The Good Turn Read online

  ‘She’s fine,’ Cormac said. ‘Peggah’s fine. She’s in the hospital, but it’s just a precaution. Her parents are with her now.’

  Peter felt a rush of energy that left him giddy and off-balance. ‘Where? Where did you find her? I searched . . .’

  ‘She was never at the lake,’ Cormac said.

  ‘What?’

  Reilly’s eyes were very steady. ‘She was never at the lake, Peter. She was taken, just as the Fletcher boy said, but whoever took her just let her out on the side of the road. It was down a rural back road, near Allanspark, in the dark. She was afraid, so she ran and she hid, and it took her quite a while to find a house, and then more time to build up the courage to go and knock on the door. I’ve just come from the hospital. She’s a bit shaken up, but the doctors say there are no significant physical injuries. Other than that first punch to the stomach, Peggah says her abductor never touched her.’

  Peter let his head sink into his hands. ‘Thank god. Seriously. Thank god. She’s alive and she’s all right.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. Why would Kelly take her only to let her go?’

  ‘I don’t have an answer for that. Not yet anyway,’ Reilly said. There was something in his eyes. Caution, maybe. Or worry.

  ‘What?’ Peter asked.

  ‘I showed Peggah a photo array. She didn’t recognise Kelly. She says she didn’t get a good look at the man who took her. She never really looked at him before he punched her. She was focused on her dog and it happened before she had a chance to think.’

  ‘Right. I see.’ Peter’s stomach sank.

  ‘We’ve got a bit of help now. A couple of extra bodies from Salthill finally showed up. And forensics are at the scene. We’ll take the car in for testing and we’ll expedite testing on DNA from the boot. I feel confident that Kelly is the one that took her, and I’m sure we’ll be able to prove that. It might just take a little time.’

  Peter nodded rapidly, blinking. ‘Yeah. It might just take a little time.’ They sat in silence for a long moment. Peter swallowed. ‘So, what happens from here? To me, I mean?’

  ‘There’ll be an investigation. The Superintendent wants you to take some paid leave for the next week or two, until we can clear a few things up,’ Cormac said.

  ‘That’s it?’ Hope briefly fought the dread in Peter’s stomach. Dread won. ‘Kelly’s dead. He wasn’t armed, and Peggah wasn’t in any danger when I shot him. I fucked up.’

  ‘You thought she was in danger and that was a reasonable assumption. We’re going to prove that it was his car in the abduction video, and obviously he was driving it as he was in it when you found him. Forensics will prove that she was in the boot of the car earlier in the day. My theory is that he let her go because he was tipped off. You and Deirdre Russell, you did good work in identifying him as a suspect quickly. And Fisher—’ Reilly leaned forward across the desk. ‘He was driving straight for you when you shot him. He did have a weapon. He had fifteen hundred kilos of metal under his control and he was aiming it at you. Don’t forget that.’

  It took a minute before Peter could be sure that his voice was steady enough to ask his question. ‘Will I have a job at the end of this?’ he said in the end.

  Reilly avoided his eyes. ‘You did your job. You did it well,’ he said. ‘That girl is safe with her family today because of the work you and Deirdre did today. Hold your head up. You will be back on the team, moaning about overtime again, before Christmas.’

  Dublin, Ireland

  Tuesday 1 September 2015

  ANNA

  Anna was ready by two o’clock, but school didn’t finish until three. It was freezing cold, and dark grey clouds hung low in the sky. The clouds unleashed a scatter of sleety rain every now and again, but you could tell that those were just rehearsals for the upcoming main event. There was a coffee shop opposite the school. It was a place she’d passed many times. Nothing fancy, not much more than a greasy spoon with a few wrapped-up muffins near the till. But when you can’t afford even a cup of coffee a place takes on a certain sheen. She stood outside for a moment, looking in the window, then told herself to cop on. This was the start of a new life. Everything was going to be different from now on, which meant she had to be different too. She pushed the door open, manoeuvred her suitcase and bags inside. A young fella came in on her heels, stood too close behind, crowding her. The girl behind the counter was flipping through a magazine. She didn’t look up.

  ‘I’ll have a coffee and one of them muffins,’ Anna said.

  ‘Five-twenty,’ the girl said. She didn’t move until Anna put her tenner on the counter. ‘Take a seat and I’ll bring it over.’

  Anna pushed her suitcase and her plastic bags as far under the table as she could get them. The table was small and round, and had a slight wobble. There was a sticky patina on the surface, the residue of a thousand spills half wiped with a dirty cloth. Anna kept her hands in her lap, looked around. It was dead in here. There was an old couple in the corner, slowly making their way through their meatballs and chips. They didn’t talk to each other, just stared into space and chewed. There was a young one at a table near the window, an empty cup at her elbow, jabbing away at a laptop. The man who’d come in at her heels was sitting at a table at the opposite wall. He caught her eye and scowled. Anna looked away, felt that his eyes were still on her.

  The girl behind the counter brought over the coffee and the muffin, still wrapped in its plastic. She ate the muffin, drank the coffee. The coffee was all right. The muffin was dry as shite. It reminded her of the cakes her grandmother made at Christmas. She’d let them have a bite, her and Niall, if there were visitors over to see her do it. It had lined Anna’s mouth in just the same way. She drank more coffee, washed it down. When she had her own place and her own job she would learn to bake properly. She would make cakes and muffins and cookies and all the kids would want to come home with Tilly every day for a play, and to see what Tilly’s mother had for them. Anna risked another look at the young fella across the room. He was picking at his fingernails. Not watching her then. Just bored.

  Anna made her coffee last the hour. The girl behind the counter couldn’t have cared less. She just brought a plate of chips and sausages to the young fella, then returned to her post behind the counter where her magazine was waiting. Anna watched the clock. The next bus left for Galway at three-thirty. They would have to get a taxi if they were going to make it. The money didn’t matter. Not for this. She called the cab at three o’clock on the dot. The young fella gave her a dirty when she was on the phone, but he was gone by the time she finished. The cab company promised it would just be a couple of minutes.

  Tilly was one of the first kids out.

  Anna called her name. ‘Matilda. Tilly!’ She waved. Kids were coming out in gaggles and clumps, talking and shoving and laughing and messing. Only Tilly was alone, back bowed under the weight of her schoolbag. Tilly looked up when she heard her name, stopped walking when she saw Anna, took in the suitcase. But she saw . . . something . . . in Anna’s face and her face lit up and she hurried forward, a question in her eyes.

  Anna reached down and hugged her, hard. ‘We’re going on a trip, Tils,’ she said.

  Tilly looked mystified, but not unhappy. She leaned down and picked up one of the black plastic bags, looked back at Anna.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ Anna said. She felt almost giddy now. A car horn beeped from somewhere behind them. The cab. Anna grabbed the other bags. More than one person was looking now. The bags had drawn a bit of attention, the cab would draw a bit more. She ignored them all. ‘Come on, Tils.’

  Sleet came again as they made their way to the car. The cab driver didn’t bother getting out to help. Anna put Tilly in the back seat, loaded up the boot herself and got in.

  ‘Aston Quay,’ she said.

  The cab driver nodded wordlessly, and they set off.

  Aston Quay was right by the River Liffey, just around the corner from Tem
ple Bar. They would have to pass the flat. Anna took Tilly’s hand, gave it a squeeze.

  ‘We’re moving, Tils. We’re leaving Dublin. It’s no good for us anymore. We’re going to live in Galway. I told you my mother used to bring us there on holidays when we were kids. We used to stay in a flat by the sea. It’s different there. Not so many people.’ She was thinking about the drugs, which she knew would be in Galway too, but also of that trapped awful feeling of being watched and being part of something you had never chosen, which wouldn’t. ‘We’d go swimming in the bay and it was bleeding freezing, Tils, but it was lovely too. And then Mam would get us fish and chips and we would sit on the rocks by the sea and eat them and they were the best days.’ Nerves always made her talkative.

  Tilly’s eyes were bright, and Anna felt a surge of happiness.

  ‘I’m going to get us a new flat, and you’ll have a new school. I’m going to get a job just for your school hours, and I’m going to collect you every day and it’s going to be great.’

  They were just coming up to Thomas Street and Tilly’s face tightened. She turned to look out of the window as they passed the flat, then looked at Anna with another question in her eyes. Anna could have ignored it, could have pretended that she didn’t see it, but she wouldn’t do that to her daughter.

  ‘Uncle Niall will be all right. Maybe he’ll come and visit us when we’re all settled.’

  Tilly didn’t look very sure, but she settled back into the seat and looked forward. She was just a child, after all. Anna wished she could lie to herself as easily.

  Earlier that morning, after the appointment at the doctor’s office, Anna had walked Tilly to school. She had been in panic mode, could feel it in the flutter of breath in her lungs, in the tightness she felt in her chest. She’d kissed Tilly’s head as she left her at the gate, watched her little girl walk across the concrete courtyard with a pain in her heart. Anna hated that school, hated the ugliness of the brushed concrete walls, stained with years of heavy weather, the fact that there wasn’t a blade of grass to be seen from one iron gate to another. Every time she let Tilly walk in the doors, she felt like the school was swallowing her up, abrading her, stealing another little bit of her future.

  Afterwards she’d hurried back to the flat, taken the stairs to the fourth floor, unlocked the door. She’d gone inside, closed the door behind her, and leaned back on it with her eyes closed. She could smell it. Not the heroin, because that had no smell at all, but what he smelled like when he was using. Unwashed, unhappy. She hated this place now almost as much as the school. It hurt to remember how happy she’d been when she’d first been given the flat. A place of her own, a safe place to raise her daughter.

  She had to wait for twenty minutes before she could wake him enough to talk to him. Twenty minutes during which she sat on the armchair and looked at him, sleeping on her couch. His face was still dear to her. Despite everything, when she looked at him, at his dark sandy hair that reminded her so much of Tilly’s, at the hand that was curled in sleep that had held hers so many times when she’d needed him most, all she felt was love. He was her whole family, her whole life really.

  She shook him awake in the end. He blinked at her slowly.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ she said.

  He smiled at her, but it wasn’t his real smile. It was that dopey smile that made her skin crawl and her stomach churn.

  ‘Wake up, Niall. This is important.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m up. Of course.’ He sat up on the couch, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, all his movements slow, like he was underwater.

  ‘I . . . I need to . . . you have to leave.’

  He blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘I brought Tilly to the doctor. The school was insisting. The doctor said she must have had some trauma, something scared her or hurt her so that she stopped talking. He’s going to send social workers out to check on the flat. If they find you here, they’ll kick us all out. We’ll be homeless.’

  He shook his head, looked around at his blankets on the couch, his jacket on the back of the chair, the few bits of things that indicated he lived there. ‘We’ll put everything away, so that they can’t prove I’m living here. It’ll be grand.’ He reached out and patted her gently on the knee. His hands and nails were clean.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, Niall. It’s not going to be grand. It’s more than just the social. It’s Tilly. She’s not all right. I don’t know how to help her. I don’t know how to make it better.’ Her voice was shaking with fear and emotion, but it didn’t reach him. He was nodding off, losing track of the conversation. ‘Niall,’ she said. Then again, louder, ‘Niall.’

  ‘Sorry, Anna,’ he said. ‘Sorry.’ But it was too much for him. He didn’t try to stay with her. She watched him as he allowed himself to sink back into it. A minute passed. His head fell back against the couch. His mouth was half open. Then he was asleep. Like this, he didn’t look like her brother. Like this, he looked like a stranger.

  In the end she made the decision quickly. She left Niall asleep on the couch and started to pack. She had one battered old suitcase, so she started with that, packed their best and warmest clothes, Tilly’s few old teddies, their shampoo and toothbrushes. The suitcase was already overflowing. She sat on it to close it, looked around. There was no way she’d be able to replace everything in Galway; she would need to bring as much as she could carry.

  Anna did her sums as she packed. On Tuesdays, she got her social welfare payment straight into her bank account. That was nearly two hundred euro a week. Today was the first Tuesday of the month, which meant she would get an extra hundred and forty for child benefit. She had exactly three hundred and thirty euro in savings, left over from the cleaning job. It had taken her two years to get that money together. She had six hundred and seventy euro to her name. It was enough. It would have to be.

  Anna found a roll of black plastic bin liners, doubled them and used those for the few sheets and towels she had. It took an hour to pack, and in the end, she left everything that wouldn’t fit into the suitcase or two double-bagged bin liners. When everything was ready, she brought the bags to the door. When she turned around, Niall was awake again. Watching her.

  ‘I dreamed this,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘That you were gone. That you took her and left.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  He shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. Shook it again. ‘No. It’s a good thing. Maybe if you go, you’ll find somewhere better. Tils will get better. You can be happy.’

  Anna felt the tears coming but the fear and the need for something better was stronger than the love. She went to him in quick, quick strides and hugged him hard, held on to him for as long as she could. She wanted to give him money, but she wouldn’t, not now. She was letting him go. She told herself they would find each other again someday and knew that it was almost certainly a lie. Without her, he would sink.

  ‘Love you,’ she said.

  ‘Love you too.’

  She’d left without a backwards glance. Left him on the couch, knowing that he would use again as soon as he could. That he would block it all out.

  Anna and Tilly made it to the bus with ten minutes to spare. Two tickets to Galway cost her twenty-nine euro. That was all right. She’d planned for it. She bought them both sandwiches from the SuperValu on the Quay and a bottle of water and another muffin for sharing. That was fifteen euro. With the cost of the cab, that left . . . about five hundred and ninety euro. She would make it work. They boarded the bus. Anna put her arm around Tilly and they stared out of the window, watched the streets of Dublin pass by. It was all going to be fine. Better than fine. She wasn’t a kid anymore, she didn’t need to sit back and let things happen to her. In Galway she would be a different person. She’d always tried, always worked hard, but she’d been stupid. Now she knew how the world worked. It was survival of the fittest, just like in nature. And she would be the strongest of them all, for Tilly’
s sake.

  PART TWO

  Galway, Ireland

  Monday 2 November 2015

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  With the death of Jason Kelly and the recovery of Peggah Abbassi relatively unharmed, some of the immediate urgency went out of the case. Cormac stayed in the station until the early hours of Sunday morning, then went home and slept for a few hours. When he woke up, he went to the hospital to see Peggah, where she was being held for observation, talked to the family then he went home again and did what work he could from the house. There was no point in going to the station. Now that Peggah was safe, the technical work would have to take its place in the queue. They wouldn’t hear anything from the team in Dublin until Monday or Tuesday at the earliest. Deirdre Russell was taking a badly needed day off, and he wouldn’t get anyone back from the task force until the following day. He might as well stay at home and do some thinking while he was at it.

  Cormac arrived at the station at eight a.m. on Monday morning. Deirdre and Rory Mulcair arrived shortly after.

  ‘Case conference at nine,’ Cormac said. ‘Upstairs. I’ve got an action list ready to go but any suggestions you’ve got, I want to hear them.’

  Deirdre looked pale, as if she’d missed sleep. ‘You mean about Jason Kelly?’ she asked.

  ‘Kelly is part of it, but let’s start from the beginning. We need to start with the abduction, follow the evidence and see where it leads us.’

  ‘And it’s just going to be us?’ Deirdre asked. ‘Working the inquiry, I mean.’

  ‘I’ll clarify that shortly,’ Cormac said.

  Deirdre gestured around the squad room, which was already half full. Officers returning from the task force with the telltale energy of a successful operation. The contrast with their own subdued corner could not have been more stark. ‘They’re all here,’ she said. ‘We could do with the help.’