Murder in Ballyhasset (9 page)

Libby saw a few small bright-blue fishing boats anchored at the edge of the water below them. A ten-foot barrier wall ran along the outer edge of the walkway. It protected the harbour inlet from the ravages of any stormy waves. The inner side of the stone walkway allowed people access to yachts and boats moored in the harbour inlet.

'Was Pamela's death an accident or not? That is the question. If Pamela took a stroll along here, perhaps a giant wave swept her into the sea,' Libby said.

'She could have fallen in, I suppose,' Dawn replied.

Libby glanced at the high wall to her left. 'Not on that side anyway, but here on our right side.'

Dawn looked to her right, at the water directly below her. 'You're correct. There's no barrier along here, Pamela could have slipped in there, in the dark.'

Libby remained silent for an instant. Dawn waited for her to speak.

'I can't picture how her body washed up at Seapoint if she fell in here. Surely Ballyhasset Harbour would keep the body in its circular area.'

'Okay,' Dawn said, biting her lip, 'you're saying she never walked as far as the west pier?'

Libby replied, 'I don't know. Seapoint Beach is where we found the body.'

'Currents can carry a body anywhere,' Dawn said.

Libby thought for a few seconds. 'Anyway, my guess is she went into the sea down there at the Seapoint bathing area.' Libby pointed back towards the area where they had found the body. 'She didn't fall in anywhere along here, I think.'

***

Libby rang the pathologist when she got back to the office. 'When did Pamela die, Dr Gallagher?'

'About three days ago, I'd say, around last Sunday evening.'

'Gina saw her at seven last Sunday,' Libby said. 'So Pamela drowned later than that, anyway.'

'She may have been swept in by a huge wave when she went for a walk,' he said.

'How will I find what the tides were like last Sunday?'

'I'm not sure,' he replied. 'Try the Irish Sailing Association, maybe they'll tell you.' He paused. 'Or an old Irish Times might.'

'I don't keep old newspapers. No, I'll ring that sailing crowd so.'

'You do that,' the doctor replied. Libby thanked him and rang off.

Libby rang Met Eireann, and a woman answered. She asked the woman about last Sunday night's weather in Ballyhasset. No strong winds had gusted on this particular night or the next morning, the woman told her.

Libby rang Brendan Sullivan about recent extremely high tides. His house was located near the beach, so she thought he might know about them. 'Does the seawater ever come up to the road?' she asked.

Brendan replied, 'Once or twice it has. Why are you asking me this anyway?'

Libby added, 'Could a person be swept in by walking along Seapoint beach or the west pier?'

'It's never happened yet,' Brendan said curtly. 'Who'd be stupid enough to go walking on that type of night, anyway?' He put down the phone.

Next Libby rang the Irish Sailing Association as the pathologist had suggested. 'Ballyhasset had no extremely high tide that night, Sunday, the eleventh of June,' the receptionist informed her.

Later on, Dawn brought Libby in a cup of tea, pulled up a chair and sat down beside her.

'We've no proof for the accidental drowning theory as yet,' Libby said with a sigh. She sipped her tea slowly. 'Thanks, I needed this badly.'

Dawn said quietly, 'Drowning must be a painless way to die. Perhaps Pamela didn't suffer much.'

'I'm sorry Dawn, I can't agree. It's surely not painless. I'd imagine struggling for air is a horrible experience.' Libby shuddered.

The following day Libby drove to the St Gabriel's mortuary to talk to Dr Gallagher again. A metal trolley in the centre of the room held Pamela's corpse, covered by a sheet.

She gazed at Dr Gallagher as he finished his writing. 'Is it hard to drown a person?' she asked, after a while.

He lifted his head. 'Not if you can overpower your victim. If you can manage to hold someone underwater, you can drown him or her in a minute.'

Libby's eyes widened. 'I never realised it.'

The doctor peered at her through his glasses. 'Realised what?'

'That drowning happens so fast.'

He nodded and then added, 'I finished the post-mortem on Pamela Kelly an hour ago.'

'Right, that's what I came to see you about.'

Libby was struck by how quickly the dead are tidied away once their corpse has been discovered. They are moved from the public view and examined on a mortuary trolley within the space of a few hours.

Dr Gallagher produced the graphic post-mortem photos and placed them on the bench in front of her. He then took out his notes from a drawer underneath the bench. 'The skin on the dead woman's fingers and palms shows the typical effect of prolonged immersion in water.' He rummaged through the photos and took out one. It showed a close-up of Pamela's hands. Libby noted that the skin on them was swollen and dimpled.

He produced another photo for her. 'Here you can see a laceration at the base of the skull.'

'So, perhaps a bang to the back of the head killed her?' Libby suggested.

'No, she died from drowning,' he replied. Libby digested this news.

Dr Gallagher pointed to a photo of the lungs. 'See, they are swollen with water, as you would expect. Pamela's chest expanded, and inhaled water, which entered her windpipe and travelled to the lungs.' He paused for breath. 'If she had been dead on entry to the sea, she wouldn't have inhaled so much fluid.'

'Oh, I see,' Libby said, as she examined the images carefully. 'So was her death an accident or suicide?'

'Probably suicide,' Dr Gallagher replied. 'I mean, who goes swimming in the middle of the night?'

Libby felt confused. The woman she had met was full of life and not in the least suicidal. Therefore, the only other explanation was that she fell in. 'You said yourself someone could have held Pamela under the water and forced her to drown.'

'That's possible,' the doctor agreed, 'but she would strongly resist. She was a healthy young woman.'

'What about the laceration, when did Pamela get that?' Libby asked, her brow creasing.

'Just before she died, or at the time of death.'

Libby glanced sharply at him. 'How do you know that?'

'I see no sign of tissue healing here, so death occurred only a few minutes or less after this injury.'

Libby frowned. 'But you say this blow was not due to being hit by someone?'

He nodded. 'Pamela probably fell against an underwater rock, and scraped her head at the time she drowned. It's only a superficial wound, it didn't kill her.'

Libby said, 'Two doctors dead within a short time of each other, and they worked together. There must be a link. I don't buy this suicide theory at all.'

Dr Gallagher shrugged. 'That's not my worry, anyway. Ask the police, maybe they have an explanation. I've to continue writing my report.' He said goodbye and turned his back to her.

Libby was convinced Conor had concealed something about the circumstances leading to Pamela's death. She arranged to meet Conor at home with the intention of forcing some truthful answers from him.

He brought her into his house and she sat on his sofa in the living room. He stood facing her, with a cigarette in his hand. He was pale and his expression was remote.

'Pamela won't be following you anymore,' Libby said. 'So you can come out of hiding now.'

He winced and then sighed. 'I wasn't hiding. I've lost my best friend. I was going to ask Pamela to marry me.'

Libby stared at him with disbelief. A likely story, she thought. 'Pamela won't be marrying anyone now.'

Conor flinched. 'Brendan rang me yesterday and gave me the awful news.' Conor covered his face with his hands and then stood up abruptly. 'I'm such a fool. Everything's turned out wrong.' He paced up and down, taking deep puffs of his cigarette. 'I'm so confused now; I'm all mixed up. It's all such a mess.' He stubbed his cigarette viciously on a metal ashtray.

'When did you last see Pamela alive?' Libby asked him, with a critical expression.

Conor shifted uneasily in the chair, refusing to meet her eye. 'On the night of the party, over a week ago. She stayed on after everyone else went home. I went down to Galway after that. You met me there, remember?'

Libby's voice grew hard. 'Did you kill Pamela?'

'No. Never. She killed herself. She must have felt so let down, so alone. I was so terrible to her, leaving her in her hour of need. That's why she killed herself. I never thought in a million years she'd jump in the sea, but...' His voice trailed off.

'But what?'

'She did write a note.' Conor exhaled audibly.

'What?' Libby said, jerking her head towards him. A suicide note? Why was he only mentioning this now?

'I drove back to Ballyhasset last Monday, the day after I met you in Galway. I rang Pamela late that evening, but there was no answer. I went over to her house. I had a key, so I let myself in. I found the note on the coffee table. I read it and kept it.' He sighed. 'I intended to give it back to her.'

'But you never got a chance.' Is this the truth? Libby wondered. So Pamela was dead by the time Conor found the note.

'I never thought she'd go ahead and kill herself,' Conor said, with a groan.

A note doesn't mean she did, Libby thought. 'Do you have this note with you?' she asked.

'Yeah, I have a copy here. The police have the original.' He fetched the note from his pocket and handed it over. The crumpled piece of paper was typed and signed. The signature Libby could not decipher.

She read the note aloud,

'Dear Conor,

              When you find this, I'll be dead. I visited my GP with tiredness and pain in my muscles a month ago. He referred me to a neurologist, and to cut a long story short, I have Multiple Sclerosis.

              I'm a coward, I can't face life with this illness, and I can't bear the pain. This is a painless way out, with a few sedatives and a watery death. This is better for me and for all of you.

              You told me you didn't want this baby. I'm so disappointed with you, now. I thought we would always be together.

              I'm so sorry,

              Pamela.'

'Are you sure this is her signature?' Libby asked, with a frown. 'Why didn't she handwrite the whole lot?'

Conor examined the signature. 'I can just about make out the word Pamela,' he said. 'Pamela never had good handwriting. It seems like her scrawl, all right, from what I remember.'

'Did she often type things?'

'No, I didn't even know she could type.'

'Did she ever miss work?' Libby asked.

'No.' He stared at Libby in confusion. 'I even searched Pamela's house for books on this disease yesterday.'

'Did you find any?'

'Yes, I found a spare bedroom with five books about Multiple Sclerosis under the bed.'

'Just because she had a few books about it doesn't mean she had the disease,' Libby said. 'I mean she's a doctor and they read medical books all the time, I'd imagine.'

'True,' he said, 'I never saw Pamela suffering any of these symptoms. In fact, she was always perfectly healthy.'

'What do these books say about the symptoms?' she asked.

'Wait, I have them here.' Conor went over to his bookshelf, which stood in the corner of the room. He picked out a thick textbook and opened it. He flicked through it, finally resting on one page.

'Cramps, numbness, fatigue, tremors, difficulty with balance and walking,' he read. 'Bladder and bowel incontinence, and muscle paralysis. There can be mood swings, anxiety, depression and memory loss. A patient can present with one or several of these symptoms.'

'Pretty depressing stuff,' Dawn said.

'Is there any other reason why Pamela might be so preoccupied with MS, apart from having it herself?' Libby asked, frowning.

'Her uncle died a few months ago from MS, she told me,' said Conor. 'Pamela became very upset afterwards, she often went to stay with this man and his wife in the summer when she was a teenager, she told me. He was only fifty when he died, and he left four young children.'

Libby went back to Pamela's apartment above the newsagent shop. She used Conor's spare key and entered the front door on the ground floor. She climbed a narrow staircase and switched on a light. She found she was in the sitting room. The air smelt musty. She glanced around the room. She walked into the bedroom, over to the window, and then opened the curtains.

She glanced through a pile of Pamela's papers in her bedroom desk drawers, hoping to find correspondence with a doctor, but she found nothing but old bills and photos. She searched the wardrobes in all the rooms, underneath the stairs, and in all the kitchen cupboards, for the typewriter that the young doctor had used, but found none.

***

On Friday Libby drove to Glengariff to meet Pamela's mother. The house was a new bungalow, painted in white with well-tended small shrubs and a huge lawn. A white poodle came out to greet her, followed by a tall elegant white-haired woman dressed in green trousers, a heavy blue jumper and Wellington boots.

'You look like you could do with a good cup of tea,' the woman said. Her cheekbones were high and her skin tanned. Her hazel eyes had fine lines at the corners.

'You've said it,' Libby agreed, with a smile.

They walked into the kitchen. Libby sat while the sun shone into the huge bay window. Mrs Kelly took off her muddy green gloves and switched on the kettle.

'Mrs Kelly, I'd like to talk to you about Pamela's death. I'm trying to understand why she died. I realise you're in mourning after this terrible loss.'

'The Garda just told me today she died from drowning,' said the older woman, in a flat voice. 'I can only think the tide swept her away.’

'So you think...?' asked Libby.

'I've stopped thinking. What on earth's the good of churning things over and over again in your mind for the umpteenth time?'

'Did Pamela ever go walking on the beach?'

'Yes, sometimes. Her apartment is just across the road from there.'

Libby nodded. 'I visited her at home once, to talk to her about Dr Lynch's death.'

'She often took a short walk there with me at the weekend,' said Mrs Kelly. 'We walked up as far as the harbour and back. Pamela never took long walks since she began that job in the hospital. She just never had the energy after all the work she had to do.' Mrs Kelly turned her back, searched through her cupboards and brought out a packet of biscuits. She placed some on a plate on the table. 'Sometimes Pamela worked nights on top of her normal day's work.'

'So she was too exhausted to go walking,' said Libby.

'That's right.' Mrs Kelly took out a packet of cigarettes. 'Do you mind if I smoke?'

'No, go ahead,' she said.

'I gave them up for three years.' Mrs Kelly sighed heavily. 'But since Pamela died, I've been chain-smoking.'

Libby asked, 'Did Pamela complain about her job much?'

Mrs Kelly shook her head. 'She loved it. Just the hours she found long.'

'Any other work problems?' asked Libby.

'She did say Dr Lynch, her boss, gave her a hard time.'

'I know,' said Libby. 'Dr Lynch was the registrar. She's dead now.’ 'Strange business, her murder was. Pamela told me about it.'

'Did Pamela worry about Kathleen's death, do you know?'

'She was very upset, which I found ironic since she couldn't stand Kathleen Lynch.' Mrs Kelly tightened her lips. She then inhaled on the last bit of her cigarette with ferocity.

'Well, she found Kathleen dead,' said Libby. 'This probably shocked her to the core.'

'Poor Pamela.' Mrs Kelly woman groaned, stubbing out her cigarette in the full ashtray. 'She was always a little worrier.'

'Do you know Conor well?'

'Yes, I've known him for years. They met when she was in her first year at Cork University.' Mrs Kelly sank into the chair.

'Do you like him?' Libby asked sharply.

The woman pursed her lips. 'Conor's a wimp. I told Pamela several times he was no good.'

'She didn't listen to you, obviously,' said Libby, with a little smile.

Mrs Kelly shook her head. 'No, she worshipped him.'

Libby asked her about illnesses and Mrs Kelly shook her head.

'Was Pamela depressed at all, lately?'

'Not at all. Why are you asking me this?' Pamela's mother glared at Libby, folding her arms. 'You think she killed herself, is that it?'

'No, I'm asking you if she behaved any differently, before she died.'

'What kind of a question is that to ask a mother?' Mrs Kelly got up from her chair and walked over to the window, her back to them. 'I noticed no symptoms of depression. She was just the usual Pamela.'

'Conor found a note.'

The older woman whipped her head around. 'A note?'

'The note is supposedly from your daughter,' Libby said, hesitating. 'It says she had Multiple Sclerosis.'

Mrs Kelly's eyes opened wide. 'What? MS? I never heard such rubbish. I want to see this note.'

'Conor has a copy,' said Libby. 'You'll have to ask him.'

'How do you know Pamela wrote it?'

'I don't. Someone typed the note, and Pamela signed it, apparently. But Conor isn't even certain it's her signature at the bottom.'

'But this means someone killed her! If it's a fake. But...even if the note is genuine, it gives Pamela a reason for committing suicide.' Mrs Kelly's face brightened. 'Nothing's going to bring poor Pamela back. But, strangely enough I feel better now.' She paused. 'I mean, Pamela was either very ill or she was murdered. I don't have to feel that I've neglected her. Thank you, Libby, for telling me about this.'

Libby looked embarrassed. 'I'm sorry I don't know more. The note is real enough, that's all I know for definite.'

Libby asked quietly, 'Were you aware of her pregnancy?'

'What? Pamela was pregnant? This can't be true.' The woman's shoulders sank as she stared at Libby in consternation.

'The pathologist says she was, six weeks pregnant.'

'We never knew, she didn't tell us. On top of everything, a grandchild - gone.' Pamela's mother started to weep silently; the tears dropping from her cheeks. She brushed them away angrily and stood up. 'I want you to go now. I want to be alone.'

'Pamela didn't get a chance to tell you everything.' Libby said, her face flushed with sorrow and pity. She rose from her chair and went towards the doorway. 'I'm sure she would have, Mrs Kelly.'

'My only child dead. This was not supposed to happen. I was meant to die before her.'

Libby looked at her and silently agreed. Children weren't meant to die before their parents. She left the house and quietly shut the front door. If anything like this happened to my son I don't know what I'd do. I just couldn't bear it, she thought.

***

Afterwards she and Dawn had a drink. Libby said she needed it badly after her encounter with Pamela's mother. The two women sat drinking pints of Guinness silently in the corner of the Green Lemon.

Libby thought Dawn looked unusually pale and tired. 'Tell me what you're thinking.'

'Something that scares me.'

'What?'

Dawn frowned. 'I think Pamela may have been murdered. If she was, there was cold brutal calculation in the planning of her death. The way the killer met her and drowned her to make it look like a suicide, and left a carefully thought out suicide note. Mentioning a chronic illness to give the poor girl a reason for suicide. We can find no motive for what he did. I mean what harm did Pamela do to anyone?'