A FAMILIAR WAVE of nausea hit me as I hung up, accompanied by a sense of dread that this nightmare was never going to end. My parents were not going to drop this. Why the hell had I told them about the pathologist? The whole reason for keeping my distance was to avoid these kinds of conversations, to allow the tragedy to settle into something less raw, a dull ache that could be lived with. The memory of my sister preserved in some way, however artificial, not ripped to shreds and trampled into the gutter. This was what happened when I let down my guard.
The basic rule of cross-examination is: never ask a question unless you’re sure you’ll get the answer you want. My parents were never going to get the answers they wanted if they kept asking questions. Never. And if everything came out, there was a possibility I could lose them entirely. My head was spinning. I walked through the square trying to suppress the sense of rising panic.
I couldn’t go back to the office yet. I had Phyllis’ committee waiting to see me and I needed to be able to think straight for that. Five minutes was all I needed. Five minutes of fresh air and I would be okay.
I walked on a little bit out the Derry road, down the hill towards the old fish factory, trying to work out what to do. Lie? Tell them I had spoken to the pathologist and she had refused to change her story? Or that she had refused to engage with me at all? My real fear was that they would try to contact her themselves. I couldn’t manage this one by myself. I realized I needed to talk to Molloy – properly this time. As soon as the decision was made, my breathing started to calm down, and I could feel the tides of anxiety ebb.
I looked up, and discovered with a jolt that I wasn’t sure exactly where I was or how far I had walked. I looked around me to get my bearings. Across the road was the back entrance to the hardware shop: a dusty lane with high wire fencing on either side through which the builders’ supplies and wood were delivered.
I was about to turn on my heel and walk back up the hill to the office when I heard voices coming from the lane. Which was odd, as it wasn’t usually used by pedestrians. There were two stone pillars at the entrance. I crossed the road and stood behind one of them. A car drove by and suddenly I felt conspicuous. Like Danny Devitt, I was going to get a reputation for lurking. Taking my phone out, I pretended to be reading a text. I peered around the pillar but couldn’t see anyone. The lane curved inwards so my view was limited to about fifty feet. I strained my ears to listen. The wind carried two voices towards me, one male and one female, but I couldn’t hear what either of them was saying.
I walked down the lane a little, expecting at any second to hear the roar of a cement lorry behind me, but hoping not to. Then I turned a corner and saw Eithne. Leaning over her, talking to her in a low, threatening voice, his face almost touching hers, was a man in a dark coat. Eithne’s face was bright pink, and she was clearly protesting vehemently about something. As I watched, the man threw something on the ground. As Eithne stooped to pick it up, he took a further step towards her and she jerked back, almost falling, her back colliding with the wire fence.
“Hey, what’s going on?” I shouted.
The man spun around, his face calm, impassive. It was Conor Devitt.
I walked towards them. “What are you doing to her?”
“Who are you?” he said coldly.
“Don’t worry about that. I said, what are you doing to her?”
“I’m not ‘doing’ anything to her. We’re just sorting a few things out. Isn’t that right, Eithne?”
Eithne nodded, said breathlessly, “I’m fine.” She shoved whatever it was she had picked up into the pocket of her cardigan.
“You don’t look fine.”
“Honestly.” Her tone was pleading.
“I’m not leaving you here alone with him.”
“Really. There’s no problem,” she insisted.
Conor put his hands in his pockets. “It’s okay. We’ve finished. I’ve said what I needed to say.”
He gave Eithne one last look and strode past me, back down the lane towards the main road.
I put my hand on Eithne’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
She was shaking.
“I’m fine,” she repeated. “Please go.”
“Do you want me to call the guards? I can call Molloy.” I took out my phone.
Anger flashed in her eyes. “I’ve said I’m fine! How many times do I have to say it?”
I put my hands up. “Okay, okay. But he looked like he was threatening you.”
“Well, he wasn’t.”
Eithne refused to allow me to walk her back up to the chemist’s shop, so I arrived back in the office five minutes later to a packed waiting room.
Acting for committees always frustrates me. The members never entirely trust each other; in this case, seven people had turned up to see what was happening. With Leah’s help, I dragged a couple of extra chairs into the front office, and three people stood leaning against the wall. Phyllis, of course, managed to nab one of the chairs. And, true to form, did all of the talking.
“We need to set up a limited company,” she said.
“Okay. You’re a charity, aren’t you?”
“Aye, we’re like a wee local Saint Vincent de Paul, I suppose. We help out those families in the community who are in trouble.”
“Very commendable.”
I looked around the room to give an impression that I was engaging with more than one person, but I was looking at a sea of blank faces. Mere observers.
“Founded about …” Phyllis looked around her for assistance… “Fifteen years ago?”
The others nodded.
“And why do you want to set up a company now, if it’s been working fine so far?” I enquired.
They looked at each other, silently nominating Phyllis to reply.
“We’ve come into some money. A considerable amount of money,” she said. “And none of us relishes the idea of being personally responsible for it.”
“I see.”
“From a very generous, anonymous benefactor.” She tapped her nose with her forefinger.
“Well, the best model for you then is a company limited by guarantee,” I said. “And we’ll see if we can get you charitable status. It’ll exempt you from most taxes.”
Phyllis lagged behind, the rest of them having trooped out of the office.
“Was there something else?” I asked.
She grinned. “I thought you might like to know who our generous benefactor is.”
“Don’t tell me if you’re not supposed to,” I warned her.
“I know you’re not going to tell anyone.” She put her hand in front of her mouth in an exaggerated stage whisper. “It’s Mick Bourke.”
“Really?” I probably shouldn’t have let the surprise show in my voice.
“Yes,” Phyllis said. “I was pretty astonished myself. The carpentry business must be doing well.”
“How do you know it was him?”
“He was stupid enough to leave the money in an envelope along with an old receipt with his name on it.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to be anonymous, after all.”
“That’s exactly what I thought.”
I nearly collided with the man in the dark coat standing on the footpath outside the office. Conor Devitt looked down at me, all heavy eyebrows and brooding, fixed stare. One thing he had in common with his brother. I managed to make some noise resembling a greeting, if not a particularly friendly one.
“So you’re the solicitor O’Keeffe?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Conor Devitt.” “I know.”
He didn’t react. He must have known that he was the talk of the town.
“Were you waiting for me?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Is there a reason why you didn’t come into the office and sit in the waiting room like a normal human being?”
“I was on my way in.”
“Right.”
“I want to talk to you about my mother. I know you came up to see her the other morning.”
I didn’t respond. Didn’t admit or deny.
“I was there. I saw you through the window.”
As I thought.
“What were you talking to her about?”
“I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid.”
“Was it about Danny?”
I started to repeat what I had said. “I’m sorry, I can’t—”
He cut in. “I’m not going to be around for very long, Miss O’Keeffe. I have some things I need to attend to and then I’ll be gone. But I do need to make sure that my mother is all right.”
“Your mother seems to be fairly self-sufficient, Mr. Devitt.”
I stopped myself from adding: “She’d need to be, since you haven’t seen her in six years.” I knew it was rich, given my own circumstances. Also, something made me think Conor wasn’t overly blessed with a sense of humor. Phyllis had been right about him.
He crossed his arms. “You seem to have taken a certain view of me.”
“You can hardly be surprised by that. I’ve just seen you threatening a woman who is about half your size.”
“You’re quick to judge.”
“I wouldn’t say that particularly.”
“Do you always assume that things are as they appear?”
I didn’t like the way the conversation was going.
“So why were you shouting at Eithne then?” I demanded. “You know she could report you to the guards? That’s a public order offense, threatening and abusive behavior.”
He gave the smallest glimmer of a smile, and I saw a trace of the young man I had seen in the photograph from the paper.
“She is absolutely free to report me. Did you ask her if she wanted to?”
“Yes. She didn’t,” I admitted.
“No, she wouldn’t. Now: Are you going to tell me what you were talking to my mother about?”
His patronizing tone really riled me. “What are you doing, Mr. Devitt – sorting out all the people in the town you don’t like? Is that what you came back to do? And I’m on your hit list because I talked to your mother?”
He turned and walked away.