‘I’m so sorry about Jack,’ he said.
She nodded, scrubbed her cheeks dry with the sleeve of her cardigan. Tom found a folded tissue in his pocket and handed it to her.
‘I tried to get in touch, to let you know, but I couldn’t reach you.’
‘The station is gone,’ Maude said. ‘Lawton died, and his son wanted to sell.’
The sale had broken her heart, had very nearly broken her. The station had been her refuge for eighteen years. John Lawton had been her employer, and her friend. But now, only a handful of months later, Jack’s death had put the loss of her adopted home into perspective. The reasons she’d had for staying away from Jack even after he’d been safely adopted seemed so stupid now – an attempt to put logic around her fear and her deep reluctance to ever return to Ireland. The trauma of her childhood and the loss of Jack had clung to her like a stain, and it had taken years to build a semblance of a life. She’d gone to London first, on the ferry, and spent six horrific, lonely, desperate months working in an East London pub shitty enough to turn a blind eye to the fact that she was under age. When the opportunity came to go to Australia – opportunity in the form of a new job as a nanny for a wealthy family – she’d jumped at it. But caring for children had been too painful, and she’d moved on, taking one job after the other until she’d ended up in the Kimberley, as camp cook on a remote station. The Kimberley was so different from home, it felt sometimes like she had been transported to another world. For half of the year the grass was bleached to a white straw that cracked and bristled under her feet. During the wet season the rain came accompanied by violent thunder and lightning storms. The humidity was intense; the few bits of clothes she’d brought had rotted in the wardrobe. Life was a battle those first few years, a struggle she could throw herself into and forget about Ireland and Jack. By the time things got easier she had fallen into a routine. It had been enough for her. She’d told herself it was all she wanted. But looking back now it seemed like a scraping of a life. She’d been too afraid to want more.
‘I’m sorry for that too,’ Tom said. ‘I wish you’d come home sooner.’ Then, grimacing, ‘Maude I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .’
‘I . . . tried. But I was too late.’
They heard a distant shout, the sound of someone banging on a metal door.
Tom took a deep breath. ‘I can’t be your lawyer. I came when I got your call, of course I did, but I can’t represent you.’
Maude hesitated. ‘Why?’
‘Hannah is the reason you’re in here.’
‘I don’t understand.’
His eyes held hers. ‘Hannah’s in prison. She’s been in prison the best part of a year. She desperately wants to get out. She’s given a statement to the gardaí, Maude, about you.’ Tom opened his briefcase, took out a file, tapped it with one finger. ‘I think she’s trying to make a deal, information in exchange for early release.’
‘I see.’ Except she didn’t really, and the pain of the blow surprised her. She hadn’t seen Hannah for twenty years, but she would have laid odds that Hannah would never betray her.
‘Her life hasn’t been easy. I’m not making excuses. She made plenty of shitty decisions, and Hannah never met a drug she didn’t like. But.’ He hesitated. ‘You know what Hannah was like. There was always a man, and every single one of them a bigger shit than the last.’ He swallowed. ‘I lost track of her a couple of years back. It wasn’t the first time. She never wanted to see me when she was in bad shape. But then she called me. The Christmas before last. She asked to meet. I was so glad to hear from her, but afraid too. It had been more than two years, by then. I’d looked for her, but . . .’ He shook his head. ‘We met in Dublin, in a little café off St. Stephen’s Green. She was very thin, seemed very tired, but she was clean.’
Maude waited, sure she was about to hear a story of an attempted recovery, followed by another relapse.
‘She was pregnant, Maude. And she was so happy. She was determined to stay off drugs and give the baby a proper home. She came to live with me in Galway, kept getting treatment. There’s a rehab place on Eglinton Street – day therapy, you know? But it was working for her. She stayed clean. She even got a job; only two days a week in the local deli, but it was the first job she’d had in years. Her ex tried to get in touch, and she told him where to go. It was the pregnancy. I don’t know. It just lit her up.’ He stopped then, shook his head.
‘What happened?’ Maude asked gently.
‘They arrested her in June.’ Tom’s eyes hardened. ‘Hannah’s ex was a dealer. It happened before they broke up. He had Hann call a guy, ask him over to their flat. When he got there Hannah’s ex beat the shit out of him – almost killed him. He owed money over drugs. Hannah hadn’t a clue, I swear, Maude. You know her. But they charged her with conspiracy to commit GBH. She got three years.’
‘Oh shit, Tom. Shit.’
‘She didn’t do it. She had no idea that the guy was in debt, had no idea what her ex had planned. But she’s been in prison since June of last year.’
‘What about the baby?’
‘Saoirse was born in July. Hannah’s in Dóchas, the women’s prison attached to Mountjoy. Women there are allowed to keep their babies until the baby turns one. Then the kids are taken away and put into care unless a relative steps forward.’
‘You?’
‘Apparently not. It seems Family Services think that a single man who works full time is not a suitable foster parent for a one year old, even if he is her uncle. In three or four months they’re going to take Hannah’s baby from her and put her into care.’
Maude raised her hands, elbows still on the table, and pressed her fingers against her closed eyes.
‘Hannah’s been going crazy. She can’t give her baby up, Maude. If I was taking her that would be one thing. But Hannah could never tolerate a stranger looking after her child. She knows firsthand how bad the system can be. She sees the whole thing starting again, just the way it was with us, when Mam was sick.’
Maude opened her eyes and stared at him, willing him to tell her the rest.
Tom splayed an open hand across the file on the table. ‘I’ve told them I’m your lawyer. They gave me the file. There’s a statement in there. From Hannah. She says that you asked her for heroin. That she introduced you to Rick, and the next day your mother was dead.’
And just like that she was back in Ireland. Fifteen years old and hurrying as fast as she could to the secondary school, wanting to catch Tom before he reached it. She was wearing the old army surplus parka she’d bought in a charity shop – it was waterproof but had a weird acrid smell so she only wore it when the weather was really bad. She was hungry, but she’d dropped Jack to school with food in his belly and a full lunch box, so it was a good morning. She hadn’t seen Tom for a few weeks. She sat on the school wall and waited for him. At fifteen it was legal for her not to attend school, so she ignored the looks of the few teachers who recognised her. She spotted Tom when he was half a mile away and jumped from the wall, hurrying towards him.
He looked happy to see her, and despite everything she felt a little less alone, a little comforted.
‘I need to talk to you,’ she said, and he followed her as she led the way back down the street.
‘What’s the story? I’ve a maths test.’
‘Come on,’ she said. She turned into Main Street, knowing he would follow, then off it into a small park and the little playground that had been funded by the European Union. The sign with the blue EU stars was almost as big as the slide. She sat on the bottom of the slide and started chewing a thumb nail. Tom stood for a moment, then slid his backpack from his back and took a seat on one of the swings, pushing idly into the sand with one foot.
‘So?’
‘Miss Keane told Mother she thinks I should go back to school.’
‘She didn’t.’ Tom looked confused. ‘Maude, that’s brilliant. But then, who’d mind Jack after school? He finishes at two, doesn’t
he?’
Maude tasted a metallic tang in her mouth, took her thumb out, and wiped the welling blood on her jeans.
‘She’s got a new friend,’ she said.
Tom looked confused. ‘Who does?’
‘Miss Keane came over to the house yesterday. I’d picked Jack up from school. Was making a bit of dinner, and she just came in through the back door. She’d a man with her.’
Tom was watching her. Had he tensed? Did he know what was coming?
‘He said he was a teacher, but he’s not from our school. They went upstairs to talk to Mother. And when they came down Miss Keane said I was to go back to school. That I shouldn’t be missing out on my education. She said the man would bring Jack home from school every day. Stay with mother until I get home.’
‘What about the money?’ Tom asked.
‘Miss Keane said that I can work on weekends, that she won’t stop the money.’ She didn’t need to tell Tom that this made no sense, that it conflicted with everything they knew of Domenica Keane, who made her work for every penny until her hands were raw and her body shook from tiredness and hunger. ‘I don’t think the money is going to come from Miss Keane, Tom.’ The fear rose up in her again then, and she bit down on it hard, before it could choke her. Blood again, in her mouth. She took her thumb out, and watched the swift rivulet run.
Tom’s hands were gripping the chains of the swing, hard, his knuckles white from the pressure. His eyes were locked on Maude, but his thoughts were far away, and his face was haunted.
She wanted to stop the conversation there. Go to him, comfort him. ‘He said his name was Mr Schiller. Simon Schiller. You never told me who it was, Tom, and I promised I would never, never talk about it again. But I have to ask you now.’
‘You have to stop him.’ Tom’s voice came out in a rasping whisper. He coughed, wiped his mouth. ‘Tell your mother. If you tell her she won’t let him in the house.’
Maude put her face in her hands, leaning her elbows against her knees. She felt her grief rise, and pressed her palms so hard to her eyes that they hurt. Crying wouldn’t stop Simon Schiller. Crying wouldn’t change what her mother had become.
‘She already knows.’
They sat in silence for a long moment, until Tom stood abruptly and walked away, stopping at the edge of the playground to vomit.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Maude wanted to tell him it didn’t matter, that he had nothing to say sorry for, but she couldn’t find the words.
‘Mother says I have to go to school on Monday.’
Tom swallowed. ‘I’ll tell the police,’ he said. ‘We’ll go to the social workers.’
Maude was shaking her head. ‘They won’t believe you. They didn’t believe you when you tried to tell them before, did they? What am I going to do, Tom?’
‘You’ll have to run away. I’ll help.’
‘I can’t run away with Jack. He’s only five. How would I take care of him? How would I feed him, get him to school? No one would believe I’m old enough to be his mother. They’d have us back here in less than a week.’
‘What makes you think your mother knows?’
Maude looked away. She shook her head. Hilaria was so much worse. There were long red furrows in her skin from the scratching. There’d been blood in her vomit the other night, blood in her urine. And she was confused a lot of the time. But after Keane and Schiller had left, Maude had gone upstairs, had seen the extra vodka bottles, the roll of pound notes on the bedside table.
‘I need to talk to Hannah,’ she said.
Tom looked confused.
‘I need her to get something for me.’
‘What?’
Maude took a deep breath. Clenched her fists. ‘As long as my mother is alive there’s no way out for me and Jack. They’ll never take us away from her, and I can’t run away and keep Jack safe. He needs a family. He needs a normal family. Parents who’ll feed him every day, and bring him to school, and keep him safe. My mother’s dying. Do you know there’s blood in her pee every day? Her skin is yellow. Sometimes she doesn’t know where she is. She’s going to die, Tom, but not fast enough to save Jack.’
Tom was staring at her now, understanding as well as horror and pity growing in his eyes.
‘Not fast enough unless I do something,’ Maude said quietly.
Tom didn’t say anything, breathing quickly as if he had just run up a hill.
‘So.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I need to talk to Hannah. I need her help.’ Knowing as she spoke what she was asking of him. How terrified he was for his sister. He’d confided his worries to Maude – that Hannah was in over her head with someone older. He was a drug dealer, and maybe he’d started Hannah on some of what he sold. She knew what she was asking of him – to be complicit in this thing, to make his sister complicit in it.
‘He might end up in a group home.’ Tom’s voice was hoarse. ‘Or with shitty foster parents.’ It had happened to him and Hannah, more than once. They had parents, but their mother had bipolar disorder, and every time she’d had to be hospitalised, they’d been taken into care. Their father said he couldn’t cope.
‘They weren’t all bad,’ Maude said.
He paused for a long moment, then bent down to pick up his backpack, slung it over his shoulder. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘She’ll be at the flat.’
She’d followed him down the street, her eyes on his back, terrified and grateful. And as they walked, her dread and her determination had grown. She would do whatever it took to save Jack.
Now, in the interview room, Maude said, ‘Hannah didn’t say anything else?’
Tom shook his head, looked down at the statement. ‘She says she assumed you bought it from Rick to use it yourself, and your mother got hold of it somehow. That she never asked questions before or after.’
They both knew that wasn’t true. Hannah had shown her what to do – given her the syringe and shown her how to cook it up, how to inject. She hadn’t been expert, not then at any rate. But she’d observed the process more than once and that had been enough.
‘Right,’ said Maude slowly. ‘You think she’s trying to make a deal?’
‘I’m sure of it. She’s not eligible for early release until she’s served two years. But they have broad discretion on temporary release – they could release her early and call it temporary release until the end of her sentence. I know that Hannah tried to do deals before, tried to get out any way she could, but it wasn’t happening. She had nothing to bargain with.’ Tom tapped the file folder again. ‘This statement. This was her bait. What else could it be?’
Maude nodded.
‘I’m sorry, Maude. But I can’t be your lawyer. I can refer you, get you the very best counsel.’
‘You can’t represent me because you’re already Hannah’s lawyer. And you think there’s a conflict.’
‘There’s obviously a conflict. You’ll have to pull her apart in your defence. And I . . . I’m so sorry, Maude, but I have to do what I can to protect her. I’m not saying I’ll push her testimony forward but . . . Christ, what the hell am I supposed to do?’
Maude was quiet for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was husky, from tiredness or emotion or both. ‘They must have asked you too.’
‘What?’
‘They must have asked you what you knew. We were best friends. Hannah was your sister.’
‘They asked me. I told them I didn’t know anything.’
‘Okay.’ She should get another lawyer. A lawyer who would get her bail so she could find out what the hell had happened to Jack. A lawyer who could question Hannah Collins and destroy her credibility so that Maude could be cleared of these charges and get back to her life, wherever that would be.
‘I want you,’ she said.
He said nothing, just looked at her across the battered old table.
‘I want you to be my lawyer, and I want you to be Hannah’s lawyer.’
‘Maude, I don’t think you
understand. I can’t represent both of you. The only way I could do that would be if you didn’t dispute Hannah’s evidence, if you accepted it. I can’t represent two clients whose interests conflict in this way.’
‘I understand better than you do, Tom. Hannah’s not my enemy. She wasn’t then, and she isn’t now.’ Maude felt a heavy certainty settle into place. ‘Hannah did what she could to help me save Jack. Now it’s my turn.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I won’t try to disprove Hannah’s statement. I’ll accept it, just as you said.’
‘Jesus, Maude. I’m not telling you to do that. You’d have to be mad. The gardaí have nothing, nothing at all on you, and Hannah’s a terrible witness. Any decent lawyer could destroy her credibility in about thirty seconds. Do you not see? You’d be handing them a chunk of the puzzle for no reason.’
‘It’s not for no reason. I’ve every reason. It’ll get Hannah out of prison. With her baby. It’ll give her a chance.’ Her eyes searched his. ‘You said she’s stayed clean, all this time, in prison, with drugs everywhere. If she can do that in prison she’ll do it outside, and you’ll help her.’
Tom brought his hands up over his eyes, pressed hard. ‘Fuuuuuck. Fuck, Maude. This isn’t right.’ He took his hands away. ‘What about you? Are you happy to sit in jail for twenty years?’
He was asking her if she’d given up. She shook her head slowly. ‘Do you think Hannah’s evidence is enough to convict me? If I say I bought the stuff for personal use, and Mother must have seen it and taken it? Who is there to contradict me?’
Tom’s gaze held hers.
‘It’s such a risk, Maude. Such a monstrous risk.’
‘A risk worth taking.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
It took Aisling less than five minutes to find it, once she knew what she was looking for. She logged back into Jack’s Google account, fooled about with the settings until she found the Timeline button. She clicked, and a box opened up on the screen with a graphic of a globe, covered with little red location markers. Aisling clicked Next, then Next again, and a map of the world opened up in front of her. Again there were little red dots scattered here and there. This time most of them were in Ireland. Almost all of Galway was covered in a large red disk, then a scattering of red dots appeared in Dublin and elsewhere. A handful more over the European cities they’d visited together, or that Jack had visited for rugby weekends – London, Edinburgh, Paris, Rome. There was a dot over Northern Italy, where they’d holidayed with friends the previous summer. How much could this thing tell her?
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