Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series) (38 page)

The man dug a grubby square of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Pat.

“Looks like a Cork exchange—are they in Cork?”

Victor nodded, his face resuming the blank stare it had worn upon their arrival.

Pat turned to Pamela. “Down the lane is a wee village—stop at O’Brien’s pub an’ call from there—an’ when I say O’Brien’s I bloody mean O’Brien’s,” he said sternly, “don’t go into the Arms, it’s not a friendly place for a Catholic. I’ll sit with Victor an’ see if I can get him to make a few decisions here. Christ,” he sighed, “we’ll have to get the police out here as well, otherwise it might look as though we’re colluding in some sort of cover-up.”

The village was only a five-minute drive along the bent-back road, and O’Brien’s a comely little building that sat in the shadow of the tall-spired church.

The publican greeted her as she entered with a wave of his polishing cloth and a hearty hello. When she explained the situation, he was properly sympathetic and pointed her to the phone, an ancient wooden-boxed relic that hung on the wall beside the bar.

“Jaysus the poor woman—she’d been in here to use the phone a week back. I’d no notion she was so close to havin’ the baby though. Thin as a reed, an’ a mite anemic lookin’. You call the parents lass, an’ I’ll call the RUC station for ye. My brother-in-law is the one token Catholic hereabouts on the force. If he comes out, ye’ll get less hassle altogether.”

The phone call to the woman’s parents wasn’t terribly pleasant, and once it was done Pamela felt completely drained.

“Sit a minute lass, I’ve poured ye a small whiskey to put the blood back in yer veins. Drink it down before ye go, ‘tis on the house.”

Pamela sat and took the whiskey in three grateful swallows. It went down smoothly and set to building a small fire in her core right away. It also went some way toward restoring her equilibrium, and taking the bloody edge from the picture in her mind.

She arrived back in the small clearing, with the police car right behind her. The coroner arrived a minute later and the system swiftly took over.

“Constable Flanagan,” said the tall, slightly weedy looking man that emerged from the low car. “Did you two find the bodies?”

Pat quickly explained what had taken place.

The coroner was in and out within twenty minutes, having determined both time and cause of death. He was as round as he was high, and looked like one of those wobble bottom dolls that were made for very young children.

“Where’s the husband?” he asked in a brisk, matter-of-fact tone.

“Gone,” Pat said, his own tone rather brisk. Pamela gave him a sidelong glance, puzzled at his shift in temper.

The coroner harrumphed at this one word answer and turned to Constable Flanagan.

“Looks like they’ve both been dead the two days now. Mother died from blood loss and the babby from strangling on the cord. There’s nothin’ the man could have done to save either, they should have been in hospital.”

“By the time he knew the baby was coming it was too late,” Pat said quietly. “He told me that much before he left.”

“Ye should have held him here, even if it meant ye had to knock him out. He’d no right leaving the scene of a death—makes him look guilty.”

“Of what? Being a bereaved husband and father?” Pat asked.

The man’s face tightened like a balloon blown too far. “Ye should speak with respect to your elders and betters, young man.”

“When I find a better I will,” Pat said coolly, his eyes locked to the man’s pale blue ones.

“Gentlemen,” Pamela interjected, “it hardly seems appropriate to stand here exchanging insults when there’s a mother and child dead inside that trailer.”

Pat flushed guiltily and the coroner harrumphed again. It was enough to defuse the situation. Though she didn’t have the slightest idea what about the man had provoked Pat in the first place.

Within a half-hour the bodies had been bundled out of the trailer, the baby a small round under the sheet that covered both he and his mother. The coroner had finished off and was making notes inside his car while Constable Flanagan had a smoke by the remnants of the fire.

“May we go now?” Pat asked.

“I see no reason why not,” Constable Flanagan said agreeably. “I’ve yer numbers should I need to ask any follow-up questions. The parents will be here by tomorrow to claim the bodies. Thanks for yer help here today.” He shook their hands, his grip firm and dry.

Once in the car, Pat just sat there, hand holding the keys in the ignition, staring over the steering wheel.

“What is it?”

He turned, dark eyes pained. “I’m sorry. I’d no idea what I was taking you to face.” She shook her head, the vision of the dead baby so clear in her mind that she thought she might never be rid of it.

“You didn’t know, and it’s fortunate we did turn up. He desperately needed help.” She smiled to ease his worry.

“Aye, but did we give it to him? He’s gone off in a terrible state, but it didn’t seem right to stop him. Besides, all he cared about in the world is gone, ‘tisn’t as though he were leaving anything behind.”

Clouds were scudding across the early evening sky, a dull gold permeating their pewter centers so that the odd ray peeked out here and there. They had the road to themselves excepting the odd farm lorry coming back empty from Belfast. They were about halfway back to the city when Pat pulled off on the rise of a hill and parked the car where its lights cast long beams into a freshly furrowed potato field. The soil ribboned away black and rich into the dusky horizon.

“There’s a thermos of coffee in the back. I could use the fortification, I think it’s just hit me what’s happened. Do ye mind?”

“Of course not.”

Pat poured them each a cup and Pamela clutched hers tightly, grateful for the small warmth it provided.

“You seemed very edgy with the coroner.”

Pat took a swallow of his coffee and grimaced. “Christ that’s strong, it needs more sugar.” She handed him two lumps along with a pointed look.

“Alright, Nosey Parker,” he said, “I did remember him, though I don’t think he remembered me. Last summer durin’ the marchin’ season—well ye know how it gets round Belfast when the Orange parades are gearin’ up—there was a group of Prods that went on a rampage through the streets, they beat up an old man who was stumblin’ home drunk. And they set fire to a couple of the buildins’ along the street where my old office was. I went down there, but all I could do was watch from a distance as the place went up. There was still a group of them millin’ about and had I tried to interfere, I’d have lost a great deal more than an office. They started to drift off when they heard the sirens wailin’, but one man stayed. I could see him clear as he was lit up by the fires, an’ I was back in the shadows. He was standin’ there, face all aglow, watchin’ the buildins’ burn, as though the fire were givin’ him intense pleasure. It chilled me to the bone that look, an’ I knew I’d not forget it in a hurry. Then I saw him today, ‘twas the wee round ball of a coroner, I’d swear to it.”

“He looked so starchy and respectable.”

“Aye, didn’t he though? Hatred wears a thousand faces in this country, though, an’ some of the worst of it is in the most respectable places ye can imagine.”

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it? The trouble.”

Pat took a moment before answering. “Aye, I suppose it is. There’s a tension building, an’ I’m afraid when the dam of it breaks, many are goin’ to drown in the flood. There’s pockets of peace, but they’re small and the violence only seems worse as each one passes.”

They finished off the thermos, watching as twilight threw a thick blanket over the surrounding fields and woods. It was cozy in the car, with the heater blowing and the coffee thawing both hands and stomachs.

“It may be that I am a selfish man, but I’m glad ye’ve come home,” Pat said quietly. “An’ that ye brought my big brother with ye,” he added with a grin.

“I am too,” she said, surprised to find the words were true. In some way she did feel at home here, despite the worry and fear.

Pat shifted the car into reverse, “Home then?”

“Aye, home.”

IN AND ABOUT THE TWO-POTTED CHIMNEYS, snow swirled in delicate eddies like lacewings caught in a vortex. The snow, fine and airy, laid a pretty blue-tinged blanket over the whole city, smudging its lines and rounding out the sharper corners. Even Napoleon’s Nose had lost its beakiness and surrendered into a soft star-spangled hump.

Pamela leaned out the dormer window and took a breath of the wet, fresh air. The snow had washed the pollution away for the moment and the air had the quality of crystal, clean and thin, ringing with purity. In the east she could vaguely see the prehistoric shapes, like dinosaurs risen from stone, that soared against the night sky, of the Harland and Wolff Cranes, nicknamed Samson and Goliath. To the west the whitened slopes of Black Mountain, to the south, which lay behind her, were the long elm-garlanded expanses of Knockdene and Malone Park and the broken-down palace otherwise known as Stormont, Ulster’s parliament. To the north, glittering against an indigo-streaked sky were the fairytale outlines of Kirkpatrick’s Folly. At this distance it was an indistinct blur, but her mind filled out the details.

She had always felt that the artwork that appealed to a person said something very definitive about that person’s soul. Jamie’s collection was eclectic to say the least; from a moody, blue Degas canvas in the formal sitting room to the Jack Yeats with its definitive thick flowing lines to the Turner with its soft illumination that hung in his bedroom. He collected modern artists as well, mostly Americans such as Hockney, Pollack and Rauschenberg. In his study there hung only one painting, a Vermeer. It was this painting that best reflected the essence of Jamie. It was the work of an artist who’d shed the concerns of the world, who’d left his personal darkness behind and emerged to paint with a light-ridden brush—the work of a man who was, after a long and painful struggle, free. She thought that, for Jamie, it represented the promise of light after a long and arduous journey.

She was just beginning to doze, nose grazing the frosted windowpane, when she heard the sound of a key in the downstairs door. She started awake, shivering in the insubstantial nightgown. She had, rather optimistically, donned it hours ago in anticipation of her husbands’ arrival home. The room was freezing, and her nose and feet were most unromantically numb. The sound below went on for several minutes so she cracked the window slightly, hiking up her trailing silks and clambering onto the window seat in an effort to see the door below.

The night, awash with snow and streetlights, was almost as bright as midday. He was clearly outlined, the white of the ground throwing his darkness into sharp relief. She saw him fumble with the lock, curse, drop the keys into the snow, and then, uttering a rather impressive stream of invectives, go down on his knees in an attempt to find the keys. She opened the window wider, her skin immediately rippling into goosebumps at the invasion of freakishly cold March air.

“Need help?” she asked tartly.

“No, I’m just makin’ snow angels out here an’ will be in as soon as I’ve finished with Gabriel an’ his wee trumpet,” he replied in broad and slightly slurred tones. Rather witty, she thought, considering he was gloriously, supremely drunk. She snapped the window shut, of half a mind to leave him until he could locate the missing keys. However, considering the state he was in, he was likely to freeze to death before he managed to find said keys.

When she opened the door he was laying on his back, a last few flakes of snow drifting down from a spent sky and landing daintily on his outstretched tongue.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Tryin’ to sober up,” he replied cheerfully.

“By catching snowflakes on your tongue?”

“Aye, drinkin’ water is the only way not to wake up with a godawful hangover in the mornin’. An’ as I’d given up on findin’ the keys an’ ye seemed uncertain as to whether or not to open the door to me, I thought I’d best drink what was to hand.”

He was even drunker, she realized, than she’d originally thought.

“If you’ve a mind to crawl in out of the snow,” she said uncharitably, “I’ll leave the door unlocked.” She turned back towards the entry, silk fluttering around her calves, only to feel a strong, broad hand clamp itself around her ankle.

“Stay with me, the night is fine,” Casey said, voice suddenly amorous.

“Are you mad? It’s freezing out here and I’m not exactly dressed for the weather.”

Casey grinned, snow spangling his lashes and hair. “I noticed, I can see all ye own. I take it ye didn’t choose the garment for its warmth?”

“No, it was intended for other purposes, but now I’m going upstairs to change into flannel and rub myself down with mentholatum so I don’t catch a chill.”

“The tone of yer voice is startin’ to make the snow look warm darlin’, are ye angry at me?”

She glared down at him, a stinging retort on her tongue and then suddenly laughed. He looked ridiculous, arms and legs asprawl in the snow, fine whorls of frost forming in his curls. Arcing around him was the shape of an angel, with outspread wings and billowing skirts that were ever so slightly askew. Eyes a tad unfocused, Casey appeared as harmless as a curly black lamb left to the elements.

The hand on her ankle inched its way upward. So much, she thought, arching her eyebrows at him, for the innocence of lambs.

“As much as I’d like to follow ye into the house,” he said, closing his right eye, as if he’d only the strength to focus one at a time, “I don’t think I can manage it as I can’t feel m’legs just yet.”

The hand had found the back of her knee and the index finger, well versed in her vulnerabilities, pressed into an especially sensitive spot.

“
Oof—”
he exclaimed as she dropped onto his chest. “Felt that, must be regainin’ my faculties.”

She slapped his ear lightly and made to move off his chest. But he pulled her back down and kissed her in a manner rather impressive for a man so severely incapacitated. She felt slightly drunk when she pulled away, likely from the whiskey fumes that rose off him like steam from a sulfur bath.