Declan Hughes - The Color of Blood

Emily didn’t say anything until Sandra left. Then she said, “I suppose she looks sexy, but she’s a nun, deep down. Deep deep down, she’s a nun.” Her voice was a Valium blur. “Do you like sexy nuns, Ted?”

“Ed,” I said. “I’m not sure if I would. I don’t think I’ve ever met one, but then again, I’ve never been in the habit of checking nuns out for their sex appeal.”

Emily considered this for longer than it deserved. Free of makeup, her eyes were red and swollen; blue veins lined her pale face.

“Well, maybe you should,” she said. “Her and Denis don’t live together anymore. Maybe she wants a man who doesn’t have a head like a boiled ham. A man like you, Ted.”

“I’m not in the market for marriage.”

“Neither is anyone in this family, haven’t you noticed?”

“I need to ask you a little more about the threesome you had with David Brady after the rugby-club party, about the underage girl. Did you get her name?”

“No names, that’s the way to do it. Except, if they turn out to be thirteen, it obviously isn’t the way to do it.”

“You must have called her something.”

“Called her c’mere. Called her c’mon. Called her see ya.”

“What was she like? Older than her age, obviously, was she clever, educated, what class was she?”

“She was smart. A smarty-pants. She made us laugh. And her accent was middle middle, could have been anything, working class reaching, upper middle relaxing, hard to know. Snow blond porn hair though, makeup a bit on the skang side, but not a pram face.”

“What about her father? How did that happen? Did he approach David Brady directly, or did the girl do it?”

Emily pulled the covers over her face.

“Why don’t you ask him, Ted?”

“Ask who?”

“David, of course. Ask him what happened.”

I didn’t know if it was the Valium, or if she was affecting some kind of mental confusion, or if she was genuinely disturbed, but I felt I couldn’t take the time to find out; the Howards seemed to be falling apart, and I was going to have to work hard and fast to stop the entire family from going under. I pulled the duvet cover away from Emily’s face.

“David Brady’s dead. You know that. Stop messing around and tell me what else you know.”

Emily flinched, as if the narcotics of shock and tranquilizer were wearing off and grief was finally seeping through.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know that David knew either. Jerry Dalton must have known. He told David…he was the go-between, I suppose you’d say. He told David what the threat was, what he had to do.”

“Jerry Dalton…is that your new boyfriend?”

“My new boyfriend? Jerry Dalton’s not my…who told you Jerry was my boyfriend?”

“Your mother.”

“What the fuck would that fucking whore know? What does she care who I’m going out with, except to shove her tits in his face and try and fuck him like she does with every man she meets?”

Emily’s eyes were spilling tears; her face was twisted with bitterness and grief, red raw and swollen ugly. She looked better than she had all day.

“But you know Jerry Dalton.”

“He’s a barman in SRC. Seafield Rugby Club? And he’s in my class at college. And he has this metal band. Everyone knows Jerry. He’s a really nice guy. A friend. At least, I thought so, but if he’s hooked up with whoever is doing all this-is it the same guy who killed DB?”

“Could be.”

Jessica Howard had called Brady an absolute ride, and said she certainly would have.

“Emily, might there have been anything going on between your mother and David Brady?”

She shook her head but didn’t look very convinced.

“Is that why you broke up with him, Emily? Because he was having an affair with your mother?”

“No, Jesus…whatever was going on…and I’m not saying anything was, but whatever…the whole thing with DB just got to be too much…too much E, too much porn…just too fucking…greedy…it wasn’t about love at all anymore, if it ever had been; it was just about us gorging ourselves…too fucking gross.”

She put her head in her hands and a convulsion of weeping surged through her, like a great wave. When it had crashed, she tipped her head back and shook it, as if she could dispel grief the way a dog shakes off salt water. I plowed on, trying to get as much as possible from her before she went under for the night.

“Sandra told me she fixed up some therapy for you. Do you still go?”

Emily looked at me cagily, then smiled.

“I do go. I go to Dr. Dave. Who says, I’m not a doctor, and don’t call me Dave.”

“What does he call himself? And where does he live?”

“David Manuel. He works from his house in Rathgar. But there’s no point. He won’t talk to you.”

“Maybe I’ll talk to him. Isn’t that the idea?”

I smiled at Emily, but she didn’t smile back. She had laced her fingers and was working her rings together, grinding the stones in an insistent rhythm. They were the same stones I had seen on a bracelet in her room, the same green-hued, red-flecked stones that were inlaid in the pool in Shane Howard’s back garden.

“Nice rings,” I said. “What jewel is it?”

“Bloodstone,” she said.

“Bloodstone? What’s that?”

“Heliotrope is its other name. Bloodstone sounds better. It’s a mythological stone, Ted. It possesses magical properties. Man.”

She looked up at me, her eyes suddenly twinkling, as if aware of the hippy-dippy nature of what she was saying, but willing herself-and me-to roll with it. Suddenly, I saw all her intelligence and wit being used in aid of herself for once. At last, I found myself liking her enormously. I smiled back, and she scrunched up her face as if she was embarrassed, and unused to people liking her for herself, or at all.

“Aunt Sandra gave me them, years ago. They say…‘they say’…they never say who they are, but… they say if you soak the bloodstone in a certain kind of water, for a certain amount of time…it can turn the clouds the color of blood. The other thing is better though…they say…if you clasp it in the right way, it can make you completely invisible.”

And with that, Emily slid back down in the bed and pulled the cover right over her face, but not quite so fast that I didn’t see a quiver in her lips, a glisten in her eyes, the bloodless pall of fear in her cheeks. I stood there a moment, and she poked one hand above the covers, just far enough to show the rings, and gave me a little kid’s closed-hand wave.

Sleep well, I thought. Whatever the hell it is, it seems to be coming down hardest on you.

I shut the light out before I left.

In the living room, Sandra and Shane Howard and Denis Finnegan were sitting around the big table, talking in murmurs; they went quiet and looked up at me as I approached. Sandra made an expectant face, as if waiting for a report. I nodded to her in reassurance. Then I took the mass card out of my pocket and laid it open on the table, and said “Who was Stephen Casey?” There was a satisfying reaction: Shane’s jaw fell open, and Denis flashed an urgent look at Sandra, who was staring at the table. Each of them knew. None of them would answer. I leant my hands on the table. I didn’t have to fake it.

“You people are living in a dream if you think I can do anything for you,” I said. “I found Emily without your help; keeping her safe-and your precious family’s reputation intact-isn’t going to be as easy. A case like this, it tends to shine its light into corners you thought would never be exposed. But if you’re hell-bent on keeping all your secrets, fine, just be prepared to take your chances with blackmail, maybe even jail time for Emily. Let me know what you decide-I can’t hang around-and neither will our good friends the Guards.”