The Gathering of Souls Read online

  THE GATHERING OF SOULS

  GERRY O’CARROLL

  WITH JEFF GULVIN

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dublin Sunday 31st August, 9.45 pm

  Sunday 31st August 9.45 pm

  Conor Maggs’s confession The Four Courts, Dublin Monday 15th April 2 pm

  Sunday 31st August 10.05 pm

  Sunday 31st August 10.05 pm

  Sunday 31st August 10.10 pm

  Sunday 31st August 10.17 pm

  Monday 1st September 3 am

  Monday 1st September 6 am

  Monday 1st September 7 am

  Monday 1st September 7 am

  Monday 1st September 7.30 am

  Monday 1st September 7.50 am

  Monday 1st September 8.30 am

  Monday 1st September 8.45 am

  Monday 1st September 9 am

  Monday 1st September 9.10 am

  Monday 1st September 9.21am

  Monday 1st September 9.30 am

  Monday 1st September 9.30 am

  Monday 1st September 2.30 pm

  Monday 1st September 5.30 pm

  Monday 1st September 6 pm

  Monday 1st September 6.30 pm

  Monday 1st September 6.30 pm

  Monday 1st September 8.30 pm

  Monday 1st September 8.45 pm

  Monday 1st September 11.55 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 1 am

  Tuesday 2nd September 5 am

  Tuesday 2nd September 8 am

  Tuesday 2nd September 8.30 am

  Tuesday 2nd September 8.45 am

  Tuesday 2nd September 10.25 am

  Tuesday 2nd September 10.35 am

  Tuesday 2nd September 10.35 am

  Tuesday 2nd September 10.45 am

  Tuesday 2nd September 10.55am

  Tuesday 2nd September 11.25 am

  Tuesday 2nd September 12.15 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 12.30 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 12.45 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 12.50 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 1.15 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 2 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 2.35pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 3.35 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 2.45 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 4.05pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 4.15 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 4.25 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 4.45 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 5.15 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 6 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 7 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 7.15 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 7.15 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 7.40 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 7.45 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 8.30 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 9 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 9.20 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 9.22 pm

  Tuesday 2nd September 9.30 pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 8 am

  Wednesday 3rd September 9 am

  Wednesday 3rd September 9.30 am

  Wednesday 3rd September 10 am

  Wednesday 3rd September 10.25 am

  Wednesday 3rd September 11 am

  Wednesday 3rd September Midnight

  Wednesday 3rd September 12.05 pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 12.10 pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 2.30 pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 3 pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 3.30 pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 7.30pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 9.30 pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 9.50pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 10.03 pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 10.03 pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 10.10 pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 10.15 pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 10.25 pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 10.35 pm

  Wednesday 3rd September 10.46 pm

  Other books by Jeff Gulvin:

  Copyright

  Dublin

  Sunday 31st August, 9.45 pm

  Eva could see how pale she looked reflected in the darkened glass. It was a year to the day since her son had set off for Tommy O’Driscoll’s house only for a car to come flying around the corner, the driver drunk or high on drugs or just full of malice.

  Downstairs, the phone was ringing. She hoped it wasn’t her husband. After seeing him this afternoon at the cemetery, she couldn’t talk to him now. She should talk to him; she knew she should; his loss was as great as hers. She blamed him, and he knew it – though it didn’t make any sense. But he was a policeman. They had scrapings of paint and traces of metal from the car. They had tyre marks. And yet he, the man who’d made his name at Dublin crime scenes, couldn’t locate the hit-and-run driver who had killed their only son. Somehow it had created a vacuum between them. Too much to think about, too many emotions; no space, no peace to try and work it out. She realised she had the telephone receiver in her hand. ‘Hello?’ she said. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Eva, it’s Paddy. Are you OK?’

  Patrick Maguire, her mentor, the man who allowed her to talk while he sat across the kitchen table and listened.

  ‘Paddy,’ she said softly. ‘I’m fine. How are you?’

  ‘I’m sorry to call so late, but I’ve been worried about you. There were so many people at the cemetery today; I was concerned it would overwhelm you.’

  ‘It did a bit, to be honest,’ she admitted. ‘I didn’t get a moment alone with Danny.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘There were so many people, they’d all come to mark the day, and I … I didn’t want to say anything.’

  ‘You’re his mother. Everyone knows you. You’re entitled to some private time with him.’

  ‘I know, but I had Jess and Laura to think about. Did you see the flowers, Paddy? Everyone brought so many beautiful flowers.’

  ‘I know; they were fantastic. Look, Eva, I’m sorry you didn’t get any time with him.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said, ‘there’ll be other days. God knows there will be lots of other days.’

  Tears threatened suddenly, and she could feel the lump in her throat. ‘Oh Pad,’ she whispered, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. I feel so empty, so confused. I hardly know what to do with myself.’

  ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘it’s the first anniversary, and it was always going to be the hardest. Just go with it: feel what you feel and make no apologies either to yourself or to anyone else. Nobody can feel what you do; nobody else was his mother.’

  His voice was so gentle. She could see his face, his smile; the tenderness in his eyes. She wondered for a moment then, as she’d wondered a few times, what life might’ve been like if she’d not been so taken with Moss all those years ago.

  ‘Did you speak to him?’ Patrick asked, as if guessing her thoughts.

  ‘Not properly. I just can’t seem to. It’s been a year, and whoever did this is out there living their life, and here I am with my twelve-year-old in the ground. I blame my husband – at least for not finding out who did it. I know it’s irrational, and I know I shouldn’t, and I know it’s hurting people. But I can’t seem to get beyond it. He catches criminals but he can’t catch this one. Doesn’t he understand? This is the only one that matters.’ Sobs tightened her throat, and she struggled to hold them back. ‘I know it’s not his fault, and I know he’s hurting just as much as I am, but somehow I can’t grieve with him; I have to grieve on my own.’

  ‘You’ll come through it,’ Patrick told her gently. ‘Like everything else it will take time, but you will come through it.’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. Really, I’m not sure I will.’

  ‘You will, Eva
. I promise. You just have to give it time.’

  ‘It’s been six months,’ she reminded him. ‘Moss moved out just before the trial, and the … the truth is I’m not sure any more. I’m not sure there’s any coming back from where we are now.’

  Walking through to the living room, she caught another glimpse of her reflection in the window. ‘I hate myself for what it’s doing to the girls,’ she said. ‘I mean, on top of Danny’s death and everything. But I just can’t help it.’ The tears threatened to swamp her now. ‘Paddy,’ she said, haltingly, ‘I’m thinking of moving back to Kerry.’

  For a moment he was silent. ‘Really?’

  ‘My mam is there, and my sisters, and with what happened up here, I can’t deal with Dublin any more.’

  ‘What about Moss?’

  ‘I don’t know; perhaps we’ll get a divorce.’

  There, she’d said it: at last she’d voiced what she had been thinking for so long. But she couldn’t talk any more tonight; saying goodbye to Patrick, she hung up and stood before the window. She looked like a fragile piece of sculpture. All she could think about was her son: she had two daughters who needed her now more than ever, but all she could see was Danny.

  She couldn’t leave him. She couldn’t leave him on his own, not without a few words, not today of all days: they had had no time earlier, and there was so much she wanted to say.

  *

  Across the street he stood in shadow, as earlier he’d stood among gravestones. Above the city, the clouds had parted, and moonlight spilled onto the dirty pavement. Puddles lapped kerbstones as they’d marked paths in the cemetery. He had watched the way she’d dealt with everyone; she had been unfailingly polite and gracious, yet he knew how desperate she was. He had watched the way she was around her husband, together and yet separate, the distance between them tangible.

  He watched her now silhouetted in the living room window.

  *

  Eva hated herself for leaving the girls, but she couldn’t let this day pass without having a moment alone with her son. Listening for sounds from upstairs, she grabbed her car keys and stepped outside. The rain had gone, but the air was damp and the avenue lay in darkness. The three-storey Georgian houses stood shoulder to shoulder, grey stone and greyer slate; street lights illuminating steps and railings, the parked cars half-hidden behind the massive chestnut trees. She glanced up at her daughters’ bedroom windows: she wouldn’t be long, half an hour at the most. Nothing could happen in half an hour; she would be back and feeling better, and they’d never even know she’d been gone. Yet crossing the road to her car, she knew that this was wrong. This was very wrong; it wasn’t rational. She almost went back. But Danny beckoned; her son called her, as he had never called her before.

  *

  He watched as she paused there on the step. He watched as she got in her car. He watched as the engine fired and the lights came on and she glanced furtively at the upstairs windows. Then she pulled out and, gunning the engine, drove quickly to the T-junction. Without indicating, she swung onto the main road. Stepping from the trees, he stole a lingering look at the house: the upstairs in perfect darkness; lights from the hall below.

  Sunday 31st August 9.45 pm

  A light burned in the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. South of the river on the fifth floor at Harcourt Square, thirty-nine-year-old Inspector Moss Quinn sat hunched over his desk. At six foot, give or take an inch, he was leanly built, with hair flecked grey at the temples. He wore an Armani suit; his tie was undone and gold links hung at the cuffs of his shirt.

  Sunday night, and there was no other detective in the suite. Sitting there in the half-dark, he could see Eva as she’d been in the cemetery: how gaunt and hopeless she’d looked; the hollow expression in her eyes. He reminded himself that he had come in to collate the files: five women – five single mothers who had disappeared, leaving their children behind. Their cases went back six years, to Janice Long and Karen Brady, and tomorrow he and Detective Murphy were making the temporary transfer to a new unit in Naas. Since the collapse of Maggs’s trial, there had been questions raised in the Dáil; questions about him; his career had been publicly scrutinised for the first time. He didn’t like it; he didn’t like it at all. But now, perhaps, he had a chance to redeem himself. In the words of the justice minister, the souls of these five wretched women must finally be laid to rest.

  There was another file on Quinn’s desk – a case Murphy had asked about on Friday. He’d been reminded of it again that morning, when he’d noticed the necklace his wife was wearing. He turned the pages, a fist pressed to his jowls. The night of the music festival, Mary Harrington had died of thirst and Conor Maggs had confessed.

  Quinn sat back, arms folded. He could hear the words; he didn’t have to read them. The murder trial; the defendant taking the stand in the Four Courts; the barrister giving him the pages, telling him to read them aloud.

  Conor Maggs’s confession The Four Courts, Dublin Monday 15th April 2 pm

  For a moment Maggs just sat there. He peered at Quinn; he stared hard at Doyle. Then he spoke, his tongue snaking his lips and his hand shaking slightly as it held the page.

  I spoke to her outside the corner shop. She came teetering up from Jett O’Carroll’s pub on a pair of high heels that looked as though they were going to turn her ankle. A little later I saw her again: she was trying to light a cigarette standing in the shadows cast by the solicitor’s building.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘it’s you again. We keep bumping into each other.’

  She looked up with a squint, the lighted match wavering.

  ‘Up the road, remember? You bumped into me and had to sit down on the window.’

  ‘Did I?’ she muttered.

  ‘You’d had a run-in with your girlfriend’.

  ‘Yeah, well there you go. What the fuck, eh? Who cares?’ She looked as though she was about to fall over; taking her hand, I steadied her. She was peering at me, blinking slowly, but she didn’t pull away. Moving closer, I could smell the scent she was wearing: I could see the glint of perspiration where it gathered at the base of her throat.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked her.

  ‘Mary.’

  ‘I’m Conor.’ I smiled now, still holding her hand. Turning her palm upwards, I studied the lines in the skin. ‘You know you have a very long love line. Has anyone ever told you? It’s really strong, look.’ I paused then, and added: ‘Your life line is a little short, mind.’

  She pulled her hand away but made no move to leave. She just stood there sucking on her cigarette.

  I glanced across the square towards the big marquee, where a band was playing. ‘I’ve had enough of the music,’ I said. ‘Been here all night. What about you? Do you fancy going somewhere?’

  Mary shrugged.

  ‘If you’ve had a fight with your friend, why don’t I bring you somewhere?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know, the beach maybe. What do you think? We could go to Ballybunion and take a look at the sea.’

  She thought about that for a moment. ‘Have you got a car?’

  What a question! Jesus, I had a Ford Granada: a classic, just like the one Jack Regan had driven in the old TV series ‘The Sweeney’. Immaculate in silver, with a black vinyl roof and perfect upholstery, it was parked round the corner in a side road. Settling her in the passenger seat, I fired up the engine.

  Halfway to the coast, she cracked her window a fraction, took the pack of cigarettes from her bag and lit one.

  Like a wave, the anger washed over me. I hate smoking; I mean, I really hate it. She hadn’t asked; no one smoked in my car. I stared ahead, knuckles white on the steering wheel. She didn’t say anything. She just sat there, dragging on her fag like she was suckling. I saw ash break and spill onto the seat.

  It was as if someone had struck me: I could feel a tremor, my jaw was tight. Slowing the car, I looked for somewhere to turn.

  ‘I thought you were bringing me to the bea
ch,’ she said.

  ‘It’s too far, there’s not enough time. I’ll just pull off and we can look at the moon or something.’

  ‘The moon,’ she said, flicking at the end of the cigarette. ‘What d’you want to look at the moon for?’

  The ash fell on the carpet. I turned up a track that ran between farmers’ fields. A hundred yards off the road, it widened at a five-bar gate. Pulling over, I switched off the engine. Neither of us spoke now: my window down, I rested an elbow on the sill.

  ‘Come on,’ I said finally, ‘let’s get some air. You’ve had a few to drink, and the last thing I need is you chucking up in my car.’

  Getting out, I walked round the front and opened her door. Then, taking her hand, I helped her out. She lolled against me, the heels of her shoes catching in the stones on the track. I led her to the gate and she rested against it, still sucking on her cigarette. Without thinking, she blew smoke in my face.

  I looked away in disgust; I looked at the ground, and then up. The moon was bright, the sky streaked with cloud. I stepped across her where she leant with her back to the gate; my hands at her waist and one leg either side of her. I kissed her. She tasted of cigarettes; it reminded me of my mother.

  Hooking her hands around my neck, she tried to kiss me. I backed away: all I could taste, all I could smell, was cigarettes.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  I didn’t reply. I was looking across the fields to the lights of a house in the distance.

  ‘What’s up?’ she was slurring. ‘What did you say your name was? Colin, was it? Shit, I don’t remember.’ She was giggling now. ‘What’s the matter, Colin, is your girlfriend back there or something?’

  I didn’t reply; I just stared at her.

  ‘Let’s go back,’ she said. ‘What the hell, we never got to the beach, did we, and I never fancied you anyway.’

  ‘We can’t go back,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean, we can’t go back? Of course we can. Take me back, Colin. Come on, let’s go back and listen to some music.’

  ‘It’s Conor, all right. My name is Conor, not Colin.’