‘How is she doing since?’
‘She’s still sleeping,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘I called the hospital but they wouldn’t tell me.’
I began to object, but he spoke again.
‘I had nothing to do with it, if that’s what you think.’
I sat at the table, took the cup from him, couldn’t trust myself to speak.
‘It was an accident. She was given the hat to wear, but it must have slipped or something. I swear I had nothing to do with it.’
He made this as a simple statement of fact, without defensiveness, and seemingly not caring if I believed him or not.
‘I don’t hurt kids,’ he concluded, then sat and, rubbing out his smouldering cigarette, lit a fresh one before tossing the pack across the table to me.
‘I’m told you saved her life,’ I managed finally. ‘If you’d acted slower she might not have had as good a chance.’
Morrison lightly waved the smoke from in front of him and picked up his coffee. I noticed a flush of blood to his face and ears. He dragged deeply on his smoke, blew the stream towards the floor. ‘Whatever’s between us, that doesn’t affect our kids. John really likes your girl. There’s nothing more to it than that.’
We both finished our coffee in silence. I stared out the window at the stables in the distance as I smoked. Finally I stood to leave. ‘I need to get back to the hospital.’
Morrison nodded, extended his hand, waited for me to respond. We shook and I opened the door and stepped out into the dawn.
‘My son would like to visit Penny, if that’s OK with you. I don’t have to come in if you don’t want me to, but he’d like to see her. He feels guilty as hell.’
I nodded, once. ‘Thanks for the coffee,’ I said. ‘And thank you for saving my daughter.’
He smiled grimly, then stepped back and closed the door behind me.
I sat with Penny for most of the morning while Debbie went home and showered. Her condition had not improved, though the doctor assured me that it had not deteriorated.
‘When she’s ready, she’ll wake up,’ he said blithely, as if that assurance would assuage the pain I felt watching her impassive face, the almost imperceptible movement of the bedclothes that revealed the shallowness of her breathing.
Jim Hendry arrived before lunch, his face flustered with embarrassment, beneath his arm a large teddy bear and a few rolled magazines. He coughed as he entered the room, patted me awkwardly on the arm in sympathy.
‘It was good of you to come,’ I said.
‘I heard it on the jungle drums, you know,’ he said.
‘I appreciate it, Jim.’
He gestured towards the teddy that he had placed on the chair in the corner of the room. ‘I wasn’t sure what age she was. Might be a little old for teddy bears.’
‘It’s very kind.’
‘I brought her a few books too,’ he said, handing me the magazines. The uppermost one was a women’s magazine that Debbie read sometimes. The front cover boasted a strapline that it contained information on ‘50 ways to satisfy your lover’.
‘That one might be a bit old for her, now I think about it,’ he said.
He glanced at the figure on the bed. ‘How’s she doing?’
‘We don’t know. They’re not saying much. Critical but stable.’
He nodded, as if this explained everything. ‘Do you know how it happened?’
‘She was horse riding, at Vincent Morrison’s home. Fell off.’
Hendry looked at me quizzically. ‘Do you need a hand taking care of him?’
I shook my head, smiled lightly. ‘Thanks, Jim,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t involved in it. In fact, he may well have saved her life.’
Hendry whistled low. ‘I’ll not ask.’
We chatted uneasily for a few moments until Debbie returned and Jim used her arrival to make his exit. I walked out with him, as much to give me a chance to have a smoke as out of courtesy.
As I stood outside, Caroline Williams arrived. She looked gaunt, her short-cropped hair serving only to accentuate the sharpness of her thinning features. She hugged me close, whispered words of consolation in my ear as she did so.
‘I tried your mobile but it was off. I called the house and Debbie’s parents told me what had happened,’ she said as she stepped away from me.
‘It was very good of you to come,’ I said. ‘Debbie will be pleased to see you.’ I wasn’t sure why I had added that, for Caroline was there more for me than for Debbie.
We walked slowly up to the room where Penny was being treated. Caroline asked about the circumstances that had led to Penny’s fall.
‘I understand how you’re feeling,’ she said, as we stepped into the elevator. She squeezed my hand reassuringly.
‘I don’t know how I’m feeling myself, to be honest,’ I said. ‘Empty, I suppose.’
She nodded as I spoke. ‘I understand,’ she repeated, looking me in the eyes.
‘I’d almost rather it had been deliberate, rather than an accident. It would have been less . . . random – less frightening, I guess – if I could explain it, could blame someone.’
Caroline continued to nod but did not speak.
‘I thought Vincent Morrison had been behind it, but apparently not. In fact he may have saved her.’
‘Who’s Vincent Morrison?’ she asked, and I realized that she hadn’t been partnered with me when I had first met Morrison.
The elevator reached Penny’s floor and we moved into the heat of the ward.
‘We’ll see Penny and I’ll explain it to you over coffee.’
Caroline was only permitted to stay for five minutes; the nurses were already annoyed at the number of people who had been in, complaining that visitors were meant to be confined to immediate family. She and Debbie chatted lightly about everything except Penny and Peter, as if each understood the other’s pain without need for explication.
I told Debbie I’d walk Caroline downstairs to get something to eat. We sat in the cafe on the ground floor, near the hospital entrance. After I had bought a pot of coffee for us both, I sat down and explained my background with Vincent Morrison and the people-smuggling ring he was involved in.
‘He reappeared a few weeks ago,’ I said. ‘He’s a community leader; he threw his weight behind this Rising crew when they started protesting about drug dealers.’
‘I’ve heard about them,’ Caroline said grimly. ‘It’s about time someone did something, Ben.’
‘Maybe,’ I agreed. ‘But The Rising isn’t the group to be doing it. They’re not trying to drive dealers out of the local communities, they’re trying to pressurize the dealers into selling
their
produce. Their leader is a character called Charlie Cunningham who was a cellmate of Morrison’s. Apparently, Cunningham and his crew don’t have the money to start a drugs business. Morrison does though. He was bankrupt after that last business yet he’s living in a huge house with stables in Portnee, up the side road past the Tavern.’
‘Can you prove any of this?’ Caroline asked.
I prevaricated. ‘Maybe.’
‘Depending on?’
Putting my cup down on the table, I laid my hand lightly on Caroline’s. ‘We’ve arrested someone we think was responsible for Peter’s drugs,’ I said.
A mixture of emotions blazed in Caroline’s eyes.
‘Which of them was it? That shit Murphy?’
I had not told Caroline how things had progressed since last we had spoken.
‘Murphy claimed that Peter got the drugs himself. He gave us an address for a dealer in Rossanure estate.’
‘He’s lying. Peter was never near Rossanure. Besides, he wasn’t doing drugs. I’d have known,’ Caroline said vehemently. ‘I know what to look for, Ben. I know my own son.’
She paused, reflecting on her final statement, swallowed the sentiment down.
‘Murphy gave us a name that tied to another case I was working. A dealer from up here named Kielty.’
‘What did you want him for?’
‘We thought he was dead. You remember Lorcan Hutton?’
Caroline paused a second and grimaced.
‘That’s him,’ I said. ‘He and Kielty agreed to sell a stash for Cunningham, then tried stiffing him. We found Lorcan tortured and shot in the old Abbey graveyard. Kielty was setting himself up down in Sligo, selling off Cunningham’s stash. Except there must have been something in it. One of Kielty’s clients in the North took the stuff and went berserk. Kielty claims he killed him in self-defence, then used the corpse to stage his own death. He moved to Sligo full time, using the name of his dead client.’
Caroline listened as I spoke, her eyes following my mouth to ensure she was following what I was saying.
‘Berserk?’
I nodded slowly.
‘So what’s going to happen to Kielty?’
‘I’m not sure. He implicated one of the Drugs Unit, a guy by the name of Rory Nicell. Patterson was to lift Nicell. Then everything kicked off with Penny, so I don’t know what’s happened since.’
‘But Kielty was the one who sold him the stuff?’
‘Ultimately, yes. But it stretches back to Cunningham. Or further.’ She raised her chin slightly, urging me to continue. ‘Cunningham doesn’t have the money to push drugs—’
‘Morrison,’ she said.
‘Morrison,’ I agreed. ‘But that’s not proven. Morrison claims he’s clean. When I heard about Penny I thought he’d done it to take me off the case, but apparently he had nothing to do with it.’
‘Do you believe that?’
‘I think I do. Penny is in school with his son. I think the two of them had a thing for each other.’
‘Jesus,’ Caroline said.
‘I know. I tried to stop her from seeing him.’
‘You can’t force your kids to do anything,’ Caroline said quietly.
Unable to think of an appropriate response, I laid my hand again on hers. I glanced up at the entrance way to the hospital.
‘Speaking of whom,’ I said, nodding towards the man and child walking in through the doorway.
‘Who’s that?’
‘Vincent Morrison,’ I said, quietly.
‘You let him come here?’
‘His son wanted to see Penny. Maybe he might get through to her.’
Caroline looked me in the eyes, held my gaze and smiled lightly. ‘That’s unusually reasonable of you, Inspector Devlin.’
Morrison approached us warily. I introduced him to Caroline who, after a moment excused herself and left. Morrison and his son accompanied me in the elevator back up to the ward, though we did not speak until we reached Penny’s room. Debbie stood and hugged him.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Morrison blushed heavily. ‘John wanted to see how she was doing.’
The boy looked from Debbie to me and then to where Penny lay. He moved up and stood at the head of the bed and looked down at her. Any doubts I had about the sincerity of his affection for her were dispelled when, of a sudden, he began to shudder with tears. He put his hand on top of hers, an apology spluttering on his lips.
‘You’re all right, son,’ Vincent Morrison said, clearly embarrassed. ‘She’s going to do all right. She’s going to pull through.’
‘I’m sorry,’ the boy repeated, this time to Debbie who was now starting to well up herself.
‘It’s OK, John,’ I said, moving over towards where he stood. ‘It’s not your fault.’
‘It’s not my daddy’s fault either,’ he said, his face smeared with tears. ‘Please don’t put my daddy in jail again.’
I looked from the boy to his father. Vincent Morrison coughed lightly, put his hand on his son’s shoulder.
‘Time for us to go, wee man,’ he said. He turned to Debbie. ‘I hope Penny pulls through soon, Mrs Devlin,’ he said.
He led the boy, still in tears, out of the room. As their footfalls echoed along the hospital corridor I could hear Morrison’s voice, low and urgent, encouraging his son to stop crying.
I looked at Debbie who had taken her seat by Penny again, raised my eyebrows and released the breath I realized I had been holding since the boy spoke.
‘He’s a very nice man,’ Debbie said.
‘He may be involved in trafficking drugs,’ I said.
‘For Christ’s sake, Ben,’ Debbie snapped. ‘When are you going to stop?’ She glared at me for a second, then turned her attention to the unmoving figure of our daughter.
After spending the night on the armchair by Penny’s bed, I went down to the dawn Mass in the hospital chapel and asked the priest to pray for her recovery. When Debbie arrived soon after and took her seat by the bed, I headed back home, showered and breakfasted, then brought Shane up with me to see his sister. He had been asking why she wasn’t coming home. We had told him that she was in a very deep sleep, that she needed her rest for her brain to get better. That there was nothing to worry about.
When we arrived back in the ward, Shane carrying a bunch of flowers he had insisted on buying for his big sister, Harry Patterson was sitting in the room with Debbie. He offered his sympathies to me when I came in, then looked down at Shane who stared up at him openly.
‘Do you think this was connected with . . .?’ he trailed off.