by Karen Perry
And even though I haven’t invited him, I miss him. In fact, ever since the summer when we left Kenya, I’ve missed him. Even if, ever since, Luke and I have felt awkward around each other. As if, after everything that had happened, we simply don’t know how to act in each other’s company. There’s no malice in our estrangement, just a deadening in the closeness we once had.
So, today my happiness is tinged with regret – the pure note of my wedding day slightly off-key. But I relax into the evening as best I can and watch my wife, who has not stopped dancing, her hair and dress swirling about her as she gives herself to the night.
‘When will it be my turn?’ I shout over to her, my inhibitions loosened by beer and love and all this goodwill.
She blows me a kiss.
I want to thank Murphy for doing the honours, but can’t see him anywhere. A cake appears and there are cheers. Someone has placed a single candle on it. Karl thrusts the knife into my hand and beckons Lauren over. She scoops up a mound of icing and smears it over my cheek. Then she kisses me passionately.
I’m already looking forward to our honeymoon on Île Sainte-Marie.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asks me.
‘I’m hoping the bike is up to the drive to Mozambique.’
‘As little luggage as possible,’ Lauren reminds me.
I pull her to me, whispering: ‘When can we get out of here?’
‘Soon,’ she says, and I feel the erotic charge between us again – something so compulsive it feels out of our control, like an improvised jam gone wild.
We dance then to the jittery rhythms of the Benga band, which has come on now. Everyone is watching, dancing alongside us. I feel their gaze on me and soon enough I exit the dance-floor, leaving Lauren to it. I walk to the bar where Karl and Murphy are talking. Karl is telling some story, but the older man seems despondent, disinterested, nursing a glass of wine, acting less like a priest and more like a jilted blind-date.
‘Hey, my main man!’ Karl says, wrapping me in his warm, solid embrace. ‘A drink for the groom!’ he shouts to the barman.
Three whiskeys are lined up in front of us. We drink deeply, and return our glasses to the counter.
Murphy sighs. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says hoarsely. ‘I’m very tired. I’ll go to bed now. We can talk in the morning. And congratulations to you, Nick, and to your lovely wife.’
‘Thanks, Jim. And for the ceremony,’ I say, then remember something. ‘But before you go, you never said what that phone call was about.’
Karl has moved away, his attention hooked by the sway of a young woman’s hips. I watch as Murphy briefly closes his eyes, a small gesture that indicates the depth of his fatigue.
‘Leave it until tomorrow, hmm?’ He scratches his forehead, glancing about the room as if for the nearest exit.
‘Jim,’ I say softly, taking his arm.
He turns to me. I see at once the seriousness of it. All day, it’s been at the back of my mind, but now it comes to it, when I see the worry on his lined face, the fear in his eyes, I find myself drawing back.
‘It’s Luke,’ he says.
‘What about him?’
‘It was Julia who called earlier. She was wondering if you’d heard from him, spoken to him …’
I think of the cufflinks, his note, be happy … ‘I don’t understand.’
He takes a handkerchief from his pocket, and dabs his brow. ‘Nick. It’s your wedding night.’
‘To hell with that, Jim. Just tell me what’s going on.’
He tells me about a party in Dublin, about Julia going to bed alone, about how the next day she discovers Luke has disappeared, leaving his phone, his wallet and keys behind. It’s only when he tells me about Luke’s office, about the broken glass and the blood on the carpet that a germ of fear rises in me.
‘Is he dead?’ I ask, the word like a cold, hard stone in my mouth.
‘I pray to God he’s all right,’ he says simply, but his answer angers me.
‘You should have told me, Jim, straight after you got the call –’
‘Nick, I was trying to protect you.’
The light in the bar is too bright. Its harshness makes Murphy appear older than he is. I ask him again what he knows.
‘I don’t know,’ he says – again and again.
With the music blaring and the whole stretch of the day behind him, Murphy appears tired to the bone. ‘Please, I don’t want you to worry yourself over this,’ he says, his hand on my shoulder. ‘Not tonight. Let’s not jump to any hasty conclusions. It may all be easily explained.’
It’s been a long day. I let him go. For a moment, I sit by myself, absorbing the shock of what I’ve learned. Night is drawing on. Somewhere far from here, my brother is lost and alone. The thought brings with it a great roll of sadness and regret. Something else too: the painful tug of the past.
‘There you are,’ Lauren says, taking my hand, her voice inflected with breezy American optimism. ‘Come on,’ she urges, dragging me into the cooling air outside.
Twilight. The musicians are teetering on the brink of collapse. If they were a train, they would have slipped the tracks. The lights from houses and hotels shine in a blur of light. Without warning, a stream of gold and green fireworks lights the sky, bringing the guests outside. Many are cheering. Lauren is so beautiful that I want to freeze this memory of her in my mind and hold onto it for ever.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Murphy slipping away. Only he and I know, for now. He turns, catches my eye and mouths, ‘Sorry.’
3. Katie
‘Luke Yates is dead,’ Reilly says.
For a moment it all falls away – Reilly, my surroundings, even the throb in my head seems to still itself for that instant.
Then Reilly speaks again: ‘At least, that’s the rumour.’
‘What?’
‘His wife came home yesterday lunchtime and found the house had been broken into, blood everywhere, no sign of her husband. She hasn’t seen him since the night before.’
‘Missing? But not dead?’
‘Well, there’s no body yet but –’
‘Jesus, Reilly! That’s not the same thing at all!’
A wave of nausea comes over me, and I put a hand to the counter to steady myself. I feel light-headed, overwhelmed.
Reilly grasps my shoulders and steers me towards an armchair. ‘I’m sorry, Katie. That was insensitive of me. I had no idea you’d take it this way. I didn’t think you two were close.’
‘We’re not,’ I say quickly, trying to cover up the collapse within me. ‘We knew each other as kids. My folks and his were friends. I knew his brother in college too.’
Uncomfortable beneath his stare, I get to my feet and mumble something about getting dressed.
‘I’ll wait for you,’ Reilly says.
‘There’s no need –’
‘You’ll need a lift out to Dalkey, and you’re in no fit state to drive.’
‘Dalkey?’
He frowns a little. ‘This is a story, Katie. And you know the guy. You were at that party too, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you need to get out there and find out what happened.’
Leaving Reilly to survey my book collection, I stand in the shower and allow myself to cry a little under the ferocity of the hot jets. Afterwards, I put on jeans and a sweatshirt, grab my bag, and soon we’re driving towards a village on the south-east coast of Dublin, whose humble fishing roots have been subsumed by the mega-wealth of the Celtic Tiger.
Reilly’s car – an old Merc – reeks of coconut. My stomach, still tender from the excesses of the last two nights, rebels against it. I sit up, tug down the dangling air freshener and shove it into the glove compartment. Reilly observes this without protest. It is only when I take my cigarettes from my handbag that he holds up his hand. ‘Sorry, Katie. Not in here.’
‘What’s this?’
‘I quit.’
My eyes widen. ‘You quit?’
> ‘Three months ago,’ he says, a grin of pride brightening his tired features.
‘Why?’
‘To get healthy, of course.’
I regard him now, taking him in properly for the first time in months, and notice a new leanness. He is slender and fit. The meatiness of his hands and in the bearded line of his jaw remain, but he looks neater somehow. I say, in a speculative manner: ‘You’ve lost weight.’
He nods, keeping his eyes on the road, and bites down on an embarrassed smile. ‘Stop eyeballing me, Katie. It’s unnerving.’
‘Is it just the smokes, or have you gone the whole hog?’
‘Cigarettes, alcohol and red meat.’
‘Don’t tell me – you’ve also found God?’
He widens his open shirt-collar and flicks out the crucifix on a chain. Grinning, he says: ‘Jesus loves me, Katie.’
Reilly and I go way back. He gave me my first job at the paper, and has always been supportive, particularly since he became deputy editor. We know each other well but only on a certain level. There is something deeply private about Reilly. Sure, he goes for drinks after work and is always convivial and warm, yet I’ve no idea whether he has a partner or children tucked away somewhere, or whether he prefers to live in grand isolation. Rumours have flown around the office about him over the years, but somehow nothing has stuck, and I can’t help but think he enjoys the enigma that surrounds him.
I feel light-headed, and try to ground myself while Reilly talks.
‘I met him once,’ he says now, ‘Luke Yates. Some years back, before he became the great man.’
‘What did you think of him?’
He squints out at the glittering sea as we drive along the coast road. ‘He struck me as someone who had a great facility for sounding sincere.’
‘You don’t think he is?’
He spreads his hands on the steering-wheel and smiles. ‘Who knows, Katie, what’s real and what’s fake? What about the brother? What’s he like?’
‘He’s … well, he’s just different,’ I say quickly, astonished to find myself flustered and hot.
Reilly spots my discomfort, and asks, with interest: ‘Oh? Is there history there?’
‘God, no! We were like brother and sister, me and Nick, back when we were kids. And then in college we hung around in the same group for a while …’ I hear my voice, the uncertainty in it, and cut myself off. ‘Anyway, that was about a million years ago now.’
‘You’re not that old, sweetheart,’ he says, and I can’t help but smile. ‘So where is he? The brother?’
‘Africa,’ I say, and all at once I’m back sitting in a field of prickly grass, dizzy from the sun, and Nick is running towards me, helter-skelter across the lawn, water sploshing in the cup as he skids to a halt and falls to his knees beside me, offering the cup to me, like some kind of prize, dirt beneath his fingernails, hair falling into his eyes, the shy smile that he can never seem to erase – it’s even there while he sleeps – and I’m hearing his voice, low-pitched and gravelly for an eight-year-old, saying, ‘Here, Kay’, his name for me. No one else has called me that since.
‘Do you think he’s dead, Reilly?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Murder?’
He shrugs. ‘There was a rumour about him some years back, that he smashed up a hotel room.’
‘I never heard it.’
‘It was hushed up.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Nothing, really. The guy got drunk, went a bit berserk and totted up a massive bill.’
‘Was anyone else involved?’
‘Nope.’
‘You’re saying he has a self-destructive streak?’
‘What do I know, Katie? Often these things amount to nothing. They were at a party, right? So maybe the wife went to bed and he fell over and smashed a glass coffee-table or what-not, gave himself a nasty gash in the process but was so drunk he barely felt it, then decided in the wisdom of his inebriation that he’d be best off taking himself elsewhere before herself woke up and saw the mess. He could at this very moment be happily bleeding out on the floor of some whorehouse in the city.’
‘Perhaps,’ I say flatly, staring out the window.
It’s been a while since I’ve been out in this neck of the woods, and the place feels kind of sleepy this morning as the car noses around sharp bends through narrow streets. A misty drizzle is coming in off the bay although there is a little heat still in the air, making it muggy and close. I take in the tall walls and heavy gates with intercoms that line both sides of the road, the houses tucked away from prying eyes. The place seems so snug and safe, that it seems hard to imagine any kind of violence happening behind the closed doors – no domestic nightmares, no fists raised, no black dogs rubbing against walls done in expensive paint.
Reilly pulls up outside the house where a small scrum has formed. I can pick out at least three hacks I recognize. Magnolias in full bloom flank the gate, and behind it, a short distance from the road, sits a glass and concrete monstrosity. Massive windows, black frames around reflective glass, white walls dazzling, despite the grey weather.
‘No sign of the weeping widow then,’ Reilly says, peering out through the windscreen.
For a moment, we stare up at the mansion, and for the first time since this started, I think about the scene inside that house: the plush carpet splattered with blood, the broken glass, the terror …
‘You all set?’
I nod, but the truth is I feel like shit. Coffee has made my stomach churn and my eyes are dry from lack of sleep. The thought of violence has left me feeling queasy.
‘Thanks for the lift, Reilly,’ I say, leaning across to plant a kiss on his bristly cheek before collecting myself into some semblance of professionalism and sliding out of the seat.
I join the others at the gate, where a burly guy with a neck like a rhino’s is holding up his hands and imploring those gathered there to disband and give Mrs Yates some privacy. He has broad shoulders and a cool-eyed, strong-jawed appearance. Dealing with all the pestering queries looks like a penance to him. The questions are all the same: Has Luke Yates been found yet? What’s the story with his missus? Is it true the place is awash with blood? (This from the tabloid hack, always on the sniff for gore.) After a while, he stops answering, closes the gate behind him and withdraws to the house. The rain gets heavier, and some of the rubberneckers peel away, the hacks too. I’m considering whether it’s worth my while to knock on the doors of the neighbouring fortresses in search of anything worth printing, but the high walls bristling with security cameras tell me to save my shoe leather.
Reilly has gone, so the logical thing is to catch a train back into the city, yet I feel the desire to linger for a while. I walk through the rain to the strip of beach that runs along the backs of the houses. I have no hood, no umbrella, but the rain is not heavy and the air is warm, and the quiet hush of the sea calms me, settling my troubled mind.
The weather was much like this the last time I saw Nick, a year ago. A grey day in Dublin, a crowd of mourners spilling out of a church, flecks of rain falling. Luke and Julia were standing on the church steps to greet us as if it was their wedding we’d just attended, not Sally’s funeral. And there was Nick, some way off, standing with his hands in his pockets next to the hearse, listening to the conversation of an older man I didn’t recognize. There was something so forlorn about him, but when I stepped towards him and he raised his head, he looked at me as if I was someone he didn’t know who had just walked in on something private. I stopped, and something about his expression changed, a warning sharpening his stare that seemed to say, Not now, not here, with all these people around us. So I turned away, feeling let down and somehow ashamed, which was stupid, I know, given the circumstances – his adored mother was lying dead in the hearse, after all. ‘You’ll come to the grave?’ Luke had said, clasping my hand in both of his. ‘And back to the house afterwards?’ But after the look Nick had given me, I couldn’t
. Too cowardly to face him.
The wind whips at my hair and I feel the rain on my face. My legs ache as I trudge through the sand and I resolve to walk past the last house, then turn back, but before I reach that point I see her.
A small figure perched on a rock, watching me. Grey jeans and flip-flops, the hood of her parka pulled over her head, but I recognize her and, for just an instant, I hesitate before approaching her. The wind draws a thin line of cigarette smoke from her mouth, her eyes fixed on me as I get close.
‘The vultures circle,’ she says, her voice glacial.
‘Julia.’
‘Come to pick over the spoils, have we?’
I stop a couple of metres from her and choose my words carefully. ‘I came because I was concerned, and because I care about Luke.’
‘Do you indeed?’ Her voice sharp with sarcasm.
‘Okay. So we’re not exactly close, but there was a time when we were children, our families …’ Something about the way she is watching me makes my words dry up.
Her eyes narrow as she puts her cigarette to her lips and inhales. ‘You and those boys.’ Her voice is dead flat but I feel the spike of an accusation.
Her eyes flicker over me, cool and assessing, and I can’t help feeling self-conscious. Even now in the grip of her anguish, Julia Yates remains the same well-groomed, sophisticated woman she was two nights ago in the Morrison. Her feet are partially buried in the pale sand, toenails peeking out – a vibrant red to match her fingertips – and strands of ash-blonde hair escape from beneath her hood. But there is a tightness about her face now, her mouth pinched into a grim line, and her face looks raw. Her glittering charm has taken flight, leaving a cool creature with narrowed eyes laden with suspicion.
‘When I saw you just now coming up the beach, I felt a sudden flash of disappointment,’ she tells me. ‘You see, I thought perhaps Luke was with you.’
