Алекс Баркли - I Confess

Edie laughed. ‘I know. You don’t expect it. He calls himself Murphé. Like Bublé.’

Val laughed. ‘I’d say he’s great craic.’

‘He is,’ said Edie.

Val looked at her. ‘Is everything OK?’

‘Yes!’ said Edie. ‘Of course! Why?’ She paused. ‘I mean — I’ve had a few too many, but...’

‘And poor Helen couldn’t last the distance,’ said Val. ‘We were in Mac’s for an early birthday drink last week and she was fading by nine, the poor divil. What time did she head away?’

Edie went very still. ‘Oh, no — she’s here. She’s staying over.’

‘She’ll hardly sleep through that racket,’ said Val.

‘No, no — she’s... out in one of the suites.’

‘She won’t hear a thing out there,’ said Val. She paused. ‘And what would happen now if she had a fall — with the power cut?’

‘Oh, a back-up battery kicks in for the emergency card,’ said Edie. ‘Don’t worry — we haven’t abandoned her.’

Edie leaned an ear towards the room. ‘Oh, God. Murph’s on to “Patricia the Stripper”.’

‘That’s my cue,’ said Val.

‘That’s everybody’s cue,’ said Edie. She opened the front door and a wind whipped through. ‘Well, thanks for having Dylan, and coming all the way out in this.’

‘Not a bother,’ said Val. ‘Enjoy the rest of it!’

Edie closed the door and rested her forehead against it. The door to the bar opened, and Patrick came out into the hallway. Edie turned around and slumped back against the door. She let out a long breath.

‘We could have done without that,’ said Patrick.

‘Honestly,’ said Edie.

There was a hammering at the door behind her. She jumped, her eyes wide. Patrick made a face, pointed towards the men’s room, and strode across the hall.

Edie turned around and pulled open the door.

‘Sorry,’ said Val. ‘I remembered — Langerwell. Why it was familiar. There’s a Langerwell the owner of the acre between our two places. I checked the land registry when I was buying ours.’

Edie frowned. ‘What?’

Val nodded. ‘There can’t be too many of those about — a name like that. You should ask your friend — Patrick, is it?’

‘I will,’ said Edie. She closed the door after Val, started to walk towards the bar, then paused, and headed for the basement.

Murph was standing by the bar, pouring drinks. Clare stood at the window watching Val jog to her car. She drew the curtains across. Laura was sitting on her own at a table beside her.

‘You know something,’ said Johnny, looking over at Laura, ‘for all your talk of garda bonding, there was hardly a peep out of you.’ His tone was teasing. Laura scowled over at him. Johnny raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer.

‘I don’t think you’re going to want to hear why,’ said Laura.

Clare stood up. ‘I’m going to the ladies.’

‘She knows Laura is about to blow,’ said Murph.

Clare flashed a confirmation glance at Murph as she walked past.

‘She wants to stand outside splashing distance,’ said Murph.

Johnny laughed.

Murph looked over at Laura. Her head was turned away. ‘Well, whatever you’re about to say, there’s no point talking into the curtains. They’re half the reason we’re in this shit. Opening up like that...’

‘I swear to fuck,’ said Laura, stabbing a finger at him, ‘I’ll murder you myself if you keep cracking fucking jokes.’

‘I’m nervous!’ said Murph.

‘Why can’t you just shit yourself in peace like a normal person?’

‘Because I don’t find shitting myself very peaceful,’ said Murph.

Johnny laughed.

‘Right!’ said Laura. ‘Do you want to know why I didn’t open my mouth?’

‘It was surprising,’ said Johnny, flashing a glance at Murph.

‘You’re a pair of pricks,’ said Laura.

Murph zipped his lip. Johnny laughed.

Laura exploded. ‘You thick fucks! The minute she walked in the door, she was clocking every fucking thing in the room. She was looking at the state of myself and Clare, she was looking at her in her fucking boots, she was looking at the pens on the table, the extra napkins, all the weird looks flying about the place... and no amount of shite out of you, Murph, was stopping her. And,’ she said, turning to Johnny, ‘she was looking at the size of your coked-up fucking eyeballs, wondering did you think she came down in the last shower — the one you would have left her standing outside in for the night if you weren’t stupid enough to leave the fucking front door wide open.’

Edie went into the office, went to the safe, unlocked it, and took out the pages she had put in earlier, setting them on the desk in front of the notebook. She looked at the one with no name on it, the one with the crooked mouth, and the little line underneath it, and the gaping head wound. She opened the notebook, and started flicking through it to try to find a page with the matching tear. She found it.

YOU FUCKING BOARDING SCHOOL PRICK!

YOU THINK YOU’RE THE BIG MAN!

FUCK. YOU. MY DICK IS BIGGER.

Her heart leapt. The crooked mouth. The line underneath it. It was Johnny, her crooked-smiled charmer with the scar on his chin. She thought of Terry trying to bring his fantasy to life tonight and Johnny retaliating. She shook the thought away. But boarding school? Why would Terry care about that now? And “click”?

She flicked through the notebook again and stopped, when she reached a page where all the heads with Xs for eyes now had stick-figure bodies — six, all surrounded by flames. Her heart plunged when she reached the next page: it was a diagram of the old dormitory at the convent: with the stick-figure people inside, and the containers of kerosene, and the title of the story Murph told that night: I Am the Ghost of the Manor. And underneath it, with arrows pointing to all the stick figures was:

I AM YOURS I AM YOURS I AM YOURS

She knew from the story that that meant manner of death and her stomach turned. Had Terry set the fire? How? Why?

She turned back to the pages with the disembodied heads, and, in a quick scan, she recognized Murph in one of them, Laura in another, Clare in another. She couldn’t find Helen, she couldn’t find Jessie, and she couldn’t find herself. Maybe Terry didn’t hate them. But she counted six stick figures in the dormitory, and there were six of them there on the night of the fire.

She locked the safe, then slid Patrick’s and Johnny’s pages into the notebook, and went upstairs with it. As she walked into the hallway, she bumped into Patrick.

‘How did that all go?’ he said. ‘With Val.’

Edie let out a breath. ‘OK — I think. But this is insane.’ She held up the notebook. ‘This is Terry’s, and it’s full of psychotic ramblings. Earlier — I didn’t tell anyone — I found these notes on the dining-room floor. He had it in for Johnny, he had it in for you. He wanted to bash Johnny’s head in, and he wanted to see you swinging from a rope.’

‘What?’ said Patrick.

Edie pulled the two loose pages from where they were sticking out of the notebook, and handed them to him. His eyes widened.

‘How well did you know Terry?’ said Edie.

‘Not well at all,’ said Patrick. ‘I mean — he did work on our house, but I took no notice.’

‘I don’t know what to do about this,’ said Edie. ‘I’m going to take another look at it, but... it’s vile. The idea that someone who is in and out of your house, in your life, your business, knows so much about you — had all this going through their head is terrifying.’

Patrick levelled her with a look. ‘Do not tell Johnny you have this. Don’t tell anyone.’