Can Anybody Help Me? (23 page)

No, thought Yvonne, neither did I.

A rap on the door made her look up sharply, banging her head against Róisín's ear. The baby collapsed into angry sobs again and through the wails, Yvonne could hear the nurse's voice, overly loud and solicitous.

‘Are you in there, my dear? Is Baby okay? Would you like a cup of tea …?'

No.

But Yvonne didn't have the confidence to say the word. Instead she switched off her phone and prepared to head out into mortification again. She didn't want to go out there. She didn't want to talk to any of them. She wished she was at home. With Róisín. And the Netmammies. Just with them.

Philip Flynn was having a pint. A cold, creamy, perfectly poured, well-deserved pint. He raised the glass to his lips, took a mouthful and then replaced it dead centre on the beer mat before wiping the condensation onto the thigh of his jeans. Wincing as the bitter liquid hit the back of his throat, he marvelled at the way it turned to honey on the way down. Lovely. Nothing like it. Detective Garda Philip Flynn was a happy man.

‘Menu?'

The barman, his white shirt crisply ironed but beer-stained at the cuffs, waved the laminated card in front of him. Flynn thought for a moment, spent a second considering a large plate of scampi and chips and then decided against it. He'd a fridge full of food at home.

‘Sure, I'll leave it here anyway.'

The barman dropped the card by the side of the beer mat and went back to polishing glasses. It was just gone six o'clock and O'Kane's was practically deserted. Just the way Philip liked it. He took another sip of beer, a smaller one this time and looked down the length of the shiny polished bar. Old style. Very like Cotter's at home. The pub was nothing to look at from the outside either. Redbrick, like the rest of the shops on this
corner of the estate, its name spelled out in 1980s lettering that was too new to be vintage and too old to be stylish. The 1980s theme continued inside the door. Red swirly carpet that even Flynn's mother would have considered dated. Tall bar stools with leather seating worn from a generation of west Dublin behinds. The only new thing in the place was a giant plasma screen television, but it was rarely loud enough to hear except when a match was particularly important and the volume was set to ear-splitting.

But a local like this was one of the reasons Flynn had decided to live in this area. He knew most of the younger, unmarried lads in the station rented apartments closer to the centre of town. But as soon as he heard he'd been posted to Dublin he'd found himself a small two-bed house a couple of miles from the barracks, on the Luas line and as far away from trendy as could be imagined. You'd never run into anyone connected with his job here. Well, not the ones on his side of the law anyway. There had been a few evenings when he'd been given a second glance by a couple of customers in the Spar, but he'd looked straight ahead and they'd bought their John Player Blue without a word. He'd cause no hassle if they didn't. He liked it around here. And he liked O'Kane's too. Quiet. Ideal for a pint and the paper. And the Guinness was excellent.

It had been a good day. Probably the best he'd had in the six months since he'd been posted to Collins Street. Ever since Philip Flynn had joined the guards, he'd longed for a transfer to one of the big city stations, somewhere with a decent crime rate, lots going on. But life so far had been quieter than he had expected. He had found himself spending most evenings alone in his little house, with Sky Plus to keep him company. Which
was fine. But he was also happy that this period of relaxation seemed to be coming to an end.

‘Anyone sitting here?'

The woman was already reaching for the stool, the question a formality. Flynn smiled anyway, but she had turned away. He watched as she dragged the seat away from the counter and into a darker corner of the bar. In her early forties, she was wearing a neat but crumpled white blouse, a black skirt shiny from age and a pair of dark tights, ripped at the knee. Someone was having a bad day. She pulled the stool up to a table, glanced quickly across the room at the television, which was discreetly murmuring the day's headlines. Ran her hands through her short, highlighted hair and peered crossly at the screen of an old-fashioned mobile phone she had taken from her handbag.

Sighing, she began to tap out a text message, but then looked up as the door to the pub opened. And smiled. Flynn watched as the tension eased from her shoulders. Dropping the phone on the table, she waved to the new arrival who had already noticed her and was making her way across the bar. The other woman was older but better dressed, more glamorous in a long trailing dark skirt, navy blouse and dangling red scarf that swayed easily across her body as she moved gracefully across the floor. Reaching the corner, she leaned over and kissed her friend, who had shuffled her chair aside to make room. If he had been in the main body of the bar, the kiss would have looked like a friendly peck on the cheek, but from where Flynn was sitting he could see that it had touched on the corner of the lips and lasted just a fraction of a second longer than it needed to. He could feel the contentment flow from the two
of them as the second woman pulled up a stool and they bent their heads to study the menu. Under the table, their knees touched. With a start, Flynn realised he was staring and looked away.

‘Another pint?'

‘Ah, go on so.'

It had been a long day. And a very productive one. Flynn watched as the barman poured three-quarters of the pint and left it to settle. He'd seen a few places in town where they poured it all in one go. Lads queuing up to drink it who wouldn't know the difference. Girls, too. Wouldn't happen here. Or in Cotter's. Funny, it was Cotter's or the memory of Cotter's that had made today so successful.

The receipt that had been found in the victim's wallet was just like the ones they gave out in that pub. That had been the second thing that had occurred to him when he'd seen the evidence bag back at the station. The first had been the disgraceful price of drink in Dublin. In some of the city centre bars you'd pay six euro or more for a pint of freshly poured slop that Joe Cotter or the lad here would throw in the bucket after changing kegs. But although the prices on the ticket were Dublin ones, the receipt itself had been old-style. Lilac printing on flimsy tissue paper. No name of the bar, no itemisation. Just the time, 9.40 p.m. and a list of numbers – 5.10, 4.20 and 2.80.

The last receipt he'd been given in Cotter's had been similar. Cheaper, obviously. But the same type of bill, one price for the pint and then two others indicting a short and a mixer. He'd bought his cousin Nora a vodka and orange to mark his weekend home. Philip was very fond of Nora, but her mates drove him mad and asked too many questions. What was the
crack like in Dublin? Where did he go at night? Had he ever been to Lillie's? Was Copper-Faced Jack's really as mad as people said, and did he ever run into anyone from home?

He hadn't wanted to admit he didn't know the answers so he'd muttered something about a family dinner and left before the next round. But the receipt, the old-style, cheap paper, lilac-printed receipt had remained in his wallet. And that was why when he saw the evidence bag he knew exactly what they had found.

It was one of very few leads they had on Miriam Twohy's last movements. Tracking her mobile phone had told them her last journey had had been through Dublin 8, but the receipt might be more specific. It was a genuine clue, old-style. And Flynn had decided to call door to door until he found it. They already knew Miriam Twohy had most likely walked to the apartment where she met her death. There was no CCTV footage of her at the local Luas station, and CCTV footage outside the apartment block had shown her approaching the pedestrian gates in the company of a tall man. Unfortunately, the usefulness of the picture had ended there. Wearing a woolly hat pulled down over his ears and a long dark coat, he'd clearly known exactly where the cameras were and been careful to avoid them, keeping his back to the lens at all times. The ones inside the complex had been out of order. There was a strong chance he'd known that too, there had been a gang of residents bitching about them on the internet the week before. Boyle had been googling, but those sort of details bored Flynn. Walking around, that was real detective work. So he'd set off.

And he had found her.

It had been another old-style pub, but far scruffier than
Cotter's or indeed O'Kane's. The carpets had been thick with dust, which swirled as he walked across the floor and prickled at his sinuses. An elderly man sat at the bar, his coat buttoned to the neck despite the unopened windows and humid atmosphere, circling numbers on the sports pages of the morning paper. A hard-faced couple in neat, cheap suits sat under the window, not talking, counting the moments until it was time to leave for the smoking garden again. And a couple of well-dressed men in open-neck shirts sipped mineral water while poking smartphones and muttering about arranging to meet somewhere else next time. It was not the type of place Flynn could imagine a young woman visiting by choice. And the man behind the bar hadn't done anything to change his mind.

‘Can't help you.'

This white shirt was sweat-stained under the armpits. In his fifties, the man had wispy grey hair, flattened greasily to his scalp. Dandruff floated to the bar as he shook his head in the face of Flynn's questions. No, he didn't have CCTV. Never saw the need for it. Very little crime around here. The look on his face told Flynn that the pub was more in the business of serving beer to local criminals than living in fear of them. Yes, he had been working that Saturday night. Yes, he grudgingly admitted with a shrug of his shoulders that dislodged more dandruff, he was the owner. He worked most nights. But he didn't remember the couple in question and no, the photograph of Miriam Twohy shoved across the counter by Flynn did nothing to jog his memory. It was all Flynn could do to get him to admit that the receipt had probably come from the ageing cash register. Further than that, Guard, he had said with emphasis, I can't help ye. Flynn was aware that the couple
in the corner had started to listen hard to the conversation. And was about to go when the door creaked open and a young blonde woman walked in the door.

‘Another staff member?'

The owner sighed, considered the question and then shrugged, non-committedly.

‘Mind if I have a word?'

Another silence and then, clearly deciding that Flynn had more on his mind than work permits, he had nodded assent. The girl, who was no more than twenty, looked equally reluctant when Flynn guided her to a side table. But then she showed her the photograph and her eyes widened.

‘I remember her.'

The accent was Eastern European. Flynn didn't ask from where. He had a vague notion you didn't start conversations like that anymore. Not these days, when everyone was from everywhere, or so it seemed. Her English was excellent anyway, clear, pointed with an overlay of inner-city Dublin. Which was kind of charming in its own way.

‘I had never seen her in here before.'

‘And you'd know most of the regulars, would you?'

‘Oh, yeah.'

She smiled, gave a quick nod of her head to the surrounding gloom.

‘I work here, six months? Is the same crowd in here all the time. But I hadn't seen her in here before. And she was on her own when she arrived. Not usual, on a Saturday night.'

Flynn could feel his pulse quickening. His notebook was on his knee but he didn't want to use it, afraid to disrupt the flow of conversation.

‘Was she on her own for long?'

‘At least a half-hour? Maybe more. We were busy. Mostly people come up to the bar, when it's busy. But I brought her two drinks down to her table and she looked kinda pissed off, you know?'

Flynn nodded.

‘What was she drinking?'

‘Gin and tonic.'

Bingo! Expectation rippled across his shoulder-blades. At last, they were getting somewhere.

‘Did you chat to her at all?'

‘Not really. Not much time to talk to customers in here.'

She gave a quick nod in the direction of her boss, who was standing at the bar scowling, still polishing the same clean glass with the same dirty rag that he had picked up at the start of their conversation.

‘She had two drinks and she kept checking her phone, like she was waiting for someone to contact her? I think she had been … stood up. I thought she was going to leave, you know? After the second drink. I came over and she told me she didn't want another. And then Jimmy called me,' she darted her head in the direction of the bar again ‘and I had to go behind the bar because it was getting busy. Next time I looked over, there was a man at her table.'

Flynn tried to keep his voice steady.

‘What did he look like?'

‘I'm really not sure.' The girl's voice trailed away. ‘There were already fresh drinks on the table when I noticed him. They must have bought them from Jimmy. And then it got really busy, there was a match on and loads of people came
in. And about a half an hour later, maybe, she came up and ordered two drinks. A pint of Heineken and a gin and tonic. I remember it was Heineken because Jimmy likes to pour the Guinness himself. And I smiled at her and said, your friend, he came? And she looked kind of angry for a minute as if I was being nosy, and I was sorry I had said anything. But then she smiled and said, “you know what? I think he did.” It was such a strange thing to say, that's why I remember it. She gave me twenty euro and told me to keep the change. And the next time I looked over they had gone.'

‘Do you remember …?' Flynn looked into the blue eyes. ‘Do you remember anything about the man? Anything at all?'

The eyes looked back at him and blinked. The voice was apologetic.

‘Not really. He was tall? I don't really remember … The bar was very crowded … they were far away. I think she liked him. She was smiling when she came up to pay for her drinks. Her shoes were very nice, does that help you? Very high. She was a bit, you know wobbly, when she walked. Not from drink, I don't think. But from her shoes. I liked them. But I didn't really look at him.'