Читать книгу The Girl Behind the Lens: A dark psychological thriller with a brilliant twist - Tanya Farrelly - Страница 6

Oliver Molloy woke abruptly and felt the urgent need to get out of the house. As he swung his legs over the side of the bed, he tried to rid himself of the remnants of a particularly disturbing dream, but it refused to be obliterated, even after he’d turned on the dim overhead light.

It had been almost a month since he had seen her, but every time he closed his eyes she was there. He had begun to dread the night, the time when he was most susceptible to these visitations. Mercedes had become like a cataract, something he couldn’t see past, and it was only daylight that could dispel her presence and allow him to breathe normally again.

Oliver pulled on his heavy winter coat and wound a scarf round his neck. The scarf caught on his unshaven jaw, but it was unlikely that he would encounter anyone out walking in the hours before dawn. He eased the front door open. The street was quiet. A lone cat crossed the neighbours’ garden and leapt onto the wall between them. It looked at him, eyes luminous in the semi-darkness, and then opened its mouth and let out a silent cry. When he didn’t respond, it moved on.

Finally, a thaw had begun. For three weeks the city had been held captive by an unprecedented freeze. A layer of ice still covered the canal, but already it had thinned at the edges to reveal the murky water beneath. It trickled slowly from among the reeds as the willows wept at the water’s edge and stained the ice grey. The cold crept through his leather shoes and he hurried his step to improve his circulation. Coming towards him, dressed in a grey tracksuit, breath streaming in the icy air, was a jogger. The man nodded an acknowledgement as he passed. Oliver dug his hands deeper in his coat pockets and marched on.

By the time he reached the last lock before the main road, the point at which he normally turned back for home, the sky had begun to lighten. He stepped onto the lock, crossed halfway and looked back along the canal in the direction of home. In the time that they had been together, he had never dreamt of Mercedes. Now, she wouldn’t leave him alone, and every dream was an attack, a vicious recrimination. The dream from which he’d woken that morning had been the most disturbing yet. With one hand on her hip, she’d stood there, body jutting slightly forward as she told him that he was nothing without her. She’d called him a fake, said that it wouldn’t take long for people to see right through him. Then she’d pointed to him and laughed, and when he looked down his body was transparent. There was nothing but a watery outline that showed where it used to be. Inside was hollow, bereft of organs; he was nothing – just like she said he was.

He shuddered and this time it had nothing to do with the cold. He walked down the opposite side of the lock and gazed into the water. There were no swans near the bridge where they usually gathered, waiting for the students from the nearby college to throw them crusts from leftover sandwiches. He supposed they’d return now that the thaw had come.

As he stood staring into the water, he became aware of something caught beyond the reeds. It looked like an old coat; something that may have been discarded before the freeze came. He stared harder, eyes straining in the half-light, and then he saw something glint among the bulrushes. Gingerly, he stepped down the bank. The mud was frozen beneath his feet and he edged closer to the water, crouching as near as he dared to peer between the rushes. Where the ice had melted a man’s hand rested above the water, fingers blue-white. On the second finger a gold wedding band caught the first light.

Hastily, Oliver retreated from the water’s edge. He could go home, try to forget that he had ever seen the body beneath the ice. He didn’t want to phone the guards; it was the kind of attention that he would rather avoid, but then there was the jogger. If he didn’t report the body, somebody else would. Could he risk the man coming forward, saying that he’d seen him by the canal? Even as the thought went through his mind, he found himself dialling the number for emergency services. He couldn’t ignore his civic duty, and so he waited with the dead man for help to arrive.

They took their time in coming. He guessed there was no hurry for a man whose life had already ended. He moved down the bank again and stared into the water. The body was face down, arms raised above the head as though making a plea for help. The fingers had stiffened into position and looked as though they might snap, like dead wood, if he were to touch them. Had the man fallen into the icy water and been unable to get out – or had it been an intentional act? Oliver couldn’t fathom why anyone would do such a thing; there were easier ways to end it. Of course there was a third option, one that made him uneasy just waiting in the place where it may have happened. The man could have been murdered and his body dumped in the water. It wouldn’t have been the first gangland killing in the area and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. It made him glad he’d opted to practise family rather than criminal law. The former had its share of malevolence, but as a rule it didn’t involve bloodshed.

Finally, the garda car turned over the bridge. It travelled slowly, lights off. Oliver walked to the edge of the road and raised a hand for their attention, guessing that his black coat would not stand out against the grey morning light. The car pulled up and two men stepped out. The first was an overweight man in his fifties who walked with a surprisingly swift step. The other, a young officer who looked like he was fresh out of Templemore training school, walked closely behind.

‘Mr Molloy? Garda Sweeney and Garda Regan. You reported a body in the water?’

Oliver nodded and gestured towards the canal. ‘It’s just beyond the rushes, trapped under the ice. You can see a hand above the surface.’

Oliver stepped back and the two guards moved closer to the canal. The older man nodded like he’d seen it all before. ‘We’ll just take a statement from you if that’s all right,’ he said.

The young garda asked Oliver questions as Sweeney stood looking into the distance beyond the bridge. A few minutes later, the sound of a motor drowned out Garda Regan’s voice. Both he and Oliver turned to watch as a dinghy appeared from beneath the bridge cutting a swathe through the thin ice. The crew of three men cut the motor and let the dinghy drift close to where the body was. Oliver watched, half concentrating on giving Regan his personal details, as the men broke the remaining ice and pulled the body from the water. They did it in such a way that Oliver didn’t see the man’s face and the corpse, murky water flowing from his sodden coat, disappeared onto the surface of the boat.

‘There’s a wallet,’ one of the crew shouted across to Sweeney. ‘Credit cards say Vincent Arnold. We’ll run a check from the station, see if it matches any missing persons report.’

‘Good enough,’ Sweeney nodded.

‘It’. Oliver wondered whether it referred to the body or the name on the card. Did such exposure render you indifferent to death? He’d once heard an undertaker use such a term and had been appalled by the callousness of the word. Death was a business, something that had to be dealt with cleared away.

An image of Mercedes appeared in his mind; her body limp as he’d held her for the last time. He’d been surprised at how long she’d stayed warm – so that it had taken him hours to accept that she was really dead. He’d tried to close her parted lips, but they refused to meet. At any moment, he thought, they might have started to move, to form words between tongue and teeth.

The dinghy was moving off now. Sweeney’s narrowed blue eyes appraised him as he tried to rid himself of thoughts of his wife. He shifted and gestured towards the canal. ‘I suppose you see this kind of thing all the time,’ he said.

Sweeney shrugged and squinted at the morning light. ‘Tell me, do you usually go out walking this early in the morning, Mr Molloy?’ he asked.

Oliver returned his gaze. ‘Only when I can’t sleep,’ he said.

Sweeney nodded and heaved his bulk into the passenger seat of the car where Regan was already waiting. Oliver turned in the direction of home. The garda car passed him and he raised a hand, but neither of the guards acknowledged him. He dug his hands deeper in his coat pockets, quickened his step against the cold, and found himself hoping that he wouldn’t have reason to encounter either Sweeney or his colleague again.