“And Jessica happened to be there, and that wasn’t part of the plan?” I say.
“Could be. That poor, poor kid,” he says.
All the “if only’s” whisper in the air around us. If only she hadn’t had a cold, if only she’d gone to the sleepover. It’s always so troubling, this randomness of what happens: how devastation can creep up on you in such a casual way.
“With Gemma,” he says, “it was nearly another dreadful case of bad timing. We’ve been going through her movements. On Monday she went to see Marcus. She told him she’d decided to come and see us, to tell us about her memory of the night her mother died. Just at the point that he found that we were going to search the quarry—”
He stops as Sylvie comes over. She pulls at my sleeve.
“Now, Grace.”
She’s purposeful, frowning. Her mouth has a tight, set look.
But I’m desperate to hear Brian out.
“Sweetheart, we’ll only be a minute.”
I lead her back to the toys. Outside, the scream of an ambulance siren rips the morning apart.
“Gemma doesn’t remember what happened yesterday morning,” says Brian. “There were traces of Rohypnol in her system. It seems that Marcus drugged her to give himself time to get out.”
“But why?” I say. “Why didn’t Marcus kill Gemma? It’s not like he has any scruples about murder. So why did he just drug her and leave her like that?”
Brian’s face darkens.
“We’ve interviewed people again—the original people we talked to. There’s someone in the village—Polly O’Connor. Polly was Alice’s best friend. And yesterday Polly told me things that she hadn’t told me before. She said the rumor was true—that Marcus and Alice were lovers.”
I can hear the outrage in his voice, and I wonder why he finds this shocking—something as familiar, as banal, as an affair.
“Now, Gordon was off on the road a lot. And Alice and Gordon—well, to be frank, they didn’t have much of a sex life. I’m only telling you what Polly O’Connor told me . . .”
I suddenly see where this is going, and everything in me recoils.
Brian’s throat moves as he swallows. “And Alice believed that Marcus was the father of the twins.”
Nobody moves.
“You see, maybe Marcus knew,” says Brian. “Maybe Alice had told him. He’d already killed one of his daughters. Maybe even Marcus couldn’t stomach killing his other child.”
“But—for God’s sake,” I say, “he had a relationship with Gemma . . .”
Brian shrugs.
“Gemma was always a risk,” he says, “a bit of a loose cannon. There was always the possibility that she might remember something and incriminate him. Maybe seducing her was his way of keeping control . . .”
“There’s something I don’t understand in all this,” says Adam then. “How come he knew it was over? That you were searching the quarry?”
“Tell me,” says Brian, “where were you when I rang you to tell you about the search?”
“Just in the lounge at St. Vincent’s,” I tell him.
“Was Brigid anywhere near?”
I remember Brigid coming to fetch our tray. How she knocked the milk jug over, how she seemed annoyed by her clumsiness.
“Yes, she was, as it happens.”
“Brigid’s left the country too. It was Brigid who gave him his alibi the day of the murders,” he says.
I think of our conversations with her, of the way that she’d encouraged us to confide, of how she’d hinted that Gordon was the murderer. I feel a surge of nausea.
Brian shakes his head a little. “I really admired him, you know? I thought he was so impressive.” There’s something troubled and inchoate in his voice.
“That’s how it looked,” I tell him.
“To be honest, he seemed to be everything that I’d have liked to be. The house, the business—everything I’d have aspired toward, if only life had been different . . .” He moves one long hand pensively over his face. “Well, that’s the latest installment. I’ll see you folks around, no doubt.”
I put my hand on his arm. “You won’t be seeing us, Brian. We fly back to London today.”
“Well, look, I’ve got your numbers. I’ll let you know what happens.”
He shakes hands with Adam. To my surprise, he hugs me.
“The best of luck with the little one,” he says.
He waves in Sylvie’s direction and goes off down the corridor.
I go to kneel by Sylvie, take her face in my hands.
“Sylvie, there’s something I need to tell you. The police are looking for Marcus, but they haven’t been able to find him yet. He’s gone to another country. He’s a long, long way from here . . .”
Her face is white and strained. Perhaps she’s scared that he could come and find her.
“They’ll catch him and put him in prison,” I tell her, trying to reassure her. “I know they will—that in the end they’ll catch him.”
But I’ve misread the cause of her anxiety. She stands up, grabs my hand.
“I want to go now. I want to go and see her. Can we go now, Grace?”
56
“GEMMA MURPHY? SURE. She’s in a room of her own.” The nurse has emerald eye shadow and a crisp black bob. “Today’s her birthday, of course. They’re having a little party . . .”
She takes us to a side room. Deirdre is there, and Gordon. Gemma is sitting up in bed, though her face is horribly bruised where she was knocked against the branches as he took her to the icehouse. There are lots of flowers and greeting cards.
Deirdre smiles warmly at us.
“Gemma, this is Grace and Sylvie and Adam.”
Gemma grins. “I’m sorry I look so crap,” she says. She touches her face with a careful, tentative fingertip. “They showed me my reflection this morning. I mean, I look completely putrid.”
“Gemma . . .” says Deirdre, prompting her.
A flush spreads over Gemma’s face.
“There was this speech I was going to make—to thank you for saving my life. Deirdre got me to practice, but really it’s too embarrassing.” She smiles her wide-open smile. “But thanks anyway. I’m just so glad you were there.”
There’s a bag of jelly sweets on her locker, and a Dizzee Rascal CD, and she’s wearing a T-shirt that says JUST WAIT TILL I’M FAMOUS. She’s not what I’d expected, this vivid, emphatic teenager—not at all the fey and wistful creature I’d imagined.
“I’m so glad we could help,” I tell her.
“She’s coming home tomorrow,” Deirdre tells us. “They just want to keep her in for one more night—just to keep an eye on her.”
“That’s fantastic,” I say.
Sylvie doesn’t say anything. She’d been so impatient to come, but now she has a lost look. Her hand in mine feels very small and cold.
“Now, I think you’ve met Gordon,” says Deirdre.
He comes toward us, shakes our hands.
“We’re so grateful to you,” he tells us. “For what you did for Gemma. And for laying this to rest.” His eyes are moist and full. Deirdre puts a hand on his arm. “It means so much—to all of us—to know what really happened. To know that Alice didn’t choose to leave us . . .”
There’s a choke in his voice, and I don’t know what to say.
The birthday cake that I saw in Barry’s is on a table by the bed, with seventeen candles stuck in it. Under the tubular lighting, the chocolate has a dull and muted shine.
Deirdre follows my gaze.
“You must join us in some cake,” she says. “I’m just going to light the candles.”
But it’s a family party, and we are strangers to them. I worry we are intruding.
“Really, we should be going,” I tell her. “We just came to check that Gemma was okay . . .”
“You can’t go yet,” says Deirdre. “Honestly, I won’t let you. Not till you’ve had a slice of Gemma’s cake.”
She starts
to light the candles. The clinical little room has a smell of celebration, of warm marzipan and melting wax.
“No singing, okay?” says Gemma. “Or I’ll freak.”
“Okay. No singing,” says Deirdre. She shakes out a match and lights another, smiles ruefully at Gemma. I have a sense of her relationship with her willful foster child—at once wary and indulgent. I admire her.
“There,” she says. The candles are all lit now, and flickering extravagantly. “Maybe Sylvie here could help you blow them out.”
Sylvie edges toward the bed. Gemma takes her hand and leans toward the birthday cake: the yellow flames are dancing in the darkness of her eyes. She blows the candles out, and wisps of blue smoke blur her face. Sylvie doesn’t join in, just stands there staring at Gemma.
“There. We did it. You really helped,” says Gemma, smiling at her. Deirdre has brought paper plates. We stand around eating the cake. It’s scented and rich, but my mouth feels dry and I find it hard to swallow. The things that aren’t being said seem to hang in the air between us.
Maybe Deirdre senses this.
“Gordon and I are going to grab a coffee,” she tells us. “We’ll leave you four to have a bit of a chat.”
They leave, and the room is silent.
Sylvie just stands there with that lost look on her face, and I don’t know what to say or do, or how to make it easier.
“Your braid’s all coming undone,” says Gemma.
Sylvie puts a hand to her braid, where it’s messy and ragged from yesterday, from crawling through the bushes. I’d offered to take it out for her, but she wanted to keep it in.
“Did Siobhan do it for you?” says Gemma. “That girl with all the snake tattoos? The girl who sells the belts and stuff?”
Sylvie nods. Her eyes are large in her white face.
“I know how she does it,” says Gemma. “I got her to give me a lesson.” She gestures to the bed beside her. “You could sit yourself up here,” she says, “and let me put it right.”
Sylvie climbs on the bed, sits with her side to Gemma.
Gemma takes her hairbrush and brushes Sylvie’s hair.
“You’re the blondest girl I ever saw,” she says.
She cuts the knot and unpicks what’s left of the braid. She lays the threads out on her blanket, all the sherbet colors. Then she takes the threads and knots them in Sylvie’s hair and starts to weave, wrapping them over and over. Their heads are close together. They’re sitting under the window and white sunlight spills across them, and the room is full of the festive scents of chocolate and candle wax. I watch the movement of Gemma’s hands, their fluid, intricate patterning.
She ties off the end of the braid. All the snagged, unraveled pieces are woven together again.
“There,” she says.
She has a mirror on her locker. She holds it up for Sylvie. Sylvie, a little self-conscious, smiles at her reflection.
“You’re ready for anything now,” says Gemma.
She puts the mirror down again, placing it well to the side of her so she can’t see her own reflection.
“I try not to look at myself,” she tells us. “I hate it, with all these bruises.”
Sylvie reaches out and touches Gemma’s face. It’s the lightest touch, as though she is touching something unguessably precious. Gemma puts her arm around her.
“I saw you before,” says Gemma to Sylvie. She’s speaking quietly, I can only just hear. “I saw you on the beach that day. I didn’t know who you were.” She has a slight puzzled frown. “Well, to be honest, I still don’t really—”
Sylvie doesn’t say anything. She rests her head against Gemma. She seems entranced or hypnotized, all the tension eased out of her face. It’s as though she’s oblivious to me, as though this is where she should be.
My heart sucks at my ribs. In everything that’s happened—the fire, the cave, the danger—there’s been nothing that has made me so afraid.
I feel Adam put his hand on my arm—to comfort me, or maybe to restrain me. Perhaps he’s afraid I might go and snatch her away. I’m glad he’s here with me.
They sit there for what seems like an age.
At last I take a deep breath. I steel myself to speak to them.
“Sylvie. Maybe—in a moment—we’d better say goodbye . . .”
My voice has a shake in it.
Sylvie starts at the sound of my voice. She stretches, slides off the bed.
“Look, Sylvie,” says Gemma, a little embarrassed and uncertain. “If you want, you could come over, once I’m out of hospital. You know, if you’d like that . . .”
Sylvie just stands there for a moment, staring at Gemma, drinking her in, her eyes unblinking and huge. I’m clasping my hands together, the palms are damp with sweat.
Then Sylvie shakes her head. It’s a very slight movement, so slight you could easily miss it.
“We can’t come and see you,” she says, and her thin, small, definite voice is bell clear in the quiet. “We’ve got a plane to catch from Shannon Airport.” She’s rather self-important, relishing the grown-up phrase. “We’re going back to London. Me and my mum have got to go back home.”
There’s a little pause—just a heartbeat.
“Sure,” says Gemma then. “Well, that’s for the best really, isn’t it, now?” She rests her hand for a moment on top of Sylvie’s head. “I tell you what, they’re going to really like your hair, in London . . . I’m glad I put it right for you. I told you that I would.”
57
WE WALK TO the shore for the last time. There’s a fast, fresh wind off the sea, and the water far out is a flat, bright sheet of silver.
“Sylvie—look—we could go to Barry’s, get you that ice cream I promised you.”
But to my surprise she shakes her head.
“I want a boat trip, Grace,” she tells me.
“A boat trip? Sweetheart, are you sure?”
She nods.
I can’t believe this.
She grabs my hand. “I really want to,” she says.
I glance at Adam. He gives me a knowing smile, as though he’s pleased with himself. In fact, he’s looked rather pleased all day, like a man who’s discovered something. Not an answer or anything certain, but perhaps a thread of comfort or a bit more hope than he had.
“Is there time?” I ask him.
“Absolutely,” he tells me. “We’re all packed up and everything.” Sylvie leads us along the jetty, through the smells of salt and fish, past the boats called Ave Maria and Endurance, and the lobster pots and the nylon nets and the coils of sodden green rope. By the sign that says CURRAN CRUISES there’s a small blue dinghy, the Venturer, tied up. It has an engine at the stern, and room for perhaps twelve people.
The skipper has a face as wrinkled and brown as a walnut, and his eyes are acute as a bird’s. Yes, he can take us around the bay. He will do it just for the three of us, and we can leave now if we want. The trip will take us half an hour.
Adam pays. The dinghy tips as I step in; my heels, as usual, are far too high. The skipper helps me to a seat. Sylvie climbs down deftly and goes to sit in the prow. Adam sits beside me.
The skipper starts the engine, and the boat moves gently forward, breaking up the water into scattered fragments of light. As we edge out beyond the shelter of the jetty, the wind slams into our faces.
I look briefly behind us. Coldharbour is receding from us, so tiny already it looks like something remembered or imagined. I can see the whiteness of the beach and the shops along the seafront and the soft spring apricots and purples of all the budding trees. The burned upper floors of Kinvara House are stark against the blurry pastels, the black roof rafters sticking up like bones.
Sylvie is leaning forward at the prow of the Venturer. She holds her hand over the side, so the white spray dampens her skin. The wind blows color into her face and pushes her hair straight back. She’s laughing.
“Look,” I say to Adam.
What if we just don’t ge
t it? What if our dying isn’t at all as we’ve always believed it to be?
Adam smiles.
“How did this happen?” I say.
“Maybe she can let go of it now,” he tells me. “She made a choice back there. The only one she could make, but perhaps it still had to be made.”
“I’m so grateful,” I tell him.
He gives a slight self-deprecating shrug.
“It may not be easy,” he tells me. “When you’re home again. It may not be over yet, with Sylvie. It may not be all straightforward. But I think it will be better.”
“Yes. I know that,” I tell him.
There’s silence between us for a moment, full of the yearning cries of gulls.
“Grace.” There’s a hesitancy about him, and he isn’t looking at me. “When we get back to London, I’d like to fix—you know, a time that we could meet . . .” He looks up at me then. We’re sitting close together; I can see the bright flecks in his eyes. “I mean, if you’d like that . . .”
“For your research?” I ask him. “So you can finish your article about Sylvie?”
For a moment he doesn’t say anything.
“For that too,” he says then.
His hand is resting on the bench between us. I put my hand on his. I love it when he looks startled like that. For now this is enough, this tentative shining moment.
Then, just a few yards to the side of us, the sea takes form and leaps. A dolphin. It’s radiant, pristine, dazzling: we watch the immaculate arc of its leaping, and then again and again.
“Will you look at that?” says the skipper. He lets the engine idle. He has an expression of pride, as though the dolphin is his. “Well, looks like it’s your lucky day. She doesn’t show herself that often. And what a beauty she is.”
We wait for a while, but the dolphin has gone. But my eyes are still full of its vividness, so when I close my eyelids its dazzle is there in my mind.
“Yes,” I say. “She was beautiful.”
Yes, My Darling Daughter Page 31
