She took it and shook it hard, her tearful smile lighting up a distant galaxy.

Chapter 6

Salcott Road, South London

Tuesday, July 2, 1991; 22:31

I drove up and down Gabby’s road but, of course, at that time of night there were no parking spaces. On a second pass, I spotted the entry to the street’s rear alley and ignored the No Parking sign next to it.

If Dominic Rogan launched another sortie tonight, he’d get the shock of his fucking life.

During my shift, Meehan’s words from three years ago had been ringing through my head: You need to keep an eye on that one. I couldn’t just hope that Rogan wouldn’t come back and attack Gabby. I’d failed to protect a woman from a violent man before. I wouldn’t be taking that chance again.

Besides, Rogan had clearly slipped into a delusional cycle that only the sharpest of shocks might break. My springing out of the night could do the trick.

I also figured, somehow, that Marion’s foul-tempered spirit /ghost would be less likely to find me here. And, having grown up on The Rockford Files, Cagney and Lacey and Remington Steele, I’d always fantasised about staking somebody out. I even brought doughnuts.

After midnight, the wind picked up, the last of the house lights went off and the trees groaned.

Just a handful of people walked past, mostly carefree couples gambolling home from a night out. How I envied their playful bickering, their easy intimacy, their ‘wink-and-elbow’ language of delight.

It had been almost three years since I’d shared the thrill of giddy affection. Sure, there had been a few drink-fuelled end-of-night snogs and exchanges of numbers, a few awkward dates. At least, they became awkward as soon as anyone mentioned exes. I hadn’t worked out yet how to talk about Eve and what happened – or how to refer to her in the past tense. Unfinished business, and all that.

I thought back to the last time we’d spoken – two days after she killed Meehan.

The lunchtime news revealed she had been released on bail. Three or four times that afternoon, I picked up the phone to call her home, only to replace the receiver. Eve wouldn’t answer for sure: what was I supposed to say to Mad Mo?

‘Mrs Daly, back from New York so soon?’

No doubt they’d blame 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.