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- Herausgeber: The O'Brien Press
- Kategorie: Krimi
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
A top politician stands accused of multiple murder. A psychiatrist is threatened and the life of her small son is in danger. A well-known investigative journalist is forced to put his career on the line and his future in doubt. And all three situations are linked in complex and mysterious ways. In a twisting plot which reveals many surprises, a situation emerges involving conspiracy at the highest level, bribery, impersonation, strong-arm tactics ... and sheer terror.
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SINGLE OBSESSION
About Stone Heart, Des Ekin’s first novel:
‘A well-paced plot … a very satisfying read’U MAGAZINE
‘A wonderfully atmospheric thriller’SUNDAY LIFE
‘Suspense, action and romance are intricately weaved through this pacey novel.’AVENUE MAGAZINE/THE IRISH TIMES
‘Des Ekin has thrown everything into the pot – sex, murder, violence, drugs, romance – and stirred it around until it reaches boiling point. The result is the tastiest, most satisfying read you are likely to enjoy this year … Every page of Stone Heart tingles with tension.’THE STAR
‘Stone Heart is a gripping, beautifully written thriller that will have you reading deep into the night … It makes for marvellous reading and I loved it.’CATHY KELLY, BEST-SELLING AUTHOR OF WOMAN TO WOMAN, SHE’S THE ONE AND NEVER TOO LATE
To my family
Contents
Prologue
KATE Spain pulled her flimsy nylon jacket tighter, in a bid to keep out the wet, chill wind that swept up from the harbour and made rats’ tails of her carrot-red hair. She was shivering, but the cold wasn’t enough to make her quicken her pace and hurry home. Even on a night like this, a bleak fourth-floor flat in Hillery Heights was not the sort of place you wanted to hurry home to.
She didn’t even hear the car as it approached her from behind and pulled up alongside the kerb. The soft purr of its engine was drowned out by the thunderous bass and drums of the new U2 single exploding through the earphones of her Walkman. As the dark shape of the vehicle drew to a halt, motor still running, she didn’t look around. Her head continued to nod to the primal rhythm of the music.
She gradually became aware of the car, of its large, looming presence, and her heart gave a lurch of trepidation. Why was the dark figure leaning over towards her and opening the passenger door?
Kate squinted myopically through the window, then gave a short, high-pitched giggle of relief.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, thrusting her hand inside her coat and switching off the Walkman. ‘You scared the life out of me.’
He glanced quickly around the street, as though to satisfy himself that it was still deserted.
‘Hello, Kate,’ he said. ‘D’you want to get in?’
‘It’s okay,’ she said uncertainly. ‘I don’t need a lift, or anything. I’m nearly home.’
She peered at him again.
‘Come on.’ His tone was urgent. ‘I need to talk to you. I have some good news.’
Her heart began thumping again, this time with renewed hope. If anyone had ever needed good news, it was her. This could be the night her long run of bad luck finally came to a end.
‘Well?’ she asked breathlessly as she scrambled into the passenger seat. ‘What is it, then? What’s the news?’
‘In a minute.’ He had already driven away from the kerb. His shoulders were held high with tension. His eyes stared straight ahead.
Kate felt her palms dampen with perspiration. His attitude made her nervous, frightened. ‘What are you doing? Where are we going?’
The car sped through the empty streets, away from the comfort of the street-lights, into the intermittent light-dark of the suburbs, until it was finally engulfed in the utter blackness of the bleak and lonely countryside.
He didn’t answer, but as he changed gears his breath emerged in tiny hisses, like a pressure cooker letting off steam. She had the sudden feeling he was trying to curb some dreadful and powerful emotion that was boiling up inside him.
He swung into a layby, brought the car to a halt, and killed the lights. For the first time since she’d got into the car, he turned around to face her. It was dark – so dark that his head and shoulders were just a silhouette against the pale moon. And when he spoke, his voice chilled her to the bone. It had an unnatural pitch; it was cross, petulant, aggrieved. It was the voice of a grown man pretending to be a little boy.
‘Night-night, ducks,’ he said. ‘It’s time to go to sleep.’
Chapter One
‘THEY found her body this morning,’ Emma said. ‘Up in the mountains.’
‘Yes, I heard,’ Hunter said. ‘There was a newsflash on the radio. Are they sure it’s her?’
‘As sure as they can be. Don’t forget, she’s been lying up there for nearly three weeks. But she would have been unrecognisable anyway.’
‘Why?’
Emma took a deep breath. ‘From what I’ve heard, her face was completely smashed in. With some sort of blunt object. A rock or a brick or something. They won’t –’
Her voice was lost in a blizzard of static.
‘You’re breaking up,’ Hunter said. ‘You should really invest in a decent mobile.’
‘It’s not the phone. I’m down by the harbour, and the signal isn’t great here.’ Emma walked a few paces along the quayside until she was clear of the vast bulk of a trawler. ‘Is that any better?’
‘A bit. Why not call me back on an ordinary phone?’
She glanced around nervously. ‘Because ordinary phones are easier to tap.’
‘Come on, Emma.’ There was an undertone of concern in his voice. ‘You’re starting to sound like one of your patients. Don’t you think you’re being a bit paranoid?’
‘No, I don’t think I am.’
‘Okay.’ He paused, and she could almost picture him shrugging as he tilted his chair back to a dangerous angle. ‘You’re the psychiatrist. You should know.’
Dr Emma Macaulay, warmly wrapped in a navy fleece jacket against the November winds, took a seat on a wooden bench near the beach and tried hard to steady her nerves. She hadn’t asked for this. In fact, it was the last thing she needed right now, this unique and disturbing insight into the abduction and murder of a twenty-two-year-old woman in her home town. As she talked into her mobile phone, her strawberry-blond hair whipped across her face and had constantly to be removed from her eyes. But she was used to the wind and she didn’t mind the biting winter cold. At least it wasn’t raining, which it did nearly all the time in damp, misty, mizzly Passage North, the wettest town in Ireland’s wettest county.
‘What were you saying about Kate Spain?’ Hunter asked.
‘I said, the police won’t be sure of her identity until the post mortem later today.’ Emma lowered her voice as two yellow-clad fishermen walked past, carrying a huge orange fender. ‘But the GP who was called to the scene happens to be a friend of mine,’ she whispered. ‘He says it was a frenzied attack. It would have been all over in a few minutes.’
‘So we’re talking about a complete sadist.’
‘No, not a sadist. I think we’re dealing with something completely different.’ Emma paused thoughtfully. ‘Something even more worrying, in many ways.’
‘Worrying in what way? A serial killer?’
‘Not necessarily. I don’t know, really. My speciality is the psychology of addiction, Hunter, not crime. It’s just that … well, there seems to have been a lot of blind rage, a lot of anger evident at the scene. I suppose what I’m saying is that there was an excess of violence – much more force than was necessary to achieve death. In the forensic sense of the word, it was overkill.’
‘Well, I haven’t a clue about all that. But I think if there was a multiple murderer running around a place like Passage North, I’d be aware of it. Journalists tend to notice serial killers. It’s part of our job.’
Emma said nothing.
‘How’s Robbie?’ he asked, changing the subject.
‘He’s fine. Don’t worry, I can see him. He’s playing in the sand just a few feet away.’ She smiled and waved across to her two-year-old son. ‘I always look forward to Sundays. It’s our special time together.’
‘I can’t wait to see him again.’
‘And he’s always asking for his dad. Any time, Hunter, you know that. You have access any time you want.’
He sighed. ‘I realise that. Thanks. But freedom of access isn’t a problem, it’s distance. I’m in Dublin, you’re in Passage North. It’s quicker for me to fly to New York than it is to drive to bloody Passage North.’
Emma watched a seagull swoop into the harbour and grab a fish-head. It tried to swallow it in mid-air and succeeded only in dropping it back into the oily water.
‘So what do you think?’ she asked.
‘About what?’
‘About everything that happened last night. Everything I’ve just told you.’
Hunter took a deep breath. ‘I really think you should go to the police and tell them the whole story.’
‘And what if they don’t want to know? What if they know already? What if Mags Jackson is right – that there really is a high-level cover-up to protect the people in power?’
‘I doubt that very much. Tell them you have important evidence about the Kate Spain case. They’re bound to be interested. Last night she was just another missing person. Now she’s a murder victim.’
‘I know, I know. I’m just a bit jumpy. I didn’t sleep too well last night. I’ll go to the station immediately.’
‘Well, not quite immediately,’ he said, and on the other end of the line she could hear the rustle of an opening notebook. ‘First, let’s go over it again. Right from the beginning.’
EMMA had first noticed her in the audience in the conference hall – a hard-faced brunette, late twenties, wearing a white T-shirt and black leather jacket and looking totally out of place among all the sober suits, ring binders and laptops. She wasn’t a doctor or a facilitator or a social worker; Emma was sure of that because of the way she didn’t laugh, or even wince, at the technical in-jokes.
Emma ignored the woman’s fixed stare as her eyes swept across the audience, trying to make contact with every area of the auditorium, before she delivered the final point in her lecture.
‘There’s no doubt that the new technique works,’ she told the audience. ‘Trials at my clinic have proved, over and over again, that it tackles the root causes of addiction more effectively than conventional methods, and at a fraction of the cost of drug-centred therapy.’ Her voice betrayed the anger she felt. ‘Yet the Health Department tells me we cannot afford to devote more resources to research. My reply is simple: can we afford not to?’
The auditorium exploded in applause as Emma gathered her notes together and resumed her seat. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that the woman in the leather coat was not applauding.
As she made her way out through the conference hall, pausing to shake hands and acknowledge compliments, she noticed the woman following her. Emma sighed inwardly. She was used to this sort of thing. Dealing with alcoholics and drug addicts left her wide open to all sorts of unwanted approaches. Better to confront it here, among a crowd, than outside in the car park.
‘Excuse me? Dr Macaulay?’
Emma turned around. The woman had a coppery-brown bob of hair that might or might not be a wig. She had a harsh, world-weary face and wary, mistrustful eyes. A powerful blast of patchouli oil failed to mask a significant body-odour problem.
‘Yes?’
‘I wondered if I might have a word with you. It’s about a friend of mine.’
Emma’s heart sank.
‘Listen, I’m really sorry,’ she said, ‘but I don’t do consultations any more. If your friend calls round to her GP –’
The woman shook her head. ‘She can’t do that, Doctor.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she’s dead.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘She was murdered.’
Emma took a slow, deep breath and looked around for Security.
‘I’m not insane, Doctor,’ said the woman. ‘And, what’s more, I know who did it. I know who killed her.’
‘Who?’
The woman was staring at someone over Emma’s shoulder. ‘He did.’
Emma froze.
Carefully, infinitely slowly, she turned around. Her muscles un-tensed when she realised that the woman was not gesturing towards a real person, but towards a poster that had been stuck to the far wall in readiness for an upcoming general-election rally. At that distance, it was only a blur to her. She fished in her handbag and put on her glasses.
The poster leaped into sharp focus. It showed a picture of Joseph Valentia, leader of the second biggest party in the Coalition Government, and one of the most powerful men in Ireland.
‘JOSEPH Valentia,’ said the woman, still staring at the poster. Her face had turned pallid and she looked shaken, almost at the point of collapse. ‘The Tánaiste. He murdered my friend.’
Emma didn’t know how to respond. Like everyone in Passage North, she was familiar with Joseph Valentia, the local-boy-made-millionaire who had swept to political power on a rural right-wing backlash. After seizing the balance of power in the last election, he had demanded and obtained the position of Tánaiste – Deputy Prime Minister – as the price of his support in the Coalition.
‘I don’t understand,’ confessed Emma, ‘but I can tell you’re upset. We’d better sit down.’
They left the main hall, took a seat in the bar of the hotel and ordered two coffees.
‘Now then,’ said Emma, in the calm voice she used to placate violent drunks and strung-out heroin addicts in her clinic, ‘I’m afraid you lost me a bit there. Better run that by me again. And by the way, I’m Emma. I hate talking to people when I don’t know their names, don’t you?’
The woman accepted the outstretched hand and shook it. ‘Yeah, I suppose so. I’m Mags. Mags Jackson.’
‘Go on, Mags. I interrupted.’
‘Kate Spain. Does that name mean anything to you?’
Emma thought long and hard. Passage North was a sizeable town and had a steady turnover of seasonal workers. Some stayed, some didn’t. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘I can’t say that it does.’
‘It wouldn’t. She wasn’t anybody important. She wasn’t anybody powerful.’ She spat the words out. ‘But that doesn’t mean she didn’t matter.’
‘She’s the friend you’re talking about? The one you say was murdered?’
Mags nodded.
‘Where did this happen, precisely?’
‘Right here in this town. In Passage North.’
‘A murder in Passage North? I’m sure I would have heard about that, Mags. There would have been an inquest –’
‘Not if they haven’t found the body yet.’
Emma relaxed. ‘So, strictly speaking, we’re talking about a missing person?’
Mags fished in her cheap handbag and produced a pack of Silk Cut. ‘No, Doctor,’ she said. ‘Strictly speaking, we’re talking about a murder.’
Emma rubbed her eyes. ‘Okay. Go on.’
Mags lit a cigarette from a transparent blue plastic lighter. She took a long draw of smoke and blew it out almost immediately.
‘Kate Spain was my best friend. We saw each other a lot.’ She smiled fondly. ‘Two fecking born losers, I suppose, but we were great mates. We used to meet at the launderette and the chip shop and the park and the other places where losers hang out. We were both at a loose end during the day, what with her working at the video store and me –’
She paused.
‘And you?’
Mags shrugged. ‘I work the quays and the park after pub-closing. I have a few regulars I see during the day, but not many. It’s mostly night and it’s mostly impulse-buying – fishermen coming back after a week at sea, that sort of thing. I suppose there are worse ways to make a living, but I can’t think of any offhand.’
Emma nodded. ‘Was Kate on the game, too?’ she asked.
Mags laughed. ‘No! Kate was too scared for that. She was just another low-paid worker trying to get by.’
‘Does she have any family?’
Mags shook her head. ‘Her ma died long ago. Her da disowned her when she had the baby and her boyfriend fecked off to Boston so he wouldn’t be caught for maintenance. She couldn’t cope and the baby was taken into care. But not before Kate had got her own flat, in Hillery Heights.’
Emma was not surprised at the address. Hillery Heights was a local flats complex populated almost exclusively by tenants with problems and tenants who created problems for everyone else.
Mags noticed her expression. ‘Yes, I know. She was desperate to get out of there and get wee Liam back. God love her, all she wanted was a house on the ground with a scrap of a garden where he could play. She was applying left, right and centre, pulling every string she could, but it was never going to happen. Not while there are families with six kids on the Council’s waiting list.’
‘How old is she?’ Emma was careful to use the present tense.
‘Twenty-two. Eight years younger than me.’ Mags looked at Emma sharply. ‘And don’t say “is”, Doctor, it’s “was”. Kate is dead. I’m sure of it. I knew it the moment I saw her get into his car that night. I knew it would be the last time I saw her alive.’
‘You saw her get into Joseph Valentia’s car?’
Mags stubbed out her cigarette and lit another. ‘Yeah. It was a Friday evening. We used to meet for a drink around ten, because she got off early from the video store and I hadn’t started work yet. Afterwards, we walked part of the way together. We split up at Mellowes Road – she was sticking to the street, heading for home, and I was taking a short-cut across the park. I stopped just under the trees to light a fag. That’s when I saw him pull up in his car.’
‘Valentia?’
‘Yes. The Tánaiste. He wasn’t in the big Merc he usually gets ferried around in. No police minder, no security. He was just driving an ordinary Corolla, navy-blue, with a Clare registration. I took a note of the number. Here.’ She pushed a scrap of paper across the table.
Emma studied it carefully. ‘You’re sure it was him?’
‘Absolutely. It’s not a face you could mistake.’
Emma followed her gaze to another election poster and studied Joseph Valentia’s distinctive features. The cadaverous face, the cold, calculating eyes, the dense black hair with a hairline – an actual hairline, not a fringe – halfway down the forehead. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘I see what you mean. Maybe he was just offering her a lift home?’
Mags shrugged. ‘Maybe, but her home was just down the road. With the one-way system, it would actually have taken her longer to get there in a car. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘And she never made it home anyway?’
‘No. I called around later that night. She hadn’t come back at all.’
Emma stared across the room. ‘At what stage did you contact the police?’ she asked.
Mags looked awkward. ‘At the start I didn’t. I was a bit pissed off, to tell you the truth. At first I thought she was having some sort of affair with this guy without telling me. And when I checked and found that she’d spent the night away from home, I was sure of it. So I didn’t try to get in touch with her for about a week. I was waiting for her to contact me first. But by that time, her photo was on an inside page of the Passage North News as a missing person.’
‘Which was the correct way to describe her,’ Emma reminded her. ‘Still is.’
Mags ignored her. ‘The problem is, they got the date wrong. Kate vanished when she got into Valentia’s car on Friday, 20 October, a few seconds before 11pm – I remember the exact time because my watch bleeped just afterwards. But she’s officially described as missing from the early morning of Sunday, 22 October, because that’s when the man in the video store said she hadn’t turned up for work.’
‘Well, there’s only one thing for it. You need to tell the police the true story,’ Emma insisted.
Mags shook her head. ‘I’ve already done that. I went down to the police station, met a Detective Sergeant George Arkwright, and gave him a full statement – names, dates, places, just like I’ve told you.’
She sucked savagely on her cigarette. ‘But it’s all been covered up. Someone, somewhere, has ordered that it should be suppressed. The official story is still that Kate must have disappeared sometime on the twenty-first or early on the twenty-second, and the name of Joseph Valentia has never even been mentioned.’
‘There could be a lot of reasons –’
‘Come off it. You know there’s only one reason. Power, influence. Valentia has been allowed to get away with murder. Literally.’ She turned to Emma. ‘You know what I need to do? I need to find a good investigative journalist who’s not afraid to stand up to people like him. Who’s not afraid to name names. Someone who’ll expose the whole scandal. Do you know anybody like that?’
Emma didn’t have to think. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I believe I do.’
Chapter Two
EMMA drove her silver BMW along the tree-lined avenue towards the clinic. Her windscreen wipers slapped against the glass in frustration as they fought a losing battle against a torrential downpour. The twenty-four hours which had elapsed since her last conversation with Hunter on Sunday had changed the weather for the worse, and rain-battered Passage North was settling with grim determination into the start of another working week.
She switched off the radio as her mobile phone rang.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Emma?’ Hunter’s voice sounded faint and far away. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘Just about.’
‘Where are you?’
‘On my way to work.’
‘Sounds like you’re in a car wash. How did you fare with the police?’
She grimaced. ‘Not a pleasant experience. They just didn’t seem interested.’
‘Really?’
‘They said they were very busy,’ Emma said. ‘And could I call back in a couple of days. So I made a formal appointment to see one of the detectives on Tuesday.’
She swung out of the avenue and parked her car in front of a stately red-brick building. A brass plaque beside the door read ‘The Athmore Clinic’.
‘I’ve been thinking a lot about this,’ Hunter said. ‘And especially about Joseph Valentia. He’s the guy with the bee in his bonnet about unmarried mothers.’
‘I know,’ Emma said. ‘He claims they’re responsible for all the ailments of modern society. Children being raised without male authority figures, that sort of thing.’
‘Yes. And he’s persuaded a lot of people to believe his theories. I find it all a bit sinister, to tell you the truth.’
‘You’re not the only one.’ Emma shivered as she stared out at the driving rain. ‘Remember, I’m a single mum too.’
‘Indeed.’ Hunter paused. ‘The big question is: why would Kate Spain get into the car with him?’
‘If you ask me, they were having an affair. No matter what Mags Jackson says.’
‘I’ve got another theory. Do you want to hear it?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘I had a nagging feeling that this wasn’t the first time Passage North had figured in connection with a missing person case,’ he said. ‘So since you phoned me yesterday, I’ve been going through the files in the office and searching on the Internet.’
‘Searching for what?’
‘For reports of missing women. At least, those that were taken seriously enough for the police to issue appeals to the media.’
‘Big job.’ Emma glanced at her watch. She was ten minutes early, and she was in no hurry to venture out into the downpour.
‘All-night job,’ he agreed wearily. ‘There were lots of them. It was even harder to update them. I had to eliminate the ones who subsequently turned up, either living overseas or floating in the nearest river.’
‘And the others? The ones who weren’t runaways or suicides?’
‘There were three that particularly interested me,’ Hunter said. ‘One, Kate Spain, of course. Two, a German silversmith called Frieda Winter who went missing from County Cavan almost a year ago. Third –’
‘Winter, as in summer? Sorry, it’s such a bad line.’
‘Yes, Winter. Aged forty-two. She went missing from Ballymillett in Cavan in December last year.’
‘And who did you say was the third?’
‘A woman named Karen Quinn, from the north inner city of Dublin. Thirty-one years old, vanished from the Liffey quays six months ago.’
‘Sounds to me like three totally unconnected cases.’
‘Bear with me, Emma.’ He sounded tired. ‘First, Frieda Winter. She created Celtic designs in silver. I’ve got her photo in front of me. Free-spirited artist. Red hair cropped tight. Tattoo of a hemp leaf on her neck. She’d apparently spent her entire adult life moving from one colony of artists to another, never staying anywhere for more than a year. She had two teenaged sons who lived with their aunt in Frankfurt. When she went missing from the artists’ colony in Ballymillett last year, the police went through the motions but, privately, they just shrugged their shoulders and said “So what?’’’
‘Not surprising. She’s probably just moved on to Glastonbury Tor or the Outer Hebrides or somewhere equally daft.’
‘No.’ Hunter was adamant. ‘She lived in Cavan, but she’d always had a dream of establishing a colony for artists in Passage North. Its remoteness appealed to her.’
‘Okay, but, again, so what?’ Emma glanced up at the thunderous black clouds. ‘She probably took one look at Passage North in the rain and decided to go to Tahiti instead.’
‘Perhaps.’ Hunter sounded unconvinced. ‘Anyway, that’s what struck a chord in my memory. Now, let’s look at Karen Quinn from Dublin. The two women couldn’t be more different.’
‘You’ve got a photo of her as well?’
‘Yes. Earth mother type, I suppose. Roundish face, frizzy red hair, warm friendly eyes. Nice smile. She did specialist catering work in Dublin, London and Liverpool. She had lots of friends all over England, and she tended to go over there at short notice to take the contracts as they came up. That’s why the police weren’t too concerned when she went missing from Dublin last May.’
‘Is there a point to all this, Hunter? Because it’s just gone nine o’clock.’
He ignored her. ‘I talked to Karen’s mother on the phone,’ he said. ‘Apparently Karen was getting fed up with all the travelling and wanted to put down roots in the country. She became deeply interested in the rural resettlement scheme. It’s a sort of –’
‘Yes, I know about it. It’s a scheme to encourage people from Dublin to move to remote districts in the west and keep the rural areas alive.’ She paused as the penny dropped. ‘You’re not going to tell me she wanted to live in Passage North?’
‘No. She wanted to go to Connemara. But what she was offered was a home in Passage North. The only thing stopping her was the size of the house she’d been allocated. She was holding out for something bigger.’
There was a long silence on the line.
‘So what you’re telling me,’ Emma said at last, ‘was that all three of them – Kate Spain, the German artist woman, and Karen Whatsername from Dublin –’
‘Karen Quinn.’
‘They were all trying in their different ways to get new homes in Passage North?’
‘Yes. That’s what they had in common. We know that for certain,’ said Hunter. ‘What we don’t know for sure, but what I’m willing to bet, is that it wasn’t working out for them; and that, as a last resort, they all went to Joseph Valentia for help. Remember, he’s the local politician and he’s got a reputation as a man who can fix anything for anybody.’
‘So he may have met them personally? All three of them?’
‘Yes. And that could explain why Kate Spain got into the car. I think he abducted all three of them in the same way.’
‘What do you mean?’
He paused before he replied. ‘I think they all fell into the same trap. I think they were all out walking near their homes when Joseph Valentia drew up alongside them in a private car. I think he probably led them to believe he had some news for them. In the circumstances, I think they would have got into his car without hesitation. And without fuss.’
Emma felt a chill deep inside.
‘What we need to do,’ Hunter said, ‘is ask ourselves what connects these three victims.’
A roll of thunder drowned out his last words.
‘Sorry? Give me that again?’
‘There was another thing these women had in common, Emma. I mean, apart from the place they wanted to live.’
Emma said nothing.
‘Kate Spain,’ Hunter said. ‘Remember? Her baby was taken into care by the health board because she couldn’t cope. Frieda Winter – she had two teenaged sons. Karen Quinn – she didn’t seem to fit the pattern at all, until I discovered she’d had a baby at the age of sixteen and had had the child adopted.’
Emma opened her car door, braced herself against the driving rain, and hurried towards the entrance of the clinic.
‘All three of them, Emma,’ Hunter said, spelling it out as though she didn’t know what he meant, ‘all three of them were unmarried mothers.’
‘But why would –’
‘I don’t know. But it’s more important than ever that I get to interview Mags Jackson. What time will she arrive in Dublin tomorrow?’
‘Not until late in the morning.’ She dived into the shelter of the porch. ‘That’ll give you a chance to check her out in advance. Have you got her address?’
‘Yes, you gave me it yesterday: 15 Ardee Terrace, Passage North.’ There was no disguising the excitement in his voice. ‘If she’s on the level, Emma, and if I’m even half right about the link with the other women … this could be the biggest story of the decade.’
‘It’s more than just a story,’ Emma said sharply. She glanced around and lowered her voice. ‘We could be talking about the deaths of three innocent women here.’
‘You’re right. Sorry.’ There was a long pause. ‘But, Jesus, Emma, it’s still a great story.’
She raised her eyes heavenward. ‘I’d better let you go,’ she said. ‘Battery’s running low.’
‘Sure. And Emma?’
‘Yes?’
Hunter hesitated.
‘Be careful,’ he said. ‘There may be nothing behind all this. But if this is true, and it’s a damn big if, then you’re the only one in Passage North who knows of this connection. Take care. We’ve no idea what we could be stirring up here.’
Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I will, Hunter. Goodbye.’
Chapter Three
THE photographer took the snatch shot in the textbook manner, camera slung low over his left hip as he leaned forward pretending to inspect the chattering inkjet printer in the corridor of Street Talk magazine.
His hand lay on top of the heavy metal camera, as though to stop it swinging forward and getting in his way, but apart from that, he hardly seemed aware it was there.
He didn’t even glance at the woman as she walked towards him along the corridor; he just aimed his hip vaguely in her general direction and trusted the wide-angle lens to do the job. The printer’s noise would disguise the clicking of the camera’s shutter. Within a couple of seconds, he’d shot off six rapid-fire exposures.
Martin Slade was one of the best news photographers in the country, but right now he was bored. It was a quiet morning: there were no fraudsters to doorstep, no drug barons poised to sprint out of courthouses towards waiting limousines. But that could change at any moment.
In the meantime, Martin was keeping himself occupied by testing a new digital camera to see how it would cope with snatch shots in low-light conditions. He didn’t know much about digital cameras, just that they didn’t use film. They captured electronic images and stored the data on a card, which could then be downloaded on to a computer.
But what really interested Martin was that they were now becoming as fast as most conventional cameras. This model, a Canon Powershot Pro 70, was capable of taking four frames a second in burst mode, up to a maximum of twenty continuous shots. Photos taken surreptitiously – snatch shots, in the jargon of his trade – could be taken at high speed and verified almost instantly.
He spent ten minutes snatching pictures of unsuspecting colleagues at close range. To his immense satisfaction, none of them noticed a thing.
And when a hard-faced woman in a black leather jacket walked down the corridor, he took half a dozen snatch shots of her, too. That was the other great thing about digital cameras. You didn’t have to worry about wasting film.
THE woman in the leather jacket walked straight into the editor’s office without knocking.
‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I’m Mags Jackson. You must be Hunter.’
Hunter looked up sharply. He hadn’t been expecting Mags for at least another half-hour.
‘Yes, that’s me.’ He stood and took the proffered hand. ‘Emma told me to expect you. Grab a seat, there. You must be exhausted. Did you travel all the way from Passage North this morning?’
‘Yeah. Up at five to catch the early express bus. It took six hours, and believe me, you can count every bump and pothole on the road.’
‘Tell me about it. I’ve travelled it often enough.’ Hunter glanced up at the map on his office wall. County Athmore, to the northwest of Donegal, was the most remote county in Ireland. And farthest-flung of all was the fishing port of Passage North, stuck on the end of a peninsular finger that pointed defiantly across the Atlantic towards Greenland.
He glanced back in time to see the woman wiping beads of sweat from her forehead. She was still wearing the heavyweight jacket over a thick black T-shirt, and was obviously sweltering in the warmth of the office.
‘Please.’ Hunter moved towards her, arm outstretched. ‘Let me take your coat.’
‘No!’
The reply was almost a shout. Hunter immediately recoiled.
‘I’m fine.’ Mags’s voice was defensive. She clutched self-consciously at the sleeves of her jacket and tugged them downwards to cover her wrists. But not before Hunter had caught a glimpse of the ugly track-marks left by a dozen hypodermic needles on the bruised skin of her lower arm.
He kept his distance.
‘Listen, Mags,’ he said softly, ‘I talk to heroin users all the time. It would take a lot more than that to shock me.’ He shrugged casually. ‘Besides, I’m in no position to judge anybody. I’ve had my own problems in the past.’
Mags didn’t move. Hunter sat down behind his desk.
‘All I’m saying is, keep the jacket on, take it off, whichever you like. But there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be comfortable.’
She smiled ruefully and removed the coat.
‘Okay, I’m a user,’ she admitted. ‘And I’m a working girl, too. I’m not saying I’m any kind of saint, Mr Hunter.’
‘Just Hunter.’
‘Is that your first name or your second name?’
‘Surname. And please, don’t ask what my first name is. I never tell anyone that. Would you like something to drink? Tea, coffee?’
‘Coffee would be terrific. Thanks.’
He lifted the phone. ‘Claire? Could you get us a pot of coffee? And maybe some of those oaty biscuits, please?’ He winked at Mags, as though inviting her to share in some forbidden pleasure. ‘Great. Thanks.’
Mags was leafing through a file of back copies. ‘How long have you been the editor of Street Talk?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Just over two years.’
‘Dr Macaulay tells me it was just another Dublin event guide when you took it over,’ she said. ‘But you transformed it into a shit-hot investigative news magazine.’ She flicked through the pages, pausing here and there to read a headline, then glanced up and studied his face curiously. ‘I have to say, I was expecting somebody a lot older.’
Hunter shrugged.
‘What age are you, anyway? Twenty-six, twenty-seven?’
He laughed. ‘You can be my PR agent any time. I’m thirty-two.’ He noticed her surprise. He was used to being mistaken for a younger man, and now that he’d passed the thirty mark it didn’t annoy him the way it used to when he was in his mid-twenties and was constantly refused entry to pubs. There had been a time when he’d resorted to cropping his hair in a severe military style, wearing glasses he didn’t need, and cultivating a cynical scowl, all in a desperate bid to make people take him seriously. But now he didn’t care any more. His brown hair was allowed to flop over his forehead, the way it grew naturally, and he didn’t try to suppress the student-ish grin that made him look both friendly and apologetic at the same time.
Mags had returned to the file of magazines. ‘All these big stories,’ she said. ‘The political corruption thing. The gun-smuggling thing. The planning thing. You broke all those stories first?’
‘Yes. All the other newspapers followed them up. We didn’t always get the credit.’ He lifted a pen and notebook. ‘And talking of stories, Mags, I want to hear yours. Let’s get down to business.’
MAGS Jackson was a model witness. She stuck to her story about Kate Spain’s abduction, and no matter how many times Hunter took her over it, she didn’t change a single detail. She was perfect.
Only one thing bothered him: her accent. He was usually very good at pinpointing regional accents, but this one eluded him like a half-forgotten memory: it was nasal, like Belfast, but slightly singsong, like Cork. He couldn’t place it at all.
He’d been typing as she talked, and when she’d finished he pressed the print button to produce a hard copy of her statement.
‘That’s great, Mags. Now’ – he smiled apologetically to let her know it wasn’t personal – ‘I’m going to have to ask you for some identification. Driving licence? Passport?’
She was already shaking her head. ‘I don’t drive and I’ve never been abroad. How about a bank card?’ She fished in her handbag. ‘And here’s an electricity bill.’
‘That’ll do.’
He took the electricity bill and confirmed the name and address. Margaret Jackson, 15 Ardee Terrace, Passage North, Co. Athmore. No problem there.
‘Have you a phone number at home?’
Mags shook her head again. ‘No. It’s a flat. We share a payphone in the hall, but the landlords wouldn’t take kindly to the sort of calls I get late at night, so I never use it. Contact me on my mobile instead.’ She wrote down the number. ‘Oh, and do me a favour,’ she said. ‘Don’t let on to anyone that I’m a hooker. I do part-time work in a library in the next town – as a sideline, you understand.’
Hunter handed back the documents and nodded. ‘We’re both in businesses that require discretion,’ he said. ‘Ah! Here’s our coffee.’
A tall, willowy woman had appeared in the doorway, carrying a tray of coffee and biscuits. ‘Thanks, Claire.’ Hunter was already on his feet, relieving her of the tray. ‘Mags Jackson, this is Claire Hermitage, my personal assistant.’
Claire shook Mags’s hand and smiled beatifically. Hunter found himself smiling, too. Claire might possess the body of a supermodel and the sort of long blond hair you normally never see outside shampoo adverts, but the most unforgettable thing about Claire was her smile. She had a cryptic Mona Lisa smile that gave her an air of unflappable serenity. Some of the bitchier women in the office attributed this inner peace to everything from Prozac to pregnancy. The reality was less colourful. Claire practised TM twice a day, and the meditation made her twice as efficient and yet twice as relaxed as any of her colleagues.
‘While you’re here, Claire, I’d like you to witness Mags’s signature on her statement. That okay with you, Mags?’
‘Sure. No problem.’
Mags borrowed Hunter’s pen and signed the document.
‘Total secrecy on this, Claire. As usual.’
Claire nodded as she signed her name on the statement.
‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent,’ she quoted brightly as she breezed out of the office, somehow managing to leave her enigmatic smile floating behind her in the air like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland.
Mags stood up. ‘One question before I go,’ she said. ‘Will you speak to Joseph Valentia before you print this?’
‘Yes. We’d never publish such serious allegations about him without giving him a chance to reply.’
‘It’s just that I’m afraid of him. Of what he might do.’ She shifted uneasily. ‘Now that I’ve given my name and address to the police, he would know where to find me.’
‘I can understand your concern.’
‘So I’ve been staying away from my flat for a while,’ she said. ‘Here and there. With various girlfriends, boyfriends, around the place. But you can always get me on my mobile. And I’ll phone you every day just to keep in touch.’
‘That’s fine. Just so long as I know where to contact you. And, Mags – don’t worry. You’re doing the right thing.’
‘I know I am.’ She smiled hesitantly. As their eyes met, he saw her expression waver. For a second, it seemed as though she was about to tell him something else.
Then the moment passed and they shook hands in a formal goodbye.
The woman walked off down the corridor, but after a few steps she turned and came back. Hunter noticed with astonishment that her hard eyes were brimming with tears.
‘Promise me, Hunter,’ she said. ‘Promise me you won’t let him get away with it.’
MARK Tobey stood at Hunter’s office window, high above Baggot Street, and watched the tiny figure of Mags Jackson melt into the multicoloured swirl of pedestrians.
‘Hunter,’ he said, ‘I thought you had better taste than that. I just passed her on the stairs and, quite frankly, I gave her a wide berth. Can I take it you’re calling in the fumigators? If not, you don’t honestly expect me to sit in that chair?’
Hunter didn’t look up. He was used to his news editor’s histrionics. Mark’s parents had been actors, members of an old-fashioned touring repertory company, and as a child he had learned to play up every situation. But as many people had found to their cost, his rather precious mannerisms masked an underlying character that was hard and sharp as flint.
‘Calm down, Mark,’ Hunter said at last. ‘So Mags is a prostitute. So what? Doesn’t mean she’s got leprosy.’
Mark walked slowly over to the corner water-unit and helped himself to a cup of mineral water. He took his time. He was a thin man whose close-cropped black hair, sharp nose and nervous, jerky movements gave him the appearance of a predatory dinosaur from a Spielberg movie.
‘What did you say her name was?’ he asked at last, tempting fate by sitting down on the contaminated chair. He crossed his legs and, as usual, his left foot began jerking up and down in agitated metronomic twitches.
‘Mags. Mags Jackson. She lives in Passage North.’
Mark nodded slowly and stroked the beard he cultivated to disguise his long, pointed chin. ‘She would, wouldn’t she. And what’s she doing here, exactly? Did you forget to pay her last night, or something?’
His foot was twitching like a demented marionette.
‘She’s got a story,’ said Hunter. ‘Possibly the biggest story you and I are ever likely to encounter in our lifetimes.’
He handed him Mags Jackson’s statement.
‘I’m not saying Joseph Valentia killed Kate Spain, Mark,’ he said finally. ‘He might just have been one of the last people to see her alive. I’m not even saying that Mags Jackson’s story is true. Not yet. All I’m saying is that it’s worth checking out.’
‘Worth chucking out, you mean.’ Mark tossed his plastic cup into the metal wastebin with a resounding clunk. ‘The whole thing is patently a tissue of fantasy. Come on. It’s ten past two already. I suppose I’d better allow you to buy me lunch before you lose all your money to Valentia in the libel case of the century.’
They walked the short distance to Doheny & Nesbitt’s pub and manoeuvred themselves into a corner seat with plates of sandwiches and pots of tea.
‘The problem is, I really need this story,’ Hunter confessed. ‘Addison’s been leaning on me to produce a really good exclusive for the tenth anniversary edition.’
Mark Tobey spread his hands dramatically. ‘For goodness sake, Hunter, why don’t you tell him that he’s the publisher and you’re the editor and that he should keep his nose out of editorial decisions?’
Hunter smiled ruefully. ‘If only life were that simple.’ He poured his tea. ‘He keeps reminding me that our last four cover stories weren’t exactly earth-shattering.’
Mark raised his eyes to heaven and gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘This is a small country,’ he said. ‘Major stories don’t come every week. What does he want, scandal on tap? Hot and cold running Watergate?’
‘Probably,’ said Hunter. ‘But I’ve got a gut feeling about this one. By the law of averages, I’m due a break. I’ve had a run of bad luck recently. Good stories collapsing all over the place.’
Mark raised a cautionary finger. He reached into his pocket and flipped a coin in the air. It fell noisily on the ancient mahogany table and rattled to rest.
‘When you flip a coin, what are the odds of it coming up heads?’ he demanded.
‘Easy,’ said Hunter. ‘Fifty-fifty.’
‘Right. If you flip a coin twenty times, and each time it comes up heads … when you flip that coin again, what are the odds of it coming up heads?’
‘I give up,’ said Hunter, smiling. ‘Millions to one?’
‘Fifty-fifty,’ said Mark. ‘Exactly the same as they were the first time.’
‘Very interesting,’ said Hunter. ‘Your point being …?’
Mark spread his spindly arms wide in a gesture of revelation. ‘That, just because you’ve had a lousy run of stories recently, it doesn’t mean that this one won’t be a bummer, too.’
Hunter shook his head and took a bite of his sandwich.
‘Just warning you, matey.’ Mark delicately dabbed some mayonnaise over the cheese in his sandwich. ‘Don’t touch it with a barge pole. Walk away. Don’t do it.’
‘Come on, Mark. Can’t do any harm to make a few inquiries.’
‘If you insist,’ the news editor said reluctantly. ‘Where d’you want to start?’
Hunter thought for a moment. ‘First, we’ll compare notes on Valentia,’ he said. ‘Let’s go over everything we know about his background – anything at all that could shed some light on this business.’ He glanced up at Mark. ‘You first.’
‘What do I know? What you know, what everyone knows. He was born in Passage North, when? Fifty, fifty-one years ago. Son of a civil servant, Andrew Valentia. Andrew worked at the County Council office and eventually rose to take the top job there. Young Joe upped and went to America as soon as he left school.’
Mark frowned.
‘After that, his life is a bit of a blank,’ he admitted. ‘At one stage he’s just another no-hoper working the building sites in Boston, then he emerges a few years later as a millionaire. Nobody’s quite sure how. Ask Joe himself, and he’ll be more than happy to tell you how he pulled himself up by his own bootstraps through sheer hard work, living proof of the American dream.
‘Mind you, the cynics aren’t buying that story. Over the years, there have been plenty of dark stories about Mafia links, and gun-running for the IRA, even drugs, but nothing’s ever been proven, and personally I’ve never believed any of it – oh, shit.’
He wiped a drop of mayonnaise from his tie.
‘All we know is that every so often, Joe would arrive back home to Passage North on a visit, and he’d be greeted as a hero,’ he continued. ‘He bought his beloved dad a new Beemer and a house on the hill. Said it was the least he could do for the man who raised him straight and true, and educated him in the right values of thrift and industry.
‘Meanwhile, he got himself married. To Ruth Utrillo, wealthy Washington debutante, incredibly well-connected with top people on the far-right wing of American politics. The gossips say it’s a marriage of convenience, but it can’t have been that chaste, since they had two kids, both long since grown up – Joey Junior works as a lawyer in some big US Government agency, Charley trained as a lawyer too, but didn’t like it and went into acting instead.’
‘And meanwhile, Joe was developing a taste for politics,’ Hunter prompted.
‘Yes. Under the influence of Ruth’s family, he went deeper and deeper into the politics of the religious right wing. He bought up one of those fundamentalist radio stations in the Deep South and used it to propagate his own brand of old-time religion and racism over the airwaves. Before long, he became the main spokesman for the fanatical wing of the anti-abortion campaign.’
Hunter nodded. Valentia’s views on abortion were extreme and uncompromising.
‘And it was also around that time,’ said Mark, ‘that Joseph Valentia began to develop this dark and inexplicable fixation with single mothers.’
EMMA felt a pang of guilt as she kissed her son goodbye. Normally Robbie would skip happily into his afternoon crèche, but today he seemed exceptionally clingy and fretful, almost as though he was picking up and amplifying Emma’s mood of anxiety and apprehension.
It had been a tense, frustrating morning. Emma had arrived early for her appointment at the police station and had been kept waiting for nearly an hour.
The moment she was ushered into the office of Detective Sergeant George Arkwright, she knew she was wasting her time. Arkwright was the same officer who’d taken the statement from Mags Jackson, and he was known locally as an ardent admirer of Valentia and his policies.
The detective, a large barrel-chested man in his early forties, had sat tight-lipped and motionless as she told him about her experience in the conference hall and the possible connection between Kate Spain and the two other women. Then, thanking her for her interest, he had shown her straight to the door.
‘You’ll check it out?’ she’d asked as she left.
Arkwright stared at her with undisguised contempt. ‘We’ll give it the attention it deserves,’ he said.
Now, four hours later, Emma had the irrational feeling that her movements were being monitored.
On her way back from the crèche, she took a detour to the garage for petrol. There was a red Honda motorbike behind her, a few car-lengths back. It took exactly the same circuitous route.
She heaved a sigh of relief when the Honda pulled in to the garage and drew up at the air pumps on the other side. Coincidence, she told herself. She would have to keep a tighter rein on her imagination. Stop jumping at shadows …
There was a long queue at the cash desk. By the time she re-emerged, she was surprised to find the Honda still there. The rider had taken off his full-face helmet and was tinkering at the engine.
He was a thickset man with wiry hair and a Roman nose. As she passed, he swung around towards her and Emma started with surprise. The right side of his face was disfigured by a huge red birthmark, the sort that used to be described as a port-wine stain. There was a long stain above, and a smaller one beneath, sweeping across his eye and cheek at an angle to form a diagonal exclamation mark. Combined with his Roman nose, it gave the ominous impression of an Indian warrior in full battle-paint.
She felt the man’s eyes following her as she climbed into the BMW and drove off. All the way back to the clinic, she kept a wary eye on her rear-view mirror – but the Honda motorbike was nowhere to be seen.
‘HE thinks single mothers are responsible for all the evils of society,’ Mark Tobey was explaining. ‘They encourage irresponsible fathers, they rear equally feckless sons, and their daughters grow up to become single mothers themselves. They spread a virus that threatens to destroy our civilisation. At least, that’s the way Joseph Valentia sees it.’
Hunter and Mark were walking slowly back towards the Street Talk office. It was only mid-afternoon, but already dusk was falling over the city and a chill wind was blowing from the mountains in the west.
‘Utter bilge, of course,’ Mark continued, ‘but try telling that to his supporters. A few years ago, Valentia returned permanently to Ireland and formed his own political party. In its very first election, it won six seats and held the balance of power. So Valentia agreed to join a coalition and was immediately elevated to the role of deputy leader of our nation, second only to our beloved Taoiseach, our wonderful Prime Minister, Orla Byrne.’
They entered a Georgian doorway, nodding to the security guard as they passed.
‘But Valentia became the real power behind the throne,’ Hunter prompted.
‘Yes. Right from the start, it was a case of the tail wagging the dog. Joe went on a right-wing rampage, cutting welfare, demonising single mothers. And Orla Byrne was powerless to stop him.’
‘Why? Her party’s much bigger than his.’
‘Survival, Hunter. She needs his six votes, or she’s history. You don’t get second chances at her age.’
His voice echoed up through five storeys as they climbed the stately stairway towards the Street Talk office. At the first landing, Mark paused for breath.
‘Now Valentia is talking about housing low-income single mothers in “welfare centres” and making them earn their keep through “productivity programmes”,’ he said. ‘If you translate that into English, he’s talking about a return to the nineteenth-century workhouse.’
‘The man’s crazy. The electorate will never stand for that.’
Mark snorted. ‘Hunter, you know as well as I do that Valentia’s seat is as safe as houses. They love him in the constituency of Athmore. He’s brought them jobs and prosperity and self-esteem. And as if that wasn’t enough, he’s patron of a charity called Camp Valentia which takes deprived kids on holiday to summer camp.’ He paused for another rest. ‘What did he get last election? Double the votes he needed? He’s home and dry. “Unassailable” is the word the commentators use. Hunter, there aren’t many certainties in this life, but Joseph Valentia’s re-election is one of them.’
‘RIGHT, let’s get down to work,’ Hunter told Mark Tobey. ‘I’ll check out Mags Jackson. And I’ll also make a few inquiries about Valentia’s car, the Corolla he was supposed to be driving that night. I’ve got the registration number.’
Mark nodded. ‘And I’ve got some pretty good contacts among the cops in County Athmore,’ he offered. ‘I’ll get on to them and find out what’s happened to Mags Jackson’s original statement – the one testifying how she saw Valentia picking up Kate Spain.’
‘Okay. We’ll touch base later and compare notes.’
He sat down at his office desk. Mark didn’t leave.
‘I hate to impose, Hunter,’ he said awkwardly, ‘but could you possibly advance me some cash until payday? It’s just …’
‘No problem.’ Hunter handed him a fifty, wondering how Mark could be so perpetually broke on his generous salary.
Mark thanked him profusely. Turning to leave, he bumped into Martin Slade, the photographer.
‘Hunter, I’ve got to talk to you,’ said Martin, pushing past with unconscious aggression. ‘It’s about this new digital camera.’
‘Some other time, Martin,’ said Hunter. His phone began to ring. ‘I’ve got too much on my plate at the moment.’
‘Please yourself.’ Martin shrugged with annoyance and walked away.
Alone in his office, Hunter picked up the phone.
‘Hunter.’
‘Hi, Hunter. It’s Emma.’
‘Emma! I was hoping you’d phone. I’ve just talked to Mags Jackson.’
‘And what did you think?’
‘I think she’s a very gutsy lady. And I think her story needs investigating. I’m going to pull out all the stops on this one.’
‘Well, that’s more than the police are going to do.’
She told him about her experience with Sergeant George Arkwright.
‘I don’t know why, but the man just gave me the creeps,’ she confessed. ‘I reckon he’s in Valentia’s pocket. I also think he resents me stirring things up.’
‘Well, just make sure you use your handbrake at every junction from now on.’
‘I will.’
‘Seriously, Emma, be very careful. You’ve done your bit now. Keep a low profile.’
‘Sure. I’ll leave it up to you.’
‘I mean it, Emma.’
‘I know you do, Hunter. Thanks.’
She cut the connection. For a long time, Hunter stared at the handset, wondering why he had such a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.
HE’D first met Emma nearly four years ago. She was a gifted psychiatrist who’d dreamed up a new twist on the Minnesota Method for treating alcoholics; he was a struggling journalist whose talent for investigative reporting was eclipsed by his talent for getting twisted.
They’d had absolutely nothing in common – she liked Mozart and Tai Chi, he liked Chelsea FC and restoring classic 1960s motor scooters – so it had come as a surprise to everyone when their friendship escalated rapidly into a full-scale love affair.
It was Emma who’d convinced him that he had a drinking problem. Within six months, thanks to Alcoholics Anonymous, he was sober and feeling fitter and healthier than he’d felt for years. True, there’d been a few bad moments. But with the help of friends and work colleagues – especially Claire, who seemed to know almost instinctively when he was at breaking point – he’d always managed to pull through.
It had all seemed so promising; for the life of him, Hunter couldn’t understand why things had gone so wrong between himself and Emma.
Emma seemed to be in love with him – she said so often enough – but each time he’d hinted at a longer-term relationship, she’d become strangely quiet and withdrawn.
When she became pregnant with Robbie after a passionate weekend in Paris, Hunter had taken her to their favourite Dublin restaurant and proposed marriage. She had stunned him by turning him down flat.
She hadn’t even been able to give him a credible reason. Instead she’d fobbed him off with excuses. She wasn’t ready for commitment yet. She was too busy setting up her new clinic. She couldn’t leave Passage North, and his work lay in Dublin.
After that … well, they just seemed to drift apart. It was just one of those things. He was busy rebuilding his damaged career in Dublin, and she was hundreds of miles away, juggling the demanding roles of clinic director and mother.
Instinctively he’d known that there must be some other reason, but she’d never told him what it was. Perhaps if he’d been prepared to wait, Emma’s hectic work schedule might have eased up, and her attitude to him might have changed.
Perhaps.
He would never know.
Because in just over a year’s time, he married someone else.
