Erin Hart - Haunted Ground

“Look, I don’t have to answer any questions. There’s such a thing as confidentiality, you know.” He spoke as if he’d only just learned the word.

“If you’re a priest, or maybe a solicitor,” Devaney said. “You a solicitor, Eddie? I know you’re not a priest.” He kept perfectly still, looking mildly at Dolphin. The silence grew.

“About six months.” Dolphin’s look was apprehensive, as though he now expected an onslaught of questions. His jaw worked nervously. Devaney kept quiet and waited.

“He came here last winter. Said he wanted me to help him look for his wife and kid. Gone missing. I told him it didn’t look good, but—” Dolphin looked up briefly. “He was a steady client, paid up regular, and I took the job. I did some checking, went around a few places with photos. I’ve got four kids already, and another one on the way,” he said, a new note of pleading in his voice. “I needed the work. And there’s no one better at finding people. I’d have come up with something.”

“So what was he here for this evening?”

“Somebody sent him a package.”

“What was in it?”

“How should I know?” Dolphin said, contriving to look injured at the suggestion. “I don’t go round opening up packages addressed to clients.”

“Well, and what sort of a detective does that make you, Eddie? Of course, if I wanted to know the answer to that, all I’d have to do is get in touch with my friend Michael Noonan in the collator’s office down at Mill Street Station. I’m sure he has a little card in his file with all sorts of information about you.”

“I’ve done nothin’ wrong. For fuck’s sake, you can’t just come barging in here—” Dolphin spluttered, glancing nervously at the open closet door.

“I’ve been meaning to give Michael a ring. Haven’t seen him in ages. That fella has the most phenomenal memory—never forgets anything. He could give you chapter and verse about every sort of robbery, large and small, that’s been perpetrated in these parts over the past five years. Isn’t that amazing? You’ve never seen such a memory.”

“All right, all right,” Dolphin said. “It was just a fuckin’ letter, all right? A couple of pages, handwritten. Going on about ‘I know what ye’re up to, ye bastard, and ye’ll never get away with it,’ and like that. There was something else as well, some sort of metal yoke, I don’t know what it was. But he fucked off out of here as soon as he read it. Forgot all about my retainer that was due.”

“Never mind about the retainer, Eddie. Describe this metal yoke for me.”

“It seemed like—I don’t know, a brooch or something. Two elephants, like this,” and he pushed his fists together, “buttin’ heads, like.” Devaney froze. Mina Osborne’s hair clip. What else could it be?

“How would anyone know to contact Osborne here?” Devaney asked.

“Must have seen one of my adverts. They’re not cheap either, them, and it’s all come out of my pocket so far.”

Osborne’s reaction to the body at the cutaway pushed its way to the front of Devaney’s mind. If there was no way to search a whole bog, there had to be some way to force Osborne’s hand. He’d put the pressure on around Bracklyn. Lucy Osborne knew more than she was willing to tell. And the lad—Devaney had seen him often enough at Lynch’s—might speak out of turn if pressed.

“Look, I’ve got to get home,” Dolphin said. “The wife was expecting me ages ago.”

Wife. Jesus. Devaney checked his own watch. Nearly nine o’clock, and he was an hour away from home at least. “I’ll be in touch,” he said to Dolphin. He might be able to find a phone and try to patch things up at home.

He jammed the keys into the ignition. How had it gotten so late? He darted through the city traffic, keeping an eye out for a phone box, seeing none along his route. Finally, at the outskirts of the city he saw one standing alone at the roadside. He pulled up and leapt from the car, fumbling for coins in his pocket. He lifted the telephone and was greeted by silence in place of the usual buzz, and only then noticed that the cord had been severed. He slammed the receiver down, and trudged back to the car. When he lifted the handle, it took him a split second to realize what had happened. Of all the fucking stupid—the car’s security system had locked the doors automatically. This whole adventure was turning into a colossal disaster. He landed a vicious kick on the nearest tire. Just then a fat droplet struck him in the left eye, then another, and another, and in the space of a few seconds he was wet to the skin in the pelting rain.

It was close to midnight when he reached home. He’d been able to flag down a couple with a mobile within five or ten minutes, but waiting for the locksmith to open the car took a good hour and a half. He’d tried phoning home on the borrowed mobile as well, but no one answered. He was still soaking, and must have been a bedraggled-looking sight when he pushed open the kitchen door. Nuala was sitting at the table with a cup of tea. She gave him a reproachful look that had become all too familiar.

“I had to cancel the meeting. You know, Gar, I’m not angry for myself,” she said wearily. “I’m really past that. But you completely forgot you were to take Roisin out to look at that fiddle tonight, didn’t you?”

Christ. That’s what had been niggling at him all day, the one thing he knew he was forgetting. He sat wearily in the chair opposite Nuala, but she rose from the table, and her look might as well have been a slap.

“She’s in bed, but I don’t think she’s asleep. You might tell her you’re sorry.”

He kept silent, knowing any attempts to explain at this stage would only make matters that much worse. She left him sitting there, and each footstep that took her away from him was like a blow to his heart. No case was worth this. He had once felt that they moved in tandem, in everything they did. He remembered drinking in the scent of her as if it were nourishment. The feeling was still there, but it had been buried under the avalanche of practicalities that jobs and responsibilities and life with three children had brought. He felt like rushing after her, tackling her to the ground if he had to, and burying his face in her softness. Instead he took a towel from the cupboard near the cooker, and began drying his hair as he climbed the stairs to speak to Roisin. She stirred when the light from the hall spilled into her room. He sat at the edge of her bed, looking into his daughter’s solemn eyes, their pupils large in the murky darkness.

“I’m so sorry, Roisin,” he said. “I got caught up in what I was doing, and the fiddle completely slipped my mind.”

“It’s all right, Daddy. I forgave you right away.” She leaned forward and patted his arm in a gesture of comfort. “I don’t think Mammy has. But don’t worry, she will.”

Devaney sat on the side of the bed, looking down at his shoes, trying to imagine how such a thing might come to pass.

Nora thought she was dreaming when her phone began to ring in the middle of the night. She often had nightmares that ended with a telephone ringing, unanswered, somewhere in the distance, but she gradually realized that this wasn’t a dream, and picked up the receiver beside the bed, feeling disoriented and panicky, and nearly deafened by the sound of her own heart clamoring in her chest.

“Hello?” When there was no response, she said again: “Hello?” She peered at the clock: 12:47. That meant that it was past six in the evening at home. She remembered the call she’d received from her father the night Triona’s body was found, and felt a stab of apprehension. When there was still no response, she heard her own tentative question: “Daddy?”