Lying in Wait

by Liz Nugent

  ‘Would you listen to yourself? You are talking about going out to track down a dead murderer. Do you know how stupid that sounds?’

  That was the biggest row we had ever had. I grabbed my bag and coat and went out, slamming the door behind me. I had to tell Ma and Da. They needed to know. I rang Ma in Mayo, but her sister said she was at Mass. This wasn’t unusual. Since Annie had been taken from us, Ma had taken to churchgoing in an obsessed way, going to Mass two or three times a day and feeling guilty when she wasn’t there, praying for Annie’s return. I got the bus to Da’s place.

  Da had been laid off the previous summer and was now drinking away his dole money every night. I didn’t think he was an alcoholic as such; he just went to the pub for company. He was lonely without workmates or family. He used to bring the Evening Press with him and pretend to be reading it. He was fierce ashamed of not being able to read properly. I think that’s why he was so hard on Annie when she was in school. He didn’t want her to fail the same way he had.

  When there was no answer at his door, it wasn’t such a leap of the imagination to find him in Scanlon’s. He was delighted to see me, or as delighted as three pints of Guinness on a Friday afternoon would allow him to be.

  ‘My beautiful daughter,’ he said, throwing an arm around me. ‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ he said to the barman, who nodded at me in embarrassment.

  Maybe I should have waited until he was sober to tell him all that had happened. I hadn’t told either of my parents about any of the developments since Yvonne’s news about her son, but now I sat Da down at a corner table of the bar and told him all the latest information about Annie, leaving out O’Toole’s lewd suggestions about me.

  Da listened to it and said nothing for a moment, but then his shoulders started to shake and his eyes watered. ‘It’s all my fault. I should have let her keep the baby, kept them safe at home.’

  We were interrupted by a young fella in a corduroy jacket. I was aware that he’d been sitting at a table near us with a few others.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ he said gently. I was flustered, embarrassed, and Da inhaled deeply to get his sobs under control.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘we’re fine, just some family business.’

  Da put out his hand. ‘I’m sorry, we’re grand, just a personal thing. Karen, this lad works at the dole office where I sign on just up the road. What’s your name, son?’

  ‘Laurence,’ said the man. ‘Sorry for interrupting. I just noticed you were upset.’

  I was a bit annoyed by his interrupting, but when he offered a handshake and I looked in his face, I saw genuine concern.

  ‘Laurence here has been very good to me, Karen. Karen is my daughter.’

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi. Look, I’ll leave you to it. Sorry.’ He backed away and rejoined the table of what I assumed were his workmates.

  ‘I’m sorry, love, it’s just a shock. Even after all this time, I thought she might walk in here one day with that cheeky look on her face, wanting money off me. I suppose, deep down, I knew it. And O’Toole said yer man is dead? Well, that’s something, I suppose.’

  When Da put it like that, I realized that O’Toole must have been telling the truth about the suspect being dead. I knew from Yvonne that if James Mooney had good reason for suspicion, he would have followed up the case himself. Mooney had only died two years ago. The suspect had been dead five years, according to O’Toole. How did he die? Where was he buried, and more importantly, if he had murdered her, where was Annie’s body?

  ‘I don’t think your mother will be able for it. Can you not tell her?’

  Da was right. Ma had her faith to protect her, however misguided it might be. There was no reason to tell her. It wouldn’t change anything.

  I took Da back to his house and made him coffee. I asked him if I could stay the night in my old room. Our old room. Mine and Annie’s. He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Everything all right with Dessie?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Did he hurt you? If he laid a finger –’

  ‘No, nothing like that. I’ll go home tomorrow. I just need a bit of space.’

  I found an old nightie of Ma’s and went into the bedroom. I turned on the radio to stop myself from thinking about the way Annie had filled this room with her personality. They were playing that song again, ‘Feed the World’. There had been a big concert a few weeks previously in London to raise money for famine victims in Ethiopia. The famine was all over the television news these days. They showed footage of tiny children with sticks for bones and bloated bellies full of air. We had done a charity fashion show to raise money. Some of the other models went to the Live Aid concert in London. I’d said to Dessie about trying to get tickets and going over for a weekend, but he went on again about saving money for a house and starting a family.

  I’d got married too young. Yvonne was right. And it wasn’t the age difference that was the problem between us. Dessie was suffocating me. He just wasn’t the right guy for me. I’d known it for a long time, but hadn’t wanted to admit it. Aside from the Annie thing, he wanted to know where all my modelling jobs were, what kind of venues, what type of clothes I’d be wearing. He demanded to see the Polaroids from the shoot immediately afterwards, and he wanted to meet Yvonne. So far, I had been able to put him off. I felt like it was too late to do anything about my marriage. Could I find a way to fall in love with my husband again?

  I thought about ringing him to let him know where I was, but it would have meant getting up again and going downstairs to the phone in the hall, disturbing Da. As I pulled the curtains, I looked down into the street below and for a second I thought I saw that man from Da’s dole office looking up at our house, but he soon moved off along the street.

  I went home the next day. Dessie was furious. ‘You could have rung me. I was worried sick. You should know, of all people, what it’s like when someone goes missing!’

  I had been prepared to be sorry, but this drove me up the wall. ‘I did not “go missing”. If you were really worried, you’d have rung my da. And Annie did not “go missing” either. She was murdered. And the guards have known it for years. They just didn’t think it important enough to tell us.’

  Dessie took hold of my shoulders to hug me, and I let him because there was nothing else I could do.

  ‘I’m sorry, love.’

  ‘It’s OK, let’s just forget about it,’ I said, only I wasn’t going to forget about it.

  I had a few jobs over the following weeks that kept me fairly busy, but I tracked down and met one of the girls who had actually seen the old Jaguar. She had been living in the shared house with Annie. I remembered she worked in H. Williams on Baggot Street, so I found her there. She was frosty with me, and said she would never have stayed in the house if she had known what was going on there. She was referring to the prostitution, I assume. She had already told the guards everything she knew, she said. I had managed to charm some old car brochures out of a gamey old high-end car dealer, and I got her to look at them. We narrowed it down to the Jaguar Sedan brand produced between 1950 and 1960. She said she’d only spotted the driver twice but that he had looked ‘prosperous’, had worn a pinstripe suit and a trilby hat pulled low over his eyes. She couldn’t recall anything else particular about him: he had been regular height, no beard or moustache that she could remember. She couldn’t guess at his age as she hadn’t seen his face. She said she’d seen the car parked around the corner from the house more times than she’d seen him, over a period of about six months. She’d seen him get out of it once, and the other time she’d seen him saying goodbye to Annie at the doorway. She had never seen him or the car since Annie’s disappearance, though she had continued to live at that address for a year afterwards. I asked her if she had ever seen other men coming and going to Annie’s flat and she said no, that she had assumed Annie conducted her ‘business’ elsewhere.

  I chased up Dessie’s mechanic about his friend
who restored vintage cars, but he told me that Dessie had told him not to worry about it. Dessie was making decisions for me again. Without consulting Dessie, I insisted on getting the number of the man, who was called Frankie and had a garage out in Santry. I rang him to ask if I could meet him to ask a few questions, saying that I was looking for a particular car to use on a photo shoot. He wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped. He was too busy flirting with me. He guessed there were about twenty cars fitting that description in Dublin. He had only ever serviced two of those vehicles, one for a car museum and one for an octogenarian who lived in County Offaly. He gave me some names and numbers of other mechanics who specialized in old cars.

  I had no further luck with those. One of them led me a merry dance, and neither of them had any helpful information. I was hitting a brick wall. Dessie was getting suspicious about where I was going and what I was doing, and I resented having to lie to him.

  Early on a Saturday morning in September he reached for me in bed, and I realized that I couldn’t stay with Dessie any longer. The previous evening he had quizzed me about numbers called on our itemized phone bill. I didn’t even know our bill was itemized, and it would never have occurred to me to check it. I had lied, badly, and he confronted me with the news that he had rung the numbers and found out they were all mechanics and car dealers. There was a row, and again he had told me I was stupid and obsessed and ridiculous. For the sake of keeping the peace, I had apologized and backed down and we had kissed and made up. But the next morning, I woke up feeling angry. Angry at myself, mostly, for not standing my ground. I turned away from his kisses.

  ‘It’s not working, Dessie. Us, I mean.’

  ‘Ah, Karen, don’t be like that. Sure, I’ve forgotten all about it.’

  ‘Yeah, until the next time. I’m sick of it. You’re checking up on me all the time. Turning up out of the blue to collect me from jobs.’

  He sat up and leaned on one arm.

  ‘You’re embarrassed by the van, is that it?’

  ‘Christ, Dessie, that’s not it at all. You don’t even know how you’re controlling me all the time. Checking my phone calls? For God’s sake.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have to check if you were honest with me.’

  I raised my voice now, my frustration levels growing. ‘I’m not able to be honest with you, ’cos you go off the deep end. You have practically ordered me to forget about my sister!’

  ‘Not this again. Jesus.’

  He got out of bed and went into the bathroom, and I waited, listening to the long stream of piss, grateful for a moment to collect myself. By the time he came back, I had calmed myself for the storm I knew I had to face.

  ‘I don’t want to be married to you any more.’

  It happened so fast that I didn’t see it coming. There was just a brief flash of his hand towards my face. I felt the air whip past my cheek. He dropped his arm at the very last second so that no contact was made. Dessie was handy with his fists. If he had meant to hurt me, he could have. Dessie didn’t want to hurt me. It was the opposite.

  He cried and begged and apologized. He said he worshipped me and couldn’t live without me. He was terrified that I’d go down the wrong route like Annie. While I’d been at the dry-cleaner’s, he’d known where I was nine to five every day, he’d known who I was mixing with, but he was worried about me modelling, dressing up for strangers. He didn’t know what kind of people I was meeting.

  There were stories in the Sun about models and drug addiction, but he didn’t understand that the Dublin scene was not London. I had heard about London supermodels using cocaine and champagne like it was going out of fashion, but Dublin might as well have been another planet, certainly an earlier decade. Most of the girls were middle-class types straight out of school, waiting for a husband, or earning their way through university. They were younger than me and hid the fact that they smoked from their parents. I had never been offered drugs. Or champagne for that matter. I had explained all this to Dessie, but it seemed he was as obsessed with Annie as I was, although in a different way. He was afraid that his wife was going to become a drug addict, prostitute and murder victim. He said divorce was illegal anyway, and I told him I didn’t need a certificate to leave him.

  That evening, I packed a bag and moved back home to Da’s. My father was upset, but once I assured him that the break-up was my decision, I think he was secretly delighted to have me home.

  ‘I’m not going back, Da.’

  ‘And sure, why would you, with a perfectly good bedroom lying empty here?’

  In the years since Annie had gone, my father had become a nicer person, albeit a nicer person with a potential drink problem.

  Dessie phoned frequently and called to the house to try to have peace talks. but my overwhelming feeling, aside from guilt and fear for the future, was one of relief. I no longer had to account for my movements or my actions. I no longer had to make excuses as to why now wasn’t a good time to get pregnant. I no longer had to hand over my earnings for the ‘house fund’. Dessie could keep what I had already contributed. I didn’t want anything from him. I just wanted our relationship to be over. Ma was very upset when I told her on the phone.

  ‘You had a good lad there. Hasn’t our family name been dragged through enough muck?’ She thought I was having my head turned by the modelling, and no amount of talking could persuade her otherwise. ‘He’s been so good to you and you throw it back in his face. When I heard about this modelling lark, I knew there was going to be trouble.’

  I got the train to Mayo to see her, but she spent most of the weekend in the church in Westport, praying for my immortal soul no doubt. When she did finally speak to me, she blamed herself for setting a bad example by leaving Da.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with you, Ma. Honestly!’

  She rattled her rosary beads.

  The arrangement of living back at home suited Da well, because I could contribute financially to the household and do some of the cleaning that men just don’t notice need doing. He told his friend in the dole office, but apparently Laurence was very understanding and said it wouldn’t affect Da’s payments. I was earning good money and could give Da a few extra bob now and then, even though I knew he’d probably end up spending it in Scanlon’s. I made it clear to Da that I was only staying with him as a temporary measure. When the dust had settled, I was going to look for my own place to rent. But for now, I just needed to wallow a bit and think about my future and how I would continue to look for Annie’s killer, even if he was dead. Da didn’t like to talk about her. His guilt, I suppose.

  I joined Da a few times in Scanlon’s, and that guy Laurence from the dole office was often there with his girlfriend. He was very nice to Da, very courteous, like. The rest of his crowd didn’t mix with us much and stayed up the other end of the bar, but Laurence always came over to say hello.

  One night he introduced me to his girlfriend. I liked Bridget immediately. She was incredibly shy and nervous, and my heart always goes out to people like that because it’s not so long since I was like that too. She had a bad squint in one eye, so she kept her head angled to one side. I remembered trying to hide my red hair when I was a child. Laurence said she was an amateur photographer, and we got into good conversations about fashion photography. I said I’d be happy to pose for her any time she liked if she wanted to build up a portfolio, but she laughed and said it was just a hobby. Laurence was really encouraging, though, and told her she should take up my offer. She kept saying she couldn’t possibly, but I insisted on taking her number and said I’d ring her the following weekend. I liked the way he was really supportive of Bridget trying to make a career out of a hobby that she was passionate about. They just seemed to have a nice relaxed relationship, like the kind I wanted.

  So on a sunny Sunday afternoon in April, I met Bridget in Stephen’s Green and she used up three whole rolls of film. I liked what she was doing. She didn’t have all the equipment of a professional photographer, and obviously she
didn’t have a studio, but she knew how to balance all the natural spring light that streamed through the trees and how to frame a swan as it glided into shot. She was much more confident behind the camera. She had asked me just to wear minimal make-up and white clothing. She brought with her a long piece of white gauze that she used to drape over my shoulders or as a veil. She knew what she wanted, and I was quite excited to see how her shots would turn out. Laurence came too. He brought along a picnic and helped Bridget with all her stuff, even lifting her on to his shoulders to get a better angle at times.

  After all the photos were taken, we spread out the rug and ate apples and ham sandwiches and shared a flask of tea as we watched people walking through, taking advantage of a sunny evening. The whole day had been lovely, and then it was utterly spoiled.

  I saw him approaching but didn’t immediately identify him in jeans and a T-shirt. At all our previous encounters, he’d been wearing a suit. In front of Bridget and Laurence, he said in a loud voice, ‘Well, well, well, if it isn’t the ginger whinger.’

  ‘O’Toole.’

  ‘Declan. Doing threesomes now, are we?’

  ‘I’m just trying to have a picnic with my friends. Don’t you have any serious crimes to ignore?’ I don’t know where I got the nerve to be so sarcastic like that with him – perhaps it was because I felt I had backup.

  Laurence detected the tone of hostility and stood up, interrupting. ‘Can we help you?’

  O’Toole looked at him. ‘Where do I know you from?’ And the way he said it was really intimidating, because Laurence just shrank down on to the grass again.

  ‘What do you want?’ I said.

  ‘Just passing the time of day with a future inmate. I’m surprised you’re not up by the canal on an evening like this. Business would be much better for you up there.’

  ‘Piss off!’ I roared at him.

  He sauntered off then, whistling, delighted with himself.

  ‘Who was that?’ said Bridget.

  I was absolutely mortified. I should not have tried to get the better of him. I felt the tears welling up and saw Laurence silently staring at me. Bridget moved to put her arm around me, and then the floodgates opened and the frustration of years poured out of me right there in a public park in front of these people I barely knew, not to mention all the strangers who looked around to see who was behind the sobbing. Bridget started to fold up the rug and said to Laurence, ‘Take her to Neary’s. I’ll follow you when I’ve everything packed up.’