Can you keep a secret, p.16
Can You Keep A Secret?, page 16
‘It was the deer. It took us all by surprise. It was supposed to be a simple crow shoot, you see? None of us expected the deer. It startled us all, and I suppose he got carried away. Just as Niall did.’ I was thinking as I spoke, trying to work it all out. ‘Look, are you sure it really was Patrick? I mean, there were several shots fired. Patrick and Niall weren’t the only ones shooting. I’m fairly sure the girls did, too.’
‘Girls?’ Savage said. ‘Hardly girls, now, are they?’
I was taken aback by the derision in his comment. ‘You know what I mean,’ I answered. ‘No need to be a dick about it.’
His mouth drew back fractionally into the faintest of smiles, and I felt somehow that he had elicited the reaction he’d wanted.
‘School friends of yours, is that right? Some kind of reunion, was it?’
‘You could say that.’
He asked me some questions about the nature of our friendships, who got on with whom, was there any tension, were there any disagreements, grasping at straws. I batted his questions away. ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree,’ I told him.
‘Mr Bagenal tells me he’s selling the house,’ he said. ‘Getting a fair price for it, wouldn’t you say?’
‘I really couldn’t tell you.’
‘Why not? You’re his girlfriend, aren’t you?’
‘That doesn’t mean he shares the details of his personal finances with me. It’s not like we’re married.’
‘Not that close, eh?’
‘How is that relevant, Savage?’
‘Just trying to get a picture of things. You know how it works.’
He changed tack then, started asking me where I was standing in the field in relation to the others. I was still smarting from his little skirmish into the realm of my romantic affairs, my mind tracking off down the avenue of Patrick and me. How was it that, when we were alone together in Dublin, what we shared felt solid and safe, untouchable. But barely twenty-four hours back at Thornbury, and we were all at sea. I hadn’t asked Savage about Patrick yet, whether or not he had been charged, and I wondered if he was somewhere close by, possibly in an adjacent interview room, waiting for the detective sergeant to glean from me what he could and then return. Savage’s change of tack took me off guard.
‘I don’t remember exactly,’ I said carefully. ‘I suppose we were about halfway down the field. Niall was a little in front of the rest of us. He had a better view of the deer when it came into sight.’
‘So, you were back from him. What – nine or ten metres or so?’
‘About that.’
‘And who was near you?’
‘Hilary. And Liv. We had been talking.’
‘And the victim, we know, was off to your left. He was some distance to the side of the rest of you, I understand.’
‘Yes,’ I said, shrinking a little from the word ‘victim’.
‘And Ms Bagenal, where was she?’
‘Rachel? I’m not sure. I think she was further back than the rest of us.’
‘So that just leaves Mr Bagenal. You had your back to him. I understand.’
‘That’s right.’
‘And would you say he was standing close behind you?’
The question was thrown out matter-of-factly, in the same manner and tone in which he asked the others. But I knew we had come to the crux of it. All day, I had been turning it over in the back of my mind, returning again and again to the scene, trying to isolate it in my memory, trying to see through the vagueness, to find that elusive clarity. I held his gaze, kept my body still, said:
‘The shots I heard came from some distance to my left.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Positive.’
My voice was calm and firm.
‘Did you turn to look in the direction of the shot?’
‘My eyes were on the deer, I’m afraid. And then Liv, when she started running.’
‘So how can you be sure—?’
‘If he had been standing directly behind me, then I would be the one in hospital right now, not Marcus,’ I said, allowing some impatience to slip into my voice. ‘Look, are you charging Patrick with something or not?’
He raised his hands from the table, palms up in a gesture of maybe-we-will-maybe-we-won’t, and said, ‘It’s early days. We’ve some more questions to ask.’
‘Is he here? Can I see him?’
Savage gave me a benign but pitying look. ‘Come on, now. You know I can’t.’
‘He’s just trying to do the honourable thing,’ I blurted out. ‘As if it’s somehow his duty to take the blame because it happened on his land with his guns.’
‘Any animosity, or jealousy between them that you know about? Any disagreement—’
‘Christ, no! They’ve been best friends since forever.’
He held my gaze, and I felt interrogated by it, as if somehow he could worm his way into my thoughts and see what I had seen: that moment in the garden this morning, Patrick slamming Marcus against the wall. Patrick’s words from all those months ago coming back to me now and tunnelling in like an earworm: All of you have a kind of freedom that I don’t have. Every time I talk to Marcus, he’s just come back from Amsterdam or New York or Madrid. Was Savage right? Could Patrick be harbouring feelings of jealousy? No, it was ridiculous. The whole thing was absurd.
‘How long are you going to keep him?’
‘That depends,’ Savage said, ‘on how cooperative he is.’
‘His sister …’
‘Ah, yes. We had the pleasure of her company a short while ago. Lording it over the lads at the front desk, getting all riled up about police brutality.’ He chuckled to himself.
‘Is she still here?’
‘No. Had her little scene, then stormed off.’
I could picture it, Rachel throwing her scorn around, taking no prisoners, then marching off in high dudgeon.
‘What more do you want from me?’ I asked, tired now of it all. The room was starting to feel unwelcoming, the familiar surroundings retreating into cold indifference.
‘I think that’s it for now.’ He clicked his pen and flipped the folder closed. ‘Where’ll you be if we need to talk to you?’
‘I don’t suppose there’s any point in waiting around for Patrick?’
‘Ah, no. We’ll hang on to him for another while yet.’
I took out my phone. There were no messages. No news from the hospital. I needed to eat, to shower and change. ‘Then I’ll guess I’ll head back to Thornbury,’ I said. ‘Do me a favour? Give me the number of a local cab?’
‘I’ll do better than that,’ he said, opening the door for me with a flourish. ‘I’ll drop you out there myself.’
The rain was falling heavily as Savage guided the car along the wet roads. I watched the sweep of the windscreen wipers, feeling cold to the bone. The bright morning was a distant memory. At first, he drove in silence, concentrating on the road, but as the minutes passed, he seemed to relax into my company and began asking me about work, mentioning some friend of his who had recently transferred to Special Branch and was dealing directly with Forensics. I didn’t know the man and said as much. Then, aware of Savage’s expectant silence, I told him that I was on desk duty now, having been taken off the field.
‘Oh?’ Savage asked. ‘How come?’
‘Medical reasons.’
I didn’t elaborate, and he didn’t press me on it. I could feel him making his own quiet assumptions. Breakdown, he probably thought. It happens often enough in a job like mine, with its own unique stresses. Or perhaps an alcohol or drug dependency.
He glanced across at me, a quick, searching look.
‘Did you get that shiner up at Thornbury?’
‘I did.’
‘Not quite the reunion you’d all been hoping for?’
‘I suppose not.’
He picked up on the glum note in my voice, the low ebb of my spirits, and his tone softened.
‘They’re a bad idea, I’ve always thought. Reunions. Trying to revisit your youth. It never works. People have too much to prove. Old scores to settle.’
I mulled over what he’d said in silence. Was he right? Was this weekend about settling old scores? I thought of Hilary, her dramatic transformation from dumpy, sullen schoolgirl to a waif-like beauty, all gaiety and frivolity. And Niall with his flashy car, his money, the gun – ‘They only make a dozen of them a year.’ Even Marcus with his stern but expensive uniform of clothes, his immaculate grooming, casting his disapproval over the house. I remembered suddenly the warmth of his blood under my palms and gazed down at my hands, a wave of nausea rising and falling away.
‘Patrick has no old scores to settle,’ I said quietly. ‘He just wanted us to come and see the house one last time before he lets it go.’
We were drawing close to Thornbury now. The perimeter wall rose up to one side of the road, partially obscured by a canopy of leaves from the overhanging branches of the ancient trees beyond.
‘Most of these big houses were burned to the ground during the War of Independence,’ Savage remarked. ‘In a way, it’s miraculous that Thornbury has survived this long.’
‘I suppose.’
‘It’ll change the area, of course,’ he said, on a rising note. ‘Good to open the place up a bit. Put the land to good use.’ He talked a bit about the plans to build new homes, bringing the commuter belt to the locality. ‘Inject a bit of life into the town,’ Savage said. ‘God knows, the place could do with it.’
We had reached the entrance, and he turned the car through the granite pillars, slowing as he began the journey up the overgrown, bumpy avenue, the rain pooling in long, muddy puddles along the track.
‘I wouldn’t like it myself, living here,’ he said with a shudder. ‘Whatever about the days, could you imagine what it would be like up there on cold, wintry nights? It’d give you the creeps just thinking about it.’
‘I didn’t think you’d scare so easily, Savage.’
‘Yes, well …’ His voice trailed off, and he spoke again in a different tone. ‘I was called up here one night a few years back. A car had been mashed into a tree.’ His car was travelling slowly past the rhododendron, and in the murkiness of the wet evening, I couldn’t see the tree itself of which he spoke, the scarred trunk where the car had struck. ‘A bitter cold night it was. I remember the hands were freezing off me as I stood there, trying to take a statement from the son. The mother, God love her, was wavering in and out of consciousness. Poor fella was in a dreadful state, blaming himself for what had happened.’
‘Yes, he told me,’ I said.
‘Although if she had wanted to kill herself, there was little he could have done to stop her, short of hiding her car keys or locking her in the house.’
‘You think it was a suicide attempt?’
‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. Either way, it didn’t kill her.’
‘She had a brain tumour,’ I told him. ‘It was making her behaviour erratic.’
He nodded his head in understanding, but now that the words were out of my mouth I began to consider my own behaviour, my own tumour. Was it possible that it was making my own behaviour erratic? My judgement questionable? Could it be that my decision to come back here, far from being the considered, reasonable response to Patrick’s invitation, was instead a dangerous choice, the product of an unsound mind?
I sat in confused silence, thinking of what I’d said back in the interview room, the answer I’d given when Savage asked about our positions in the field, where we had all been standing when that shot rang out, and when I thought about my answer now I felt a push of fear. I realized that I was afraid of what I had said, what I had done.
The car reached the top of the avenue, leaving behind the tangle of bushes and trees. The house rose up in front of us, grey and forbidding as the rain pelted at the brickwork, the windowpanes, the slate roof high above. The statue lying across the doorway seemed even more forlorn as little runnels of rainwater travelled over its weathered limbs. The front door was slightly ajar and beyond I could make out a dim light in the hall, although all the windows remained dark.
‘You’re sure you want to go back in there?’ Savage asked, and I heard scepticism in his voice, but a note of kindness, too.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I told him, unstrapping my seatbelt and reaching for the door.
I had to run across the gravel, the rain hitting my head and arms, penetrating my flimsy clothing. In the doorway, I stopped and looked back at Savage’s car as it pulled away. And as I watched the red tail lights wending through the trees, I felt a sort of pang like a flash of intuition, an urge to shout after him, No! Wait – stop! But I didn’t. I stood where I was, with one hand on the heavy door, until the tail lights disappeared and the only sound was that of the rain and, beyond it, the rustle and call of the birds in the trees.
19
1992
The next time I see Heather and Peter Bagenal is when they are summoned to the school to discuss their daughter’s recent behaviour. Missing her curfew that Saturday night was just the start. Throughout February, there have been other incidents: unexplained absences from class, leaving the school grounds without permission, insolence towards the teachers. Her schoolwork has deteriorated, with little sign that she cares. When she was told that her parents had been invited to meet with the headmaster, her response was to roll her eyes, but little more.
‘Aren’t you worried?’ I ask her, my voice betraying my own concern. I have it in mind that perhaps Rachel might be expelled. Or that her parents may decide for themselves to remove her from St Alban’s.
‘Why should I be worried?’
‘What if you’re expelled?’
She laughs, and mocks me for worrying over nothing. ‘Look, they’ll probably just give me a big lecture on applying myself and adhering to the school rules. I’ll sit there and listen, all contrite. I’ll probably even cry a little – the headmaster loves it when he makes you cry in front of your parents. I’ll make a little speech on how I’ve let everybody down, most of all myself, and how I promise I’ll do better. And that will be that. Don’t sweat it, Lins.’
She has it all worked out. But despite her confidence – her cynicism – I can’t help feeling a niggle of doubt. And when the Bagenals’ Nissan Bluebird drives up the avenue and I see Peter and Heather get out, I feel a catch in my chest.
We have just left our form room, the corridor thronged as we hurry towards the labs for biology, when we see them through the window. Peter parks the car outside the guest entrance, then gets out, shutting the door behind him before buttoning his camel coat. The day is grey and blustery and, when Heather emerges, her blonde hair is buffeted about, and she reaches up with a gloved hand to tuck it back in place. She is wearing large, squarish sunglasses, even though the sun is well hidden today, and her clothes are black, funereal, patent shoes with stiletto heels on her feet. Several girls stop to watch her from the windows – the casual chic of her clothes, the regal manner with which she carries herself. I think of what Rachel has told me about her mother’s lapses – ‘Heather’s episodes’, as she calls them – and the image she has conjured of a woman falling to pieces seems so at odds with the cool, sophisticated creature we are all watching now that, for just a moment, I doubt the truth of Rachel’s account.
Peter puts his hand on the small of his wife’s back and guides her gently towards the door. Then Rachel says, ‘Wish me luck,’ and there’s a tremor in her voice – the first show of nerves I’ve seen in her.
I hug her quickly, whisper, ‘Good luck,’ into her hair, and watch as she walks unhurriedly past the others, who are rushing to get to class, smoothing down her hair with both hands as she goes.
In biology, Ridge takes us through the reproductive system of a plant, but it is difficult to concentrate. The heating is on full blast in the labs and, with all the windows shut, it feels stifling, condensation misting the windows. Around me, I see my classmates wilting, one or two of them making nests of their arms and resting their heads down. Ridge doesn’t seem to notice, too intent on the chalk diagram he has drawn on the board and is busy labelling as he talks. His voice becomes a background noise to my own clamouring thoughts. In my head, I am down in the headmaster’s office with Rachel and her parents. The more I think about it, the more nervous I become.
Over the months that I’ve been here at St Alban’s, I’ve come to rely on her. More than that, I felt the bond of our friendship growing stronger and tighter. For the first time in my life, I have a soulmate. We are kindred spirits – that’s what Rachel tells me. But lately, I have felt a drift in her attention. She does not want to talk as much as she used to. Often, when we are in conversation, her mind appears to be on other things, an absence entering her gaze. She doesn’t joke about as much as before.
A sudden stinging pain on my knee brings my attention sharply into focus. The boy to my right has pinched me hard.
‘Sit still, for fuck’s sake,’ he hisses, and it is only then that I realize my leg has been jigging with nerves.
As soon as the bell rings, we spill out into the corridor, and I look out the window and see the Nissan Bluebird still there. Peter Bagenal is leaning against it, his hands in his pockets, staring up at the building with an unreadable expression. There is no sign of Heather or Rachel, and I am suddenly convinced that he is waiting for them to pack up Rachel’s belongings and take her away from St Alban’s for good. While the rest of my classmates file downstairs to the canteen, I race up to the dorms, flinging wide the door, only to find the room empty. Rachel’s things are as she left them, and I feel the panic subside a little. Still, I can’t help feeling anxious at the outcome of the meeting, and so I leave my books and grab my coat, flying down the stairs and outside into the wind and weather to where Peter Bagenal awaits.
He raises a hand in greeting as I emerge on to the courtyard, beckons to me to come forward, while he tamps down the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe and goes through the ritual of lighting it. There is something comforting in the smell of it.
