“Marguerite seemed a diminished kind of person too, somehow. When she met Aidan it was as if they recognized something in each other. Marguerite was a different person when she became close to Aidan – more outgoing, brighter. For a while at least. They were a kind of balm for each other.”
“Do you think people knew about it – the affair?”
“Oh God, aye. There was definitely talk. Clodagh knew herself. I don’t know if Aidan told her or she found out, but she came into the shop to let Marguerite have it one day and that seemed to end things. If they weren’t over before that.”
“You’re sure it ended?”
Phyllis gave this a few seconds’ thought. “Well, I can’t be a hundred percent sure. But I can tell you that he used to come in here regularly and after that scene with Clodagh and Marguerite, he never came in again.”
“When was that?”
“Maybe six weeks before she died? That was when Marguerite started to act rather strangely. I thought it was because she was upset at the end of the affair, but it was more than that. She started rambling, saying strange things.”
“What sort of strange things?”
“Prayers, they sounded like. I saw her coming out of the church a couple of times. I’m not one for religion, you know that, Ben, but I thought, Well, if it’s giving her some comfort, where’s the harm? It was better than seeing her taken advantage of by some creep. But it didn’t seem to – give her much comfort, that is.”
“By creep, do you mean Aidan?”
Phillis shook her head vehemently. “No, I don’t mean Aidan. He was kind to her. I think they genuinely loved each other. But she was disturbed about something.”
“Have you any idea what it was?”
“After she died, when I heard about that cult she used to be in, I thought it might have to do with that. Memories resurfacing, flashbacks, that kind of thing. But she started going on and on about the importance of family. Of knowing where you came from. She’d talk to customers about it, people who came in the shop. I even saw her talking to the kids out there on the bench one day. I’m sure they all thought she was batty.
“Then when I heard about her daughter after she died, I thought that explained it: the lack of contact with the daughter. I thought she just missed her, maybe more so when her affair with Aidan Doherty ended.”
“It’s a possibility, I suppose.” I wondered instead if Marguerite’s obsession with family might be connected with her pregnancy, and the possibility the child might never know its father because he was married to somebody else.
Phyllis stood up with a groan, rubbing her back. “Anyway, I’ve been going over it in my mind since she died. And she really was behaving very strangely. Almost as if …”
“As if what?”
“Well, I know this sounds odd, particularly to me because I know she wouldn’t even take an aspirin, but she was behaving almost as if she were drugged. If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn she was taking something those last few weeks, after she came back from her holiday …”
I lowered my voice even though we were alone in the shop. “You know they found a benzodiazepine in her system when she died?”
Phyllis’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious. Valium?”
“No. It’s one that’s used for the treatment of epilepsy.”
She looked crestfallen. “Really? Did Marguerite have epilepsy?”
“I don’t know. But keep that to yourself.”
Phyllis said wearily, “I’m amazed, after her reaction to the aspirin I offered her. But then I suppose that’s why the guards took no notice of me when I told them about her strange behavior. It just backed up what they already knew – that she was taking this drug, whatever it’s called …”
“Clonazepam.”
Something else didn’t add up, I realized as I walked back to the office after lunch. I knew now that Marguerite had been having an affair with Aidan Doherty, but Clodagh had known about it. In fact, if the comments I’d been hearing since Marguerite’s death were anything to go by, it sounded as if the whole town knew. But if that were the case, then why was Aidan being blackmailed? What would he have to lose if the details came out? Even if those details included a pregnancy.
And what of Marguerite’s odd behavior in her last few weeks? Was it to do with the cult or the drug that was found in her system when she died?
When I got back to the office I did yet another search on the Children of Damascus. I wasn’t sure what I hoped to find this time – maybe some prayers or chants, words that Phyllis might find familiar. Instead I found myself back at the site for ex-members of the Damascans, xdamascans.com. This time I noticed a link to a Contact Us page, where I found a list of telephone numbers for over ten countries. I scrolled down and to my amazement there was one for Ireland. On checking the code, I discovered that it was a Monaghan number; only two hours away by car.
Without hesitation, I dialed the number. I reached a voice message and left my name and phone number and by the time I had made it down the stairs to reception to collect some typing five minutes later, the call had been returned.
“There’s a Michaela somebody for you on line one,” Leah whispered, her hand over the receiver. “I didn’t catch her surname, and she wouldn’t tell me what it was about, just said she was returning your call. Do you want to talk to her?”
“Thanks, Leah, I’ll take it.” I took the phone from her hand. “Hello, Michaela?”
A softly-spoken woman replied. “Hi. Is that Ben O’Keeffe?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Michaela Reddy from the survivors group. You called earlier?”
“Yes. Thanks a million for ringing me back. I was wondering if it would be possible to meet at some stage to have a chat. I’m trying to find out some information and I think you might be able to help me.”
“What kind of information?” The tone was wary.
“I’m trying to help someone who used to be in the Children of Damascus,” I said. Not strictly true, but I would tell all when we met.
“Okay. You’re in Donegal, is that correct?”
“Yes, Inishowen.”
“Meet me at Annie’s Café in Aughnacloy at eleven o’clock on Monday.”
“What do you look like?”
“It’s all right. I’ll find you. Does that suit?”
“That’s great. Thanks. I’ll see you then.”
The second line was blinking as I hung up the receiver. Leah was busy at the photocopier by that stage so I pressed the button and answered the call myself.
“Hello. O’Keeffe and Company Solicitors.”
The voice was silky. “Answering our own phone now, are we? Haven’t we gone down in the world.”
I froze, every nerve in my body signalling fear. It couldn’t be. My shoulders tensed, like a board.
“Who is this?”
“Don’t play coy with me. You know exactly who it is.”
I gripped the counter as the room started to spin. Leah glanced up from the photocopier. She mouthed the words Are you okay? I nodded.
“How did you get this number?” I realized I was about to throw up.
“How do you think? Phone book, baby. Phone book. You’re public property now.”
“Leave me alone. Do not contact me again, do you hear me?”
“Oh come on, baby, I’m thinking of paying you a visit. Thought I’d come up to your neck of the woods. It’s been too long.”
I slammed down the phone.