The Darkest Place

Book 4: An Inspector Tom Reynolds Mystery

by Jo Spain

Genres: Police Procedurals; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

From the bestselling author of With Our Blessing and The Confession comes a gripping and chilling new mystery 'Horrifyingly dark . . . a deeply satisfying read' Sunday Times Christmas day, and DCI Tom Reynolds receives an alarming call. A mass grave has been discovered on Oileán na Caillte, the island which housed the controversial psychiatric institution St. Christina's. The hospital has been closed for decades and onsite graves were tragically common. Reynolds thinks his adversarial boss is handing him a cold case to sideline him. But then it transpires another body has been discovered amongst the dead - one of the doctors who went missing from the hospital in mysterious circumstances forty years ago. He appears to have been brutally murdered. As events take a sudden turn, nothing can prepare Reynolds and his team for what they are about to discover once they arrive on the island . . . 'Deft plotting and expert handling of tension make for an intelligent mystery' Guardian

Release date: September 20, 2018

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 432

Sample

Forty years was too long to wait for somebody to come back from the dead.

But still, she liked to get everything ready. Just in case.

Every year, she carefully arranged the candles and red bows and holly trimmings on the dark mahogany mantle. She placed the little crystal snowflakes on the ends of the tree branches. She removed the tissue paper from the delicate Murano glass baubles they’d bought on their honeymoon in Sirmione. It was amazing, really, that they’d survived so long.

Every year, every Christmas Eve.

Were he ever to return, the house would look just like it had the day he should have come home. The day he’d vanished.

Miriam Howe had made it her life’s work to make time stand still. When it came to Christmas, anyhow.

This year should have been no different. But it was.

Sighing, she reached into the box of precious things and took out the old stockings. One at either end of the mantelpiece for the children. Children who were no longer small; no longer here. They would come on the 31st, apparently. If they’d all recovered from the harsh exchange.

I’m sick of this charade, her eldest had snapped. I want a normal Christmas for my kids, not the shite we had to put up with. I want giant plastic reindeer and dancing snowmen and I want to get hammered watching the soaps on telly. He’s not coming back. He never was. Move on, for fuck’s sake.

Of course, she understood Jonathan’s anger, even if it hurt to have what she’d always considered a special occasion parsed so viciously and flung at her. The children had been very young at the time. It was difficult to feel the absence of a man they’d barely known. Their mother’s four decades’ worth of prayers had far outlived the actual memories of their father.

Miriam lowered herself gingerly to her knees and began to organise the nativity scene beneath the tree. Her granddaughter had pulled baby Jesus’ head off last year and he’d been glued back together haphazardly by her son-in-law. The little Lord Jesus’ tiny head sat at an odd angle now, slightly crooked.

A bit like mine, Miriam thought.

The clock chimed.

5 p.m.

Any minute now there’d be a knock on the door and it would be him.

Even after all this time.

The last bong sounded and Miriam closed her eyes.

The sound of the brass knocker clanging on the front door filled the house.

Miriam’s eyes snapped open.

Quicker than she’d got down there, she stood up, wincing as she hobbled a few steps until her legs righted themselves. By the time she’d reached the hall, the small heels of her house shoes clicking on the varnished oak floor, she was walking erect. Miriam liked to carry herself the way a woman of class and good breeding should. Spine straight, shoulders back, chin up. Whether twenty-six or sixty-six.

If it were him, he would see the woman he’d left behind. Older, greyer, slimmer, but still tall, confident, proud. Miriam Howe, unflappable.

Ha. She’d been distinctly flappable ever since that Christmas Eve in 1972.

She opened the door.

The sensor-activated porch light was still on, throwing its glow over the long pebble drive and onto the elderly man who stood at the door.

He was facing away from her, staring back at his silver Audi, so all she could see for a moment was the familiar hunch of his shoulders in the old-fashioned black winter coat, the striped grey scarf and wool bowler hat. He was still strong, even in his early seventies.

Her stomach lurched.

‘Miriam!’ Andrew turned, suddenly realising she was there. ‘I didn’t even hear the door open. Happy Christmas!’

She forced a smile.

‘Happy Christmas, Andrew.’

She allowed him to kiss her chastely on the cheek, his beard tickling her soft skin, his scarf scratchy against her neck.

‘I was just wondering if I should bring the presents in from the car, but if the children are not here yet, they can wait.’

‘They can wait,’ she parroted.

Jonathan and Vanessa were forty-six and forty-three, respectively. But for Andrew, too, they were forever frozen in time as the cherubic little six-year-old and three-year-old that everybody had cried for when Conrad had gone missing.

‘Come in,’ she said, ushering Andrew inside, as she did every year.

And he ooh-ed and aah-ed at the winter wonderland in the sitting room, as he did every year.

She took his coat and winter garments, poured the brandy and handed him a sugar-dusted mince pie on a porcelain plate. They sat by the fireside. And waited.

‘Where are the children?’ he asked, as it approached 6 p.m., the exact time when she’d rung and he’d answered and she’d asked if he knew where Conrad was.

There’d been a pause, back then, which she’d filled nervously.

‘It’s just, I expected him by now. He always puts Jonathan and Vanessa to bed on Christmas Eve. I thought, maybe the ferry was cancelled?’

‘Miriam . . . I . . . he’s not there? He’s not here, either.’

Everything changed utterly.

‘They’re not coming,’ she answered his question now. ‘They wanted Christmas in their own homes this year. We . . . we had words.’

‘It’s understandable, Miriam,’ Andrew said, gently. ‘It’s been so long.’

‘I know that. But . . . forty years. It’s . . . I don’t know. It feels significant. Like something might happen.’

‘Maybe it is happening. Maybe the children have made it happen. They’re drawing a line. Perhaps . . .’

He left the rest of the sentence unsaid.

She didn’t reply.

Every year, Andrew kept her company through the most painful hours. He was selfless. In all respects. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if he became one of those people who lectured her, who told her to live her life and stop waiting. He knew her better than that. He’d been waiting with her. They’d all been friends, after all.

‘You’re wearing the pearls,’ he said.

Miriam lifted her hand unconsciously to her neck and smiled. The last gift. A beautiful double string from Conrad for her birthday. Chosen because they brought out the grey in her eyes.

‘Hmm,’ she said, and ran her fingers along the polished jewels.

The phone trilled in the hall, the old-fashioned ringtone melodic and sharp at once. At the same time, the clock began to chime.

Miriam and Andrew looked at one another, eyes wide.

Surely not.

The children would never ring at 6 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Nobody who knew her would ring at 6 p.m., the very time she’d learned of her husband’s disappearance.

Andrew followed her into the hall. She walked fast but didn’t run, because, despite the instinct, she knew she would likely trip and kill herself in her haste. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

But she was terrified the phone would stop ringing before she got to it. And she was so relieved when she picked it up and said, breathlessly, ‘Miriam Howe,’ and heard a voice on the other end.

She listened, her heart thrumming in her chest so hard she thought it might beat right out of her body. When the caller finished speaking, she let go of the receiver and it fell from her hand, the cord catching in her fingers so it dangled over the floor like a suspended bungee jumper.

‘What? What is it, Miriam?’

Andrew was as pale as a man who’d seen a ghost.

And that made sense. Because a ghost had just entered the hall.

‘It’s Conrad. They’ve found Conrad. Andrew, they’ve found him.’

Then she fainted.

There had been no need for him to ring on Christmas Day. None whatsoever. It was part of the campaign to drive Detective Chief Inspector Tom Reynolds nuts. And it was a campaign his boss, Joe Kennedy, was winning.

They’d been having pre-lunch drinks – Tom, his wife Louise, their daughter Maria and little Cáit, their granddaughter, the life and soul of the gathering and her only on the milk.

Tom’s old boss and even older friend, Sean McGuinness, was there too. He’d decided he couldn’t do the first Christmas without his beloved June in his own home. He’d balked at being fussed over and mollycoddled by his sons and daughters. And he’d seemed to be enjoying the day with Tom’s family, as much as he could, right up until the goose was mentioned.

I just said the goose fat was doing lovely things to the roast potatoes and he started to cry, Louise told her husband, after Sean disappeared upstairs claiming he’d something in his eye. It transpired that June had been a traditionalist – turkey and ham every year, no exception, even when the electricity had gone one year and it had been deli slices of turkey and ham. The change in the Christmas roast had brought it home to Sean. His traditions had been abruptly and cruelly cut short.

Tom’s driver, Willie Callaghan, had then called by with a doll house three times the size of Cáit and trying to fit that in the door had distracted everybody. Willie abandoned them soon after, claiming his wife had threatened to kill him if he came home smelling of booze, accusing them of being drunk with a laugh (not even half true).

Then Tom’s fellow officers, Ray and Laura, had popped in. Tom tried and failed to make them stay for lunch. They had two more houses to call at and by the sounds of it, would be eating in both. Neither had been able to break it to their respective families that they’d be having dinner elsewhere that year – let alone daring to have it on their own – now they were a couple. They’d just called in to show solidarity with the inspector and remind him how much he meant to them.

It had been a tough six months.

It started with a leak to the papers the previous August, spun to imply that DCI Reynolds had somehow botched an investigation, albeit one that had resulted in the arrest of a serial killer. First, the press landed on the nugget that Tom had actively suspected a fellow member of the force of being guilty of the multiple murders. He’d gone against Garda protocol to haul the relevant sergeant into police headquarters and interrogate him without a union rep or solicitor (partially true, Tom conceded. Though there was no ‘hauling’, and the Guard had come in willingly, innocently . . . unaware of the inspector’s motives). Then there was the small matter of a young member of his squad attempting to interview – alone – the man who eventually turned out to be the real culprit, and being kidnapped and nearly murdered in the process. Laura had been working on her own initiative and Tom’s quick thinking had saved her, but none of that was mentioned in the reports.

Words like maverick, arrogant and, worst of all, egomaniac, were being thrown about in tabloid columns. All of that Tom could have swallowed, albeit unhappily, hoping it would pass. But the door-stepping of his family by a particularly nasty piece of gutter-press scum had torn it.

The investigators were never the story. That was Tom’s career motto. It was the role of his team to do their jobs and stay in the background. People above the inspector’s pay grade, and better-looking than he, could deal with the media. Tom’s family and where they lived was sacrosanct. To print that photo on the front page – the shock on Louise and Maria’s face as they were confronted at their garden gate – it was all Tom could do not to hunt down the journalist and beat him to within an inch of his life.

Kennedy had been giving him rubbish cases ever since.

You said yourself you don’t want the spotlight, so let’s keep you out of it, he’d said. The regional divisions can handle murder cases for the time being. Just until this blows over.

Christ, how the chief loved it. Tom doubted he was even properly investigating the man the inspector believed to be the source of the leaks, the Guard he’d ‘hauled’ in during the serial killer investigation. Kennedy wanted Tom on the back foot and, even though he’d done nothing wrong, that’s where the inspector was.

So Christmas week, Tom had switched off completely. He needed a break. On Christmas Day he was content to be in the company of his loved ones and good friends, to have a few beers, to play Guess Who? with Cáit, and just enjoy the holiday.

Then his phone had sprung into action.

‘I’m terribly sorry to ring you today,’ Kennedy said, straight away.

Then why the hell have you, Tom almost said. He didn’t, though, because it had already crossed his mind that it must be something big to make a call on Christmas Day. And if it was big, then the isolation period might be over. It wasn’t just about the inspector: his specialist murder investigation team was made up of detectives he considered to be the finest on the force. They hadn’t been entirely relegated, but with their boss offside, they were rudderless. They had been separately assigned to cases that their collective brains would have solved quicker, which was how Tom preferred to work.

Nobody was happy.

‘What’s happened?’ Tom said, willing to indulge Kennedy out of sheer necessity.

‘Have you been watching the news this week? You’ve heard they’re digging around the old asylum on that island off the Kerry coast?’

‘Yeah,’ Tom replied. He didn’t even need a minute to recall. Since Kennedy had started isolating him, the inspector had been hyper-aware of the news, watching and listening to nearly every bulletin to see what cases he wouldn’t be assigned. ‘St Christina’s, isn’t it?’

‘That’s the one,’ Kennedy said. ‘They found that mass grave last week.’

‘I heard. Shocking. But there’s nothing irregular, is there? Didn’t a lot of these places bury dead patients in hospital plots?’

‘Indeed. The problem is there’s a body in the pit that shouldn’t be there.’

Tom’s ears pricked up. And yet he had the good sense to not sound too enthusiastic.

‘Oh. I see. A missing local, is it?’

‘Not exactly. Are you familiar with The Honorable Mr Justice Peter Mythen?’

‘The Supreme Court judge?’ Unconsciously, Tom raised his glass of pale ale to his lips and sipped, suddenly tense. ‘He’s not . . .?’

‘God, no. His sister is a woman by the name of Miriam Howe. Forty years ago, her husband, Dr Conrad Howe, went missing. He was thirty-two years old at the time and a senior clinician at St Christina’s. We think – well, we’re fairly certain – that it’s his body that’s been found.’

Tom’s shoulders slumped, just in time for his heckles to rise.

‘Forty years ago,’ he repeated.

‘Yes. I know – it’s a cold case. But . . .’

‘There’s a cold case squad.’

‘There is. But at the time, this was sensational news, Tom. And Miriam Howe is still a very respected woman. Then there’s her brother.’

‘So now I’m a rent-a-cop for people in high places?’ Tom took another gulp of ale. Kennedy was going to turn him into an alcoholic.

Across the room, Louise was running her finger around the rim of her glass and watching him closely, lips pursed. Kennedy didn’t know it, but he lived every minute on borrowed time.

Louise had it in for him.

The inspector smiled at her reassuringly. It was Christmas Day. Peace and goodwill and all that. She tightened her lips even thinner and turned back to her conversation with Sean.

‘I know,’ Kennedy said. ‘You’re angry and you’ve every right to be. You’ve put up with a lot these last few months, Tom. And I’ve been giving you lesser cases. You’re entitled to feel pissed off. But look, forty years old or not, this was –is – one of the most high-profile disappearances of the last century. Will you go and talk to Howe’s widow, Miriam? I think that when you meet her, you’ll want to take this on.’

‘Do you know her?’ Tom said, antennae buzzing.

‘Not her, personally. I know Peter.’

Peter. First-name terms.

‘You said we think it’s Howe who’s been found. Shouldn’t we wait until we’re sure?’

‘It’s been explained to Miriam that we have to perform DNA testing but there are compelling reasons to believe it’s her husband. Talk to Moya Chambers. She’s in charge of the autopsy. I’ve told her to put a rush on it.’

Tom sighed. What could he do? Kennedy was his boss and, yes, while this was a . . . could you describe a forty-year old case as cold? Frozen, more like it. This was an historical, frigid, probably unsolvable noose of a case, but Peter Mythen was a Supreme Court judge. The inspector had to look into it. Even if it turned out that this Howe bloke had just fallen into the bloody pit. And even if it wasn’t Howe at all – the fact a body had turned up on the same island he’d gone missing from – well, that didn’t bode well.

None of that made Tom feel any better about Joe Kennedy. Forty years old, and it couldn’t have waited until St Stephen’s Day? Or the New Year? It wasn’t like the case was getting any staler.

‘I’m not expecting you to do anything today,’ Kennedy said and it was all the inspector could do not to bang the handset off the wall. ‘But if you could call out to Miriam in the next day or two and then visit the island. I’ve asked Emmet McDonagh to travel there too, to take care of the forensics.’

‘Did you ask him today?’ Tom asked, incredulous.

‘Last night.’

That cheered the inspector up no end. Now he understood why Kennedy had rung him on Christmas Day. It must have taken at least twelve hours to recover from the verbal blast he would have received from the head of the Garda Technical Bureau.

‘He was . . . delighted to assist,’ Kennedy lied.

‘As am I,’ Tom lied back. ‘Is there much point in me going out to the island, though? I mean, I might want to take a look at the grave at some stage, but it will be more important for me to start identifying witnesses from the time. The island just housed the asylum, didn’t it? And that’s been closed down for years. There can’t be anybody left there to talk to, surely?’

‘That’s the thing. You’re right, the hospital trustees owned the island itself and there was never a general population living on it. But the staff did when it was in operation and some of them remained there.’

‘Really? Beside a run-down, deserted psychiatric hospital?’

‘Yes. That alone would make you wonder, wouldn’t it?’

Tom found himself in the very rare position of agreeing with Kennedy.

‘And,’ his boss continued, ‘they resisted the island being sold back to the State by the hospital trustees. Signed a petition and everything.’

‘They didn’t want the place dug up,’ Tom said.

‘Looks like it.’

The inspector nodded slowly to himself.

‘This will be good for you, I think,’ Kennedy added. ‘Get you back investigating properly again while keeping you out of the media’s gaze. You and your family. You will give my best to Louise, won’t you? And do apologise for my intruding on Christmas Day.’

His boss rung off and Tom felt his blood pressure rise by more than few blips. That had been a dig, dragging up the coverage of his family. Kennedy would never learn and it looked like Tom would never cease to be bothered by it.

Over on the couch, Louise and Sean felt the air shift but said nothing. Tom gave Ray and Laura a nod and the three of them left the sitting room. When the door closed, Louise turned to Sean.

‘This has to stop,’ she said quietly. ‘Ringing Tom on Christmas Day? On top of treating him like crap for the last few months? He’s like a schoolyard bully. Why is he getting away with it, Sean? Surely Tom has friends in there who can put a halt to it?’

Sean took a large gulp of wine and returned her earnest stare. She was only younger by twelve years or so, but Louise Reynolds carried her age well, a woman of nearly fifty who could pass for early forties. Her hair was long and dark, her skin smooth and tanned, eyes brown and kind. She looked nothing like his June, and yet she reminded him of her. It was that fierce loyalty and the desire to protect all those close to her.

A defensiveness he felt for Tom Reynolds, too.

‘Tom has plenty of friends,’ he said. ‘But Kennedy outranks him and people don’t like to interfere in other departments. Tom was offered the promotion, you know that. He turned it down.’

‘They can’t keep punishing him for it,’ Louise protested. ‘Not like this. He wasn’t ready, Sean. He likes where he is. And he’d no idea the sort of man they were going to appoint when they didn’t get him in the role.’

‘I know that. Look, I’m not happy, either, Louise. About any of it. But I can assure you, change is coming. Trust me. Kennedy has gone and pushed this too far. He’s been stupid, trying to marginalise Tom the way he has.’

‘So, why . . .?’

Sean shook his head.

‘Kennedy is nothing if not strategic. He was clever, when all this started. The media stuff about Tom had to be handled and Kennedy is a master PR man. That’s why he got the job. But he failed to contain it – either willingly or because he isn’t as good as he lets on. And people are starting to notice Tom’s absence. Change is afoot. I mean it, trust me. I can’t say any more. Not at the moment, it’s all being finalised. But, Louise, there’ll be good and bad in it for your husband. And he’ll have to swallow the bad if he wants the good.’

Louise said nothing. She’d known Sean for over a quarter of a century. Of course she trusted him, even if he was speaking in riddles. She’d trust him with her life. But he’d been through so much recently. His face was still lined with grief; those shrewd eyes that could sparkle with such humour were a tiny bit duller, a little less lively. His shock of grey hair was thinning – a loss that had started in the years leading up to June’s death, after she’d got her diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s – and he’d shrunk. The Sean that Louise knew was a tree trunk of a man. Even in his early sixties, he’d looked like he could stop a train with his hands. But the Sean of late was more hunched over, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

He held her gaze and in that moment she saw something. A kindling.

There it was – the spark in his eyes that had been absent.

And she smiled.

Sean had something to fight for and it was her cause too.

She believed him. He’d fix this.

‘How’s the head?’

Ray groaned, all the answer Tom needed. December 26th and they were en route to Miriam Howe’s home. Ray had turned up at the inspector’s that morning looking distinctly green, his suit freshly pressed but his normally good-looking face pale and tired. The combination of cold air and the coffee Louise had pressed on him was doing its job.

‘Improving. I tried to cut down on the drinking yesterday when you said we were going out to meet this woman today, but Jesus! I didn’t stand a chance with Laura’s family. I thought mine were bad, but they’ve got nothing on hers. Her da brought out the poitín. He had it under the kitchen sink. I mean, illegal hooch, and he’s an ex-Guard.’

Tom laughed.

‘He’s a Kerry man, Ray, and it was Christmas Day. And tell me something: as a current serving detective sergeant, did you have a drop?’

‘I’m trying to impress the man. It would have been rude not to.’

‘Very rude. How’s Laura?’

‘In the lucky position of sleeping it off. She said she’d call into the office later for an hour or so.’ Ray grinned. Tom always knew when Ray was thinking about Laura. His face lit up with it. And the two of them deserved it. Their relationship had been a while coming. The inspector reckoned it wouldn’t be long cementing itself into something permanent. That’s what his all-knowing, all-seeing wife had predicted and she rarely got it wrong.

‘How does she feel about me whisking you off for a romantic island getaway during Christmas week?’ Tom said.

‘Well, I’ve had to break it to her that the whole curly-haired, curvy, gorgeous thing hasn’t been doing much for me. I’m looking for a George Clooney lookalike. A tall, grey, bearded, mature . . .’

‘Mature? How dare you!’

‘You’re, what, fifty? Fifty-one? I hate to break it to you, but if it weren’t for modern medicine, you’d probably be on your way out. Hang on, isn’t it your birthday this week?’

Tom raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t about to mention it was today.

‘Yeah. And let’s not talk about it. I’m still recovering from the trauma of the surprise party last year, a whole two months early. We’ve family coming over on the 28th and New Year’s Eve, that’s more than enough for me. I’m starting to feel old. Look at me, driving a Toyota Avensis like an ageing taxi driver. I don’t know why I let Louise talk me into this.’

‘Perhaps because every car you bought on your own broke down as you were leaving the garage forecourt? Anyway, to answer your original question, Laura is feeling pretty pleased with herself. Putting her in charge of the squad when we head off to that island – that was a nice touch.’

‘Ha! As in charge as Kennedy will let her be. Still, of everyone in the team remai. . .