Alone with the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller. James Nally

me for not protecting Eve – as if her prop dagger-wielding high-jinks hadn’t proven, beyond any doubt, that the one person who didn’t need protecting was Eve Daly.

      Dusk told me it was time to go and see her. As shadows gathered in the last corners of the golf course, I strode the ninth fairway, relieved to be ‘doing’ rather than ‘thinking’. Barty Morris, keeper of the greens and not many secrets, spotted me and stopped dead in his tracks. It was clear, even from this distance, he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. I gave him a wave of my white bandaged hands and turned towards the Daly back garden. To wide-eyed Barty, this represented the scoop of a lifetime. ‘The Dalys are having another party!’ I shouted, and he nearly toppled over.

      As I hopped into Eve’s backyard, I spied the press pack out front disbanding for the night. I counted six photographers and two TV cameras. To one side, an orange-faced anchor man completed an earnest piece-to-camera. Behind him, a pair of ferrety little reporters, all bustling and self-important in their flappy macs, buzzed about like bluebottles at a picnic. Fintan would feel right at home amongst that lot, I thought. Except with this story, he could scoop his rivals without leaving his flat in Dublin 4.

      As I crept across the crazy paving, I was stopped dead in my tracks by bloodstains – my bloodstains – daubed in manic streaks on the shed’s pebbledash wall. It looked like the remnants of some gruesome pagan sacrifice.

      I tiptoed to the outer wall of the house. The kitchen light was off, so I took a quick squint through the window. Ghostly white shapes floated up and down the hallway. On closer inspection, they turned into forensic officers in their white boiler suits and masks. Some sort of tent blocked the doorway into Eve’s bedroom. The place where we fell in love and made our promises was now a crime scene.

      I knew that my only chance of seeing Eve alone was after she’d gone to bed. She wouldn’t be sleeping in her own room tonight, so I gambled that Mo would give her the master bedroom. I decided to creep round the bungalow to that window and wait.

      The top half of the back door was frosted glass, so I got down on all fours to crawl past. Christ, I thought, what if Mad Mo walks out now? It’d be the second death here in two days, because she’d either keel over from shock, or murder me. I had to stop crawling to laugh. I put it down to nerves.

      I got to the window to find the blinds closed solid against the glass. I couldn’t even tell if there was a light on inside. I waited and waited, drumming up the courage to drum upon the glass. When it turned ten p.m., I held my breath and thudded gently with my bandaged hand. Nothing. I thudded louder.

      I stood back. I figured the Dalys were feeling a bit raw at the moment and I didn’t want to scare the shit out of anybody. The curtain opened a fraction. The light caught Eve’s fiery hair and I saw one green eye squinting through the gap. I realised I’d been holding my breath for longer than was healthy.

      The gap closed, then nothing. Was someone else in the room? I crouched down and waited, and waited. Ten, fifteen minutes passed. What was going on? All I knew was: I wouldn’t leave until I’d spoken to Eve – no matter how long it took. Finally, the window latch squeaked, a little reluctantly to my ears.

      I reached out, put my wrapped-up hand on hers. She pulled it away. Well what did I expect?

      I’d rehearsed my speech, over and over, but it was gone.

      ‘Sorry,’ was all I could think to say. ‘Eve, I’m so, so sorry.’

      I couldn’t stop my eyes welling up. She looked at me, blankly. She was still in shock. I just had to let her know that I was here for her.

      ‘I can’t imagine how you must be feeling,’ I said, re-offering a comedy mitten. She looked at it, blinked for the first time, but didn’t take it. She sighed hard.

      ‘He spiked my drink. That’s why I ended up, you know …’

      She looked over my head into the distance for several seconds.

      ‘Eve, please, we need to talk.’

      Finally, she snapped back from whatever far-off place she’d been inspecting, and looked at me properly.

      ‘He attacked me,’ she whispered.

      ‘Oh God, Eve,’ I said.

      She leaned forward, placing her elbows on the window sill and cradling her cheeks with her open hands. With her hair in bunches, she looked so young, so fragile, so pretty. I just wanted to hold her for the rest of my life.

      ‘Eve,’ I whispered, and moved closer, ‘I know this is going to sound really weird, but I think I saw what happened.’

      Her hands dropped from her face. ‘What?’ she said, her voice suddenly hard. ‘What are you on about?’

      ‘Please, just let me explain,’ I pleaded. ‘When I blacked out, I had this sort of out-of-body experience. It’s like my spirit came to your bedroom and saw what happened.’

      ‘What?’ she said, irritated.

      ‘Look I know it sounds mad but I came out of my body and found myself hovering in your bedroom. I could see you on the bed. I saw … him … walk into the room. I saw the clock radio. It said 1.09.’

      Eve stared at me, her damp eyes accusing and wounded. ‘What? What do you mean you saw?’

      ‘It’s like my spirit got sent to your bedroom. It was as if I was in your room, watching it all happen, but when I tried to shout, when I tried to … help you, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t move. I really don’t know how to explain it.’

      Eve was staring at me hard, blinking often.

      ‘What did you see?’ she demanded.

      ‘Oh God, Eve, I don’t know if I should put you through it again, I …’

      ‘Tell me, Donal. Please. I need to know.’

      ‘I saw him getting up, er on top of you. Then he threw his hat towards the window … like a Frisbee …’

      ‘Oh my God …’ she murmured. ‘And …?’

      I rushed through the rest as fast as I could. ‘You were sort of fighting back. It was all silent. He lifted up your skirt and then it went black and I woke up in hospital. It felt like I was in some sort of vacuum.’

      Eve held my hand tightly.

      After what seemed like several minutes, she said, ‘How long were you there, in my room?’

      I shook my head. ‘A few minutes. The clock said 1.13 when I blacked out again.’

      I decided not to mention Meehan’s post-death attempt to strangle me: she’d heard enough for one night.

      ‘That’s so strange,’ she said softly, her grip on my hand loosening.

      ‘There must be a logical reason,’ I said. ‘Maybe I heard them talking about it, when I was unconscious. Maybe my brain formed pictures of what I’d heard.’

      ‘Yeah but the hat thing … no one would know that.’

      We said nothing for several minutes.

      ‘He did attack me, you know?’ she said, lowering her big wet eyes towards mine, ‘I had to defend myself.’

      ‘Of course,’ I said, tightening my grip. ‘I – I saw.’

      She gulped and looked down.

      ‘Eve, I want you to know, whatever happens, I’ll be here for you.’ I had never meant anything more in my entire life.

      She turned her head to the window frame. ‘Just go, Donal. Don’t wait for me,’ she said softly.

      ‘Okay, but I’ll come back tomorrow, and every day until this has sorted itself out.’

      ‘No, Donal, I don’t want you waiting for me. It’ll just make things harder. Go without me.’

      ‘I