Alex Barclay - Darkhouse

Shame pulsed through Anna. That she could have been so intimate with a man who went on to beat women repulsed her. A long-buried image of him pinning her hands above her head flashed into her mind. It repulsed her, because in it, she could see the smile across her face.

‘Ohmygod,’ said Ali, running down the stairs into Shaun’s bedroom. ‘Katie owes me big time.’

‘Why?’ said Shaun.

‘For a totally puckering experience. That guy in charge, the D.I.? Came to my house for a chat. Which was fine. Then he goes, “I know you smoke dope.” I nearly puked.’

‘Wow. What did you say?’

‘I’m, like, fair enough. But it’s not like I’ve run out of veins or something, I’m shooting into my groin in a phone booth. Jesus.’

Shaun shook his head. ‘Man, that’s unreal.’

‘I think they thought Katie was involved in some sort of shady gangland stuff. Bizarre. I’d laugh if I wasn’t so shitting it. He was asking about online freaks as well.’ She shook her head. ‘I mean, it’s an arboretum.’

‘What?’ said Robert.

‘Of wrong trees they’re barking up.’ She threw herself on the sofa and groaned. ‘Where are you, Katie, you bad, bad, girl?’

Joe knocked lightly on the door and came down the stairs.

‘Who’s winning?’ he asked.

‘Everyone except Rob,’ said Shaun.

‘Hi, Mr Lucchesi,’ said Ali, smiling wide. She leaned up on her elbows.

‘Hi, Ali. Like the hair.’

‘Blue-black,’ she said.

Joe sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘So how you all doing?’ he said.

‘Not bad,’ said Robert. ‘It’s been really hard on everyone.’ He made a face towards Shaun. ‘We’re all a bit in shock. We don’t know what Katie’s up to.’

Shaun put down the controls and left the room.

‘God,’ said Robert. ‘I didn’t mean to—’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Joe. ‘It’s not your fault.’ Then, ‘So where were you guys that night, when Katie...’

Ali spoke first. ‘I hate to say it, but I was at home doing my homework. On a Friday night.’ She shook her head.

‘Robert?’ said Joe.

‘Uh, at the harbour.’

‘Oh. With Katie and Shaun.’

‘No. Just with the others, Kevin and Finn. I think we were, like, down near the lifeboat launch and Katie and Shaun were up the other end.’

‘Right. And you didn’t see them leave—’

‘See who leave?’ said Shaun, standing in the doorway with a bag of tortillas.

‘You and Katie. That night,’ said Robert quickly.

‘Just thinking out loud,’ said Joe.

‘Interrogating out loud,’ Shaun muttered.

Joe stood up. Something caught his eye.

‘What’s that scratch on your hand, there, Robert?’

Robert blushed. ‘Aw, football. I’m crap. I crashed into the goalpost.’

Joe nodded. Anger flashed in Shaun’s eyes.

‘We’re trying to play a game here, Dad.’ When Joe didn’t move, Shaun snarled an ‘OK?’

‘Sure,’ said Joe, getting up to leave.

Duke Rawlins wandered around the small roadside grocer’s, picking up products, reading the labels and putting them back down again. Two teenage girls watched him from behind the counter. He walked up to them.

‘Ladies. What d’y’all like eatin’ over here?’

They glanced at each other and giggled. ‘What do you mean?’ said one of them.

‘You know, like, what would you recommend? What’s your favourite dinner?’

‘Oh,’ they said at the same time. ‘Pasta.’

‘Both of you?’

‘Yeah. Everyone likes pasta. I’ll get you the nice ones,’ said the other.

She walked over to the freezer, took out two bags of tomato and garlic penne.

‘Here. Catch,’ she said, throwing one to him. He missed.

‘Sorry,’ she said, giggling, walking over and handing him the second.

He put them on the counter. ‘And two bottles of Coke,’ he said. ‘And a bottle of red wine.’

‘Are you going to tell her you cooked it all yourself?’

He laughed.

‘Aw, shit,’ he said suddenly. ‘I don’t have a cooker.’

The girls exchanged glances. ‘Bizarre,’ said one of them. ‘Well, you can give them a blast in that microwave over there and I’ll wrap them in foil for you after.’

‘Thanks,’ he said.

‘But you do know, your cover will be blown,’ she said.

He smiled.

O’Connor stood in Frank’s office with his hands in his pockets staring out at the harbour.

‘Ali Danaher,’ he said.

‘Ah,’ said Frank.

‘I tell you, it wasn’t like that in my day,’ said O’Connor, turning around and smiling. Frank noticed his eyes looked clear for the first time. O’Connor shook his head. ‘There’d have been serious trouble if I spoke to an adult like that.’

‘Did you have an eye infection?’ asked Frank.

‘What?’ said O’Connor. ‘Oh. The red eyes? No. Contacts. She’s a bit of a smart arse, Ali, isn’t she? Anyway, she blew everything out of the water. Reckons no to drink, drugs, the Internet possibility, no to everything.’

‘I tried to tell you,’ said Frank. ‘There’s no point trying to fit modern theories to an old-fashioned girl like Katie. I suppose like me wearing contacts,’ he said, holding up his magnifying glasses.

Joe focused on the wrinkled tourist map of Mountcannon spread out in front of him. It showed the harbour, the church, the bars, two restaurants and the coffee shop, along with the scenic coastal drive past the lighthouse and two other roads out of the village, one a dead end, the other leading to Waterford. With a black pen, he marked the harbour and Katie’s house. Ignoring the scenic coastal drive, which would have brought Katie further away from home, he concentrated on the two other roads — the Upper Road and Church Road, both of which curved around to be connected by the straight Manor Road to form an uneven semi-circle. He wrote notes along the narrow white borders and stuffed the map into the inside pocket of his jacket. He took his car and parked it outside the school, walking the short distance to the T-junction at the edge of the village. Left would take him to Katie’s house, up the hill, along her regular route home. Right could also take him there, a longer walk down Church Road towards Mariner’s Strand and the Waterford Road. If, however, she took a left at the church, she would walk until she met the Upper Road, then take a left to her house.

Joe chose the first route, scanning the ground as he walked, taking everything in. He rounded the bend that brought him to the Grants’ house where Petey lived with his mother. Then he moved on towards Katie’s. He turned around before he reached the house and walked back to the T. This time he went the other way, taking a right down the steep and narrow footpath at the top of Church Road. He was protected from a sharp drop to Mariner’s Strand by a low crooked wall. He looked down at the water, slate grey, rolling diagonally towards the narrow shore in shallow waves. He looked left, across the road to the old stone church and its quaint, cluttered cemetery. Then he stopped, knowing at that moment exactly what he needed to find.

O’Connor came out from the small kitchen in the station with two mugs of coffee. He put one on Frank’s desk and walked back over to the window.

He took a mouthful of coffee. ‘I’m just wondering, Frank, could you be too close to all these kids?’

‘What?’

‘Obviously,’ he said, turning around, ‘your input is a great help, because you know the area, the people involved etc. But do you think your judgment could be clouded at all?’

‘No,’ said Frank, quietly preserving his dignity.

The iron gate to the cemetery was held closed with a loose length of dirty tow-rope. Joe pulled at it until it gave way. Every footstep crunched across the gravel as he moved along the rows between graves, then silence as he walked up the grassy slope to a modest, well-kept plot.