Declan Hughes - The Color of Blood

We got out of our cars and walked through the rowan trees, and I thought about the berries, and about the heliotrope crystals, the bloodstones that Emily always wore, how Shane said Sandra had been the one to introduce them to the family. I tried to remember what Emily had told me about them: how, in water, they made the sky turn red, but simply to hold one rendered the bearer invisible. The times I had worked with sexual abuse survivors before, almost every one of them had at some point or other said that there were days she felt like she was completely invisible, that her sense of self was so fragile that no one could actually see her; equally, there were days when she felt so low, so wretched and unloved and consumed with self-hatred that she wished she could simply vanish off the face of the earth, be visible to nobody, least of all herself. The first thing I noticed about Sandra Howard that last night was that she was wearing bloodstones all over: on her fingers, in her ears and on a chain around her neck. The second thing I noticed was her drawn, anxious face, the lines around her red eyes that had softened into crepe, the mouth set tight and hard like that of a wary animal. I don’t know if she was surprised to see me, or angry, or resigned; maybe she didn’t know herself. Her hair was pulled back tight, and she wore a long green wraparound dress with red velvet detail that tied at the waist over a pair of jeans. She still looked like the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, but now her beauty scared me; way beyond danger, it was too sad and too angry; I felt pity and fear for her.

The house was dark, the shutters and drapes closed; light spilled into the rotunda from the chandelier on the upper floor. Sandra led us down the rear corridor and into one of the sitting rooms I had seen before.

The room was lit by table lamps; it felt dark and heavy, with its mahogany side tables, dark red chairs and matching couches, dark wood fireplace and dark green carpet. There were antimacassars on the chairs and cushions, with needlework covers on the couches; there was an upright piano and a piano stool with an embroidered cushion cover seat that lifted off; inside there was sheet music from another time: “Autumn Leaves,” “Night and Day,” “Last Night When We Were Young.” I had a flash of the Howard family gathered around the piano, singing together. It seemed unbearable even to imagine; what must it have been like to recall?

There were four portraits of John Howard in the room, painted at intervals between his thirties and his early sixties; in conjunction with the mirrors that hung above the hearth and on the wall opposite, it meant that wherever your eye rested, he was in sight. I could see what Martha O’Connor’s colleague had meant about the David Niven comparison: there was a natural, rangy elegance to Howard which, combined with the flannels and tweeds he favored, gave him the appearance of a classic English gentleman. But his face lacked the genial, open features needed to round that image off; his eyes were small and piercing, his nose pointed, his lips compressed in a faint smile of what looked like self-satisfaction. His children barely resembled him, although Jerry Dalton had the same carved bone structure. No, the person who most looked like John Howard was his grandson, Jonathan, who wasn’t here. Denis Finnegan was, however: he rose and performed a kind of greeting in dumb show; then he sat again, a sheaf of papers by him on a side table. I stood by the mantelpiece. With his rictus grin and a wave of his red hand, Finnegan tried to induce me to sit down. I needed to keep on my feet. In my pocket, I fingered the Sig Sauer I had taken from Darren Reilly, now dead. I was glad to have it.

Sandra stood by a chair on the other side of the room from Denis Finnegan. On a couch between them, Shane raised his gaze from the floor and looked at his sister. She in turn looked at Denis Finnegan, who spread his palms, as an emperor might say, “Let the games commence.”

“I had hoped this would just be family, Shane,” Sandra said, avoiding my eyes.

“I think it’s too late for that, Sandra,” Shane said.

“I think it always was,” I said.

Sandra took a deep breath and began.

“The Guards have been in touch. David Manuel fell to his death from his attic last night. His house was on fire. The Guards believe the fire was started deliberately. By Jonathan. It seems they also suspect him of being involved in the murders of David Brady…and of Jessica.”

Sandra sounded like she wanted someone to reassure her that nothing she had said could possibly be true. Even Denis Finnegan couldn’t stretch to that.

“What they suspect and what they can support with evidence are two different things” was the best he could come up with.

“Jonathan called Denis late last night,” Sandra went on.

“He woke me up, with some difficulty,” Finnegan said, staring pointedly in my direction. “At first he thought I was dead. He had to pour water on my face and shake me hard. It was as if I had been drugged. What do you think, Mr. Loy?”

I met Finnegan’s gaze and shrugged. If he connected me to the GHB, I could be in a lot of trouble. But I was in a lot of trouble already. And if I had my way, Finnegan wasn’t going to be the most reliable witness the world had ever seen come the dawn.

“What did he say to you?”

“Nothing,” Finnegan said. “He left again almost immediately, wouldn’t tell me where he was going. He seemed extremely agitated.”

“There must be something we can do,” Sandra said. “I mean, what they’re saying can’t be true, can it?”

“It was Jonathan who called me and told me Jessica was with David Brady,” Shane said. “The Guards traced the calls. I think he knew me well enough to know I would lose the head altogether, that I’d lam around there to try and catch them in the act, and in the process get caught up on CCTV, which needless to say is just what I did. He tried to frame me for the murder.”

“He tried to throw the blame onto Emily as well,” I said.

“I don’t believe it,” Sandra said. But she sounded, wearily, as if she did.

“Jonathan called Jessica that morning also,” I said. “Was that usual? Did he ever have any contact with her?”

Shane shook his head.

“Not that I know of.”

Denis Finnegan sprang into action.

“I might be able to shed some light on that,” he said. “I’ve been doing a certain amount of dabbling in the property market. Jonathan would visit properties on my behalf and make an assessment for me of their potential. In that regard, I know for a fact he has seen several of the houses Jessica was showing in recent months.”

It was impossible to tell whether Finnegan was improvising to protect his stepson, or whether he was telling the truth. Before I could push him on it, Shane Howard plowed in.

“You’re a great man for property schemes, aren’t you, Dinny? The fourth tower, isn’t that right?”

“I’ve made no secret of my views. They support those of your sister.”

“And isn’t it very convenient that Jessica’s not around anymore to get in the way of your plans?”

“If you intend to level any malign insinuation regarding Jessica’s murder at my door, I would advise-”

“Ah, cut the lawyer crap now, Dinny. I bet that’s not the way you talk with Brock Taylor.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I bet Brock Taylor wouldn’t let a woman stand in the way of his plans. What’s a nice lawyer like you doing with a crook like that?”

“Brian Taylor has paid his debt to society, has settled with the Revenue and the CAB. He is now a respectable businessman, and is legally entitled-”

I couldn’t let that one run.

“Brock Taylor was a murderer and a crook, and you owed him big-time. Incalculable, really, how much. At least, that’s what he reckoned. I don’t know what way the pair of you structured the deal, or whether he just left it up to you, but either way, he was expecting to be paid back in a major way. Was he going to be a partner? Once Shane was safely stowed in jail, and you and Sandra had the running of it all, it would have been easy to cut him in, wouldn’t it? Or was he already in? For what? A third? A half? It’s all for Sandra, remember, so you can’t cut her out entirely. Although with someone like Brock Taylor, who knows where the bodies are buried because he killed them himself, you’re on very shaky ground, aren’t you, Denis? Maybe your loyalty to your childhood pal will have to take precedence over your veneration of the glorious Howard family.”