The Murder Loop, page 14
‘I didn’t mean to–’
‘–and suggest we continue this somewhere warmer. Let me buy you a burger and a beer.’
‘Second time today I’ve been offered a drink and had to decline–’
‘I get it – you’re not allowed–’
‘–but you can buy me the burger.’
Desiring privacy, she suggested eating not in Glencale, but in Scariff, the next town over, on the other side of the Loop. Less likely to be seen or recognised there, she thought.
He chose the venue, and they drove there separately, giving each other the opportunity to back out. Neither did. She liked his choice. The Rookery – better known as Rook’s – was a small family-run hotel and its bar offered exceptionally good food at reasonable prices. Additionally, staff wouldn’t be snobby about their ultra-casual clothing.
They were shown to a booth near the window, but Cass didn’t fancy being on show for passers-by and asked for a less conspicuous table instead.
After perusing the menus, Brady did indeed order a hamburger and truffle fries but Cass knew the seafood was Rook’s speciality and so opted for mussels and pomme frites. To drink, he requested a non-alcoholic beer while she chose an equally unexciting mineral water.
Morbidly, she wondered what her ex-husband would plump for had he been here. The drinks list would have been consulted first, with champagne to start and a decent white to follow. Lobster for sure, and something decadent for dessert, with more wine to wash it down. Coffee as a momentary sop to sobriety, cognac as a digestif. But all of that would effectively comprise one substantial appetiser. The main course would be a half bottle or so of single malt. And if not utterly unconscious by the time he got home, he would hunt for whatever was in the house to round off the night.
In the early years, when things hadn’t been as bad, Cass would find a way to cajole him into bed and get some sleep. In the middle years, she left him be but slept fitfully herself, wishing for him to come to bed, knowing the damage he was doing to himself as he consumed more alcohol into the early hours. In the later years, she had learned to ignore him and sleep soundly, but when she came down the next morning, she would find him unconscious on the couch, a bottle spilled or glass smashed, and on three separate occasions, blood from a cut to his hands or arms that needed stitches. She swore every hospital visit would be her last, but of course, afterwards he was puppy-dog contrite and Cass felt duty-bound to try and help him through. Even though she knew she couldn’t, which was the worst part of all…
Their drinks came, and Cass determined to banish Hugh from her mind and focus on present company. Even now, she couldn’t really tell herself what she was expecting from the evening – only that, after so long alone, it was nice to be here, soothing to have someone to talk to, if only for a short while. Lack of practice meant she’d probably run out of conversation in ten minutes and they’d both be staring at the walls until they could politely make their excuses. But for now, she was content to sit back and enjoy the fleeting, flickering sense of companionship.
For want of something better, Cass told him of her return to her old school earlier that day – omitting Devine’s behaviour – and the strange sensation of catching up with her younger self. She realised then how little of interest her life held outside of work. But if Brady noticed, he hid it well – he was a good conversationalist, opening up pockets of discussion on everything from travel to things he’d seen in the news. While none of it was particularly deep or meaningful, they didn’t have to struggle for sentences either, to her immense relief. Even better, she laughed a few times.
When the food arrived, there was a natural silence rather than a strained one as they took a few moments to dig in. She couldn’t help but notice the enormous amount of salt with which Brady seasoned his food, and it reminded her of something she’d once read: that even though soldiers were much fitter than the average citizen, their mortality rates – once deaths in combat were excluded – were roughly the same because of the excessive amounts of junk food and alcohol they consumed. Presumably a response to stress.
Almost on cue, Brady said: ‘So, tell me about policing in Dublin – you said it was a different experience. A tough beat?’
‘It had its moments. Drugs in some parts of the city drive as much violence as anywhere else in the world. Which is not to say Glencale is a picnic, but around here, I don’t knock on doors wondering whether my stab vest will hold up to a bullet.’
‘You guys patrol unarmed, right?’
‘For the most part. We have armed support units, obviously, and an emergency response unit similar to your SWAT teams. But the majority of us do our work on a daily basis without recourse to firearms.’
‘That is insane. I couldn’t imagine doing what you do without being locked and loaded.’
‘We have lower rates of gun ownership than the States. Licensing is strict and, by and large, civilians don’t carry firearms on their person. The very idea of an open-carry policy would horrify most citizens. So policing is an entirely different proposition here – even if the drugs gangs now have access to arsenals of a small army.’
‘That wasn’t the reason you left though, right? You said you left Dublin for personal reasons – someone to care for?’
Stick or twist.
‘Not exactly. I left Dublin because I got divorced. Wanted a clean break.’
‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘I’m such a frigging dumbass for prying like that.’
No flippancy now. Just a question of how far to swim out.
‘No, it’s okay. Everyone in Glencale knows anyway, because it made the papers. My husband was – is – an alcoholic. He was a talented writer when we first met – did the art and restaurant reviews for different papers and magazines, had ideas for several books and plays. Always the life and soul of a party, and great fun – at least at first.’
Cass paused to take a sip from her glass, and it suddenly struck her that she couldn’t remember Hugh ever drinking water at a dinner table. Not once.
‘But over time, he drank more and wrote less – the alcohol dulled his talent, or at least, his willingness to use that talent,’ she continued.
‘Eventually, everyone stopped hiring him, and he didn’t really seem to care. Didn’t care about the effects of it on me, either, or what my job was. A handful of times I had the pleasure of being contacted by a colleague to say Hugh had been drunk and disorderly somewhere and thrown in a cell to sleep it off.
‘Nothing I tried seemed to help. Even as he deteriorated, the one thing I was sure of was that he would never drive while drunk, because he never had before. Until one day, of course, he did. And ran into a mother and child at a pedestrian crossing. The boy survived; his mother didn’t. And that, in short, is how my husband ended up in prison and I ended up back in Glencale.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Brady said. ‘That is fucked up. It must have been so hard for you.’
‘A woman lost her life, a child lost his mother, a husband lost his wife – it was never about me.’
‘You and your husband – you had no kids yourself?’
‘Never thought it would be wise to bring children into that relationship. Alcoholism tends to run in families, or in Irish families at any rate.’
‘Families everywhere,’ Brady said. ‘There’s lots of evidence it’s a genetic disease.’
‘And progressive. The first I really noticed it with Hugh was when he’d start earlier in the day ahead of a night out – the whole day would then become a write-off. Gradually, he needed to keep going the morning after because that’s what his system urged him to do. One-day benders became two-day benders. That’s the point where you start to despair. Because you realise that, eventually, it will be three, then four, and instead of the person you love being drunk a minority of the time – which you can just about handle – he’s drunk the majority of the time, which is unbearable.’
‘He knew what he was doing to you?’
‘In his way, I guess. Whenever I tried to speak sense into him, encourage him to seek help, he’d say I was becoming “a boring old biddy”. There was a note of affection in there somewhere. If he’d hated me, he would have said “bitch”.’
‘I can see that.’
‘You start to lose your own mind, though – that’s the odd thing. You begin asking yourself: “Is his behaviour really that erratic or am I just being a miserable, joyless cow?” And you realise the extent to which you’re controlling your temper. Day in, day out, trying to be supportive, not callous; to be encouraging, not critical. But it’s the hardest thing – or at least, that’s what I thought until the accident… Anyway, bet you wish you’d asked me something else. What about you? Ever married? Children?’
‘Married once, divorced once, no kids.’
‘What happened?’
‘She thought every deployment increased the chances of me coming home in a body bag. Couldn’t keep doing it.’
‘You were in high-risk places? You never said exactly where you served.’
‘Anywhere they sent me.’
‘Can’t be more precise?’
‘Think of any major US arena over the last while and I was probably there at some point.’
‘Then I guess your wife’s concern was understandable, even if it hurt like hell?’
‘You would think. She said to me: “We get one chance at life. This can’t be mine.” Which I should have understood, right? Truth was, I didn’t understand it at all. In whatever shithole or shitshow my job got me into, Amy was always what kept me going – the thought of coming home to her.’
‘You were angry?’
‘I was… motherfucking angry.’ It didn’t come across aggressively. He said it in a low-key tone, exhaling deeply as if glad to release it.
‘Why didn’t you just quit – or quit sooner?’
‘It wasn’t that straightforward.’
‘So coming here was to get away from it?’
‘That and other things.’
‘You mentioned burnout earlier,’ she said gently, weary of pushing too hard.
‘Poor word selection.’
‘But that morning I called to the house – you were having trouble sleeping.’
‘Like you said, I guess I saw some things.’
He was searching for a way to continue his story. Cass said nothing, giving him space to figure it out.
‘One of our medics said to me once that a surgeon’s greatest fear is developing a tremor in his hands. And that, for soldiers, it’s a tremor in their heads – the point when a state of heightened and permanent vigilance turns into constant and irrational fear. I realised I was getting to that point, and would be a liability to the guys I served with. So it was time to go do something else. But by the time I saw the light, my divorce papers were in the mail. So I figured it was time to get away. And Ireland came top of the list.’
So we both escaped to Glencale, Cass thought. But I guess the question is, are we truly starting over here? Or just hiding from our hurt?
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
In the solitude of Rook’s bathroom, Brady felt like head-butting the mirror simply to bring himself back to his senses.
Angry? Motherfucking angry?
Rage was more accurate. He had raged when Amy left him. Was raging still. She walked out at his weakest moment, when he was absolutely broken. Eventually, he had come to see that she had been broken too – by what he endured, by what came after, by what she was expected to cope with going forward.
But still… Rage.
And he’d admitted as much to Kate Cassidy.
That was after already confessing to burnout.
All the meticulous planning – to keep a low profile, say or do nothing of interest, hide his past and his true reasons for being here…
He may have deluded himself that getting closer to Cass was a clever ruse to stay abreast of the police investigation.
But that’s all it was – delusion.
He was putting everything at risk.
And for no other reason than the stupidest one of all.
Bit by bit, he was unlocking himself to her.
He knew exactly why.
Brady closed his eyes, could summon the terrors at a moment’s notice, the dreadful sensation of steel wool dragging across his face.
His palms became sweaty, and his face flushed as he relived every moment of it.
He could feel the exact point on his wrists where the cable ties had dug in.
The disorientation of the canvas hood over his head.
The urge to vomit from the greasy rag stuffed in his mouth.
The struggle to breathe, the sense of choking.
The moment where he pissed himself knowing there would be no escape.
Being dragged out of the van and dumped onto the ground, blinded by pain, fear rendering him a human wreck.
Hearing the voice of his mother.
‘Hush, darling, sleep now.’
Hearing the gun fire.
Through the only sliver of awareness left, realising they’d shot Pitch first.
His turn next…
God, why have you forsaken me?
And then the largest fusillade of gunfire and grenade blasts he’d ever heard in his life.
Bullets crackling and bodies falling.
An agonised cacophony of mutilation and death.
Trying feverishly through the pain to twist away, roll to safety, not knowing in what direction safety lay.
Until a series of hands plucked him from the ground, and ran with him.
And the voice that, like a lifebuoy thrown to a drowning man at sea, was the miracle that dragged him back to the shore of sanity.
An American voice.
Saying three words that brought tears to his eyes every time he thought of them.
‘We’ve got you.’
He opened his eyes. Stared at himself in the mirror and despite the haunted reflection, knew he was looking at a fortunate man, one with half his life yet to live. Felt the familiar sense of survivor’s guilt that it was Pitch, and not himself, who had been executed. The eternal gratitude to the colleagues who had so selflessly come to his rescue. Imagining what would have happened had they had arrived just thirty seconds later.
He was flown to Landstuhl, the military trauma centre in Germany, for medical repair and rehabilitation. Some weeks later, he returned home to the States, to Amy, physically fragile and mentally smashed. He knew his rage at her subsequent decision to leave him was, in many ways, ill-directed. She had actually wanted to help him through, would have stayed had he been focused solely on recovery, would have held him up when taking every faltering step. What shook her so badly was the fact that Brady had left for his deployment a rational, proportionate man and returned from rehabilitation a cold obsessive, hell-bent on violence.
Don’t sleep, can’t sleep, the dead haunt you.
PTSD, obsessional, kill or be killed, an eye for an eye.
On the cusp of getting away with murder until Kate Cassidy walks into my life and reminds me of everything I held so close and lost.
Life, love and the chance that a guy might be lucky enough to have both.
I should walk out of here, thank her for a nice evening, and take it no further. But some impulses are too powerful to be controlled.
He had intuited from the beginning that she was hurting too.
Now he knew it to be so.
Two damaged souls colliding with each other.
And he knew the odds favoured this particular collision ending terribly.
PART 2
THE DEAD SLIDE IN AND OUT OF REACH
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Cass woke with a start, nerves jangling from the sound playing almost imperceptibly in her mind: the clang of a church bell in the wind.
She stayed perfectly still for twenty seconds or so and heard nothing, realising it had just been a bad dream.
She was alone in the room, Brady’s side of the bed cold. Reaching for her phone, she saw it was a little after four in the morning. Despite the unsettling dream, the isolation of the church and Brady’s disappearance, she found herself smiling.
By rights, he should have been sleepy enough: they’d had vigorous sex twice. The first was unfamiliar, fumbling, rushed. The second was less frenetic; without need for words, she showed him some of the things that worked for her until she came. It hardly took a genius to recognise that the spontaneity of the night had probably been unwise. But she was gratified that, for the first night in a long time, she had thought of something other than her ex-husband, a motherless child, or the dead body of Nabila Fathi while drifting off to sleep.
When they’d finished at the restaurant, it was clear to both of them they didn’t want to go their separate ways. They opted for his place, as it was closer, and avoided a scenario whereby prying eyes noticed Brady entering or exiting Cass’s apartment. Once back at the church, things had escalated quickly.
She realised Brady hadn’t been lying about his insomnia. She rose and threw on her hoodie, padding out from the darkness of the curtained bedroom onto the balcony, from where she could see Brady, sitting in an armchair facing the sliding doors, staring out at the grove. Alert but serene, not anxious, not fidgeting. Seemingly unaware of her presence. She padded down the stairs and now he heard her, turning his head and smiling too.
‘I hope I didn’t wake you.’
She shook her head, preferring not to mention the real reason: being woken by the peals of an imaginary bell.
‘Your difficulty sleeping – it’s every night?’
‘I sleep fine – just from dawn to mid-morning.’
‘You try seeing anyone about it – a professional?’
‘To say what?’ he asked, shrugging. ‘I’m a soldier who’s afraid of the dark. Which sounds ridiculous, because it is. I’ve tried the doctors, tried the counsellors and tried the medication. Didn’t work. So I’m here, trying to deal with it myself.’
There was a brief silence as Cass contemplated how to respond. I’ve been there too, she wanted to say.
