The Doll's House

‘You tell me, Clodagh.’ His tone is gentler.

‘I don’t know, Martin. I don’t know anything any more.’ There is still anger in my voice, but also a note of pleading. I’m backing down out of fear because, right now, I’m more convinced than ever that I’ll crack and my brain might simply cease to be.

‘Sit down, Clodagh.’ He gestures towards the bed.

I do as he asks, as if I’m on auto-pilot. He sits beside me, and I look up at him, my eyes taking him in, as if he’s a stranger, not the man I married.

‘You took the photograph, Martin,’ I whisper. I place it on my lap, both my hands on top of it.

‘I didn’t take any photograph, Clodagh.’

‘Didn’t you?’ I know he’s lying. He’s the master of lies when he wants to be.

He smiles, the kind of smile an adult would give to a child playing silly games. Martin could convince the world of anything if he set his mind to it. When he’s angry or hurt, he hits out, blaming others for his own shortcomings. Another thing I discovered after we were married. He’s doing it now. He’s pretending he’s kind, and that I’ve somehow imagined that the photograph of Dad and his old friends has made its own way into his briefcase.

‘Of course not, Clodagh. Why would I want your photograph?’

‘I don’t know, Martin. Why would you?’

‘You’ve been under a lot of strain lately, with rehab, Ruby leaving, your mother and all.’ The back of his right hand gently strokes the bruised side of my face. ‘You need to rest.’ He stands up, pulls across the bedroom curtains, making the room darker. He takes off my shoes, placing them neatly together among the piles of clothes on the floor. He lifts my legs, his other arm around my shoulders, easing me to lie down, taking the large throw at the end of the double bed, covering me with it as I curl sideways, bringing my knees up to my chest, feeling my tears create a pool of damp on the pillow. ‘You need to relax, my dearest Clodagh. Let me take care of everything. I’m going to get you something to help. I have some sleeping pills. Nothing too strong, just enough to help you get some sleep.’

My eyes stare back at him. The tears are taking his shape out of focus. His body looks large and looming. I feel afraid. It’s a different kind of fear from before. It’s not the terror of a wife worried about being battered by her husband. It goes far deeper, as if the world is caving in on me.

When Martin returns with the tablets and the water, I swallow both tablets together, unsure if my own husband is trying to kill me and unsure if I care.

‘Martin.’ My voice is faint – as light as a summer’s breeze.

‘Yes?’

I’m remembering the garden I visited with Gerard Hayden, and I want that peace more than anything else right now.

‘Martin, why did you take away all the photographs of me?’ I wait. There is nothing but silence, until I’m finally lost in sleep.





Harcourt Street Police Station


O’Connor’s eyes were red and tired, as Mark Lynch knocked on his office door.

‘I’ve got something on Keith Jenkins’s buy-out of Hamilton Holdings.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Jenkins was flash with money at the time – you know, expensive car, renting an apartment in Ballsbridge near to Montrose, eating out in expensive restaurants.’

‘So?’

‘He might have given the appearance of being financially sound, but in reality he was far from it.’

‘So where did he get the money to buy Hamilton Holdings?’

‘Precisely.’

‘Lynch, would you quit playing bloody games? If you have something to say, just say it.’

‘We have another player in the field, an Alister Becon.’

‘That smarmy politician?’

‘And also the owner of the boat that facilitated Adrian Hamilton’s last journey out to sea.’

O’Connor stared at Lynch for a few seconds, as if the last piece of information was gliding through his brain. ‘Have you spoken to Becon?’

‘Briefly, sir. He said “the accident”, as he called it, was a very long time ago, and he denies any involvement with the buy-out of Hamilton Holdings.’

‘What makes you think he was involved?’

‘I got talking to a contact in RTé.’

O’Connor raised his eyebrows. ‘Mixing in famous circles, are we, Lynch?’

Lynch ignored O’Connor’s comment. ‘As Isabel Blennerhasset told you, Adrian Hamilton was influential in getting Jenkins his first break in television. Back then everyone who got to be anyone knew somebody. When Hamilton croaked it, there were questions asked about where Jenkins had got the money from to buy out Hamilton Holdings.’

‘And?’

‘Alister Becon was loaded and a close associate of both Jenkins and Hamilton, not to mention Jimmy Gahan.’

‘Don’t tell me, Lynch, another old college bud.’

‘Indeed.’

‘So why did Alister Becon do the deal via Jenkins? Why didn’t he buy it himself?’

‘My friend had a couple of theories on that too.’