Last Kiss (32 page)

‘What can I do to help?’

‘I need to pay a visit to Leach. It turns out the principal from the girls’ national school is now something of a recluse, a guy called Barry Lyons. I thought it would be good if we spoke to him together. There’s no way of contacting him other than turning up on his doorstep.’

‘When do you plan on going?’

‘As soon as you can, but I really think we should go early in the morning. I did a stint in a small town in the Midlands a number of years back, and I know how these tight-knit communities operate. They’re slow to trust outsiders, even those in uniform. They only ever tell you the information in bits, a throwaway comment here, an observation there. As I said, James Gammon thought there was something odd about both sets of parents. If he’s saying that, then it’s probably true.’

‘Is it only Barry Lyons you want to interview?’

‘We’ll start off with him, but we’ll need to talk to others too. The local police officer stationed in Leach in the nineties passed away a couple of years back, but the postmistress is still alive, as is the postman. Like the school principals, they’re retired, but in the absence of the local police officer, they’ll know more than anyone else about the goings-on back then. A community can talk for ever about what it wants to say but when it comes to its secrets … well, we’ll need to be on our toes.’

‘Okay. Pick me up at half nine.’

‘Right – we’ll start with the recluse. If he’s a no-show, we can track the others down.’

Hanging up, he walked over to the police swipe board, added the parental links of Alice Thompson and Sandra Regan, and put a circle around the village of Leach. There was a story there, he thought, nothing surer.

I’M SITTING IN the foyer of the Earlbrook Hotel with no memory of how I got there. Lifting my bag up from the floor, I see the old photograph is still in the diary. I search for the key. It’s there too.
You’re here now – do something
.

When I stand up, I expect others to stare at me, to acknowledge my existence, but instead they pass me by, as if I don’t exist, and when I take a step forward, it’s as if someone other than me is moving. I press the lift button. It arrives quickly. I step in and my only company is a man and a woman. They get out on the first floor, as do I. I walk in the opposite direction, even though I know the room I’m looking for is the other way. When the corridor empties, I turn back, until I’m standing outside Room 122.

Knocking on the door, I dread someone answering. When I get no response, I knock again, harder this time – still nothing. The key feels cold in my hand as I turn it in the lock, but it won’t work. Someone has changed the locks. I’ve no idea what to do next. I need to think clearly. If the room is empty, the key could be at Reception.

I don’t want to go back downstairs, but I have no choice. Downstairs, I walk past the desk enough times to see that the key is in the wooden slot behind. I still have some cash. I could get lucky. Maybe no one has booked that room. In the Ladies, I tidy myself up, then Google the hotel number and dial it. It doesn’t take long for Reception to answer. ‘Yes,’ the girl says, ‘we do have availability,’ and I hear myself reply, ‘I’m right outside. I’ll be there in two minutes.’

The receptionist gives me a strange look when I say I want to pay for the room in cash and, yes, I tell her, I can supply a home address and phone number. When she goes to take down a room key, I ask about Room 122. She gives me another odd look. ‘Is it vacant?’ I ask. ‘Only I’ve stayed here before, and I know it’s a lovely room.’ She hesitates, but I sense she wants to get rid of me. I don’t care. I have the key. That’s all that counts.

Upstairs, I turn the key in the lock, push the door open and step inside. There is a chair at the dressing table. As I had done in the bedroom in Greystones, I wedge it between the door handle and the floor.

I know from what the detective has told me that I’m standing where Rick Shevlin was murdered. Without planning to, I open the bathroom door, seeing my reflection in the mirror. For a split second I see another face, someone with features not
unlike mine. She is smiling, but it isn’t a nice smile. It’s mocking. I think about the man with the two dogs, how he thought he recognised me. All of my thoughts are jumbling as I remember what Karen and Edgar said about the house in Greystones, and me being unwell.

I turn, and the large bed becomes the focus of my attention. Another split image, this time of a naked man partly tied to the bed. His eyes are open, but I know he’s dead. There is blood all over him. My vision blurs again, and the red blood turns black. The bed is now in a darkened room, lit by car-park lights from outside. I take a step closer to the bed, and feel his eyes following me. ‘Look at me,’ his eyes are saying, but instead I start to shake. I turn back to the bathroom mirror, and there’s that face again, mocking. It’s then I hear someone calling my name. At first I think it’s her, but realise Edgar is frantically turning the door knob. I take a step back. What if everything Edgar said was true? What if I’ve got it all wrong? I turn back to the bed, but the body is gone, as is the face in the mirror. There is something about the way Edgar is pleading for me to open the door that makes me walk over to it. I remove the chair and unlock it, uncertain what will happen next.

‘What’s going on, Edgar? You know, don’t you? You know everything?’

‘I knew you’d come here.’

‘How did you know? Rick Shevlin was killed in the room, but the key …’ I hold it up. ‘I found one at that house in Greystones, and the piece of paper with the room number on it.’ I remember reading the address. ‘It was in your handwriting. You wrote down the address of the hotel. Why did you do that?’

He puts his hands to his face, and I watch his body slowly crumple. He moves closer to me, looking like a man who is about to confess something awful.

‘Edgar,’ I murmur, ‘what’s so terrible that you had to hide it from me?’

‘I wanted to protect you.’

‘Protect me from what? From whom?’

‘From yourself.’

‘I don’t understand.’ I’m shaking my head again, violently now.

‘You killed him, Sandra.’

I look at him as if he’s mad. Then I laugh hysterically. ‘You must be crazy.’ I back away from him. I’ve stopped laughing. ‘It’s not true,’ I say. ‘It’s a lie. Tell me it’s a lie.’

He sits on the chair by the door, looking at his feet instead of me, the words pouring out of him, fast. ‘I knew you were seeing someone else, Sandra. I found the dating link on the computer.’

‘No, no!’ I roar. ‘That was you, not me.’

‘I followed you. I saw you with him in the restaurant. I saw the two of you having that argument, and I thought, perhaps it’s not too late. Maybe we can patch things up.’ His face is in his hands, his shoulders shaking. I realise he’s crying. ‘I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.’ He looks up at me, as if he is begging me to understand.

I don’t know what to do next, other than stare at him.

‘I’ve never been good enough for you, Sandra. I know that. I should have tried harder to please you. Maybe then you wouldn’t have wanted to be with someone else.’

I keep looking at him blankly. He continues talking, his
voice lower, barely audible: ‘After you left the restaurant, I watched you follow him. Then I saw you go back to your car. You removed a large carrier-bag from the boot. At first I didn’t understand why, but then I realised you were going to him. I thought about bursting into the room, but instead I walked around outside, trying to work things out. I’ve no idea how long it was before I found myself back at the hotel, taking the lift to this floor, standing in the shadows as I waited for you to leave.’

I look from Edgar to the bed, thinking about the image of the dead man, and again I turn to the mirror in the bathroom, to see if she’s watching me, but I can see only myself.

‘When you opened the door, Sandra, I called your name. At first you didn’t turn. You froze like an animal caught in a snare. I know you killed him because I saw the aftermath, but there wasn’t a drop of blood on you. I thought at first somebody else had done it, but then I saw the knife in your bag, and the things you used to clean the place.’

‘You’re lying!’ I roar.

‘I wish I was. You went into complete shock. I didn’t know what to do. Instead of calling the police, I protected you. We took the stairs instead of the lift, not wanting to risk being seen. Thankfully, there was no one at Reception, and the next thing I remember, I was driving you home in your car. I kept thinking about you coming out of that hotel room, and how vulnerable you looked. All I could think of was getting you help, making you better. I should have paid more attention to the tell-tale signs, the forgetfulness …’ He puts his hands over his face again. ‘I called Lori the following day. I needed someone to rely on, if I had any chance of pulling this off. I didn’t tell her anything
about the murder, but I told her how sick you were. That you were the worst I’d ever seen you. She helped me convince you to get help.’

For a few moments I say nothing, but after a while, I hear myself speak: ‘What do you want to do next?’

‘We need to go to the police. We can explain that you were unwell, that you’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t know what I was thinking of that night. It was a stupid mistake. I know that now.’

‘Edgar,’ my voice sounds so calm, I surprise myself, ‘I want to go home.’

For a moment I think he’s going to refuse to take me, but he says, ‘Okay, if that’s what you want. I know it’s a lot to take in. I understand that. We can talk to the police later. You do agree that you’ll talk to them, don’t you?’

‘It doesn’t look like I have a choice.’

I follow him out of the room, going back down in the lift, and finally out to where I parked the car.

‘I’ll drive,’ he says. ‘I can get a taxi and pick up my car later.’ It’s as if we’re going home after an evening out.

Back at the house, I lock myself into the studio. When he leaves, I pick up my diary, looking at the old black-and-white photograph with the shadow. I finally make the call to Alice. ‘It’s me,’ I say. ‘I need to go back to the woods.’

THE CLOSER KATE got to the village of Leach, the more beautiful the landscape became. Many of the houses still had thatched roofs, and as they drove past St Kevin’s church, nestled among thick shrubs and trees, she tried to imagine the place thirty years earlier, when the affluent, almost cosmopolitan appearance of the small town would have been different. Lynch was right about small-town protectiveness, especially where the past was concerned. Parts of it might look like picture-postcard Ireland, but dig deep and historical scars can usually be found.

Neither she nor Lynch said much during the journey. She preferred it so, having taken the case file to read along the way.
While reviewing her notes, she remembered Lynch hadn’t come back to her with an image of Sandra Regan’s father.

‘Any luck on that photo I asked you for?’

‘That proved a bit tricky.’

‘How so?’

‘No one knows who Sandra Regan’s father was. After her mother did a runner, the girl was raised by her grandparents.’

‘When was that?’

‘From birth, it would seem.’

‘Did the mother ever come back?’

‘It doesn’t look like it. I guess being an unmarried mother thirty years ago was different from how it is today.’

‘I don’t doubt it but, still, it’s unusual for a woman to abandon her child like that.’

He stopped the car. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘That must be the cabin. Full marks to James Gammon for directions. It’s not exactly the Ritz, is it?’

‘It’s certainly isolated,’ she said, taking in the battered, moss-covered wooden structure surrounded by trees.

As they walked towards it, the smell of earth and moss was potent. A crowd of jackdaws scurried from one tree to the next, prompting them to look up. The sound of fallen twigs breaking underfoot exaggerated the thud of their footsteps, as a cold breeze rustled through the trees. The closer they got to the cabin, the more convinced Kate was that nobody was in. The makeshift curtains were drawn, and a large wooden bolt was clearly visible across the front door.

‘There could be an entrance around the back,’ Lynch said, sharing her thoughts.

The place couldn’t have had more than two rooms, although it was longer than it was wide. Kate waited at the side of the cabin, while Lynch went to the back.

‘Find anything?’ she called, after a few minutes, but she didn’t get an answer. ‘Damn him,’ she muttered under her breath. The place was unsettling, and the longer she stood alone, the more she felt as if something or someone in the forest was watching her. She went around to the back and saw that the door was ajar. ‘Mark, are you in there?’

‘Come in. It’s empty.’

She stood at the doorway, trying to work out which of the two rooms his voice had come from. ‘This is breaking and entering, Mark. You can’t be in there without a warrant.’

‘I heard something crashing down inside. I thought I’d better check it out.’

‘Liar.’ She stepped inside. The interior of the cabin was little more than a hovel, with wood chippings on the floor, a dirty sleeping bag below a small indoor wooden frame. She put her hand over the ashes in the grate. They were still hot. ‘Mark,’ she called into the other room, one that looked to be used as a kitchen, with a gas cylinder beside a two-ringed hob. There were basic utensils and tin cans on a square wooden table, with only one chair, facing the back door. ‘He hasn’t gone far,’ she said. ‘The ashes are still hot.’

‘Some place, isn’t it?’ He smiled, walking back towards her. The smile disappeared when they heard the sound of rushed footsteps coming their way.

‘What the hell?’ were the first words out of the old man’s mouth. A rifle hung on his shoulder.

‘The door was open,’ Lynch ventured.

‘That doesn’t mean you’re invited inside.’ Kate heard a mix of anger and fear in his voice.

‘Barry Lyons?’ Mark took a step closer, holding out his hand, but the old man walked past him, slamming the rifle onto the wooden table in the kitchen.