‘This isn’t justice, Dervla,’ I said. ‘All you’ll be doing is murdering an innocent little girl and destroying her parents’ lives.’
Dervla seemed to consider this for a few seconds. She stood up and approached Frank. She wasn’t going to put down the gun and call it a night. I knew that by then. It turned out Frank did too.
‘Sometimes innocent people have to suffer, Kenny,’ she said. ‘It’s the way business works. Isn’t that right, Frank?’
Frank’s response was muffled by the choke. Dervla reached behind his neck and released the catch. After spitting the ball out, he took a couple of deep breaths and responded to the question. ‘D’you seriously think your mother was a saint? Shit happens to thousands of people every day. They get over it and carry on.’
Dervla’s hand tightened on the gun.
‘Let’s see how good you are at carrying on after watching your granddaughter’s brains blown out, Frank. Tell you what, how about I bring her down here so you can get a better look? Maybe I’ll even wake little Hester up so you can remember the terrified look on her face just before she died. Remember it for the rest of your miserable fucking life.’
Dervla spat the last sentence out just a few inches from Frank’s face.
‘Do what you want, you crazy bitch,’ he said. ‘There’s no way I can stop you. But one thing you should know is that April Thomson was a two-bob slag. Half the club had fucked her by the time she got to me. I don’t know what kind of cobblers she wrote in that diary, but she slept with Cartwright because she wanted to.’
‘You’re lying,’ Dervla said.
‘No, I’m not. Fair enough, the silly cow got more than she bargained for, but she only had herself to blame for that.’
‘Shut up, Frank.’
‘You don’t think there’s a reason she went on the game?’
‘It was the only way she could support the two of us.’
Frank’s mocking laugh echoed around the studio’s rafters. Dervla levelled the gun at his temple. The laughter didn’t stop. He wanted her to pull the trigger.
‘She fucking enjoyed it,’ he continued. ‘We both know there’s only one thing better than doing what you love, Dervla, and that’s getting paid for it.’
Having said what he hoped were his final words, Frank laid his head back in the barber’s chair and waited for oblivion. Dervla lowered the gun and smiled.
‘You dying to save Hester? Nice try, Frank, but that’s not how this show ends.’
She turned and walked towards the dais. I gave it one last go. ‘April would never have wanted this, Dervla. Put the gun down and walk away from this.’
But Dervla had entered the past. There was nothing I could do that could change what had happened to her and April all those years ago. And nothing I could do to stop what was going to happen next. She stood behind the sofa on which Hester was stretched out, and pointed the gun at the kid’s head.
Frank struggled to free himself. His face was waxy and had a blue tinge to it.
‘Time to watch your daughter die,’ Dervla said to him.
For a moment I thought she’d chosen the wrong word. But Dervla didn’t make mistakes. The sweetest smile spread across her face. For the first time in her adult life she had found release. The drugs, the booze and the therapy had been a waste of time.
She slipped the gun into her own mouth and blew the back of her head off.
The explosive sound of the gun discharging was in sharp contrast to the muffled thump of Dervla’s body hitting the floor. Blood and brain tissue had spattered across the smiling photograph of April taken before her daughter was born. Hester shifted position on the sofa but remained unconscious. Hopefully it would stay that way until someone got her out of there. Got us all out of there.
Despite his airway now being free, Frank was struggling to breathe and there was a sheen of sweat across his face. His mouth was moving, although no sound emerged. More than anything I wanted to close my eyes and settle into a warm bath of nothingness. Instead I used the wall to lever myself to my feet.
Each step was like a step on a tightrope. My hands remained tied, making it difficult to keep my balance. Frank was conscious when I got to him, but only just. Stroke or heart attack, he was travelling in one direction.
The only thing left to do was witness him go.
Lips that had been moving mechanically like those of a gaffed fish tried to fashion specific words. His voice was soft, but I managed to make them out. ‘What did . . . she . . . say?’
‘It’s not important, Frank.’
‘She said she was my . . . daughter?’ I nodded. ‘Then why . . . did . . .’
Frank’s head slipped on the chair and that was that. The man who, forty years ago, in a Frith Street drinking club, had told me about his plans to conquer the world departed it with a staccato sigh. I cried for a bit and then I puked up.
Two minutes later I heard footsteps on the stairs.
THIRTY-EIGHT
I was in hospital for three days. My brain had swollen but there wasn’t a bleed, thank God. The neurologist prescribed a hatful of pills that I took every four hours to stabilise my condition. They did nothing to ease the pain or the boredom.
On the plus side, a private room meant I could watch TV, which was a welcome distraction. It also meant the police could interview me in relative seclusion. DI Standish was my first visitor. Fortunately he was limited to half an hour and couldn’t indulge his inclination to ask the same question several dozen times.
By the time I’d taken him through the events, from speaking to Frank on the phone to the point that the first officer had arrived in Dervla’s studio, a nurse had issued him with a five-minute warning.
‘So the last thing Dervla said was that Frank was going to watch his daughter die?’ he asked. ‘They were her exact words?’
‘And then she pulled the trigger. I told this to one of your guys on the scene. Didn’t he pass it on to you?’
Standish nodded. ‘We ran a DNA test.’
‘And?’
‘Negative. Frank Parr wasn’t Dervla’s father.’
‘So it was a musician, then . . .’
Standish looked puzzled. I related the story Peachy had given me about the guy who had knocked his daughter up in Glasgow. He didn’t seem convinced.
‘From what you’ve told me, April Thomson wasn’t the kind of girl to go straight from one guy’s bed to another.’
‘It would have been out of character.’
‘Then her biological father was probably someone in London.’
‘If you’re asking me, then I’ve no idea.’
‘We’ve read April’s diaries, Kenny. We know she was raped by DI Cartwright.’
It took a couple of seconds for the implication to sink in.
‘Can you establish a match?’ I asked.
‘Not without an exhumation order for Cartwright and a judge won’t grant one just to satisfy everyone’s curiosity.’
‘Which means we’ll never know for sure.’
‘I know what I think,’ Standish said, and so did I.
‘Was she acting alone?’ I asked.
‘Looks that way.’