CHAPTER ELEVEN
I felt something stir.
When I saw her the second time something told me deep inside that Joan Maguire and I were not going to be enemies forever. That something knocking on the door of that isolated place in my gut where unexplained feelings dwelt told me that I and the wife of Detective Maguire were going to patch up our differences.
Where we met for the second time was the home of a friend of mine who had just had her first baby. What seemed to be an almost entirely Irish gathering was called ostensibly to celebrate Max’s first few months of life. In fact it was an excuse for two dozen friends to get together and drink as much alcohol as possible and exchange good crack.
I was one of the outsiders. And it was not only my nationality which separated me from my Irish friends. They had a special relationship with one another which I envied then and still do. It was like they all belonged to the one big family with instinctive understanding of one another’s thought processes. Certainly they had the same sense of humour and the same daring attitude to life. Perhaps it was all down to the troubles which separated the north from the south, Catholics from Protestants, but whatever it was there was a benign conspiracy among the Irish whom I had come into contact with. I was jealous of them in a way but still liked being around them. When I am their lust for living rubs off on me.
The new mother was holding forth in the kitchen to some of her friends about how easy Max was, how he had not interrupted her life as much as the wealth of advice she had been given predicted. He slept through the night, rarely cried, and all in all was absolutely a joyous baby. Oh sure, none of that would last, but for now he was a delight.
Most of the men were in the corners of the living room and spilling on to the small patio at the rear of the house with their cans of beer in one hand gesticulating with the other. The subject was rugby. If it wasn’t a passion it was pretty close to it. More so as London Irish with their winger and fly half, both of whom were idolised by pretty well every woman then in the house, were known personally to more than a couple of the group.
Joan Maguire stood on the edge of the cluster of women her back towards me as I walked down the dim hall from the front door.
“Zack,” called my friend and began to move towards me. Joan Maguire turned with the others and I saw her. What on earth was she doing here? Of all places why here? How did she fit into this group of largely younger Irish mishmash of professionals and skilled workers? Actually she fitted the group very well.
I had not detected it at our first meeting but I discovered that Joan Maguire was Irish through and through. She hailed from Dundork just north of Dublin where her father, now retired of course, was an engineer. One of five sisters she the second oldest, she had been a key member of the Cahill family for the final three years she lived there after her mother died suddenly from what the doctors said was a heart ailment that could not have been identified even if she had exhibited symptoms. In fact, Deirdre Cahill had been bouncy and fun loving right up to the end. Then one morning she felt queezy she said, and by the afternoon she had been rushed to the hospital where she passed away shortly before midnight. It was a shock not only for the family but for the large extended Cahill clan of friends and relatives.
Joan took it hard. She threw herself into her work and her studies while at the same time assuming much of the role left empty by her mother. Within a year three of her sisters had left home and only she and baby Vicky remained, determined to lessen the impact their mother’s death had had on their father. The loss of his wife just about wiped him out as well. He resorted to the bottle for the first four months and if it had not been for the steadfast, and often ruthless, care and attention by Joan he would have perhaps sunk too low ever to be saved. The task she had set herself had been monumental, yet at the end of three years she had kept her father dry and sane enough to stand confidently on his own feet, managed a troubled household and passed her bar exams. It was time to leave.
London was for Joan what it was for countless other Irish who crossed the rough strait: Simply the obvious destination. There was no question of North America or anywhere else. Simply London, in spite of the long history of enmity which existed between the two countries.
Joan moved around various suburbs in the south and west. Ealing. Hammersmith. Clapham. She joined a small firm of lawyers who handled conveyancing for their satisfactory living, and then moved onto a larger one operating in the same field but out of offices off Oxford Street instead of the dreadful Stratford where she had spent a year and a half. Now she had moved to London, she used to tell her sisters when she telephoned them in Dublin. Before that, she would say, she was scouting only.
She was also browsing only when it came to men friends. She never had trouble getting dates. It was just that she was particular when it came to anything more than the casual fun and games. So before David Maguire the only heavy relationship she had was with a South African veterinary surgeon. But when David Maguire appeared on the scene all other interests vanished. Joan fell madly in love and in under two years they were married.
*
“Thank you so much for coming,” gushed my friend. “I really began to think you weren’t going to make it.”
“The traffic as usual,” I shrugged. Earlsfield was a long drive south from where I lived and the congestion on the other side of Westminster Bridge had been a nightmare for drivers for more than a few months.
“Anyway you’re here now. Come in and get a much deserved drink.” She called out to her husband and then herded me towards the kitchen where she presented me with an iced can.
Beaming she said: “You know everyone don’t you?” and pointed to five or six women whom I had met before. “Joan Maguire. Have you met Joan? Joan, this is my good friend Zachary Tighe. Zack, Joan is a lawyer and is married to a policeman so watch your step. Joan, Zack is a journalist so you better watch what you say.”
That was when I learned there was more than merely being an intelligent policeman’s wife to Joan Maguire. She looked me square in the eye. “Zachary.” She held out her hand. It was firm, dry and warm. “So, you can’t be all bad then.”
The wetting of the baby’s head was a resounding success. Just about everyone had far too much to drink. Those who had exercised a modicum of control were still well over the legal limit to drive but were more able to control all their limbs unaided. I was glad to have survived as one of that small group.
Joan Maguire was stone cold sober and we had spent a good part of the night talking together. I told her one version of my life history, all the ups but none of the downs, doing my best to create a good impression and recover that ground lost so abysmally outside Parliament. I was damned if I was going to miss the opportunity.
For her part, Joan told me some of her background and a lot more of her husband’s successes displaying a very obvious pride in him.
“So you should be,” I ventured bravely. “I hear he’s a good detective.”
“Not just good.” Joan Maguire lifted her chin slightly and sipped her Chardonnay. “David has been extremely successful. He has worked very hard to get where he is. He’ll go much further. This case will take him up the ladder also, you’ll see.”
She smiled at me suddenly, catching me slightly off guard. “Listen carefully, Zachary journalist Tighe. Watch my husband. There are a lot of bright policemen out there. Many of them are absolutely straight and dedicate their lives to protecting the likes of everyone here tonight. David is one of them.”
I felt a tap on my shoulder and when I turned I saw the flushed face of my hostess. She draped an arm around my shoulders and whispered loudly: “I forgot to tell you Zack. Joan is devoted to her copper husband. Slobbery devoted.” She winked grandly. “Hope you have not wasted all your good moves.”
Joan was still smiling: “He hasn’t wasted anything. Actually he has been quite the gentleman. And an excellent listener on top of that. I think you could say that if he was a patient he was making a fine recovery.”
*
When I finally opened both eyes the following morning and recognised the bedside table and the alarm clock with its eardrum splintering ring I groaned and gripped my temples in the hope that pressure alone would dispel the fearsome ache which filled the cavity between my ears. I am never at my best when I am suffering the mother of all hangovers. I have had the best and have to admit I am a total failure at being able to exercise any degree of discipline. Usually I sulk for hours, feel horribly badly done by for all of at least one day and invariably vow never, ever, to drink too much again.
I hauled myself into the bathroom, relieved myself and brushed my teeth twice to remove all the fur. Then I switched the radio on low and slumped onto the side of the bath willing the throbbing to go away.
That was when I heard reports that police had allegedly caught the serial killer.