The Last Four Days of Paddy Buckley Read Online Free PDF Page A

this . . .”
    â€œWhere is she?” She barely whispered the words as the tears began to spill down her cheeks.
    â€œIn her bedroom,” I said. Brigid got up from her chair and crouched down as if reacting to a searing pain deep in her solar plexus.
    This was a first for me. Usually the family were the ones to tell the undertaker of their bereavement. I stayed sitting on the edge of my chair as Brigid stood up and walked around in confused little circles.
    â€œOh, God,” she said, holding both hands to her face now, leaning back against the wall and sinking slowly to her knees. I could see her hands were trembling. She looked into my eyes.
    â€œCan I see her?”
    â€œOf course . . . would you like me to bring you up?”
    She nodded. I helped her up from the floor and led the way upstairs. I stopped just inside the bedroom door and gestured for Brigid to step in ahead of me. She moved past me and got down on her knees beside her mother’s remains. Instead of breaking down like I thought she might, she smiled at her mother with a serene sadness while tears streamed down her cheeks. I stepped into the bathroom and picked up a box of tissues, which I handed to her.
    She pushed her hair behind her ear before pulling a tissue out and wiping her tears.
    â€œSoul mates till the end,” she said, with a bigger, braver smile. “It’s so romantic.”
    â€œI’ll leave you with your mum, Brigid. I’ll be in the kitchen,” I said softly, and walked quietly down the stairs, letting out a long soundless whistle.
    Another dream over. Lucy had woken up. As I sat on the couch in the living room, I took in the large collection of photographs on the wall detailing Michael and Lucy’s life together. It had all the hallmarks of a charmed life.
    The turnabout in the last hour had been surreal. And now here I sat looking at the gallery of two lives that had ended, just minutes ago in Lucy’s case. And her daughter sitting with her remains upstairs, thinking it was romantic. If she only knew the truth: that the man sitting downstairs, who’d presented himself as an innocent witness and caring facilitator, may as well be the grim reaper himself, not only dealing in death but bringing it everywhere with him as if it were an infectious disease.
    I was torn on my culpability. On the one hand, of course, if I’d maintained a professional code of behavior, Lucy would be alive and well. But on the other, on a level not subject to roles and conduct and societal dictums, what had happened up to the point of Lucy’s passing had actually been quite beautiful and tender, maybe even healing. If she hadn’t died, it would just have been one of those spontaneous encounters in life that had been noncommittal and serendipitous. But she had died, and now I had a big fat lie to peddle.
    The ambulance arrived and I opened the door to the paramedics. The driver was a middle-aged man with a gray beard and pudgy face. His partner was a raven-haired, freckled woman in her twenties with a lively intelligence in her eyes who was clearly the leader of the two. I recognized her face from a hospital mortuary somewhere.
    â€œYou’re from Gallagher’s, aren’t you?” she said.
    â€œThat’s right,” I said. “Paddy Buckley.”
    â€œWhat happened here, Paddy?” she said.
    â€œThe woman who lives here, Lucy Wright, went upstairs to get some clothes and dropped dead while she was up there. I’ll bring you up. Her daughter’s with her,” I said.
    â€œWhat’s the daughter’s name?” she asked.
    â€œBrigid.”
    As soon as we reached the door of the bedroom, the raven-haired woman took control. Like most paramedics, she had an impenetrable calm and a pragmatic bedside manner. Brigid was still seated by her mother’s remains.
    â€œHi, Brigid, is it?” said the raven-haired woman. “I’m Robyn,