Authors: Graham Masterton
‘
Aaaaaahhhhhh
,’ she whispered. She didn’t even have enough breath to make a last appeal to Saint Eustace.
‘Close it,’ said Riona, and Dermot raised the two sides of the hog roaster’s cover and fastened the clips that held them together. Sister Aibrean was still visible through the oval glass windows, which were designed so that the barbecue chef and his guests could watch their pig becoming steadily crisper without having to open up the roaster and lose any of its heat.
Riona stepped nearer and shaded her eyes with her hand so that she could see Sister Aibrean more clearly. ‘
Burn, you cruel creature
,’ she said to herself.
As soon as the cover was closed, the temperature inside the roaster began to intensify and now Sister Aibrean was not just being seared by the metal tray but cooked. She must have dragged in two lungfuls of superheated air because now she let out a long and hideous scream. She knocked her knuckles against the windows and kicked her heels against the end of the roaster and her scream went on and on for so long that Riona thought it was never going to finish.
Eventually, though, it faltered and died away, and as it did so Sister Aibrean managed to lift her head so that Riona could see her face. It was vermilion-red now, like a demon’s mask. Her eyes had rolled up so that only the whites showed and by now she was probably blinded, but in spite of that she appeared to be glaring at Riona with both desperation and utter hatred.
‘Will you look at the scowl on her,’ she said to Dermot. ‘So much for dying in a spirit of forgiveness, like Jesus. Mind you, Jesus knew that He was going to come back to life again by the weekend, just in time for his dinner, and this one certainly won’t be.’
‘Oh, you’re a hard woman and no mistake,’ said Dermot, with a grin to show her that he meant no disrespect.
After another two or three minutes the knocking and kicking noises from inside the hog roaster gradually petered out. The last few knocks were barely audible and Riona guessed that they were probably caused by Sister Aibrean’s tendons tightening in the heat, rather than her begging to be freed. Five minutes after that she could see that Sister Aibrean was lying completely stiff and still, and that her skin was turning orange. She heard a dripping sound in the metal tray underneath the roaster, and then another drip, and another. Sister Aibrean’s body fats were melting.
‘We should have fetched some baps,’ said Dermot.
By now the whole stable was filled with the pungency of roasting flesh and Riona was nauseated to find that she had started to salivate. She retched and said to Dermot, ‘I have to get out of here.’
‘What do you want to do? She must be brown bread by now. Do you want me to turn the gas off?’
‘No, leave it on till she burns. Let’s cremate her, like the witch she is.’
They left the stable, closing the door behind them, and stepped out into the rain. Riona raised her umbrella and they stood for a while breathing in the smell of fresh air, and rain, and peaty soil, and horse manure.
‘Who’s the next one?’ asked Dermot.
‘I’m not sure yet. Either Sister Virginia or Sister Nessa. It depends which one Andy finds first.’
Dermot thought for a while, watching the rain falling in curtains across the stable yard. Then he said, ‘What she said, do you think that’s true, like?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you think we’ll be going to hell for this, you and me?’
‘Do you believe in hell?’
Dermot shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been in Billy McReady’s bar of a Saturday night and that comes pretty close, except that it’s probably a fair bit hotter – Billy McReady’s, I mean. But Carraig Mor, that was hell. That was definitely hell. The food was shite and everybody in the whole fecking dump was cracked.’
‘And you weren’t?’
‘Of course not! I was the only one in who wasn’t! And that included them doctors. They was cracked worser than most of the patients. They let me out, didn’t they, when they realized their mistake?’
‘They had to let you out, Dermot, because you’d served your time.’
Dermot stared at her. His bald head was bobbled with raindrops like the blisters on Sister Aibrean’s skin. ‘You’re not trying to say that I’m a header, like, are you?’ he asked warily.
‘I wouldn’t dream of it, Dermot. I may have a lot of faults, but stupidity isn’t one of them.’
Katie was coming out of Superintendent Pearse’s office when Detective Dooley caught up with her.
‘Result!’ he said, his face flushed, holding up his iPhone.
‘With Roisin Begley, you mean? That’s fantastic. Her father’s due here in twenty minutes. What have you got?’
She pressed the button for the lift and the doors opened immediately. As they went up, Detective Dooley said, ‘Roisin had a timeline on Facebook and a Twitter account, and her mobile phone service provider was Meteor. I went through all of her recents but there was nothing to indicate that she was anything but sound about the way that her life had turned out since we got her away from Gerrety.’
They reached Katie’s office. She had been downstairs talking to Superintendent Pearse about continuing protection for herself and John, and about the arrangements for the public funerals on Friday of Detective Horgan and the two gardaí killed when Paddy Fearon’s caravan blew up. She had been away less than ten minutes but another stack of folders had been left in her in-tray.
‘Mother of God,’ she said, picking up the pale-green folder on top of the pile, which was Cork County Council’s new review of community relations. ‘I’m thinking of changing my title to Paper-Pusher-in-Chief. Anyway, Robert, go on.’
‘Roisin texted several of her friends to say that she was very nervous about giving evidence to the court against Gerrety. On the other hand, she said that she was determined to do it, because he deserved to be punished for what he’d done to her and to all the other young girls that he was pimping. She knew that she would be allowed to make her statement on closed-circuit TV, so she wouldn’t have to face Gerrety in person, and that made her feel less anxious about it.’
‘She didn’t say that she was depressed, or thinking of taking her own life?’ asked Katie. ‘She hadn’t logged on to any of those suicide websites?’
Detective Dooley shook his head. ‘If anything, I’d say she was really optimistic about the future. She said that she was thinking of taking up guitar lessons and becoming a singer. She was a huge fan of Sinéad O’Connor and wanted to be just as famous as her. That’s not the kind of thing that a would-be suicide talks about doing, is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Katie. ‘Sinéad O’Connor can be fierce miserable at times. “Nothing Compares to You”?’
‘Listen,’ said Detective Dooley, ‘the last text message that Roisin received was from one of the girls who worked for Cork Fantasy Girls. This was at nine forty-seven on the night she was drowned. The girl’s name is Abisola. She’s a Nigerian and you can find her most nights at the Bodega or Havana Brown’s. I met her myself when I first went looking for Roisin and I thought she was a real stunner, and a nice girl, too. Abisola said to meet her at Havana Brown’s at eleven o’clock because she had some really fantastic news for her.’
‘She didn’t tell Roisin what it was, though, this fantastic news?’
‘Not in the text. But I went to Havana Brown’s last night and even though Abisola wasn’t there I found out where she lives. That’s where I was this morning when you rang me. She doesn’t look like so much of a stunner when she’s just dragged herself out of the scratcher, I can tell you. More like a week of wet washing that somebody’s left a black sock in.
‘It was obvious that she hadn’t yet heard that Roisin was dead, and I didn’t tell her in case she clammed up on me. She said that Dovydas Karosas had approached her and told her to meet up with Roisin and pass on a message from Michael Gerrety. Like, Gerrety was sorry about everything that had happened and he still owed her six and a half thousand euros for her last week of “massages” in inverted commas. If Abisola could fix it so that Roisin came to the club at eleven, Dovydas would be there to give her the cash.’
‘So Roisin came?’
‘Well, come on, Abisola had promised her that she had something fantastic to tell her. And she’d been living back home, too, with a father who thought she was nothing but a dirt-bird. She probably felt like a little taste of that clubbing again. You know, a couple of hours of freedom and Jägerbombs. And when they met up and Abisola told her that Dovydas was going to give her all that grade, she was really excited.’
‘Was there any suggestion from Karosas that she would only be paid if she agreed not to give evidence against Gerrety?’
‘Not that Abisola heard. But of course Roisin wanted the money. She felt that she’d earned it, after all, and she’s a seventeen-year-old girl. What girl of that age wouldn’t be tempted by six and a half thousand euros?’
‘Did Abisola see Dovydas hand the money over?’
‘No. And here’s the thing. She didn’t see Dovydas at all. Roisin had sneaked out of the house about ten o’clock and managed to get a pal from Henchy’s Bar to drive her down to the city, so she arrived early. Roisin and Abisola had the time to knock back a couple of drinks together and catch up with the gossip and Abisola took a few selfies.’
He quickly prodded at his iPhone and then handed it to Katie to take a look. The first picture showed Roisin and Abisola hugging each other and laughing. Roisin was wearing a white V-necked sweater and a very short grey skirt and black tights. Abisola had her hair braided in cornrows and was dressed in a shiny turquoise blouse and black high-waisted leggings.
‘Those are the clothes that Roisin was found in when they dragged her out of the river,’ said Katie.
‘That’s right,’ said Detective Dooley. He scrolled through the selfies that Abisola had taken, one after the other. ‘But look at this picture, and this, and this. You can’t see it in all of them, but take a sconce at Roisin’s right wrist.’
Katie held up the iPhone and saw that Roisin was wearing a sparkly bracelet that looked like a cluster of flower petals. Each petal was fashioned out of dozens of tiny opalescent beads, with crystals forming the stamens.
‘She was wearing only earrings when her body was recovered,’ said Katie. ‘What happened to that bracelet, I wonder? It’s only costume jewellery, like, twenty or twenty-five euros at the most, so you wouldn’t have thought that anybody would have considered it worth stealing.’
‘I’ll have some pictures taken of it and circulated around the markets,’ said Detective Dooley. ‘But any road, at about five past eleven a girl came into the club and told Roisin that there was somebody waiting for her outside.’
‘Only “somebody”? She didn’t mention Dovydas by name?’
‘No. And like I say, Abisola didn’t see Dovydas, either. Roisin picked up her coat and her purse and followed the girl outside, and that was the last Abisola saw of her. She asked me this morning how Roisin was, but all I said was “grand”. Abisola isn’t the type who reads newspapers or watches the news on TV and most of the time she’s halfway out of her head on meow-meow. She doesn’t even realize that I’m the law or wonder why I’m always asking her so many questions. She thinks I’m a DJ who works for Club D’Ville, the teenage disco. I wish.’
‘Have you found
anybody
who saw what happened to Roisin when she left the club?’
Detective Dooley said, ‘No. But I’m already having the CCTV footage checked from that evening and the manager gave me the home address of the doorman who was on duty outside.’
‘Well, good luck with that. It sounds to me as if Dovydas was being careful not to be seen with Roisin. I’ll bet you he has some fantastic alibi set up already. The only witness to any of this so far is this Abisola, and from what you’ve said about her she doesn’t sound exactly what you’d call reliable.’
‘Maybe she’s not, ma’am,’ said Detective Dooley. ‘But I have a strong feeling about this. She might be halfway out of her head for most of the time, but I don’t think she’s a liar. In fact, these selfies prove it, don’t they, because they have the date and time on them?’
Katie sat back, tapping a pencil against her desk. ‘That’s true. And I think that’s sufficient reason for me to postpone this meeting with Jim Begley until you’ve checked out the CCTV and talked to the doorman. A possible scenario is that Jim Begley saw Roisin leaving the house and followed her down to Havana Brown’s.’
‘Begley? But how would Begley have sent in that girl to tell Roisin that somebody was waiting for her outside?’
‘I don’t know, but he might have done. She only said “somebody”, after all. And even if it
was
Dovydas Karosas who sent the girl in, Begley might have waited until Karosas gave Roisin the money and left and
then
grabbed her. Maybe he didn’t even have to grab her. Maybe all he had to say was, “I was worried about you and I followed you here and now I’ll give you a lift back home.” Only he gave her a trip to Kennedy Quay instead.’
‘Well, yes, I suppose,’ said Detective Dooley.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Katie. ‘You’re thinking that Detective Superintendent Maguire is always telling me not to theorise and now she’s come up with this fantastical notion that Jim Begley really
was
guilty of drowning his daughter, after all.
And
that he might have pocketed the six and a half thousand euros that she made out of prostitution, in spite of his moral objections.’
‘I hadn’t considered him keeping the money, I must admit.’
‘But this isn’t theorising, Robert,’ said Katie. ‘I’m simply making sure that we leave no stone unturned. This is Michael Gerrety we’re dealing with here and he’s the cutest hoor in Cork, so this case needs to be investigated logically and sequentially, especially in the light of this new evidence from Abisola. We don’t want to jeopardise it by going off half-cocked. Supposing we arrest Michael Gerrety but he says there never was any six and a half thousand euros and that Dovydas Karosas was lying? Supposing we arrest Dovydas Karosas and then we find out that Jim Begley really did do it? Or vice versa? Or that neither of them did it and it was somebody who mugged her while she was walking home late at night with all that cash on her? Or that she’d had too many drinks with Abisola and fell into the river by accident?’