The Dead Room

69

Darby staggered outside into a muggy night air drizzling with rain. Flashing blue, red and white strobe lights lit up the entire neighbourhood. At least half a dozen Wellesley police cruisers blocked off the street, parked at the far ends to give enough room for the two ambulances – and now a fire truck. She could hear its high-pitched siren wailing in the distance, building.

The driveway, covered in shards of glass and a couple of empty shotgun shells, had been taped off. A light grey smoke drifted from the gaps in Chadzynski’s crumpled bonnet – the reason the fire department had been summoned. Darby watched two patrolmen tape off the body, its limbs twisted and broken, lying on the grass. Warner, the head of Christina Chadzynski’s Anti-Corruption Unit. More like the woman’s personal hit squad, Darby thought, catching sight of the wet blood on the man’s torn clothes.

She needed to find a quiet place to call Coop. She walked numbly across the damp grass and into a big garden with overgrown grass.

At the far end she spotted a hammock set up between two thick pine trees. That looked good. Her legs carried her there and then fluttered with fatigue and relief after she plunked herself down on the wet fabric. Her heart thumped dully inside her chest, as if it wanted to go to sleep.

Shadows moved across the grass, which was lit by the windows of the house – every light had been turned on. Darby’s gaze drifted up to the windows of the room with the dried blood splattered against the walls and carpet. She thought of her mother sitting on the side of her father’s hospital bed, Sheila holding Big Red’s rough and callused hand on her lap and reciting lines from Dylan Thomas’s ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’, a poem her mother knew by heart. Sheila had said ‘bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray’ as the doctor shut off the life support machine. When her mother reached the end of the poem, she started again, holding back tears and saying the words clearly as she waited for Big Red’s body to die.

When the fire truck’s siren shut off, the only sound now the thudding throb of its engine, she took out her phone and dialled Coop’s number. One ring and he picked up.

‘Christ, Darby, where the hell have you been? I’ve been calling you for the past hour.’

Hearing his voice released the tightness inside her chest. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine, but I’ve been worried sick about you. I got that voice clip you sent me. What’s going on? Why didn’t you call me back?’

‘I met Father Humphrey.’

Coop didn’t speak. She could hear chatter and noises on the other end of the line. He’s at the airport, she thought, and her heart started racing.

‘He’s dead, Coop. So is Kevin Reynolds. You don’t have to leave.’

‘What happened?’

‘I’ll tell you in person. Where can I meet you?’

‘I’m at the airport.’

‘You don’t have to leave,’ she said again. ‘You and your sister can come home.’

‘I’m going to London.’

She felt short of breath.

Don’t leave, she wanted to say. I need you here. With me.

‘I’ve got to go, Darby. Final boarding call.’

She could hear the sadness in his voice. No, that’s not entirely true. She also heard relief. In six hours he would be walking through a new airport halfway around the world, walking through a new country where nobody knew his secrets. Where he could start afresh, maybe even reinvent himself.

‘Take another flight, Coop. I’ll pay for it. I want to see you before you go. Spend some time and talk –’

‘It won’t change anything.’

‘Just listen to me for a moment.’ She knew what she wanted to say – words that rushed through her a lot these days every time she saw Coop – but couldn’t put them together.

Start with what happened back at the house.

‘This afternoon, when you were about to leave, you came back.’

‘I shouldn’t have done that,’ he said.

‘I’m glad you did. I…’

Why is this so goddamn hard?

‘I just wanted to say… I…’

‘I know’, he said. ‘I feel the same way, for whatever it’s worth.’

‘It’s worth a lot.’ And I was too stupid or too scared or too selfish or all of the above and probably a hundred other things to act on it. But I don’t want you to leave. I don’t think I’ll be able to live with that.

‘If you feel that way,’ Darby said, ‘then don’t leave.’

‘I have to. I’ve wanted to get away from here for a long time. There’s no reason for me to stay.’

What about me? I’m not a good enough reason?

‘I’ve really got to go,’ he said.

Darby squeezed her eyes shut.

‘Okay,’ she said, choking on the word. ‘Have a safe flight.’

‘Bye, Darb.’

‘Bye.’

A soft click and the airport noise disappeared. Coop was gone.