City of Lost Girls

by Declan Hughes

  “Hang on. I’ve got a couple more messages.”

  There’s a brief pause and then Jenny Noble comes back on the line.

  “Yeah, they’ve both just asked where I am—if I’ve been fired, or am I on the skite, too, am I at home or what.”

  “Okay. Jenny, listen to me. I hope those texts are from the girls. But there is a possibility that they’re not, that whoever abducted the girls is using their phones to try and trap you. Could you please just not reply to any more of their messages? Jenny?”

  “Oh My God. Okay. You’re freaking me out there, Ed Loy.”

  “You’re perfectly safe. And I hope they are, too. But just to make sure, all right?”

  “All right. No more texts?”

  “No more texts. And I’ll let you know if anything comes up.”

  I close the call. Maurice Faye is shaking his head, but this time he’s not beaming.

  “Ah Jaysus, Ed, you’re some fussy fucker, is nothing good enough for you? Text messages from the girls?”

  “But they’re not available to talk. Did you hear what I said to Jenny? Do I have to repeat it?”

  I don’t take much care with the tone of this response, and a glitter appears in Maurice’s eyes.

  “Ed, go easy man. First, you’re busting heads, now you’re going off at me—”

  “I’m going off at you? You employ a rapist as a security man. You show me text messages from the girls and you think everything is fine. Are you fucking stupid? Do you think I am? Where are the girls? You’re so fucking relieved, how much have they cost you today, Maurice? Thousands? Tens of thousands? Why aren’t you screaming at them to get in here?”

  “The schedule’s already been altered, we don’t need them today.”

  “That’s convenient. How do I know you didn’t send those texts?”

  “How do you know I didn’t kidnap the girls, is that what you’re asking?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Because I’m telling you I didn’t. Is that good enough?”

  “I suppose it’ll have to be. For now.”

  Maurice is very still. He looks at me as if I am volatile material, which in some way I seem to be. Maybe I should have taken it out on Barry Holmes.

  “I’ve sent Nora and Kate a message, telling them to report to the set immediately,” Maurice says.

  “Good. Any sign of Nora’s sister?”

  “I wasn’t keeping tabs on that…Madeline would know.”

  “All right. And I’ll need to check out Club 92, I think that was Kate’s regular haunt, see if anyone can remember spotting the girls there.”

  I look at Maurice and raise my eyebrows and make a face, as if to say, I know it’s not you. I don’t know this at all.

  “How has your day been?” I say.

  Maurice gives me a hard stare, but can’t sustain it; he subsides into a what-can-you-do grin and rolls his eyes.

  “Wouldn’t you know who’ve chosen today to pop in on a flying visit, private fucking jet, two associate producers…you know how many associate producers there are on this movie? Well, neither do I. As many as…since none of them are worth a tuppenny fuck…someone’s girlfriend, someone’s stepson, someone’s personal, yes, this is good, someone at Universal married his personal trainer, divorced her, and now she gets to be an associate producer…do they give these credits out as alimony? And then occasionally there’s a couple of guys who have some knowledge of the business, and even of this particular film. Which is the case with these boys, but I don’t want to talk to them about the schedule changes, or what they’re going to cost, not yet, not in person. Will you come with us? I have to bring them out to dinner, Jack and a few of the actors. They’ll like you, you’ll be a change, someone who does a real job. You can distract them. Tell them some war stories. Anything but what happened today. Come out, Ed, bring your lady. Tell her Gabriel and Colin will be there.”

  “Will they be there?”

  “If I can persuade them to go. They’re very good about things like that, but you can’t blame them if they’d rather go home.”

  “Are Conor Rowan and Mark Cassidy going to be there? I want to talk to them again about Point Dume.”

  “There you go again. Mark is coming. I don’t know about Conor. But part of the point of this dinner is to keep the studio thinking everything in the garden is rosy, so if you’re going to go on about Point fucking Dume all night…”

  “Have you seen the news, Maurice? Turn on your laptop there, put Sky or the BBC or something up.”

  Maurice flips open his gray steel laptop.

  “Takes a while for the old Wi-Fi to kick in, I think it’s the damp in the walls myself. There we are. All right, Sky News…Bankers…Iran…Obama…Malibu Mass Grave, oh good Jesus…”

  I walk around and took a look. There are photographs of the dig on the bluff above Point Dume Beach, with LAPD and media helicopters circling. There are photographs of body bags being wheeled across the grass on gurneys. There are photographs of two of the three girls, Desiree LaRouche and Polly Styles. There’s a shot of Don Coover, who had been lean and blond fifteen years ago, and is now lean and gray. THREE-IN-ONE KILLER HAUNTS MALIBU ran the headline. The story doesn’t tell me anything I don’t know already—LAPD were led to the burial site by an anonymous tip-off. There is no mention of any other sites. Coover had not let it be known that the girls were extras on Ocean Falls; the bare LAPD release simply states that the girls had been reported missing in 1994. The Sky News report describes them as surfers. It’s always difficult to know in these cases what has been leaked and what the press has gleaned from “sources,” including old boyfriends and distant relations who want to get in on the act, the people Coover described as “bought-and-paid-for whores.”

  Maurice looks up at me, his eyes blurry with shock.

  “That’s as much as I know, Maurice. I spoke to Coover this morning. As far as I’m aware, he’s not looking at the Ocean Falls company, at least not at this stage,” I say. “Tell me, has anyone talked about Point Dume?”

  “Not to me. Jack is all in the present tense, you know, I need it now, all he’s been doing is getting it done. And Conor is reinforcing that all the time. So not a lot of room there for reminiscing.”

  “How about Mark Cassidy? I did mention it to both him and Conor.”

  Maurice yells a Mossy-laugh and claps his hands.

  “Good question. And when you get the answer, send it to me on a postcard.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning twenty years, I don’t really know the same Mark. You probably know him as well as I do. Never stops working, no conversation except movies, doesn’t seem interested in anything else. No kids, no family—”

  “He told me this morning he was married.”

  “God, that’s right. Is she Brazilian? South American somehow. Anyway, typical you’d forget, you’d rarely see her.”

  “I had always vaguely assumed he was gay.”

  “Same as myself. If he was anything. We used to make up stories for Mark, that he had a secret wife stowed somewhere, or that he was in the CIA and had to keep things undercover. International man of mystery. Lovely fella, mind.”

  And a welcome alternative to Jack as a candidate for the Three-in-One Killer. If I need to look for candidates. Although not the only one.

  “How about Conor?”

  “Conor does his job, and when he’s not doing it, he goes home. Has a house up around Churchtown there, bigger version of what he grew up in not far from where he grew up in it. Sees mates he’s had since school, goes to see Leinster, the Irish rugby team. There’s the occasional lady, then there isn’t. Not exactly the life and soul. Enjoys the few pints. Might be a bit of a drink issue there, just the face of him, taking its toll. But you’d never know from his work. Keeps…Jaysus, sounded like I was digging a grave for him there, ‘keeps himself to himself’ is what I was going to say. But he does.”

  Maurice looks at me, his expression poised somewher
e between amused and aggressive.

  “Well, Ed—that’s Mark and Conor. And you know Jack. Do you want the full lowdown on me?”

  “Maurice, I’m going to level with you. If it is the Three-in-One Killer in action here, I doubt that you’re the guy.”

  “You doubt I’m the guy. But you’re not sure?”

  “I’ll be sure when I get him. Or when Nora and Kate show up, and we can rest easy that he’s not on the loose in Dublin. That’s what you’re paying me for, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “All right. I’ll need to talk to the others again, watch their reactions. So what I want you to do, organize it tonight, wherever we’re going…where are we going?”

  “Eden, there in Temple Bar.”

  “All right. Can you contrive it that I’m sitting near Conor and Mark? And I want to talk to Jack beforehand—”

  “Drinks in the Clarence at seven thirty. Don’t mention the Irish Times.”

  “Why? What’s in the Irish Times?”

  “There’s a column there today, your man who knows everything about everything, Derek Doyle, he’s having a pop at Jack. After the Late Late. Fair enough, not Jack’s finest hour, but still, this is mad stuff. Says Jack would be the most annoying Irishman alive today if it wasn’t for Bono.”

  “That’s very modest of Derek. Does he not think he has a claim on the title himself?”

  Maurice nods, too morose for any Mossy-action now.

  “He used to drink in the Norseman, you know, with all the Film Base crowd, Jack and the lads. He wanted to make movies too, made a couple of shorts. He was a friend of Jack’s. I always thought he was a sneery piece of work, looking down his nose, but you know what Jack is like with people, as if life is an election campaign and he’s conducting a never-ending canvass. But he didn’t make it fast enough, Derek Doyle. He gave up and became a journalist.

  “And now he turns around and he has a go at everyone who has succeeded from that time, filmmakers and writers and musicians and actors, no one’s quite good enough for Derek, Derek’s standards are too high altogether, you have to be from New York, or Finland, or Brazil to impress Derek. And it’s all from this perspective, he’s on the side of the little people, the man in the street. All these artists with their subsidies and their tax exemptions, let them pay their taxes in these hard times. And him forgetting he’s sitting on a hundred grand a year from the paper and a pension and all this stuff we never had. And it’s not even for me, or Jack, he can’t really hurt us, it’s people starting out, people in the early stages, he’s on them like a ton of bricks, willing them to fail, like the worst kind of begrudger. You know, just once, I’d like to see someone nail the cunt, tell him the reason he’s like this has nothing to do with, what, critical judgment or artistic standards, no, it’s because deep down he knows he’s a failure, you know, a fucking failure, he tried to be something, and he failed, and rather than accept it, and own it, he just lashes out at anyone who stayed in the game.”

  Maurice’s face is red and his slender shoulders are shaking; I have never seen him like this. It’s as if the pressures of the day have all been combined and laid at the door of the unfortunate Derek Doyle.

  “I mean, we’re shooting here, in Dublin, we’re probably losing money as a result, the studio definitely is, but we made that decision, and fair play, the Irish Times has praised us and the film people there have always supported us, but this fucker treats us as if…”

  Maurice’s hands are raised into fists; I had never noticed before, but compared to his slight build, they are unusually large. Noticing me staring at them, he seems to come to, and gives a snort of Mossy-laughter.

  “Ah. Fuck him. Long day. And miles to go before we sleep. Just don’t mention it to Jack, is all I’m saying.”

  “I’m sure some other kind soul has broken the good news to him by now.”

  CHAPTER 15

  I try calling Madeline King, but her phone isn’t picking up. On my way out, I pass a dark-headed woman who looks familiar.

  “Nora? Nora Mannion?” But as soon as I say it, I realize my mistake.

  “I’m Rose, her sister,” the woman says, her voice low and uneasy.

  “I’m Ed Loy. I’ve been hired to find her. Jenny Noble says she got text messages from Nora and Kate today.”

  “I heard nothing from Nora. What did they say?”

  “That they’d gone out to a club, picked up two guys, had a big night.”

  Rose nods, trying to smile but not quite making it.

  “Well, it’s not like Nora, but there’s a first time for everything. I just don’t understand why she hasn’t been in touch, I left three, four messages. So did Madeline sure. Have you seen Madeline? I was supposed to meet her an hour ago.”

  “I’ve just been trying to call her myself.”

  “I just…I don’t know what to do. I’ve been out to Nora’s house, there’s no sign.”

  “All right. Come with me and we’ll check on Madeline at least.”

  I walk Rose Mannion through the yard and down the steps and catch Maurice Faye holding two telephone conversations at the same time. He sends one of the office girls onto the set; she comes back minutes later to report that Madeline hasn’t been seen since lunchtime.

  Rose Mannion looks so dismayed by this news that I suggest she accompany me out to Leopardstown Racecourse where Club 92 is located. The beginning of rush hour, it isn’t the greatest time to be immersing ourselves in traffic. Rose’s face is drawn, and she is not keen to talk; I put on the radio to dispel at least some of the unease. Amid the grim welter of property debts and bank bailouts and imminent cuts in public spending and increases in tax, amid the hand-wringing reproaches and the somber predictions that things would have to get worse with no guarantee they would get better, amid the rotting carcass of the Celtic Tiger and the newfound humility at large in the little country that thought it could, but as it turned out, can’t, the producers of RTE’s Drivetime program probably thought an item on the discovery of bodies in a mass grave in Los Angeles would come as a welcome and exotic, if macabre, distraction. The LAPD statement now includes one new piece of information, which so distracts me that I run a red light. I realize Rose Mannion has not been paying any attention to the radio because she only flutters briefly into animated life when a barrage of horns are directed our way. She slumps back into her seat, and soon we are in Leopardstown, and I turn off the radio and park the car and sit for a moment and wonder, when the LAPD press office said that there were “at least five” other sites they were investigating, just where exactly those sites might be, and if the Three-in-One Killer was consistent, does that bring the body count to eighteen in total.

  Club 92 doesn’t open until eleven; however, behind the bar at Fillies, I find Aimee, an amiably mindless gum-chewing girl with streaky blond hair in an up-do, who I am told was working in the club the previous night. It doesn’t take long. I show Aimee the photographs of the girls, and she identifies Kate Coyle immediately.

  “That’s Kate Coyle, Lady Kate. KC and the Sunshine Smile. She wasn’t here last night, no way.”

  “How can you be sure?” I say. “I imagine it gets pretty crowded.”

  “Because KC is my best girl, yeah? Ray of Sunshine. Simply No Way she’s gonna show and not let me know. Never seen the other girl. Nice eyes.”

  “You sure? Take a closer look,” Rose says.

  “I may be thick, but I’m not blind,” Aimee says breezily. “If she’d been in with Lady Kate, I’d’ve noticed. Something to drink?”

  I shake my head.

  “Then sorrreee…can’t help ya…see you again, yeah…” she says, sounding as if she thinks it unlikely, and moves back along the bar to people who aren’t as anxious or as old.

  Rose Mannion is staying with a friend in Leeson Street; I drop her on my way back to Holles Street; we exchange numbers and I tell her I’ll let her know if anything came up. If anything, Rose is somewhat cheered by her encounter with Ai
mee: as she sees it, if the girls didn’t go to the club, maybe what happened was that they both completely disrupted their routines. In that context, their continued absence is consistent with some kind of girls-go-wild type adventure. It’s a theory, but I can’t summon up a great deal of faith in it.

  When I back-heel my apartment door behind me, I call Jenny Noble, who sounds irritated that I’m interrupting her viewing of a Gilmore Girls rerun. She asks distractedly if I’ve heard anything from the girls, but I can tell she has stopped worrying about them. I call Madeline King again, and again her phone just tells me to try again later. I text Anne Fogarty and tell her to get a babysitter, that she’s going out to dine with movie stars.

  I take a hot shower and then a cold one and shave and dress in the black linen suit and the white double-ply cotton shirt with the French cuffs and the silver death’s-head links and the plain black oxfords from Church’s. I apply some Hermès Eau d’Orange Verte, the cologne I wear in summer, and I floss and brush my teeth.

  Then, none of that having made me feel in any way calmer, I call Madeline King’s number for one last time. I get Jack Donovan on the phone, and, having established that he doesn’t know where Madeline is either, I arrange to meet him half an hour early, down the road from the Clarence. When I reach for the Tanqueray to make the drink I’d wanted and poured away earlier, I see that Leo has been in my apartment and has left me a gift: a Glock 26 subcompact about the size of my hand, with ten rounds of 9mm ammunition in the magazine. If I need it.

  I pour the Tanqueray over ice and splash the bitters and squeeze the lime and stand at the window where the mothers of newborns come and go and smoke and I think about what I’d thought today when I’d seen Jenny Noble, and compared her to the missing Kate Coyle and Nora Mannion: how like Madeline King they looked. And I think about what I’d been told today by Jack’s sister and by his ex-wife, and I remember what I saw he had done in L.A., and I wonder if my friend is capable of murder, and not just a crime of passion, not just a rush of blood to the head: murder on a grand scale. It takes me another drink to realize I’m not going to feel any better until I know the truth, and a third to tamp down the vision of my parents’ desecrated grave, and the embers of Quarry Fields, and the specter of Podge Halligan on my trail. I shut the door behind me and walk down into the street.