Алекс Баркли - I Confess

‘Wh-what...’

‘Whist!’ she said, batting a hand at him. Then it was question after question — what way did you go, could anyone have seen you, where did you get the bike, could anyone have seen you there, don’t lie to me or you’ll be sorry, and he told her everything, apart from the details of his most horrible acts.

She turned to Daniel, staring with disgust into his fearful, pleading eyes.

‘You can get rid of the bike, the clothes, the lot — bury them down by the grotto, where Jerry Murphy’s been digging.’

Relief flooded Daniel’s face.

‘Now get down on your knees,’ she said.

Daniel did as she asked.

Sister Consolata bowed her head. ‘I confess...’

Daniel paused, rubbed the back of his sleeve under his nose.

Sister Consolata’s head whipped up. ‘I confess!’ she roared.

Murph held Helen, sobbing in his arms. He pulled back, held his hands to her face, and kissed her firmly, gently.

He grabbed Helen’s wheelchair, pulled it to the side of the bed, and helped her in. She went to the front door of the suite. Murph opened the door and shoved the wedge under it. Helen crossed the threshold on to the walkway.

‘Don’t go anywhere,’ said Murph. He glanced back at Patrick, lying, bleeding and unconscious, on the scattered pages of his notebook. ‘I’m going to lock this prick in the bathroom.’

As he dragged Patrick by the ankles past the shattered door, he heard the sound of a distant fire engine. He backed into the en suite and rolled Patrick into the recovery position. He stood up, stepped around him and, as he walked out the door, caught sight of the emergency pull cord from the corner of his eye. He reached out and pulled it.

He went to Helen. Her hands were over her ears.

‘I’ve always wanted to do that,’ said Murph. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘there’s a you to make safe in the inn. And a Laura in a tunnel with a broken ankle. I got her as far down as I could, but she made me go check on you. Mind you, at this stage, she probably got up and walked on it the rest of the way.’ He gripped the handles of the wheelchair.

Helen glanced around at him, frowning. ‘I can do it — it’s fine.’

‘Not at the speed I’m about to go,’ said Murph.

In the darkness of the bathroom, Patrick’s eyes flickered open. He winced, rolled on to his back. He touched his hand to the wound at the side of his head and pulled it away. He looked at the blood, disgusted, then got slowly to his feet. He tried the door handle, then kicked it.

He felt around the pockets of his jacket, and pulled his wallet from the inside. He went to the window and under the weak glow from the moonlight, slid out a store loyalty card. He went over to the door, crouched down, held on to the handle, and started to slide the card up and down in the gap between the door and the frame, getting more and more angry, pausing to slam his hand against the door before he started again.

Then he heard a click. Then he smiled.

Val James drove through town, past the late-night stragglers scattered down Main Street everywhere there was a porch to shelter from the rain. The phone was on speaker.

‘Right, Susan — I’m off to catch my fugitive son,’ she said.

‘He’s a juvenile, now, so go easy,’ said Susan. ‘And I’ll rep him in court if I have to. Don’t make me choose.’

‘You know something,’ said Val. ‘There was a friend of Edie’s up above tonight — a District Court Judge I came up in front of in Dublin when I was starting out.’

‘I know Clare,’ said Susan. ‘She’s from here. Scary bitch.’

‘I’ll never forget her — she tore strips off me for my evidence collection. I was mortified. I’ll tell you one thing, though — it stayed with me. She says to me in this posh D4 accent: “Gawr-da James. My father used to say to me ‘Eyes ahead’, which, of course, was his way of telling me not to dwell on the past.” And she says she doesn’t want me to dwell on my mistakes, which was pretty decent of her, but she wants to drill that phrase into me for a different reason. She goes, “So ‘Eyes ahead’, Garda James. And I’m not talking just about having your eyes on the evidence that lies before you at a crime scene. I mean — have your eyes on that day in the future when you’ll be presenting that evidence.” And here’s the thing that really got me. She says, “Your work will not always be life and death, Garda James. But it will always have a victim. And you want to be able to look out across a courtroom at that victim or their loved ones and know that you have done everything in your power to honour them.”’

‘So she’s why you’re the way you are,’ said Susan. ‘Did you say anything to her tonight? She’s the wind beneath your wings?’

‘I did not,’ said Val. ‘Guards are in one ear and out the other to judges. But I might get Edie to say something.’ She drove through the last of the street lights and turned on her full beams. ‘Right, I’m going to lose you. Talk to you tomorrow.’ She hung up and hit the second preset button on the radio. Billie Eilish’s voice filled the car, beautiful and haunting. There were no other cars on the road. When she got to the turn for Urhan, she drove past it, turned the car back around to face town, and parked on the gravel lay-by close to the ditch. She texted the bus driver.

Missed Cian in the square. Are you still in Urhan? Can you drop him off at the turn before Eyeries — I’m parked up. Thx.

She sat back, turned up the radio, and folded her arms. Her eyes were starting to close when she saw a car approaching, from town, being driven at high speed. She straightened in the seat. Her heart jumped when she saw the registration number. She turned her head as the black Audi passed, Patrick Lynch at the wheel, something off about his face, caught in the glow of the lights on the console.

As soon as he was out of sight, Val started up the car, turned it around and drove towards Eyeries.

She grabbed the phone and texted the bus driver.

Scratch that. Duty calls. Would you mind dropping him to the house? I’ll sort you out.

When she reached Eyeries Cross, she caught the glow of the tail lights as the Audi disappeared around the bend, heading in the direction of Kenmare. Her phone beeped. She glanced down and saw a thumbs-up emoji from the bus driver. Her shoulders relaxed as her foot hit the accelerator.

She followed the car on the straight, hilly road to Ardgroom. Rain was pouring down and she flicked her windshield wipers to maximum. She glanced down at her phone, checking for it to come back into coverage. When it kicked in, she hit 1 on her speed dial.

‘Hey — it’s me. The bus is dropping Cian home. Can you do me a favour? Can you check if the lights are back on at the inn?’ She waited. ‘What? Smoke? Jesus Christ. There was something fucked up going on there earlier. I knew it. I’m in Ardgroom. I spotted one of the guests — one of their friends — on the road when I was waiting for Cian. He looked like he had blood on his face. Is that the sirens? Jesus Christ. I hope they’re all right.’ She listened. ‘No, no — I won’t, I won’t. I’ll just see if... oh, shit. He’s after going tearing.’

She hung up and slammed her foot on the accelerator. The road was a series of straights, broken with pockets of tight bends. She was driving at 100 kilometres an hour but didn’t pick up his tail lights again until they hit the church at Lauragh and she caught him on the road winding up out of the village. He had no choice but to slow on the steep, narrow incline ahead. She reached the top and rounded the bend, dropping her speed to 30 kilometres to take the hairpin bend that curved into another tight bend and another, the road barely wide enough for two cars to pass. To her left, only a crooked line of wire-panel fencing separated her from a one hundred foot drop into the valley below.