Kate met Grainne’s huge, starting eyes, distractedly noting their electrified expression even though her attention was still mostly fixed on her own painful past. She took a deep, sobbing breath and continued with the story she had never told another soul, ‘One night Mummy came home early and found Daddy in Katie’s bed.’ Tears poured from Kate’s inward looking, memory-blind eyes and cascaded down her cheeks. ‘She went insane with rage and attacked him. She hit him and scratched him and Katie was very scared because it was all her fault for being bad, but she was glad too because maybe now Mummy would stop Daddy from doing those bad things.’
Kate paused for a moment before woodenly continuing, ‘And Mummy did. She went to phone the police and Daddy got angry. He tried to stop her and even hit her. And then Mummy grabbed a knife and stabbed Daddy with it. He didn’t die then, but he did die later, in hospital. And it was all Katie’s fault.’
Kate’s frozen face cracked into a painful rictus of a smile, ‘For a little while things were better, but then they got bad again. Because just as Katie had loved her Daddy as well as hated him, so she began to hate her mother even as she loved her. Because Mummy had taken her Daddy away. And sometimes she even missed the things Daddy had done, because even though she had hated them, at least she had a Daddy then, and now she did not. But most of all she hated herself because she knew it was all her fault. If she had been a good girl Daddy wouldn’t have done those things to her, and he would still be alive. So Katie had killed her Daddy.’
Kate was silent for a very long time, unable to continue, but at length she found her voice again, ‘There were problems for a long time, but at last things started to get a little better. Mummy would not talk about Daddy, and Katie could not, because she had promised him never to tell anyone about what they had done…a promise she kept for far, far too long. But later she read some books and talked to some counsellors, and she finally realised that it wasn’t her fault, that she had done nothing wrong. That was a very great revelation, and a great weight off her mind, even though it took her a long time to truly believe it, with her heart as well as her mind. And so she started to heal. A little, anyway. Perhaps she never fully recovered. Perhaps no one ever fully does. Later still, after her Mummy died, Kate decided that she wanted to help other people who had problems, others who had suffered as children.’
Kate’s eyes came fully back from the past and burned into Grainne’s, ‘People like you.’
Grainne broke down and started sobbing; painful, racking tears that seemed to be ripped from deep inside her. Kate, her own eyes swimming, watched her for some time before quietly saying, ‘I went to see your father last night.’
Grainne instantly froze again, and even her tears stopped. But although her eyes went blank Kate thought she was still listening. Kate’s heart was pounding, partly because she was talking to the real Grainne and was scared in case she messed it up, and partly because she was still so shaken and scared from the events of the previous night, events that even now she could hardly believe. But she kept talking nonetheless, for both their sakes.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Kate had arrived at Michael’s flat at about half-past eight the night before, and was instantly admitted by the smiling Minster of State, who bowed and said, ‘Good evening, Madam, your table is ready if you would care to follow me.’
Kate laughed and handed him her coat, ‘There you go, my good man! Take good care of it; it’s real mink, you know.’
Michael threw it over the back of a chair and said thoughtfully, ‘Strange, I didn’t know mink had nylon fur.’
Kate made a face at him, ‘They’re genetically modified mink, specially bred for Supermarkets. Besides, everyone knows that the best mink feels like nylon. Peasant.’
Michael grinned, ‘Drink?’
‘Yes, I do, actually’ said Kate archly, ‘Red wine, if you’ve got it.’ She walked over and plopped herself on a sofa with a groan of relief, ‘God, I’m exhausted!’ She slipped off her shoes and muttered apologetically, ‘It’s awful manners to do this, I know, but I’ve had a hell of a day. Long and hard.’
Michael raised his eyebrows and said smoothly, ‘Just like me!’
Kate rolled her eyes, ‘Give me a break, Romeo. Have you forgotten your promise already? The whole “I won’t try anything” bit?’
He made a face and offered a theatrical bow in apology and she sighed and asked, ‘What’s for dinner?’
He coughed self-deprecatingly, ‘Did I mention that I’m the worst cook in the Western Hemisphere? Therefore I boiled some instant, savoury rice. I figured even I couldn’t mess that up.’’
Kate’s eyes opened wide and she sat upright on the sofa, ‘You’d better be joking! I’m ruddy well starving. I haven’t eaten all day!’
Michael smiled, ‘Of course I’m joking. The chef at La Romana is a good friend of mine. As a mark of his esteem he occasionally cooks me meals to take away, and my chauffeur brings them to me here. Do you like duck l’orange?’
Kate made a face, ‘Er, no; I don’t like duck, I’m afraid. Sorry. Mind you, I’m hungry enough to eat it if there’s nothing else.’
He smiled and continued blandly, without a pause, ‘Very well, the duck goes in the bin, which will break Chef Carter’s heart if he ever hears about it. The neighbourhood cats will celebrate. I wasn’t sure if you liked it or not so, luckily, I also got him to prepare some fillets of salmon on a bed of pureed spinach. Does that, at least, meet with your approval?’
Kate relaxed and closed her eyes again, ‘Perfect. Delicious and low-fat. I may marry your Chef Carter yet.’
Michael bowed again and said courteously, ‘He’ll be gratified to hear it. Now, you put your feet up while I get you a drink and serve the food.’
‘Good slave,’ murmured Kate, ‘Keep this up and I may decide not to throw you to the lions after all.’
The dinner had been perfectly cooked, and the good food and a glass of wine had restored Kate’s spirits as well as energy. After eating, while sitting on his huge sofa sipping coffee, she had felt deliciously relaxed and drowsy, and the thought of slipping into bed for about a week was powerfully appealing. Or even just slobbing there and watching tv. But she reluctantly forced herself to sit up straight and said, with a touch of glumness, ‘Right, lead me to the computer!’
Michael looked at her sideways, a faint, knowing smile curving his full lips, ‘Are you sure? You look very comfortable, and I’m sure your research can wait until tomorrow.’
‘Get thee behind me, Satan!’ said Kate resolutely shaking her head, ‘Time and tide wait for no man, and all that crap. I’d better do it now, otherwise I might never get around to it.’
Michael shook his head in mock sorrow, ‘The Irish work ethic in all its terrible glory. It’s that kind of dedication that created the Celtic Tiger in the first place, and which will lead us out of this recession yet. If you were a Spaniard, now, you’d gladly leave it until tomorrow. Or next week.’
‘Or next year,’ said Kate dryly, ‘But I didn’t think I’d have to remind you of all people of the importance of what I’m doing.’
His face darkened a little and he said with a frown, ‘You don’t. I try to put it out of my mind but it’s something I can never escape. Not for long, anyway.’ His good humour returned and he gave a faint smile, ‘Come on, the computer’s in the spare bedroom, which is set up as an office.
He led her to the computer and keyed in his password before leaving her to it, saying over his shoulder as he left, ‘Your slave will be in the kitchen if you want him, doing the washing-up. And just think; I entered politics for the glory and power.’
Kate felt a stab of guest-guilt that impelled her to say, ‘Hang on, I’ll help you with it.’
He smiled and waved her offer aside, ‘Actually, we have a cleaner that comes in every morning. But I like to have the place in some sort of order for her when she arrives. I’d hate for her to see the place really dirty. Strange or what? Perhaps I need some therap
y myself.’
He vanished and Kate turned to the screen, clearing her mind and preparing to buckle down to work. For perhaps an hour she surfed the net, refreshing her memory on some of the more obscure facets of severe personality disassociation, and nobly resisting the temptation to simply cruise through all the fascinating snippets of information on...well, on everything, really. She had almost finished her research and was prepared to gather all the pages she had printed out and turn off the machine when it started to bleep and a picture of a little postman with a bulging sack walked onto the screen and a message flashed up; E-MAIL, YOU HAVE E-MAIL IN YOUR POST BOX. Below this flashed the line; DOWNLOAD TO FILE OR OPEN?
Kate watched the antics of the little postman, entranced; she would have to get that app when she finally got a new laptop. She leaned back in the swivel chair and shouted, ‘Michael, you’ve got an email!’ She heard a muffled reply but couldn’t understand what he was saying so she turned back to the screen and clicked OPEN, in case it was an important government matter needing his immediate attention. But what appeared on the screen caused her to freeze in horror, the words dying in her throat. A new file appeared on the screen to receive the incoming message but just above the folder icon a colour picture of a naked girl also appeared, bouncing from side to side on the screen as if dancing. A message underneath read; Got some real crackers in here. Enjoy, but be careful, as ever.
But it was not the girl’s nudity that caused Kate to freeze; rather it was the fact that she could not have been more than thirteen years old. Kate, her hands trembling as she desperately fought a sudden urge to vomit, clicked open the file that had just arrived. And immediately covered her open mouth with her hands when she saw what lay within.
She had seen porn before, of course, of various types, but she had never in her life seen anything like this filth. Every imaginable act of perversion was graphically portrayed, and in each case none of the girls involved could have been over sixteen.
Everything became clear, everything clicked into place, and then Kate did vomit, helplessly, into the waste basket on the floor beside the desk. Partly from revulsion at what she had seen and partly because she had slept with him! She had made love with that man. A child abuser who had ruined his daughter’s life! Because it was all clear to her now, and the root cause of Grainne’s problems was blindingly obvious. It was right there on the computer screen, in his prediliction for young girls.
Another thought struck her and she literally stopped breathing; had he also killed Jimmy Shiels? Had he been the one who so desperately wanted her briefcase, had needed so badly to know what Grainne was saying about him in therapy? The man who had confronted her in Trinity and stabbed Sean? It must all have been him! Her horrified mind slid off in a new direction; a man capable of doing these things might well have started the fire that killed his wife too, no doubt to protect his dirty secret. And the second fire at Deacon House; had he set that, to murder his own daughter? If so her life expectancy could be measured in minutes.
Kate got to her feet and almost staggered out into the sitting room. Michael was standing over by the front door turning down the dimmer switch and in a flash she understood why; he had lowered the lights and drawn the curtains because he intended to make a pass at her, in spite of his promises. And that knowledge almost made her retch again.
He smiled and said, ‘All done already? You ready for a drink?’ He frowned, ‘Jesus, you look awful; what’s the matter?’
Kate knew that she should temporise, should make an excuse to leave, but her rage and hatred was so great that she spat furiously, ‘Tell me, Michael, how old was she when you first raped her?’
Michael’s jaw dropped, ‘What? What are you…’
‘I know everything!’ she screamed, hardly able to get the words out coherently, ‘You sick, perverted fuck!
Michael shook his head and began walking toward her, ‘This is all just some misunder-standing. I’m sure we can clear…’
‘Don’t come near me!’ screamed Kate, knowing she should have kept her mouth shut, knowing that he was going to kill her but somehow unable to contain her rage or control her mouth. ‘Don’t you dare tell me I’m wrong, you sick bastard, because I’ve been there! I know the signs better than anyone, and I should have known straight away what was wrong with Grainne! Would have known, except that I didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to see it because...’ She could not say the words, Because I slept with you! And because I’ve always avoided anything that reminds me of my own past, my own father!
He moved towards her suddenly, swiftly, and she froze in terror; how could she fight him? He was so big and strong, she was so small and weak. It had always been so. Her father had manipulated and threatened and cajoled, yes, but when these failed he had often used force too, which little Katie had been powerless to resist. She wanted to surrender now, to simply lie down and accept whatever he chose to do with her, but then a spark of defiance, of courage, flared up in her chest and she turned and blindly fled, even though there was nowhere to run. She crashed into the open kitchen door, fetching herself an almighty bang in the face but this hardly even slowed her down. She shot into the kitchen just ahead of Michael, where the first thing that caught her eye was the rack of long, sharp carving knifes beside the hob. She snatched one up and whirled to face him even as he ran into the kitchen behind her.
The sight of the knife in her hand stopped him dead and he goggled at her for a moment with eyes popping out before forcing a smile onto his face and saying, in a voice he was struggling to control, ‘I don’t know what the problem is but can’t we discuss this, Kate? Talk, like rational adults?’
Her helplessness vanished and a white-hot righteousness seared through her heart. It was all so clear that she could see it happening in front of her like a movie playing on a screen. And it was right; Kate would kill him, as her mother had killed her abusive father. She would free Grainne from Michael as she had been freed. And in a symbolic way she would be killing her own father too, finally freeing herself from his shadowy influence, from the malign blight he had cast over her entire life. For wasn’t she, in their therapy sessions, already a surrogate for Grainne’s own mother?
Michael put out his hand and said softly, ‘Give me the knife, Kate, and then we can discuss whatever it is that’s troubling you. Okay?’
Kate stared at him with enormous eyes for an endless second and the tip of the gleaming blade started to tremble; she was a healer, not a killer, and she could not to do it. Much as she wanted to, she could not kill. But there was another way. She let the knife fall to the ground and instantly Michael stooped to pick it up. But even quicker Kate scooped up a heavy iron skillet from the hob with both hands and brought it down onto the back of his head with all her strength. Michael dropped like a stone, landing face-first on the gray slate tiles, the knife skittering out of his fingers and under the kitchen table.
Without waiting to see if he would rise again Kate leaped over his supine body and ran for the front door. She tore the heavy door open and sprinted down the stairs, knowing that he was after her, that his out-stretched fingers were only inches from her back. She hurtled through the front door out onto the dark, quiet street, looking for escape, for a way out. Her car was parked right there by the kerb but she had fled without her bag and her keys were in it, and her mobile. Then her gaze fell on the three astonished reporters standing staring at her across the road, two of whom were busily snapping pictures of her. The third was speaking into a mobile phone and Kate ran over and grabbed it from him unceremoniously, pressing the END symbol before punching 999 with badly trembling fingers.
Grainne was staring at her in wide-eyed horror as Kate concluded her story. For a long time she could not speak but at last she whispered in disbelief, ‘You...you didn’t kill my father?’
Kate shook her head, though not without just the faintest touch of regret, ‘No, though he’s likely to wake up with one fuck of a headache.’ She leaned forward and said u
rgently, ‘The point is that he’s locked up! You’re safe now! Safe! And no one will ever hurt you again!’
But Grainne was gone. As soon as Kate had spoken her eyes had gone blank and she had retreated into her own mind, had fled the horrors of her past yet again. Kate couldn’t blame her; hadn’t she, in her own way, been doing precisely the same thing her whole life? Hadn’t she always avoided confronting what had been done to her?
Kate, herself weeping tears that should all have dried long since, cradled the girl in her arms and whispered, ‘It’s okay, you take all the time you need. Because I think you’ll be back soon. And no matter how long you need I’ll be here when you come back. To talk to you and listen to you. That’s what I trained for, that’s what makes sense of my own life, my own suffering. That’s what eases my pain. We’ll heal each, and get better together. And one day you will be well again. You will! I swear it.’
Epilogue
Getting back out of Deacon House without seeing the waiting Trevor was easier said than done but Kate managed it by walking down the fire escape at the end of the corridor on Grainne’s floor, and making her way around the building to where Peter’s BMW was waiting for her in the car park. She would have to face Trevor sooner or later, of course, but right now later was the preferred option. He would want to talk to her, to dissect and relive and eventually talk to death the events of the previous night. Which, frankly, was something Kate did not think she could handle just then; apart from anything else she was just too damned tired.
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