Chapter 9
Kirby brought Garda Martina Brennan along with him to inform Caroline Healy’s mother of her daughter’s death and that of her granddaughter and son-in-law.
Mrs Alice Quigley, a very tall, bony woman in her late fifties to early sixties, jumped up from a flower bed and pulled off gardening gloves to greet them. He wondered what sort of gardening anyone could be doing in such bad weather. Her hair was bunched up under a headscarf.
Martina couldn’t help herself. ‘Oh, I love your scarf. Hermès?’
‘A dupe,’ Alice said. ‘Dunnes Stores had them last year. Nothing wrong, I hope?’ She eyed Martina’s Garda uniform before resting her dark brown eyes on Kirby.
How was he to go about telling her that her daughter and granddaughter were dead? He introduced himself. ‘Could we go inside, Mrs Quigley?’
‘The name is Alice, and you’re scaring me now. What’s going on?’
Martina stepped forward. ‘We have something we want to, eh… discuss with you. I think we should go inside and put the kettle on.’
Kirby could see that Alice was about to object, her mouth moving but no words finding their way out. Finally she allowed Martina to lead her towards the house.
‘Back door,’ she said. ‘I hardly ever use the front. Darn thing sticks.’
As they walked around the side of the prefab-style bungalow, Kirby noticed how neat the garden was, even with it being October.
The leaves from the bordering trees were swept up in neat piles.
The flower bed that Alice had been working on at the front was replicated at the back of the house.
His girlfriend, Amy, would know the names of the flowers.
He hadn’t a clue about gardening. Hardy annuals, he assumed, and hoped Caroline’s mother was of a similar nature.
He dreaded the words he was about to impart.
Inside, the compact kitchen was so untidy that Kirby almost felt at home. It looked the way he’d neglected his house before he’d met Amy. Laundry was scattered on the backs of chairs. The floor hadn’t been swept recently, let alone mopped. There was an acidic smell, something like cat’s piss.
Alice removed her scarf, revealing flyaway bobbed hair.
She filled the kettle and searched for clean mugs on the cluttered countertop and in the overflowing cupboards.
She ran water from the tap over three mugs she found in the sink and put them on the table, dripping wet. She sat while the water was boiling.
‘Go ahead now, Detective, what is it you want to say to me?’
‘It’s bad news, I’m afraid,’ Kirby said, grimacing at what he was about to reveal. ‘It’s your daughter.’
‘Caroline? What about her? I was over there yesterday.’
‘I’m so sorry, but she’s dead.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I told you, I saw her yesterday. It was Freya’s birthday party. Can’t believe my granddaughter is a twelve-year-old. The years go by in a flash. Have you any children yourself?’
‘Alice,’ Kirby said quietly but firmly. ‘There’s no easy way to say this, but it’s the truth. They’re all dead. Caroline, Cameron and… I’m so sorry, Freya too.’
He’d expected the woman to scream and fall in a heap of sorrow, but Alice Quigley stared at him stoically.
Then she grabbed her phone and began stabbing at the screen with trembling fingers.
‘I don’t believe you. I’m calling Caroline right now.
You should be ashamed of yourself, terrifying me like this. ’
Putting out his hand to stop her, he caught sight of Martina slowly shaking her head. He understood and allowed Alice to call her daughter’s phone. He watched and waited as she listened to the unanswered tone.
‘I’ll try the landline,’ she said. ‘Cam has it for when he works from home. Who on earth uses a landline nowadays? Caroline probably left her phone upstairs or something. She’s such a scatterbrain.
’ As the realisation dawned that none of the phones were about to be answered, her face lost all animation and colour. ‘Tell me the truth.’
‘It is the truth, Alice. I’m so sorry for your loss,’ Kirby said, and though he didn’t like it, he realised he had to be blunt. ‘They’re all dead.’
‘What happened?’ Her shoulders sagged, her voice tremulous.
‘We aren’t sure yet. We won’t know Caroline’s, or Freya’s, cause of death until the post-mortem is held.
’ He didn’t want to say that they might have been smothered, maybe even strangled.
It was too grim. ‘Cameron was found in the sitting room. He’d sustained a knife wound.
This is an awful shock for you, but can you answer a few questions for us now? ’
‘No, no. I can’t answer anything.’ She jumped up and whipped a waxed jacket from a hook on the back of the door. ‘I’m going over there. I need to see this for myself.’
Martina stood and gently took Alice’s arm, leading her back to the chair. ‘You won’t get near the house. It’s cordoned off. Would you drink something stronger than tea? Have you got brandy?’
‘I’ll have a cup of tea.’
As Martina busied herself with boiling the kettle again and opening cupboards looking for tea bags, Kirby knew he had a tight window of opportunity to ask his questions.
‘Can you talk to me about the party?’ he said.
‘What about it?’
‘Did anything unusual stand out for you?’
‘Not a thing. It was a party for a little girl, for God’s sake. Bouncy castle, balloons, cake, pizza. And the sun even came out for a while before the wind and rain returned. Freya was happy and all her friends were there.’
‘Everything went smoothly, then?’
‘Of course it did.’
‘How were Caroline and Cameron getting on?’
Her eyes slid into a slant of suspicion. ‘What do you mean by that?’
Kirby wasn’t going to be fazed. ‘Were they in good spirits? Any rows or bad feelings between them?’
Alice stalled, sniffing and wiping tears from her eyes. ‘I can’t believe they’re gone. My family. They were all I had in the world. My husband died when Caroline was seven.’ She took a tissue from her sleeve and blew her nose. ‘Cameron was being a bit of a shit, if I’m totally honest with you.’
Martina put a teapot on a plate on the table as she couldn’t find a coaster, and placed a carton of milk beside the sugar bowl. She filled the three mugs with tea and Alice poured milk and spooned sugar into her own.
‘What way was he being a shit?’ Kirby asked once the woman had finished stirring her tea. She put the damp spoon back into the sugar bowl.
‘It was nothing much. He threw a tantrum because Freya… Oh my God. They can’t be dead.’
‘What was the tantrum over?’
‘Her make-up. I kind of agreed with him. She’s too young for all that muck on her face. Caroline was angry with him, I could see it festering behind her eyes, but she merely told him to stop and not another thing. She’s always been compliant.’
‘Compliant?’ Martina asked.
‘You know what I mean. She goes along with whatever he wants. I often thought it was for a quiet life. You know? Agree with everything and hope for the best.’
‘They had a troubled marriage, then?’ Kirby butted in, unable to help himself and knowing he probably should let Martina take the lead. She was calmer.
‘I honestly don’t know,’ Alice said. She sipped her tea, grimacing at the taste before continuing.
‘They were happy. Freya was happy. They had a lovely new house, which I don’t know how they afforded.
It’s too big, if you ask me, though the garden is small.
Not one flower bed. Sure that’s not a garden. Cam had a good job too. An accountant.’
‘I heard he might be in debt.’
‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ Alice said haughtily, as if she’d have liked to know but had been kept in the dark.
‘Did Caroline work outside the home?’
‘She used to, but when she had Freya, she never went back. She loved being a mother.’
Kirby wondered if his Amy would ever work again full time.
She’d been injured during an investigation and it affected her mobility.
Now she looked after Boyd’s son, Sergio, after school, and she was pregnant.
That scared him a little. Would he be any good as a family man?
He hoped so. He was a long time divorced, and that seemed like a lifetime ago now, so much had happened since then.
Sensing the silence, he brought himself back to the cramped kitchen and the tragedy that had been foisted on Alice.
‘So, nothing happened other than the altercation over the make-up?’
‘It wasn’t an altercation. He told Freya to take it off.
Caroline told him to stop and he glared at her, so she went back to decorating the table and making space for the cake and Freya stomped up to her room, followed by her shadow, Lily Clarke.
The two of them are the best of friends.
Like Caroline and Sadie… Not sure I trust that one.
’ She looked up at Kirby, tears flooding her eyes.
‘I don’t understand. What happened to my family? Who would do this?’
‘Did Cameron or your daughter have any enemies?’
‘Enemies?’
‘Anyone they might have had a row with, or someone that had a beef with Cameron?’
‘I have no idea. He was an accountant and I doubt anyone would kill him for that, but you never know. They’re supposed to be greedy bastards, though Cameron was okay, I think.’ She looked Kirby in the eye. ‘I want to see my daughter and my grandchild.’
‘That won’t be possible at the moment,’ Kirby said.
‘Would you be up to identifying them at some stage?’ Martina asked quickly, and Kirby was grateful. He’d forgotten that someone would have to do that heartbreaking task.
Alice nodded. ‘I’ll do what I have to do. And you better find out what happened to them and catch the person who did this.’
‘Is there anyone I can call to come stay with you?’
‘Caroline… Oh God, I can’t believe she’s gone.’ The tissue was in shreds.
Martina found a half-empty box among the detritus on the counter and brought it to her. ‘I’ll stay with you for a while. I’m a family liaison officer.’
‘That means you want to snoop around.’ Alice glared.
‘God, no, not at all. I’m here to support you.’
‘I can support myself, thank you very much. I have done so since my Jack died many years ago. I’d like you both to leave.’
Kirby put his card on the table. ‘Call if you think of anything that might help us, and we’ll be in touch about… eh, making a formal identification.’
‘Please. Just leave me alone.’