Stolen Child

by Laura Elliot

  But he had waited until now. He walked alongside her and Gillian, the cameraman moving backwards as he filmed them. She tried to compose her features, to protect Gillian, who had stumbled when the journalist appeared.

  ‘Why did Edward Carter take such an interest in your daughter’s disappearance?’ He held the microphone towards her.

  ‘He wanted to help us find Isobel.’

  ‘Did he offer his help or did you approach him?’

  ‘I approached him. What is this about?’

  ‘What is your relationship with him?’

  ‘He’s a public representative. Why are you asking me these questions?’ Aware that the camera was still rolling, she resisted the desire to cover her face. ‘People have been amazingly kind. In particular, we appreciate the massive effort the police have invested in their search for our daughter.’

  ‘But they would not have extended the search if Edward Carter had not used his political influence.’

  ‘Isobel’s file was still open.’

  ‘A file will always remain open until a case is solved,’ Josh replied. ‘That’s police procedure. But demanding that taxpayers’ money be used to further the search when there were no further leads to follow suggests an abuse of political power. Was there a personal reason why he took your case and not any of the other unsolved cases, whose files still remain open?’

  ‘My husband and I are grateful for any help we receive…’ She put her arm around Gillian whose breathing had become shallow. ‘Please, Josh, turn off the camera. My mother-in-law does not need to be involved in this. You can see—’

  ‘You used to work for him.’

  ‘Not directly. I modelled briefly for some of his clients.’

  ‘How long ago is it since you worked for him?’ Josh held the microphone closer to her mouth.

  ‘I already told you…I didn’t work for him—’

  ‘Was it eleven years ago?’

  ‘I can’t remember…what has that to do with this interview?’

  His mouth frightened her. It was tight and hard, like a trap that would snap the spine of small animals.

  ‘Would you call yourself his friend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or his mistress?’

  She heard Gillian gasp and step forward. Before she could stop her, Gillian had swiped the camera with her arm. Her face, gaunt and pale, was set with determination.

  ‘Leave us alone,’ she shouted. ‘Haven’t you inflicted enough hurt on us as it is? What more do you want?’

  The cameraman, taken by surprise, jerked the camera upwards and almost fell. He regained his balance and focused the camera back on Carla, who was too stricken to move.

  ‘What kind of question is that?’ Her voice rasped.

  ‘A straightforward one,’ Josh replied. ‘You can answer yes or no.’

  ‘I certainly am not his mistress. How dare you suggest otherwise.’

  ‘You’ve denied an accusation I never made. I simply asked a question. As a journalist, it’s my responsibility to establish whether or not there is an intimate link between you and Edward Carter. My source alleges that the link dates back over eleven years when you worked for Carter & Kay. My source also suggests he travelled to a clinic in London with you when you terminated a pregnancy.’

  The cameraman moved nearer. She was aware that her face was being captured, every nuance, blink, twitch, wince, her soul stripped bare and exposed. Saliva flooded her mouth. She wanted to throw up. She tightened her lips, forced herself to swallow, aware that Gillian was holding her upright and that she was clinging desperately to a dying woman, drawing on Gillian’s strength, her unflinching bravery.

  ‘I am not, and never was, Edward Carter’s mistress.’ She spoke slowly. ‘If you dare suggest otherwise, I will sue you for slander. My husband and I are fortunate that he took an interest in our case. He gave us fresh hope that our daughter will be found.’

  Chapter Twenty

  Susanne

  Anticipation Mum Denies Affair.

  Publicity feeds publicity. She knew better than most how it worked. Like a snowball on a downward slope, it grows in proportion to the distance it travels. Spurious Claim, Insists Politician. For the tabloids it was a soap opera made in heaven. As the storm gathered force around her, she refused to make any comment. Her poise on the beach was remarkable. Years of catwalk experience stood her in good stead but she faltered in the end. The truth was written across her face. And she was dealing with the wrong journalist. Josh Baker is a snake who can ease his way through the densest lie. He had followed the trail to the clinic and infiltrated the records. The director of the clinic protested loudly at the unethical nature of the leak, ordered a major investigation of his staff, then quietly faded from the story. Unknown sources came out of the woodwork and declared that the affair between Edward Carter and Carla Kelly had been an open secret. They lied. Edward Carter understood how to use publicity and how to hide from its glare. No hiding now. He fronted the headlines, posed the question. Should a politician use Dáil privilege to forward his own personal agenda? The press were determined to have an answer.

  For three weeks they waited outside her house but a story can only run for so long, especially when the fuel runs out, which it did when he resigned from politics. Spur Removed from Body Politic.

  His bird-wife stood beside him and said he had always been a good husband, a family man, a servant of the state. A politician’s wife to the core of her faithful heart.

  But Carla Kelly continues to jerk at the even rhythm of our lives. I opened the Irish Times this morning.

  Gillian Gardner. Beloved mother. Died peacefully and courageously at her home after a long illness.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Carla

  A breath and then silence, absolute and forever. Carla tried to absorb the enormity of the break. No jagged edges, just a clean snapped thread between the space Gillian had occupied and the next stage…life…existence…wherever her spirit had gone.

  ‘I want to pass my belief on to you,’ she had whispered before drifting into unconsciousness. She clung to Carla’s hand, her grip weak but insistent. ‘Isobel is alive. No matter what you are told, believe what I tell you now. My husband is waiting for me to join him. But I’ve no sense of Isobel’s stillness in this place where I’m going.’

  Carla, looking at Gillian’s face as it settled into the rigid posture of death, tried to believe that her mother-in-law’s belief had, by some form of osmosis, entered into her. But the only emotion she felt was grief and a shaming sense of relief that she would no longer have to witness Gillian’s optimism being quenched as the months passed and hope faded.

  Robert held her hand as they walked away from the graveside. She was aware of stares, eyes flicking sideways then away again. The notorious Carla Kelly. God has seen fit to punish thy wickedness.

  ‘When I asked you for the truth, you looked into my eyes and lied,’ Robert had said when she told him about herconfrontation with Josh Baker. ‘How could you say you loved me, knowing, all the time, you were deceiving me?’

  ‘I was afraid you wouldn’t understand—’

  ‘Understand what? Have you any idea of the risk you were taking? Ireland is a village. Everyone knows everyone. It was bound to come out.’

  ‘No one knew,’ she said. ‘I never told anyone, nor did Edward. Afterwards, I never met him again until now. Never.’ She had hugged her arms, numbed by the exposure that was opening up before her. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, Robert. All I thought about was our daughter.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Our daughter. But she never was mine, was she?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She was your trophy, Carla. And then she was your tragedy. All the publicity…you were addicted to it.’

  ‘Stop it, Robert. You know that’s not true. Are you trying to destroy our marriage?’

  ‘I don’t have to lift a finger. You’re managing it all by yourself.’

  She had
shook her head, unable to believe the power they had to hurt each other. ‘I take responsibility for what has happened now…but my past is my own business.’

  ‘Your past belongs to everyone, Carla. Every two-bit hack and gossip columnist. And you’ve no one to blame but yourself.’

  ‘If it helped to find her, I’d do it all again,’ she told him. ‘I love you, Robert. But I can’t live with an unforgiving man.’

  ‘And I can’t live with a woman who shares everything with me except the truth. Because, Carla, when that everything is weighed against trust, it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.’ His mouth clenched. He buried his face in his hands. She thought he was crying but he was as tearless as she was.

  On the night the programme was aired, Carla had walked from the house, her footsteps drawing her in the direction of the Grand Canal. Head down, her eyes following the line of the water’s edge, she had walked past lock gates and bridges, past the barges and the swans that emerged from the reeds to trail ripples in their wakes. Ripples upon ripples spreading outwards as television sets flickered and her secret was exposed, fodder for an evening’s viewing; her life destroyed, and Edward’s too, ripples rippling…She collapsed onto a bench and wept violently, her hair shielding her face, giving her a privacy that had come too late. She was still weeping when Robert had found her and brought her home.

  The phone was ringing when they entered their house.

  ‘Gillian wants to see us,’ he had said. ‘We’d better go immediately.’

  They had driven without speaking to Sandymount. Gillian was in bed. She looked drained, her eyes bruised with pain.

  ‘Make your marriage work,’ she had said and her grip on both their hands was a tight command. ‘Ignore the publicity. It will pass and be forgotten. All that matters is that you are together when Isobel is returned to you.’

  Later, alone in bed and unable to sleep, she had waited for his footsteps on the stairs. He would have started drinking as soon as she left the living room, she believed, and he would sleep in the spare room, probably forever. Eventually he crossed the landing and paused before entering their bedroom. He sat on the edge of the bed, his shoulders slumped, his hands dangling between his knees.

  ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know if it conquers all. I don’t know anything any more.’

  She drew him down beside her and removed his clothes, slowly unbuttoning, unloosening; each piece of clothing sliding to the floor. When he was naked, she straddled his back and worked her hands into his neck, releasing the hard knots of tension, fanning her palms over his shoulders, working her way down his vertebrae and back to his neck until she felt the stress ease from him. They did not speak. Words were redundant as they sought each other and grappled with the truth that their future together depended on whether it was more painful to be together than to be apart.

  Isobel would never be found. Carla forced herself to confront this bleak truth. The campaign had been wound down, and her Garda file, open still, was quietly gathering dust. Steve Robson had admitted defeat. His disappointment was personal as well as professional. He was an experienced detective, stoical and tough, but, like the police investigations, all his leads had petered out. So also would the donations from the public, now that The Week on the Street had aired her past. Too many famines, earthquakes and other worthy causes where results could be achieved.

  Nothing left now except to file away Steve’s final report with all the other material she had accumulated since Isobel’s disappearance, including the letters of support. Her daughter would not be returned to her by detection. The trail was cold, had ever been thus.

  ‘So, what now?’ said Leo when she called into his office a week after Gillian’s death. He signed off on the audited accounts from the ‘Find Isobel’ fund and wrote the last cheques for services rendered. ‘What will you do with your time?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Time without purpose was her enemy. But she was unable to think beyond the immediate.

  Leo opened the top drawer on his desk and drew out a manuscript. ‘Take a look at this for me,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t mind a second opinion.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A memoir of sorts. There’s a whiff of sulphur from it, not to mention gelignite. I’ve to vet it for any possible legal issues that could arise after it’s published.’

  Leo specialised in the laws of libel and worked with a number of publishers offering pre-publication advice. Carla skimmed through the foreword, which had been written by a well-known peace activist. From what she could gather, two men from Northern Ireland, former terrorists from different religious backgrounds, and now middle-aged, had become involved with a cross-community project after they were released from jail. As part of that project, they had written their life stories. They wanted to publish them within the one book cover, under the one title. As a symbolic gesture to the tortuous peace process, it had merit, but Carla placed the manuscript back on Leo’s desk.

  ‘Sounds like a project that could give either of them a bullet in the head,’ she said.

  ‘A bullet in the head is their concern,’ said Leo, pushing the manuscript back towards her. ‘A libel case is the publisher’s concern and that’s where you come in. You’ve a sharp mind. Read it and see what you think.’

  ‘Come off it, Leo.’ She laughed and placed the manuscript out of his reach. ‘I used to write a beauty column. That hardly gives me the expertise to vet the lives of two murderers.’

  Northern Ireland did not interest her; she despised the Unionist politicians with their clenched mouths and closed minds, and felt the same contempt when she listened to the rhetoric of Sinn Féin.

  ‘Times are changing, Carla,’ said Leo. ‘Peace may be dropping slow and tortuous but it’s coming to Northern Ireland. This is a timely book but it needs careful scrutiny. Take it with you. Read a few chapters before you make up your mind. If you’re still definite, I’ve other manuscripts that might be more suitable.’

  ‘Are you offering me a job, Leo?’

  ‘Could be,’ he said and groaned. ‘My brain has gone into serious decline since the twins arrived. Twenty-five-hour shifts, that’s what life is like in the Kelly household. Let’s see how you get on with this. Then we’ll talk again.’

  A fortnight later, he asked her to attend a meeting in his office with the publisher, Frank Staunton. The publisher’s eyebrows lifted when she placed her notes in front of him.

  ‘Impressive,’ he said when he finished reading them. ‘I hope to have the pleasure of working with you again.’

  To her surprise, she had been drawn into the two stories from the moment she began reading them. Two separate encounters, two separate environments that were remarkably similar if one looked behind the slogans and dominating murals. She had been impressed by the writers’ honesty, repelled yet fascinated by the journeys they had taken: death, pain, anger, despair, and, finally, a tortuous redemption. She recognised within herself the steely hatred that had driven them forward before they realised that blood, when it flowed from a dying man, made no distinction between creeds and classess.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Susanne

  Three years later

  You have no concept of time. ‘Next month,’ you shout when David goes away again. ‘When is next month? Is it now? I want Daddy now!’

  You sit defiantly on his office steps, knowing the office is empty but your face is mutinous when I try and persuade you to come back inside. Such tantrums, screaming and flailing, leaving me with no option but to carry you to your bedroom and leave you there until you quieten down. Then you cuddle against me and ask why Daddy keeps going away. I explain that he needs to find oil so that Mitch Moran, the man in the garage, who always gives you a lollipop, will have petrol to put in our car, and all the other cars in Maoltrán. For a while, at least, you seem to understand. You help me bake an apple tart and cut gingermen shapes from the leftover dough. I read stories to you at night and we laugh at The Cat in the
Hat and The Gruffalo. We feed the swans and ducks on the river and build sandcastles on the beach. The days are long and calm. We are happy.

  David brings noise into the house, the whiff of oil and rock and hard earth. How loud his footsteps, how soft his laughter when he holds you. I ask him to put you down, afraid you will fall when he throws you in the air. You are not used to such boisterous behaviour but he catches you securely in his tawny arms and you shriek Again, Daddy…again. He marvels at how big you’ve grown in his absence and you dance together around the kitchen, your small feet planted securely upon his mountain boots. He carries you on his broad shoulders through the Burren, takes you to the ocean, and you return with bunches of wilting wildflowers tied to the handlebars. You look apologetic when you offer them to me, as if you are making amends for preferring his company to mine.

  ‘She needs company,’ he said tonight. ‘A sister or a brother. Whatever was wrong has righted itself. Why don’t we make an appointment and talk to Professor Langley?’

  I’d demanded to know why you were not enough for us. How could he be so selfish and demanding? Had he forgotten the heartache we endured before you came into our lives? My voice was sharper than I’d intended and he stepped back as if my words stung his face.

  Demanding? He sat on the sofa in the kitchen and drew me down beside him. ‘I’m trying to talk about our future,’ he said. ‘Even if we don’t have another baby, we can’t continue living like this. I don’t know what you want from me, Susanne. If you tell me, I’ll try and change whatever it is that makes you so unhappy.’

  Tears glistened in his eyes but – perhaps – that was my imagination.

  ‘I’m not unhappy,’ I rushed to reassure him. ‘I have everything I need.’

  ‘And what about me,’ he asked. ‘What am I to you? Was I just a stud, convenient until you achieved what you desired? Your bed was always a cold place, Susanne. But at least there was space in it for me.’