HUGH O’CONNOR WAS standing in the doorway, leaning casually against the door jamb, one hand in the front pocket of his jeans. I swallowed. My heart felt as if it was about to stop.
I feigned a lack of concern. “Hugh. What are you doing here?”
He gave me one of his movie-star smiles. “I heard you were down seeing Queenie.”
“Queenie? Oh, James Quinn, your friend.”
He nodded in approval. “My friend. You’ve made the connection, well done. I hope that doesn’t mean you’re going to start interfering.”
“Interfering?”
“Sticking your oar in. Telling him what to say.”
“I can’t tell him what to say, Hugh. But it is my job to represent him.”
“You’re not needed. Queenie knows what he’s doing. Just let him be.” His tone was indolent, disinterested.
I shook my head. “I can’t do that.”
He looked away. “We have our own way of doing things around here – I told you. We take care of ourselves, in our own way. We don’t need outsiders. Queenie knows that.”
He withdrew his hand from his pocket and placed it against the wall. If the action was designed to emphasise his considerable height advantage, it worked. He glanced over my shoulder into the kitchen and his smile faded. He had seen the charge sheets on the table where I’d left them.
“What are you doing with them?”
I didn’t respond.
He took a step towards me. “You heard me.”
I stood my ground. “I know you were driving James’s father’s car that night. The night Marguerite died.”
The smile returned. Contemptuous now, cocky. “Was I fuck.”
“The registration number is on the charge sheets. The car was seen, down by the beach.”
“Queenie was the one at the beach, sweetheart.”
“The guards are sure he couldn’t have killed Marguerite on his own.”
“The guards know fuck-all. That boy has psycho tendencies. Goes a bit mental sometimes. Doesn’t like women, you see.” Hugh waved a limp wrist at me.
Suddenly, it all made sense: why James would confess, the adoring look I had seen that day outside the book shop, the evasiveness, the lack of motive.
“James would do anything for you, wouldn’t he? Even take the blame for something you did.”
“You’re full of shit.”
“Or did you do it together? Did you make him help you?”
Hugh’s face took on an arrogant sneer. “He wouldn’t have the balls.”
“So it was you.” Fear wrapped itself around me like a damp coat. “Why would you want to hurt Marguerite? What had she ever done to you?”
His eyes hardened. “I told you, we don’t need outsiders telling us what to do. Knowing things they shouldn’t.”
He took a step towards me and I backed slowly into the kitchen. He came after me. I reached the sink and gripped the counter-top behind me with both hands. Only the table was between us. He placed his hands on the table and leaned towards me, lip curled. Suddenly he wasn’t so handsome any more.
“All I did was put her out of her fucking misery. Found her lying in a drunken heap on the shore and hit her over the head with a rock.”
I tried to keep the quiver out of my voice. “Why would you do that?”
He tilted his head to one side. “Did the same thing when I ran over a cat once. Kindest thing. Did you never have a sick cat that keeps you up all night yowling? That bitch couldn’t keep her mouth shut.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mouthing off about family, how important it was to know where you come from, who your parents are. In that horrible fucking accent of hers. Donegal people know how to keep their mouths shut.” He banged his fist on the table.
I shrank back against the sink. If I ever get out of this I’m going to have a panic button installed right here, I thought.
“She was talking about her daughter. Marguerite had a daughter she hadn’t seen for a long time,” I said quietly.
Hugh’s eyes darted about the room. “She knew things she shouldn’t.”
“What things?”
He shook his head and suddenly, as if someone had flipped a switch, his temper was gone; the smile returned and his voice became silky again. “But you’ll know how to keep your mouth shut, won’t you, being a solicitor an’ all. You’ll let Queenie do what he wants to do for his best friend.”
“What things did she know, Hugh? Things about you?”
His smile faded again. “I wasn’t going to let her ruin things. Some outsider. That’s not going to happen. I have a future.” He had an odd, distant look.
With a horrible jolt, I realized the kid was insane, I could see it in his eyes. There was an absence, a lack of focus, that frightened me. Hugh stared at the ceiling, distracted for a second, while I edged slowly towards the door – an act of pure desperation. I hadn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of getting past him.
It was a stupid mistake. The movement seemed to bring him back. He leaped forward, grabbed both my arms, twisted them behind my back and pushed me head-first into the sink. I could smell his breath on my neck – toothpaste again.
“I wouldn’t bother trying to fight it, sweetheart.”
I struggled, but it was utterly futile. He was at least one and a half times my weight.
“It’s no trouble, you know, I can kill you easily. Make it four. Even number.”
I heard a noise at the back door – someone knocking, my name being called. I felt Hugh’s muscles tighten behind me, and in my peripheral vision, I saw Simon’s sculpture sitting on the counter-top. I heard footsteps.
Distracted, Hugh loosened his grip on me. As he turned his head to see who was behind him, I managed to pull my right arm free and grabbed Simon’s sculpture. Somehow I lifted it and swung it towards the side of Hugh’s head. With a loud, sickening crack it connected and he fell to the floor.
I looked up to see Molloy standing in the doorway of the kitchen, an expression of disbelief on his face. He looked down. To my horror, blood had started to seep from Hugh’s head.
Malin’s little green was a mass of flashing lights, sirens and onlookers. I sat on the wall in front of my house wrapped in one of those tinfoil blankets they give to marathon runners, drinking a cup of strong sweet tea they’d brought out from Caffrey’s. It was disgusting.
Molloy emerged from the crowd. “He’s alive. Lost a bit of blood, but he’s going to be okay.”
“Thank God.”
“Jesus Christ, Ben. Twice in one morning.”
“I know.”
“I’ll have to take a formal statement from you when you’re feeling up to it.”
“Sure.”
He darted off to talk to one of the uniformed guards at the gate. Suddenly I became aware of someone else pushing their way through the crowd. It was Aidan Doherty, fear etched across his face.
“What the hell happened? I’ve just seen Hugh in an ambulance.”
“I’m sorry, Aidan. He’s confessed to Marguerite’s murder.”
Aidan said nothing, just stared at the ground, ashen-faced.
“You knew, didn’t you?” I said, horrified.
He shook his head. “Not for sure.”
“But you’re not surprised, are you?”
“I suspected.”
“How, for God’s sake?”
He sighed. “I lied to you. I did go out to the beach that night when she called. I could never have turned my back on her if she was in trouble. I just couldn’t.”
“She wasn’t at her house – I couldn’t find her. When I was on my way back to Glendara I spotted Hugh and his friend driving up from the beach. I didn’t want Hugh to see me so I left. Hugh knew about the affair, he knew I had told his mother it was over, and I didn’t want him to think I was breaking my promise. But the next day, when I heard what had happened, I was afraid.”
“Why the hell didn’t you say anything?”
“He’s my son.” He held his hands out in a gesture of helplessness. “But it’s been torturing me. Just yesterday I decided it was time to talk to Sergeant Molloy. And I told Hugh I was going to do so.”
“That’s why he persuaded his friend to confess – before you had a chance. But why? Why would Hugh kill Marguerite?”
Aidan didn’t meet my eye. “I don’t know. Because of my relationship with her? For his mother?”
“No, I don’t think that was it. He said she knew something. She talked to him about family, the importance of knowing where you come from. That seemed to upset him.”
Aidan’s mouth opened in horror. “Oh, Jesus, he thought she knew …”
“Knew what?”
He covered his face with his hands and then slumped down on the wall beside me. “Marguerite didn’t know anything. I would never have told her. I made him a promise I wouldn’t tell anyone. I’d never have broken that.”
One of the paramedics appeared suddenly beside us. “Excuse me, sir. Are you Hugh O’Connor’s father?”
Aidan looked up anxiously. “Yes.”
“Good. We’d like you to come with us in the ambulance. He’s going to be okay but he may need a blood transfusion. I presume you would be willing …”
Aidan paled. For a second I was confused by his hesitation, until something clicked.
“You’re not his biological father, are you?”
“No.”
The pieces finally fitted. “Seamus Tighe was his father, wasn’t he?”
The paramedic was still waiting, looking confused. “Mr. Doherty?”
“His father is dead, I’m afraid.” Aidan’s voice was dry with exhaustion. “I’ll call his mother. They have the same blood type.”
The man nodded and left. Aidan withdrew his phone from his pocket and walked away.
While Aidan made his call, Molloy reappeared. I told him what he had missed.
When Aidan returned, he slumped on to the wall between us. He ran his fingers through his hair and said, “I’ve only known for a couple of years.”
“But why keep it a secret?” I asked. “What was Hugh so paranoid about?”
Aidan took a deep breath. “When Clodagh told her father about her relationship with Seamus, she also told him that she was pregnant. He responded by telling her that Seamus was his son, the product of an affair. Which meant that Clodagh was eighteen and pregnant – by her half-brother.”
I stared at him. “Jesus.”
“No one knew but Clodagh and her father. It all but destroyed her. She only told me when she had no choice. I thought Hugh was mine for fifteen years.” There was real sadness in his eyes. “I think it was the beginning of the end for us when she told me. But she was right not to tell anyone. No one needed to know – especially not Hugh.”
“But he does?” I asked.
Aidan bowed his head. “Yes. I told him. It was the worst thing I’ve ever done. That was when everything started to go wrong.”
“Go on,” Molloy said.
“Seamus Tighe was a great footballer and he still came to see all the schools games. When he saw Hugh’s ability on the pitch, he started to ask questions. Hugh looked like him too, you see. He asked Hugh to come and see him. Clodagh didn’t want him to go, she was terrified it would all come out, but Hugh was insistent, would never be told what to do.” Aidan smiled bitterly. “Anyway Clodagh finally told me the truth and made me follow him. She wanted the meeting stopped at any cost.”
“What happened?” Molloy asked.
“I was too late. I met Hugh leaving Seamus’s farm. Of course, Seamus hadn’t been able to resist telling him his suspicions, that he thought he might be Hugh’s father. Hugh seemed almost elated by it. He’d never had any respect for me, always thought I was weak. He was happy to have anyone replace me, I suspect. But Seamus had no idea that Clodagh was his half-sister; she had never given him a reason why she had ended things with him. And his mother had never told him who his father was – she had died a few years before.
“Hugh was ready to tell the world. But I knew it would destroy his mother if it came out. So I told him why they could never have a relationship.” Aidan looked down. He muttered, “I was wrong to do that. I should have realized what it would do to him.”
“Seamus Tighe falling into a slurry tank wasn’t an accident, was it?” I said.
“No,” Aidan said quietly. “I tried to save him, but it was too late. Hugh pushed him. He was fifteen.”
My voice was shaking. “So that’s why you were afraid he had killed Marguerite. Because he had done it before.”
“And you kept that information to yourself, Mr. Doherty,” Molloy said.
“I was trying to protect him. I didn’t even tell Clodagh until recently. I hoped he would just be able to get on with his life.”
“I see.”
“I was wrong. I can see that now.” Tears welled up in Aidan’s eyes. “I’ve made such a mess of things. It’s just as well I never had any children of my own. I’m sure I’d have made a mess of that too.”
At that moment, I hoped to God he didn’t know that Marguerite was pregnant when she died. I couldn’t see how knowing that would do him any good whatsoever.