The Witch Elm: A Novel Read online

  “Oh,” I said, startled—which I shouldn’t have been, obviously this was going to involve detectives at some point, but I had had other things on my mind and it hadn’t occurred to me. “Yes. Sure. Come in.” I found the bed-lift button and whirred myself upright.

  “Great,” said the detective, coming in and pulling the chair to the side of the bed. He was maybe fifty, or a little over it; at least six foot, with a comfortable navy suit and a solid, unbreakable-looking build, like he had been cast all in one slab. There was another guy behind him—younger and skinnier, with ginger hair and a slightly flashy retro tan suit. “I’m Gerry Martin, and this is Colm Bannon.” The ginger guy nodded to me, settling his backside against the windowsill. “We’re investigating what happened to you. How’re you getting on?”

  “OK. Better.”

  Martin nodded, cocking his head to examine my jaw and my temple. I liked that he was straight-up inspecting me, matter-of-fact as a boxing coach, rather than pretending not to notice and then sneaking glances when he thought I wasn’t looking. “You look a lot better, all right. You got a bad doing-over. Do you remember me from the night?”

  “No,” I said, after a disorientated second—it was disturbing to think of them there that night, seeing me in whatever condition I’d been in. “You were there?”

  “For a few minutes, only. I came in to have a word with the doctors, see what state you were in. For a while there they were afraid they might lose you. Nice to see you’re tougher than they thought.”

  He had a big man’s voice, easy and Dubliny, with a comforting rumble running along the bottom of it. He was smiling again, and—even though a part of me knew it was pitiful to feel so grateful to this random guy for acting like I was a normal person, not a patient or a victim or someone to be handled with kid gloves in case he fell to pieces—I found myself smiling back. “Yeah, I’m pretty happy about that part too.”

  “We’re doing everything we can to find out who did this. We’re hoping you can give us a hand. We don’t want to stress you out”—Flashy Suit shook his head, in the background—“we can go into more depth once you’re out of the hospital, when you’re ready to give us a full statement. For now we just need enough to get us started. Are you able to give it a shot?”

  “Yeah,” I said. The slurring to my speech, I didn’t want them thinking I was handicapped, but I could hardly say no— “Sure. But I don’t know how much use I’ll be. I don’t remember a lot.”

  “Ah, don’t worry about that,” Martin said. Flashy Suit got out a notebook and a pen. “Just give us what you’ve got. You never know what might point us in the right direction. Will I top that up for you, before we get started?”

  He was pointing at the water glass on my bedside table. “Oh,” I said. “Thanks.”

  Martin extracted my water jug from the jumble on the trolley table and filled my glass. “Now,” he said, putting the jug back on the table. He hitched up his trouser legs more comfortably and leaned his elbows on his thighs, hands clasped, ready for conversation. “Tell us: is there any reason why anyone would want to do this to you?”

  Luckily I knew there was some pressing reason why I shouldn’t mention my Gouger theory to the cops, even though I couldn’t remember what that was. “No,” I said. “No reason at all.”

  “No enemies?”

  “No.” Martin was looking at me steadily, out of small pleasant blue eyes. I looked back, grateful for the meds, which would have stopped me getting twitchy even if I had tried.

  “Any hassle with the neighbors? Arguments over parking spaces, someone who thinks you play your stereo too loud?”

  “Not that I can think of. I don’t really see the neighbors.”

  “That’s the best kind. See this fella here?” To Flashy Suit: “Tell him about your man and the lawn mower.”

  “Jesus,” said Flashy Suit, raising his eyes to the ceiling. “My old neighbor, yeah? I’d always cut the grass on a Saturday—at noon, like; not even early. Only your man next door, he liked to sleep in. He gave me some grief about it, I told him to buy earplugs. So he recorded me cutting the grass and played it up against the bedroom wall, all night long.”

  “Jesus,” I said, since he clearly expected something from me. “What’d you do?”

  “Flashed the badge, had a chat with him about antisocial behavior.” They both chuckled. “That settled him. The point is, but, not everyone’s got a badge to flash. That’s when things can turn nasty.”

  “I guess I’ve been lucky,” I said. “Plus the stuff, the”—I was looking for insulation—“the walls in our place are pretty good.”

  “Hang on to those neighbors of yours,” Martin advised me. “Worth thousands, neighbors with no hassle. Do you owe anyone money?”

  It took me a second to catch up. “What? . . . Not like that. I mean, me and my friends, if we’re on a, a night out, maybe someone subs someone twenty quid? But I’ve never owed anyone money money.”

  “Wise man,” said Martin, with a wry half smile. “D’you know something, you’d be amazed how rare that is. I’d say at least half of the burglary cases we get—half?”

  “More,” Flashy Suit said.

  “Probably more. The fella owed someone money. And even if that had nothing to do with what happened, we have to convince him to tell us about it—people don’t realize, we’re not out to fuck over the victim here; if you like the odd bit of coke and you got behind with your dealer, that’s not our problem, we’re only interested in closing our case. And once the fella does tell us, we have to track down the lender and eliminate him. And that’s all wasting time we could be using to catch the actual guys. I’m always delighted when we don’t have to go through all that rigmarole. Nothing like that here, no?”

  “No. Honestly.”

  Flashy Suit wrote that down. “How’s the love life?” Martin asked.

  “Good. I’ve got a girlfriend, we’ve been together three years—” Somehow I knew this wasn’t news to them, even before Martin said, “We’ve talked to Melissa. Lovely girl. Any hassles there?”

  Melissa hadn’t mentioned anything about detectives. “No,” I said. “God, no. We’re very happy.”

  “A jealous ex on either side? Anyone’s heart get broken when the two of you got together?”

  “No. Her last ex, they split up because he was, he”—I wanted emigrated—“he went to Australia, I think it was? It wasn’t a bad breakup or anything. And Melissa and I didn’t even meet till months after. And I don’t really see any of my exes, but we didn’t have bad breakups either.” I was finding all this kind of unsettling. I had always considered the world to be basically a safe place, as long as I didn’t decide to do anything actively dumb like getting hooked on heroin or moving to Baghdad. These guys were talking like I had been happily bopping along through a minefield where all you had to do was break up with your girlfriend or mow your lawn and boom, curtains for you.

  “What about since you two got together? Anyone been giving you the eye? Anyone you had to knock back?”

  “Not really.” There had been an artist a few months back, a very pretty hippie-type from Galway, who kept finding reasons why she needed to discuss the publicity campaign for her show in person; I had enjoyed the attention, obviously, but once she started touching my arm too much I had moved things to email, and she had got the message straightaway. “I mean, people flirt, sometimes. Nothing serious.”

  “Who flirts?”

  I wasn’t about to sic these guys on the artist, when she had clearly had nothing to do with this and the embarrassment factor would have been sky-high all round. “Just, like, random girls. At parties or wherever. In shops. No one in particular.”

  Martin left that there for a few seconds, but I drank my water and looked back at him. My eyes still weren’t always tracking right; every now and then part of Martin’s head would disappear, or there would
be two of him, until I managed to blink hard enough to reset my focus. I felt a small pathetic rush of gratitude towards these guys for taking up my attention, leaving no room for the terror to take hold.

  “Fair enough,” Martin said, in the end. “Ever followed through with any of them?”

  “What?”

  “Ever cheated on Melissa?” And before I could answer: “Listen, man, we’re not here to get you in hassle. Whatever you tell us, if we can keep it to ourselves, we will. But anything that might have pissed anyone off, we need to know.”

  “I get that,” I said. “But I haven’t cheated on her. Ever.”

  “Good man.” Martin gave me a nod. “She’s a keeper. Mad about you, too.”

  “I’m mad about her.”

  “Aah,” said Flashy Suit, scratching his head with his pen and giving me a grin. “Young love.”

  “Anyone else mad about her?” Martin asked. “Anyone been hanging around her that you didn’t like the cut of?”

  I was so used to saying no to every question that I was about to say it again, automatically, when I remembered. “Actually, there was. Back, um, before Christmas? This guy, he came into her shop and got chatting to her, and then he kept coming back and not leaving for ages. And trying to get her to go for a drink. Even after she said no. It made her pretty—” Un-something, unhappy, no— “She didn’t like it. His name was Niall Something, he’s in finance at the—”

  Martin was nodding. “Melissa told us about him, all right. We’ll be checking him out, don’t you worry. Give him a bit of a scare while we’re at it, wha’?” He winked at me. “Do him good, even if he’s not our fella. Did you have any run-ins with him? Warn him off?”

  “Not a run-in, exactly. But yeah, after a few goes of this, I told Melissa to text me next time he came in. And then I ran down from work and told him to get lost.”

  “How’d he take it?”

  “I mean, he wasn’t pleased. There wasn’t any, we weren’t shouting or shoving or . . . but he got pretty stroppy with both of us. He left, though. And he didn’t come back.” I had no compunction about siccing the Guards on Niall Whatever. He had been a ridiculous, puffy-faced wanker who informed me that if Melissa had actually wanted to get rid of him, she would have done it, ergo the fact that he was there meant that she wanted him to be. I would have laughed—he obviously wasn’t dangerous, he was all hot air—if it weren’t for Melissa’s tense white face, the hunted strain in her voice when she’d told me about him. The fierce surge of protectiveness had been so strong that I didn’t care if she was overreacting; I was actually disappointed that I hadn’t needed to punch the little prick.

  “Sounds like you handled it. Fair play to you.” Martin resettled himself more comfortably, one ankle propped on the other knee. “You said you went down from work to run him off. You work in an art gallery, am I right?”

  “Yeah. I do the PR.” The mention of the gallery made my stomach do a small sideslip. If they had talked to Melissa, they might have talked to Richard—maybe I should just come clean, before they sprang something on me? but I really didn’t think Richard would want to get me into trouble, and anyway I was too muddled to be clear on what exactly I had done, I knew Tiernan and I had fucked up and got Gouger thrown out but—

  “Ever bring home any of the art?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Any reason someone might think you did? Does anyone ever bring it out of the gallery? To show a buyer, maybe?”

  “It doesn’t work that way. If a buyer gets a, a private viewing, it’s in the office. We’re not insured to carry the art around.”

  “Ah,” Martin said. “The insurance lads; of course. Get their noses into everything. Never thought of that. Anyone at work that you don’t get on with?”

  “No. It’s not that kind of place. Everyone gets on fine.” Or had, anyway, but—

  “What about at home? Have you got anything valuable that they might have been after?”

  “Um—” The barrage of questions was starting to disorientate me; he kept switching topics, and it was taking all my concentration to keep up. “I guess my watch—I have this antique gold watch that used to be my grandfather’s, he collected them? And I didn’t get like the, the fanciest one, because one of my cousins is older than me, Leon? he doesn’t look like it, but he’s actually . . .” I had lost track. It took me an agonizingly long time, while the detectives watched me with polite interest, to remember what I was supposed to be talking about. “Right. Yeah. I think mine could be worth maybe a grand.”

  “Beautiful, those old watches,” Martin said. “I don’t like the modern stuff, all those Rolex yokes; no class. Do you wear it out and about? Would people have seen it on you?”

  “Yeah, I wear it. Not always—mostly I just check the time on my phone? But if, for an opening or a, a meeting or . . . then yeah.”

  “Were you wearing it the other night?”

  “No. I mean”—meeting with Richard, a little extra gravitas—“yeah, I think I had it on that day. But then I probably, when I went to bed, it should be on my bedside table— Did they take it?”

  Martin shook his head. “Couldn’t tell you for sure. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember seeing a gold watch, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there.” The thought of these guys rummaging around in my apartment sent a twist through my stomach, and then a much colder and more urgent one: I had that hash, and—shit—hadn’t there been some coke left over from that Paddy’s Day party? But surely if they had been planning to give me hassle over that, they would have mentioned it by now— “How about your car?” Martin asked.

  “Oh,” I said. My car hadn’t even occurred to me. “Yeah. It’s a BMW coupe—I mean, it’s a few years old, but it’s probably still worth— Did they take it?”

  “They did, yeah,” Martin said. “Sorry. We’ve been keeping a lookout for it, but no joy yet.”

  “The insurance’ll sort you out, no problem,” Flashy Suit told me comfortingly. “We’ll give you a copy of the report.”

  “Where were the keys?” Martin asked.

  “In the living room. On the, the”—word gone again—“the sideboard.”

  He blew air out of the side of his mouth. “In full view of the windows, man. Ever leave the curtains open?”

  “Mostly. Yeah.”

  Martin grimaced. “You’ll know better next time, wha’? Did you have them open last Friday evening?”

  “I don’t—” Getting home, going to bed, everything in between, it was all blank, a black hole big enough that I didn’t even want to get near it—“I don’t remember.”

  “Did you have the car out that day?”

  It took me a moment, but: “No. I left it at home.” I had figured that, whatever happened with Richard, I was going to want a few pints.

  “In the car park in front of the building.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you drive it most days?”

  “Not really. Mostly I walk to work, if the weather’s OK, save the hassle of parking in town? But if it’s raining or, or I’m running late, then yeah, I drive. And if I go somewhere at the weekend. Maybe two days a week? Three?”

  “When was the last time you had it out?”

  “I guess—” I knew I had stayed home for a few days before that night, couldn’t remember exactly how long— “The beginning of that week? Monday?”

  Martin lifted an eyebrow, checking: You positive? “Monday?”

  “Maybe. I don’t remember. Maybe it was over the weekend.” I got where he was going with this. The car park was open to the road, no gate. Martin thought someone had scoped out my car, clocked me getting into it, watched the windows till he identified my apartment, and then come looking for the keys. In spite of the element of creepiness—me sprawled contentedly on my sofa eating crisps and watching TV, eyes at the dark crack between the curtains—I
liked that theory, an awful lot better than I liked my Gouger one. Car thieves weren’t personal, and they were hardly likely to come back.

  “Anything else valuable?” Martin asked.

  “My laptop. My Xbox. I think that’s it. Did they—”

  “Yeah,” Flashy Suit said. “Your telly, too. That’s the standard stuff: easy to sell for a few bob. We’ll keep the serial numbers on file, if you’ve got them, but . . .”

  “What we’re trying to figure out,” Martin said, “is why you.”

  They both looked at me, heads cocked, expectant half smiles.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Because I’m on the ground floor, I guess. And my alarm wasn’t on.”

  “Could be,” Martin agreed. “Crime of opportunity. That definitely happens, all right. But there’s plenty of other ground floors out there. Plenty of other people who don’t set their alarms. At this stage, we have to keep asking ourselves: could there be any other reason why they picked you?”

  “Not that I can think of.” And when they kept up the mild, expectant, matching gazes: “I haven’t done anything. I’m not involved in, in crimes or anything.”

  “You’re sure. Because if you were, now would be the time to get ahead of it. Before we find out some other way.”

  “I’m not.” This was starting to freak me out: what the hell did they think I had been doing? dealing drugs? selling kiddie porn on the dark web? “You can ask anyone. Check me out whatever way you want. I haven’t done anything.”

  “Fair enough,” Martin said agreeably, settling back in his chair with one arm looped easily over the back. “We have to ask.”

  “I know. I get that.”

  “We wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t. Nothing personal.”

  “I know. I’m not— I’m just telling you.”

  “Perfect. That’s all we want.”