9

Mickey’s truck was parked on a side street, and he sat inside, smoking a cigarette and watching Byrne through the man’s dining-room window.

The former priest sat at a table warped by water damage, sucking deeply from an oxygen mask. His skin appeared sunken, pulled tight against the bone, and his bulky black cardigan seemed to belong to a man twice his size. His hair, once grey, was now gone.

A thin, middle-aged woman, her hair in a braided ponytail, placed a glass of water with a straw in front of him. Byrne nodded his thanks as the spidery fingers of his free hand, the knuckles bent and twisted from arthritis, reached for the glass.

The woman had to be either a private nurse or a hospice worker, Mickey thought. She had that air about her, and he knew Byrne had no family. Heather’s mother had battled lung cancer, and when it became crystal clear there was nothing more the doctors could do, she decided she wanted to die at home, in her bed. The hospice worker, an overweight, patient man with a warm smile who always smelled of a citrus-scented lotion, had been sent in to relieve her pain, make Heather’s mother as comfortable as possible during her final hours.

Final. The word pressed against his chest, squeezing all the oxygen from his lungs and making him feel light-headed. Byrne pulled his mouth away from the straw and started panting, as though the simple act of drinking had left him winded.

You need to turn around and leave.

Look at him. He could be dead tonight.

All he has to do is make one phone call and the police will haul your ass off to jail. You want that?

He can’t see me.

Do you want to go to jail?

That afternoon, shortly after Darby left, Mickey had received word through Big Jim’s cop buddy Win that Byrne had gone to St Stephen’s to see his good buddy Father Keith Cullen. Win didn’t know the exact reason why Byrne had gone there, but the word on the street was the ex-priest was looking to confess his sins to his old friend Father Keith. If that was true – if Father Keith had given him the sacrament of confession – no police officer, judge or jury could make Father Keith reveal the contents of whatever Byrne had said during confession.

He’d read Byrne was dying, but, seeing the man now, up close and in the flesh – the clock ticking inside Mickey’s heart grew louder. Stronger.

The way Mickey figured it, if any bit of humanity was left inside of Byrne, if that side had been strong enough to seek out Father Cullen this morning and confess his sins, maybe that part of Byrne was still locked in there somewhere. Maybe that part of him was terrified of dying without having unburdened his soul. Father Cullen couldn’t reveal the contents of the confession, but maybe he had mandated that in order to be truly forgiven in the eyes of God, Byrne had to confess what he knew and relieve the victims of their suffering. Maybe if he appealed to the man’s human side, maybe Byrne would –

His cell rang. Mickey glanced at the console and saw Heather’s name on the screen. He also saw the time: half past seven. She rarely called him this late – rarely called him at all. They hadn’t spoken much after the divorce, and on the few occasions she’d called him it was usually about some financial matter involving a clerical error on their divorce paperwork – Mickey continually amazed by how many things had got screwed up, the number of incompetent people there were in the world who held jobs, and people who simply didn’t give a shit.

He wasn’t in the mood to talk about any of that now. He was about to let the call go straight to voicemail when he remembered he hadn’t spoken to her today. He always called Heather on Claire’s anniversary date. Mickey took the call.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’

‘That’s the question I was going to ask you. I didn’t hear from you today.’

There was a lot of commotion in the background. Mickey placed his hand flat across the other ear and said, ‘Yeah, about that. Sorry. I got tied up. Work-related stuff.’

‘But you’re okay.’

‘I’m breathing. How about you? How are you, you know, managing?’

‘I’m at the airport.’

‘That explains all the noise I’m hearing.’

‘I’m going on a trip for a few weeks.’

‘Good. That’s good.’ He was looking at Byrne drinking through the straw again. ‘Can I give you a call back? I need –’

‘I’m moving,’ Heather said. ‘When I get back.’

Mickey felt a new and different fear brush against the walls of his heart. ‘Where?’

‘New York,’ she said. ‘A friend – well, a friend of a friend, actually, his business is moving to Japan. He owns this apartment on the Upper East Side and he’s letting me sublet it for a few months. It’s a beautiful place.’

He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray.

‘Mickey? You still there?’

‘Yeah,’ he managed to say. The fear had found his vocal cords. He had to swallow several times before he could speak. ‘Sounds expensive. New York.’

‘It is. But I have the money my mother left me. The apartment’s on the fifteenth floor. It has an amazing view of the city. It’s just so beautiful.’

Mickey said nothing, his eyes on Byrne, watching him sucking greedily from the oxygen mask.

‘I need to do this,’ Heather said. ‘I need to move on and –’

‘Can you still see her?’

‘I think about Claire all the time. I haven’t forgotten her, Mickey, if that’s what you’re asking.’

He found himself getting angry and he wasn’t sure why. It didn’t have to do with her comments about Claire or selling the house; they had covered that ground before, numerous times. So why was he getting pissed off now?

It was New York. His only remaining connection to Claire was moving away. Leaving him.

‘What I meant was, when you close your eyes, can you see her face?’

‘Yeah. Of course I can. Why?’

‘What about the way she looks now? You think she might look like those computer photos they gave us?’

‘I remember her the way she was. I can’t think about the way she’d look now because –’

‘What?’

There was another long silence, Mickey about to fill it when she said, ‘I say this because I care for you. You know I do. But you need to come to grips with –’

‘I can’t see her face any more. I can still hear her voice, the things Claire said, and I remember the things she did – what we all did together – but her face is always a blur, and I don’t understand why. I didn’t have this problem before.’

‘When you were drinking.’

After Claire disappeared, he’d lie on her bed and close his eyes and see her as clear as day – when he’d been drinking. And the two of them would have the most amazing conversations until he passed out, Heather there in the morning shaking him awake, until she decided to leave him.

Mickey found it difficult to breathe. He slammed his eyes shut, fighting tears, as Heather said, ‘This morning I was at a bookstore and this boy, he couldn’t have been more than four, was in line with his mother holding a copy of Make Way for Ducklings. You remember the first time you read that book to her?’

Mickey swallowed. ‘Claire was around three.’ He took in a deep draught of air through his nose. ‘You bought her the book for Christmas.’

‘The first time you read it, Claire begged us to take her into Boston to see the ducks, remember?’

Mickey felt a smile reach his face. He remembered how disappointed Claire was to learn that the swan boats inside the Public Garden weren’t actual swans. That disappointment nearly turned into tears when Claire saw the bronze statues of the mother duck and baby ducklings from the book. Dees aren’t the ducks from the story, Daddy, dees ducks aren’t real! During the ride home, though, Claire came up with an explanation: Dose ducks are made of medal, Daddy, ’cause that way people can’t hurt them. Dose kids sitting on the backs of the mother duck and baby ducks? If I had people sitting on my back all day my back would hurt real bad and dat’s why they’re made of metal so they won’t get hurt. At night, when everyone’s sleeping – dat’s when they turn into real ducks and go swimming in the pond with the real swans!

Claire had been sitting in her car seat in the back of his truck when she’d said those words. The windows were down, the wind whipping her blonde hair around her face; she’d been wearing a pink Red Sox hat and a pink sundress, both gifts from Heather’s mother, and she had a chocolate ice-cream stain on the front of her dress. He remembered all those little details and more, and when he tried to see her face now it blurred again and started to fade. No, baby, please don’t leave me.

Heather was saying something to him, asking him a question, maybe. He said, ‘Sorry, I didn’t get that.’

‘I asked you if we can get together when I get back.’

‘Yeah. Sure. Have fun on your trip.’

Mickey didn’t give her a chance to say anything else. He hung up, dumped the phone on to the console and wiped at his face. His throat was bone-dry and his arms felt weak. He also felt light-headed and his chest felt tight, as though small rocks were blocking the arteries to his heart. But his thinking was crystal clear. He knew he couldn’t allow Byrne to take his knowledge with him into the ground. He needed to find out what Byrne had done to her and where she was buried, even if that meant going to prison. If he didn’t try, Mickey knew he would never be able to look at himself again. He got out of the truck.