by Claire Allan
‘Thank you,’ I said, sitting down on one of the pine kitchen chairs.
‘Tea or coffee?’ Patricia asked.
‘Tea, please,’ I said as Ronan tried to compose himself, wiping his eyes with a tissue.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t know how to thank you enough.’
‘I didn’t do anything, really,’ I said, feeling my face blaze. I didn’t like being thanked for my woeful inadequacy.
‘She wasn’t alone, at the end …’ he said. ‘The police told us you were holding her hand. Had put your jacket over her. That means a lot.’
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
‘Did she say anything? Did she speak at all?’ he asked.
I was aware of Patricia close by. She’d asked me not to reveal what Clare had said to me. That it was sensitive to the case. I didn’t want to lie – that felt wrong – but I had to do what Patricia had asked, so I shook my head. I watched Ronan deflate in front of my eyes. Watched as Patricia took in every detail of our exchange.
‘She wasn’t really conscious, slipping in and out, you know …’ I told him. ‘I doubt she’d have been too aware of anything around her at that stage.’
‘But you held her hand?’ he asked.
‘I put my coat over her and called the emergency services, then I held her hand. Pleaded with her to hang on. She was just too ill.’
I felt a tear roll down my cheek. Saw images of her poor, mutilated body flash before my eyes. I shuddered. Patricia placed a cup of tea in front of me.
‘It’s a great comfort to my parents to know someone was with her,’ Ronan said.
‘Mr and Mrs Taylor are sleeping at the moment; it was a bad night for them,’ Patricia explained.
‘I can imagine,’ I said softly.
Although that wasn’t quite true. I didn’t need to imagine. I knew exactly how it felt to lose a child in the most horrific of circumstances.
Chapter Ten
Rachel
I was exhausted, physically and emotionally, by the time I got home. I’d picked Molly up from crèche and had done my best to pretend everything was normal, but I could feel my facade slipping.
Spending time with Ronan, and then his parents, had been harrowing. It had made it too real. Mrs Taylor was the kind of woman who was always impeccably dressed and made up. She used to give us girls make-up lessons when we were teens – warning us against the dangers of going overboard on the rouge or choosing the wrong shade of lipstick. I’d never seen her without her make-up before – not even when I’d had a sleepover at Clare’s. Yet, there she’d been, her face pale, devoid of its usual glam look, her hair pulled into a loose bun, wearing a pair of black trousers and a jumper that seemed to swamp her. She’d looked so small, so vulnerable that it had shaken me, but at least she’d been able to talk to us. Mr Taylor – this big teddy bear of a man with a booming voice and an even louder laugh – just sat silently, staring into a mug of tea that he didn’t once lift to his lips.
Julie had been silent on the drive back to hers. I’d been grateful for it. There wasn’t much we could say to each other. We both knew how awful this was.
But when I’d picked Molly up, I’d plastered on a wide smile and pulled her into a hug that was probably a little tighter than it should have been.
‘Why are you hugging me so tightly? Mammy! You’re hurting me!’
I loosened my grip and she squirmed away from me. I wanted to pull her back into my arms, but I didn’t. I thought of Mrs Taylor, though – all the times she must have held Clare to her and never imagined that this was how things would turn out.
How could anyone have imagined this?
Beth was already home when I opened the door. If I wasn’t mistaken, I could smell the makings of a bolognese on the hob.
My eldest daughter walked into the hall to greet me. Still in her pyjamas, her eyes still red, it was clear she was still hurting. All I wanted to do was protect her.
‘I’ve put some dinner on,’ she said, shrugging in that awkward way teenagers do.
I knew she was trying to make life easier for me and I loved her so much for it. I pulled her into a hug. The same tight hug I’d given her little sister before. Beth didn’t wriggle away, though; she just hugged me harder.
‘I love you,’ I whispered.
‘I love you too, Mum,’ she answered, without a hint of her usual teenage sarcasm.
When we pulled apart, she took Molly into the living room to put the TV on for her while I walked through the kitchen to check on dinner. A bouquet of flowers, in hues of red and purple, sat in a vase on the table.
‘Beth? Where did these flowers come from?’
Beth popped her head out of the door. ‘They were delivered earlier. I meant to text you. They’re from your work, I think.’
I was touched by the gesture of my colleagues. I walked to the table and lifted the little white envelope from the arrangement. Opening it, I saw a message that made my heart soar then sink in quick succession:
Thinking of you at this difficult time
All our love,
Michelle and all your colleagues at NWRC
‘Michelle’ – I knew immediately the flowers were from Michael. It was a nice gesture but a risky one. I knew he was just reaching out and after what we’d done the night before, I knew that things had shifted between us. But this was outside of my comfort zone. Paul would never have heard me talk about a ‘Michelle’, either in my day job or at my nightclasses. He’d wonder why ‘she’ put her name specifically on the card. He could ask questions. Get suspicious.
I was both touched and angry with Michael for putting me in this position. Beth had seen them. Paul could have. He might have, for all I knew. He was working from the Derry branch that day and hadn’t returned to his bolthole in Belfast. He might have come home at lunchtime to check on Beth.
I swore under my breath, contemplated ripping the card up and binning it, but then I remembered just how Michael made me feel. Desired. Wanted. Loved. Special. It had been such a long time since anyone made me feel special. I put the card back in the envelope and slipped it into my handbag.
I’d send him a text. Thank him but remind him of the need to be careful.
I didn’t want to risk Paul finding out, largely because, I realised, I didn’t want to risk having to give up Michael. With everything that was happening, I needed him in my life more than ever.
Friday, 8 June
Chapter Eleven
Rachel
There was a moment when I woke up the following morning when everything was as it should be. Nothing had changed. I lay in the early morning sunlight and listened to the gentle snore of the man I’d married beside me. Passing thoughts of the summer holidays went through my head. Having two children so far apart in age had made it hard to find a holiday that would suit them both. We’d opted for a villa with a pool and allowed Beth to ask a friend along.
I smiled, thinking of Molly – who’d already thrown a couple of dolls and a swimming suit into her Trunki suitcase. Yes, she’d been a bit of a surprise when she’d arrived. The result of too much wine, a missed pill and caution being thrown to the wind. But she was so precious to me. And to her daddy, too. I’d give him that much. He was a doting father. It was almost as if he’d taken all the love and attention he used to give me and simply transferred it to his beautiful baby girl. I supposed she was easier to love than I was.
I yawned, glancing at the alarm clock. It would go off soon. The day would begin. And that’s when it swooped in again. The reality of what was happening. I’d have to go back to work. They’d only be understanding to a point – and I couldn’t let my pupils down – but the very thought of it intimidated me. My head was too full of the horror of what was happening in my life to stand in front of a classroom and pretend to be normal. This wasn’t normal.
I sat up, turned off the alarm clock before it beeped and made my way downstairs to make a coffee. I’d take this time
to myself to gather my thoughts before the rest of the household woke.
Sitting at the kitchen table, coffee cup in hand, I scrolled through my phone. It was filled with messages about Clare, questions – people I’d barely spoken to in years wanting all the juicy gossip. Facebook wasn’t much better. A grief fest. Everyone who’d ever seen Clare before making a claim on her and how much they’d miss her.
There were no new leads from the police. There’d be a press conference in the afternoon. I wondered if Ronan and his parents were preparing to make a statement, after all. Would they be like those poor families you saw on TV, blinking and crying in front of all the flashing lights and cameras. Stunned by their grief and this horrendous way of getting fifteen minutes of fame.
Michael hadn’t replied to my message. The one where I’d thanked him for the flowers but urged discretion. I didn’t like that. It made me nervous. I chewed on my thumbnail as I contemplated calling him to make sure everything was okay. But it was barely gone seven in the morning and it would be risky to have a phone conversation in the house at this time. What if the girls woke? Or Paul?
I thought of Michael’s words to me just after we’d slept together. How he’d asked me whether I thought I deserved to be happy. Had what happened with Clare not shown me how life was short and I should grab at happiness?
It wasn’t as simple as that though, was it? I had daughters. A house. A job. A reputation. A mortgage, for goodness’ sake. I deleted my messages to ‘Michelle’ – I’d been selfish for wanting him … for needing him. Other people relied on me to be there for them. To be strong and stable. Even when things weren’t always going well.
For better and for worse, that was how it went, wasn’t it? Had I been looking for an easy escape from the harder times – fooling myself with romantic notions for a man who hadn’t even messaged me back?
I slipped my phone into my bag, finished my coffee and wondered quite what the hell I was doing with my life. Wondered if I was just a stupid woman enduring a midlife crisis and justifying my selfish actions to myself in whatever way I could. Maybe this was how it was supposed to be. After so many years of marriage. So many years of raising children and being sensible. Maybe I was stupid to expect anything more than simply working together like a team, managing the house and the family we’d created together. Stupid and vain and desperate for male attention. Why couldn’t I just be content with what I had?
Chapter Twelve
Elizabeth
I’d had that nightmare again. The one where I was with Laura but not with her. I’m watching her go through the last hours and minutes of her life and it’s as if I’m watching from behind a screen. I keep trying to reach out to her, but my hand only ever gets close. I never make contact. I can only ever reach out with my bad arm – the one that doesn’t work properly. No matter how much I try to use my other arm, it won’t move.
I call to her to wait for me, but she disappears, or the scene changes, or it gets too dark. I’m watching her as she tries to phone me, reaches my voicemail but doesn’t leave a message. I’m shouting at her to speak. ‘Leave a message, Laura! Let me hear your voice one more time!’
Maybe if I’d got a message, things would have been different. I wouldn’t have ignored a message the same way I’d ignored a missed call. I’d promised myself I’d call her back later, but I never got the chance. In the dream, she doesn’t hear me shouting. I’m stomping my feet, and banging cupboard doors and shouting until my throat hurts and my stomach constricts with the effort of it. I’m throwing things – hoping if I don’t reach her, don’t touch her, they will. They’ll distract her. They’ll get through to her.
I’m begging and pleading and shouting as I watch her walk out of her house, away from her husband, away from her children, away from me. I’m praying to Paddy, imploring him in his heavenly seat to get through to her. Pleading with a dead man, as if that would ever work. ‘Please, Paddy. Stop her. Stop our girl. Let her know she can’t leave me. It’s bad enough you’re not here.’
I run to the door to follow her, but I can’t open it. It won’t open. The locks keep disappearing and changing and locking again, and all the time I’m screaming at her not to go.
That was how it usually went. It had been different this time, though. I’d crumpled to the floor, shouting and crying, and turned to see Clare Taylor sitting at the bottom of the stairs shaking her head. She was smiling – a weird, twisted kind of smile. It unnerved me. Her hand reached out to mine, just as I’d tried to reach out to Laura. I expected not to quite get close enough. I expected us just to miss each other, just as I always missed Laura’s hand. But I felt Clare’s hand, in my dream. It was holding mine, squeezing it. I looked in her eyes and she told me again to ‘Warn them’ – I just didn’t know who ‘they’ were.
I woke with a start, a cold sweat drenching me despite the heat. My breathing was laboured. I didn’t want Clare in my dreams. I wanted Laura. I wanted to hold her hand and feel her hand. Not this woman I didn’t know. I didn’t want the trauma of what I’d shared with her to take my daughter from my dreams – no matter how harrowing those dreams had been. At least it had been Laura in them. At least she’d been alive in my imagination.
I sat up, aware of the first signs of light in the sky outside. I hugged my knees to me, looked to the empty side of the bed. I’d never get used to it. Paddy being gone. It had been seven years and still I never allowed so much as my foot to slip over to the space where he once lay. This house had known too much loss and too much pain. I sat and rocked myself until my heartbeat settled.
I’d call that DI Bradley as soon as was appropriate and I’d ask him more questions. Ask him if he was warning anyone. Surely I had a right to know that? I shouldn’t have to carry that burden on my shoulders alone.
‘The investigation is at a very sensitive stage,’ Patricia had told me after I’d sat drinking tea with the Taylors – both of them too numb with shock to talk to me. ‘I know that our methods might seem a little strange, but please bear with us,’ she told me.
I’d nodded. Agreed. Because that was what I did. I nodded and agreed with people – did what I was told. Meanwhile, I was being haunted in my dreams by that poor woman and I’d never forgive myself – ever – if anyone else got hurt.
DI Bradley led me through a series of dull and uninspiring corridors until we reached a small and equally uninspiring office. It was tired-looking; dank and depressing. I saw he was tired, too. In fact, he looked exhausted – his shirt wrinkled. His face unshaven. The room had a musty smell to it – as if someone had slept there, grabbed a few hours when they could.
‘You look done in,’ I said as I sat down.
‘It’s been a busy forty-eight hours, Mrs O’Loughlin. Busy and frustrating.’
‘You’ll have to be careful not to burn yourself out,’ I said.
I’d seen it before, police officers chasing a case until they had nothing left to give.
‘I’ll be going home in a bit,’ he said. ‘Grab a couple of hours’ kip, get a shower. Be back here for the press conference. Now, what can I help you with? Have you remembered anything else?’
I shook my head. ‘No, it’s not that. I’m very grateful you’ve taken the time to see me. I just feel uneasy about it all. I know maybe I’ve no right to keep asking what’s happening, but that poor girl told me to warn people and I’ve made myself sick with worry that I’ve not been able to warn anyone. Patricia – Constable Hopkins – asked me not to say anything to the family.’
He pinched the bridge of his nose and sat back in his chair. ‘I know this must be very difficult for you. We’re asking you to stick with us. Just as it’s important that information gets out there, it’s important that some information is held back – for the sake of the investigation. I’m not at liberty to go into it all, but we have good operational reasons.’
Frustration niggled at me. ‘But what if someone else gets hurt? Won’t it be my fault then? I mean, it’s bad enough now, knowing
I couldn’t help her. I don’t want to feel worse if something happens to someone else. And I felt awful lying to her family yesterday – telling them she hadn’t said anything. I mean, they’ll find out eventually, won’t they? They’ll think me a liar. I don’t understand why they haven’t been told.’
‘This is a complex investigation,’ DI Bradley said. ‘We have to play our cards close to our chest at the moment until we’re able to identify a clear suspect. We have concerns that revealing her last words could, in fact, place you in a position of some jeopardy.’
My heart thudded. ‘Me? Why?’
‘Because if there are more people out there who this killer might target, you warning them might make him, or her, unhappy.’
I felt sick. Why had no one mentioned to me before that I could possibly be in danger? Didn’t I have a right to know?
‘We’re doing our best to protect your identity. We’ve not released any of your details to the press; nor have they been discussed outside the confines of the incident room.’
He must have noticed the colour draining from me. The police may have kept it under wraps, but I’d been to see the Taylors. Had they been warned to say nothing about my identity? And those two women who’d been drinking tea with Ronan in the kitchen. Who were they?
‘Mrs O’Loughlin, at the moment we have no reason to believe at all that you’re in any danger,’ DI Bradley said, cutting through my thoughts. ‘We intend on it staying that way, but we’re reviewing the situation as often as the need arises.’
I nodded, but I couldn’t push down the nausea increasing in my stomach, nor stop the thudding of my heart. I’d have to check all the locks in the house. Get that security light in the yard fixed. It had broken at least six months ago and I’d kept meaning to get it looked at.
‘The investigation’s proving more complex than we thought,’ he said. ‘We hope the press conference later will jog some memories or bring some more information to light. We just ask that in the meantime you trust us and trust what we’re doing.’
