Evergreen (a suspenseful murder mystery) Read online

  “Paddy, listen…”

  He glared at him. Aidan saw the anger and the revulsion in his friend’s eyes. “I said forget it.”

  He nodded and drank his drink in silence. After a few gulps and a great deal of awkward silence, Aidan eventually said. “At least we got him.”

  “Did we?” Patrick asked, not convinced.

  “Sure. It had to be him.”

  “Oh,” Patrick nodded with exaggerated sarcasm. “It had to be, did it? You mean you had this all figured out and you never told me?”

  Aidan sighed, rested forward on the table, one arm either side of his glass. “Look, mate, I’m just saying, if it wasn’t Murphy, then why didn’t he show up last night, huh?”

  “Murphy is, was, a drunk, a waster. He could have been off his fucking head.”

  “Still...”

  “Still nothing, Aidan. You just killed a man.”

  “I didn’t--”

  “Don’t fucking bullshit me,” Patrick cut in. “You didn’t what? You didn’t throw the first stone, didn’t start the fire? No, maybe not, but you were the one who led them there, you were the one who grabbed the fucking sword.”

  Aidan raised his eyebrows questionably.

  “Yeah,” Patrick nodded. “I know about the sword. I got full commentary last night from Seamus.” He nodded towards the bartender who had followed the mob to the caravan, had watched the chaos ensue.

  Aidan shrugged dismissively. “I think it was him. We did the right thing.”

  “Murder’s never the right thing.”

  “And what were you going to do, huh?” he asked. “You were the one who said we should deal with this ourselves. What was your plan exactly? A slap on the wrists?”

  Patrick looked away. He didn’t know what he would have done, but an execution didn’t feel right.

  “It was him, trust me,” Aidan clarified. “He’s a pervert, a sick little man, and he was the only one who didn’t have a reason not to be at the meeting last night. No one likes him, we did Evergreen a big favour.”

  Patrick perked up. “Did anyone even tell him?” he wondered. “Did anyone even mention we were having a meeting? No one likes him, you’re right, but that means no one talks to him, no one even approaches him. When we called the meeting yesterday, did we include him?”

  Aidan looked stumped, the thought clearly hadn’t occurred to him.

  Patrick nodded, drank the last of his beer and stood. “Yeah,” he exclaimed bitterly. “I thought not.”

  8

  Mary Brady loved Matty McCleary, always had done, always would do. He was eighteen, three years older than her, but she was more mature than other girls her age, more sensible. She knew he was going to be the one she would spend the rest of her life with and had known from an early age -- when she would dote on him, chase him around the playing fields stealing kisses and tease him when she developed boobs and he developed desires.

  She had never told him of course, but he had to know. She had softened over the years, not helped by her father’s disappearance, her mother’s subsequent imprisonment and her forced stay with her grandmother. She had been a playful, happy, confident and outgoing child, just like her twin sister Aileen still was, but that had changed, she had turned inwards, become shy. Still, she knew that one day she would tell Matty how she felt and he would be waiting for her. They would get married, he would take her out of her grandmother's home and into a home for the two of them.

  She thought about him day and night; when she woke up in the morning, when she did her chores, when she sat staring dreamily into nothingness and when she went to sleep at night.

  She thought about him when she took a walk around the park. She said that she was going to look for Aileen, her grandmother was getting worried, it was getting late. The killer had been caught but tensions were still high, everyone had now been warned about the dangers that should have been evident from the start.

  She wasn’t really looking for Aileen though, she knew where she was. Aileen had a boyfriend, a secret dirty fling that she kept to herself. Mary didn’t know who it was, they were twins but the bond they had shared in the past -- the secrets they had told -- was no longer there, hadn’t been for a while. She only knew because she had caught her sneaking in at night -- they slept in the same bedroom, their bed inches apart.

  She had her suspicions about who it was, had pinned down one of the Taylor brothers as the likely targets. Aileen liked the older boys, the men. The Taylor brothers had doted on her since she was thirteen, they were ten and twelve years older than her but they didn’t let that stop them. The community wouldn’t like it of course, which was probably why Aileen kept it hidden from them.

  Her walk took her to the McCleary home, as it usually did. He lived with his dad, Aidan McCleary, who was at the pub getting drunk.

  She stopped outside, stared into what she knew was his bedroom window. His light was on; he would probably be inside playing on his computer games, practicing his guitar or writing. He didn’t actually play guitar or write, but in her mind he did.

  The night was greying fast. In the distance a handful of florescent streetlights spat into life, flicking on the horizon. She could hear the commotion from the Dog and Bull, she could see the radiation of light that washed out of its doors and windows and spread across the grass of Evergreen like napalm.

  She checked no one was watching her and then crept closer, pinning herself up against his window, pressing an ear to the cold Perspex.

  She sighed pleasurably, breathed in deeply, then the caravan kicked back at her. It shook, rocked. She pulled her head away quickly, an instinctive hand on her cheek. She frowned at the shifting structure, grumbled under her breath. What the hell was he doing in there?

  She moved around to the front, she was surprised to see that the front door was wide open. The entrance leading into the kitchen and short hallway beckoned her enticingly; she could see his bedroom door, cracked open slightly, gently rocking in the light breeze that cut through the caravan.

  She checked around again, confident no one was watching. She moved forward slightly, her heart pounding in her chest. Her sister was the rebellious risk taker, not her. The last thing she had done that sent her nerves aflutter was when she had stolen a chocolate bar from the local shop six years ago. She’d returned it in panicked haste five minutes later.

  She climbed the steps, cringing as they creaked. She thrust her head through the open door, scanned the hallway and the main room from where she stood. She couldn’t see anyone, no one there to watch her as she crept into Matty’s room, to the right of the open door.

  The floor groaned with a hollow thud as she crossed onto it, every noise was accentuated in the mischievous silence. The door to the second bedroom and bathroom was closed but there was no one else in the caravan, she was confident Matty would be in his room; confident his father was in the pub.

  She pushed a palm against the open door, creaked it open another inch and then stuck her head in the gap, her eyes blinking into the lit bedroom.

  There was a bump on the bed, a mound beneath the covers big enough for two or for one very fat person. Matty wasn’t fit, he was muscular, trimmed, toned. She gulped, feeling a wash of euphoric desire rain down on her as she thought about where she was, what she was seeing. This was his room.

  She strained her neck to see the pillow, see if she could catch a glimpse of his head, his face. She saw the back of a woman’s head, long hair messily sprayed around, a tanned, trim neck arched in the throes of passion.

  Her heart sunk. She felt sorrow and anger at the same time. How could he do this to her?

  Then she recognised the hair, recognised the blotchy fake tan on the neck line. It was Aileen. Her promiscuous, whore of a sister. She was sleeping with the only person Mary had ever loved.

  Before she could stop herself she had barged into the room, snarling like a rabid dog at the bed as the mound shifted and jived to the rhythm of rotten adulterous sex. She could hear
the groans; see the pulsating vibrations of their bodies as her sister ground on top of him.

  Mary was breathing heavily, grinding her teeth, flaring her nostrils. He hadn’t felt this much emotion since her mother was arrested, when she yelled at the back of the police van, screamed at herself in the mirror, blamed herself, and then broke down in tears. There would be no tears this time, just pure, undulated anger. Revenge.

  “You bitch!” she screamed, shooting spittle over the bed, over her chin.

  She grabbed the covers, ripped them off the adulterous pair, prepared to launch herself at the naked, writhing mass of flesh.

  She stopped herself. Her sister was naked, positioned on top of Matty in a sexual pose, but she wasn’t having sex with him. She was dead. A large wound gaped through her chest, the blood still seeping out. She saw it then; saw what she had failed to see before. The blood was everywhere; it had seeped into the mattress, soaked through and dripped onto the floor by the head of the bed.

  Matty was underneath Aileen, his once handsome face now a collage of blood, Aileen’s blood. He was groaning, gurgling, he was still alive. The strike that had penetrated Aileen’s heart had also hit Matty, opening a wound below his rib cage. His face was covered in her blood, his body a mixture of both her blood and his. The last of his life was fading from his radiant eyes, she caught a glimpse as his soul drifted away, gave him a pitying, desperate, sorrowful look.

  She threw herself onto the pair. Onto her sister who, although a whore, she still loved; onto her future husband who wouldn’t be able to give her the life she wanted. Then she remembered the bang, the heavy thud that had brought her into the caravan.

  She peeled away, her hands and clothes soaked with the blood of the former lovers. She turned and saw their killer standing behind her. She couldn’t see his face but she saw his eyes, saw the hatred and the thrill in the glimmering orbs before he killed her.

  9

  For a man who had returned home to find his son murdered in his own bed, swarmed by the blood and bodies of two teenage girls and left to rot between crimson soaked sheets, Aidan McCleary didn’t seem all that upset. Patrick had never witnessed the big man cry, he was too macho to ever let his feelings show and rarely expressed any heightened emotion other than anger, but not crying at the death of your own child crossed a line that Patrick couldn’t understand.

  Aidan didn’t help them take the bodies away, didn’t speak as he watched them wrap the corpses in bin bags and cardboard before loading them onto wheelbarrows like medieval plague victims on their way to a mass grave. He stared distantly at his sons bobbing head as it rolled away, hanging over the back of the barrow, but he didn’t offer a final goodbye, didn’t throw himself at the cold, dead features to try for one last hug, one last kiss.

  He seemed to have little or no interest in whatever had gone on. Patrick put it down to shock, told himself that it was to be expected, but he doubted himself. He had seen a different side to Aidan over the last few days, a side that he didn’t like. He had always known there was an angry, impulsive man hiding behind that big protective facade, but this was something else.

  He didn’t ask what happened, but Patrick told him anyway, speaking to his cold profile as he watched the community lend a helping hand in cleaning the blood and bodies from his home.

  “I’m no detective, but it looks like the killer interrupted a threesome. It seems your kid was getting lucky,” Patrick winced as he spoke, already regretting it. “Or he was with Aileen and they were interrupted by Mary before the killer struck,” he added quickly, eager to wash over the badly timed joke. “I really don’t know. I don’t think they were sexually assaulted though, hard to tell with Aileen and Matty, but Mary was fully clothed. So unless the killer was interrupted after he’d had his way--” Patrick shook his head, stopped himself. It was hard to remember that he was talking to the father of one of the murdered children. The others had been distraught, impossible to console, Aidan now was just like the Aidan at the other crime scenes: a cold, speechless spectator.

  He left him to do, offered to let him sleep at his house for the night and then wandered off when he didn’t get a reply. He wouldn’t be doing much sleeping tonight; he doubted anyone in Evergreen would. The killer was still at large, Murphy had been murdered for nothing, but before they could wash the blood from their own hands, they had to avoid being the next victim.

  Through the border of trees that kept Evergreen snug in the summer and provided an almost wicker-like wrap in the colder months, when the leaves turned brown and joined the earth, the whole community -- including the sullen Aidan McCleary and the Brady twins’ grandmother -- walked in a procession. The graveyard was theirs; as much a part of their community as the un-owned ground on which they chose to park their homes. The government owned the ground, but no one ever tried to claim it; they would have a hard time trying to pry it from the Evergreen travellers if they ever did.

  A light drizzle of rain had spat at them as they prepared the bodies, washing them down and doing the best they could without the benefit of a mortician or even a coffin. That rain had turned into a heavy downpour by the time the community was alerted and the bodies were ready to be buried. It was traditional to wait for the funeral, to have a time of mourning first, but they couldn’t risk keeping the bodies above ground, the smell and the risk would be too great.

  Soaked and sodden, with a slow and sombre shift, like a sedate conga line, they wove their way to the graveyard. A dozen of them hastily dug three graves, sharing out six shovels between them to work at a tireless pace as the mutilated bodies awaited their burial above. They dug as far as they could go, no more than three or four feet, and then lowered each of the bodies in. Patrick said a few words. Many tears were shed, many screams of anguish unleashed, and then the crowd slowly departed, back into the rain, sticking close together in case the killer should choose them next; safety in numbers, even though one of those numbers was the killer.

  Patrick watched them go, standing over the freshly dug graves. Aidan also remained, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets. He seemed to be whispering a soft prayer into his chest as the rain soaked his thinning grey hair.

  Patrick watched him. He finished by making the sign of the cross, nodding respectfully at the grave of his son and then left.

  Patrick had shed a tear, but the father of the murdered child hadn’t. He shook his head as he wondered why. Alone, the rain streaming down his cheeks like simulated tears, he skulked over to a grave on the edge of the graveyard, one of the biggest ones there. He took a knee, picked some weeds from the muddy ground, wiped some dirt from the gravestone.

  “Hey dad,” he said softly, offering the gravestone a meek smile.

  He cried for days after his father’s death, he still cried when he thought about it. His father was a tough man, a true warrior. He had planned to give up the bare-knuckle boxing but he wanted one more fight, one big pay day. They spent months training him for it, he was getting old, losing touch with his once muscular body, but by the end of the training he was as fit as he’d ever been. On the day of the fight, he’d lost touch. He hadn’t been able to connect with any of his punches, was unable to avoid even the most obvious of blows.

  His age, his slowness, had gotten the better of him. Patrick hadn’t been there to witness the final blow, the one that killed him, but he died in the arms of his friends -- Aidan included -- surrounded by the community that he helped to create, a community that Patrick was now an integral part of. Aidan hadn’t cried then either, but he consoled Patrick, he was there when Patrick needed him.

  He stood, brushed down his pants, said goodnight to his father and then trudged off. Aidan had been there for him, for both of them, and now Patrick needed to be there for Aidan.

  10

  Patrick watched the Boyle and the Dolan families drag their caravans out of Evergreen on the back of rented Land Rovers. The homes had been stationary for decades, had housed generations of each family who had no intent
ion to leave. The creak of the rusted wheels was like a high-pitched dagger through the heart of the community; the tracks they left in the sodden ground would never fade.

  They weren’t just leaving the park, they were leaving the county. The families were young; the elder Boyle, grandfather of the current patriarch, was the only survivor of the time when the first settlers had arrived.

  Everyone came to watch them go, not a word passed between them as they stared forlornly and wondered if they should be next.

  “That narrows it down a bit,” Seamus said, retaining some of his pluck despite the melancholic aura draped over the park.

  “What?” Patrick was nursing a whiskey, it was morning and he was drinking again, he thought it would help to drown his sorrows and lift his spirits, but he couldn’t bring himself to lift the glass to his lips.

  “The killer,” Seamus explained. “One less possibility now, eh?”