The Tick-Tock Trilogy Box Set

by David B Lyons

‘Well, Keating’s done this before, hasn’t he?’ Charlie says. ‘Besides, who would report a suicide attempt and then just hang up without giving us any names? It don’t make no sense.’

  Helen wipes her face with her hand and then she squints at the young man sitting in front of her. His ears stick out below his black spikey hair, his nose slightly upturned and pointy at the nub end, making him look like some sort of human-rodent hybrid.

  ‘How old are you, Charlie?’ Helen asks.

  He creases his brow. ‘Twenty-three.’

  ‘Twenty-three? You look ten years younger than that.’

  Charlie’s brow creases even more. He’s not sure if what he’s just heard was a compliment or not. It wasn’t.

  ‘Well,’ Helen says, pulling at a chair from the desk beside Charlie’s and wheeling it behind her so she can drop into it. ‘I’ve been asked to look into the suicide angle for Rathmines station. What have you got for me so far?’

  Charlie coughs into his hand again, then turns back around to his desk and begins to fidget with his mouse. After a couple silent seconds, he turns to Helen again, the palms of his hands facing upwards.

  ‘I eh… don’t really have anything yet. Telephone network can’t tell us where the phone call was made from. It was too short… only lasted eighteen seconds.’

  ‘The two of em?’ Helen asks.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Did both phone calls last eighteen seconds?’

  ‘Both calls?’

  ‘Yes, Charlie. Two calls were made. One here, one to Rathmines.’

  Charlie makes an ‘O’ shape with his mouth and as he does so, Helen tuts.

  ‘Listen, if two girls commit suicide tonight, you’re gonna take a serious amount of time getting over it, d’ye hear me?’ she says. ‘You and I both. We’re gonna find them, we’re gonna save them.’

  Charlie creases his brow again.

  ‘Do you… eh… do you really think the phone call is legit?’ he asks.

  Helen looks around herself, swivelling ever so slightly on the chair.

  ‘It’s your job — and mine,’ she says, pointing at her own chest, ‘to take this phone call as legit. Everybody else, here, and at Rathmines, is treating it as a hoax and getting their knickers in a twist about Alan Keating. But me and you; we’re the ones who owe it to these girls to save them. If the call is legit, we can be heroes. If it’s not… well, fuck it, there’s enough of the force looking into what it might be.’

  Charlie offers Helen a smile that makes him look even younger. He stands up, readjusts his navy tie into his sky-blue shirt by repositioning his tiepin and then holds his palm towards Helen.

  ‘You wait here a second, Detective Brennan. I’ll go find out what the latest is with tracking the call.’

  ‘It’s eh…’ Helen says holding her hand out in front of him, ‘it’s Helen, call me Helen. And,’ she looks around again, ‘don’t tell anybody I’m looking into this with you. I’m off duty, but I can’t live with the guilt of two girls dying by suicide. I need to be looking into this, whether it’s legit or not. Besides, you can use a helping hand, right?’

  Charlie smiles again, then winks before pacing to the back of the station. Helen stretches her legs wide apart and swivels side-to-side in the chair again, her fingers forming a diamond shape just above her naval. She’s popping her lips with impatience when the pocket of her coat begins to vibrate. She reaches inside, grabs her mobile phone and then winces when she notices who’s calling.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hel, listen, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that. It was…’ Eddie doesn’t want to finish his sentence, but Helen’s silence forces him to continue. ‘It’s just, we’re pretty certain this is Keating. Fucker’s done this to us before, had us running around all night looking for two missing girls when… well… you know. I just wanted to ring you to apologise for being… for being short with you.’

  Helen sighs.

  ‘Apology accepted,’ she says. ‘How’s the investigation going?’

  There’s a slight pause on the other end of the line before Eddie finally speaks up.

  ‘We’ve got guys all over Keating and his cronies, but God knows what’s going on. Chances are they aren’t going to be the ones carrying anything out, ye know how Keating operates. So, I guess all we can do is gauge things as we go.’

  ‘But what about the calls that were made… any progress tracking them?’

  Another pause.

  ‘Yeah… one phone network gave us an approximate area — somewhere along the Grand Canal between Inchicore and Drimnagh, but no specific number. Anyway…’ he says, ‘nothing for you to worry about. I’ll fill you in in the morning. How about I treat you to breakfast — Bark about ten-ish in the morning?’ Helen nods her head. She loves a breakfast at Bark. Best Poached Eggs in Dublin.

  ‘Okay,’ she says.

  ‘Good. So… did you get home safe?’ Eddie asks.

  Helen looks around herself, taking in the cleanliness of Terenure Garda station, noting it in comparison to the one she and her husband work in.

  ‘Yep, all curled up on the sofa… watching Coronation Street.’

  The line falls silent. For way too long.

  ‘Good… good,’ Eddie eventually says. ‘So I’ll see you, okay? I guess you’ll be asleep by the time I get back tonight… we’ll do that breakfast when we wake up, huh?’

  Helen doesn’t answer, she just takes the phone from her ear and presses at the red button. Then she clicks into her news feed; just to see if there have been any oddities reported by the national media recently; something that might offer her some sort of lead. It’s rare that the media would be a step ahead of the cops… but it still doesn’t stop Helen from checking. She scrolls. And scrolls. Nothing. The media are just running with the same story they’ve been running with all day: the two Dublin guys who’ve been arrested in Rome for stealing from American Central Banks last year. She clicks out of her news feed and places her phone back into her pocket. Then she stands and peers down at Charlie’s desk. A framed picture of a pretty girl, way too pretty for Charlie, smiles back at her. She picks it up, puts it back down. Then she picks up a bunch of keys and turns them over in her hand before placing them down. Then an open bottle of Coke. Then a notepad. She’s flicking through it when she hears him breathing behind her.

  ‘Charlie,’ she says, turning around and dropping his pad back on to his desk, ‘whatcha got for me?’

  ‘Don’t think anybody’s been able to determine where the call was made,’ he says, sitting back into his chair. Helen rolls her eyes. ‘But I do know it was made — to this station anyway — at six forty-nine p.m.’

  ‘That it?’ Helen says.

  ‘Nope,’ Charlie responds, shuffling his chair back into his desk. ‘I have it here.’ He slips a USB stick into the side of his computer screen, then fiddles with his mouse. Helen reaches for the chair she had been sitting in earlier, wheels it closer and plonks herself in it.

  ‘Terenure Garda station, how can I help you?’

  ‘Two girls from my school are going to commit suicide tonight…’ the voice sounds panicky. ‘I heard them talking about it. They’ve made a pact. Please help them. They’re good girls. Just misunderstood.’

  ‘Thank you for your call, Sir,’ a female voice says. ‘Can you give me your name to begin with and then I can—’

  A dead tone pierces through Charlie’s computer.

  He turns around and stares at Helen.

  ‘Can’t be legit. Who’d ring in a suicide warning without giving us the names—’

  ‘Replay that,’ Helen says, interrupting him, ‘the bit where he says “please help them”.’

  Charlie’s brow creases, but he turns back to his computer and drags at his mouse again.

  ‘They’ve made a pact. Please help them.’

  ‘There, hear it?’ Helen says.

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘The Luas. The chiming of a Luas tram.’
<
br />   Charlie drags at his mouse again.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he says listening to the same two lines over and over. ‘The call musta been made somewhere close to the Luas tracks. But sure that could be anywhere.’

  ‘Red Line, between Inchicore and Drimnagh,’ Helen says standing up. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Huh?’ Charlie puffs out of his mouth, before turning back. He swigs from his bottle of Coke then throws his navy Garda jacket on and follows Helen towards the exit.

  ‘How the hell can you tell the call was made between Drimnagh and Inchicore?’ he asks.

  Helen doesn’t answer.

  19:40

  Ciara

  I look up into the corner of the chipper and notice the CCTV camera staring down at us. Then it hits me. I bet this footage is going to be shown on the news over the next few days. Our last movements. How the two girls who committed suicide in Rathmines looked happy and were laughing in the local chipper just a few of hours before they ended it all. But I don’t mention it to Ingrid. I don’t want to take her out of her thoughts. She’s more likely to change her mind than I am. In fact, I’m one hundred per cent certain I won’t change my mind. I’m going to do this. We’re going to do this.

  I’ve thought about this day so much over the past two years. I’d have done it two years ago if it wasn’t for Ingrid; if it wasn’t for the beautiful friend she is. I have the best mate in the whole world. She’d do anything for me. Including kill herself.

  ‘What you staring at?’ she says, twisting to look over her shoulder.

  ‘Nothing, nothing. Just thinking.’

  ‘Here ye go, you two,’ Marjorie says as she plonks our fries in front of us. ‘Enjoy.’

  We don’t waste time even thanking Marjorie. We just pick up our wooden forks and dive straight in.

  This has been our favourite meal for years. We pop in here every Friday after school for chilli chips. I think the secret is in how they melt the cheese on top of the chips before they pour the chilli over. Ingrid thinks it’s all in the sauce. It doesn’t really matter. Every mouthful is bleedin’ delicious.

  ‘I’m gonna miss this,’ Ingrid says, her mouth full. She half smiles, then drops the smile. I know how she’s feeling. She’s excited because she knows her suffering is almost over. But then the suffering hits again. It’s a roller coaster of feelings. Up and down. Up and then deeper down. Up and then really, really low down. So low down you can’t even be bothered going up again. Just keep me down, get me down. Six foot down. Inside a wooden box.

  I’ve thought about my funeral lots of times. My mam will be sobbing; will probably have to have two people either side of her to hold her up in the church. She’ll make it all about her, of course. How my suicide was her loss. How my suicide affected her. I think my dad’ll keep a straight face as usual. He’ll pretend to be holding it all together. Or maybe he will be holding it all together. I’m not sure my death will be a huge loss to him. Perhaps it’ll be a weight off. Something less for him to care about. I don’t think he likes caring. About anyone.

  ‘Penny for em?’ Ingrid says.

  ‘Huh?’ I refocus my eyes and realise that as I was thinking about my funeral I almost finished my chilli chips.

  ‘Penny for your thoughts.’

  I dig my fork into the last of my chips, leave it standing there and then suck at my lips.

  ‘Was thinking about my funeral. How much my mam will be sobbing. She’ll probably roar the church down.’

  Ingrid’s eyes roll upwards. Then she leans back in her chair and folds her arms.

  ‘Bet they’ll play a Take That song for me. Probably Pray, whatcha think?’

  ‘Defo. A hundred per cent. It’d be madness if they don’t play Pray at your funeral.’

  ‘Think I’d kinda like to be there… at my own funeral. I want to see who turns up.’

  I laugh a little, then pick up my fork again and take another bite.

  ‘Ohhh,’ Ingrid purrs.

  I look up; my heart beating a little faster. I really don’t want her to change her mind. She can’t change her mind.

  ‘What’s wrong, Ingrid?’

  ‘My last bite. Ever.’

  I smile. I think it’s from relief more than anything.

  ‘Hold on,’ I say. ‘My last bite too. Let’s do it together, okay?’

  We both scrape the bottom of the tin tray our chilli chips came in, so that we have all of the mince, all of the sauce, all of the cheese and all of the chips that are left and then hold the fork up.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ Ingrid says. And we do. We stuff our mouths with Macari’s chilli chips for the final time; both of us holding our eyes closed so we can suck down the deliciousness of our last supper.

  ‘It’s fucking delicious,’ Ingrid says after she swallows. It always makes me laugh when Ingrid swears. She’s so posh that any time she says ‘fuck’ it sounds as if she uses an ‘o’ instead of a ‘u’.

  I rub my belly and then tilt my head sideways. I don’t enjoy much in life. That’s why I want to end it. But I do enjoy these chilli chips. And now I know I’ll never have those tastes in my mouth again. But I genuinely don’t mind. We’re doing this. Life is not worth living just for a ten-minute taste thrill at Macari's chipper every Friday evening.

  ‘Don’t be sad, Ciara,’ Ingrid says, placing her hand on top of mine. I’m not sad. In fact I’m happy; happy that she’s encouraging me as much as I’m encouraging her.

  ‘I’m not sad,’ I reply. ‘I’m ready to do this.’

  ‘What do you think it’s gonna feel like?’ she whispers over the table to me, her fingers tapping on top of mine.

  I blow out my cheeks.

  ‘Oh — it won’t hurt. We’ll be dead before we even know it,’ I whisper back.

  ‘Nah, not the actual suicide itself… death. What do you think death feels like?’

  I squint at her. How can she be asking such a stupid question? She knows dead means dead. Neither of us are that thick. Even if we are only thirteen. We’re not dumb enough to believe we go anywhere after we die. We don’t want to go anywhere anyway. We don’t want another life. We want to die because we want to stop all of the horrible thoughts that we have. We spoke about this before we wrote out our suicide pact on the park bench last night.

  I place my other hand on top of hers, so her hand is sandwiched between my two.

  ‘Y’know what it feels like before you were born?’ I ask.

  She looks at me funny.

  ‘Before I was born? Course I don’t. I didn’t feel anything. How could I?’

  ‘Exactly,’ I say.

  Her brow points down. Then her eyes widen.

  ‘So, we won’t feel anything? Just like before we were born. We only feel when we are alive?’

  I nod my head slowly at her. I thought she knew all this. Maybe she just needed reminding. Confirmation. Isn’t that the word?

  ‘And that’s why we’re doing it, isn’t it? So we don’t need to feel again,’ I say, clapping her one hand between my two. She nods back at me, then holds her other hand into our little hand huddle and we both sit there, gripping each other as tightly as we can.

  It makes sense she’d have all these questions. I’ve thought all this through over the course of two years. She’s only been suicidal for less than a day.

  ‘I’m not gonna change my mind,’ she says shaking her head. And I believe her. She won’t. She has never lied to me. I don’t think Ingrid is capable of lying. ‘Okay, so we’re visiting who first? What’s the timetable again?’ she asks.

  I purse a tiny smile back at her and then release one of my hands to hold my finger to my bottom lip.

  ‘So it’s Debbie’s house first, then Harriet’s, then Miss Moriarty’s.’

  Ingrid nods her head.

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Then… then we do it.’

  She bends a little backwards in her chair so she can see the clock in the middle of the menu behind the counter.

  ‘So we
’ll be dead around midnight, right?’

  I nod my head slowly.

  ‘About that time, yeah.’

  19:45

  Vivian

  It’s a sorry sight. I know.

  I know because I stare at it every night.

  My reflection.

  In the windows of the double doors that lead out to our back garden.

  I’m fuckin sick of this. Yet it’s all I do. Sit here, a glass of wine swirling in my hand, staring at a blurry image of myself.

  I take another sip. Taking in my reflection as I do so.

  What a loser.

  Yet, I know tomorrow evening I’ll be doing the exact same thing. And the evening after that. And the one after that. Probably be doing this for all the evenings I have left. Another forty years of sipping wine. That’ll take me into my early eighties. Isn’t that what they say the average age to die is? Seems like a long way off to me.

  I pick up the bottle of wine, pour it into my glass, shaking every last drop out of it, and then huff because it didn’t fill my glass enough. So I place both forearms across the kitchen island and lay my forehead on top of them.

  ‘Fuck sake!’ I grunt into my elbow. I lift my head slowly, swivel on my stool and slide off it. I drag my slippers as I walk across the tiles and reach up into the cupboard to grab at another bottle of Chateaneuf-du-Pape. Then I drag my slippers over to the slide drawer for the corkscrew and wrestle with the horrible red wrap of film that covers the top of the bottle. I’ve opened two bottles of this shit every night for the past seven years and I still struggle with the process every time. Opening the second bottle is always more difficult than the first. It’d probably make sense for me to open the two of them when I’m sober and leave them in front of me. But making sense has never really been my thing.

  ‘Fuck!’ I say when the sharp point of the corkscrew pinches at the top of my thumb. Then I finally release the film, and am faced with the task of popping the cork itself. I’ve let one or two bottles slip out of my hands over the years during this part of the process. It should be a helluva lot fuckin easier than this in this day and age to open a bottle of wine. How have they not come up with something better than a bleedin’ corkscrew? Sometimes I can nail this in one go. But most times I have to spoon out lumps of cork from my glass after I’ve poured it.