Blink Read online

  About the Book

  A hitman

  DI Gavin Sexton is looking into a spate of teenage suicides when he encounters a young girl, paralyzed with locked-in syndrome. Unable to communicate in any other way, she blinks the words: ‘I hired a hitman’.

  Was it suicide?

  Recovering from loss of sight, Sexton’s old partner Jo Birmingham is keeping her promise to investigate the apparent suicide of Sexton’s own wife, Maura. But why does he no longer seem to care?

  Secrets thrive on stigma

  Sexton believes the girl who cannot move has suffered enough. But how far should he go to protect her? And what if Jo discovers an uncomfortable truth?

  Blink will grab you from the first page, and won’t let go.

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Blink

  Chapter 1

  Ten Days Later: Monday

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Tuesday

  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

  Wednesday

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Thursday

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Friday

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Saturday

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Niamh O’Connor

  Copyright

  BLINK

  Niamh O’Connor

  BLINK

  1

  18 January 2013 – 6.30 p.m.

  Lucy Starling claps a GHD down a length of two-tone hair – dark at the roots, peroxide blond at the tips – tilting her head with the tug. Her fingers scissor a strand, and she examines the split ends with a frown. Steam billows from the straightener, making a crackly noise. If it so much as drizzles tonight, her hair will go Afro.

  Checking her make-up in the mirrors of her French dressing table, she jerks her face to different angles, lips pursed. Her fake eyelashes are even and glob-free. Her liquid eyeliner has a retro kink at the corners – Amy Winehouse style.

  Rolling her pearly pink lip gloss, she makes a ‘pa-pa’ sound and then sweeps her blusher brush over her cheekbones to give them a heavy dust of bronze. She needs to look perfect. Knowing Red Scorpion intimately from chatting online is one thing, but meeting face to face is different. She is going to record everything on her phone and upload it once they are done. It is so going to go viral …

  Slugging back a mouthful of her can of vodka-laced Coke, she waves the hairspray over the mini-beehive perched behind the hair band set towards the front of her scalp and zaps. The fumes choke up the air and she leans away from the fug, fanning with one hand while walking the fingers of the other through the contents of her handbag on the floor: iPhone, check; keys, check; condoms, check.

  ‘Woah, head rush,’ Lucy says to herself, straightening up. A piercing in the middle of her tongue flashes when she talks and gives her a slight lisp.

  She always preloads before heading out, but tonight she needs more Dutch courage than usual. She spewed her dinner so as to fit into her skinny jeans, and the alcohol has gone straight to her head. She blinks away the colour spots in front of her eyes.

  Springing up, Lucy picks a light-headed path through the clothes strewn on the floor, searching for her jeans. She spots the glimmering sequinned Gucci black hot-pants she nicked from TK Maxx and roots them out, holding them at arm’s length, trying to decide: with or without 500 denier tights? On the one hand, it is January, and freezing outside. On the other – why waste all that Christian Dior shimmering skin by covering it up? She puts her blinged-up acrylic toenails into the shorts, zips and pulls on her shiny black knee-height boots to complete the rock-chick look. Bending sideways, she gives herself one last check in the mirror. She looks hot. She knows it’s shallow wanting to look good, given everything going on, but this is the moment she’s been waiting for, planning. She wants everything just so.

  Lucy starts. Her gigantic blue eyes slide from her own reflection to the space where her father is standing, framed by the bedroom doorway.

  ‘Even if it wasn’t a school night and you were allowed out, you know right well you would not be allowed to dress like that,’ he says. His Welsh accent is thick as ever.

  Lucy slumps back on to the bed. ‘Are you ever, like, going to knock first, Nigel?’ She sighs every last cubic inch of air out of her lungs.

  He walks over and examines her more closely. ‘Since when did you start wearing make-up?’

  Lucy sits up quickly. She arches her back, shoulders drooping to give off the practised mall-vibe of intense boredom, rangy arms dangling between her gangly legs. The correct answer is ‘a year ago’, but her parents don’t know that, because she normally puts it on after she leaves the house. Tonight, she has other things on her mind. After tonight it’s not going to matter any more anyway …

  Her father steps back and points at the door. ‘Can you go and talk to your mother this instant? She’s between appointments. The next one is in ten minutes.’ A pause. ‘Now.’

  ‘For once, I’m the one who doesn’t have time to fit into her window, and whatever happened to being entitled to privacy? Jeez.’

  Moving to a dressing-table drawer, she pulls her diary out and zips it into her bag quickly. She checks over her shoulder to see if he is still watching. He is.

  Nigel has the look of someone counting to ten. After a prolonged pause, he says softly, ‘Do you know you’ve actually got an American twang from all the episodes of Hannah Montana you used to love? We should sit down some time with popcorn and Coke and stick on one of the box sets like old times.’

  ‘Seriously, can you just fucking go now?’

  ‘Do not curse in this house, young lady.’

  ‘Dick, balls, cunt, douchebag …’

  He waits, lips pursed, and then pleads, ‘At least tell me you cleared it with your mother earlier?’

  Lucy looks him up and down. He is wearing the kind of saddo jumper most men would only be seen dead in at Christmas, and the kind of glasses you get for free on a medical card. His thinning fair hair is shoulder length to compensate for the bald patch, which she reckons
is also the reason for his sideburns.

  Lucy folds a stick of gum on to her tongue slowly, ‘Hel-lo? She was, like, working.’

  ‘She’s never too busy to take your call, you know that, sweetie.’

  ‘I am so not phoning someone who’s on the other side of that wall. It’s just creepy. And can you stop calling me that, I’m not, like, four any more.’

  ‘You’re only fourteen! And even when you’re forty, you’re always going to be my baby.’

  He sits down on her bed. ‘Don’t be too hard on Mum. She needs to look professional in front of the patients. It’s a surgery, you know that. I’m the first to accept that things are more hectic than usual. But you’ll always come first for us. Always.’

  Lucy withers him with a look, chewing hard. ‘I’m going. End of.’

  Nigel sighs hard through his nostrils and crosses his arms. He’s at the end of his tether, where she wants him. ‘Who with?’

  ‘Melissa.’

  ‘I thought you two didn’t get on.’

  ‘We made up.’

  ‘I want her mum’s number.’

  ‘Whatever.’ Lucy catches a glimpse of her reflection and flicks her hair. She realizes he is waiting. ‘It’s in the book. They’re the only Brockles in it.’

  ‘We were supposed to be going to choir tonight.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘You’ve got a beautiful voice.’

  ‘Can you just go? Seriously.’

  ‘Have you even done your homework yet?’

  Lucy shrugs and mutters, ‘Whatever.’

  In the old days, at this point he’d have been giving her an earful about living under his roof … by his rules … it being his duty to protect her until she was capable of looking after herself. But that was before she did something to show them she could think for herself. Since then, he will only push it so far, just in case …

  ‘Well, where is it you want to go tonight anyway?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t want to go anywhere, Nigel. I am going to the Phoenix Park to a gig.’

  ‘I’ll drop you.’

  ‘No, I’m getting the bus.’

  ‘You’re joking, it’s bucketing outside!’

  Her eyebrows go up a notch at the mention of rain, but she studies her nails, stealing a glance at him once his back is turned. Nigel stands, knits his fingers behind his head, points his elbows at the ceiling and stares up. After a few seconds, he asks, ‘So who’s playing then?’

  Lucy stretches the gum to snapping point. ‘Nicki Minaj.’ She pauses. ‘Ever heard of her? She’s only, like, the biggest star on the planet.’

  ‘Nope. Is she good? What kind of songs does she sing?’

  She rolls her eyes.

  ‘Why don’t you show me, on that YouTube thingy? You know I’m useless on the computer. Go on. Otherwise I’m going to be waiting at the Phoenix Park to collect you. I mean it.’

  ‘Fine.’ Lucy leans over to her desk and grabs her pink laptop, flicking it open and typing Nicki’s name in the search engine. She clicks on ‘Beez In The Trap’.

  The smouldering rap star appears on the screen behind barbed wire, twirling the ends of her long green hair and dropping to her hunkers in her short skin-tight pink leotard, opening and closing her legs.

  Instinctively, Lucy joins in and starts to walk her shoulders to the beat as Nicki moans, ‘Maan!’, flaring a nostril.

  Nigel looks horrified that his daughter thinks ‘bitches’ can’t tell her ‘shit’ and ‘motherfuckers can’t tell her nothing’.

  Lucy turns the volume up and pumps the air with her hands.

  The laptop starts beeping. She starts, realizing Red Scorpion is trying to Skype her. His name flashes on the bubble, and a ticker-tape line of chatroom text appears on the bottom of the screen. It reads: ‘Don’t be late, Honeytrap’ – her chatroom name.

  ‘What’s that?’ Nigel points a finger at the screen with a frown. ‘Who’s—?’

  Lucy slaps the computer shut and cuts him off. ‘Nothing, no one, and give me some space or I’m so phoning ChildLine. I’m serious.’

  He stands, his face pleading. ‘Open it up again and I’ll show you David Bowie. Now that’s real music.’

  ‘Not now, Nigel, OK? I seriously need to get ready.’

  He bends over and starts picking up her clothes, folding them against his chest and placing them on the unmade bed. He doesn’t want to go yet. Lucy stands up suddenly and reaches behind her back to unhook her bra clasp, bending an arm and reaching into her sleeve to pull it off. She tosses it on the floor, the padded red-lace number that makes her look like a B-cup. She does not stop staring straight at him, despite his obvious mortification.

  ‘I’ve got a beez problem in the attic myself,’ he says, avoiding eye contact.

  He hands her a pair of jeans from the bundle and turns for the door quickly. ‘You better get these on before you go. You’ll catch your death.’

  Lucy opens and shuts her hand. ‘Good. Bye.’ She moves to the window to check out the rain as Nigel leaves the room. It is belting down. She will look like shite later if she goes out in that, and the whole world will remember her that way. That would be so, like, tragic.

  Her gaze slides down the street to where her mum’s car is parked, further away than usual to accommodate the number of patients in the surgery.

  Flicking the door shut with the sole of her boot, she moves to her wardrobe and kneels down to get to the tampon box in the bottom. She keeps one eye on the door as she transfers the contents to her bag. She knows Nigel is still out there; she can hear him breathing.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure you want to get the bus?’ he calls.

  Lucy eyes the door. From the pitch of his voice, she’d have bet any money he is peering through the keyhole.

  ‘Positive, Daddy,’ she says sweetly, miming sticking her fingers down her throat.

  ‘Nobody ever let me go on a bus at your age,’ he grumbles on the far side of the door.

  She mouths ‘Loser’ silently, and makes an ‘L’ with her index finger and thumb which she jabs in his direction.

  At the sound of his footsteps moving off, she goes to the door and looks through the keyhole. He’s gone. She presses her ear against the door to work out where he is, hears his steps getting fainter, and reckons he’s in the kitchen. Rumbling her leather jacket free from the clothes mountain, she fumbles in one of the pockets for the spare key for her mum’s car.

  Lucy is not afraid of anyone or anything, but even she does not dare to keep an actual murderer waiting.

  Ten Days Later: Monday

  2

  DI Gavin Sexton sees the yoga mat as he enters the office. His anger management counsellor is crouched down, rolling it up. Her arched back bows and kinks. She’s late thirties, and barefoot in a pair of bell-bottom jeans, worn with an Adidas tracksuit top. No bra line cuts across any one of the seventeen vertebrae that run from the base of her neck to the top of her pelvic bone, he notes. Strands of escaped long brown hair, twisted in a bun at the base of her skull and skewered in with a ballpoint, give her a frazzled look despite her efforts to relax. The tinkles from a wind chime at the front door were drowned out by the sound of traffic on the South Circular when he arrived. A low hum travels through the rotting wood held together with layers of emulsion in the bay window.

  ‘Not even a couch?’ Sexton asks.

  ‘It wouldn’t fit,’ she answers with a pronounced Australian accent, scooping up an armful of books to free up a chair. The top one on her pile reads Daily Zen. It’s the first time they’ve met, but she barely glances at him as she leans the yoga mat in a corner.

  ‘I’m Dr Victoria Baker. You’re Gavin?’

  He nods. He presumes she is reminding him of her title to create a professional distance, perhaps because her practice is based in her home.

  A small boy, maybe six years old, pushes past Sexton’s legs. ‘Mum, what time are we going swimming?’

  She kneels down and cups his face. ‘In
an hour, sweetheart, when you hear the clock bong. Come and get me. Read your book until then so I can finish up working, OK?’

  The child runs off, giving Sexton a dead leg as he passes that makes him wince. The shrink doesn’t notice, she is clearing space on her desk – it is festooned with fingerprinted paintings and blobs of paint on pieces of paper folded in half to make butterfly wings.

  ‘Sorry about this,’ she says, closing the door. ‘I don’t usually work on Mondays, but your sergeant said your appointment couldn’t wait.’

  ‘He’s been on my back for the last few months. Gave me an ultimatum at the weekend, thinks I’m a ticking time bomb,’ Sexton jokes as he sizes up the chair in front of her desk warily. It’s going to be a squeeze. He’s put on several stone over the last year, and he eases himself down, holding his breath.

  ‘No qualifications on the walls either,’ he says, looking around. There was no secretary on the way in. ‘That’s a first.’

  She takes a seat behind the desk. ‘You’ve been to many psychiatrists?’

  ‘No,’ Sexton says, adjusting himself. ‘When my wife was alive, she thought we needed counselling.’

  ‘But you didn’t?’

  ‘I would have found confiding in a friend about our problems excruciating.’

  She makes a note of something in an A4 pad. ‘You don’t believe people should talk about their feelings?’

  ‘People can do whatever they want, but it’s too hippy dippy for me.’

  She looks confused.

  ‘Like badminton, for instance,’ Sexton explains.

  ‘And what’s the problem with badminton?’

  ‘It’s not natural … all that wrist action, leaping about like gazelles, it looks more like it was invented for porn stars, not sport enthusiasts.’

  He frowns when she doesn’t laugh. ‘Oh, come on, play nice. I’m joking. I have absolutely nothing against people who want to swing.’ He waits, then blurts, ‘That was a joke too, by the way … woah, tough audience!’

  Dr Baker tucks her escaped hair behind her ears. ‘Have you always used humour to deflect from your problems?’

  ‘Oh, now, I’ve got issues with my sexuality. I’m probably a closet homo, is that it?’ Sexton says. He points to her notepad. ‘That was another joke.’