Red Ribbons (42 page)

‘Thanks.’

O’Connor texted Kate – ‘Ring me when you can’ – before turning, hearing Hanley call him from upstairs.

‘You might like to see this, O’Connor.’ Hanley held up a clear Ziplock bag with a Polaroid photograph inside. O’Connor stepped over to the bedside locker to stand beside Hanley and took the sealed evidence bag from him. He looked at the photograph of Caroline Devine. Despite O’Connor’s overriding desire to nail William Cronly, he was still taken aback by the image of the dead girl.

‘Right, Hanley, keep searching. I’ve a few calls to make.’

Walking back down the stairs, the first call he made was to Samuel Ebbs at St Michael’s, the second to the crew on the way to Wexford, speaking to DI Carey, the supervising officer, and the third was to Donoghue. He had only hung up the phone on Donoghue when he got another call back from him.

‘O’Connor.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Declan Cassidy has put a call in.’

‘Kate’s husband?’ O’Connor did a double take, wondering why Kate’s husband would have made contact.

‘He’d arranged to meet Kate at 5 p.m., but he went home early, wanted to surprise her. Are you sitting down, O’Connor?’

O’Connor felt a sudden coldness rush through him. ‘I don’t need to fucking sit down. Jesus. What is it?’

‘We think our man has taken Kate, and the boy. Cassidy found the babysitter tied up in the child’s bedroom, lacerations to the neck, bruising to face and arms. She told him a guy broke in and was carrying a knife.’

‘Fuck, fuck, FUCK.’

‘He took her over an hour ago, O’Connor.’

‘Shit, if he’s taken them to Wexford, he could be nearly there by now. Have you pinged Kate’s phone?’

‘Doing it now.’

O’Connor rang Carey. ‘Carey, this is now high risk, category 1 – woman and child kidnapped. I’m sending more men down. Get there fast, but take it easy when you get there. As far as we know, our man is armed with a knife, nothing more. But we can’t take any chances. He has Kate Pearson and her child. Nothing can go wrong here. Are you listening to me, Carey? ’ His voice rose the further into the call he went.

‘I’m hearing you.’

‘Good, how long until you get there?’

‘Ten minutes at the most.’

‘Ring me.’

O’Connor wanted to do anything rather than stand still, but he forced himself to stop and think. What had Kate said? Murder wasn’t his motivation with Caroline. He had to have taken her some place he felt safe. Where? It wasn’t Meadow View, they’d found nothing there to indicate a primary crime scene. It had to be Cronly Lodge. It was the only thing that made sense.

Getting into the car, his instincts told him to drive straight to Wexford, now, but something else was bothering him. It was the words from Ellie Brady’s copybook. Changing the direction of the car, turning it towards St Michael’s, the words ‘his hideout’ repeated themselves over and over in his head, moving from a quite whisper to a loud, relentless scream.

KATE HAD TAKEN A GAMBLE ASKING HIM ABOUT Silvia, but she needed to know as much about the man sitting in the back of her car as possible. The more she knew, the more she would be able to understand his motives, and the more ammunition she would have to use against him. She had to pit her wits against his, but it was already a game of catch-up because he knew so much more about her.

‘Silvia suffered, you see, Kate. She was an innocent, someone believing in goodness, not clouded the way others are.’

‘Silvia was your friend, William?’

‘Oh, yes. But I let her down.’

‘William, you shouldn’t blame yourself.’ Was he the reason Silvia fell? Did he cause her accident? Was it an accident? She needed to know who else was there. The bishop, Antonio Peri, certainly, but who else? William must have been just a boy, so he hadn’t travelled alone.

‘Thank you, Kate, but don’t worry about me on that score. It’s a burden I’ve borne for a very long time. I’ve learned to live with it. I’m not afraid of suffering.’

‘You were very young, William. Did you have to travel alone?’

‘No, no. Mother and I travelled together. She had a mission, you see.’

‘A mission?’

‘Yes, an end game. Mother thought she was being very clever. I hate to talk about all this in front of the boy, Kate.’

‘It’s okay.’ She glanced at Charlie in the rear-view, but she needed William to talk. It was the only way she could get her head around what to do next.

‘Are you sure, Kate? I’ll be discreet, but I do want you to know as much as possible about me.’

‘I want to know all about you too, William.’

‘I know you do,’ his tone soft. ‘Well if you’re sure.’ He paused. ‘Sadly, Kate, I was the result of a cleric’s indiscretion, at least that was Mother’s story. I was illegitimate, a bastard.’ He looked over at Charlie. ‘Someone to be whispered about. It’s not nice when people talk behind your back, Kate.’

Kate tried to maintain her focus on the motorway, taking in each time William Cronly lowered his voice.

‘I used to think my father was an explorer. There was a picture of a man on the piano in the music room. An attractive silver frame, you’d have liked it, Kate.’

‘Would I, William?’

‘Oh, yes. It was very classy. But, of course, my father wasn’t an explorer at all. It was just another lie, another fabrication, all cloak and mirrors. Mother was very good at that.’

‘What happened when you went to Tuscany, William?’

He didn’t answer straight away. He looked out the window, as if his mind had suddenly become distracted. Kate needed to use the time well. If Silvia had died when he was a boy, the event would have traumatised him, tied him into the past, perhaps rendering him incapable of moving on.

‘Take the next exit, Kate. We’re nearly there.’

‘Okay.’

What had been the trigger? Why had he come out of the woodwork? What had changed things? She needed to keep him talking.

‘How’s Charlie doing in the back?’ She had to keep using Charlie’s name, too. He needed to look on her son as a person. If she emphasised William’s suffering as a boy, maybe he would look on Charlie in the same light.

‘He’s doing fine. But he’s not interested in his comics. Maybe he’s tired?’

‘He could be. He usually likes comics.’

‘I do too.’

‘Do you?’

‘Oh, yes. Still do. Superheroes, like Charlie.’

Kate smiled thinly. ‘You two have a lot in common.’

‘Do you think?’

‘Definitely.’

‘I was hesitant about bringing Charlie with us, Kate.’

‘Perhaps we should take him back.’

‘Oh, no. But I did worry about the trauma. I’m a very understanding man when it comes to how children feel.’

‘I know you are, William.’

‘But then I realised something.’

‘What was that?’

‘Well, it’s very simple, Kate. Things like this can make a boy stronger. He’s been spoiled, Kate. You must see that. You have to suffer to realise how lucky you are. Don’t you agree?’

Kate’s knuckles were white, her hands gripping the steering wheel so hard it hurt. ‘I guess it depends on the suffering, William.’ She could hear the quiver in her voice. But at least, whatever William Cronly’s feelings were towards her son, he saw a future for him, no matter how warped it might be.

‘William, why don’t you tell me about Tuscany?’

‘It was beautiful, Kate. The view from Castello de Luca was remarkably similar to home.’

‘Home?’

‘Cronly Lodge. Don’t worry, you will see it soon. It even had some elderberry trees. It was in Tuscany that I met Silvia.’

‘What happened to her, William? What happened to Silvia?’

Kate watched his expression in the mirror. She needed to pick up even the slightest change in demeanour. Again, his mind seemed to drift. But this time, she didn’t have long to wait.

‘It was dreadful, Kate. I loved her, you see. I didn’t know it then, far too young to understand. She trusted me, she was my friend.’

‘Go on, William. This is important to me too.’

‘Is it? I do hope so, Kate. Your feelings matter a great deal to me.’

Again she held her silence, smiling in response, alert to the faintest whimper from Charlie, knowing how terrified he must be.

‘When it got dark, Silvia and I would go exploring. It was something I taught her, Kate. I was used to roaming around the house at night, listening to the floorboards creaking, learning to be light of foot. We’d take a kerosene lamp with us because the passages of the castello were dark at night, except for the room with the windows, of course.’

‘The room with the windows?’

‘Yes. It was our favourite room. Six tall, stained-glass windows in a semi-circle. At night, the moon shone through them, a beam of light exploding into the room. During the day, we would play there together. The rocking horse was there too. In the dark, his eyes reflected the light of the moon, dark red they were, sometimes they looked like large rubies. I went looking for her one night. I wanted to give her a present before I left. But I couldn’t find her. She wasn’t in her room, and she wasn’t in the room with the windows either. It was then that I heard it. The scream, echoing through the walls and the corridors, just like the way the sound travelled in the old town of Suvereto, sending vibrations everywhere. At first I thought it was an animal screaming, the screech was high-pitched, like a wild cat.’

Looking at him in the rear-view mirror, Kate could see his eyes glaze over, as if he were back there, in those rooms, hearing the sound again. He was completely caught up in the memory. She could see that the present had fallen away from him and he was in the past – trapped by the memories, as she’d suspected.

‘I followed the sound. I knew the way to the bishop’s rooms. He let us play there sometimes. I held the hurricane lamp up high, making sure I could see as much as possible, following the sounds. The closer I
got, the more I knew it was her. I called out, wanting her to hear my voice, but I could barely hear my own. The echoes were too strong. When I got to his door, I could hear him, goading, laughing. At first I couldn’t open the door, but I used my penknife and fiddled open the lock. I saw him lying on her, pushing into her, her legs spread open. When he turned and saw me, the fat pig didn’t care. I ran at him. She screamed, her eyes were wild, lost.’

Again he paused.

‘When I flung myself at Antonio, he wrestled with me, throwing me to the ground, and that was when she got free of him. Even when she ran, it was as if she was blind, as if she was looking inside herself instead of ahead. When I called after her, she didn’t turn. I followed her, so did Antonio, out to the cliff edge. He was shouting after both of us, his voice vile like the vermin he was. She ran so fast. Her white nightdress made her look like a ghost, a brilliant white against the moon. And then she fell. Her scream lowering in sound the farther down she went. Until all I heard was the silence.’

‘Did you help bury her, William?’

‘We all did. Antonio, Mother. But I fixed her.’

‘In the grave?’

‘Yes. I plaited her hair the way she liked to wear it. I went back to the castello to get her crucifix. She wasn’t wearing it that night. She had had nothing to protect her. Then I gave her my present.’

‘The ribbons?’

‘They were red, with a perforated edge, a herringbone pattern. I knew she would like the feel of them. I had taken them in my attaché case. I tied both her plaits, resting them on her shoulders after I positioned her, fixed her nightdress, placed her head on the stone pillow, joined her hands, bent both her knees. She looked as if she was praying. She wanted to be a guardian angel, Kate. Even in death, she wanted to help others.’

‘And your mother, William. What did she do?’

Kate watched his face change, anger and a look of defiance returning to it.

‘Mother was happy. She got more than she bargained for. It takes a lot of money to keep a mouth shut, especially one as big as hers. It was only a few months ago that I found out the real truth.’

‘And what was that, William?’

‘She had encouraged him to do what he did. My mother was a whore, Kate. She slept with dogs. Antonio entertained her for a while, but she soon realised he had other interests, interests of the younger variety. Nobody mattered to her, you see, nobody other than herself. I had to take action. I had done nothing for far too long.’

‘So what did you do?’

‘I killed Antonio of course, pushed him off the cliff edge, the snivelling coward. Begged like a baby, his scream all the better for it.’

‘And your mother?’

‘I gave her the same death as Amy Brady, smothered her with a pillow. An eye for an eye, Kate.’

‘Did you kill Amy Brady, William?’

‘No, no. That was Mother. She thought Silvia had come back to haunt her.’ He snorted. ‘I heard Mother coming back to the house that night. I knew she had been up to no good. She told me she had taken care of everything.’

‘So you went back to Amy’s caravan?’

‘Yes. The girl was still warm. I thought about taking her out of the caravan, looking after her the way I’d looked after Silvia.’

‘What happened?’

‘I fixed her hair, made sure she was wearing the crucifix. Then I heard that woman’s footsteps, the girl’s mother, another little whore.’

‘Ellie Brady?’

‘It was easy to hear her, even from a distance. I heard the crunch of the gravel under her feet. So I did what I could for the girl – joined her hands, prepared her.’

‘And what about your mother, William? After the fire, you protected her? You let Ellie Brady take the blame?’

‘She hadn’t cared for her daughter either. Barely knew she existed.’

‘But your mother—’ Kate stopped herself.

‘What?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Of course it matters, Kate. I owe you an explanation. I can see that now.’ Kate felt the anger rise in his voice as he continued. ‘Mother used to say blood is thicker than water, but it wasn’t that.’

‘No?’ Kate wanted to cry, to be anywhere with Charlie other than where they were now.

He laughed loudly. ‘I foolishly thought it was madness, you see, brought on by belated guilt. But I was wrong. The only person my mother ever cared about was herself. When she finally told me the truth, I saw that crystal clear.’