The Doll's House (41 page)

I hear Martin walking up the staircase from the hall. The one Dominic and I played on as children. The one where I sat at the top and he covered my ears against the angry shouting coming from below. I think about my brother, how much he suffered with the loss of our father, how he became the man my mother leaned on most, even though he was only a boy. I envied their relationship, Dominic being the recipient of her love. She didn’t have enough left for me. I hold my breath, not knowing what will happen next. My regression has left so many unanswered questions, so many unfilled gaps. I look across at Sandy, as if a doll is going to help me. When I do, I hear another question. Was I the one who initiated my father’s suspicions
while Dominic remained her confidant? The son who didn’t betray her and therefore more deserving of her love?

The closer Martin’s footsteps come, the more I worry about Dominic. He’s the last person I remember talking to. Has Martin or Alister done something to him? I have to think. I don’t care so much about dying, but I don’t want to leave Ruby behind. Not with a man capable of this. I won’t leave her like my father did, not without a fight. My body and mind contract, tight and full of resolution, until the door opens, and my life falls apart all over again.

O’Connor’s conversation with the recon team was brief but effective. He knew he had enough to get the search warrant for 74 Strand Road. Apart from the neighbours spotting activity in the deserted house in the early hours of the morning, the team had given him plenty of reason to be suspicious, specifically the two black Mercedes parked a couple of streets away. One registered to Martin McKay, the other to Alister Becon.

The surveillance unit, led by DI Merriman, had first checked the exterior of the building on Strand Road. Initially everything looked as it should. It was only when they called into the houses to the immediate right and left that more had come to light. A woman in number 75 believed she had heard loud voices coming from next door. Her husband told her she must have imagined it, but she was adamant.

Finding Martin McKay’s abandoned car, on top of what Lynch and the team had uncovered at the McKay house, would have been enough on its own to establish reasonable grounds for the warrant. Either way, O’Connor made good time getting to Sandymount, having left instructions with Matthews to call him as soon as the warrant came through. Turning his car onto Strand Road, O’Connor, who wasn’t feeling particularly patient, phoned Matthews again. ‘What’s happening with the bloody warrant?’

‘It won’t be long.’

‘I hope the judiciary aren’t messing us about.’

‘Justice Langham is taking care of it now.’

‘Good.’ O’Connor could see Merriman giving instructions to the
recon crew ahead of him, and their unmarked cars parked a few houses back from number 74.

‘Matthews, has Hennessy got anything more out of that McDaid fella?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Tell him to keep pushing.’

‘I will. By the way, all the checkpoints are in place within the triangle of the three houses, and we’ve alerted both airport and port options. Hanley and the tech guys are still working at the McKays’ house. Lynch is handling the logistics there.’

‘Phone me as soon as you have the warrant.’

The next call O’Connor made was to Kate. ‘I’m at the house in Sandymount.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘The recon team have a report of raised voices coming from inside the premises. We also have McKay’s and Alister Becon’s Mercedes in the area. I should have the warrant in the next couple of minutes. We’re keeping a close eye on things here. Is there anything more you’d like to add before we go inside?’

‘That depends on who the killer is, O’Connor. I assume Dominic Hamilton is still unaccounted for.’

‘Correct.’

‘I don’t know enough about either McKay or Becon to give you any concrete advice other than the obvious. But if Dominic Hamilton’s pulling the strings, his state of mind is volatile, especially if we’re working with psychosis. The killer has already demonstrated on two occasions that he’s capable of extreme levels of violence. If the killer is psychotic, we’re dealing with a serious mental disorder, disintegration of personality, someone with grossly distorted thoughts and perceptions.’

‘Like imaginary voices?’

‘Not necessarily, O’Connor, but his internal messages cannot be relied upon. He could be experiencing heightened levels of anxiety. As
I said to you the other night, his whole mind-set will be bubbling over with emotion, none of which can be trusted.’

‘You’re saying he’s out of control.’

‘Whoever we’re dealing with, he’s not thinking like you or me. His views are entrenched. And there’s another issue, O’Connor.’

‘What?’

‘It’s about Clodagh McKay.’

‘What about her?’

‘I don’t like the fact that she hasn’t returned home.’

‘I don’t like that a number of people, including Clodagh McKay, are unaccounted for.’

‘Do you remember what I said, O’Connor, when I spoke to you about spree killings?’

‘We’re back to the list.’

‘I said this case didn’t have all the characteristics of spree killings, but the murders had some similarities. Depending on how much pressure the killer is under, and if his mind is fully contracted, he hasn’t finished yet. Clodagh McKay is missing. We know she’s not the killer. In cases like this where the victims are not random but specific, as I said before, the killer could have a last victim in mind.’

‘You’re thinking Clodagh McKay?’

‘Like I said, there is nothing to say the killings will remain gender specific.’

Having parked the car, O’Connor looked at the front façade of 74 Strand Road. ‘Did that Gerard Hayden guy tell you anything about the house?’

‘He said he believed Clodagh visited with her brother a couple of days ago. She went alone into an attic room above one of the bedrooms.’

‘Right, Kate. I’ve got to go.’ O’Connor rang Matthews for the second time. ‘Where’s that fucking warrant, Matthews?’

‘There’s a bike on its way to you.’

‘Matthews, get Hennessy to find out from McDaid anything he
can about this house in Sandymount, specifically access to the attic. Something tells me we’re running out of time, so make sure McDaid is a fast talker. And, Matthews …’

‘Yeah?’

‘I want the Emergency Response Unit on alert. If I get a whiff of anything shaky going down here, ringing front doorbells may not be the best option.’

When the attic door opened, I discovered that seconds could last for hours.

Recognition and relief came first, before the onslaught, the almost crazed look in his eyes, the glint of the knife in his right hand – once seen, impossible to deny.

My gasps came next, when words failed me, him lunging forward and Alister Becon fighting back. My body instinctively retracted. Shock and panic set in. And then my futile attempts at stopping him.

The smack across my jaw was delivered with the strength of someone twice his size, followed by my disbelief, rushing to make sense of it all.

Then the longest silence of all, as Alister Becon slid to the floor, still breathing, face down, blood pooling, spreading out across the floorboards, like the wings of the eagle above me. His blood seeping between cracks, my brother’s eyes locking onto mine, as our past dangled, like skin caught on barbed wire – torn, trapped, the pain immeasurable, before the next blow and the dark.

I’m unsure how long I’ve been out. Not very long, as I can still see daylight beneath the door. I look across the attic, and even before his shape becomes clear to me, I know it’s him. My voice is croaky, my body pulling itself up, then once more leaning against the wall, my legs in front of me, bent at the knees, like they belong to a rag doll. I say his name, deep and resolute, ‘Dominic.’ An affirmation, and so many goddamn questions rolled into one.

‘Hello, Clodagh.’ His voice is calmer than I expect it to be.

He waits for me to sit up straighter. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you, but it was necessary. I couldn’t have you getting in the way.’ He looks pained. ‘I’m sorry about hitting you. I’m not like that bastard husband of yours.’

‘Dominic, have you gone mad?’

‘Mad?’ He smiles. ‘I don’t know, Clodagh.’ I sense his eyes boring into me. His voice, when he next speaks, is low. ‘Maybe I am mad, but what’s done is done.’ He takes a gold wedding ring out of his trouser pocket.

‘Whose ring is that?’

‘Keith Jenkins’s. Do you know what he said before he died?’

‘No.’

‘He said he never loved her.’ Putting the ring back inside his pocket, he says, ‘Don’t worry, Clodagh. I made sure he suffered.’

‘Dominic, where’s Alister? What have you done with him? My desperation and disbelief rage side by side. I roar, ‘Jesus Christ, Dominic, what the hell is going on?’

‘We still have time.’

‘We still have time for what, Dominic?’ I can’t believe the calmness in his voice.

‘Time for the truth, Clodagh. Isn’t that what you wanted all along?’

I stare at him as he continues to talk.

‘I warn you, Clodagh, don’t try to make a run for it. You’re not going anywhere. We’re in this together now.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I suppose Alister told you he went to see Mum before she died.’ His words are filled with anger. ‘He thought he was manipulating me,’ he smirks, ‘but I’ve seen too much for that.’

‘I don’t understand. You’re not talking sense.’

‘He wanted Gahan and Jenkins out of the way. He saw me as his way of achieving it.’

‘WHAT?’ I can’t believe what I’m hearing.

‘He thought by telling me about Dad’s suicide, he could manipulate me, telling me how Jenkins and Gahan put Dad under financial pressure, and about Jenkins and Mum. That he would understand me wanting to take revenge. That if I wanted to, he would help me. He made the mistake of thinking I knew very little, but I knew a lot more than anyone.’

‘You killed them?’ Even saying the words sounds crazy. But now, it’s like Dominic has stopped listening to me. As if I don’t exist. Because he continues talking as if he’s thinking out loud. As if his words confirm his own logic. And all the while he has that horrible knife in his hand.

‘I’ve always suspected it was suicide,’ again the anger, ‘but suspecting and knowing are two different things.’ He looks at the pool of blood on the attic floor. ‘Alister thought he could fool me, like he fooled Dad. That I was there for the taking to do his dirty work for him.’

‘And you let him think that?’

‘He said he owed me an education,’ another smirk, ‘that he owed me the truth. None of that matters, Clodagh. Don’t you get it? They had to die.’

‘Dominic, what have you done with Alister?’ My voice is finding a new form of fear as I look at this man, my brother, who has become a crazed stranger.

‘It doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.’

‘Will you stop saying that?’ I realise I’m pleading. I stop talking. I stare at him again, the brother I have known my entire life, before I finally ask, ‘Is this all about her? Is this all about Mum? You covered up for her all those years ago, didn’t you?’

‘I envied you, Clodagh. You do know that? You were a child. You couldn’t see or understand the things that I could see.’

‘I saw more than you think, Dominic.’

He shrugs off my last words. ‘Maybe you did.’

I remember the light in the attic that night in Dominic’s bedroom. ‘You were here in this attic, Dominic, when Mum was attacked?’

I can see the pain on his face, etched across his brow.

‘Weren’t you? Answer me, goddamn it.’

‘I wanted to help her. I really did.’ Now it’s Dominic who sounds desperate, pained. ‘I was too afraid. I was a coward back then.’

‘You were only a kid.’ My mind feels like a seesaw.

‘No, I wasn’t, Clodagh,’ he roars. ‘I was old enough to see, to know, to stop it.’ Then he lowers his voice: ‘I was old enough to tell.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘You wouldn’t understand.’

‘You said we had time, Dominic. Give me the chance to understand.’ Again I’m pleading. And for what feels like eternity, there is a silence between us, Dominic staring at me, then looking away. Finally he says, ‘I didn’t want Dad to think any less of her. I thought if I kept my mouth shut, it would all pass, but none of it passed.’

‘What happened, Dominic?’ I sound unsure and nervous.

The crazed look I saw when he opened the door shrouds his face. I look at the knife, as he leans down and asks coldly, ‘Don’t you remember, Clodagh?’

‘Remember what?’

‘Daddy’s little girl,’ he says, mocking.

‘What about me? What are you saying?’

‘You were the one who told him.’

‘How could I have known? I was too young to understand.’

‘Do you remember when Emma, your doll, fell and her face cracked in two?’

‘Yes.’

‘After the row, the house was horrible. The anger caught up in every wall, every room, roaring even in the silence.’

‘Go on.’ Although I’m terrified of what is coming next.

The two men stood with their backs to the sea, while Merriman brought O’Connor up to date.