Blood Sisters (32 page)

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Katie. ‘I’ll come along myself and deal with the press. You just worry about bringing in Paddy Fearon. As you know, this arrest is just one part of our investigation into the racehorses that were found at Nohaval Cove, but I don’t want the media to make that connection just yet. I’ll tell them that he’s suspected of extorting money with menaces, and that’s all.’

‘And if they ask you for details? Like who he’s extorted money from, and for what?’

‘I’ll give them my sweetest smile and say, “No comment at the present time”, like I usually do.’

* * *

Just before she left the station, John texted her to say that he would be out when she arrived home because he was meeting a new pharmaceutical supplier at the Silver Spring Hotel. However, he had fed and walked Barney and he had made a lasagne for supper.

I love u
, he had added.
But strictly no peeking at the painting! XXX J
.

When she let herself in, the curtains were drawn, the lamps in the living room were lit and the house was comfortably warm. Barney circled excitedly around her and she patted his head, but it was growing foggy outside and she was seriously grateful that she didn’t have to take him out.

She went into the bedroom and changed into her sloppy white sweater and a pair of green tracksuit bottoms and slippers. She frowned at herself in the mirror and she was sure that her face was rounder, but maybe it only looked that way because she was tired and her eyes were swollen.

She filled the kettle to make herself a cup of tea and then went back into the living room to switch on the television. John’s painting was standing on the bookcase next to the fireplace, facing the wall. He had obviously been working on it today because he normally covered it with one of Seamus’s old cot sheets when it was dry, and there was a smell of acrylic paint in the room.

Once she had made herself a mug of tea, she sat down on the couch to watch the nine o’clock news. The headline story was about a homeless man and woman whose bodies had been pulled out of the River Lee by naval divers early that afternoon, close to the Port of Cork sign. Katie knew about that already, and there were no suspicious circumstances. A sad double suicide. The rest of the news concerned the struggling Irish economy and she was relieved when Eileen Dunne, the presenter, went on to the weather forecast without making any mention of the continuing search for children’s skeletons at the Bon Sauveur Convent.

Her iPhone pinged while she was in the kitchen and it was John telling her that he would be back home in less than half an hour. She glanced back into the living room, at the painting facing the wall.
No peeking
, John had cautioned her. But if she did take a quick sconce at it, how would he know?

She walked into the living room and Barney must have sensed her indecision because he stood up and looked at her seriously, wagging his tail.
Mother of God
, she thought,
it seems like everybody I know can read me like yesterday evening’s
Echo
, even my dog
.

‘Listen,’ she told Barney, ‘what I’m about to do now, you didn’t see me do it, and even if you did, you won’t go telling himself when he walks through the door, will you?’

Barney made an extraordinary creaking sound in the back of his throat, but stayed where he was, watching her, with his tail beating rhythmically against the couch.

Katie went across to the bookshelf. She turned around the small wooden easel on which the painting was supported, taking care not to touch the painting itself. It was possible that the paint hadn’t fully dried and she didn’t want to risk leaving a fingerprint in it.
Detective Superintendent Leaves Tell-Tale Dab At Scene Of Prohibited Peeking
.

When she saw John’s painting she slowly raised her hand and pressed it over her mouth. She stood there for nearly a minute, staring at it in disbelief. So far, he had only sketched out the lines of her naked body in umber acrylic and roughly shaded in some of the background in the same dark-brown colour. Her face, however, was nearly finished. It was unmistakably her, with her bottle-green eyes and her distinctive cheekbones and her slightly pouty lips, but he had given her such a warm, seductive expression. He had caught her likeness exactly, but he had also made her look beautiful.

He had taken scores of photographs of her recently, especially when they went out for walks, but this painting was how he saw her through his own eyes and she understood now how deeply he must love her.

She carefully turned the painting back to face the wall.

‘Remember, Barns, you never saw me do that,’ she said. ‘You say one single word and I swear to God you’re a dead setter.’

Barney made that creaky noise again, almost like an old door opening, and vigorously shook his head.

* * *

John was dog-tired when he came home, and he smelled of whiskey, but he was in a good mood. The meeting with his new suppliers had gone well and he expected to increase his online turnover of antibiotics by at least seven per cent.

Katie had heated up the lasagne in the oven and they ate it in the kitchen. She lit a red candle in the middle of the table and switched off the main light.

‘Hey,’ smiled John, putting on his American accent. ‘This is very roh-mannick.’

‘Maybe I love you,’ she said.

‘You’re only saying that because I can make a mean lasagne.’

Katie smiled back at him. God, he was handsome, especially now that his dark curly hair had grown a little more. She was so tempted to say to him,
No, it’s nothing to do with your lasagne, it’s because I’ve found out now how you see me, and you love me, too
.

‘I have to get up early tomorrow,’ she said.

‘Who’s thinking about tomorrow? Tomorrow can take care of itself.’

‘We’re arresting a Traveller up at the Spring Lane Halting Site. He’s a well-known figure in the Travelling community, so we may have some trouble. Not only that, the media have found out about it, which is why I have to be there.’

‘What time do you have to get up?’

‘Five-thirty at the latest. There won’t be much traffic at that time of the morning, but the forecast is fog.’

‘Hmm,’ said John, looking at his watch. ‘That gives us seven hours and eleven minutes. That’s unless you want a second helping of lasagne.’

‘I couldn’t,’ said Katie, pressing her hand against her stomach. ‘I’m stuffed as a goose.’

She stayed where she was at the table, watching him scrape the plates and stack them in the dishwasher.
Stuffed as a goose
, she thought.
I wish I hadn’t said that
.

* * *

When she came out of the bathroom after brushing her teeth she found that John was already asleep. She climbed carefully into bed and switched off her bedside lamp. Then she turned over and put her arm around him, pressing herself against his back so that she could breathe in the smell of him and stroke the hairs on his chest.

From Cobh she heard the clock chiming, the clock she only ever heard at night. She closed her eyes and hoped that she would fall asleep before the morning.

Katie was driven up to the Spring Lane Halting Site by Detective Dooley. Detective Brennan came, too, sitting in the back seat eating a sausage sandwich and swigging tangerine-flavoured Tanora from the bottle. It was still foggy, but it was nearly sunrise and the fog was beginning to glow bright.

Five patrol cars were lined up along the access road to the halting site, as well as two marked Nissan Terranos and a Mercedes van that was used as a mobile command centre. Three media cars were there, too, as well as an outside broadcast van, but Sergeant O’Farrell had made them park in the commercial estate just off the Ballyvolane Road, out of sight.

‘I don’t want them tinkers getting the idea that they’re film stars,’ he told Katie, as she walked up to join him. The six uniformed gardaí who were going to make the arrest were standing around clapping their hands to keep warm, while the officers in riot gear were waiting in their vehicles.

Dan Keane from the
Examiner
was there, in a pork-pie hat, looking as if he was suffering from a severe hangover. So was Fionnuala Sweeney from RTÉ, bundled up in a sheepskin jacket and a turquoise knitted hood.

‘Good morning, Detective Superintendent,’ said Fionnauala. ‘We hear that you’ve come to the Spring Lane Halting Site this morning to arrest Paddy Fearon, one of the leading figures in the Cork Pavee community. Can you tell us what he’s being charged with?’

‘No comment at the moment, Fionnuala,’ said Katie.

‘Would this be anything to do with horses now?’ asked Dan Keane. ‘Paddy Fearon has been in trouble with the law before for supplying unfit horses for slaughter.’

‘I’ll be holding a media conference later, when we’ve had the opportunity to ask Mr Fearon a few pertinent questions,’ Katie told him. ‘Meanwhile I have nothing to say at all.’

‘It looks like you’re expecting ructions,’ said Dan Keane, nodding his head towards the gardaí in riot gear sitting in their Terranos.

‘Simply a precaution,’ said Katie. ‘This is a sensitive place to be making an arrest and we want to make sure that nobody gets hurt.’

Sergeant O’Farrell came up to her, wearing a yellow and white high-visibility jacket that made him look even bulkier than he usually did. ‘All right, ma’am. We’re ready to go in now.’

‘Very good. But, everybody, please remember what Superintendent Pearse said yesterday evening. We want this arrest to be as low-key as possible.’

Sergeant O’Farrell led the six gardaí into the entrance to the halting site. As they did so, two scruffy young boys of about seven and five came out of the toilet block and saw them. They immediately ran across to the nearest caravan, shouting out ‘
Mam
!
Mam
!
There’s shades here
!
Mam
!
There’s shades here
!’

‘Oh, fantastic,’ said Sergeant O’Farrell. ‘Just what we needed. I was hoping to lift Fearon nice and quiet before the rest of these tinkers woke up.’

‘Travellers, Kevin,’ Katie corrected him.

‘Oh yeah, sorry. At least it’s not as bad as what my oul’ fella used to call them.’

They made their way between the water-filled potholes until they reached Paddy Fearon’s caravan. His brindled pony was standing outside in the fog, with a heavy brown blanket over it, looking mournful. The six gardaí surrounded the caravan, four in front of the steps and two around the back, in case Paddy Fearon attempted some ridiculous escape, like trying to climb out of one of the windows. Katie knew from experience that there was no limit to the stupidity of criminals trying to get away from the law. They had once had to rescue a seventeen-stone shoplifter who had got herself wedged in a manhole in Paul Street.

One of the gardaí knocked sharply on the caravan door with his baton and called out, ‘Paddy Fearon! This is the Garda, Mr Fearon! Would you open up, please?’

While they were waiting for Paddy Fearon to answer, several caravan doors around the halting site were thrown open and at least a dozen Travellers appeared, including the four men had who threatened Detective Dooley the last time he was there. There were several women, too, some of them with nylon curlers in their hair and two of them wrapped up in frayed satin dressing gowns. One of them was still wearing her dead-white face pack.

‘Jesus,’ said Detective Brennan. ‘Zombies.’

Sergeant O’Farrell looked around at the approaching Travellers and then turned back and said, ‘Give Fearon another knock, Connor. If he’s not going to open up, we’ll have to make a forced entry.’

A fat woman in a shiny purple shell suit came waddling up to Katie and Sergeant O’Farrell, breathing hard. She reeked of cigarettes. ‘What in the name of feck do you think you’re playing at?’ she demanded. ‘As if we don’t suffer enough persamacution from the shades already.’

‘There’s nothing for you to get upset about, ma’am,’ said Katie. ‘We just want to have a few quiet words with Paddy Fearon, that’s all.’

‘A few quiet words? Is that why you’ve fetched a whole fecking army with you?’

‘All we want to do is keep the situation calm,’ Katie told her. ‘I apologize if we’ve disturbed you at all. As soon as Mr Fearon comes to the door, we’ll be off and leave you in peace.’

‘Well, that’s all well and good you saying that,’ the fat woman retorted. ‘But what’s he supposed to have done? You people seem to think you have some divine right to treat us like shite because we don’t live in houses.’

‘I can’t discuss it with you, I’m afraid,’ said Katie. ‘Mr Fearon hasn’t been charged with any offence yet and he’s entitled to his privacy, like anybody else.’

The garda standing on the steps of Paddy Fearon’s caravan beat a postman’s knock with his baton, even harder than before.

‘Paddy Fearon! Garda! If you don’t open up immediately we’ll have to break the door open!’

‘He
is
in there, I hope?’ said Katie.

‘His horsebox is there and his car’s there right next to it,’ said Detective Dooley.

‘Oh, he’s home all right,’ said the fat woman in the purple shell suit. ‘I sees him early on looking out the windy.’ She was about to say something else but she started coughing and couldn’t stop herself and in the end she was thumping herself on the chest with her fist and spitting out long strings of mucus.

‘God, I’m so glad I had that sausage sandwich,’ said Detective Brennan, pulling a face and turning to look the other way.

The garda at Paddy Fearon’s door took out a bunch of skeleton keys and tried them out one by one. Eventually he managed to find one that turned in the lock, but when he tried to open the door it wouldn’t budge. ‘Bolted!’ he called out.

Another garda pushed his way out of the halting site through the gathering crowd of Travellers and after a short while returned with a crowbar. One of the young Travellers shouted, ‘You’re racists, that’s what you are! You’re fecking racists! Why don’t you the feck off the lot of you and leave us in peace?’ Others were pacing edgily backwards and forwards as if they were waiting for any excuse to start a fight.