If I Never See You Again (9 page)
The poky flat was neat, and clean, but creepy all the same, Jo thought as she entered. The ceiling thumped from the muffled sounds of dance music being played at full volume in a flat overhead. There were houses like it all over Dublin: chandeliers in the lobbies, but running to dereliction. Yet what was a few steps inside made her catch her breath. The room was filled with life-sized mannequins in various states of undress and sexual positions. Four of them were posed in the living room; she guessed there’d be more in the bedroom.
‘They call them Real Dolls,’ Dan said, rubbing his temples with a spread finger and thumb.
Jo pulled a face. ‘And I thought he’d a thing for dead women.’
‘You were pretty close,’ Dan said, examining one, which was dressed in a school uniform and sitting on a poof in front of the TV, all glassy stare and sandy pigtails. Her legs
were open. There was a redhead lying on the couch dressed like a cheerleader in a cropped top and short skirt, legs open too. A brunette had been dressed head to toe in office chic, glasses on her nose as she bent over at the window, a chain hanging from her waist and bolted to the ceiling keeping her upright. The fourth one, which had blonde hair, was dressed like a hooker in long, shiny boots and a latex skirt – again, legs open.
‘There’s one more,’ Dan said, reading her mind.
He led Jo into the bedroom, where she saw a fifth, dark-skinned doll lying in the bed.
‘$10,000 a piece,’ Dan said. ‘Angie said he came into some money a few years back, so that’s probably how he paid for them. He even had them serviced when their bits fell off. They were shipped to and from the States in crates.’
‘No wonder he’d such a big problem with the Church. They’re staunch on this kind of thing – isn’t there something about going blind?’
‘Angie said his problems started as a kid, after their mother died,’ Dan answered. ‘As a kid he’d wanted to play weird games like run and jump on the dead cat; drown the puppies – feel the last wiggle; spent all his free time at the dead zoo. She said he was diagnosed at one stage with something antisocial, but their father didn’t believe in medication or in keeping his psychiatric appointments. She was the only one who cared about what happened to him. Walter was inappropriately grateful. When Katie disappeared, Angie asked him to help get her back.’
Jo picked up a Bible from a coffee table. Her hand trembled slightly. Dan took her wrist. Jo didn’t pull her hand back. ‘At least this place explains the hatred towards the Church. But how’d he know we’d be in Castleforbes Road to find Rita that day?’
‘How did Walter link Stuart Ball and the others to what happened?’
‘Probably Crawley,’ Dan answered. ‘He’d have talked to anyone if it served his own interests, and if Walter was torturing him, it was in his own interests.’
‘I thought the letter the streets made was an M,’ Jo said.
‘Turn it upside down and you get a W,’ Dan consoled.
Jo sighed as she thought how near they’d come to him – and how narrowly they’d escaped.
‘Any idea about how that 62-year-old’s semen turned up in Rita?’ Jo asked.
‘He was her last paying punter,’ Dan answered. ‘It was Walter himself who claimed that Rita had been interfered with after death, remember? We’ve visited the old punter, and he nearly had a heart attack when he heard he may be a suspect. He’s legit.’
‘I knew he couldn’t have been involved.’ She pulled her hand free. ‘Let’s get out of here. I need a drink.’
In the Waterloo pub nearby, Dan carried a Guinness and a G&T over to their table.
‘Last time I was in here it was a spit-on-the-floor job,’ Jo said, admiring Dan’s midnight-blue eyes.
‘Yeah, it’s a bit too flash for my liking. Want to go somewhere else? I think there may still be sawdust on the floor in Mulligan’s.’
‘Pity to waste it,’ she said, eyeing the drinks.
‘Come on, let’s go nuts,’ Dan said, getting up. ‘It’s Saturday. We’re off duty, remember?’
At the window of Mulligan’s pub, they finally sat down side by side. ‘We used to come here when we first started going out,’ Jo said, taking a sip.
‘I remember,’ he said, putting his arm around her shoulders. He let his forehead touch hers. ‘Take next week off, yeah? After what you’ve been through, you need it.’
Jo nodded.
‘And when you come back, I want to hear no more talk of a transfer, right? You’re needed where you are.’
Jo looked away. When you came as close as she had to losing everything, it was a wake-up call. She knew now what was important in her life – and how quickly it could all be taken away.
‘What are we going to do about Sexton?’ she asked, trying to change the subject.
Dan sighed, his eyes still on her face. ‘He’s a big boy, he can take care of himself.’
‘That’s just it. Clearly, he can’t.’
After a silence which Jo did not have the head space to deal with, she asked, ‘What are we going to do about Rory’s truancy?’
‘Have dinner with me tonight, and we can discuss it.’
She felt a flicker of excitement. ‘Are you suggesting a meal alone, Mr Mason?’
‘You got a babysitter?’ he teased.
‘My place,’ she instructed.
‘Half nine,’ he said. ‘And don’t cook – no offence. I’ll organize a Chinese.’
Jo tipped back the drink with a grin on her face. ‘Make it an Indian, and you’ve got a date.’
Still, Jo thought as she reached for the door, all things considered, she was in good form. She’d got her car back, with a new coat of paint, and a new engine. She’d driven by the Quality Inn on the way home and realized she didn’t care any more about flashing her badge to access the hotel’s records. What was done was done. It was water under the
bridge now. She didn’t want to know if Dan had stayed there single or alone. What she’d realized from her near-miss yesterday was that she and Dan belonged together. Her cuts and bruises were on the mend, Angie Freeman was going into rehab, Katie was finally coming out of her shell and Walter Kaiser was cold as the grave where he belonged. All in all, it was turning out to be her kind of day.
But it wasn’t Dan standing on her doorstep. It was Jeanie, red-eyed.
Jo pulled the door open with a sigh of resignation.
‘I know what you’re doing, you bitch,’ Jeanie said angrily.
‘With respect, this is my home, and if you can’t be civil, I want you to go,’ Jo said.
Jeanie wedged her foot inside the door. ‘Has he told you I’m pregnant?’
Jo gasped as she absorbed the blow. In the background, Harry let out a peal of laughter.
‘I’ve come to say that I’m sorry for what I did to you. Now I know what it feels like, eh?’
Jo watched Jeanie walk away in the pouring rain then looked back at Harry, who was still smiling at her cherubically from his playpen.
Pulling off the single shoe on her foot, she dropped it on the ground and, letting the other one fall from her hand, she closed the door and slid the bolt across. Padding down the hall, she took the backs off her jangling costume earrings and was placing them on the hall table when the phone started ringing. Ignoring the tears running down her cheeks, she answered it.
‘I know it’s Saturday evening and you’re probably on your way to meet a hot date,’ Gerry in Justice said, ‘so I’ll cut to the chase, shall I? Your proposal for SLR for rape victims
has been approved. It’s in the pipeline.’ He paused. ‘Are you crying, Birmingham?’
‘Of course not.’ Jo wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve. ‘I’ve just got everything I wanted, haven’t I?’
Regularly, it all becomes too much, but a family member who shouts out in distress or protests in any way can be held in contempt and be transferred to a holding cell until they purge the contempt by apologizing to the court. All they generally want to say is ‘who’ they have lost and how the person being depicted in court by the barrister of the accused is a stranger to them. Some will make a Victim
Impact Statement. Since the trial process has concluded anyway by this point, for most families, it’s cold comfort.
Rape Crisis campaigners argue that one way of empowering victims in court is to provide them with Separate Legal Representation, so as to help put an end to a system which puts the victim on trial. However, the powers that be have reacted to the campaign for SLR as if it would cause the pillars of the temple to fall.
Like Jo Birmingham, I too feel that the scales of justice are too heavily weighted in favour of the accused and need to be rebalanced back towards the victims of crime. This novel is our opening salvo.
Niamh O’Connor
April 2010