Declan Hughes - The Color of Blood

“Did you take them from Rowan House?”

Emily nodded.

“This morning the cops came and asked me questions about Mum, and David. They talked to Sandra too. And then David Manuel showed up, and Sandra felt it was safe to go off to the clinic to boss people around, the way she likes. And I talked to David a while, then he left.”

“What did you say to David Manuel?”

“Not a lot. Not then. I spoke to him again later. I forgot, before then I had another row with my cousin, because he thought I shouldn’t be talking to David, and I thought he should. I said it was time to tell the truth about everything. But Jonny, my God, he is a true Howard, he wants to keep it all covered up. And…oh, other stuff.”

“What other stuff?”

Emily rolled her eyes.

“He wanted to have sex with me. He always wants to have sex with me. And I haven’t for ages, except in that fucking porno. That was David Brady’s idea, to spite me, or get back at me for dumping him, or something. And I suppose I thought, well maybe it would be better than a complete stranger. You see, normal again. So he stormed off in his long black coat. I always slag him, he looks like one of those guys who shoot up classrooms.”

“Jonathan said you had sex together all afternoon, in the house in Honeypark.”

“He said that? How could we have? He wasn’t fucking there.”

“He what? Where was he?”

“He took off in the morning and came back not long before you arrived. He looked in a bad way.”

“He said that’s what you did. And that when you came back, you showered and changed all your clothes.”

Emily stared at me, her blackened eyes widening.

“Jesus Christ. He was trying to point the finger at me.”

“Did he shower and change his clothes when he came back?”

She nodded, and tears sprang into her eyes again.

“Why would he want people to think I had killed anyone?”

“Maybe he was afraid I might think he had. Did you leave the house in Honeypark?”

“For a while. I went to see Jerry at the Woodpark Inn, his band was supposed to have a rehearsal. But I couldn’t find him.”

“That would have been what time?”

“About midday. I had a cup of coffee there, came back around two. Still no sign of Jonny.”

“All right. Let’s get back to yesterday. After you had the row with Jonny.”

“He stormed off. And I was left alone. Sandra had given the staff the day off. So I went through to the old house. Wandered about, looking for…you know, something wrong.”

“And you found all these?” I said, indicating the photograph albums and journals.

“I don’t think Sandra wanted me to have them. Thought I’d grab them while the coast was clear. Also, I went into a room…a little girl’s room with Sleeping Beauty wallpaper-”

“I was in that room too.”

“And a dolls’ house model of Rowan House.”

“Did you look under the roof?”

She nodded and swallowed hard.

“You must have turned the flap back to face the wall again.”

“I thought it was Sandra’s room. I thought, here it is, I’ve found it at last, Aunt Sandra was abused by my grandfather, that’s what’s wrong…and I went back to my room in the bungalow, with the photograph albums, I didn’t know what I was going to do, who I could tell. I mean, the idea of telling Dad, he’d just lose it. You cannot say a thing about Sandra, or about Granddad.”

“So what did you do?”

“I gathered up all the books and papers, I rang a cab, and I got out of there. I came straight here, and Jerry let me in. And before I could tell him what I had seen, he showed me the photo of Marian and the clipping. And it all fit: the girl’s room preserved as if she was still alive, but frozen at the age of twelve. And we decided we should go to the cemetery-”

“How did you know where it was?”

“It was written on the back of the photograph. We’d go there and put the picture on the headstone if there was one, and…I don’t know what we thought after that. We were too upset, at least I was. Twelve years old. Jesus.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

“I phoned David Manuel…and Jonathan. I thought he had a right to know. His aunt too, she would have been. He freaked out completely. Said I wasn’t to tell anyone else, that this was the family’s business, and it should be kept within the family.”

“You told him you had told David Manuel then?”

“Yes. Why?”

I thought about how Manuel had died, and who might have done it, and decided Emily didn’t need to know that yet.

“No reason. Is there anything in the journals?”

“I’m going through them. Accounts of holidays, bridge evenings, family gatherings around the piano, that sort of thing. Occasionally the kids are allowed to write things. Here’s one from Sandra:

Went with Dad to see Seafield play Old Wesley. Seafield won 24-16. I had a bag of Tayto and a Trigger Bar. Dad said it was a great try from Rock O’Connor. Kept warm in my new coat with fur trim hood and fur pom-poms.

“That was in 1968, she would have been eight or nine.”

“She sounds like an ordinary girl of eight or nine,” I said.

Neither of us looked at each other, or said what was on our minds: that she wasn’t an ordinary little girl, or that if she had been, she wasn’t for long. I gave Emily my card.

“I’ve got to go,” I said. “If you come across anything you think I should know about, call me. The other person you might like to talk to is Martha O’Connor, do you know who I mean?”

Emily smiled.

“Jonny’s half sister? The journalist? I know who she is, I’ve never met her.”

“If you can’t get hold of me, call her. She’s good at letting people know about things.”

“You mean, she’s got a big mouth?”

“In a good way.”

I left Emily on the floor, poring over the spidery writing in one of a pile of Mary Howard’s journals, then turned at the front door and came back.

“Two things: the other dollhouse, the one in your bedroom in Bayview-have you always had that?”

“No. No, that came from Granny Howard too, she left it to me. I’ve barely looked at it, to be honest. What’s the other thing?”

“There’s rowan berries across the threshold out there. What’s going on with that? That was you left them up at Marian’s grave as well, wasn’t it?”

She nodded.

“They’re supposed to ward off evil spirits. They say.”

“Hasn’t worked out very well so far, has it?”

Emily rubbed the rings on her fingers together.

“We live in hope, Ted. We live in hope.”

PAT TRACY LIVED IN ONE OF A TERRACE OF THREE SMALLhouses that opened onto the street just around the corner from the Anchor Bar. Martha O’Connor’s text had assured me that he stayed up late, and sure enough, his lights were on when I got there. I identified myself through the letterbox, and he opened the door and looked me up and down. We recognized each other immediately, or at least, I recognized him: he was a regular in the Anchor, where he was to be found consulting a newspaper for times of the tides, dispensing the occasional piece of information about alterations in ferry timetables, or gale warnings, or how EU fishing regulations were endangering the entire industry. Silent John called him the Captain, but I think the name was derisive in intent. He had a lined face and false teeth that didn’t fit properly that he liked to work back and forth on his gums, and he wore a flat cap that shone with grime. I sat in his tiny front room at a battered Formica table, and with great ceremony he poured the remainder of the pint bottle of Guinness he had open into a grimy half-pint glass he unearthed from his scary kitchen. I didn’t really want it, certainly not from that glass, but you couldn’t turn down a man’s hospitality. An old paperback copy of Sink the Bismarck! was open by his place at the table; a pale terrier slumbered in a cane basket; the house smelled of stale bread and damp dog.