A Savage Hunger (Paula Maguire 4)

by Claire McGowan

  She saw Guy across the room, his blue T-shirt bringing out the shifting colours of his eyes. He’d been perfectly reasonable with her all day. Pleasant, like a colleague. Maybe that was how he saw her now.

  She tried to focus. Fiacra was on stage, giving the briefing. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he said. Not too loud, not too quiet. ‘We’d like to thank you so much for being here today. Alice’s family are also very grateful for your support.’ Tony Morgan, who stood behind him, nodded his head in acknowledgement. ‘As you know, there was possibly a sighting of Alice here a few days ago.’ He spoke reassuringly as a ripple of low-level interest went through the room. ‘There’s every chance that if it was her, we’ll find other signs in the area. So we’re looking for anything and everything that suggests Alice was here – damaged bushes, signs of a struggle, anything. When she disappeared, she was wearing blue jeans, brand name Prada, and an Oakdale College hoody.’ Helpfully, Alice had posted a selfie in those clothes on the day she’d last been seen. In it she looked serious, presenting herself in profile to the camera phone in her hand, lifting up the jumper to show her flat stomach.

  ‘That’s all,’ said Fiacra. ‘Please follow your assigned group leader and fan out – but remember to stay close and shout out as soon as you see anything. Please, most important of all – if you do see something, don’t touch it. It’ll be your first instinct, but if you do it’ll banjax all the evidence and cause a terrible headache.’ Here he smiled, and some people smiled back, grateful for a release of tension. ‘Thank you.’

  There was movement, feet on the floor, chairs scraped back. Paula watched the team members move out ahead of the volunteers, the CSIs in their suits and masks. Alice’s father remained on stage, talking to Fiacra. Outside the hall, people were heading into the woods around the lake, walking slowly, pacing the ground, looking for any clue as to where Alice might be found. Paula felt a breeze rise to her from the dark water, and shivered slightly in her vest top.

  Kemal went by, walking slowly, and she smiled at him in passing. She was just thinking, He looks pale, when she saw his face go blank, and he stumbled suddenly against the wall and crashed to the floor. Around him, volunteers dashed to his aid.

  ‘God! Are you all right?’ She was moving forward, pushing through the gathered band of people.

  His eyes fluttered as he sat up. ‘I’m so sorry, Dr Maguire. I must have fainted. I’m fasting, you see. And the days are so long here—’

  It took her a moment to figure it out. ‘Oh! It’s Ramadan?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  She didn’t know what to say – oh, that must be bad – or what one of the station canteen women had rather brilliantly replied on hearing he was fasting – ‘Oh God love you, pet. Will I make you a wee ham sandwich?’ But it made her think. Fasting all day, no food passing your lips till the sun set. People still did it, all over the world. It was happening on their doorstep right now, at Lough Derg. It wasn’t only people like Alice who tried to control everything that went into their bodies. Alice had just taken it that bit further.

  Paula realised a girl was kneeling beside them, having lurched to help when Kemal fell down. She wore an Oakdale hoody, like they all seemed to. ‘Thank you, I think he’s OK now.’

  ‘It passes,’ the girl told Kemal, ignoring Paula. ‘If you’re really faint you could try chewing on something, like a bit of leather or plastic. It helps.’

  He was getting up, straightening his boiler suit, seeming embarrassed. ‘Thank you, miss. Apologies, I’ll be fine now.’

  ‘Did you know Alice?’ Paula asked, standing aside to let Kemal up.

  The girl, who had glasses and short, ragged, dark hair, didn’t answer for a minute. ‘I wouldn’t say I knew her, no.’

  ‘Well, it’s kind of you to help.’

  She just nodded, putting up a hand to pull at her hair, and Paula saw her nails were bitten to the quick, smudged around with some dark tidemark. Were all the Oakdale kids messed up?

  ‘Could we stop here for a minute?’

  Corry glanced at her. They were almost back in the centre of Ballyterrin, drawing slowly through the town in the end-of-day traffic. The evening sun touched the windows with fire. ‘At the shops?’

  ‘Yeah. I just need to . . . sort something.’

  ‘I see. Well, I’ll pull up, but if the traffic lot come you can explain to them yourself that we’re attending a wedding-dress emergency.’

  Paula made a face at her. ‘It is an emergency. Apparently I should have ordered it a year ago or something.’

  ‘Well, you better go quick then.’

  In the shop, the girl looked up as the door jangled, a pleasant smile pasted on her made-up face, fading as she recognised her difficult customer. ‘Oh, hello there—’

  ‘Hi. Right. Have you any dress that’s less than five hundred quid? If so I’ll take it.’

  ‘Do you not want to try on—?’

  ‘No. It’ll do, if it’s white and froofy. Oh, and has straps, I can’t do strapless. If I try on one more dress I swear I’ll spontaneously combust.’

  The girl made an ‘it’ll cost you’ face, the exact same one the builders always did when Paula asked if they’d any idea how long her current sink-less and cooker-less state might go on for. ‘I don’t know now . . .’

  ‘I’ll take anything. Look, I’ll have one of these – I fit into them before, didn’t I?’

  ‘Well, yes, they’re sample size, but I need to measure you—’

  ‘I’m a twelve.’

  ‘And what will you be at the wedding?’

  Paula narrowed her eyes. ‘The same, I’d say. It’s next week.’

  ‘Oh, you’re not—?’

  ‘No, I am not on a diet. Do I need to be?’

  ‘Oh no, no, sure you must have snapped right back after the wean, aren’t you lucky!’

  Paula stared at the woman, who had gone quite flushed and was fiddling with the cash register. ‘OK then. Just get it ready for me. Thanks.’

  ‘Do I need to lose weight?’ She slammed the door of the house behind her.

  Aidan blinked slowly. ‘Is that a trick psychological question? Because I don’t have a PhD, you know, I’m just a humble hack.’

  ‘No. It’s just everyone keeps saying oh of course you’ll be dieting for the wedding or oh Paula won’t want a biscuit she’s her dress to fit into.’

  ‘You got a dress then, I take it? Well, that’s good. Did you not get one that fits?’

  ‘I think you’re meant to order it in a too-small size, then shrink into it. So do I need to lose weight?’

  Aidan lowered the paper and squinted at her.

  ‘Oh my God! You looked!’

  ‘How else am I meant to know?’

  ‘You just know! Like, it’s in your head, if Paula needs to lose weight or not.’

  He put the paper up again. ‘Maguire, you look great to me, always did. But if you want to, I guess a few pounds wouldn’t hurt.’

  ‘Wouldn’t hurt!’

  ‘I said if you want to! Ah Jesus.’ He went back to the news. ‘The situation in Syria is easier to navigate than this.’

  ‘Wouldn’t hurt,’ she muttered, going out. ‘I’ll wouldn’t hurt you.’

  Aidan called, ‘Come back, Senator George Mitchell, your peace-keeping skills are needed in the Maguire–O’Hara household.’

  She shouted back, ‘The peace process would never have held if Gerry Adams’d told Ian Paisley it “wouldn’t hurt” if he lost a few pounds.’

  In response, the sound of the TV came on. Paula stomped upstairs. Conveniently, not having to tell him who she’d been working with that day. She’d tell him tomorrow. Maybe.

  Alice

  I’ve been thinking and thinking. What did I do wrong? What did I do to make it happen? Was it my fault for doing the stupid drugs in the first place?

  It was my first time with that stuff. I’d told him and told him, please look after me, please make sure I’m OK. Of course I will, he
said. You can trust me. I thought it was nice, how we were friends, how he hadn’t minded too much when I kissed him those few times, even let him take off my top, and then wouldn’t go any further. He’s cute, of course, but I just couldn’t. I can’t be like that.

  He slipped me this little Rizla package in the middle of dinner in the buttery. Are you sure? Go on. And we smiled at each other and swallowed them down. He’d said it would be half an hour for it to kick in, plenty of time to wander down to the boathouse, meet the others – at least that’s what I thought.

  Right away, almost, within the time it took to put our plates on our trays and walk to the corridor, I felt my pulse racing, like a bat was trapped in my throat. I thought I was just freaking out, looking for signs that weren’t there. I had time to say to him, I feel weird, and then it really hit. Everything was blurry, the colours streaked along the world like water on glass. I was suddenly intensely aware of how everything felt – my card in my hand, so shiny and cold, the wool of my jumper, so scratchy. I marvelled at it, both amazed and afraid at the same time.

  I walked with him out of the dining hall – people catching on my face – are you – is she – and him making me move, saying it’s fine, it’s fine, Jesus, don’t be weird, OK? Then we were at the boathouse, and Katy and Dermot were there, and Dermot put a blanket round me, and took me inside where Katy had all cushions and candles, and I could have lain down right there, I was so relieved to be in somewhere safe. She’s just freaking out a bit, said Peter, and I felt his hand bat at me, clumsily. I sat down. Katy hugged me, and I smelled her familiar smell of sweat and cheap perfume with an undernote of blood, but right then it made me so happy. Oh Alice! It’s going to be OK. What’s wrong with her? I had some and I feel fine.

  You snorted it, said Dermot, pushing up his glasses. Jesus, how much did you give her?

  I dunno, like half.

  Fuck’s sake. She’s five foot two and it’s her first time. You basically just roofied her.

  And I thought I heard him say then – which is kind of your style. But Peter didn’t hear, or decided not to, and then in a bit it all kicked in, and even Dermot was smiling, and we all sat on a rug holding onto each other, the four of us, and the only way I can think to describe it is that: afraid and amazed, all at the same time.

  That’s the last thing I can remember before I woke up. And everything was different.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  She was late in the next morning, having been distracted by early morning calls to the builders (cast-iron promises on their mothers’ graves that the work would be finished by the following week), the wedding hotel (what vegetarian options did they want and would they like to pay an extra £5 a head for chair covers; no, they would not), Saoirse (what did Paula want her to do with her hair), and Pat (what time did she want the wedding car to come at). Since this was the first time Paula had even heard they were having wedding cars, she arrived grouchy and out of breath, to find Corry and Guy already hard at work. He had his sleeves rolled up, tie swinging free, and she had her hair in a bun, as they examined something on the conference table. Paula was already sweating, hairs escaping from her ponytail. ‘Sorry,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Family emergency.’

  ‘Hope it’s all sorted out.’ Corry knew rightly it was wedding-related.

  Paula ignored her gimlet stare. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Well, this is our lucky day. The search in the woods – we found a phone. Same type as Alice’s. One of the volunteer kids turned it up in the bushes.’

  ‘That’s good.’ She looked between them; there was something else. ‘What?’

  Guy said, ‘They also found an abandoned car. It’s registered to Anderson Garrett. But he’s now claiming it was stolen on the day Alice went missing.’

  Paula’s heart began to race. If Garrett had taken Alice there . . . ‘Does that mean you’ll drag the lake?’

  Corry looked at her watch. ‘If I can get Willis to OK it; he’s up to high doh about all this. I’m waiting on his say-so.’

  On cue, the man himself approached, barking out criticisms as he swept through the office. ‘If we could have fewer dirty dishes on the desks, Constable, thank you, it’s not a cafe . . . Oh, Dr Maguire, you’re actually here. I’m still waiting for some of these famous insights. Have you anything, anything at all I can tell Lord bloody Morgan about where his daughter is? They need to get back to London, he’s an important man.’

  Paula shook her head in frustration; she had nothing. She hoped it wasn’t the wedding and Maggie, occupying too much of her mind, but this case had left her stumped. ‘I’m sorry, sir. The phone, the connection with Yvonne O’Neill . . . I don’t know what to recommend.’

  ‘In the meantime we’re dragging a lake at great expense. I can’t get the Gardaí to even share the costs, since Alice lived in the North.’ He eyed her. ‘And you have leave booked from next week, I gather.’

  ‘Well, um, yes. I’m getting married.’ She hadn’t invited Willis. It might have been politically expedient, but Paula wasn’t much good at currying favour.

  He glared as if he would have liked to order her to cancel it all, then sighed. ‘I suppose it won’t make much of a difference. We don’t seem to be getting anywhere anyway.’

  Guy said, ‘We have a number of leads now – the car for one—’

  ‘Well, we should be dealing with those, then, not hanging about here. I hope I can trust you to handle this, DI Brooking?’

  ‘I’d hope so, yes.’ Guy didn’t rise to it.

  ‘Well, at least someone seems to know what they’re doing.’ He went, causing another ripple of tidying-up and back-straightening and window-minimising throughout the office.

  Corry rolled her eyes and stood up. ‘Let’s go and talk to Garrett.’

  ‘So we’re looking at him again?’ Paula said. ‘Despite his alibi?’

  ‘Is the Pope Catholic? Well, you would know. We’re going to see him. Just a little chat for now; Willis doesn’t want him arrested. Not yet, anyway.’

  ‘I hope it won’t take long. You’ll upset my mother. Could we not go to the station?’

  That was odd – usually witnesses had a morbid fear of being hauled in, not seeing a distinction between arrest and interview, but Garrett seemed more concerned about the police arriving at his house. He lived in the large grey farmhouse visible from Alice’s cottage, but up close it was cold and unwelcoming. Paula and Corry were in the kitchen, which was dirty, two damp dogs lying on a very old sofa. ‘You live here with your mother?’ Corry wrinkled her nose in distaste.

  ‘She’s upstairs. She’s ill – I don’t want you to disturb her. Like I said, the station would be better.’

  ‘We like to see witnesses in their homes where possible,’ said Corry briskly. ‘It may take a while. It may not.’

  ‘Last time the interviews were in the station.’ Last time. He meant when Yvonne went missing.

  Corry said, ‘That’s because you were a suspect last time. At the moment you’re a witness.’ For now, anyway.

  He was back to the hand-wringing. Today he wore a large brown jumper, made out of some kind of coarse wool. ‘Look, I’ve already told you my car was stolen. Maybe Alice took it, even, she knew where I parked it.’

  ‘And why didn’t you report that at the time?’

  ‘I . . . I didn’t want to bother you. You had so much on your plate.’

  ‘You didn’t think we’d maybe be interested to know?’

  He looked wretched. ‘I just didn’t want . . . you know, last time. The interviews. Poking round the church, the house, everywhere. All the questions. And it’s my fault, really, I usually leave the keys in . . . you know, living out here, you wouldn’t think anyone would—’ He looked up at them. ‘I just couldn’t face the questions. My mother couldn’t stand it.’

  ‘We need to speak to you all the same. Shall we go into the sitting room?’ Corry moved towards the door of the other room.

  He remained where he was, rubb
ing at his hands in the same nervous gesture Paula had noticed at the church. Looking closer, they were red and sore – eczema, perhaps. ‘Would you come and sit down, Mr Garrett?’ she said, indicating the door.

  ‘I just—’ He looked around him. ‘I’d feel more comfortable if we spoke out here.’

  ‘Why?’ Corry sounded cross. ‘The kitchen is quite full.’ She meant untidy. Every surface was covered in clutter, plastic shopping bags, bits of scrunched paper, plates with rotting food, dog hair. The smell was sour. By contrast, a relatively tidy sitting room could be seen through the open door.

  A voice sounded, which made Paula jump. It seemed to come out of the walls. ‘Take the guests into the good front room, Anderson. Where are your manners?’

  ‘I . . .’ He twitched at the sound. ‘I just—’

  ‘And offer them tea, for goodness’ sake.’

  ‘Hello?’ Corry peered up the staircase into the gloom. The voice seemed to have come from there. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Corry.’

  ‘Yes, hello. I’m Mrs Garrett. Anderson’s mother. I’m afraid I can’t get down, I’m wheelchair-bound.’ They heard the squeak of a wheel. A shape could almost be seen at the top of the stairs, hunched over.

  Corry had her hand on the bannister. ‘We’re happy to come up, Mrs—’

  ‘No.’ Her voice was quiet but firm. ‘I’m sorry but I’m not presentable. Do speak to Anderson in the front room. Can I ask if this is about poor Miss Morgan? I didn’t know her myself, but of course we’re all very concerned.’