A Savage Hunger (Paula Maguire 4)

by Claire McGowan

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘About, I don’t know, two months, maybe. At the end of term. We used to go to the boathouse, the four of us. Just to hang out, talk. Peter has a key, you see, he’s the rowing captain. But that night . . . I don’t know. He was weird. He kept trying to kiss Alice, touch her. Even though she was really out of it. I don’t know what happened. I must have passed out. Everything was sort of blurry. Then I woke up at one point and—’ She shuddered. ‘Alice’s clothes were half-off. She had her top on but her jeans were . . . round her ankles. And he was on her. He was . . . raping her.’

  ‘Peter?’ Corry spoke gently.

  Katy shook her head. ‘No. Dermot.’

  ‘Dermot raped Alice?’

  ‘Yeah. Peter had already . . . done it.’ She shuddered again. ‘I didn’t remember properly for ages. When they realised what they’d done they carried us back to our room. I could hardly walk. Then the next day Alice woke up and she didn’t know what had happened . . . but she was bleeding. I said she should go to the nurse, or the police, but she said they wouldn’t believe her. I think she told the principal, though.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us this before?’

  ‘I – I wasn’t sure what I remembered. And Alice wouldn’t have wanted me to tell you. She was ashamed.’

  ‘Do you think that’s why she ran away?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Katy promptly. ‘I thought she would come back again, see. Once she’d got her head straight.’

  ‘You should have told us sooner, Katy.’

  ‘I know.’ She lowered her head. ‘I was just trying to help my friend.’

  ‘Peter?’

  ‘No! Alice, I mean. I was trying to help Alice.’

  ‘But you said Peter spent the night with you before Alice disappeared.’

  ‘I know, I . . . I was just trying to help. Honestly, I thought she just wanted some time away.’

  ‘And did he? Spend the night with you?’

  Katy seemed to weigh this up for a long time. What would best serve her need. To be important. To matter. Then she said, ‘No. No, he wasn’t. I just said that.’

  ‘You lied.’

  Her lawyer muttered something. Katy shied in annoyance. ‘Yes, but I – I thought I was helping Al, you see. I thought she wanted—’

  ‘Headspace,’ said Corry, with irony. ‘Tell me this, Katy. When did you actually see Alice last? I mean see her with your own two eyes?’

  Katy thought about it. ‘I don’t know. I was sure I’d seen her a lot . . . but when I think about it, I guess it was mostly online. I saw her in the library about a month ago. I suppose that was the last time.’

  ‘And how did she look? What was she doing?’

  ‘She was looking at some books. She had on like a big jumper, and a hat, I think, even though it was hot, I remember thinking that was weird . . . I called out to her and she looked round, but she just went out. She said afterwards that she didn’t see me.’

  ‘You saw her face?’

  ‘Yeah, it was her. But she looked funny, I guess.’

  ‘Funny how?’

  ‘I don’t know. Puffy. Like she wasn’t well or something.’

  ‘All right. We’re going to need your phone, Katy. Your current phone, that is.’

  ‘There’s nothing. Just texts. I don’t . . . I didn’t send them, I swear. The WhatsApps and that. I don’t know how. I swear.’

  ‘One more thing. Where do you think Dermot is?’

  ‘I think—’ Her lip trembled. ‘Now that I think about it, maybe he went to get her. To make her shut up about it. About what happened.’

  ‘To hurt her, you mean?’

  ‘Yes.’ Katy blinked. ‘Please find them. Please don’t let him hurt her.’

  ‘She’s lying,’ said Corry. ‘Not about the rape. I think that took place, but I think she knew more about it than she’s saying. I want to keep her in custody, if we can. We can charge her with obstruction if nothing else.’

  Paula was thinking it through. ‘She was trying to protect Peter at first, saying he was her boyfriend, but now he’s not interested – he’s going after Avril – and she’s ready to drop him in it. She’s smarter than we thought.’

  ‘Not that smart – she may have taken away his alibi, but that’s her own gone as well. I think she may be right about one thing, though. We need to find Dermot Healy, and fast, before he hurts someone.’

  ‘And who’s got her old phone? Someone was sending those messages.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Corry, frustrated. ‘I don’t understand how it works. We’d need to ask Trevor the teenager again.’

  Paula said, ideas forming in her mind – puffy, Katy had said, great big jumper, Mrs O’Neill said, the food buried near the cottage. ‘Um—’

  ‘What is it?’ Corry saw her expression. ‘Are you having one of these famous insights? Should I get Willis?’

  ‘Well, you know, I might just be . . . We need to speak to someone who actually saw Alice before she went. Not Garrett. The volunteer. The one who found the church open that morning. What’s her name again? Maureen? Do we have a number?’

  ‘In the file,’ said Corry. ‘But . . .’

  Too impatient to explain, Paula rifled through the file and punched in a number. It being Ireland, people still answered their landlines. ‘Ballyterrin 64578,’ came the crisp tones.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Mackin? This is Dr Maguire from the PSNI. I’m sorry to bother you, I just had to ask a quick question about Alice Morgan, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Well, I suppose so, but what—’

  ‘What did she look like?’

  ‘Look like?’ The woman sounded impatient. ‘But surely you’ve her picture, I saw it in the paper.’

  ‘Yes, I know it sounds daft, but what did she look like when you saw her last? What dress size was she, for example?’ Paula was aware of Corry staring at her. ‘I know it might seem like a silly question, but please.’

  ‘Well, she . . . I suppose she’d be a size twelve, something like that?’

  Corry was making ‘what are you doing?’ gestures. Paula ignored her. ‘You’re sure about that? A twelve?’ In her selfies, Alice would barely have been a size eight.

  ‘Aye, I take my granddaughter shopping and she’d be about the same, though she’ll be a fourteen soon if she doesn’t stop with the chips after school.’

  ‘Was Alice the same size when she first started working there?’

  Maureen Mackin said, ‘No, she put on a powerful amount of weight in a wee while. They say they do, students. All the chips and pints of beer, like navvies they are. In my day we just stuck to a small sherry.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Paula. ‘I’m afraid I need to run on now, but that’s very helpful.’ She hung up, but not fast enough to miss the tut of disapproval at her lack of phone manners.

  Corry was looking at her. Half-exasperated, half-pleased. ‘Well?’

  Paula said, ‘She’d started eating again. She looks different from what we thought. We’ve been sending out the wrong description.’

  Alice

  What’s the matter? Katy’s face was twisted up, her hands balled inside her hoody. I could tell she’d been crying from the sheen of snot on her lip.

  I can’t find it anywhere! It’s gone, it’s gone! Someone must have nicked it!

  What’s gone?

  My – my phone! Oh God, I can’t believe it. My whole life is on there.

  On top of her other great qualities, Katy loses stuff. Canteen card, so I have to buy her lunch – I’ll pay you back, honest! And then she never does, of course. Her towel, her hairdryer, money. She’s a walking disaster area. Now she was full on sobbing. Mum and Dad will kill me! I’ve only had it a few months!

  Calm down, you can easily replace it. Do you have an old phone somewhere?

  She wiped a hand over her face. Uh, maybe, like a crappy Nokia.

  So go back to using that.

  But – how?

  For God’s sake. I w
as the one who’d been in institutions all my life, but I swear to God Katy would never survive for a minute on her own. Go back to pay as you go. Don’t tell your mum and dad you’ve lost it. Your contract is up soon, right?

  Otherwise I’d have to lend her mine, and I didn’t trust her with it. The drama of Katy’s phone went on for days. Everyone we saw in the canteen or quad – God, did you hear? I’ve lost my phone, nightmare. And her FB posts: so sorry for radio silence. Lost my phone sadface. Contact me on here, thx! As if anyone would even notice. Stupid cow.

  Then when at last she’d gone back to her old number and stopped moaning, after everything, I was changing my sheets, getting ready to move out of college – Katy didn’t do hers at all, all term, I watched – and I heard a thud as I pulled the bed out from the wall. It was down there – the stupid pink cover gave it away. I remembered now she’d been using it on my bed, snuggled up – too close as usual, watching Pitch Perfect, and she’d fallen asleep. I’d had to sleep on her bed. Urgh. My hands closed over it. The battery was run down, but I plugged it in to my charger – we had the same make – and it came to life. There were message icons. WhatsApp and Facebook still coming through. I clicked on WhatsApp – I remembered that Katy had set it up at the start of term, because everyone else had, but she didn’t use it because she couldn’t really work it. Normally she texted, now she’d gone back to her old Nokia.

  I heard a noise – she was coming back from the shower, singing Taylor Swift. Charlotte would have puked at the sight of her, all red skin and rolls of fat.

  I slipped the phone into the pocket of my hoody. I had her.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  ‘Right. I’ve just spoken to the photo techs and they say they think Alice’s last selfie was actually taken in March. The light doesn’t look right for this time of year. Same goes for the last month or so – all her photos are old ones.’ Guy was showing them the pictures on the big screen, not that a casual observer would be able to see what he was talking about. People believed what they were shown online, and a picture of a girl posted in July was how that girl had looked in July. Even if it wasn’t. ‘I’ve asked them to trace Katy’s old phone too, but it’s been switched off. The last signal it gave was in Donegal.’

  ‘So Alice could have it?’ asked Corry.

  ‘Maybe. Or Dermot, of course.’

  Paula had not spoken to Guy since the wedding – God, it still hurt to even think of it, a gnawing animal in her stomach – and did her best not to meet his eye. Corry said, ‘So for all we know, no one’s even seen Alice for months. Do we trust this Maureen Mackin?’ She looked at Paula.

  ‘I don’t think she’d lie. Pillar of the community like her? And it’s backed up by what other people said.’

  ‘All right. I think she’s legit too. So Alice has put on weight. Quite a bit of weight.’

  ‘Is that even possible?’ asked Paula. ‘How much weight could someone gain in six weeks?’

  Corry said, ‘I checked with an eating disorder specialist at the Royal – you can put on about three stone in a month, if you really go at it. And Alice was tiny before, it would make a lot of difference to how she looks.’

  ‘So we need a photofit,’ said Guy. ‘What she’d look like now, as a size twelve.’

  Willis Campbell had been listening in, looking cross. ‘Do I assume from this discussion that we now believe Alice to be alive? Because it seems to me this investigation has suffered from a serious lack of focus.’

  ‘We still don’t know,’ said Paula. ‘If we knew, we’d tell you.’ He looked askance at her tone, and she could see Guy trying to catch her eye. She ignored him.

  ‘I think there’s a strong chance she’s alive,’ said Guy, smoothing the moment over. ‘Or she was before Dermot Healy set off, anyway.’

  Corry ran her hands over her face. ‘Real question is, should we take Avril out of Oakdale? After what we’ve just been told about Peter?’

  Willis folded his arms. ‘We have Ms Butcher in the interview room, yes?’

  ‘For now. We’ll have to let her go soon or charge her with something.’

  ‘And we need something concrete. We’ve had two of them in so far – I’m not hauling in the other boy just so we can let him go as well. We need something that sticks. A confession, ideally. Constable Wright has established contact with the Franks boy?’

  They all looked at Paula. ‘Um . . . she thinks that he likes her, yes.’

  ‘She might be in danger,’ said Corry. ‘We’re not sure if Dermot had worked out she was undercover. It’s possible they all know.’

  Willis spoke carefully. ‘If we let Constable Wright carry on, what are the chances she could get some actual proof – make Franks show his hand?’

  Paula digested what he was saying. Bait. He wanted to use Avril as bait. ‘He might, yes, but . . .’

  He was looking at her with distaste. ‘Dr Maguire. You’ve said several times you thought Dermot Healy was the brains of the outfit. So there’s a high chance Franks will do something stupid now, yes?’

  ‘I don’t know, but maybe, I—’

  ‘Right. So here’s what we do – we send Katy Butcher back in. Drop some hints that if she helps us out, she might escape charges herself.’

  Corry blinked. ‘Her lawyer wouldn’t let that get by.’

  ‘Well, tell her without the lawyer, then. Honestly, DS Corry – ’ he seemed to pronounce her demoted title with relish – ‘anyone would think you’d never run a major investigation. If Katy helps get us Franks, we’ll maybe overlook the fact she lied to us. Or we can at least let her think that.’

  Corry tried again. ‘Sir, I don’t know if we can trust Katy to that extent.’

  ‘We don’t have to tell her about Constable Wright. Just hint that if she can help us get Franks in some way, we’ll go easy on her.’

  ‘But sir . . .’

  ‘Listen to me. This speculation, this running about, it’s all very well, but someone around here has to actually make a decision,’ he snapped. ‘DS Corry, talk to the girl. Get her assistance. And brief Constable Wright that we need to draw Franks out. Maybe he’ll do that stupid thing sooner than we think.’

  As long as that something didn’t get Avril hurt. Paula wanted to protest, convince him to pull Avril out, but she had no other ideas. Corry met her eyes, grim-faced, as she got up to follow Willis.

  Guy lingered. ‘Paula. Are you all right?’

  She busied herself gathering her papers. ‘I’m worried about Avril. She’s my friend.’

  ‘I didn’t mean about that.’

  She looked away. Of course she wasn’t all right. ‘I’m dealing with it.’

  ‘I’m so sorry for the way I – I honestly thought it would be better coming from me than Willis. There was nothing else I could do. I promise you. I wasn’t trying to . . . you know.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Was I wrong? Did I make it worse?’ He looked wretched.

  She honestly didn’t know; could anything have made that moment better? Watching Aidan be packed into the car, and taken away, and her left in the porch with all their guests and her stupid wedding dress?

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘No. It doesn’t matter anyway. I just want to get on with my job. Can I do that, please?’

  ‘OK. But just please know that – if I could have stopped it, I would have.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Paula tonelessly. She wasn’t ready to forgive him just yet. Even if she knew that, really, it wasn’t his fault. Because she couldn’t forgive herself for that moment in the church porch, when he’d appeared in his suit, and she’d just for a second been happy to see him.

  It took Paula almost an hour to drive to work the next day. A night of more riots had left the town broken, roads closed with burnt-out cars, stones and rubbish littering the streets. She’d lain awake in the double bed, which now seemed huge and empty, and seen the glow of fires over the town. Wondering if Aidan could see it too, in his prison cell. She hadn’t been
back to visit him. She couldn’t face it, not until she’d decided what to do about Maggie. How she would tell Guy. Whether she could ever forgive Aidan. Or herself.

  In the morning Maggie came charging in, jumping on the bed and rooting about in the covers. ‘Where’s Daddy? Where’s Daddy, Mummy?’

  ‘He’s not here, pet. We talked about this.’

  But Maggie was too young to understand. She looked everywhere. Under the bed, in the wardrobe, in the bathroom. ‘Where’s Daddy? Where’s Daddy?’ The tears starting. The sound of a two-year-old crying inconsolably was more than Paula could bear.

  ‘Come on, pet. We’ll see Daddy soon. He’s just gone away for a wee bit.’ She scooped Maggie into her arms, her pyjamas quickly getting wet with tears. She felt like crying herself. He isn’t your daddy. I’m sorry, Mags. We lied to you. He isn’t your daddy at all.

  Downstairs, she was greeted by the half-built kitchen, the cupboards hanging loose, everything in limbo like a bad metaphor for her life. This had to stop. They had to finish the work, so she could actually make some decisions and move on, to whatever life was now left to her.

  ‘You’re saying this happens a lot?’

  ‘Well, yeah. Do you not know the joke?’ Gerard was explaining the riots to a bemused Guy Brooking when Paula finally made it in. ‘What does the calendar go like in Northern Ireland? January, February, March, March, March . . . we just like a bit of a riot every now and again. Trash the place up a bit, throw stuff at the peelers. Conlon’s death is just an excuse. Could be anything.’

  ‘Like in London the year before last,’ said Guy.

  ‘Not like that,’ said Paula irritably, dumping her bag at her desk. ‘Remember when everyone said let’s get the water cannons on the London rioters, and all the more liberal ones said no it’s too brutal? Well, the reason there aren’t any in London is that there are three in Belfast. For our annual riot season.’

  ‘You have to win everything here, don’t you?’ He spoke lightly, almost teasingly, though his face was anxious.