Authors: Graham Masterton
One of the men lifted a furled umbrella and called out, ‘Katie! Katie Maguire!’ – but as he did so Katie saw little Corina being dragged away through the throng by Mânios Dumitrescu. Corina kept turning around and staring at Katie, wide-eyed in desperation, but when Katie tried to elbow through the crowd after her, Dr O’Brien stepped into her way and dodged from one foot to the other so that she couldn’t get past him.
‘Now then, Katie!’ he admonished her. ‘One thing at a time!’ She knew he was grinning but she couldn’t clearly see his face.
She tried to force him aside, but then she found she was pushing against John’s shoulder and that she wasn’t at the railway station at all. She thought, though, that she could hear a baby crying, and that was what must have woken her up.
‘Seamus?’ she said, and sat upright, listening intently for another cry.
She waited and waited, but of course she heard nothing but the sound of an occasional car passing outside and the doleful hoot of a ship leaving the harbour.
John sat up, too. ‘What is it?’ he asked her.
‘Nothing,’ she said, lying back on her pillow. The moon was watching her, cold and cynical, through the curtains. ‘Nothing at all.’
The dirty grey Range Rover drew up right outside Niamh Dailey’s house while she was cutting back her privet hedge with a pair of kitchen scissors.
She stood up straight and shaded her eyes with her hand. She had seen the Range Rover several times a week since those Romanians had moved in next door at number thirty-seven, seven months ago, but it had never parked directly across her own front gate before.
Niamh waited for the driver to get out, so that she could ask him to budge up a few yards in front of his own house. Her son, Brendan, would be home for his lunch in half an hour and where was he going to park, what with the Shaughnessys at number thirty-three taking up half the street with that second-hand ambulance they used as a grocery van and that old Toyota that was always up on bricks? But almost half a minute went by before she heard the driver’s door open and that skinny Romanian appeared.
Ever since she had first seen him, Niamh had thought that if a rat could grow to human size and walk around on its hind legs, that’s exactly what Mânios Dumitrescu would look like. He had black, slicked-back hair with grey stripes in it, and glittery little eyes, and a long pointed nose. Underneath his lopsidedly trimmed moustache his two front teeth stuck out at opposing angles, but his chin was so weak that it seemed to have collapsed into his neck before it had been given enough time to set.
He was wearing a shiny brown nylon shirt and skinny black jeans, with brand-new Nike buffers, so that he seemed to bounce as he walked up to Niamh’s front gate. Without being invited, he opened the latch and stepped into her front yard. He came right up to her, staring at her all the time, and then he prodded her in the chest with his finger – once, twice, three times. He wasn’t tall, only five foot six inches or so, but Niamh was only a small woman herself, and he was twitching and jerking his head and sniffing with pent-up aggression.
‘What do you think you’re doing, like?’ she said, tightly clasping her kitchen scissors in both hands. ‘Get away out of here before I call Dermot from next door!’
‘You can call anybody you like, you nosey witch,’ Mânios Dumitrescu hissed at her. ‘You tell the police about my mother? It was you? I know it was you. Who else?’
‘Your mother was treating that little girl something shocking,’ Niamh retorted, even though she was finding it hard to keep her voice steady. ‘She was beating her, and making her do all the housework, and keeping her up past midnight because she didn’t have a bed of her own. And I’ve heard
you
shouting at her, too, the poor little creature!’
‘Is not your business!’ said Mânios Dumitrescu. ‘What happen in your house is your business! What happen in my mother’s house is my mother’s business! Not yours, you nosey witch!’
‘Just get away out of here,’ said Niamh. ‘I’ll have you for trespass, and for jabbing me, too.’
‘Oh, you don’t like jab!’ said Mânios Dumitrescu, prodding her again. She backed away from him, but her yard was so small and steeply inclined that she could only press herself into her hedge. ‘This is nothing, let me tell you! You say bad words about my mother, I will make sure you never say no bad words about nobody never again!
Nu în
ț
elegi?
Understand?
Am t
ă
iat limba
ș
i s
ă
-l m
ă
nânci la micul dejun!
I cut out your tongue and make you eat it yourself for your breakfast!’
Niamh said nothing, but simply stared back at him. She was trying to look defiant, but she was terrified and she had wet herself a little bit.
Mânios Dumitrescu stayed in her front yard for a few moments longer, with that glittery look in his eyes. Then he spat on the ground and walked off, leaving the gate open. He went into number thirty-seven next door, leaving his Range Rover parked where it was.
Niamh went into her own house and stood in the kitchen, trembling as if she were cold. She used to be frightened when her husband, Frank, came home from The Flying Bottle on a Friday evening, but that had been nothing but shouting and punching and slapping her and pulling her hair. She really believed, though, that Mânios Dumitrescu would seriously maim her, or even murder her. If the Dumitrescu family had been able to abuse a defenceless little girl the way that they had abused Corina, then they obviously had no human feelings whatsoever.
She went over to the dresser and picked up the phone. She found the number she wanted in her dog-eared little notebook and carefully dialled it. It rang for a long time before it was answered, but she waited patiently. At last a woman’s voice said, ‘Yes?’
‘Is that Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán?’
‘It is, yes. Who’s calling?’
‘It’s Niamh Dailey, from number thirty-five St Martha’s Avenue in Grawn. I was the one who rang you about the little Romanian girl next door.’
‘Oh yes, sure, of course. How are you, Niamh? We’re expecting a hearing up in front of the court either tomorrow or Friday, depending on their calendar. I’ll give you plenty of notice when we need you to give evidence, and I’ll send a car round for you.’
‘The thing of it is, though, to be honest with you, I think that I made a mistake.’
In her mind’s eye, Niamh could visualize Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán on the other end of the phone, frowning.
‘Mistake? What kind of mistake?’
‘All those things that I said that I saw, I’m not at all sure now that I saw them at all, like. And all those things that I said that I
heard
– I’m not at all sure that I heard those, neither.’
‘What are you telling me, Niamh?’
‘I can’t give evidence, that’s what I’m telling you. How can I swear on the Holy Bible to things that I’m not at all sure of?’
‘Which particular parts aren’t you sure about? We can still build a strong case even if you only
heard
Corina being abused, or even if you only saw her doing housework and changing the babies’ nappies when she should have been at school. Her physical and psychological conditions speak for themselves.’
‘I’m not sure about any of it,’ said Niamh. ‘I’m sorry.’ She felt like putting the phone down because she knew how disappointed and frustrated Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán must be feeling, but at the same time she knew that nothing was going to make her change her mind and give evidence against the Dumitrescus.
‘They’ve got to you, haven’t they?’ said Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán. ‘Which one of them is it? The mother? Or is it that Mânios? Or one of his brothers? Niamh – you know that threatening a witness is a criminal offence in itself?’
‘I’m not saying they’ve threatened me. I just can’t remember clearly anything that happened next door, and that’s an end to it.’
‘I’ll come round to see you. We can talk this over. Are you at home now?’
‘No, no, I’ll be going out for the messages in a minute,’ Niamh lied. She couldn’t begin to imagine what Mânios Dumitrescu would do if a detective turned up on her doorstep only twenty minutes after he had threatened to cut out her tongue. He might be arrested, but it would only be her word against his, and he would probably be let out on bail. Even if he were held in custody, there would still be his mother and his two brothers to be afraid of, as well as an assortment of other unshaven Romanians who came in and out of number thirty-seven at all hours.
‘I’ll meet you in the cafe at Dunne’s, if you like, at three o’clock,’ she told Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán. ‘But you won’t be changing my mind, I swear to God.’
John came blinking into the living room in his blue towelling bathrobe, his hair sticking up at the back like a cockatoo. Katie was already dressed in her sandy-coloured linen suit and a coppery blouse to match her hair. She was checking the Iarnród Éireann timetables on her mobile phone to see what time Dr O’Brien was expected to arrive, and eating a shortbread biscuit.
‘Is that all the breakfast you’re having?’ he asked her.
‘I’ll have something decent when I get to work. I’m late enough as it is.’
‘You didn’t eat anything last night.’
She put down her phone and gave him a smile. ‘Yes, I know, and I’m so sorry about that. I’ll bet that pie was probably ten times tastier than anything I ever ate in Henchy’s. It’s the job, I’m afraid. Sometimes I can see something during the day that turns my stomach and I can’t get it out of my mind.’
John held her close and kissed her and ran his fingers into the back of her hair.
‘Hey, don’t mess up the coiffure!’ she protested, although she was kissing him back just as enthusiastically as he was kissing her. ‘That took nearly half a can of hairspray to get it to stay like that!’
‘Are you going to be late again tonight?’ he asked her.
‘I wish I knew,’ she said, picking up her bag. Barney kept circling around and around her, thumping her legs with his tail and almost tripping her up. ‘It depends if we make any headway with this headless feller, if you know what I mean.’
‘You’re a comedienne and you don’t know it,’ said John. ‘I love you, Katie Maguire.’
‘So what will you be doing? You don’t start at ErinChem until Monday, do you?’
‘Working out my business strategy. And getting in touch with my friend Buzz Perelman in Oakland. What Buzz doesn’t know about online marketing hasn’t been invented yet. Then I’ll probably go see my mother. Well, I
might
go see my mother.’
Katie held on to both of his hands and didn’t want to let him go and didn’t want to take her eyes off him – but then she turned and looked around the living room. It was still decorated in the same ornate 1990s style that Paul had considered to be classy, with Regency-striped wallpaper and gilded Regency furniture from Casey’s in Oliver Plunkett Street, and reproduction seascapes on the walls.
‘There’s something else you could do,’ she said. ‘This is
your
home now, as well as mine. Why don’t you choose a new colour scheme for us? And some new carpets and curtains and furniture? It’s long overdue for a change, and it reminds me of things I don’t want to be reminded of, not any more.’
‘Are you serious?’ John asked her. ‘I’m not so sure you’d like my taste.’
‘Oh, I like your taste, John Meagher,’ she told him, and gave him another kiss.
The train from Dublin was ten minutes late and Katie was beginning to grow impatient. Since Dr O’Brien was only a junior pathologist she normally wouldn’t have met him in person, but she was going to the hospital in any event so that she could talk to the girl who had been found with Mawakiya’s body. Apart from that, she preferred to keep every available member of her team on the job today, trawling through the bars and the brothels and the massage parlours and trying to find out who Mawakiya actually was.
Shortly after ten-thirty that morning she had sent out an appeal on RTÉ and Cork 96FM radio, as well as the
Examiner
and the
Echo
, asking for anyone who had known or seen Mawakiya to contact the Gardaí as a matter of urgency. However, although HEADLESS, HANDLESS HOMICIDE had been headline news, only three people had called in so far and none of them had been able to offer anything helpful. ‘I think I might of seen your man in Waxy’s about a week ago.’ ‘It wasn’t The Spider because I saw him yesterday afternoon on Pana and in any case he wasn’t wearing purple.’ ‘I’m a hundred per cent sure that I distinctly heard a couple of loud bangs on Lower Shandon Street when I was coming out of O’Donovan’s but I can’t remember exactly when.’
Katie knew from her own experience how hard it was for the Gardaí to persuade any of the prostitutes who worked in the city’s brothels to talk to them, because they were so afraid of what would happen to them if they spoke out. Either that, or they were so drugged up and exhausted that they scarcely knew what day of the week it was. It was almost as difficult to persuade freelance sex workers to come forward, the single mothers who did a bit of oral sex on the side to help pay the bills, because they were reluctant to admit what they did for a living in case their neighbours found out. All the same, a man had been murdered and it was more than likely that he was the kind of man who had his fair share of enemies. When somebody like that was killed, Katie could usually expect a tip-off from some grass or some barman who kept his eyes and ears open in exchange for a few hundred euros.
At last the yellow-fronted train pulled into the platform. Unlike her dream, the doors opened, but very few people disembarked. There was a bunch of lads who kept pushing and pulling each other, and two nuns, but the only passenger who looked remotely like a pathologist was a short, rotund young man with heavy-rimmed glasses and a comb-over, wearing a creased green jacket and wheeling an overnight case behind him in fits and jerks, as if it were a disobedient dog.
‘You must be Dr O’Brien,’ said Katie, walking up to him, with her hand out.