Authors: Graham Masterton
The Drowned (7 page)
Ruarí let out a high-pitched
heeeee
! as the shock of being stabbed expelled all the air from his lungs. He started to pitch forward, but the man kept his grip on the back of his neck. Slowly, and with obvious effort, he dragged the knife downwards, cutting through Ruarí’s pale green sweater, as well as his shirt, and his skin, and his abdominal muscles, all the way down to his braided leather belt.
Ruarí stared at the man in disbelief and reached out to grasp his shoulder for support. The man didn’t push him away, but drew out the knife and dropped it on top of Ruarí’s books. Ruarí tried to take a step forward, but when he did his stomach opened up like the mouth of a giant fish and his intestines tumbled out, glistening and bloody and beige, and swung in coils almost as far down as the pavement.
He lost his grip on the man’s shoulder and fell sideways, hitting his head hard against the concrete. He lay there gasping and feebly trying with one hand to push his intestines back into his body.
The man made no attempt to escape. He stood beside Ruarí with his arms folded as students came running to help, and then stood well away, horrified by what they saw, and realizing that there was nothing they could do. He was still standing there five minutes later when an ambulance drove up, with its siren warbling, and then two Garda patrol cars. By then, Ruarí’s eyes had glazed over and it was obvious that he was dead.
Two gardaí came up to him. He raised both hands and said, ‘You can handcuff me if you want to. I did it. I stabbed him. A judge will decide if he deserved it. God has already made up His mind.’
*
Before Katie went down to interview Fergus O’Farrell, Detective Sergeant Ni Nuallán knocked at the door of her office.
‘How’s it going?’ Katie asked her.
‘We’re making progress,’ said Kyna. ‘Fergus wouldn’t tell us himself, but we’ve found out how he picked those boys up. He lives at Árd Na Gréine, only three doors away from the Buckleys, so he’d seen which taxi company they usually used. It was Leeside Cabs and one of their drivers is a good friend of his, so when they rang and ordered a taxi this driver rang him and he went to collect them instead. The driver had no idea that Fergus intended to do them any harm. All he thought he was going to do was give them down the banks for causing such a disturbance around Barnavara Crescent, that’s all.’
‘He certainly did give them down the banks,’ said Katie. ‘Like, literally.’
Kyna hesitated for a moment, and then she said, much more quietly, ‘We’ve finished searching his house, too.’
‘I should have known it was him,’ said Katie. ‘I think I guessed it had to be him. But he seemed like such a good man.’
‘I think he
is
a good man,’ said Kyna. ‘Sometimes good men get pushed into doing bad things, don’t they, because it seems like that’s the only way they’re going to get justice?’
‘That wasn’t justice. That was revenge. And I should have seen it coming and prevented it.’
Kyna came up and handed her a folded sheet of paper. ‘Read this,’ she said. ‘It was pinned to the noticeboard in Fergus’s kitchen, so he clearly intended us to find it. Maybe it’ll stop you from being so hard on yourself.’
The note was written by hand, in very small rounded writing, the kind of script that was taught at school.
It said:
Darling Pa, please don’t be angry with me. I know what I am going to do will break your heart but I am finding it impossible to go on. I keep trying to think of a way out but there isn’t one. I can’t go back to what I was and I can’t go forward because of what has been done to me. I am not Caoimhe any longer. I am just some dirty used doll that can only be thrown away. How can I give myself to a loving husband now? How can I walk down the aisle wearing a snow-white dress when I am no longer a virgin? Worse than losing my virginity once, I have lost it again and again, so many times that I can’t even count myself, and in ways that I can’t even tell you about because I am so ashamed.
It happened that night when I was supposed to go to Rearden’s with Sean and Megan and Bryan. At the last minute they couldn’t make it because Sean and Megan’s grandma got sick and they had to go to Watergrasshill to see her. I didn’t tell you because I had never been to Rearden’s before and I wanted to go so much, even if it was on my own.
I started off having a good time because I met these five boys I know. You know two of them, yourself, Tadgh Buckley and Aidan O’Reilly. The other ones were Darragh O’Connor and Conor and Stevey Martin. We had some drinks and a dance and three other boys joined us. They were students from UCC, they said, and I thought they were fun too. One of them was called Ruarí and he seemed to be the boss of them. I didn’t like him so much because he had really white eyelashes like a pig and he was fierce full of himself, but I am sorry to tell you Pa that I had drunk a few Jägerbombs and I wasn’t thinking straight at all.
When Rearden’s was about to close Ruarí said that there was a party at some student’s digs at Abbeyville. I should have gone home then Pa but they said we would all have a fantastic time.
They took me to Abbeyville but there was no party when we got there, only me and all of these boys. They said the party was going to start in a minute and they gave me more to drink and then they took me into the bedroom. I am not going to tell you what happened next because you will cry like I am crying now when I am writing you this.
I beg beg beg you not to tell anybody why I have decided that this is my only way out. I have suffered enough shame already without the whole world knowing why.
I love you so much dearest Pa and I know that when I am gone you will have nobody. But Ma and me we will both be looking down on you from Heaven and making sure that you are okay I promise you. XXXXX forever your Caoimhe.
Katie put down the note and looked up at Kyna.
‘She hanged herself,’ said Kyna. ‘Fergus said nothing about this letter at the inquest. He told the coroner that she had never really got over her mother dying of cancer.’
*
Fergus was waiting patiently in the interview room when Katie walked in. He looked as calm and unperturbed as a man waiting for a doctor’s appointment, instead of an interview on a charge of murder. He may have been bad-tempered before, but now he seemed to be completely at peace with himself.
‘Detective Superintendent Maguire,’ he said, as she sat down. Kyna sat next to her and Katie couldn’t help noticing her perfume.
‘I intend to plead guilty to killing Ruarí Barrett and all those other boys,’ Fergus continued. ‘You really don’t have to give me the third degree.’
‘You should have come to us in the first place,’ said Katie. ‘We could have dealt with them.’
‘I’m sure you could,’ said Fergus. ‘But what kind of punishment would a judge have given them? A couple of years in jail. They took my precious daughter’s life for their own perverted pleasure and as far as I’m concerned there was only one possible punishment for that.’
‘So you’re prepared to make a statement to that effect?’
Fergus nodded. ‘No, I’m not. I’m prepared only to admit to killing them. I don’t have to give an explanation. I don’t want my Caoimhe’s name dragged through the mire.’
‘A judge will need to know why you killed them, Fergus. And he’ll probably go much easier on you if he understands why.’
‘I don’t care. My life ended when I found my Caoimhe hanging in the garage.’
‘I can produce her note to you in court.’
‘I know. I wanted you to read it, because I wanted somebody to understand why I killed those boys. But I’m begging you now, just as Caoimhe begged me, please don’t tell the world what they did to her. I want her memory to shine clean and unsullied forever.’
*
Katie returned to her office while Fergus wrote his statement. When he had finished it and signed it, Kyna came up to show it to her.
‘You shouldn’t feel like you’ve failed, ma’am,’ Kyna said gently.
‘I gave him Ruarí Barrett’s name. He probably couldn’t have found him if I hadn’t done that.’
‘Well, I think you gave him Ruarí Barrett’s name because God wanted you to. Sometimes I think we have to remember that we’re only the agents of justice, not judges, and we’re not executioners, either.’
It took Katie only a moment to read Fergus’s statement. All he had written was, ‘I drowned those five boys and I stabbed Ruarí Barrett because I heard voices in my head and they told me to.’
‘If he sticks to that story, they’ll probably only send him to St Stephen’s,’ said Kyna.
Katie put the statement to one side. Underneath, in a clear plastic sleeve, was Caoimhe O’Farrell’s suicide note. She looked down at it for a long time.
I beg beg beg you not to tell anybody why I have decided that this is my only way out. I have suffered enough shame already without the whole world knowing why.
Katie took out the note and tore it into small pieces. She dropped them into her wastepaper basket, and then she stood up.
‘You realize that it’s an offence to destroy evidence,’ said Kyna.
‘It’s a worse offence to destroy a young girl’s memory. Besides, as you said, God wanted me to.’
She put her arms around Kyna and held her very close and kissed her. Then she stood back, and smiled, although she had tears in her eyes – not for herself, but for Caoimhe, who would always be virginal now and pure.
We hope you enjoyed this book!
Graham Masterton’s next book,
Dead Girls Dancing
, is coming in Winter 2016
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For more information, click the following links
G
RAHAM
M
ASTERTON
was a bestselling horror writer for many years before he turned his talent to crime. He lived in Cork for five years, an experience that inspired the Katie Maguire series.
Katie Maguire was one of seven sisters born to a police Inspector in Cork, but the only sister who decided to follow her father into An Garda Siochana.
With her bright green eyes and short redhair, she looks like an Irish pixie, but she is no soft touch. To the dismay of some of her male subordinates, she rose quickly through the ranks, gaining a reputation for catching Cork’s killers, often at great personal cost.
Katie spent seven years in a turbulent marriage in which she bore, and lost, a son – an event that continues to haunt her. Despite facing turmoil at home and prejudice at work, she is one of the most fearless detectives in Ireland.
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