Heart Stopper Read online

  Priya seemed to stumble over every narrow step; she registered more than one set of footsteps behind her as she almost fell down the staircase. She unlatched the door feeling the noisy wave of presence behind her and staggered out into the alleyway and ran towards Quay Street slipping into the heaving crowd.

  She glanced over her shoulder and thought she saw the top of his head; he was pushing his way through the crowd less than a hundred yards behind. She was at the bottom of Shop Street now, at the clearing where it forked into Quay Street and Mainguard Street. A band of boys was playing Rod Stewart’s ‘Some Guys Have All The Luck’, the drum kit perched on the edge of the pavement, the guitarists treading the cobbles, a thickening of the crowd surrounding them. Priya pushed through and found herself funneled up Shop Street, further away from her car and from the Mill Street Garda Station. As she ran, the strain of the boys’ song was drowned out by the wail of a didgeridoo, the busker breathing heavily into the long windpipe.

  On bad days, Shop Street was clotted and clogged up, sluggishly spilling its excess into narrower tributary streets. On good days, its flow is fluid, with occasional pools forming around pubs and cafes to enable fueling with coffee or alcohol, or a dip into the minds on sale in its bookshops.

  This was not a good day.

  Priya fought her way through the crowd, twisting to avoid the jabs of rucksacks wielded on the backs of unseeing tourists, top-heavy and dawdling. She fought the urge to cry, the even stronger urge to push them over. She couldn’t ask for help, couldn’t risk the slash of a knife in the press of the crowd. Slicing through her, or through anyone who she dragged into this nightmare. She drew in a deep breath, struggling for breath. Her mouth filled with the scent of perfumes, wafting from the people and from the shops mixed with the beer from the pubs, the grease smell of pizzas, fish and chips, and burgers as well as the delicate flavors coming from the finer restaurants.

  She reached the top of Shop Street where it flowed out from Eyre Square, the heart of the city. There were still crowds of people, but they were more dispersed. She felt the loss of the protection from the crowd and looked behind her again.

  The man was disentangling himself from a buggy, its little boy screaming and red, his mother trying to quiet him. Priya started to run towards the tourist information kiosk nestled in the corner of the Square. A large 50-seater tour bus was just pulling out from on the street and she changed direction and jumped through its closing doors landing with a heavy thud on the steps leading up to the driver. He braked in surprise, and then jerked the bus forward again as the horns of the cars behind sounded.

  “Are you that eager for the tour, love?” He was trying to keep an eye on the road and didn’t seem too put out by her arrival.

  She stayed seated on the step and tried to appear eager, tried not croak the words out.

  “I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to miss it, my last day in your beautiful city, you know.”

  “Ah sure, just find yourself a seat back there, you can pay me when we stop.”

  She kept her head down, peering through the glass panes of the door as the bus drove down towards the entrance to Shop Street where she’d last seen her pursuer. He was standing at the corner by the pedestrian posts that blocked Shop Street to traffic, looking up at Eyre Square and then to his left at the road where it continued onto Eglinton Street. She scrambled up realizing that if he looked he would see her crouching at his eye level as the bus passed him. It was too late, his eyes widened as he caught sight of her just as the bus started its arc around the corner. She saw him read the signage on the bus that proclaimed its destination and many stops in large white lettering on its green shamrock covered exterior. And then he gestured to another man, and yelled something at him. The second man turned and they ran back down Shop Street.

  She walked through the seats and found one at the back window. The bus was almost full just about ten seats vacant. There seemed to be a large number of American youths and they looked at her with curiosity as she passed.

  The drone of the driver’s voice came over the speakers, welcoming them onboard, his practiced spiel provoking the required laughs from the young passengers.

  She slumped down in the seat. This was the second dead body in as many weeks. Shock had transformed into chaos in her mind. She would normally turn to Michael at times like these not that there had ever been times exactly like this. This time it was Michael, her Michael. She was struggling to see him as not there, as gone.

  Priya couldn’t understand why she didn’t say anything to the driver, to the passengers. Why she didn’t scream and cry. She had a sure sense that if she spoke somebody else would get hurt. The coldness of the stare, the sureness of the feet on the stairs behind her, the silent chaos of the chase through the crowded street all weighed in; into a chant in her head that kept her mute. She had never asked for help from anyone except Michael before. And where had that gotten him? The voice of guilt was cruel.

  Priya sat up with a jerk. She didn’t have her jacket. She tried to remember when she had it last. She had gotten out of her car, put her keys in her jacket pocket along with her phone, and then slung the jacket over her shoulder. She remembered getting her keys out of her jacket at the door to Michael’s building and using another key at Michael’s door. The jacket had been over her arm, the keys in her other hand. She had dropped her jacket beside Michael’s body! Her phone was in it. She thought she might have dropped her keys on the stairs or at the door to the alleyway. So if the men went back, they would have her keys and her phone, and her ID. She checked her pockets. She had a twenty-euro note and some coins, a pitiful total of 26 euro and 30 cent.

  The bus was heading in the direction of Connemara. She was hoping it would take the road past her house and when it turned in the direction of Barna she got up and walked down to the driver.

  “Where’s the first stop?” she asked him, waiting for a break in his patter and leaning over his shoulder.

  “Just one stop for the moment, Spiddal. You do know this bus doesn’t return tonight, right? This crowd are booked into the hotel further on. Do you want to change your mind?” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Where are you from, love? You sound very Irish to me, though, no offence, you don’t look it.”

  “I might just get off before Barna; I didn’t realize it wasn’t coming back tonight. How much do I owe you?”

  “Listen, we won’t fight over it, give me what you can, and we’ll say no more.”

  They were coming up to her house and she was just about to ask him to stop when she saw the car parked on the road a hundred yards after the entrance to her house. It was the same car that had followed her the other evening. This time there were two men in it and as the bus passed the car, she saw them look at bus and then pull their car out behind it.

  The bus was heading further into Connemara. Catherine and Reyna were in Connemara! Priya knew the general direction; she only recalled the initial part of the journey, somewhere after Spiddal and after the turn to the Aran Island ferries they had turned, she couldn’t even remember if it was to the right or the left. She had to get off the bus without being seen by the men in the car behind. Connemara was vast and barren, she could hide in the bog, but only if she got there without their knowledge. If they saw her enter, she would be an easy target in the open landscape.

  The bus was approaching Furbo and she made up her mind. She took out the three two euro coins and said to the driver, “Will 6 euro get me to the turn off to the Aran Islands ferry? I’ll give you the rest when I can. I know it must be a lot more usually.”

  “I wouldn’t want to drop off a young lady like yourself in a place like that. There’s nothing out there. I tell you what. We’re stopping at the pub in Spiddal for a meal and a few drinks, how about I drop you off there and you can get me another time.”

  Priya thanked him, aware that he wanted to ask her more and grateful that he didn’t. She went back to her seat and peered through the headrests through the back
windows. There was a line of cars behind the bus and in the dimming light of the summer’s night, she could see that the dark car had let a few cars pass and was now five cars behind the bus. The car was far enough away that she couldn’t see the occupants, but close enough for them to see the bus as its bulk heaved its way along the coastal ribbon road through the changing landscape, lined by gorse and trees, stone and sea to the entrance to windswept boggy depths of Connemara.

  ∞

  Twenty minutes later, the bus stopped, whistling its air out and jiggling itself into a comfortable squat. They were in Spiddal, parked on the side of the road in front of a hotel. The chalkboard outside advertised daily specials of seafood and live music in the pub. She tried to see what was on either side of the hotel, but she couldn’t see through the kids gathering their belongings. She looked out through the back seat again and saw the car. It was parked on the other side of the road. She decided to follow the crowd into the pub and then figure out a way to get out without the men seeing her.

  She hid in the bottleneck of people at the door to the bus. It squeezed and sprayed them out onto the street and into the hotel. The noise in the pub was deafening even from the lobby of the hotel. The band was playing traditional Irish music that battled for a place beside the loud conversations. The smell of sweat was a solid wall and she closed her eyes and allowed the crowd to carry her into the warmth of the bar, their American accents creating a memory of Reyna’s voice.

  Priya looked around the pub. She couldn’t see the far wall through the crush of people. There was a sign for the beer garden over the heads of the crowd and it pointed to a way out. She looked back at the front door to the hotel. The two men had not followed her in. She wondered how long they would wait. She needed to get out through the back door before they realized there was one. She didn’t know if they were locals, whether they would know about the beer garden, nothing at the front of the hotel gave a hint. She started pushing her way through the mill of bodies. She felt as vulnerable in the crowd, the thought of a knife thrust into her, her body kept upright by the others around her. The panic was tightening her throat, making it difficult to breath and she gasped in the warm air when she broke through on the other side of the room.

  The cold air outside was even more welcome. The beer garden was deserted, its garden furniture tables with their attached benches lonely in the early evening breeze. Not completely deserted, she realized with a fright. There was one occupant. He sat by himself at the table closest to the exit from the beer garden to the side street. He was wearing a peaked cap and his navy t-shirt stretched tight over a large belly. His nose was bulbous and red, but his eyes were clear and he looked up from his sandwich to peer at her with curiosity as she stumbled through the door.

  She tried to get her bearings. She was at the back of the hotel she thought and a side alley led in the direction of the front of the hotel, back to the main street. There was no way out without placing herself in the sights of the men in the car. She walked towards the exit, a break in the waist-high wall that ran around the stone beer garden, meaning to check down the side street and see if there was a slim chance that she could sneak out undetected.

  “Evening.” His voice was deep, his accent so strong that she struggled even with the simple word.

  She could see the small holes in his baggy trousers and the patch of grey hair on his belly that showed where the T-shirt had given up its effort to cover the expanse. He smiled and every line in his face stood to attention pushing back the folds of stubble-roughened skin. He took off his cap and wiped at the bald red patch that appeared covered lightly with wisps of grey.

  “Hi. Good evening.” Wow, she was able to be polite, now. Her eyes were searching the surroundings, a trapped animal seeking escape.

  “Sit, sit…” He gestured to the bench attached to the other side of the table.

  She sat in a daze.

  Michael was dead, she was being chased by two…killers, and she was sitting with the stereotype of a Connemara man shooting the breeze. This could only happen to her.

  The man was looking at her in the way that she was used to from most old Irish men, a mixture of appreciation and curiosity.

  “You are not from around here. Where are you from?”

  She was used to this too. She wanted to say Galway, but decided on the shorter route.

  “India, originally.”

  “Ah… I hear that’s a nice place, that. You must find it very cold here.”

  “I’ve been here a long time. A very long time, you get used to it.”

  She looked at the cars parked in the small gravel area behind where they were sitting. There was a high wall surrounding the area, she tried to judge if she could clamber over the wall. She turned back to him.

  She said, “Where are you from?” Stupid question, Priya, it was obvious.

  “Down Connemara. I’ve a farm there. In the middle of cutting the bog.” He pointed to a lime green van parked at the side of the gravel area. It had a trailer attached covered with a blue tarpaulin that was lumpy and she assumed packed with a load of cut turf. She looked back at him and saw that he wasn’t as old as she’d originally thought maybe late sixties.

  “A bit of sandwich?” He was holding it out to her.

  She shook her head.

  He took a swallow of his Guinness and held up the pint to her. “Do you want a drink? Do you drink Guinness?”

  She shook her head again and smiled with difficulty.

  He said, “I come and have one or two of these on an evening. Gets me away from the wife and kids, all six of them still at home. I keep Connemara ponies you know. Can’t get the same price now, it’s all the Swedish buying them now.”

  She couldn’t do this. He was nice, but this was crazy. She needed to find a way out. She got up and he held out his hand.

  He said, “Powli. My name.”

  That didn’t sound like any name she knew and she didn’t even know if she’d heard it right, or anything he’d said that didn’t involve gestures. She didn’t want to tell him hers. She shook his hand and smiled at him, and heard him say as she walked off the stone of the beer garden, “Lovely girl.”

  The side street was rough and darker than the back of the hotel. She saw the cars passing on the main street. The street opened onto the road a few yards up from the entrance of the hotel. She risked a look out sliding just the side of her face out from behind the bulk of the building.

  The car was there. But there was only one man in it. And he would see her if she left the side street.

  Priya panicked. She looked back down the side of the hotel. How long before the other man discovered the beer garden? She looked at the van and trailer. She checked whether Powli could see from his perch and decided he couldn’t. She didn’t have time to find a better way out of here. She ran over to the trailer as quietly as she could, worked up one end of the tarpaulin and slipped into the dark crevice. She knew he would be driving back into Connemara, she just hoped he was at least going in the general direction of Catherine’s house.

  The tarpaulin weighed heavy on her, damp and hot in the cave of sharp edges. She could not see or hear now. But she would not think. Just strained to listen. Then she heard the rise and fall of music as the door to the garden opened and shut. She heard and understood despite his thick accent.

  “Sure, the little Indian girl. Are you her boyfriend then?”

  The questioner must have nodded assent and Powli continued,

  “Lovely girl, lovely. We had a nice little chat. Then she headed back into the bar, didn’t you see her? Must be very busy in there. Good band, isn’t it? One of my cousins is on the bodhran. What do you think of them?”

  There was silence, the music, and silence again. Then Priya heard him again,

  “If that’s her boyfriend I’ll eat my cap.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  She estimated that she had been lying there for two hours. It felt longer because of the space for thoughts.
On a few occasions, she heard people come out and she smelt the cigarette smoke. Powli started up conversations with all the smokers and a waiter brought him out another Guinness. So he had drunk two pints that she knew of, and was going to be driving her and a trailer-load of turf down the narrow bog roads in the coming dark. She didn’t care. Her usual concern for the letter of the law seemed useless right now.

  She took stock. The men were probably sitting out front in the car. She was finding it hard to figure out what a killer would do. Would they have given up when they didn’t find her in the bar? She had no phone. If she could get to Catherine’s house. She concentrated on that thought. Would they have found Michael? She pushed all thoughts of his body out of her mind, lying there, broken.

  She felt the movement of the van as the door slammed. The engine was loud even filtered through the tarpaulin. The edges of the cut turf jabbed into her as the trailer went over the curb and bumped onto the main road. She needed to see whether the men were still there, but she was lying with her head near the van. She didn’t know whether it was dark enough outside her cocoon to risk moving. She stayed as still as possible, trying to move with the swaying of the trailer. She needed to work out the distance, the time it would take the van to reach the turn she remembered Reyna taking. If Powli kept driving straight, she would have to jump. And then what? Walk to Catherine’s? She felt she could find the house, they hadn’t made many turns, the road had just wound its way and though she had been lost in thought and talk for a part of the trip, her eyes had taken in the beauty, and the route.