Part 6 (final part) Coroner’s Handmaiden
Grainne banged furiously on the locked front door of the hotel. Mickey Cooper, the night porter asleep on two armchairs pushed together screwed up his face and shifted his weight but didn’t wake.Grainne cursed under her breath. Jamming here finger on the glowing circle of red to the right of the door – there to admit late night revellers – she pressed down forcefully and kept her finger there. The porter opened bleary eyes and shaking himself like a grumpy dog shuffled his way to the door to still the insistent clanging of the bell.
Neil shivered as the cold air stung him awake. “I can’t believe it. You got we threw out of the InterCounty in the early hours of the morning,” he snarled as he staggered groggily in the direction of his car
“I can’t believe you never came back; left me alone in the dark and locked out of the Anderson’s house last night,” Grainne shot back climbing into the passenger seat. Neil gave a dry smoker’s cough. Rolling down the window he spat on to the frosty ground. “That’s disgusting,” Grainne said feeling her stomach lurch.
Neil ignored her as he began to scrabble about in the dashboard compartment. Coming up with a crumpled packet of John Players he sighed like a drowning man finding a lifeline. Lighting up he drew the nicotine deep into his lungs.
“Rough night,” Grainne said sarcastically. Not bothering to wait for an answer she quickly filled him in with what she had found in Dr Hammy’s workroom. “The twisted bastard drugged me,” she bleated.
Neil leaned forward in the driver’s seat and examined his stubble in the mirror. “Look, Grainne, I’m giving you a lift up the road… and that’s you and me finished. I can’t be doing with all this shit,” he sighed wearily turning the key in the ignition.
Grainne felt the heat suffice her face. He was giving her the brush off – breaking up with her! She couldn’t believe it. She wanted to shout at him. Beat her closed fist against his smirking face; ask him if all he wanted out of their relationship was an easy lay. She swallowed. Would he have stayed with her if she’d let him make love to her? She glanced at his terse profile. Intuitively, she knew she had been right to keep to her own plan. Once he’d got what he wanted he’d have dumped her anyway.
But she hadn’t time to worry about that now. She had other things to worry about like getting the money the Anderson’s owed her and getting her new clothes out of the attic bedroom. A sense of guilty assailed her. She had spent the money she should have been sending to her mother to help her feed and clothe her younger brothers. Anger rose in her at her own naivety. She had thought if she looked smart and trendy and not like a country culchie it would impress Neil. She fixed Neil with a glaring look. If he thought he was getting away with casting her aside life a used hankie he had another thought coming.
He was going to help her get into her employers house and get her things.
“I’m going back to Killybegs – so you are as free as the wild fowl that fly over the Finn and the Foyle,” she said with deceptive calmness.
Relieved that she wasn’t going to rage and rant at him Neil settled back into the driver’s seat and turned out of the hotel car park and on to the Castlefin Road. “You’re as well out of that place,” he said.
Something in his tone alerted Grainne. She turned quickly to him. “You saw something last night, didn’t you,” she said perceptively. It was then she noticed the bruising on his temple. She reached out and touched it. “What happened to you,” she asked letting her fingers trace the yellowing bump. Neil pulled his head away making the car lurch as it went over a pothole. “Let’s just say I tripped over your fisherman friend lying in wait in the long grass last night,” Neil said with feeling touching the swelling.
Grainne frowned.” What was the fisherman doing hiding in the garden?”
Quickly she switched her mind back to the present. “You have to come back to the house with me…”
Neil shook his head vehemently. “I wouldn’t want to meet your friend again – even in the light of day,” he scowled.
“You owe me that much, Neil. It’s the least you can do after pretending you were interested n me.”
The relief slid off Neil ‘face. He stuck out his lips like a petulantly child. “I’m not going near that house again. And neither should you. The Gaurds and Special Branch are watching it.”
Grainne laughed. “You’re some piece of baggage,” she spat at him. “Why should I believe anything you tell me? You’d say anything to get away.”
“They’re watching it – you can believe me or not but I am not going up that avenue.”
Grainne digested the information. Should she believe him? She shook her head. The Garda wouldn’t be that interested in an old man like the doctor taking advantages of young girls. There’s one like him in every village in Ireland, she snorted to herself. No, the Guards wouldn’t be interested… unless there was something more? “I think the pathologists and the matron are up to something,” she mused.
“He’s her fancy man.”
Grainne gave a degrotary laugh at the idea of Emily Anderson having a fancy man.
Neil turned the car into the mouth of the lane that led to the back of the Anderson’s house. “This is as far as I go,” he said leaning over and pushing open the passenger door.
Panic assailed Grainne. No way was she going back into that house on her own. And no way was she going home empty handed. Or, as her granny would say “Coming back with her two hands the one length.” She needed to have something to show for her time in Lifford even if it was only clothes.She grabbed wildly at Neil’s arm. “Please Neil – we’ll be in and out in five minutes. Look, the river is empty – no fisherman there this morning.”
Neil responded by pushing the car door wider.”Get out, will you! I have to go to work. I’m supposed to be booking Joe Dolan for the dancehall this weekend. Just get out! He commanded. Before Grainne could plead with him again a speeding patrol car swung into the lane and raced past them shooting up loose stones and leaves in its wake.
Neil swore. In one quick movement he put the car into reverse. Grainne screamed as the car door swung wide and she almost fell into the road. Frantically she clung to the dashboard as the car skidded on the frosty ground. But before Neil could straighten up another car pulled in blocking their escape.
A man jumped out of the car and rapped urgently on Neil’s window. Swearing under his breath Neil wounded down the driver’s window. “Step out of the vehicle. You too, “he ordered nodding at Grainne.”
Grainne’s eyes widened in disbelief as she looked into the face of the man who she had seen fishing in the River Finn at the bottom of the Anderson’s garden. Swivelling around her stared in shock at the pallid face of Emily Anderson sitting between two uniformed female Garda in the back of the other car.
She was under and they had come for the doctor!
Grainne launched herself out of Neil’s car and taking to her heels ran headlong in the direction of the Anderson’s house and Dr Hammy’s workroom. He wasn’t going anywhere without paying her what she was owed.
By the time Grainne reached. The cafe again the man delivering the fish was long gone and Andréa was bursting with the news of the arrests. “Who would believe they could be doing such a thing,” she gasped her words tumbling over each other in her excitement. “The Irish Press reporter – you know that big tall man Timmy, who comes in for his tea every day; he was in here asking questions. He interviewed me,” she squealed excitedly her eyes round as saucers.
She cast a look at Grainne. “I told him he should talk to you…”
Grainne stood up so suddenly her chair fell back with a clatter on the floor. “You had no business telling him that,” she hissed snatching up her bag. What my mother and granny would think if they saw my face staring back at them from the newspaper, she thought in panic. It would cause a scandal. And my family have had enough of those, she thought grimly. The neighbours would be talking about it for the next fifty years. And in the end like Chinese whispers it would get all muddled up until it seemed it was me who was arrested, she thought.
“What they were up to?” she asked sitting down again.
Andrea folded her arms across her chest. “Maybe you know already – you working there and all,” she asked suspiciously.
Sweat pooled under Grainne breasts despite the cold day. It had started. She was already under suspicion. “What were they doing,” she asked fearfully thinking about the possibility of the dead body of the girl who had worked there before her. Had they dug up the garden and found her rotting bones? Bile rose up in her throat.
Andrea peeved at Grainne’s obvious lack of neither excitement said no more until she had poured two cups of tea and placed two Russell’s cream buns on a plate. Then she leaned in towards Grainne. “Selling the brains of old people…for research,” she cried dramatically.
Grainne’s mouth fell open in shock. “That’s what they were doing,”Andrea said importantly fresh cream oozing out of the corners of her mouth.
Grainne stared at her dumfounded. Then she snorted. “See this place…it didn’t take long for the rumours to start,” she exclaimed. “The next thing you’ll be telling me is they found their skulls…! As soon as they word left her lips Grainne wanted to snatch them back again.
Andrea paled. “How did you know that?”
Petrified now, Grainne grabbed up her bag of clothes and ran out the cafe.
Walking as fast as she dared without drawing attention to herself she hurried across Lifford Bridge. Behind her she could hear the voice of the Irish News reporter calling for her to stop. He had something to ask her.
She hurried on wondering if the “Lagan’ was as bad as her granny had said. She hoped not. She needed a job. But who will employ you now, a voice inside her head whispered with the Garda looking to question you.
Gemma Hill Writeyou Writeme 