I LEFT TONY and returned to the office, having arranged to meet him at the Garda station at nine the following morning; court began at half past ten, so I thought that should give us plenty of time. I called Molloy to let him know.
I had no appointments that afternoon, so I started on my preparation for court, but became distracted again very quickly. The fact that I kept having to break off from what I was doing to cough didn’t help my progress. I needed another one of Phyllis’s ginger teas.
I stood at the window gazing out onto the street. The weather was unpleasant: hard, icy rain forcing people to dash from cars to shops and making the old office windows rattle precariously. I wondered if I should speak to Stan. Strictly speaking, I knew I shouldn’t, since Tony was my client. But I wondered if he was back at Róisín’s house, if that was where he’d gone when he’d signed himself out of the hospital. I told myself there was nothing wrong with my calling, on a purely personal basis, to see how he was. So I left the office early, using my cough as an excuse. It wasn’t a complete ruse; my barking was getting worse by the hour and my head was beginning to hurt again too. I ran across to the chemist to pick up some cough syrup and more paracetamol before I got into the car.
The McCanns’ family home was about a mile out of Glendara on the Derry road, with a view of Sliabh Sneacht in the distance. It was an old detached whitewashed farmhouse with a yard and a number of outhouses; a traditional farm, which seemed to be becoming less and less common. More and more I was seeing huge steel poultry or pig houses with automated feeding and ventilation systems. They gave me the shivers when I thought about the miserable lives of the creatures inside. The smell of manure hung in the icy air and a Fred-type Border collie ran out to greet me in the yard.
I found Róisín and Stan together in a room Róisín’s mother described as “the parlor”: chintz-covered armchairs with embroidered covers, and multiple ornaments on a dark wooden sideboard. They were deep in conversation, huddled around an open fire. One of the windows was open, creating a draft. When he turned at the sound of the opening door, Stan looked pale and frightened. There was a plain white dressing on his forehead covering the wound.
Róisín’s mother, a plumper, older version of Róisín, brought us tea and homemade brown scones, then disappeared without a word.
“I’m going to lose my figure if I stay here too long.” Stan tried his best to be his usual acid self, but it didn’t ring true. The dark crescents under his eyes showed he had already lost weight in the past few days.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“Ach, grand. A few more brain cells missing, but sure I have plenty of those to spare.” He rubbed at his grey tracksuit bottoms, as if embarrassed to be seen in them.
There was a knock on the door and Róisín’s mother stuck her head in again. “Your phone’s just rung, Ro. I didn’t answer it, but someone’s left a message, I think.”
Róisín stood up and followed her mother out of the room. “I’ve spoken to Tony,” I said, after the door had closed and I had taken a sip from my tea.
Stan turned to me, stony-faced, all humor dissipated. “What has he said?”
“He told me that he knew you in school.”
“It’s taken him a year and a half to remember that?” Stan laughed, a harsh, bitter laugh. “What else did he tell you?”
“He said that you were bullied, that he told the head teacher and it only made things worse. He told me that you were locked in a cupboard, that your mother died while you were in there, that you never got to say goodbye.” I paused. “I can’t imagine how hard that would have been for you.”
Stan shook his head. “I knew it. I knew he’d leave out the most important part.”
“What was that?”
He closed his eyes. “He’s my brother … Tony Craig is my half-brother.”
“What?”
“We have the same father. At least biologically. He was never a father to me.”
“But I thought you met at boarding school?”
Stan opened his eyes again. “We did. My mother had a relationship with Tony’s father years before. He was married. To someone else, obviously.” His voice was dripping with contempt. “Tony’s mother. He never left them, but he paid for me to go to boarding school; the same one as his proper son. Never spoke to me, never acknowledged me, but paid my fees in that hellhole.”
Stan looked at his feet. He was wearing slippers that were far too small for him; Róisín’s father’s, I suspected. I tried to see some likeness between him and Tony, and failed.
“I used to see him dropping Tony to school in his big black Merc and wonder if he would ever speak to me. Sometimes I’d walk past, on purpose, to see if my own father would notice me.”
“And did he?”
Stan smiled bitterly. “He called me over once. Asked me to fetch him some water for his car.”
I imagined a first-year Stan, trying even then to be noticed. “But he knew who you were? Your father, I mean.”
“He knew. I could tell he knew. My mother was supposed to keep it a secret – that was the deal. But when she knew she was dying, she told me. Maybe she had some romantic notion that he would take me in when she was gone.”
“But that didn’t happen?”
“What do you think?” Stan gave a hollow laugh. “Do you see me on brotherly nights out with Tony Craig? Playing the doting uncle to his kids?” He shook his head. “Tony’s mother knew about me but refused to have anything to do with me. After my mother died, I went to stay with my aunt. My father continued to stump up some kind of payment until I left school, and then that was it. End of contact.”
“Did Tony know that you were his half-brother?”
“I don’t know. What I do know is that because of him, I was locked in a cupboard, with the spiders and the dust and the dark, while my mother, the only person who ever cared about me, was dying.” There was a tremor in his voice.
And with that, I realized why Stan always kept doors and windows open, even in the depths of winter. He had claustrophobia.
I was silent for a minute, as I looked at his fearful face and contemplated the long shadows cast by childhood trauma.
“Why wasn’t there a huge search for you if your mother was so ill?” I asked quietly.
“According to Tony, the boys hadn’t been told my mother was ill; the school just said I needed to be found. But I don’t believe that.”
I thought it seemed possible. Schools were notoriously secretive in the information they disclosed to other pupils. They’d have been unlikely to allow the news that Stan’s mother was dying to get out before he knew himself. But I understood why he chose not to believe it.
“They were all at my mother’s funeral,” he said with disgust. “A guard of honor from boys I hated.”
“Does Tony know who you are now?” I asked.
Stan shook his head. “I can’t believe he was never told. I think he chooses to pretend that I don’t exist, just like his father did.” He looked away. “I’m sure it would have been highly inconvenient to have an extra brother when dividing out his father’s estate.”
I knew from the title deeds that Tony’s father had owned the Oak before him. Had he really administered the estate and taken over the pub knowing that he had a half-brother who would have been entitled to a share?
“But why did you do nothing at that stage? If you knew you had inheritance rights?”
Stan’s eyes flashed. “Because I didn’t want anything to do with him, with any of them.”
I hesitated. “But you changed your mind, clearly, if you came here?”
Stan was silent for a minute, staring into the fire.
“Is that why you came here?” I asked. “Did you want a relationship with him?”
Stan laughed, unable to keep the hurt from his voice. “Relationship? I’ve been waiting a year for him to even acknowledge me.”
“Is that why you talked about going to see your mother? To see if he reacted?”
Stan slumped visibly; his shoulders rounded. “Pathetic, isn’t it? I wanted him to know who I was, but I didn’t want to be the one to tell him.”
It seemed to me that the flame of Stan’s anger was weaker than he wanted it to be. Maybe, as he’d grown older, he’d realized that Tony had been the only one to try to help him, even if that had failed. And when he moved to Glendara, he’d seen what kind of an adult Tony had become.
But I had to ask. “Did you set fire to the Oak?”
He smiled, as if he’d been expecting it. “Destroying my birthright? Sounds almost biblical, doesn’t it? No, it wasn’t me. But I can’t pretend I’m sorry about it.”
I knew I shouldn’t ask him about the attack on the beach, but after what he’d just told me, it was too hard not to. “Why do you think Tony hit you?”
Stan avoided my eye and picked at a piece of fluff on his knee. “I have absolutely no idea.”
I met Róisín in the hallway, and she walked me out to the yard. “Is everything all right with Stan?” she asked.
“I just wanted to see how he was doing,” I said noncommittally.
“He’s had a rough time, the poor old thing. But I think he’s on the mend.”
“Hopefully.”
She gave a whistle, a long, distinctive sound with six short blasts, and within seconds the dog who had greeted me earlier came bounding through a gate, skidding to a halt when it reached her. “Ah, there you are, Jessie.” She bent down to pat the animal’s head.
I turned the key in the door of the Mini, then on impulse, asked her about her return to Glendara the night the Oak had burned down.
She seemed unsurprised. “The sergeant asked me about that. I had a row with Eddie and decided to come back here. Susanne and I shared a taxi. It was easier to get dropped at the Oak – we both walked home from there.”
“Oh?”
She smiled. “Eddie was being annoying. He’d had too much to drink and he was getting on my nerves. Anyway, we didn’t see anything, Susanne and myself. The lights were off and the pub was closed up by then. We both assumed Carole had gone home.”
“But she hadn’t.”
“No,” she agreed. She looked up at the sky. “I think it’s about to rain again.”
She was stalling for some reason, wrapping her long blue cardigan around herself protectively. If she was trying to work out how to tell me something, or get up the courage to say it, I was happy to wait.
I followed her eyes. “It seems colder than that.”
“Hail maybe. I don’t think I could face any more snow.”
“I know what you mean.”
Eventually she sighed. “I didn’t have a row with Eddie. I came back with Susanne because she was upset and needed some company.”
“She’d had a talk with George. Susanne had a thing with George when she was still in school. She was only seventeen. She’s still very fucked up about it. I don’t know what she expected when she saw him that night, but it didn’t go the way she wanted it to.”
“I see.”
Her eyes were bright with fury. “He’s a fucker, that man. I know he doesn’t deserve what’s happened to him, but he treated Susanne like shit. Used her and threw her away like a piece of dirt. I don’t think she’s ever got over it.”
“Does Tony know?”
Róisín looked horrified. “God, no. And you can’t tell him. He’d kill George with his bare hands. I think he’s finding it hard enough to cope with the age difference between her and Luke.”
I drove away, tears of hail streaming down my windscreen, afraid to stay longer in case I said something I’d regret.
After a night of coughing, I had an early start. At my insistence, Molloy didn’t stay; the need for him to do so had passed, and I knew I’d only keep him awake. Despite my lousy night, I was at the Garda station at nine as arranged. I’d hoped to get to speak to Tony about Stan before he made his statement, but he was waiting for me in reception when I walked in.
I was relieved to see that he’d pulled himself together and looked almost like his old self, a small slip enough to bring him to his senses. He’d been carrying so much the past few weeks, it seemed he’d cracked as soon as he received his first piece of good news. There was a new determination about him this morning, as if he was ready to pick himself up and carry on, do what needed to be done.
His statement didn’t take long. It was simple enough. It wasn’t me; I wasn’t there; I was on my way back to Glendara. It would be difficult to prove either way; the pub had been packed, with people coming and going all afternoon.
As soon as we came out onto the street, I told him what Stan had said. He put his head in his hands.
“Did you know he was your brother?” I asked.
He nodded. “Aye, I did. At least, I discovered that the Stephen Stanley I was in school with was my half-brother. A few years back, I found some of my father’s papers in the cellar of the pub, tucked behind some old barrels. He had dementia in his last few years and he used to keep things in strange places.”
“This was after he died?”
“Aye. A long time after.”
“And your mother didn’t mention Stan – Stephen – to you?” He shook his head. “She was ill when my da died, and she died herself soon after. When I found out about Stephen, I tried to track him down. That’s why I went to that school reunion I mentioned. But I was told he’d gone to Australia. No one seemed to have contact details for him. Even the school’s address for him was out of date.” His shoulders slumped. “I didn’t know where to go next.”
“And you didn’t recognize Stan as Stephen Stanley?”
“I swear I didn’t.” He looked at me, his eyes red. “How the hell could I not have recognized my own brother?”
“I suppose he was only thirteen when you saw him last.”
He straightened himself to his full height. “I’m going to fix things with him now. I want you to know that.”
I saw Molloy pass, looked at my watch and realized I was late for court. I said a quick goodbye to Tony, then raced back to the office, where I grabbed the files from my desk, and made my way quickly through the square. Why had Stan claimed that Tony had attacked him? I wondered. Was it just another attempt to get his half-brother’s attention? Stan had been missing that day, I remembered. I’d been looking for him myself. I’d wanted to ask him about the man he had seen Carole with in Derry, but I’d never had the chance. I rang his number before I went into court, but got his voicemail.
Court was hectic. All the cases that hadn’t been dealt with before Christmas were listed, along with new public-order and drink-driving charges that had accumulated over the holidays. My bread and butter. When the judge rose for lunch, I grabbed a sandwich from the shop and barreled back to the office to eat it.
Leah looked up as I walked through the door.
“Busy?”
“Insane.”
I threw off my coat and headed into the kitchen at the back to make myself an instant coffee. It would taste like dishwater, but it was all I had time for.
Leah called after me. “What did you decide about giving Susanne Craig a job, by the way?”
I stopped dead, my hand on the kettle, heart beating faster than it should have been.
“Why?” I tried to keep the tremor out of my voice.
“Because she was in here with the boyfriend while you were at court. Tony must have told them to call in.”
I swallowed as I emerged from the kitchen. My sandwich wasn’t going to be eaten now.
“I thought they’d left.”
“They’re back here for a while. Just a few weeks, I think.” Her eyes narrowed. “Are you okay? You look a bit pale.”
I shook my head. “I’m fine. It’s just this cold I can’t get rid of.”
“Anyway, I told them to come back this afternoon about five. I hope that’s okay.” She grinned. “The boyfriend’s pretty handsome.”
I stumbled up the stairs, coffee and sandwich forgotten, needing some time to think, away from Leah’s curious gaze. I’d never told her about Luke. I’d wanted to keep the office as some kind of refuge also, where I could be professional, unaffected by my past. But now he had tainted that too. Luke Kirby had been here, speaking to Leah as if this was all perfectly normal.
I felt ill and afraid. I knew Luke Kirby. None of this was by accident or coincidence.