Deadly Intent (32 page)

‘She told him on Thursday night that she hadn't put the finishing touches to her drawing, so-called, but would do it on Friday. Oscar was dead by then, but maybe she still had his body, and she was letting him know that too.'

Nessa rapped on the door of the house and then of the Barn, but to no avail. The studio was named after its original purpose as a farm building, and the windows added by Darina were high up on the old stone walls. Nessa and Redmond looked around the garden and then Nessa suggested they check if she was at the henhouse, down the pathway past the fuchsia hedge.

The hens were scratching on the open ground. Redmond put his head around the henhouse door, holding his breath against the rich smell of droppings and straw. He was about to retreat when he noticed something in the corner. He stepped gingerly towards it and pulled it towards the light. It was a wheelie bin, about as high as his waist and covered with an old cloth.

‘You don't think …?' Nessa put her hand to her mouth as Redmond opened the lid, his sleeve over his fingers. An image came into her mind, of Sal curled up lifelessly inside the bin. But it was empty except for a few old towels and dusty sweatshirts.

‘This is the sort of container that gardai have searched for,' said Redmond. ‘According to the pathologist's report, Oscar's body had been pushed into a cramped space.
Livor mortis
is the technical term for the evidence that showed that.'

‘On the Sunday, when news of his murder was just sinking in …' Nessa leaned against the wall outside the door, memories jostling for space in her head. ‘I came here with Ronan that Sunday and we stood chatting to Darina right on this spot. She was washing out the henhouse, and she gave the hose to Ronan and told him to spray it into this same bin.'

Redmond said they should get off the premises immediately and phone Inspector O'Kelleher. He kept his eyes peeled as they returned along the path. Nessa was remembering what Darina was like two years earlier, while her mother was dying of cancer. After several months of caring for her day and night, Darina looked almost as emaciated as her mother, but a stubborn defiance shone through on her face every time Nessa called to visit. Had she become so close to Fergus that the same fierce loyalty pushed her to carry out his murderous wishes?

Darina's blue van was parked at the side of the studio. Nessa signalled to Redmond as she went towards it. Perhaps Darina had gone off with Carl, if he had arrived to load some of her artworks for the exhibition. Meanwhile, Sal could be down in Derryowen, buying top-up credit for her phone, or looking for Marcus at Carraig Álainn.

‘What do you want?'

Darina came around from the back of the studio, carrying a large bag and other stuff. ‘I heard a knock at the front door a while ago but I was too busy to get it.'

‘I called over to look for Sal, for the filming.' Nessa forced a smile, hoping to look normal. She hoped Redmond had stepped back out of sight for the moment.

‘As I said, I'm up to my eyes for the exhibition. It's not a good time.'

‘I know that, Darina, but I thought you'd agreed last week to join in the filming. On the boreen, you know. It won't take long.'

Darina looked around and Nessa saw her eyes settle on a wide plank of wood propped against the wall. She had seen her neighbour use it as a makeshift ramp into the rear of the van, when she needed to load heavy materials. She was tempted to offer to help Darina, as if things really were normal. But it was clear that the other woman wanted her out of the way.

‘What about Sal, have you seen—'

‘No, not today. I told you, I'm busy right now.'

‘I've phoned her so many times, you see.' Nessa took out her phone to try dialling once again. Darina gestured to her to move away, to make space for her ramp. A crazy thought came into Nessa's mind, that Darina was helping Sal to run away with Marcus.

‘Just wait a minute,' said Darina abruptly. She dropped her bag on the ground. ‘Come in to the studio until I'm done.'

Nessa did not respond. She was listening intently to other sounds. On her own phone, she could hear the unanswered peals of her daughter's mobile. But she could also hear a faint ringtone, one that was very familiar. She could not figure out where it was coming from.

Darina had a mobile phone in her hand too, a shiny black one. Nessa looked up at her and then over at the blue van. She saw Redmond coming towards them both.

‘I can hear Sal's phone,' she said. ‘The ringtone …'

Then she saw that Darina had raised her arm. She was pointing the black mobile at her. Nessa recognised the device. The picture flashed into her memory. A photo she had seen on her computer just a day earlier.

‘Get it off her!' She pulled at the van doors as she shouted at Redmond. But she was unable to open them. A sharp pain suddenly ripped through both her arms, leaving them to dangle uselessly, as if she had been shot, or hit with a heavy object.

The cheery ringtone was coming from inside the van. Nessa dived towards the driver's door and tried to clutch one hand with the other in order to give her the strength to open it. Another stabbing pain hit her, on the left shoulder this time.

She felt weak. Her body would not obey her will. Electric shock tingled through her veins. She fell onto one knee.

Redmond was struggling with Darina. He swung her arm upwards to grab the device from her.

Nessa could not quite focus on what was happening. Darina seemed to turn in slow motion towards Redmond, but then everything shifted, and they became small figures in the distance, wrestling together.

She bent her head to look at her hands. If she could concentrate on one single thing her brain might keep working. She tried to make a fist but could only manage a flabby movement. She flexed her fingers, counting them one by one.

Her thoughts began to clear gradually. A stun gun. That was the word. The device was called a stun gun.

Darina was firing at herself and Redmond. She could hit them even though she wasn't standing beside them. It was something about the voltage.

She turned her head and saw Redmond slumped by the wall of the Barn. He was holding his shoulder. Darina had stepped away from him, still holding that awful shiny thing in her hand.

He tried to stand but his legs slid towards the wall again. He opened his mouth but said nothing. Darina pointed the stun gun at him again and Nessa saw how he was jolted by a spasm of pain.

He was paralysed, just as she was. The paralysis seemed to last for a minute or two.

The young artist's eyes were cold, venomous. ‘Nobody asked you here,' she said. ‘Nobody asked Sal to stick her nose in my business either, blabbing about myself and Fergus. It's your own fault I had to hurt you.'

Darina's words hit Nessa like staccato bolts of lightning. But she felt stronger now. She had to keep Darina talking until Redmond could stand up. They could fight her together next time.

‘Please don't hurt Sal,' she heard herself say. ‘I'm begging you, just let her be. She had no idea …'

‘Give me the time to get away and Sal will be safe. Keep your mouths shut, that's all you've to do.'

‘For my sake, Darina, let her out of the van.' Nessa tried to look Darina in the eyes. ‘I know you understand what a mother and daughter's love is. More than anyone …'

This time, Nessa saw the two prongs of metal that appeared just as a white spark flashed in the air. A low humming sound followed the flash. It was a kind of taser, that was another word she remembered. It could inflict a form of torture when it was used to hit prisoners over and over again. People could die from it, she'd read that somewhere.

Her eyes were losing focus again. Darina had pushed her back to the wall, before driving off in the van. She could hear the engine humming as it went out the gate. Or maybe the humming was in her ears, as if a swarm of bees was burrowing its way into her head.

A
woman lay sprawled on a rough track on the hillside. She was in the shadow of an old stone wall where it was difficult to see her. Night was falling and the surrounding hills had become black shapes hunched over the fields.

Nessa cried out at the sight – a woman on the ground, and two others standing at a distance, their heads bent together in conversation, just as she had seen them on the boreen over three weeks earlier, on the night of Maureen's incident. For a brief hallucinatory moment, she believed that everything was alright. Darina and Sal were waiting impatiently for the filming to start, one of them pale and slight, the other tall and dark-skinned, their features accentuated in the harsh glare of headlights and the deep shadows surrounding them.

At her cry, the two people on the boreen turned in her direction, and she realised her mistake. The smaller, paler of the two was Fergus, his hair light-coloured like Darina's, and his arms clutched around his chest as she had done that same night. The second person was the television director, whose stance had Sal's vivacious confidence. But as Nessa stared at them, she also took in how different they were to the image, filled with wild hope, that had leapt into her mind.

After a short silence, three voices broke out in rapid succession.

‘The light is fading,' said the director, ‘so we decided to get on with it when you hadn't phoned us.'

‘There's a change of plan,' Redmond called out. ‘There's no need for filming any more.'

‘You must help us, Fergus,' Nessa pleaded. ‘You must talk to Darina. She has a gun. She has Sal, she's hurt her already …'

Other voices joined in the commotion. Zoe appeared from the shadows, and the actor playing Maureen's part got up from her position on the ground to go into a huddle with the director and cameraman. Redmond stepped close to Fergus – even without the authority to question or arrest him, he would make damned sure that the young man could not bolt into the night.

He had phoned Trevor and told him everything. Superintendent Devane had ordered gardai to cover the roads out of Beara, and had also asked Garda HQ for experts on hostage negotiations. Darina had to be stopped but not at the expense of Sal's life. If necessary, the blue van would be tailed discreetly until the right people were in place. Nessa and Redmond were unsure how long it took them to leave the Barn, but they reckoned that Darina had a twenty-minute head start.

‘Darina will listen to you, Fergus, so please, please phone her now.'

‘It's no good. She won't listen, I know she won't.'

‘But you met her yesterday evening, didn't you? If Sal hadn't seen you both together …?'

Fergus, his face a ghostly white, clasped and unclasped his hands. Nessa thought distractedly that he and Darina were alike in their nervous intensity, which may have drawn them together.

‘It's true, I went to see her yesterday, but she wouldn't listen to a word. She just did … She did whatever she decided. That's how it was all along.'

‘Why did you keep your mouth shut, then? Were you too spineless to tell us the truth?' Redmond's anger at his own failure to stop Darina leaving the Barn burst through his questions, as well as resentment at being taken in by Fergus. He remembered how sorry he had felt for him at Oscar's funeral, picturing him as a solitary young man who had just lost a good parent.

Fergus turned to shield his eyes from the headlights' glare. When he began to answer at last, his voice was almost a whisper.

‘You're right, I didn't stand up to her. I didn't stand up to my father either. Otherwise, none of this … But I was terrified my father would walk all over me in court if I tried to give evidence against him. Then Darina was so sure about the plan …'

His words faded and silence fell again on the group surrounding him. It seemed to Nessa that the world had stopped turning, as everyone waited for him to finish properly or to speak again. The silence became so intense that even the tiniest insects must have stopped shuffling in the undergrowth.

‘We can't just stand here wringing our hands,' she cried out at last. ‘Try to phone her, Fergus, please. It has to be worth a try.'

‘I'm afraid … If I try that, Nessa, I think she'll go berserk. We had a big row last night. I told her I was afraid we'd be found out soon. But she wouldn't listen.'

‘So you were struggling with your conscience, is that what you want us to believe?' said Redmond. ‘And meanwhile, everyone else wasted time with pathetic filming reconstructions, and allowed Sal Latif to walk into the lion's den.'

Nessa gestured her impatience. ‘We have to stop Sal being harmed, that's what matters now. So let's get the hell out of this cul-de-sac, in case people are trying to phone us.' She tried to ignore the anxiety that was swallowing her up from inside. The wind was rising and in the failing light, she could see a band of low black clouds rolling in from the sea. She felt trapped, closed in by stone walls and darkness and fear.

‘Who else could speak to Darina, then? She must have other friends in the area.' Redmond stayed close to Fergus as they walked out on to the Briary. He could be making excuses for Darina, pretending they had fallen out in order to gain time for her to leave the peninsula.

‘What about Carl?' said Nessa tersely. ‘He was supposed to be at the Barn today, wasn't he?'

‘She mentioned him yesterday,' Fergus replied slowly. ‘He's driving to France with her art stuff tomorrow, or maybe even tonight. Do you think Darina would ask him—?'

‘I'll tell Conor to phone Carl.' Redmond checked his mobile, and stopped on the Briary as soon as he got a good signal. Nessa looked at her mobile too, hoping for a message from Patrick. He was in Castletownbere when she rang him from the Barn, and arranged immediately for Ronan to go to a friend's house. He was going to ask Trevor O'Kelleher if he could join the gardai in their search for Sal.