‘Hover it. Keep recording.’
‘I’m not stupid,’ he said. He stopped walking and stared.
‘Jack?’ Gavin’s voice trembled. ‘What is that on the tracks?’
Jack hadn’t a clue, but it reminded him of one of those monsters that was supposed to be a figment of your imagination.
‘It looks like a zombie. Like something Spiderman would tackle.’
Gavin said, ‘It looks like a headless body.’
Jack zoomed the drone in closer, hovering it over the thing on the railway track, and then watched in horror as Gavin vomited all down his school uniform.
Five
Eventually Faye calmed down enough to find her phone and call Jeff. Within fifteen minutes, he was by her side.
‘I thought you’d been murdered or something,’ he said as he sat her into his aunt’s smelly armchair.
‘Don’t make light of it, Jeff. I was terrified of that … that thing.’ She wiped her forehead with the tissue he’d thrust into her hand. ‘What is it? Tell me it’s not real.’
‘It’s probably fake. Some sort of prank.’
‘But it’s been plastered up behind that wall for God knows how long. Surely someone wouldn’t put a fake skull in there, would they?’
‘It looks to me like someone did.’ He sat on the floor next to her. ‘Why were you knocking down the wall anyway?’
‘I was pulling off the wallpaper and I noticed the difference in the plaster.’
‘What difference?’ His voice was measured, but Faye thought there was an unusual edge to it. She tried to keep calm by admiring the straight line of his jaw and the smoothness of his chin on his long face. His blue eyes dazzled her in the half-light. She wanted him to hold her tight so that she could nuzzle into the soft cotton of his shirt, but he sat monk-like on the floor, his long legs crossed at the ankles. He was twenty-nine to her twenty-five and she was hopelessly in love with him.
‘That section was fresher.’ She pointed to the hole in the wall. ‘And when I hit it with the paint scraper, it sounded hollow.’
‘And you had to hammer the shit out of it. Why?’
Faye shrugged her shoulders wearily. ‘I’m sorry. I thought that if there was a space there, we could insert a shelf unit.’ Her voice had returned to normal, though her throat felt raw from screaming. ‘A cheap one. I know you don’t want me wasting money we don’t have.’
‘You shouldn’t have set about demolishing a wall. Did any of the neighbours come in to investigate what the noise was about?’
She shook her head. ‘No. I suppose most of them are at work.’
‘Probably.’ He got up and moved over to investigate her demolition job. Then he scrutinised the skull lying in the middle of the floor. He nudged it with his shoe. ‘It looks fake to me.’
‘It looked quite real at the time. It’s tiny. Scared the living daylights out of me.’
He stretched to his six-foot height and started to pace the floor in circles. ‘Do you need to visit your doctor?’
‘Why would I?’
‘The baby. You got a shock and—’
‘Jeff, the baby is fine. I’m fine.’ She wondered how she would ever rid herself of the image of the skull landing at her feet. ‘I think we should call the gardaí.’
Jeff stopped his anxious pacing. ‘Good God, no. We’d make a holy show of ourselves.’ He laughed before gripping her hand and staring earnestly into her eyes. ‘It’s fake. Probably left over from Halloween years ago. No need to waste the guards’ precious time with it.’
‘But who put it there, and why?’ She felt his fingers kneading her dust-covered flesh. ‘Did you know there was a secret cubbyhole in there?’
He dropped her hand and stood back, hands on hips. ‘No. It could have been there years before my aunt and uncle bought the house, but I know they took out a range at some point.’
‘Can you find out?’
‘Find out what?’
Faye sighed. Jeff was being impossible. ‘Find out when the wall was plastered over and when the skull might have been placed there.’
‘There’s no one to ask. Mam and Dad and Uncle Noel all died years ago, and Aunt Patsy’s gone too.’
‘There has to be someone else.’
‘I’m the only one left, and you need to stop thinking about this skull. I’m putting it in the bin. Forget all about it. I’m taking you into town for a cappuccino and a warm croissant.’
Jumping up, she said, ‘How can you think of food when that thing could be someone’s head lying on our living room floor!’
She hadn’t meant to shout, but every pore on her skin was screaming at her that this was something bad and they had to take it seriously. She started coughing, dust caught in her throat. Tears sprouted from her eyes and she swayed on the spot. Jeff caught her arm tightly, and she staggered against him.
‘You’re so melodramatic, Faye. Look at me. I’m saying we forget about it. I mean it.’
Frozen in place, leaning against the wall for support, she watched Jeff as he picked up the small skull.
‘Have we refuse sacks here somewhere?’ He turned the skull around in his hand, poking his fingers through the eye sockets.
‘I don’t think—’
‘Ah, Jesus, Faye, stop.’ He took a breath and looked at her. ‘I’m sorry. Sorry for swearing at you. It’s just awful … it has me rattled too. Stay there. I’ll find the sacks myself.’
He marched out of the room still holding the skull, and Faye heard him pulling out drawers in the small kitchen. She looked out of the window at the world rushing by. Cars on the road. Two teenagers laughing loudly on the footpath as they chased each other. Probably skipping school, she thought. A bird landed on the cherry blossom tree in the small front garden. She watched it, concentrating as it twitched its head. Anything to keep her mind off the eyeless skull that had rolled out at her feet.
At that precise moment, she felt it for the first time. A fluttering, just like a trapped butterfly lurching around in her tummy. A tiny being created by her and Jeff.
But for some reason it did not make her feel happy.
Six
Detective Larry Kirby parked the unmarked garda car on the verge beside the bridge. He always thought it was such a misnomer, because every child and crook in the town could recognise an unmarked car a mile off.
Uniformed officers had set up a one-way system and were directing irate drivers back down the narrow hill. All the trains had been halted, causing pandemonium in the station, with buses having to be hired to ferry commuters. Planting an unlit cigar in the side of his mouth, he extracted himself from the car and waited for Detective Maria Lynch to join him. He had to admit she was looking healthy and fit after her maternity leave.
‘And the little bugger sleeps all night?’ he said, chewing the end of his cigar.
‘He’s much better than the other two were. Needless to say, Ben is delighted, because we won’t have to share the night-time in and out of bed with a bottle lark.’
‘Good, good,’ Kirby said, searching his pocket for a lighter. He knew nothing about babies or bottles or any of that. Unless the bottle contained alcohol, of course. He had no children and it was looking like he might never have any, being divorced and his girlfriend having been killed in the line of duty. Lynch’s husband, Ben, was welcome to his kids.