Back to three days later. Eddie’s open-plan living room. Evening. Bottles of fizzy water sat on the kitchen worktop. The three aunts fussed around in their Bewley’s uniforms. Quick twirl as they came in. ‘Look, Hayding. No motballs.’ Trace sat on Eddie’s chair as if she owned it and cast what may have been lovelorn glances at Hayden. Or perhaps she was just making sure he steered clear of Eddie’s Sweet Ambrosia. The aunts didn’t seem to think so.
‘Oh now.’
‘Will you look at the two lovebirdies.’
‘Tweet tweet, Hayding.’
A poignant little love scene, perhaps, but Hayden was too nervous to notice. What if no-one else turned up? He needed the killer there, whoever the killer was, and he needed him or, in the event of him being Marina, her, to crack. He had his modus operandi. All he needed now were the dramatis personae.
He did a bit of fussing around himself. Opened the cellar door, checked the light bulb worked, peered in. It looked suitably ghoulish when you knew what had taken place in its subterranean depths. Satisfied, he closed the door and turned his attention to the front window. Pascal O’Dea walked timidly up the drive. He hadn’t been invited but maybe, just maybe, he might come in useful. He knocked apologetically. Hayden opened the door. Behind Pascal, compounding their possible guilt as a double act, came Lou Brannigan and Marina. Cop and escort? Pimp and whore? There was something about them; a certain intimacy that didn’t quite add up, but Hayden didn’t know what that intimacy was, and he didn’t know what it didn’t add up to.
They followed Pascal in and soon, thanks to a subdued Trace, everyone was drinking sparkling water and looking uneasy. Trace had removed the alcohol from the room, and Hayden hadn’t supplied any food. Well, apart from the nuts. He’d supplied nuts. Some bash.
Lou Brannigan fingered his hat expectantly. Hayden had added a PS to Brannigan’s invitation: ‘Frankie Pope invited. Look forward to seeing you.’
A knock on the door. Hayden went to answer. Enter Frankie.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said. ‘Bit of business I had to attend to.’
Brannigan perked up. ‘I’m sure there was,’ he said. ‘Isn’t there always with you people? But how’s this for a leading question? What, precisely, brings you here?’
A question to which Lou Brannigan already knew the answer. Typical cop. Frankie smiled enigmatically, which had the effect of making Hayden think, what if Brannigan was right? Frankie seemed to have forged a deep bond with Eddie. He didn’t seem the type for murder. But what exactly was the type? What if Frankie was just a very clever, manipulative, unreconstructed Pope? Hayden looked around the room. The three aunts by the window, Trace in Eddie’s chair, Frankie Pope now standing by the fireplace, Pascal smiling timidly near the worktop, Marina settled on the sofa and Lou Brannigan perched beside her on the arm.
Hayden clinked his glass with a spoon – a spoon he’d secreted in his pocket earlier for that precise purpose – and coughed.
‘What brings you here? A good question, and one which applies to everyone in this room. Because I summoned you all, if that’s the right word, under false pretences.’
Marina smiled mischievously. ‘Oh goody,’ she said. ‘Would you like us to gasp?’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ said Hayden.
Marina was being playful, but Hayden was on edge. This was serious stuff. A man had been murdered. The killer was in this very room. Stick to the set script.
He put his glass down, moved theatrically to stage centre, and waved the spoon for silence.
‘A man has been murdered,’ he declaimed. ‘And the killer,’ – he paused for dramatic effect – ‘is in this very room.’
Lou Brannigan chortled genially and nodded at Hayden’s hand. ‘Would that be the murder weapon?’ he said.
Hayden glowered at Dublin’s finest, who was probably more used to these things than he was. He pocketed the spoon. Bit of an oversight. On the plus side, he still had the moral high ground. The three aunts came to his rescue.
‘Oh, very good, Hayding.’
‘In this very room.’
‘Anyone fancy a nut?’
Despite all evidence to the contrary, Hayden was very fond of his aunts – but this was no time for nuts.
‘In this very room,’ he declaimed again. ‘And no-one leaves till culpability is apportioned and the guilty party unmasked.’
‘Janey! Is he wearing a mask, is he Hayding?’
Hayden withered them with a look. ‘The mask is metaphorical, ladies. The ‘he’ assumptive. He could, after all, be a she. Or,’ – and he made sure not to make eye contact with Frankie Pope – ‘a bit of both. First question. What do we know about the murderer?’ Hayden absently accepted a nut from the passing bowl – it discouraged further interruption – and fingered it meditatively as he spoke.
‘Let’s call him ‘she’. Language fluidity. Why not?’ He tossed the nut from one hand to the other as if to drive the point home. ‘Which leaves us where? Driven by motive or motives unknown, our murderer, also known as ‘she’, enters the house with malice aforethought –’
‘Malice aforetought. You’ve certingly got the gift, Hayding.’
‘– while Eddie, hereinafter referred to as “the murderee”. is otherwise engaged. Possibly painting in the shed. We may never know. The murderer also knows that Eddie is the only person likely to use the cellar. She opens the door –’
‘– wit malice aforetought –’
‘– like so.’
Hayden opened the door dramatically with his free hand. Vermilion light lit up the doorframe like vaporous blood. The colour of guilt. He looked quickly from face to face. They all seemed vaguely red and slightly squinty-eyed. No clue there. Frankie Pope strolled over and peered in.
‘Impressive,’ he said. ‘Reminds me a bit of Tate Modern.’
The three aunts followed him over and gave it their earnest consideration.
‘I tink we might lean more towards the more august Galleria Borghese and Caravaggio’s middle period, Hayding.’
‘Wonderful talent. Reputed to be gay.’
‘But we might beg to differ.’
Hayden motioned Lou Brannigan and Marina over. Brannigan waved him away dismissively.
‘We’ve seen enough,’ he said.
Interesting, thought Hayden. They’d seen enough, yet they hadn’t seen anything. Or had they? He felt he was on his way.
‘Our perp, killer, call her what you will, proceeds to grab hold of the ladder and saw through the upright –’
‘– wit a saw, Hayding.’
‘A metal saw. Precisely.’
‘Which she just happens to have secreted on her persing.’
‘Possibly up her sleeve, Hayding, the way those old schoolmasters used to hide their canes up their jackets and you’d get a bit sticking up at the top, like a big pointy lump on their shoulder.’
‘She found a saw in Eddie’s toolbox.’ Hayden glowered at his aunts. Silence. Back to Hayden. ‘To recapitulate, she proceeds to saw through the upright, shrewdly leaving enough of it uncut to require more than one visit to the cellar to cause the final snap, thus facilitating a time gap between the act and its desired outcome. Clever. Fiendishly clever. Which brings us to our first suspect.’ He scanned the room. Pascal. He’d start with Pascal. Keep it light. Introduce an element of comedy into the proceedings – he was a comedian, after all, it was what he did – and lull the killer into a false sense of security. ‘Now what do we know about Pascal O’Dea?’
‘She’s a he, Hayding.’
‘Difficult to know these days,’ quipped Hayden. ‘Dodgy ground. Pascal?’ Pascal tittered shrilly. ‘I’ll take that as a he.’ He gave Pascal a mock hard stare and absently fondled his nut. ‘I suspected I’d found my man when Pascal visited me at Eddie’s and said, “I killed your uncle”. He then proceeded to divulge all the facts of the case. Insider knowledge. Eddie out. Cellar steps. Saw. Not to mention the masterfully devious delaying tactic. Question: how could he possibly know all this if he wasn’t there? He must have done it. He even signed a detailed confession to that effect. Case closed –’
‘Oh, well done, Hayding.’
‘– you might be forgiven for thinking. Then I remembered. I’d met Bram at the Nautical Buoy. Bram. Old friend. Couldn’t be here. Late shift. Anyway, I laid out all the facts before Bram at a table by the window. Confidentially.’ He peered at Pascal over Áine Ní Cheannáin’s imaginary half-glasses. ‘For his ears only. However, and it’s a big however, in the middle of our deliberations a man asked if we were using the salt. High-pitched voice. Nervous titter.’ Pascal tittered nervously. ‘We weren’t using the salt. I told him so. I waved it away and returned to laying out the facts. Hush-hushly.’ Hayden removed the imaginary half-glasses, mentally, for dramatic effect. ‘But the man didn’t take it. How do I know this? I’ve replayed the scene several times in my head. The salt stayed where it was. Every time.’ He jabbed an accusing finger at Pascal. ‘I put it to you that it was you who asked for the salt. You who didn’t take it. That you subsequently confessed to the murders of Martin Luther King, Julius Caesar and your own father with the belt of a loy. That you couldn’t possibly have been in Memphis or Ancient Rome in 1968 and 44BC respectively; that the father you confessed to murdering was, in fact, a fictional character from The Playboy of the Western World, a highly overrated play by JM Synge which has given we Irish a worldwide reputation for loquacious blather ever since. That you are a congenital liar and that, as a consequence, you are innocent of any and all charges relating to the murder of Edward McGlynn and are, as a further consequence, free to leave this room without a stain on your character.’
Hayden had got quite a head of steam up. He paused, then placed a hand gently on Pascal’s shoulder. ‘You may wish to change the air on Eddie’s bicycle on your way out. Good for the inner tube.’
Pascal tittered happily as Hayden guided him towards the door and closed it behind him. Hayden then resumed his position at the centre of proceedings and carried on.
‘Next, we come to my immediate family,’ he said. ‘My parents have lived in Waikiki for many years. They couldn’t possibly have done it.’ A hint of suppressed bitterness entered his voice. ‘I haven’t seen them since the day before my seventh birthday.’
‘We remember it well, Hayding.’
‘Bad blood.’
‘But you’re right.’
‘They’d of needed a very long saw.’
‘Not “they’d of”, Dottie.’
‘Florrie.’
‘Don’t change the subject. “They’d of” is totally meaningless.’
Florrie pouted, her little head shaking with indignation.
‘Well, the existentialists would have us believe that life is totally meaningless, so what of it?’
‘The existentialists were French, for pity’s sake.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And besides, I very much doubt if Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose specialty –’
‘Speciality, but do go on.’
‘– was language itself, would have countenanced the use of “they’d of” if he was standing in the room here today.’
‘Which he isn’t, being as what he’s dead.’
‘Dead he may be, Dodie, but –’
‘I’m sure he was a wonderful lover, ladies,’ said Hayden, ‘but could we perhaps press on?’