The dark room, p.29
The Dark Room, page 29
Malachi’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You sure?’
‘Positive. I need to call him. I’m sure he gave the bag to the police when we realised there might be a link between his accident and Alfie’s death. If we’re right that Alfie really was J. A. Stafford, and he was here that night, maybe he kept it all this time as some sort of insurance policy. Maybe it does have fingerprints on it or something.’
‘We’ll need to get it examined. I’ll put in a call to London.’
Malachi took a step away from them to use his radio.
Chapter 56
ONCE THEY GOT onto the main road, Rachel and Caroline had called ahead to the pottery to say that they were on their way. Ava must have been watching for them. She opened the door as soon as they pulled up, stepping out to hug them both as they got out of the Land Rover.
‘Bring your dog in, he’ll be fine inside.’
Letting Jasper out of the back, Rachel flipped her seat into place and pushed the door closed. Obediently, he waited to see where she was going, his ears cocked forward, tail wagging.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll go for a walk in a few minutes, Jasp. Come and say hello to Ava first.’ She turned back to Ava, who was waiting for them beside the front door, her arms crossed against the cold. ‘Will he be okay in your studio? His tail has a bit of a mind of its own.’
‘He’ll be grand. Come through to the kitchen, we can have a cup of tea.’
Following Ava into the studio, they went straight through to a brightly lit room. It was beautiful, white and bright, a bespoke kitchen with gleaming granite surfaces leading into a huge morning room, a scrubbed pine table dominating the space, one end piled high with ledgers and notebooks crammed with clippings. The entire end wall of the room was glazed and overlooked a concrete patio cum drive and a well-kept walled garden, the old stone weathered. Ava’s white four-wheel-drive jeep was backed up to the sliding door, the boot open.
Rachel walked to the far end of the room to look outside, as Ava filled the kettle.
‘This house is stunning, Ava, and you’ve a beautiful garden, it must be lovely in the summer.’
‘Thank you – I love it. The end gets the sun all day. When I had the patio built I designed it so I could bring the jeep in to load it. I’ve a show in Dublin next week, it’s a really big one. It always takes me ages to get ready.’ She indicated the boxes waiting beside the sliding door, the contents tightly wrapped in sugar paper. ‘I’ve got loads more to do, but at least I’ve made a start.’ She paused. ‘Tea or coffee? I’ve herbal if you prefer. It helps me sleep.’
‘Breakfast tea for me, please.’ Looking out of the glass, Rachel took in the back of the jeep, the toolbox and the boxes already in there. ‘It’s a long drive up to Dublin from here.’
‘It usually takes me about four and a half hours.’
Rachel turned back to the room and came to sit down at the table, Jasper sticking to her leg like glue.
‘This house is in such a fabulous location, Ava. Do you have a boat too? I saw them on the edge of the quay?’
Ava shook her head, ‘No, I get seasick looking at boats. I keep thinking I should get over it. In the summer the roads get a bit mad around here. It would be quicker to get into Ross Haven to deliver stock by water than road.’
Ava put the pot of tea on the table. Sitting down, she passed Rachel a jug of milk and put both her hands to her temples.
‘How’s Bronagh?’
‘She’s very shocked. Her husband’s on his way.’
Rachel leaned forward. ‘She said you were looking for her last night?’
Ava put her hand to her mouth and rubbed her face.
‘I just needed to talk. With everything going on, she seemed the most sensible person. We’ve known each other for years.’ Ava sighed, taking her time to find the right words. ‘She knew what Meg was like … I was halfway there before I remembered she might not be home, so I turned around. I can’t believe the fire – have the guards got any idea who did it?’
Rachel could feel Caroline watching her. ‘They’re looking at the CCTV in the area, they’re confident they’ll find whoever it was. There’s a forensic fire specialist team coming from Cork.’
Ava picked up the teapot to pour. ‘It’s so awful the house has gone.’
‘Thankfully it’s not totally destroyed. Bronagh thinks once they get the insurance sorted out they can start renovating again.’ Caroline added milk to her own and Rachel’s mugs. ‘She was quite positive about it all actually. She said she’s going to contact everyone who had just finished to come back and do it all again. With a dry run they should be even faster, and she was never completely keen on the colour of the hallways upstairs.’ She sipped her tea. ‘She’ll get through it, I hope.’
‘Have you both moved into the village?’ Ava looked from one of them to the other. Rachel shook her head. ‘I’ve moved into the Boathouse with Caroline. I think I’ll have to get back to London soon, though.’
Ava nodded slowly. ‘The sergeant from Ross Haven was here earlier to take my statement about the fire and to get a DNA sample. He said they were reopening Meg’s case, they think it was her body in the septic tank. There was some report the other night, it was all over social media, about how the girl died. I keep telling him it’s not Meg.’
‘I think there’s a lot more to discover. That sergeant is Malachi, Malachi O’Brien – he’s a friend of mine from school actually. I know he wants to do his best to get answers for you.’
Ava had paled to almost the same colour as her ivory sweater. She drew in a breath.
‘Why will nobody listen? It’s not her.’
Rachel reached across the table for Ava’s hand.
‘They’ll have news soon.’
Chapter 57
OUTSIDE THE POTTERY, Rachel looked at her phone.
‘I’ve got reception, I really need to call Hunter.’
Caroline took hold of Jasper’s lead. ‘Let me take him down to the beach for a run, catch us up when you’re done.’
Smiling her thanks, Rachel headed for the Land Rover, already dialling Hunter’s number as she climbed in. This time he answered after one ring.
‘You took your time – I’ve been trying you since yesterday.’
‘Sorry, I tried to call you back, but you know what the reception’s like here. Why didn’t you ring the hotel?’
‘I did, I left a message. Did they not give it to you?’
Rachel pulled the driver’s door closed behind her.
‘No, but there’s been a lot happening here.’
She opened her mouth to tell him about the fire, but before she could, he cut in.
‘The police have found the BMW that hit me in a car park in Heathrow. Looks like it went straight there after the accident. They’ve found out who it was registered to as well.’
Wriggling into the seat, she turned the engine on to get the heater running.
‘Who?’
‘I’ll tell you in a minute. There’s more. Alfie sent me a letter.’
Rachel ran her hand into her hair, her mind on the car park at Heathrow – she could guess exactly where the driver had gone. Heathrow was one of the airports that had direct flights to Cork. But how had Alfie sent a letter? When had he sent it?
Hunter cleared his throat. ‘He must have posted it just before he died. The postmark is ages ago, but there’s only a second-class stamp on it and then it was stuck at the marina office for days. I got Zack to collect the post today. And before you ask, I found the emails from the insurance company, they’d all gone into spam. I’ve sorted everything out.’
‘Good, that’s good. What did Alfie say?’
Rachel kept her voice calm. She knew Hunter was blustering about the delay in the delivery and the insurance because he was upset. She could hear it in his voice. At the other end she heard him clear his throat again.
‘It’s pages long and it’s handwritten, so it’s hard to read.’
‘What does it say?’
She heard him take a ragged breath, as if he was trying to hold himself together.
‘He starts by saying thank you, to me.’ His voice cracked.
She waited a moment; she didn’t want to interrupt him but she was bursting to tell him what she’d found out. He sniffed at the other end – he needed a few moments to pull himself together, so she took the plunge.
‘I think I’ve found out when he was here.’
She heard him sniff again. ‘Seriously? You’ve found him?’
‘I think he really was J. A. Stafford. It was his own bank statement in his bag, not a piece of scrap paper. We’ve found an old photo of a J. A. Stafford with a friend whose family used to own Hare’s Landing. He was here – Stafford, I mean. The police need to check to see if that’s who Alfie really was.’
‘You’ve got a photo?’ He sounded stunned.
‘Two actually. It’s just that there’s more. Quite a lot more. If we’re right, I think he might have witnessed something – something awful – and that was the reason he ended up on the street.’
‘It was to do with a girl.’
Rachel felt her mouth go dry. ‘Yes. How do you know?’
She heard Hunter sigh. ‘It’s in his letter. He says he went to Ireland with a friend, someone called Sheridan. Who’s called Sheridan anyway?’
‘That was Sheridan Smyth. His mother was American.’
‘According to Alfie, the summer they graduated from university – he went to Oxford, Rach, can you believe that? – they got the ferry over from Holyhead and drove down. Sheridan had a sports car. He drove like he was in Brands Hatch. They were heading out of Dublin on the Cork road, and there was a girl hitchhiking. Meg, he said her name was. He said she’d lost her wallet or it was stolen or something. This Sheridan knew her a bit, so when they stopped she was happy to go down with them.’
‘And what happened?’
Hunter sighed. ‘I think we need to give this to the police.’
‘They’re already involved.’ She paused; there was no easy way to say it. ‘A body’s been found here.’
‘Jesus Christ, why didn’t you tell me?’
‘There’s been so much happening … that’s only the start. What did Alfie say? Tell me.’
He drew in a shaky breath. ‘I can’t read it again, babes, but basically he said he and Meg got on really well, she loved music and so did he. When they got to the house, this Sheridan asked her to stay and party with them. It was summertime, really hot, and Sheridan’s mother was away so they had the whole place to themselves. There were some other people there, another girl – I can’t remember her name, but she was dating this older guy who worked there. The two girls knew each other, though, but they argued. Alfie says the other one was a real bitch – but you can guess what happened next, babes. They all drank too much and the older guy, Declan, I think, gave them some lines.’
Declan? Rachel felt her stomach react. Could that have been Declan Flynn? Was he right in the thick of this?
Hunter stopped speaking and she heard hospital noises in the background. His voice caught as he continued.
‘It sounds like Alfie had sex with Meg, but then Smyth had a go as well. I think he raped her. Alfie passed out. He’s not sure what happened but he reckoned she must have run off. The next thing, he comes to, and hears this guy Declan telling Smyth she’s dead. He said she’d tripped and hit her head on some statue.’ Hunter kept his voice low. ‘This guy and his girlfriend get Smyth to help them take her to some stable yard, and there’s this metal trapdoor thing and they drop her in. Alfie didn’t know what it was, he said he thought it might be the cellars.’
‘It was the septic tank.’
‘Holy crap.’ Hunter let the words out like steam escaping.
Rachel shifted in the seat. She was so tense her neck was starting to hurt.
‘What happened then?’
‘That’s the thing. That’s why he wrote the letter. He saw this dude again a few weeks ago, in his car park, and the dude recognised him.’
‘Who do you mean – Sheridan Smyth?’
‘No, the Declan guy. He was there, driving a Nemo Freight truck.’
‘But how did he recognise him after all those years? Alfie didn’t look anything like he used to?’
Hunter sighed again. ‘Christ, this is all my fault. Alfie cleaned up, he had a shave and his hair cut for the filming. He was going to play that Mozart piece and he wanted to look smart. It gave us all sorts of continuity issues but he didn’t know that. Maybe he didn’t look that different, just older. Maybe he only thought he’d been recognised. I don’t know.’
‘It’s not your fault. You just got caught in the middle.’
As she spoke, a seagull swooped down and perched on the bonnet of the Land Rover.
Who was the other girl?
Unaware of her thoughts, Hunter continued. ‘It’s the documentary that’s made it all worse.’ She heard him shift in his bed. ‘I don’t know. Maybe this guy didn’t know him at all, but Alfie just thought he did, because Alfie had recognised him – and whatever had been going on in the car park, they thought Alfie had seen. We know he was paranoid, even Frank said that. He said in the letter he thought he was being followed, that he was in danger, and that was why he was writing. If anything happened to him, it was because of this Irish dude who had links to Hare’s Landing but worked for Nemo Freight.’
‘Declan Flynn.’
‘How did you know his surname? Never mind. The thing is, the car in Heathrow belonged to someone called Declan Flynn and was registered through Nemo Freight.’
‘Jesus. He killed Alfie and he tried to kill you.’
‘We don’t know that, but it doesn’t look good. I reckon they thought Alfie was just another homeless bum nobody cared about, and no one would miss.’
Rachel opened her mouth to reply but Hunter cut her off.
‘I’ve got to go, babes, the doc’s here. Talk later?’
And with that the call dropped.
Rachel looked at the phone in her hand, stunned. She needed to talk to Malachi.
Chapter 58
RACHEL COLLECTED CAROLINE and Jasper at the beach and headed straight back towards Hare’s Landing. On the way, Rachel updated her on Alfie’s letter.
‘So Alfie was there. He was J. A. Stafford. We were right.’ Caroline looked across at Rachel, her eyes wide.
‘And the photograph was taken that weekend.’ Rachel kept her eyes on the road, her voice hard. ‘I wonder if there’s anything else in the rest of the pictures that we didn’t see because we weren’t looking for it. I’ve just realised Mr Mahony still has the negatives at the shop. I think we need to pick them up before he mentions them to someone and gets his shop burnt down.’
She glanced across at Caroline as she indicated and pulled up outside Mahony’s.
The bell over the door gave a hearty jangle as Rachel pushed it open. She left Caroline waiting in the car with a grumpy Jasper, not in the slightest bit impressed his walk had been cut short.
A voice greeted her from behind the counter. ‘Good morning, lass, how are you today? I heard—’
Before he could launch into whatever gossip was circulating around the village, Rachel cut in.
‘John Francis, you know those photographs you developed for Bronagh? Didn’t you say you’d keep the negatives in case she needed more done?’
‘I did indeed, lass, I did indeed. They’re all ready for her here, although it’ll be a while before she’s needing them, I’d imagine.’
‘You could be right there. I’d like to drop them in to her though. With everything going on she might forget to collect them.’
‘Very good, lass, but I’ll look after them, I won’t forget. Doesn’t sound like there’s much left of that house, is there?’
Rachel silently drew in a breath, but she wasn’t about to give anything away.
‘It’s hard to tell at the moment. Bronagh will know more once the fire inspectors have been through the place. I know she’d love to have those negatives.’
‘Oh, okay, lass. Give me a minute and I’ll get them.’
Clearly reluctant to give up something that connected him to the drama, the shopkeeper lingered for a moment too long. Rachel continued as if she hadn’t noticed his hesitation.
‘Thanks so much. I need some supplies, will I collect everything while you get them? I haven’t the energy to go into Ross Haven.’
The possibility of a sale played to his practical side, and John Francis grinned.
‘Take your time, lass. If there’s anything you can’t see, just ask.’
Rachel hid her eye roll behind a smile and turned to the shelf beside her, frantically looking for something to buy. Spotting a section full of tins, she grabbed baked beans and sweetcorn and put them on the counter. There was milk and bacon in the fridge beside the counter. She added them to the pile and turned back to find the bread.
Satisfied she was going to make a purchase, Mahony disappeared into the back of the shop and, she presumed, his dark room.
*
‘I got them, but it cost me a fortune.’ Climbing back into the driver’s seat of the Land Rover, Rachel passed Caroline the bag of groceries. ‘You’ll have to mind those or Jasp will eat the lot. I got things we can leave for Bronagh when she moves in.’
Caroline hid a grin. ‘I thought it took you a long time. I guess you got the Spanish Inquisition as well?’
Rachel started the engine and threw the Land Rover into gear.
‘You guessed right.’
As she pulled out, Caroline slipped the grocery bag into the footwell.
‘I got through to Malachi. He’s still up at the house but he has to get back to the station.’
‘We’ll be there shortly. Hunter’s texted me images of the letter so Mal can see it, and he’s giving it to the officer who’s in charge of Alfie’s case.’
The road was clear almost all the way back to Hare’s Landing, except for a stray sheep. She’d switched down a gear to take the corner when it hopped off the wild verge into the road. As Rachel braked hard to avoid it, Jasper lurched forward in the back of the Land Rover with a yelp.
