Chapter 23 #2
‘You know what’s funny?’ Deirdre says. ‘I get an email almost every week from a journalist doing a story on the housing crisis, asking for a quote. And the articles always end up being about, like, a married couple who can’t get pregnant because they’ve moved back in with parents, or someone whinging about their three-hour commute, or an “oh no, I just have to move to Canada” sob story.
Listening to you, I think they might be missing a trick.
’ She rubs at her temple. ‘And that it’s time for me to retire to the country. ’
‘I think Annalise’s message was supposed to lead me to the Murder House Club. They wanted me to think the house had a history. That it was cursed, or whatever. Because they wanted me out.’
‘I suppose it is a bit creepy, isn’t it?’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘I thought it was charming?’
Deirdre looks at me blankly.
‘Your listing,’ I remind her. ‘That’s how you described it.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. That’s how we describe them all. What do you expect us to say? Haunted death house for sale? Three-bedroom house with all exotic mould cultures included? Shithole, with potential to be slightly less of one?’ An eye-roll. ‘We’re salespeople, not journalists.’
‘And someone definitely has a front-door key. No question.’
Deirdre repeats what she told me before: the solicitor warned her there was only one set.
‘What about a previous owner?’ I ask. ‘I mean, before J— Before I owned it. When you sold it last time, who were you selling it for?’
‘God, don’t remind me. It was a total nightmare.
A couple had left it to their four grown children – four boys – but they couldn’t agree on what to do with it.
They don’t want to sell because they’ll be liable for capital gains, but no one wants to live in it or fork out for renovations so they can rent it.
None of the four can afford to buy the other three out.
So they just fight about it. For years. The fact that it was four brothers was the problem, if you ask me.
No woman around to be the level head. In the end, somehow they came to their senses and put it on the market.
That’s when your boyfriend bought it.’ She colours.
‘Sorry. So … did you actually meet the Backstreet Murder Boys or …?’
I nod. ‘I went to one of their meetings.’
‘What were they like, out of curiosity?’
I tell her what happened, in broad strokes.
‘They vanished on you? Why?’
‘I don’t know. But I think maybe one of them – Steve – knew who I was. As in, knew that I was living in the house they were talking about. They watch the place, apparently. They knew the guards had been there. And when the guards were there, I was standing outside talking to them, so …’
‘You know, I once caught one of them scraping wallpaper off the wall in one of my properties. Newly hung wallpaper. During a viewing.’ Deirdre leans forward, elbows on the desk.
‘Look, like I said, I’m an estate agent.
Not a life coach. Or Jessica Fletcher. But if someone went to the trouble of painting a fake stain on your floorboards, where did they get that idea?
That’s not something the average person is walking around thinking about.
Is it? So, what if they got the idea from the Murder Boys? ’
I’m not following. ‘What if they did?’
‘Then they might know who it is. You could go back and confront them, demand that they tell you everything they know or you’ll report their trespassing on private property.’
It’s an idea.
I only have Alex’s lukewarm identification of Steve to go on, but when I tell the Murder House Club that, I could omit the temperature.
Right now, if I confront Sophie or Annalise, they’ll just deny it.
But what if I could get someone else to confirm it to me first?
Then I could take all this to Garda Murphy and get her to talk to them about harassment.
Presuming she’d care about someone like me being harassed.
Sometimes I forget I’m not the person I was.
‘And you’ve changed the locks?’ Deirdre asks.
‘Well, no.’ I hesitate. ‘To be honest, I can’t really afford to.’
Or meet Deirdre’s eye in the awkward silence that follows.
‘I’ll do you a deal,’ she says. ‘Get me a list of those Murder Idiots’ names so the next time they call up about a viewing I can tell them where to go – and I’ll replace your front-door lock.’
My mouth falls open.
‘Do not make a big deal of it,’ she warns.
‘I have a guy. We use him on our rental side all the time because apparently remembering to bring your house keys out of the house is too great a task for a surprisingly large portion of the population. Bet he won’t even charge me.
In fact, you know what?’ Her eyes gleam with another idea.
‘Pictures, and I’ll throw in the patio-door lock, too.
I could make a Most Wanted poster, but for people banned from my viewings. ’
I think she’s joking, but with Deirdre, it’s genuinely hard to tell.
I sit on one of the benches on Main Street, take out my phone and go to the Murder House Club Facebook page.
I need to find a way to contact them – specifically Bob, because I don’t want to speak to any of the others.
I find his personal Facebook profile easily.
Bob is actually Robert Lawson – an air-traffic controller at Dublin Airport, unexpectedly.
I worry I’ll have to rejoin Facebook to send him a message until I see the URL of a website on his page.
On it, I find a phone number; he answers after only two rings.
‘Hello?’
‘Er, hi. Is this Bob?’
‘Yes?’
‘Bob, this is Eleanor. The woman who came to your meeting last night that you all ran out on while she was in the bathroom.’
Silence.
‘Ah, yeah. Sorry about that.’ He sounds embarrassed.
‘Thing is, Steve knew who you were. He’d been about to tell us someone had moved into One Delaney Row when you walked up to the table, and he recognized you.
He’d seen you outside the house, talking to the guards.
When you didn’t own up to that, he thought you were trying to entrap us or something.
Secretly recording us, perhaps, on your phone. ’
That actually would’ve been a good idea.
‘So Steve has been to my house?’ I ask.
‘Well, yes,’ he admits.
‘Bob, be honest with me. How many times has Steve been inside my house since I’ve moved in?’
‘Inside? Oh, never. He was never inside.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because he wouldn’t have done that,’ Bob says. ‘None of us would. I mean, sure, yeah, he went to the viewing, back when they were selling it, but he wouldn’t have gone into your house after it was yours. God no. That’s not what we do.’
‘How well do you know him?’
I hear a sigh on the line. ‘Look, Steve can be a bit rough around the edges, I know. But he’s a nice fella. He’s just a bit, let’s say, intense at times. That’s all.’
I believe that Bob believes that, but …
‘Why did you all disappear on me?’ I ask, changing tack.
‘Ah, look, we shouldn’t have. It was a bit silly.
And rude. But as soon as you got up, he filled us in.
We didn’t know what your motives were, so we thought the best thing to do was just leave.
Well, Steve thought and we agreed. Like I said, we don’t cause trouble.
We don’t want to. We’re just interested in these properties.
But we were worried, Eleanor, that you were going to cause trouble for us. ’
Eleanor reminds me that they don’t know my name, only where I live.
And unlike Sophie, they don’t know for sure that the house didn’t sell. They only suspect it.
‘But I wasn’t,’ I say. ‘Someone really did say something to me about the house and I just wanted to know what they meant. And, by the way, there wasn’t any drama with the sale.
’ I decide to go with the cover story I should’ve gone with from day one.
‘The owner decided not to sell but to rent it out instead. To me. And the guards were only there because there was a … Well, an attempted break-in.’ I pause.
‘That’s why I was asking you about Steve. ’
‘Oh. Sorry to hear that.’
‘But I did find a stain.’
As Bob is apparently stunned into silence by this revelation, it hits me: I know exactly what I need to do.
‘Bob, would you ever consider coming to the house and testing it for me? With that stuff you were talking about? I know I could probably try it myself, but you guys know what you’re doing. And you’d get to look around, inside the house. We could trade.’
I could get a photo of Steve, to show Alex.
And to give to Garda Murphy, along with his name, if Alex makes a positive ID.
And see their faces, gauge their reactions, when I ask if they know anyone called Sophie or Annalise.
Bob says he’ll get a hold of the others and come back to me. He sounds excited.
So excited, I’m almost tempted to tell him what else I know.
The last time this house changed hands, the Murder House Club said, there was an incident.
The woman who lived in number two back then heard glass breaking and called the guards, who didn’t bother coming.
Then, in the middle of the night, the same neighbour heard a woman screaming – and presumably the same woman fleeing the house, covered in blood.
The owner, the neighbour claimed, was never seen again.
I could add a few details to that story, and correct a few more.
Because I was there.
Because I was the woman screaming.