From the outset, Kathy knew today wouldn’t make for easy listening, but what she’d heard had shocked her to the core. She’d never before had to question the kindness or goodness of her oldest friends.
What Charlotte told them had the ring of truth, and yet it raised as many questions as it answered. Kathy wanted to pick over the detail of what Charlotte had told them, dissect it, analyse it, but she bit her tongue. Why had Charlotte not done the simplest, most obvious thing, and told the truth? And there was more to come, this wasn’t over yet. She’d have to bide her time. Don’t let this be gruesome. Please, oh please let this man tell us that he buried Sarah with some little dignity. Kathy steeled herself and chewed the inside of her cheeks.
“Mr Queally, are you with us?” asked Stephen Shaw.
“Yes… yes.”
Nathan Queally cleared his throat and lowered his eyes. “I don’t know what came over me,” he started to mumble. “Really, I don’t.” He swallowed. “I can’t excuse it. I suppose it was Egypt all over again –”
“Mr Queally,” Ruth sat up straight, “Please, what do you mean by that?” Her tone was softer now, less abrasive.
“I used to be in the army, as you know.” Queally shifted on the chair, looking embarrassed. “Back in the late seventies and early eighties. I was on overseas tour of duty this one time, and on a weekend’s leave in Cairo. And there was an incident.”
Apart from his stammer, Queally was softly spoken for a lunk of a man. Absurdly so in fact, his demeanor and carriage more suited to a professional man than that of a casual tradesman. He wiped his eyes behind the glasses.
“That woman attacked me f-first,” Queally continued. “A complete nut-job. It was s-self-defense. But no one would come f-forward. No one would believe me. I was court-marshalled and given a dishonorable discharge for assaulting a female colleague while on my overseas tour of duty.” His voice was pained. “I told the truth of what had happened in that bar in Egypt. Look where that got me. I lost my career, my honour, my p-pride. It was very hard on my poor wife too. But Alice stood by me. Alice always believed in me.” There was deep affection in his voice.
“You see, I could s-see it all happening again.” Queally looked across the table at them, pleading for understanding. “You’re all c-college girls, educated women. Way cleverer than me. Think about it. Imagine it – some p-posh student kid found dead on the sofa of a holiday cabin.” He was very coherent now, putting his case to them. “Some ex-army, odd-jobbing, low-life bum working at the cabins close by finds this young female student. Cause of death unknown.” He shrugged. “Sure, I hadn’t a clue what k-killed her, I only knew it wasn’t me. But I’d already been done for assaulting a woman. Put yourself in my shoes. They’d have p-pinned it on me, for sure. I know they would. Said I’d lost my temper again.” He shook his head, his voice full of regret. “Give a dog a bad name… they would have locked me up, for sure. Who was going to look after my Alice? MS had a firm grip of her by then. No,” he shook his head. “I just couldn’t let that happen. I just couldn’t t-take that risk.”
“Mr Queally, can you please get to the point?” Ruth was impatient.
“Easy, Ruth,” said Richard. It was the first time he’d spoken since returning to the meeting room.
“You haven’t lived with this day-in, day-out, for the last twenty-five years, Richard,” Ruth snapped. “Lived with the guilt of leaving Sarah and wondering what the hell ever happened to her and now this… this… this guy here tells us he knew all along what happened. There was appeal after appeal, it was all over the news and the papers for months, not days or weeks. It was bloody months. Do you know the sheer bloody hell I’ve been through? I’ve been in therapy for years over this. It’s alright for you, Richard!”
“You can leave Richard out this,” Charlotte said quietly. “None of this is Richard’s fault.”
Ruth turned slowly to face Charlotte.
“As for you… as for you…” Ruth trembled with emotion. Her voice was black with anger. She slumped back in her chair leaving the rest unsaid.
Kathy knew how she felt. Of course she did. She felt the same. Stephen Shaw sat there, calmly. Watching them all.
“Mr Queally,” Shaw now indicated that Queally should carry on.
“There wasn’t another soul up at those cabins except me,” Nathan Queally began. Dark patches had appeared under the arms of his suit. “There was a strange kind of quiet about the place,” he said. “The k-kind of quiet that comes after a death.” He paused. “The mist had come down heavily. The weather had taken a turn for the worse.”
Kathy could tell that time had rolled away and that Nathan Queally was back there now. Back at the Blue Pool.
“Once I figured that there was nothing I could do, that that poor wee girl was dead, all I wanted to do was run,” said Queally. “I couldn’t take the chance, you see. What would happen to my wife? That’s what kept running through my head. Alice was unwell and Alice needed me.”
A sick feeling hit Kathy. This was going to be hard.
“I knew what I had to do. I didn’t want to d-do it. You have to believe that. I didn’t have a choice. I was a s-strong man. Used to hard work. Look at them, they’re still like spades.” He extended his hands, flipping them this way and that. “That slip of a girl should have been easy to carry. But she was heavy… carrying the dead… twice she slipped on me. Somehow I managed.”
Suddenly Stephen Shaw pulled his phone towards him, flipped it over, checked it, and flipped it over again. He’d heard all this before.
“I d-did what I had to,” Nathan continued. “I put her over my shoulder and carried her out of the c-cabin. I locked the front door and put the key under a f-flowerpot. I couldn’t see much at that stage as the mist had turned into rain. It was coming down in sheets. I knew I had to hide her quickly.”
The meeting room had once more fallen deathly quiet.
“I didn’t have a choice, so I did the first thing that came into my head. It seemed like a s-solution,” he cleared his throat “The f-floor. The floor was all dug up already… I had the materials. The leveling compound, the cement, the brand new floor tiles. I panicked –”
“You buried her under the floor?” Kathy whispered.
“Yes,” Queally whispered too, unable to look up. “That’s where I put her. Wrapped up in towels, in the ground.”
Silence.
“Sarah’s been there all this time?” Kathy asked eventually.
Charlotte looked at Richard. “Sarah’s buried in the O’Hagan’s cabin? But I thought the police searched the O Hagan’s at the time?” she said sharply.
“They did search it,” said Richard, responding numbly to his sister. “They searched the O’Hagan’s cabin. That’s where Mr Queally was putting in the patio door –”
“What the police didn’t realise was that I was also working on another cabin,” Queally interrupted. “Further up. I was taking up the flagstones and laying a new tiled floor,” he explained. “And the police never asked me about that other c-cabin. They never checked that one. I thought they were on to me that first time they interviewed me. I thought they’d d-dig up the floor for sure. But then I realised they only knew about the patio work in O’Hagan’s. They didn’t realise I was working on another cabin as well. And they appeared to know n-nothing at all about Egypt. I don’t think they even knew I’d been in the army. They seemed much more interested in those lads from the north of Ireland. Wanted to know what they were d-doing around the cabins the previous night. There was a lot of IRA activity at that time, if you remember. I think they thought Sarah may have stumbled onto something.”
Nathan Queally suddenly looked like a tired old man. The malevolence that Kathy had convinced herself that lurked behind the cheap suit was gradually melting away as the likelihood of him being a murderer and a rapist had all but disappeared. However harrowing it was to listen to, the story Queally had told them was plausible.
“Is that it, Mr Queally?” Ruth wasn’t letting him off so easily. “Is that all you have to say to us? You buried our friend Sarah in a concrete floor because you didn’t have a choice?”
“But, miss, I had everything to l-lose. That’s the point. I had my wife. Alice was everything to me. I thought about it then. I thought about handing myself in. I was s-sick with worry. It wasn’t going to look good for me either way. I was goosed. Imagine I walk into a police s-station and tell the truth. Imagine it for one second, put yourself in my shoes…” his eyes implored her to do just that.
Ruth didn’t answer.
“If you don’t mind me asking, why now?” Kathy was feeling brave. “Why come forward at this moment in time, Nathan?”
“Well, I read that the Nugents had died. And my Alice had also passed away. That was when I decided it was time to tell the truth, to tell the p-police. Even if they didn’t believe my s-story and locked me up, sure what harm? No one needs me anymore. We had no family, Alice and I, and now she’s g-gone. I’m no g-good to anyone any more. I wanted to let yourselves and the rest of the family know there wasn’t any f-foul play all those years ago. Not on my part anyway. I wanted to say that I was sorry. So very sorry. And… and… I want the girl to have a decent b-burial. She deserves that. She should have that at least.”
Nathan Queally looked sad and spent. For the first time since he’d entered in the room, he sat back, shoulders straight, and exhaled loudly. He had confessed. As if on trial, he put one hand on top of other, awaiting a verdict.
The last hour or so had been harrowing and Kathy felt traumatised. But it also occurred to her that she’d no longer have to view her past through the prism of guilt. However hard it was to accept, Nathan Queally’s explanation had the ring of truth. For the first time that day, Kathy was glad she had come in person because she doubted she could have believed all she’d heard if she’d heard it second-hand. The evidence presented so far, if that’s what you could call this garbled rendition of events, pointed to Nathan Queally being an unwitting bystander, forced into the role of Good Samaritan, rather than a sinister predator.
Stephen Shaw’s mobile vibrated.
“Jesus Christ!” Kathy jumped.
The mobile spun on the table like a token on a Ouija board.
“Here we go.” He looked across at Richard with a dark expression. He stood up swiftly and left the room in a swish of coat-tails.
“Do you mind?” Nathan Queally looked at Richard. “I don’t feel very well. I think I’ll step outside a moment.” Without waiting for an answer, Queally made his way to the French doors and stumbled on the step outside.
“What’s going on?” Kathy looked at Richard who suddenly looked petrified.
Before he could answer, Stephen Shaw burst back into the room with a swagger. He sat down drumming his fingers on the table.
“Queally?” he asked Richard, looking around the room.
“Having a breath of fresh air.” Richard pointed to the figure pacing up and down outside the French window.
“Well?” said Richard, looking at Stephen Shaw with a raised eyebrow.
“We’re sorted,” said Shaw, sliding his mobile across the table to Richard. Instead of reaching Richard, it hit the water jug and spun back towards Kathy. She caught it just as it was about to career off the table. Her heart skipped a beat. She saw a three word message:
Forensics have it.
A dart of adrenaline shot through her.
“Thank you,” Stephen Shaw leaned over and pocketed the phone.
“Get him back in here now, will you?” Shaw said to Richard. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Nathan.” Richard beckoned at the door. “It’s time.”
“Remote?” asked Stephen Shaw, looking animated. “Where’s the remote for the TV?”
Reaching up, Richard found it on top of the set and handed it to him. Kathy and Ruth exchanged puzzled glances. Since her revelation, Kathy found herself completely unable to look at Charlotte. And then it hit her. Kathy knew exactly what was about to happen. She felt sick. She imagined it all unfolding before her eyes before Shaw even got the right channel. She grabbed Ruth’s hand and squeezed it tightly.
Newsroom backdrop.
“… a retired labourer working in the area at the time is helping the police with their enquiries. A file has already been sent to the DPP.”
“Shit! I think we missed it,” hissed Stephen Shaw.
Shaw was wrong.
The coverage cut to an outside shot. White tents. Vans. Squad cars. It was raining. Clusters of people are milling around with umbrellas. The camera pans around to a shot of the water. Eerie and still in the drizzle. Ruth’s hand feels clammy. Just as the camera pans back to the cabin door, a swarm of camera-men surge forward. They are forced back as a cortege of white robed bodies bear a covered stretcher out into the open.
Beside her, Kathy gasped.
“Well, as you can see, Tony, it’s breaking news from here in North Clare. A forensics team have just excavated what’s believed to be the remains of Sarah Nugent – a young twenty-one year old student who went missing on holiday here twenty-five years ago –”
“Oh God,” said Kathy.
Ruth’s fist was clenching, nails digging into her palm.
The camera panned to a couple hugging one another outside the perimeter tape. Two women. Kathy recognised Ava and Penny Nugent.
“More on this story in today’s six o’clock bulletin. But for now, back to you in the studio, Tony.”
Click.
Stephen Shaw powered the TV off.
Tears were streaming down Nathan Queally’s face. He didn’t try to hide them. He held his handkerchief in his hands but he didn’t even try to stem the tears. His shoulders heaved. “Thank God. Thank God,” he whispered. “It’s over… It’s over now… over at last.”
It was an hour later when they all left the meeting room. Charlotte leaving first with Richard and Inspector Shaw. She left without even a backward glance. Even though she found it hard to do so, Kathy followed Ruth’s lead – she shook Queally’s hand. He tried to speak, to say something, but there was nothing. Nathan Queally swallowed hard and looked away.