Chapter 88
Lottie thanked her lucky stars that Macken was at his balloon workshop in Forestry Industrial Park, where he agreed to talk to her. She didn’t think she could face another visit to his farm.
Boyd came along with her, mainly to calm down after he’d spent an hour listening to ‘no comment’ from Liam Scanlan and being in close proximity to an increasingly angry Superintendent Farrell.
Macken wasn’t much better. With a surly scowl, he kept his eyes trained on his feet.
‘I should probably get a solicitor at this stage,’ he mumbled half-heartedly.
‘Call someone if you think you need them.’ She hadn’t meant to sound sharp, but feck him.
‘Costs money I don’t have. I’m struggling to make ends meet.’
‘I see. Were you paid to murder a family? And you accepted the offer to get out of a financial hole?’
The shock was evident as his mouth drooped. ‘That’s absurd. I never hurt a living thing.’
‘What about your chickens? You kill them, don’t you?’
‘I do not. I bring them to a facility that does that sort of thing.’
‘Can we sit somewhere, Dermot?’ She wanted him to relax, but also her feet were killing her in her damp boots.
‘Come through,’ he said. ‘It’s small and smelly, but not as bad as the farm.’
At this stage, she didn’t care. Her anger at not being allowed to interview Scanlan had sapped her energy. But it had been a shit show, so she should be glad she hadn’t had to sit through it.
Macken wasn’t joking when he said it was a small space. Boyd had to stand by the door. Macken pulled out two small three-legged stools from under a bench. Lottie sat facing him, her back creaking, their knees almost touching.
‘We have Liam Scanlan in custody,’ she said.
‘Who is he?’
‘The guy you said you dealt with in Cameron Healy’s office.’
‘Oh, right. What’d he have to say for himself?’
‘Not much.’ Lottie stared at him, hoping she could shock him into opening up. ‘Did you have an affair with Sadie Clarke?’
For the second time, his bottom lip hung down. ‘Are you mad? No. Definitely not. She’s married to that hotshot architect. Her sort wouldn’t give me the time of day.’
‘You told us you knew her as Sadie Tormey, from Oak House. Why were you there?’
‘I was never in that place. You must have misinterpreted what I said.’
‘How did you know her, then?’ She wondered why everyone in this case had fudged the truth.
He fidgeted with his hands, kneading each finger before tightening them into fists, which he rested on his knees. In an effort to stop the fidgeting, Lottie assumed.
‘I drank with her old man.’
Now they were getting somewhere. Lottie felt her lethargy evaporate. ‘Okay. Go on.’
‘This was up in Dublin, years ago. He used to drink in a pub called the Tavern. It’s gone now. Old-style place. Good Guinness.’
‘Why would you want to drink there?’
‘My life was shit. I worked for my aunt and uncle on their farm near the Dublin mountains. This was before she bought the farm down here. It was all I knew to do because I had no proper education. I now know I was dyslexic. Maybe on the spectrum. But the only spectrum I was on back then was the Tavern.’
‘And that’s where you met Eugene Tormey?’
‘Yes. He was always moaning about not wanting to go home to his family. I’d have given my right arm for a family; even a drunken father and mother would have been better than my indifferent aunt and uncle.
It wasn’t their fault. They didn’t know how to handle me.
They got lumbered with me when my mother died. I never knew my father.’
He picked at his acne scars and Lottie hoped he didn’t draw blood. She could not cope with that right now.
‘You cosied up to Eugene Tormey. And then what?’
‘He told me about his two girls. Their bitch of a mother. And that I was better off with my aunt. At least she didn’t hit me or neglect me. Just made me work hard.’
‘What else did he tell you?’
Macken drew into himself. She felt like reaching over and nudging him, but as it was, their close proximity was giving her the shivers.
‘Eugene spoke about his daughter Sadie like he adored her. Apparently that made his wife jealous as fuck. She took it out on the girl. Beat her black and blue, he said.’
‘So you met Sadie. How did that happen?’
‘I kind of became infatuated with his family. That sounds mental, but I was young and it’s who I was back then.
Not now,’ he added hurriedly. ‘I followed Eugene home one evening and she was sitting on the wall outside their terraced council house. The gate was gone and the bins were overflowing in the front garden and scrawny cats slept on the steps. It was a mess.’
‘And?’
‘Sadie was beautiful, with her teardrop-shaped face, long hair and deep brown eyes. Like a princess kept locked in an ugly castle.’
‘That’s very poetic, Dermot,’ Lottie scoffed. ‘Thought you said it was a council terrace?’
‘You know what I mean. She looked lost. Eugene hugged her and stumbled inside. She sat there and caught my eye. She called me over, and that was that. I was hooked.’
‘What did you talk about to this fourteen-year-old girl? You were a man then.’
‘I was eighteen, and it wasn’t anything dirty or sexual, no matter what you think. She was nice to me. No one had ever been nice to me. Maybe my mother, but I hardly remember her at all.’
‘You saw Sadie again after that?’
‘Yes. But it was a friendship. Nothing else, I swear.’
‘Tell me about Oak House.’
‘I visited her there.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she’d treated me like a proper human being. She was in there for a week or two. Stupid guards. She just wanted to make a few quid to help out at home. To feed her sister. She got caught up with a druggie crowd.’
Lottie wondered why the original investigation hadn’t concentrated on a drug connection to the murders. But as with the Healy case, the Tormey crime scene was too ordered, neat and methodical. Nothing like what it would be if a drug gang was out for revenge.
‘Did you meet with her much?’ she asked.
‘Used to see her around. She was a lost girl after her mother kicked Eugene out. She took the brunt of her abuse.’
‘So she killed her mother and little sister.’
‘She did not.’
‘How can you be so certain?’
He rubbed his hands together, head down. ‘Sadie would never have hurt her little sister. She tried to protect her.’
‘Protect her from what? From whom?’
‘Her mother maybe. I don’t know.’
‘Perhaps she thought killing Poppy was a form of protection?’
‘No. She loved her.’ Macken paused, stared at Lottie as if weighing up how much he could say. ‘She told me who did it.’
‘Who?’ The sweaty hands returned, but Lottie was afraid to wipe them in case she put Macken off his stride.
His face was suddenly drained. ‘If I want to keep my dick, I will never tell.’ He wrung his hands in knots. ‘Sadie was terrified. She tried to keep her little sister safe, but failed. She said she could never tell anyone what happened that night. She made me swear to keep her secret. And I have.’
Lottie was about to outline why he had to tell her what he knew, but before she could speak, he shook his head and said, ‘What I can’t understand is that the Healy murders seem so like Sadie’s family murders. I think the killings were to hide something much more evil.’
‘What can be more evil than a triple murder? Were the Tormey killings to do with drugs?’
He shook his head, sniffed loudly and looked her in the eye. His voice low and wavering, he said, ‘It was worse. You should be looking at grooming, child exploitation and abuse.’
Now Lottie found her own mouth hanging open, stunned. She recalled the video Freya had captured on her iPad of someone in the trees. Probably an accidental recording, but still, it was one of the many unsolved issues around the murders.
‘I don’t know about that, Dermot. I think you’re inventing this scenario of child abuse carried out by some unknown person to get yourself off the hook.’
‘Off the hook for what? You can’t honestly think I was involved. I’m trying to help you.’
‘Tell me who was abused.’
He inhaled before speaking, ‘Back then, it was Poppy.’
‘Good God.’ Lottie tried to maintain a stoic expression. Failed. She was horrified. ‘Have you proof of this?’
‘No. Just that Sadie told me.’
‘Who was orchestrating this abuse and grooming? Was it Denise Tormey?’
‘She was always drunk, so I don’t know.’
She felt he did know. ‘This may be relevant to the Healys’ murders. You have to tell me.’
‘It was a long time ago. I had nothing to do with it.’
‘I find that hard to believe, since you’ve been economical with the truth so far.’
‘Look, I didn’t know the Healys before Mrs Healy phoned me up to make the balloon arch for her daughter’s birthday. At least I thought I didn’t know her. But when she came to the door on Sunday, I nearly fainted.’
‘I thought you never knew Caroline?’
‘I didn’t. Jesus, you are one difficult woman to talk to.’
Boyd coughed, and Lottie looked back at him, surprised to see him nod in agreement with Dermot Macken. She threw him a filthy look and returned her gaze to the big man sitting on the small stool.
‘Tell me why you nearly fainted at Caroline Healy’s door on Sunday.’
‘She was the spitting image of someone I’d seen at the Tormey house back in the day, when I used to sneak over there to talk to Sadie. Not that I ever went inside. We usually walked down the street.’
‘So Caroline Healy reminded you of the young Caroline, the girl you’ve told me you never met.’
He looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him. ‘I’m not saying anything else.’
‘Then I will arrest you for perverting the course of justice. That’s for starters. Stand up.’
‘Stop,’ he said, but he did as he was told. ‘She reminded me of Alice Quigley. Now that’s one evil bitch. She was friends with Denise Tormey.’
Lottie recalled her initial encounter with Alice. She’d thought the woman’s features were a bit similar to her daughter’s. ‘How would you know what she was like, evil or not?’
‘Sadie told me what went on in that house once her father was kicked out. She said it was all down to Alice Quigley. And she was terrified of her.’
Dermot carried the truth buried deep in his heart, a truth he’d all but forgotten about until that afternoon at Caroline Healy’s front door, his arms loaded with the balloon arch.
He thought he’d masked his confusion well.
The woman was the image of someone from the past. The name came to him instantly.
Alice Quigley. She looked like Alice had twenty years ago.
It reminded him of his darling Sadie and what they’d once shared.
She sat on the wall, her feet dangling like a child’s, swinging back and forth. Dermot gave her a side-eyed look as he walked past.
‘What you looking at, pervert?’
That stopped him. He turned. Stared. ‘What did you say?’
‘Pervert.’
‘Big word for a little shite. Bet you don’t even know what it means.’
She jumped off the wall. Sashayed up to him, her ripped denim skirt way too short. He liked the orange hoodie though. It suited her eyes.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Dermot. What’s yours?’
‘Sadie Tormey.’
‘I know your dad.’
‘God!’ She rolled her eyes dramatically, the whites so white. ‘You drinking buddies with him?’
‘No.’
She leaned up. Sniffed. ‘I can smell the booze. My old man isn’t too bad, so you must be okay. Got any smokes?’
She was so serious, he had to laugh. Then she laughed too. He took out his pack of Bensons and offered her one.
‘Not here,’ she said. ‘Don’t want my ma or her mad friend Alice catching me. Let’s walk.’
They walked and smoked and he was happy. But Dermot didn’t realise that he had just walked into a nightmare that would scar him for the rest of his life.