It was.
He stopped his pacing, asked, 'Why, is he as deaf as you?'
I let that reverberate then said, 'No, he's dead. But I'll pass on your condolences to his family.'
Back in reception, the secretary was smiling and I saw a cheeky glint in her eye.
I said, 'Nice man, your boss. Must be a joy to work for.'
She looked back at his office. The door was closed and she whispered, 'Know what we call him? Crybaby.'
The fax had arrived from Keegan in London and I took it to a coffee shop, ordered a slice of Danish and double espresso, began to sift through the data.
Best of all, there were photos.
The father, Bob Mitchell, known as Mitch, was a small-time hood – some strong-arm stuff, credit-card scams, local enforcer, but nothing major. His son Sean was nineteen and there was something about the boy, I'd gotten a jolt of recognition, but couldn't pin it down. The daughter, Gail, was twenty, pleasant-looking face, nothing special.
Their mother, Nora, had been on holiday in Galway when she was killed by a hit-and-run driver.
Guess who?
Rory Willis, brother of the crucified boy. He'd been arrested, convicted and was waiting sentence when he skipped. In the old days, you got convicted, you went straight to prison, but now you had a time before sentence was handed down and usually you got time to prepare for your incarceration. It wasn't that we had such an enlightened justice system, it was pure maths – the jails were overcrowded and even convicted persons were out and around.
Rory was believed to have gone to England. Keegan had added his own thoughts: the family had been especially tight-knit and the girl had made some sort of suicide attempt after the death of her mother. The father had gone off the local radar and the whereabouts of the family was currently unknown.
My coffee came and I bit into the Danish. Very sweet but I appreciated the rush. Add the double espresso and my blood was hopping.
It had to be them, but the sheer violence of the two murders, a crucifixion and a burning, bothered me. There was a massive degree of insanity here that I couldn't fathom. Round and round it went in my head. The ferocity of their acts had me stumped, but it was them, wasn't it? And if it was?
Case solved.
My stomach heaved as the pictures, imagined, of what they'd done to that boy, the actual nails, etc. . . . Jesus.
Mainly I felt sickened to my stomach. Such violence, to crucify a boy, burn a girl in her car. I pushed the Danish aside. Even the coffee had lost all taste. The funeral, it came back to that. If I went, I was going to learn more, I was absolutely convinced.
Meanwhile I'd call Ridge, give her the material, see what she did with it.
As I said, just maybe I was finally getting a handle on this investigation lark. My instincts, free from the whispers, the dark warped whispers of cocaine, booze and nicotine, were finally kicking in.
Long time coming, oh yeah.
And more's the Irish pity it took so long.
My gut was telling me that Maria's funeral would bring the Mitchells out, certainly the girl. The more I read of Keegan's notes and faxes, the more I became certain she was the prime motivator, the dark angel. Proving for me that you throw enough grief at a person, wreak enough physical damage on a basic decent human being, you can create a monster. I was willing to bet my passage to America she'd show.
She did.
Wet doesn't describe the weather. As Bob Ward says, four kinds of rain, all bad. The real in-yer-face personal stuff, it wants to lash you, soak you to your soul, and by Jesus it does. Galwegians, they take rain as God's way of saying, 'I prefer the Brits.' I prepared for it: my Garda all-weather coat, Gore-Tex boots that I'd bought at a closing-down sale in a sports shop, an Irish fisherman's cap that I found in the flat.
It wasn't enough. Galway rain has ways of sneaking in, dribbling down the back of your neck, in your ears, and don't even mention the blinding assault on your eyes. My main concern was, would it affect the batteries in my hearing aid?
It didn't, but not from lack of trying.
A sizeable crowd for the funeral.
I spotted a girl dressed in a drab black coat, with a black beret to hide her hair, standing well back from the mourners, lest anyone chat to her. She was oblivious to the rain pelting her face.
I heard straight away that Maria's father had suffered a stroke and the mother had retreated into catatonia, and who could blame her?
This girl was bound to be feeling cheated, she wouldn't see their suffering. They were out of her game, and, worse, there was no sign of Rory, the eldest son.
The burial went quickly and afterwards I approached her, said softly, 'Gail.'
I could see she thought it was a voice inside her head, but she turned and I knew she saw a middle-aged guy, with a slight smile and, OK, a bedraggled look. She was taken by surprise, the use of her name had thrown her.
'I'm Jack Taylor and, yes, I know who you are. Come on, let me buy you a coffee.'
She marshalled her resources, dismissing me as some burned-out bum, despite what I said.
She said, 'I don't know you. Piss off.'
The steel in her eyes, I had no problem now imagining the acts she might have committed. I let my smile widen, gave a glance round the graveyard.
'Nice language in a cemetery, but here's the deal. See these people, they're Claddagh folk, real clannish and they know me. You – not only are you English, I tell them you killed their kin, they'll tear you limb from limb.'
She risked a look round, and, sure enough, some of the men were giving her hostile stares, nothing warm in their eyes.
She tried, 'You're bluffing.'
I spread my arms, palms opened. 'Try me.'
I grabbed her arm, said, 'I'll take that for a yes.'
I could see she wanted to lash out, but the truth was, she could sense the vibe in that place and she didn't want to test it.
She said, defiance writ large, 'I'm not paying for the coffee.'
I nodded, showing I was reasonable.
'Course not. But you'll be paying for all the rest. That's not a promise, that's a guarantee.'
There's a small café on the edge of the Claddagh, a no-frills place. They don't do lattes or any designer caffeine, they brew up huge pots of real strong java and if you don't like it, well, they couldn't give a fuck. We got in there, took off our sodden coats, sat and a woman in her late sixties came over and said, not asked, 'Two coffees?'
I nodded.
Gail asked, 'You have any apple tart?'
In the morning?
Go figure. She was English, I guess.
She looked at me and for one brief moment she was a young girl, almost naive. 'I love apple tart.'
A fleeting hint of a sweet nature and she got her mask back in place.
The coffee came and the tart, laden with cream, the woman saying, 'Nice young girl like you, deserve a treat.'
Yeah, nice . . . till she crucified a young man and burned his sister.
She dug into the tart, said between mouthfuls, 'I'd offer, but I'm not real big on sharing.'
I let that sit then said, 'I'm not real surprised.'
She finished it in jig time, wiped her mouth with a surprisingly gentle motion and gulped some coffee. She glanced briefly towards the corner of the café, as if she saw something there. Whatever it was, it seemed to embolden her.
Then she quickly looked back at me and asked in a harsh tone, 'So, fuckhead, what do you want?'
The change was instant. One moment Miss Dainty, and, in the blink of an eye, psycho city.
I examined her face. She might have been pretty once, but the heavy make-up, the set of her jaw, neutralized that. Her eyes were the interesting feature. Nobody has black eyes in the literal sense, but she came as close as dammit. An energy came off her, like a blast from a furnace, and all of it malevolent. I moved back a few inches. You sit in the proximity of pure evil, it infects you.