Brothers & Sisters Read online

  BROTHERS AND SISTERS

  Adele O’Neill

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  About this Book

  About the Author

  Table of Contents

  www.ariafiction.com

  About Brothers & Sisters

  Nothing remains buried forever… What would you do to protect the ones you love?

  When human remains are found on Fitzpatrick Estate, Detective Kelly is drawn deep into the complex web of Fitzpatrick family secrets as Timothy and his sister Rose, now in their sixties, are catapulted into the centre of the investigation.

  When the pathology report identifies the remains as that of their uncle, Patrick Fitzpatrick, missing from Fitzpatrick Estate since 1970, they scramble to protect their past. What would you do to protect the ones you love?

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  About Brothers & Sisters

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About Adele O’Neill

  Become an Aria Addict

  Copyright

  For Marie and Curly:

  To Marie, for showing me that I had something inside so strong,

  And to Curly, for teaching me how to use it.

  Chapter 1

  Monday Morning – 2016

  Detective Tony Kelly stretched his arms over his head and pressed his weary shoulders against the black mesh back on his new office chair. Every muscle in his body ached and the unshaven black bristles on his face were an indication of another night spent crouching, crawling and scraping for traces of answers, beside another rotting corpse.

  ‘Ergo-fecking-nomical, my arse!’ he said as the padded armrest gave way and clunked heavily to the floor. Nobody flinched, which surprised him, considering it made such a din. ‘Who the feck put these together?’ No one answered, the four other detectives that shared the incident room preferred not to, for peace sake. He stood and kicked the chair aside; not so forcibly as to attract a response but enough to satisfy his simmering temper. It spun and whizzed before it stopped abruptly, teetered momentarily, and then plonked heavily on its side on the worn carpet tiles.

  ‘Tony,’ Detective Louise Kennedy was probably the only detective in their unit that was brave enough to refer to him by his first name. Much like the way a mother would a child, if he was in trouble. ‘Do you need some coffee or something?’ Her teeth remained clenched as she forced the corners of her mouth upwards and bent her head ever so slightly to the side.

  Detective Louise Kennedy’s piercing stare and sharp tone left him in no doubt that it was an instruction, as opposed to an offer, the kind of instruction that only a sarcastic friend might get away with.

  ‘No I don’t need any fecking coffee,’ he paused, ‘thank you.’ Kelly’s bluster was his trademark as were the dark tropical centipedes he had for eyebrows. ‘But a chair that worked would be nice.’ He kicked it again for good measure, not wanting to relinquish his higher ground just yet.

  Louise narrowed her eyes at his sarcasm and shook her head at his childishness. In the seven years since she had first arrived to the station in Kilkenny, he hadn’t changed so much as his shirt, never mind his personality, and even though they were equal in rank, he had an unspoken seniority to her in years of service.

  Kelly picked up his chair and placed it carefully back at his desk; every movement deliberate and silent. He needed to pull his horns in; he knew that, he just couldn’t bring himself to raise his gaze. He could feel her brown eyes boring holes in his head. He shut down his computer and placed his phone in his shirt pocket.

  ‘Maybe, coffee would be nice.’ He finally mustered the courage to look back at her, knowing she would not avert her gaze until he reciprocated. ‘Would you like one yourself?’ He paused for effect and plastered a deliberate false smile across his stubbly jaw. ‘Darling,’ he added. The sarcasm dripped like molasses from his gritted teeth and a snigger escaped from one of the other desks; Louise couldn’t identify which one.

  She stood, almost by stealth and scanned the room. She was sick of their feeble joke attempts at her expense, and if the truth was known, she was offended for Kelly also. Being the only female in this division had its drawbacks; being the only other detective that Kelly trusted was an occupational hazard.

  ‘If one other person,’ her voice raised slightly, just enough so that no one could mistake the intention in her tone, ‘so much as thinks about calling me, “darling”, or refers to me as his “work wife”, again, I will personally hand you your balls in the same envelope as your P45.’ She paused triumphantly. ‘Clear?’ None of the three other detectives that hid behind their computers looked up, they knew not to. Detective Louise Kennedy was a force to be reckoned with; as headstrong as her male counterpart but infinitely more tactful and correct, she wouldn’t hesitate to follow through on her threat, and although she might not have literally handed them their balls, she would have made them feel as though she had, and therein lay her power.

  ‘I’ll join you,’ Louise said, glaring around the room, daring any one of the three to answer. They didn’t – not out loud anyhow. She led Kelly to the break room and closed the door behind them. ‘What the fuck?’ she hissed at him. ‘What’s with the hissy fit?’

  ‘Just tired.’ Kelly poured two cups from the coffee pot, scrambling for a better excuse to give her. He sipped slowly, buying some time. If he knew Louise Kennedy well enough, he knew that, if nothing else, she was relentless. He sighed heavily and continued, ‘I was up at Fitzpatrick Estate for most of the night. Forensics will be finished with the scene before lunch, they reckon.’

  ‘We only caught this case yesterday evening, give yourself a chance; Jesus, give me a chance, would you?’ Louise wasn’t the type to follow but somehow, since she was stationed at Kilkenny, she found herself content to be in his shadow, it helped that she was secretly in awe of his rebellious nature, even if he was the one who got on her nerves the most.

  ‘Mmm, maybe.’ Kelly wasn’t convinced. Something was niggling at him. He had stayed at the scene right through the night, accepting copious cups of tea, a wee dram of whiskey and a bellyfull of buns from Marie McGrath, one half of the couple who were the new owners of the Estate.

  ‘Who you interested in?’ Louise could tell he was grinding his theories hard to see what flavours remained.

  ‘I want to talk to Timothy Fitzpatrick, landlord extraordinaire.’ Kelly had been strategic in accepting the McGraths’ hospitality; people talked more over a country cup of tea, he had said to her. ‘The McGraths tell me they only bought the Estate four months ago, after years of putting in offers.’ He stood ag
ainst the countertop with one hand lodged in his dark unwashed jeans and the other around his mug. ‘From this Timothy Fitzpatrick, one of the original owners, last in a long line of Fitzpatricks, apparently.’

  ‘Should we not be concentrating on the body, identifying that?’ Louise topped up her coffee and spooned in another lump of sugar; after the run she did that morning she needed the boost.

  ‘If anyone cared who the body was, we’d already know by now.’ Kelly shook his head. ‘We need to know how he got there. That’s where the key is.’

  ‘Maybe…’ Louise said but Kelly interrupted her.

  ‘And why, all of a sudden, after ten bloody years, was it time to finally sell the place – that’s why I want to talk to Timothy Fitzpatrick.’

  ‘I take it there’s no one on the Missing Persons Register that matches.

  ‘Haven’t found anyone yet.’ Kelly ran both hands through his black wavy hair and rubbed. Speckles of dandruff spilled onto his shoulders and disappeared like snowflakes landing on wet grass. ‘Won’t get the pathologist report till tomorrow either, but from the preliminary investigations, the pathologist thinks we should start our search back as far as 1970.’

  ‘I heard that, what’s that about?’ Louise’s frown made a thick line across her forehead, deep enough to do a tyre test with a ten cent coin. At thirty-five years of age, she was beginning to realise that she shouldn’t have dismissed her glamorous aunt’s advice on moisturiser.

  ‘Something to do with the acidity of the soil, or wetness,’ Kelly slurped and sighed as he downed the black coffee. ‘Something like that. The pathologist said the conditions…’ A waft of his own stale body odour exploded up his nose as he lifted his arms. He looked at Louise and hoped she hadn’t noticed. She was standing next to him cradling her mug in her hands. ‘The soil conditions sort of preserved the remains.’

  ‘Right, I’ll have another look.’ Louise dropped her nose into her scarf, creating a barrier between her and the stench. ‘Have you not been home yet then?’ She stood just to his left a bare sniff away.

  ‘No, not yet.’ Kelly’s cheeks flushed as he realised she had smelled him.

  ‘You need a shower, Kelly.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ His cheeks flushed even pinker.

  ‘Seriously, Tony, go take a bloody shower.’

  ‘If you keep talking to me like that, they’ll…’ he said quietly, motioning through the break room window at the detectives in the other room. ‘If you think “wife” is bad, wait till they start calling you my “mother”.’

  ‘More like your daughter. For fuck’s sake, I’m half your age,’ Louise said.

  ‘Cop on to yourself, fucking half my age.’ Kelly sniffed at her remarks, his pride a little dented. ‘You’re thirty-five, there’s a big difference between half my age and twenty years younger than me, or was maths not your strong point either?’ Kelly answered, half joking, whole in earnest.

  ‘Jesus, someone’s a little touchy,’ Louise answered, feigning innocence at her own remark. She was only too aware of Kelly’s sensitivity to his age, which was why she was getting such a kick out of tormenting him. ‘I was exaggerating for effect,’ she began to spell out her intentions, knowing full well that this would aggravate him even more. ‘Saying that, it would be more likely that I’d be your daughter, seeing as you are,’ she looked away from him, stifling the smirk that was edging her bowlike lips towards a toothy smile, ‘twenty years older than me.’ She continued as she walked towards the breakroom door, hiding the grin on her face.

  He smiled in response, but not while she could see him.

  ‘I’ve been looking into the McGraths as well, Michael and Marie,’ Louise said as she returned to her desk. Kelly followed. ‘I’d love to know what possesses a couple in their forties, well, Michael McGrath is in his forties, the wife, Marie is in her thirties, to leave the big city lights and take over an old derelict estate two hours from Dublin. It just doesn’t make sense to me.’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t,’ Kelly said.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Louise answered. Their exchanges, to anyone a safe enough distance away to observe, were like a tennis match in the Wimbledon singles final on centre court; each equally capable of winning but, more importantly, neither willing to lose.

  ‘You being a city chick and all that.’

  The smirk on Kelly’s face as he said it bothered her. She could have settled as a beat cop and remained in Dublin with her family and friends close by but she was too ambitious not to pursue the promotion when it came up.

  ‘Says the man who thinks he needs a passport to go beyond the county boundary,’ Louise said. She had every intention of rising through the ranks and, unlike Kelly, she was prepared to relocate for her ambition, and besides, two hours south of Dublin to the medieval city of Kilkenny that was steeped in Irish history was hardly the other side of the world. ‘And by that token, the McGrath’s were city chicks too.’ Louise was quick to answer. ‘So that just adds to my point.’

  ‘Ah but, farming was in Michael McGrath’s blood. You don’t know what it’s like to want to come home to the land,’ Kelly said.

  ‘And neither do you, sure you never left.’ She smiled.

  ‘What about you, then?’ Kelly wasn’t about to let her away with that one. His reasons for staying in Kilkenny and passing up promotion opportunities over the years were his business and while he knew the general consensus amongst his peers was that he was unambitious or disinterested, it bothered him to think that Louise thought the same. ‘There was obviously a reason that you left Dublin,’ he said. ‘Perhaps something you wanted, that you couldn’t get there.’ Louise nodded. ‘Well then, can’t we use the same premise for the McGraths?’ he asked. ‘There was something in Kilkenny that they couldn’t get in Dublin, in their case, a farm, a return to Michael’s home place, his brother and a better life for their family than they would have had in Dublin.’ Kelly smiled smugly; as far as he was concerned, it was that simple.

  ‘I suppose,’ Louise answered. She decided to bank the thinly veiled insult about Dublin for later. Even though there were so many similarities between the cities, it was a one-upmanship that they bantered about frequently. Whose city had the bigger castle? Which city attracted the most tourists? Where was the best nightlife? They could tit-for-tat for days about it. Sometimes she suspected that Kelly might be a descendant of Strongbow himself when it came to the passion he displayed for Kilkenny and his reluctance to leave it.

  ‘Did you know that they leased the farm before they bought it in January?’ Kelly said.

  ‘Yeah, I did, they’ve been there ten years apparently,’ Louise answered.

  Kelly wheeled another chair from an empty desk and pushed the new broken one aside. Nobody commented.

  ‘Apparently Michael’s a local. He left years ago.’ Kelly was cautious as he dragged the new chair towards his desk; he checked the armrests twice. Louise couldn’t help but smile. The bolts seemed secure. For the first time, he considered that maybe the bolts on the last chair were tampered with deliberately. He threw a glance around the room. ‘He was lecturing in University College Dublin.’ He checked his notes. ‘Agricultural Science, no less. Came home then, when he had himself a wife and children.’

  ‘And what about the Fitzpatricks?’ Louise had brought her coffee back to her desk. She wet her thumb and wiped the droplets from the outside of her mug. Had she been at home, she would have licked them directly off.

  ‘There’s Timothy Fitzpatrick, in his sixties, living in Dublin since the seventies. Fitzpatrick Estate was in his and his sister’s name up until January this year.’ Kelly concentrated on his scrawl in his black notebook, ‘There’s the sister, Rose Fitzpatrick, now O’Reilly, who’d also be in her sixties, also living in Dublin, and then there’s both of their parents up in St. Peter’s cemetery.’ Kelly had walked the cemetery himself with the intention of reading every headstone until he had found them. Trusting his hunch, he had checked the more os
tentatious plots first. There was no way a family with an estate the size of Fitzpatricks’ wouldn’t have a plot to match it. As usual, his instincts were right. ‘There were only the two of them buried up there.’ Louise listened. ‘Maeve and Liam Fitzpatrick buried within a year of each other, 1986 and 87.’ Kelly double-checked the years in his notebook.

  Louise scratched a line through the first item on the list in front of her.

  ‘Although, you’d think by the size of the plot, they’d have breed, seed and a generation of Fitzpatricks up there with them,’ Kelly added as he leafed through his pages.

  ‘Sure, how else were they going to let people know that they were better than everyone else?’ Louise said, watching his hands as they turned the well-crumpled pages. She imagined a tumbling tower of old battered notebooks stacked in chronological order beside his bed with every case he had ever caught, documented in his scrawl; starting with his first notebook thirty years ago and ending with this one he had in his hands. ‘There was another Fitzpatrick, you know,’ Louise added, realising now that Kelly hadn’t discovered it yet. He didn’t answer. ‘According to the locals, there was a “Patrick”, or “Pat Fitzpatrick”,’ Louise looked across from her notes at his expression. ‘Never married, he may have left for Liverpool, in the seventies, I’m told,’ Louise added.

  ‘How did I not know that?’ Kelly said, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. ‘How’d you find that out?’

  ‘I have my ways.’ Louise grinned, delighted to get ahead of him. She hadn’t verified her information yet, but the old fellas in the local pub were as much an information source as a government census form; small towns with generations of families living in them was one thing that her Dublin City didn’t have, but she wasn’t about to tell Kelly that. ‘Would have been an uncle to your, Timothy Fitzpatrick?’ Louise waited for him to reply. She tried her best to suppress a smile that was forming as she watched his notebook ritual of straightening up loose pages, smoothing down the crumples and stretching the frayed elastic band around its middle.