The Doll's House (45 page)

‘You need to become more direct. He still hasn’t harmed the hostage, but with his psychosis, he won’t remain lucid for much longer. Another large interval, and this could turn bad on us.’

Maloney, who was still listening through the audio link, spoke again. ‘Anne, you’ve heard what Kate has just said. We need to move now. This will go one of two ways, and it’s always been something of a long shot. I’m going to put the shooters on alert. If you push it, and his response is not what we’re looking for, we’ll be going for plan B. Do you hear what I’m saying?’

‘I hear you, sir.’

Anne backed away from the staircase, taking up position safely below potential range of gunfire. ‘Dominic, you do want me to help you, don’t you?’ Again she received no response. ‘I will help you, Dominic. The two of us will sort through this together. Why don’t you send Clodagh out, and the two of us can talk properly?’

‘I’m no coward.’ His voice was raised and angry.

‘I know that, Dominic. Now, send Clodagh to me and we can work things out.’

‘Anne?’ Maloney’s voice both low and stern was on the line. ‘The shooters say the knife is still on the ground. Give it one last go. If it doesn’t work, we’re taking him down.’

Kate spoke next. ‘Anne, the last surge of panic, when he realised
your presence, will have depleted his sugar levels further. Fatigue and mental exhaustion with the psychosis are also taking their toll. I’m not saying the situation isn’t dangerous. But it won’t take a lot to weaken him.’

‘Sir, did you hear Dr Pearson?’

‘I heard her. As I said, give it one last go.’

‘Right, sir.’

The next couple of seconds would be critical. It would be either surrender, or Morgan and Quinn would be instructed to fire. Anne Holt continued, ‘Dominic, can you hear me? If you send Clodagh out, we can talk.’

‘I CAN’T.’ Both panic and anger in his voice.

‘Dominic, calm down.’ Anne had raised her voice marginally for the first time.

‘You don’t understand. Nobody does. I never wanted any of this, but I had to undo all the wrongs, especially mine.’ He was near hysteria.

Anne heard heavy movement from behind the attic door. She guessed he was going for the knife. ‘Dominic, it’s Anne. What’s going on in there?’

Maloney wasted no time. ‘We’re going less lethal. Take him with the Taser, NOW.’

Anne’s question was followed by the roar of multiple shots, reverberating through the building, echoing down the audio link.

It was Anne’s voice that Kate heard next. ‘Kate, I think he’s down. I can hear Clodagh McKay screaming.’

‘I can hear her too.’

O’Connor instructed Detective Monroe to remain with Kate, while he and the other detectives stormed out of number 75 to join the ERU team.

When I scream, it sounds like it’s coming from a wild and desolate place, the kind of place that brings Hell on earth with it. Anne Holt’s voice, from the other side of the attic door, had been my only tentative link to ending this madness, a madness that in its wake brings our whole life, Dominic’s and mine, sliding through every part of my mind.

I curl up in the corner, seeing his body fall onto the dried pool that is Alister Becon’s blood. I scream again, unsure if he’s alive or dead. I crawl over to him and grab hold of his body. He’s still breathing. I hear a low, painful moan leave his lips.

There are loud, fast movements coming from behind the attic wall. I can hear people running through the house, strangers. The seconds are fleeting past, but inside this room, it feels as if everything has stopped. I lie beside him, placing my hand on his chest, feeling his heart beat fast, his body like a tightened knot.

As the outside sounds become louder, they seem to become more distant. My voice is barely a whisper as I lean close to his ear, my dry lips feeling the heat from his body. My words sound like the whispers of sea shells. ‘Dominic, you don’t have to worry any more.’

He tries to speak, but I can barely hear him, his broken words escaping in low gasps, like my memory of the strand, when I tried to hear my father’s voice, my feet sinking into the sand, caught in tangled seaweed. I say again, ‘Dominic, you’re going to be okay.’

When the door bursts open, I don’t take my eyes off him. I can feel somebody beside me, a woman bending down. She’s telling me
he’s going to pull through. I want to believe her more than anything in the whole world.

‘We need to get him help, Clodagh. You’re going to have to pull back.’ I feel her grab my shoulders, tugging me away. Strangers are leaning over his body, shouting at each other. Another of them turns to me, a man. He, too, tells me Dominic will be okay. But none of it is okay. None of it can ever be okay, not ever.

The smell of the sea rose up through Kate’s nostrils, as a sharp breeze came in from the strand, spattering her face with misty rain. She turned her back to it, and faced O’Connor.

‘What now?’

‘We’ll tidy up here. All in all, things could have turned out a lot worse. It looks like Dominic Hamilton is going to pull through.’

‘And what about Clodagh McKay? Is she still inside?’

‘Yes. The medics are giving her something to calm her down.’

‘Can I talk to her?’

‘I don’t know, Kate.’

‘O’Connor, I’ll take it easy. You owe me.’

‘All right, but give it a little longer, until ERU are finished. Once I know everything’s settled, you can talk to her then.’

‘What about you, O’Connor? What next for you?’

He shrugged. ‘What has a guy to complain about, standing here by the sea, listening to the sound of the waves in such great company?’

‘I never took you for an old romantic.’

‘There are lots of things you don’t know about me, Kate.’

‘O’Connor?’

‘Yeah?’

‘The other night. I’m glad you told me about what happened. What I mean is, I’m glad you felt you could tell me.’

‘It’s immaterial now.’

‘Will you be talking to Butler?’

‘He’s next on my to-do list.’

‘I see. Well, if there’s …’

O’Connor spotted Maloney, who was beckoning to him from the front of the house. As he walked away, he turned back to Kate and said, almost as an afterthought, ‘Declan still away, is he?’

‘Declan won’t be coming back, O’Connor – at least, not to me.’

‘I’m sorry, Kate.’ A look of awkwardness on O’Connor’s face.

‘It’s all right. It’s not your concern.’

He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘I doubt that, Kate. You and me, we’ve been through a lot together.’

‘I guess we have.’

Kate waited while he talked to Maloney. It didn’t take him long to return.

‘Are you ready to talk to Clodagh McKay?’

‘As ready as I’ll ever be.’ With that, the two of them entered number 74 Strand Road.

O’Connor closed the door of Chief Superintendent Butler’s office behind him. Martin McKay wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. A heap of fraud and tax evasion charges were mounting by the hour. They’d get the bastard on something. But that was no longer his worry. Walking through the corridors of Harcourt Street station, the closer O’Connor got to the front entrance, the more he felt his past and his present give way to an unknown future.

He hadn’t been surprised by the suspension: it was standard – removal from active duties for an unlimited period, pending an internal investigation. But despite knowing this, he had been taken aback by how empty he felt inside. The force had been his whole life. Walking away from it was harder than even he had thought possible.

Out in the daylight, his survival instincts kicked in. He braced himself for the hard path ahead. He drew in a long, deep breath, feeling the cold air of the city hit his lungs, sharp, chilling, amid the noise of heavy traffic and throngs of people. All of which now felt alien to his stationary frame.

‘Sometimes you have to stop before you can move forward,’ Kate had said to him. Maybe she was right, but that would also require looking back. Not a thought he felt comfortable with. Nor was he looking forward to his empty flat, which he did his level best to get the hell out of most of the time. It held the remnants of what used to be.

If it was only the mess of the cover-up, a one-off bad judgement call, it wouldn’t have been so difficult, but O’Connor knew it was
more than that. It went right back to the old demons he would now ultimately have to face: the reason he had let that boy off the hook in the first place. He had looked so much like Adam, his son, reminding O’Connor of what a lousy father he had been.

As he walked away from Harcourt Street station, and the life he had known for so long, the prospect of picking up those old pieces filled him with more trepidation than the emptiness.

Sometimes there can be calm after a storm, when your thoughts go to a melancholy place that is not unlike the garden Gerard Hayden brought me to, a safe oasis in the centre of the madness.

That is partly why I find myself back in my old bedroom at Seacrest; my adult body hunkered down as I stare into the small rooms of my old doll’s house. Part of me wants to shed tears, but it’s too soon for that. Yet another part of me wants to let go. Right now, I am content to be still.

When they took Dominic away, they said I could stay here for a while. I pulled my old doll Sandy with her cropped hair from the wooden crate in the attic. Her sea-blue eyes stared back at me as if to say, it’s all over now.

The woman they sent to talk to me was called Kate. I asked her if she had any brothers or sisters, but she said, no, she didn’t. It’s funny the way all our lives are so different, none of us walking in the same shoes as others.

She asked me about my doll’s house and my doll. I told her I had called her Sandy after the strand because of her sea-blue eyes. I had forgotten about that. I told her about Debbie too. How I thought I remembered somebody by that name, someone who was beautiful on the outside but ugly within. It got me thinking about all the other bits I’d forgotten, and how much more will surface over time.

The past cannot hurt you, Gerard Hayden had said, because it has already happened. I now know that isn’t true. The past forms you. It can reach out like a giant claw and drag you back into it. I had asked Kate about that too, whether she thought the secrets of the past,
the memories locked within our minds, were best left in peace. Her answer surprised me.

‘Not knowing can be equally hard,’ she said. She looked pensive. I felt she had her own story to tell. Perhaps we all do. She told me she has a patient, a girl close to Ruby in age. She too has memory gaps. Over time Kate hopes all the missing bits will come back. I hope so too. The truth might be harsh, but it is your truth. Without it, like Emma’s cracked face, the pieces are all there but so too is the dark.

I talked about the doll’s house, and how I remembered calling my doll with the porcelain face after my sister Emmaline, when I knew Mum was bringing her home.

I explained that after the regression I felt I had left my little-girl self behind. That I knew she still needed me. She needed someone to tell her everything would be okay.

‘She’s still inside you,’ Kate had said, ‘waiting for you to be okay too.’

I pick up the doll called Sebastian, the one that looked so much like Dominic as a boy. My brother is getting help now, but it’s a long road ahead.

I place my hands in every room of the doll’s house, touching Ben the brown terrier with the black-and-white-spotted ball in his mouth, the intricate pieces of furniture, the miniature plates and cups, the tiny dressing table with the pretend powder and lipstick, and all the while I’m remembering that little girl. The one who ran away to be alone, away from the loud voices and fear, the one who sought refuge with her dolls, and a life inside the world of a doll’s house.

Writing a novel is a journey, one that is filled with many hopes and questions. It takes time and the path isn’t always clear, but if your story is worth telling, it’s worth writing.
The Doll’s House
was such a journey, and it wouldn’t have happened without the help and encouragement of a great many people.

The first people I want to thank are my family, especially my ever patient husband, Robert, my children, Jennifer, Lorraine and Graham, to whom this book is dedicated, and my granddaughter, Caitriona, who has brought so much joy into all our lives.

I owe a huge debt to everyone directly involved with the creation of this novel, starting with my agent Ger Nichol, of The Book Bureau, who has been there for me every step of the way, the great team at Hachette Books Ireland, especially Ciara Doorley, commissioning editor, who believed so enthusiastically in this story from the beginning, and also thanks to Hazel Orme, copy editor, for her wonderful work on the manuscript.

My research for this novel has taken me to unusual places, from my initial curiosity about hypnosis, to a fascination with memory and how it is created, to finally finding myself sitting having cups of coffee with a hostage negotiator. I want to thank all members of the police who assisted with my research, especially Tom Doyle of Rathfarnham Garda Station and Mary Fitzsimons of the Emergency Response Unit, who were so generous with their knowledge and experience. Thanks also to Niamh Bonner of SATU, who is part of the first step back for survivors of sexual assaults. I also want to
thank Dave Gogan for his keen psychological insight, for lending me even more books on criminal psychology, and for giving me confidence that I was on the right track with some of the facets of this story. I couldn’t have written this novel except for all I discovered about hypnosis along the way, and I want to give particular thanks to hypnotherapist, Michael O’Brien, for the many long conversations we had in this regard. I confirm here that any errors or factual deviations made in the writing of this novel are mine and are not attributable to the professionals who assisted in my research.

I would also like to thank my friends, old and new, who have been so encouraging and supportive of me, and to again give thanks to Mary Lavelle, who read the full manuscript at first draft stage. My thanks also to Vanessa O’Loughlin of Inkwell and Writing.ie for her on-going support and energy, the great team at the Irish Writers’ Centre, especially Carrie King, June Caldwell and Fergal O’Reilly, South Dublin Libraries, Domitilla Fagan, Patricia Fitzgerald, Caroline Higgins, and Una Phelan, and Emer Cleary of Emu Ink.