Where Oblivion Dwells

by Lorena Franco

  “Woman of few words, you should go to sleep. In the state you’re in you probably can’t drive, so I’ll let you crash at my place. Of course, I’ll take the couch.”

  “No, no... I’ll go to Butterfly!”

  Paul sighed and, still grabbing Amy by the waist, walked towards his car. It was eleven in the night and, looking at the sky, Paul guessed a big storm was coming. He placed Amy in the front seat, making sure she was okay, and drove all the way to the cliff. When they arrived, he looked for the keys of her house in Amy’s purse, took her once more in his arms, sound asleep, and walked with her inside her house. Paul saw for the first time the interior of the Butterfly. Nobody in town knew how they had gotten the permission to built in that place, a protected touristic reserve. The building was a mystery to the people of Dingle and the surrounding towns, and even if Amy didn’t know so yet, many legends surrounded the terrain and the mysterious person that had had the house built, the person no one had ever seen.

  The construction workers had no answer for the numerous questions that the curious had asked. Who was the owner of the house? Why had it been built there? No one knew nothing. Butterfly and its slow construction since 2010: everything was a mystery.

  As he climbed the stairs to get Amy to her bedroom, Paul listened to footsteps. He stopped to wonder if he had locked the front door. There didn’t seem to be anyone else in the house, so he didn’t pay much attention. When they got to Amy’s room, the sound of a strong thunder woke her up. She held on Paul tight, trembling, who embraced her sweetly. Instants later, Amy looked up to him, stared at him in the eye and moved her face close to his... slowly, very slowly...

  “Tom...” she whispered.

  Paul frowned, caressing Amy’s soft face and smiling at her, taking her to her bed. He took off her boots and covered her, placing a soft kiss on her forehead. He stroke her short hair, and left without making any noise.

  He decided to go lie down in the adjacent room, making sure before doing so that Amy and him were completely alone.

  CHAPTER 6

  A delicious smell of coffee woke Amy up the next morning. She felt more disoriented than ever, had a terrible headache and felt dizzy. The last thing she could remember was dancing in that pub; she couldn’t even remember how she had gotten back home. When she went down stairs, she found Paul making toasts.

  “Good morning, women of few words,” he said cheerfully.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Amy, confused.

  “I drove you home last night. There was a huge storm. Relax, I slept in the guest’s room and did the bed. Coffee?” he offered, pouring her a cup. Amy sat on a chair, holding her head. “I’m afraid you’re suffering the consequences of your drinking last night. Are you alright?”

  “I’ll be...” murmured Amy.

  “Of course. At least you had a good time, right? And you liked my paintings, apparently,” Amy took a sip of her coffee. “I’d better shut up; I must be wrecking your brain right now.”

  “Sort of...”

  “Good! At least you’re responsive to conversation. That’s progress.”

  “Thank you for taking me home,” smiled Amy, staring at him.

  “You’re welcome, though anyone would’ve done so. We should go back town to pick up your car.”

  “Is my car in Dingle?” asked Amy. “I don’t feel up to it...”

  “When you’re ready then, I’m not in a hurry.”

  “Okay... thank you... I think I’ll go to the bathroom.”

  A few hours later, Amy’s hangover diminished and Paul - who cooked a wonderful meal – kept her a comforting and entertaining company. She had completely forgotten how it felt like to have good company. She felt like she did when she was younger... with a completely different face, that she remembered as if she had seen it just yesterday. Tom’s, that kept showing up in Amy’s dreams.

  “Ruby told me you are a famous painter. That your paintings have been featured all over the world,” said Amy admiringly, taking a drag on her cigarette while staring at the view from her porch.

  “Yeah, they’ve been out there,” said Paul, smiling. “It’s amazing to work on what you love. You put effort and passion in it, and people can tell, I guess. I don’t think I’m the best, but I’m satisfied with my work. I’m proud of every single one of my paintings.”

  “I’d like to talk about you and your work in the local newspaper from London I work in, if you don’t mind.”

  “Are you going to give your opinion on my paintings?”

  “Yes. I loved them. Can I ask you what’s your inspiration?

  “Life. It’s events... from the most common, to the most important. People, and feelings.”

  “Thank you for that answer.”

  “Is that your only question?”

  “Yeah, that’s enough for me to write an article about what I saw yesterday.”

  “So exciting. I will crop your article and keep it like a treasure,” promised Paul, laughing.

  “I bet other people have written articles about you.”

  “Yes, but you’re the only one who has had the chance to interview me, even if you wasted it by asking me only one question. All the others would kill to get the chance...” said Paul laughing. “I’m kidding. Truth is, I’m not very accessible. I like my paintings to take the stage, not me.”

  “I understand. I want the same for my articles. All the other writers put their pictures right by their articles. I don’t.”

  “Well, your readers are missing out on the opportunity to look at a very beautiful face.”

  “Paul, stop flattering me. I won’t be another girl in your collection,” answered Amy, laughing.

  “And who said anything about being another one in my collection” asked Paul, suddenly serious, rendering Amy speechless. “And who is Tom?”

  Amy froze. She took a last drag on her cigarette and, pushing back the tears, crushed the butt slowly in the ashtray.

  “You said his name last night.”

  “He was my boyfriend. He died twelve years ago.”

  “That’s why you said you understood when I told you about Abbey.”

  “Yes. I know how it feels like to lose someone you love. However, it comes to happen it’s... cruel.”

  “So, you used to live in London?” Amy nodded. “Can I ask you how you got here?”

  “It’s a complicated story, Paul. Even I don’t understand it,” answered Amy honestly. Looking at Paul’s eyes, she knew she could trust him completely.

  “So tell me about it. We might figure it out together. Truth is, everybody in town wonders how did someone manage to build a house here. Many tried, but they couldn’t get the necessary permits.”

  “Is it illegal to build here?”

  “It’s a touristic area. As you might have noticed, some important ruins are located not far away from here that people all over the world come to see. The owner of this land was called Michael Logan, and he wished to build a little house here. They never granted him the permit. So he got tired and sold the land. We were all astonished when 2010 came and the construction of this house began. They checked and everything was legal, they had the license.”

  “Do you know who built it?”

  “Don’t you?” asked Paul with surprise. Amy shook her head, bitterly. “There are all kinds of legends... it’s a small town, you know. They say it’s the work of a ghost.” He laughed, but Amy trembled. Paul wasn’t as wrong as he thought he was. “Bah, it’s nonsense... but you got here and Dingle is suddenly curious again.”

  “Why?”

  “Perhaps your beauty?”

  “Enough, Paul!”

  “I’m kidding, I’m kidding... well, not entirely. But tell me, how did you get here? You went from living in the middle of London to a lonely house on a cliff on Ireland.”

  “What a change, uh?” Amy took a deep breath, making an effort to be honest with Paul, trying to avoid going into much details of the tragic and troubled life of Tom’s,
of his gift. “My boyfriend, Tom... he studied architecture. It was his passion. He died days after getting a job as an architect in a very important company. Apparently, years before he designed this house, that was built with the inheritance of his parents, who died in 2010. Seven years after Tom’s death. I knew nothing of it. I didn’t even know he had a lawyer. He was so young...” said Amy, moving a lock from her forehead, Paul staring at her. “It was his lawyer who contacted me, to explain and hand over the keys of this house, explaining I was the owner and that I should sign some papers. A friend of this lawyer came over the other day... I can’t remember his name. I asked him some questions, but all he said was that the man in charge of the construction was an architect who had worked with Tom, from Paris. I told him Tom never said anything of a colleague... and I’m sure I’m right. He said we never know everything of the people we love. Maybe he was right. But something is amiss.”

  “Wow. I guess this house must bring memories to you then.”

  “Not really. I never lived here with Tom. But in London... I used to see him in the face of every man. I couldn’t go by the park we used to visit at sunset, to sit on the swings and to talk about life, it would make me cry... And, of course...” Amy stopped. It was too much. She didn’t want to talk about Westbourne River, where they found Tom’s body.

  “That’s okay. It hurts, to talk about the past,” said Paul, sympathetic.

  Paul’s phone rang, but he decided to ignore it. He was to busy contemplating the beautiful scenery in front of him; for him, the beauty was not in the tide or in the mountains, he was tired of them by now. But it was hard to keep his eyes from Amy.

  Whoever was calling, however, seemed to need to contact Paul urgently, since they would not stop calling.

  “Pick up,” said Amy, who hated the sound the phone made.

  Paul did as he was told, but he suddenly wished he hadn’t. Bad news. Terrible news, that would change the course of their lives, and the lives of everybody at Dingle. Paul dropped his phone, paralyzed, staring at Amy with horror.

  “What’s wrong, Paul?” asked Amy, scared.

  “They... they...” Paul couldn’t speak.

  “Paul?” repeated Amy.

  “They found Ruby’s body in Maine River...” he finally said.

  “What? Ruby?” asked Amy, the idea of a body in a river already bringing back terrible memories.

  “It can’t be... Ruby...”

  Amy got closer to Paul, almost by inertia, and held him warmly; he couldn’t avoid crying because of the shock this terrible news had caused.

  Nothing like that had ever happened in the small and calm town of Dingle. Ruby’s corpse was found in the river at eight in the morning. It was discovered by a neighbor who had to be treated for the shock he had received by looking at the bruised body of the girl. The autopsy revealed that she had been beaten, tied up and raped before her body was thrown to the river. It was a horrifying crime that broke the town’s usual calm. Amy, silently, revived the worst time of her life, when in 2003 Tom’s body was found in the river. She accompanied Paul to the tanatory where Ruby’s body had been taken after her autopsy. They met her family and friends there. Amy saw Tom’s parents in Ruby’s... as if the past had managed to come back. Tormenting her just when she had decided to give a turn to her life.

  Paul, broken with grief, tried to comfort Ruby’s parents and sisters, who could not stop crying, disconsolate.

  “Paul... Oh my God, who could’ve done such a thing?” kept asking Ruby’s mother over and over again, held in Paul’s strong arms, unable to believe what had happened to her daughter.

  But neither Paul nor anyone else had answers. The local police department worked hard, along with a team of investigators from Dublin, to solve the mystery of Ruby’s death. But there were no fingerprints or clues that would lead to the culprit. They interrogated every citizen, asking the same question. Agent Samuel Mhic, life-long friend of Paul’s, was working on the hardest case of his twenty-year career. Life in Dingle was calm and simple, and for this police officer the whole business might prove to be too much to handle, not just because of its atrocious nature, but also because of his connection to Ruby and her family.

  “When was the last time you saw Ruby Anderson?” asked Samuel professionally, to every citizen willing to collaborate, trying to hide the deep pain that invaded him.

  And everybody’s answer was the same. Murphy’s. Happy, loud, having fun... carefree, as usual. There was nothing strange or unusual about her, nothing that would make anyone believe something horrible would happen to her. She also seemed to be ignorant of the fact that, just a couple of hours later, she would find death in the most horrific possible way.

  “Do you know if she was drunk?” Samuel asked Paul.

  “No, Ruby doesn’t drink. You know that, Sam...” answered Paul, sadly. “She didn’t... Ruby didn’t...”

  “Paul, I have to ask this to everyone, it’s nothing personal,” warned him Samuel, worried. “What did you do last night?”

  “I took Amy home and stayed over... in the guest’s room.”

  “The woman from the cliff? The new one?” asked Samuel.

  “Yes.”

  Samuel also spoke to Amy, to confirm Paul’s story.

  “If it hadn’t been for him... it might have been my body in the river,” lamented Amy.

  “Do not say that, miss Campbell. This is an isolated incident, nothing like this had ever occurred in Dingle. It must have been a foreigner, someone passing by...” he answered, shaking his head. “Thank you for your collaboration.”

  Amy stayed over with Paul, she was too scared to go back home and stay on her own. It was ten in the night of a horrible Saturday. Paul could see her fear and the memories that haunted her in her eyes.

  “Amy, do you want to go back home?” he asked calm. Amy nodded, not daring to say what she really wanted, which was to go back to Butterfly, with him. “Do you want me to stay over a couple of days? Just until this dies down, or they catch the bastard.

  The answer was both clear and confusing for Amy. She, who usually found safety and freedom in her loneliness, now feared it. She wanted to be with him. She wanted to feel safe, having him in the room next to hers. Nothing bad would happen to her if Paul was by her side.

  “Yes... I wouldn’t want to be on my own, Paul. I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Very well. Let’s go,” said Paul, stroking lovingly Amy’s unruly bangs.

  Dingle and the cliff had stopped being the paradise Amy had just first glimpsed a few days before. As soon as she went inside her house, she sat down in her sofa, exhausted, and lit up a cigarette. Paul lit up the chimney for the first time, and sat down next to Amy when he was done.

  “I’m so sorry, Paul. I know you cared deeply for Ruby,” said Amy.

  “Do you have whisky?”

  “I don’t drink alcohol...” said Amy. “Yesterday was an exception, I assure you.”

  “It’s horrible, I still can’t believe it. Ruby... she had her whole life ahead of her. I can’t understand how someone could have ended it just like that. To take someone’s life so savagely... I swear to you; I would kill the son of a bitch myself if I could.

  “Paul... Tom was found dead in the Westbourne river in London.”

  “Amy...” whispered Paul, shocked, understanding immediately what Ruby’s death must mean to Amy.

  “The autopsy revealed he had died three days previously, and even though his bones were broken and he had a blow to the head - which was the cause of his death - they couldn’t determine if it had been a murder or a suicide.”

  “But it’s clear it had to be a murder!” exclaimed Paul, indignant.

  “The doctors didn’t see it that way. Case close, we never knew more of it... but the strangest thing was...” Amy didn’t know if she should keep talking. She had never told anyone before, why did Paul inspire her so much trust? Before his questioning stare, she decided to continue. “They said he had been dead fo
r three days, but I saw him just a few hours before his body was found in the river.”

  Paul didn’t answer. Amy smiled sadly, and contemplated the darkening scenery through the window. Only the faint light of a faraway lighthouse lit up the place. The moon, hidden behind dark clouds, decided not to show its face.

  “I thought this would be an idyllic place to live, Paul. Now I’m terrified.”

  “Calm down, I’m here. You’ll be fine. Nothing bad will happen to anyone else.”

  But Paul was wrong. The next day, the corpse of an Italian tourist was found in the same river, in the same conditions that Ruby’s. The police handled the case with discretion to avoid upsetting Dingle’s citizens, who were already terrified by the death of dear young Ruby. Ruby and that tourist had only one thing in common: they were both 25 years old.

  Dingle began to receive immediately a multitude of people. Curious, journalists, and a big research team, suddenly filled the streets, the hostels, the bars and pubs of the small and, until then, unknown town. There were no suspects, nobody had answers. It was too soon to know, but the team responsible of the case suspected the murderer lived in the area, and that Ruby and the Italian tourist were not an isolated case. The murderer would strike again... they would try to hunt down, for the first time in Dingle, a serial killer with a pattern.

  (WINTER)

  Days went by. Slow, lazy, and in occasion, distressing. As usual, the sun refused to shine on Dingle, and even less so, on the top of the cliff. Clouds and storms occurred daily and constantly. Amy spent hours locked in her studio, writing her novel, which moved forward successfully. Her views from the window inspired her, the muses stayed by her side and she felt more comfortable with her novel as she wrote it. She was still writing for the newspaper to cover her expenses. Steve tried to convince her, unsuccessfully, to write about the murders that had occurred in the town, and that already had captured the world’s attention, covered by other journalists. Amy kept saying no. It was too painful, and Steve, unwillingly, accepted her refusal but kept insisting. Steve loved the article on Paul Geller’s exhibition in Dingle, the hometown of the artist. Even if Amy didn’t know so, he was quite popular in London, and he told her so in one of the last emails he sent to his favorite writer.