‘Dinner with some of the people I’m hoping will invest in my campaign.’ He took a sip of his beer. ‘Ah. That’s better. They’re a boring lot, but schmoozing is an important part of my job, as you well know. So, what happened tonight that was so weird?’
He crossed the room until he was standing opposite her, on the other side of the oversized island in the oversized kitchen.
‘A woman phoned the house.’ Emer watched him closely to see how he reacted. ‘She said she was my cousin.’
‘What cousin?’
‘You remember, my uncle Frank’s daughter, Dee. The journalist.’
‘And she just called tonight out of the blue? Any idea what she wanted?’
He took another sip of his beer. Was it her imagination, or did he seem to be drinking more quickly than normal?
‘Both her parents have died,’ Emer said. ‘I think she’s lonely.’
‘Doesn’t she have family of her own?’
‘I don’t know.’
She hadn’t asked Dee any of the questions she should have asked. Instead, the entire conversation had focused on both women trying to understand who had contacted Dee, and why they’d done it.
Robert cleared his throat.
‘So let me get this straight. Your cousin – someone you’ve never spoken to until this evening – phoned because she’s lonely, or she’s missing her dead parents, or whatever. But she didn’t actually tell you anything about herself? Are you sure it wasn’t some sort of prank call, Emer? People can be very cruel, you know.’
‘It wasn’t a prank,’ Emer said. ‘She knew too much about me and my family.’
Even as she said this, she started to have doubts. Because why should she trust some stranger instead of Robert, who had loved her and taken care of her better than her own father ever had?
‘Emer…’
‘What?’
‘I’m a high-profile politician, love. You need to be careful when strangers call the house. There are all sorts of people who’d love nothing more than to dig up a bit of dirt on me.’
‘But if you’ve nothing to hide,’ Emer said, ‘then you don’t need to worry, do you?’
He drained his beer and put the bottle down carefully on the island.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Just what I said. I don’t think you need to worry, that’s all.’
Robert opened the fridge door and took out another beer.
‘Friday night treat.’ He winked at Emer. ‘Don’t tell your mother. This can be our little secret.’
Apart from the second beer, he was exactly the same as always. Solid and reliable. If he was freaked out by hearing that Dee had called the house, he was doing a good job of hiding it. Then again, he was a politician. Hiding what he really thought was a key requirement of his job.
‘She had a photo,’ Emer said.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Dee had a photo of myself and Kitty when we were young girls.’
‘So?’
‘So how did she get hold of it?’
‘Jesus, Emer, how the hell do I know? She was probably lying.’
‘She wasn’t lying. She described it in detail. It’s a photo from one of the albums in the sitting room. Except when I was looking through the album earlier, that particular photo was missing.’
‘This is getting ridiculous.’ Robert took another sip from the bottle before he continued. ‘This woman – what’s her name?’
‘Dee.’
‘Right. So she called tonight and said hi, I’m your long-lost cousin and I’m calling now because my parents are dead and I want to know more about the rest of my father’s family. Is that right?’
Emer nodded.
‘Did you exchange phone numbers?’
‘Well she already had our number,’ Emer said. ‘She called here, remember? But yes, we did exchange numbers. I gave her my mobile number and she gave me hers.’
‘Where does she live?’
‘Eastbourne.’
‘Okay.’ Robert nodded. ‘Shouldn’t be too difficult to find out if there really is a Dee Doran who lives in Eastbourne.’
Suddenly, Emer didn’t want to be here. She needed time to process everything she’d learned tonight and work out who she could trust. Robert or Dee. Or neither of them.
‘You’re right.’ Emer pretended to yawn. ‘I’ll look her up tomorrow. Right now, I’m exhausted. I think I’ll go to bed if you don’t mind.’
‘Sleep tight.’ Robert lifted his glass in a mock salutation. ‘Sláinte.’
She was midway up the stairs when she knew she couldn’t let it go. Turning around, she went back down the stairs and into the kitchen, stopping just inside the door, so she could leave quickly if she needed to.
‘I nearly forgot,’ she said. ‘You told me the woman I saw in London definitely wasn’t Kitty.’
‘That’s right.’ He sounded guarded now, less relaxed.
‘Because that’s what the private detective told you?’
‘Yes, because it’s what he told me. How else would I have found out?’
Robert’s face had hardened and when he spoke, his voice was razor sharp, devoid of any trace of kindness. ‘What are you playing at, Emer? There’s something you’re not telling me. You’d better not be playing me for a fool, or there will be consequences.’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard me.’
‘How dare you.’ Robert slammed his bottle on the marble worktop. ‘You ungrateful little so-and-so. I have done nothing but protect you and love you and support you ever since you and your mother moved in with me. You haven’t always made it easy, but I’ve done my very best. For you to stand here now, in my house, and accuse me of… actually.’ He took a step towards her. It took all her strength to stand her ground. ‘What exactly are you accusing me of, Emer?’
‘Lying.’
‘Get out of my sight.’ Then, when she didn’t move, he roared at her: ‘Now! Get the hell away from me, you hear? I’ve had a long day and the last thing I need right now is to have to deal with your craziness. Your mother’s right, you know. You need help, Emer. Proper, professional help.’
She should have left it, but she was angry now, and she’d never been very good at being sensible when she was angry.
‘You lied,’ she said. ‘Or if you didn’t lie, then the detective you hired wasn’t very good at their job. Because Kitty’s still alive, Robert. That’s why Dee called tonight. To tell me she’d found Kitty.’
‘Bullshit.’
Suddenly, she couldn’t bear the thought of being in the house with him a moment longer. She stepped back into the hallway, grabbed her car keys from the table and ran outside.
‘Emer, don’t you dare run off on me. Come back here this instant.’
She heard his footsteps, hard and fast on the stripped wooden floorboards as he came after her. She pulled open the front door, ran outside and climbed into her car. Fumbling with the keys, she managed to get them into the ignition and switch the engine on, just as he reached the car. She released the handbrake and the car shot forward. The last thing she saw as she turned out of the driveway, was Robert’s silhouette in the rear-view mirror, shaking his fist in the air as he shouted at her to turn around.
Twenty-five
June 1997
The front door was locked. They’d walked around the house, trying to find a way in. Kitty had been thinking of giving up when she noticed one of the kitchen windows was open.
‘Here.’
It was an old sash window and, when she pushed it, nothing happened.
‘Let’s leave it and go home,’ Lucy said. ‘We shouldn’t be here.’
But Kitty wasn’t going home. She tried the window again, using every bit of energy she had, and it moved. Not far, but enough so that she could wiggle through the gap.
‘Come on.’
She jumped onto the ledge and sq
ueezed through the small space. She went head-first, half her body dangling inside the window, half out.
‘Push me,’ she said. ‘Hold on to my feet and shove me forward.’
Lucy grabbed her legs and pushed and suddenly she was falling. She landed hard, pain shooting up her hands and arms as they hit the ground first. She jumped up, ignoring the pain, and went to help Lucy.
‘What now?’ Lucy asked, when they were both inside.
It was dark and smelly in here. The door was closed but Kitty could hear voices in other parts of the house. Taking Lucy’s hand, she went across to the door and slowly opened it.
Light from the hallway flooded into the kitchen and the noise of people speaking and laughing grew louder. She could hear music now too, and the clink of ice in glasses.
They crept forward into a hallway that was bigger than Kitty’s entire house, with high ceilings and a sweeping staircase that curved up through the house. Different rooms led off the hallway. All the doors, except one, were open. The noises Kitty could hear were coming from behind the closed door.
Lucy’s eyes were like plates they were so wide as she looked around. Kitty put her finger on Lucy’s lips, warning her to stay quiet. Because she could hear something else. This noise was coming from one of the rooms upstairs.
She moved towards the sweeping staircase, drawn to the sound. The need to see what was up there was far greater than the need to stay safe and get the hell out of there.
‘No,’ Lucy whispered.
Ignoring her, Kitty put her foot on the first step and started climbing. She was halfway up when she realised the sound was a woman crying.
‘I don’t want to,’ the woman was saying. ‘Please. I’m begging you. No.’
There was something about the woman’s voice, a familiarity that Kitty couldn’t place no matter how hard she tried. She continued up the stairs, ignoring the voice inside her head, telling her to turn around and get the hell out of here before it was too late. She’d just reached the top of the stairs when the woman started screaming. Kitty froze.
It was dark up here, apart from a sliver of yellow light beneath a closed door at the end of the corridor. That’s where they were. The woman and whoever was hurting her.
Kitty knew she should keep going, walk to the end of the corridor, open the door and rescue the woman. But she couldn’t move. The sounds coming from the room mixed with other sounds in her head. The ones Mr O’Brien and her mother had been making when they were in the kitchen.
The door swung open, and someone was standing there. A man. Behind him, there were three other men in the room and two women. One of them was lying on the bed, crying. The other woman was standing at the end of the bed, her face hidden behind a video camera. The light from the overhead bulb was reflected in the shiny tip of her black, high-heeled shoe.
‘Hey!’
The man in the doorway had seen her.
Kitty turned around and ran. She could hear him shouting at her to stop, chasing after her. His footsteps were loud and heavy on the bare floorboards. She skidded down the stairs and raced across the hallway towards the front door that Lucy was trying to open.
‘Hurry up!’ Kitty said.
The door was bolted. Lucy was trying to pull the bolt back but nothing was happening. Behind her, Kitty could hear the man getting closer. Pushing Lucy out of the way, she grabbed the bolt and pulled it with every bit of strength she had. At first nothing happened. The bolt didn’t budge. Groaning, she put everything she had into tugging it one final time. It moved. Just a little at first, then a little more, until suddenly the bolt was pulled back and she was able to open the door.
A flood of cold air hit her as she raced outside, along the driveway, through the gates and onto the road. There wasn’t a pavement so they ran along the edge of the road. When Lucy tried to stop, Kitty grabbed her hand and tugged her forward.
‘Please, Kitty. Stop. Just for a minute.’
Lucy had never been good at running. Not like Kitty, who was able to run faster than any of the other girls in her class. And most of the boys too.
‘I can’t breathe.’
There was a whiny tone to Lucy’s voice that Kitty couldn’t bear. She wanted to press her hands over her ears and tell Lucy to shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up so Kitty could think. But she wouldn’t shut up, because she never did. Not even now, after they’d seen what they’d seen and they were running away from it before the men caught them.
Behind them, somewhere in the dark night, Kitty could hear them. The men’s voices, shouting to each other as they scanned the countryside, searching for the two girls who’d run out of the house. The roar of a car engine as it started up. She knew the men weren’t going to stop until they’d found the two girls who shouldn’t have been there.
Her stomach heaved. Vomit rose up her throat but she swallowed it down. Images she didn’t want to think about stuck inside her head. If she had a knife right now she’d slice her head open and scoop it all out until there was nothing left.
‘Was that sex?’ Lucy asked. ‘Is that what they were doing up there?’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘I’m not stupid.’
‘Yes you are.’ She felt the rage burning through her.
‘Shut up.’
‘You shut up,’ Kitty snarled. ‘Or I’ll make you.’
‘Why are you being so mean to me?’ Lucy said.
‘Because you’re stupid! You’re a stupid little crybaby who never stops moaning. Your parents let you get away with it because they spoil you and they’re scared of doing anything to upset you, so they let you do whatever you want.’
‘That’s not true!’
Lucy shoved her and she stumbled backwards, just managing not to fall.
Vaguely, she was aware of the car coming towards them. Flashes of light illuminating the countryside in the distance. The rumble of the engine, getting closer.
‘My parents love me, that’s all. But you wouldn’t know what that’s like, would you? Your mother has sex with Mr O’Brien and your father’s a loser who spends all his free time in the pub. And I know she hits you because Emer’s told Maeve that your mother doesn’t love you, not even a tiny little bit.’
The rage roared up inside her, she couldn’t help it. She ran forward, screaming loudly, and shoved her hands into Lucy’s stomach. Lucy flew back and, just for a moment, it was the best feeling to watch her friend fall and know she’d pushed Lucy harder than Lucy had managed to push her.
But the moment passed. Bright lights appeared around the bend in the road. Lucy’s body, captured in the lights so she looked like an angel as she fell. A thud as her body landed on the ground and the startling, shocking collision of noises. The roar of the car’s engine, the screeching of the brakes, and the unforgettable crunching sound of a body being crushed under the weight of the car.
Twenty-six
That night, Dee barely slept. Each time she closed her eyes, her mind raced off in multiple directions, trying to make sense of everything. As the first fingers of grey light started creeping into her bedroom, she gave up on sleep and got up, groggy and grumpy. Over a pot of coffee, she made a plan. She was going to go back to London to find Annie, and she wasn’t leaving until she got some answers to the questions that had kept her awake during the long night.
An hour later, she was at the train station. Even on Saturday, the price of a return ticket to London was jaw-droppingly expensive. At least, Dee consoled herself, taking the train was faster and less painful than driving into the city.
Following her long conversation with Emer on the phone last night, Dee had sat down on her sitting room floor with a sheet of A3 paper, creating a mind map that gradually filled the page. This was how she’d always liked to work. Noting down everything she knew about a story. Then, once she had all the facts written down, she was able to see the bits of information still missing.
The facts were easy enough. On 5 June 1997, Lucy Ryan said good night to he
r parents and went to bed. The following morning, when Lucy’s mother went to wake her daughter, Lucy’s bed was empty. Her daughter was gone. To this day, Lucy’s sister, and the Guards investigating her disappearance, didn’t know what had happened to her.
Three weeks later, on 27 June 1997, Kitty Doran disappeared, supposedly drowning in the sea while on holiday with her family in the west of Ireland. Her body was never discovered but a coroner’s inquiry concluded that Kitty had drowned. According to her parents, Kitty had always been afraid of water and had never learned to swim. Shortly after Kitty drowned, her father walked out on the family and was never seen again.
Fast forward twenty-three years to the day Emer saw a woman on the London Underground that looked like her dead sister. The woman couldn’t be Kitty because she had a different name, and a different family. But she also had a photo of Kitty and Emer as young girls in the collage upstairs in her house.
At some point after Emer had seen Annie on the train that day, someone pretending to be Emer had contacted Dee, asking her to find out if there was any possibility that Annie Holden could be Kitty Doran.
Those were the facts. Alongside them, Dee had noted down her list of questions:
What happened to Lucy Ryan?
Why was Kitty’s body never found?
Why did Eamon Doran abandon his wife and remaining child, and where did he go?
Did Annie actually have a photo of Kitty or Emer? Or had Dee made a mistake?
If it wasn’t a mistake, did that prove that Annie was Kitty?
Who was the woman who’d contacted Dee, and why did she do it?
And, importantly, how did she know about Emer seeing Annie Holden on the London Underground?
With no way of finding answers to the last two questions, Dee decided to focus on the things she could do. Like getting back inside Annie’s house and taking another look at the photo of the two girls.
On the train, she sent Emer a text, repeating what she’d said on the phone last night – that she hoped they’d stay in touch and she’d love to meet Emer in person sometime soon. When her phone pinged a few seconds later, she assumed it was Emer’s reply. But when she checked her texts, the message was from Ella, reminding Dee about the dinner invitation for tomorrow evening. Their last meal together before Ella and her family left for Canada.
Before You Were Gone Page 15
