The Good Turn Read online

  The top of the rise was there before he knew it and then he was up and over, his foot clamping down on the brake as his headlights picked out twenty metres of steep rock-strewn descent and nothing but darkness beyond. His imagination presented him with an image of a path that ended at a twenty-foot cliff over dark water. The car bounced and slid down the hill for what felt like minutes but must only have been seconds. Peter turned his steering wheel, released the brake then braked again and finally regained control and could breathe again. Jesus. This was crazy. He might have gone back, but there was nowhere to turn, and even if there had been, he wasn’t confident that the car would make it. There was no choice now but to go on, to allow the car to creep and slide until the slope finally started to level off, and he felt it was safe enough to stop the car and park it.

  Peter put the handbrake on with a sigh of relief, got out, made for the boot of the car and found the powerful torch that was part of the standard kit. He flicked it on and shone it around him. The light picked out reeds and scrub, the bank of the lake uncomfortably close, just a few short metres ahead, but no sign of anyone else, no sign of Jason Kelly. The cliff he’d imagined was more like four or five feet, rather than twenty, but it was scary enough. If he’d slid off the edge his car would have plunged into the freezing cold water below. Peter took a minute to zip up his jacket. It was freezing, so cold that he was already shivering. He made his way forward, closer to the water. It was nearly all granite underfoot here, but the surface was uneven, interrupted by clumps of weeds and frozen puddles. Peter shone the torch over the water. It was deep, or so it seemed to him, standing on the shore in the darkness. The water was black and choppy. Hostile. Far in the distance, on the other side of the lake, he could see the glimmer of lights, but here there was nothing but silent trees and the lap of the water.

  He shone the torch beam first to the left, but that way there was no path at all, only trees and heavy undergrowth. He turned it to the right where the undergrowth was lighter, started to walk and quickly saw something that made his heart beat faster. Two clear tyre tracks leading onward.

  Peter took his gun from its holster. The weight of it felt unfamiliar, awkward. He shone the flashlight in a semi-circle ahead of him, picking up nothing but more trees and the occasional insect attracted to the light. He was conscious that if Kelly was ahead of him, the flashlight did an excellent job of alerting the other man to his exact location. He considered turning it off, then thought about stumbling through the darkness, and dismissed the idea. He kept walking and moments later the flashlight dimmed suddenly, then came back strongly. Bloody hell. The batteries. Losing his light was the last thing he needed. Peter sped up, following the tyre tracks which hugged the lake’s edge. He heard something and stopped. The sound – if he hadn’t been imagining it – had been that of a car door being closed, very gently. Peter switched off the flashlight, crept forward, feeling his way in the darkness. The clouds parted, and moonlight slipped through. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust and then he could see, a little. There was a jetty now, to his left, and there in the distance, low-slung and hulking, was the boathouse.

  He’d found it. And someone else was here. If he hadn’t known it from the tyre tracks and the sound he’d heard, he would have felt it. An itch between his shoulder blades, a cold hand on the back of his neck. Peter kept moving forward, focused on the boathouse. The doorway was dark and cavernous – from this distance he couldn’t tell if there was a door there, or if it gaped open. There was a single window, too small for even a child to crawl through. The sound . . . he had been sure that it was a car door. But now . . . Had he heard it? Imagined it? As the seconds slipped by, the memory of whatever he’d heard lost its clarity, became muffled by the recollection of other noises he’d called forward in an effort to compare and identify. Perhaps it had been nothing. Still. Peter chambered a round, the metallic click echoing in the quiet.

  He was nearly at the boathouse. There was a door. Its paint was peeling but it was heavy and solid-looking and there was a keyhole. Peter reached out a hand to try the handle, and that was when the silence was broken by the roar of a car engine coming to life, then being revved and revved again. Peter stepped back, turning towards the direction of the sound and bringing his gun up. He blinked against the sudden light of powerful headlamps and the engine roared. Peter willed his eyes to adjust to the brightness. He felt trapped against the boathouse. He tried the door; it was locked. He took four steps backwards in rapid succession, gun still raised, horribly aware of the cliff’s edge somewhere behind him, and the dark water below.

  ‘Armed garda,’ he shouted. He kept his gun trained on the car. ‘Turn it off. Turn the lights off.’

  But the engine revved one final time and then the car was hurtling towards him and there was nowhere left for him to go. Peter didn’t think. Instinct and training tightened his trigger finger and the gun fired. Once. Twice. Three times. With the engine noise and the adrenaline pounding through him and his heart thudding in his ears he barely heard the sound of the gunshots, but the kickback jerked the gun in his hands and he saw the windscreen shatter. The roar of the engine quietened and the car slowed but it kept coming and he should move, he knew he should move but his feet were so firmly planted and his body wouldn’t obey him.

  ‘Armed garda,’ Peter shouted again, unnecessarily. ‘Stop the car.’

  But it kept rolling forward, forcing him backwards towards the cliff as his body, mercifully, woke up, and then, finally, the car slowed to a stop. The driver was a dark shape behind the wheel. Peter moved forward. His gun was up, it tracked the driver who was still as Peter moved to the door and pulled it open.

  ‘Turn off the engine and get out of the car,’ he shouted.

  It was so dark, too dark to make out details, but the man behind the wheel was gasping for breath. It was Kelly. Jason Kelly, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth and a spreading stain on his chest where at least one bullet had entered his body. ‘Where is she?’ Peter said. His voice was shaking. ‘Where’s the little girl? Where is Peggah?’

  Confusion in Kelly’s eyes. He tried to speak and failed. Tried to draw a breath and his failure brought panic. He reached out a hand, grabbed on to Peter’s jacket.

  ‘Where is she?’ Peter said again. ‘Tell me where she is. Is she in the boathouse?’

  Kelly shook his head. He opened his mouth and blood spilled out. Peter pulled Kelly’s hand off his jacket, and the other man slumped forward. Peter made for the boot of the car, pulled it open. It was empty. No sign of Peggah Abbassi. Peter turned back to the boathouse, tried the door again, but it was solid, a good hundred pounds of oak that no little girl could ever take down. Peter went to Jason, searched his pockets roughly, found a key. The man was choking, struggling to breathe. Peter left him there. He tried the key in the lock. The door swung open. Peter remembered the torch, flicked it on. The light picked out the details easily. There was a steep boat ramp that ran all the way down into the water. A concrete platform that ran around the ramp. There were shelves, empty but for a few tins of oil, a couple of tools that Peter didn’t recognise, some coils of rope. The ramp was empty, no boat. He ran the torchlight around the shed again.

  ‘Peggah?’ he shouted. His voice echoed. ‘Peggah?’ She wasn’t here. There was nowhere here to hide her. He walked all the way around the platform, just in case, shone the light down into the water, but she wasn’t here. Peter half ran, half stumbled back to the car, suddenly afraid that Kelly would have disappeared, but he was still there, slumped behind the wheel. His eyes were closed. Was he breathing? Peter felt for a pulse and found one, though it seemed weak and thready. He shook Kelly’s shoulder.

  ‘Wake up,’ he said. ‘Wake up, Jason. Is she here? Did you put her somewhere? You have to tell me where you put her.’

  But Kelly didn’t wake up, didn’t react at all. Instead, Peter started a frantic search of the nearby area. He staggered over the rocky ground and into the heavy undergrowth, search
ing and searching until the torch battery finally died. He turned back then, made for the car and reached it just as he heard the first rumblings of an approaching helicopter. He’d left the car door open. Peter reached in again, touched Kelly’s neck. This time his skin was cold.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The helicopter circled the area, its powerful searchlights sweeping the trees and the lakeside. Peter found that he was holding his breath – would they see something he had missed? Another building? Where else could Kelly have stashed the girl? It was so cold now. He was vaguely aware that he’d started to shiver again. How long would it take the others to arrive? He should call in. He searched his pockets for his phone, didn’t find it. An image of the phone propped up on the central console of the police car presented itself to him. He’d left it there. Oh Christ. Peter swallowed against a wave of nausea. He wasn’t going to puke here, not at the scene, where the contents of his stomach could be later dissected in a forensics report. The helicopter made another pass but showed no signs of coming in to land. He needed to call in. He should get his phone. Peter turned and looked back into Kelly’s car. What if he’d been wrong? What if he’d missed a weak pulse? Peter leaned into the car, placed his fingers at Kelly’s neck, then his wrist. Nothing. Nothing but cold, inert flesh, and fingers that came away sticky with blood.

  Peter wiped his hand on his trousers. The helicopter was overhead again, hovering and blinding him with the searchlight. Useless bastards. What good were they there? Peter waved his arms over his head, made a sweeping gesture to try to encourage a search, then gave up and started to pick his way back along the shore to his car and his waiting phone.

  He told Reilly everything.

  ‘I can’t find her,’ Peter said, his voice hoarse with tension and distress. ‘She has to be here somewhere, but it’s so dark, and the undergrowth is very thick. It’s not an easy area to search. We’re going to need a lot of bodies, but access is a challenge. We’ll need to get our hands on some four-wheel drives to get to the lakeside.’

  It was noisy, wherever Reilly was. Peter could hear muffled voices, a flurry of activity. It helped a bit, made him feel a little less alone.

  ‘I’m going back to search again,’ Peter said. ‘I had a torch, but . . . How far out is everyone else?’

  ‘Stay with your vehicle,’ Reilly said. ‘No more searching until help arrives.’

  Peter looked back in the direction of the boathouse. The helicopter had pulled back, he could hear the sound of its retreating engines. Without the searchlights everything melded again in the muddled, indistinct shadow. He couldn’t see the boathouse.

  ‘It’s very cold,’ Peter said. ‘If she’s tied up somewhere, in this weather, we need to find her quickly.’

  Reilly’s voice was firm and chilly with formality. ‘Stay with your car. You are not to search the scene further. Do you understand me, Fisher? Stay with your car, turn on your heating. No further searching.’

  Reilly only waited long enough to hear Peter’s confirmation that he had heard and understood, and then he rang off.

  It felt like help took a long time coming. First to arrive were the paramedics. They came in by air, the helicopter taking its time, hovering for what felt like too long, but setting down gently in the end as if it was no big deal. Two paramedics spilled from the chopper; heads low and medical bags in hand, they ran towards Kelly’s car. Peter followed them there, watched them at work, saw the urgency go out of them as they confirmed what he already knew.

  ‘You’re the cop?’ The older of them stepped back from the car, looked Peter’s way.

  ‘I didn’t mean to kill him,’ Peter said. ‘It happened very fast.’

  The paramedic made a sound that could have meant anything.

  ‘No one else here yet?’

  ‘They’re on the way,’ Peter said.

  The paramedic nodded. His colleague was repacking his bag, shaking his head. Without looking up he said, ‘Three times. You shot him three times. Was once not enough for you?’

  Peter took one half-step backwards. ‘He was driving straight at me. He would have hit me, gone into the water. I thought . . . look, I didn’t have any other option.’

  ‘Could you not have stepped to the side?’

  ‘He would have gone into the water,’ Peter said.

  ‘In the water is better than three bullets in the chest.’

  Peter clenched his jaw. ‘He took a twelve-year-old girl. Punched her in the stomach and threw her in the boot of his car. I thought she was still in there. He would have taken her with him. He was driving straight at me, at speed.’

  The older paramedic put a hand on his colleague’s arm. ‘It’s been a long day,’ he said. ‘This is our third call-out. First two were car crashes and they weren’t good either.’ It was an attempt at defusing the situation, but it didn’t work.

  ‘So where is she then?’ the younger paramedic asked, chin up. ‘Where’s the girl?’

  The older man gave him a warning look, stepped between them. ‘That’s enough of that,’ he said. ‘Come on, back to the chopper. There’s nothing we can do here.’

  ‘You need to stay,’ Peter said. ‘Help will be here soon. A search party. We need to search the woods, and when we find her, she might need your help.’

  The younger man snorted in obvious disgust, and stalked off towards the helicopter. The older man followed, offering Peter only a shake of his head and a muttered ‘We’ll be needed somewhere else.’

  Peter stood there, looking after them, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

  Eventually Peter was bundled away from the scene, left to cool his heels in an otherwise empty squad car, then driven back to Mill Street by a civilian driver who knew less than he did. The station car park was empty, dark. Detective Sergeant Carrie O’Halloran stood alone on the steps of the station, waiting for him. Carrie used to work out of Mill Street but had taken a transfer to a smaller station on the outskirts of Galway six months ago. He’d barely seen her since.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Peter said. It came out sounding defensive, and he tried again. ‘I’m all right,’ he said. ‘I just . . . I want to help find her.’

  ‘You know there’s a process we have to go through after a shooting. I’ve been asked to act as your support officer. You’ve already handed in your gun?’

  Peter nodded. ‘At the scene.’

  ‘No injuries? You’re physically all right?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘What about food? When was the last time you ate something?’

  Peter thought about it. ‘I don’t think I have. The day got away from me.’

  A car pulled into the car park, then another.

  ‘Okay,’ Carrie said. ‘We’ll sort out food first, then you’ll need to give your initial statement. That’s just a basic run-through of the facts, as you see them, leading up to the shooting. After that, if you want to, you can go home and get some rest.’

  A third car pulled in. Officers climbed out of the cars, talking, laughing. There was a lot of backslapping.

  ‘What’s that about?’ Peter asked.

  ‘The word is that the task force had a big win tonight,’ Carrie said. ‘They raided a yacht off the coast, got a big score.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Peter said. But he felt a dull sinking feeling inside him, a sense of distance and isolation from the celebration in which he would take no part.

  Carrie started up the stairs.

  ‘You’ve got seven days to give your detailed statement,’ she said. ‘In addition to me you can have a solicitor or a member of the union with you through that process.’

  Peter followed. ‘I can’t go home until we find Peggah,’ he said. ‘Not until we find her.’

  Carrie glanced at him over her shoulder, but her eyes were unreadable. ‘Let’s get started,’ she said.

  He wasn’t allowed back to the squad room, couldn’t be part of the investigation now, or a
nywhere near the evidence. So Carrie led him to one of the interview rooms, then disappeared for long enough to find a coffee and a plastic-wrapped sandwich from somewhere. Sat opposite him while he wolfed it down. It felt obscene, somehow, to have an appetite in these circumstances, but he was starving. He finished the last bite, scrunched the plastic in his hand. Carrie had a notebook and pen. She flipped the notebook open to the first page.

  ‘Are you ready?’ she asked. ‘Let’s get the debrief done.’

  ‘I thought you were my support officer,’ he said.

  She shrugged. ‘There’s no one else. At least not until tomorrow. Let’s keep it high-level. Just the facts as you saw them. When the post-incident investigator is appointed, she can take your full statement.’

  It didn’t take long to run through things. Carrie made no comment, just prompted him here or there where she felt something needed clarification, or when he left something out.

  ‘You should go home,’ she said, closing her notebook. ‘Get some sleep. This process, it isn’t easy. Better to go into it with a clear mind and a rested brain.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘Not until I know.’

  Carrie stood up, glanced around the room. It was a standard interview room. Lino floor, white painted walls, table and chairs screwed to the floor. ‘You’d be better off waiting at home,’ she said.

  She was right. Peter knew she was right, but he found himself just shaking his head. She came close enough to put a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Hang in there,’ she said.

  An hour passed very slowly. It was two a.m. before Cormac Reilly came to find him. He opened the door, took a seat opposite Peter.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Did you find her?’ Peter said. ‘She’s dead, isn’t she? I was too late.’ He’d been thinking about the deep water in the boathouse. There were tools, things Kelly could have used to weigh down her body.