As the bus turns down the canal road, Ciara twists her head so she can look at me. She doesn’t say anything, she just smiles, then turns her head back so that she’s staring out the window again. So, I do the same; stare out the window. Only this time I try to take in what I’m looking at, rather than slipping back into my thoughts. It’s tough to make much out in the dark, but the street lamps are lighting the way a bit, shining onto the calm water of the canal.
The bus pulls over, allowing a few more passengers to get on board. A couple of them climb the stairs and sit behind us. I wonder if that’s why we’ve been so quiet on this bus journey; because there are others around us. But I bet it’s more to do with the fact that we’re just trying to soak in our last minutes alive. Maybe we’ve said all we have to say anyway.
I wonder what Ciara is thinking. She doesn’t have a little brother; doesn’t care for her mam or her dad. She’s probably thinking about Debbie. Or maybe Miss Moriarty. I don’t ask her though. I just continue to run my fingers through her hair and down her cheek. Until I feel wetness. I stop, then tilt her head towards me.
She’s crying.
23:45
Greta
I sit across from Vivian, both of us leaning our elbows on our thighs in the quiet of my sitting room while we wait on Terry to get some clothes on. My fingers are fidgeting with each other as I try to get inside Ingrid’s mind. I’ve probably been a terrible mum to her over the past few months. Sven’s taken most of my attention.
It’s beginning to dawn on me that we left her alone to face secondary school. I don’t even know what subjects she’s studying there; have no idea what any of her teachers’ names are.
‘Jeez, I just hope they’re out flirting with boys,’ I say to Vivian. She nods her head. The thought of Ingrid flirting with boys would have been my worst nightmare a few hours ago, but now it seems to be my biggest hope. That’s how worried I am. I have no idea what Ingrid and Ciara intend on doing tonight.
‘Right-ee-o,’ Terry says as he plods down the stairs. He always says ‘right-ee-o’; especially during his show. It’s almost like a shitty catchphrase he clings to. He claps his hands once and then stands between Vivian and me.
‘So, we know they visited Harriet and before that your former child minder, Vivian… remind me of her name again?’
‘Debbie. Debbie Martyn.’
‘Yes, Debbie. So what does this tell us? I wonder if they have been visiting older girls to get their perspective on boys. Maybe Ingrid — or Ciara, it could be Ciara — has got her first boyfriend and perhaps they just went in search of advice.’
I nod my head slowly as I soak in the plausibility of Terry’s theory. Then I look up at Vivian. She’s still staring into her lap.
‘Vivian, what do you think?’ I ask.
She looks up, her eyes heavy.
‘Sorry, but eh… could I have a drink? My throat’s a bit parched,’ she asks.
‘Sure thing, a glass of water?’ Terry says.
‘Eh… do you have anything heavier… a red wine by any chance?’
My eyes meet Terry’s.
‘Sure thing,’ he says, making his way to our kitchen.
‘What do you think, Vivian? Has Ciara mentioned any boys in her life recently? Ever heard of this Stitch or whatever his name is?’
She shakes her head.
‘I… I don’t really… I mean… I don’t even know when I last sat down and spoke with Ciara. It’s been ages. Way too long.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I say making my way towards her so I can rest my hand on her shoulder. ‘I feel the exact same way about my relationship with Ingrid. I guess we’re both guilty of feeling our girls have grown up enough to look after themselves.’
She looks up at me. I’m not sure if her eyes are glazed from emotion or from alcohol. I wonder how much wine she had before I called over to her.
‘Here y’go, Vivian,’ Terry says, swooping back into the room.
‘Is this Merlot?’ she says, sniffing into the glass he just handed to her.
‘It’s red. S’all I know,’ Terry says.
I’d normally laugh at something like that. But I just stand back upright and fold my arms.
‘Terry, I hope you’re right. I hope the girls have just been trying to get a perspective from girls older than them about boys. And that they’ll knock back on that door in the next few minutes. But the one thing that’s niggling me is the note Ingrid wrote in Harriet’s book. Why would she do that? It’s sticking in my mind… it almost seems… I don’t know… final.’
‘Don’t be silly. What do you mean final?’ he asks me.
I dip my chin into my neck and begin to fidget with my fingers again.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. I don’t want to say out loud what is troubling me. Mainly because I can’t make sense of it.
Terry sits on our sofa, then claps his hands again.
‘She wants to ring the police, don’t ye, hun?’ Vivian says, swirling her glass.
‘Sure the police will laugh at us,’ Terry says. ‘Don’t children have to be missing for twenty-four hours or something before they’ll look into it?’
‘That’s what I told her,’ Vivian says.
I rub my face with my hand and then blow out my lips.
I keep seeing the note she wrote for Harriet in my mind; her cute little handwriting.
I love you Harriet
She never says those words, let alone write them. She has never told me she loves me; has never said it to her dad, to her little brother. It’s just not how we talk to each other.
‘Something’s not adding up for me,’ I say. ‘I’m going to call the police.’
I pace out of the sitting room, into the hallway and pick up the phonebook to search for the local station’s number. Terry joins me by the time I’ve found it and I begin punching it into the phone.
‘Are you sure you’re not overreacting, Greta?’ he says.
I just stare at him as I hold the phone to my ear.
‘Rathmines Garda Station, how may I help you?’
‘Hi… my name is Greta Murphy. I have a thirteen-year-old daughter who has gone missing with her best friend. Her name is Ingrid Murphy, her friend is Ciara Joyce.’
‘Okay, ma’am,’ the voice says. ‘And how long have these two girls been missing?’
I hold my eyes closed, then sigh a little out of my nostrils.
‘They left here at about twenty-past seven this evening.’
‘This evening?’ the voice says back to me. ‘Just over four hours ago?’
‘Uh-hmm,’ I say as I begin to nibble at my thumbnail.
‘Ma’am, I understand your concern right now, but we suggest you only involve the Gardaí should your child be missing over twenty-four hours.’
‘But I’m… I’m going out of my mind right now. I know something is wrong, I can feel it in my bones. Call it mother’s intuition or whatever—’
‘Ma’am… I am sorry you feel this way. But trust me; ninety-nine times out of a hundred, young people find their way home after we’ve received a call like this. What I propose you do is wait at home. Make sure somebody is there when your daughter arrives. There’s no need for everybody to go out and search; somebody needs to be at home when your daughter gets there.’
I bite at my thumbnail again, then feel a rage burn up from my insides.
‘That’s it? That’s all you’re gonna do for me? Give me some obvious advice?’
Terry takes the phone from me and rests his other hand around my shoulder.
‘Officer, this is the girl’s father — Terry Murphy… y’know, off the radio? We’ll eh… take your advice on board. Thank you very much.’
Then he just hangs up. As if everything is okay.
‘Right-ee-o,’ he says, squeezing my shoulder a bit tighter and leading me back into the sitting room. ‘Ingrid and Ciara are clearly up to something. But I bet it’s all very innocent. This is all we have to do: Vivian, I suggest you go home and
wait up until Ciara arrives home. Somebody needs to be there. Greta, you need to do the same here. It’s more than likely they’ll arrive home soon. The Gardaí have said this is the only thing we can do right now.’
I watch as Vivian downs the rest of her glass, before handing it to Terry.
‘What are you going to do?’ I ask my husband.
‘Well… I have an important interview in the morning. I’m going to go back to bed. Don’t wake me up when Ingrid gets home; I’ll deal with her tomorrow.’
I switch my stare from Terry to Vivian and then back again.
‘That’s it? That’s all we’re going to do? We’re just going to wait for them to come home?’
‘It’s all we can do,’ Vivian says, reaching her arm to my elbow. And then she winks at Terry before turning on her heels and strolling down our hallway and out our front door.
Terry leads me to the sofa and sits me into it.
‘Just relax, Greta… throw on a movie or something.’
I stare up at him and then find myself nodding my head.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll just wait here until she comes home.’
I take the blanket that hangs on the back of the sofa and drape it over me as Terry kisses me on the top of my head. Then I pick up the remote control and begin clicking through the channels.
Her hand trembles as she tries to place the key into the ignition; failing six times before finally finding the slot.
‘You’re a fuckin idiot, Helen. A fuckin idiot!’
She stares over at the house she’s just left as she shifts into first gear, sees Louise and her mother staring out at her. They watch as the bumper scrapes off the road, sparks darting in all directions as the car pulls off.
Helen eyeballs herself in the rear-view mirror, then shakes her head.
‘A fuckin idiot!’
The speedometer’s dial begins to shake as it pushes upwards; the car now doing seventy miles per hour in the narrow streets of a tight housing estate.
By the time she’s reached a stretch of main road, the speedometer is inching towards one hundred. Then Helen forces her foot on the brake, the car coming to a noisy, sudden stop; parts of the bumper cracking and flying free.
And then she slaps herself in the face with both hands.
‘A fuckin’ idiot! C’mon, Scott, talk to me. Give me a sign. Are there or aren’t there two girls out there about to kill themselves?’
She’s startled when she hears a rattling on her window.
‘Officer, officer… you okay?’
A man with square-framed glasses is staring in through her driver’s side window, his nose practically pushed up against the glass.
She waves her hand up at him. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You sure?’ he says. ‘Did you have a crash? Would you like me to ring an ambulance for you?’
‘I said I’m fine!’ she shouts.
The man holds both of his hands up, then slowly backs away from her.
Helen pivots her head around, looks out the back window, the front windscreen, each of the windows either side of her. It’s dark. Almost pitch black, save for a tiny street lamp about fifteen yards away that seems to only light the pavement directly beneath it. There are no other cars on the road, no sign of anybody but the silhouette of the man who had knocked on the window walking away from her.
She breathes in through her nose, then pops the breath out of her mouth. She repeats this over and over; each time the sound of the pop growing in volume and frustration.
‘Nobody’s gonna kill themselves are they? The calls weren’t fucking suicide calls; they were distraction calls, Helen. You fuckin idiot!’ She slaps both of her hands on top of the dashboard. ‘As soon as I heard suicide I let my heart overrule my head.’
She grunts loudly, before a cringe runs down her spine. Then she slaps her hands on top of the dashboard again and screams, an eerie shriek that echoes all the way around the car and back into her ears.
‘Fuck you, Alan Keating!’ she says. ‘Fuck you, Tommy Smith. Fuck you, Scott Brennan!’ Then she gasps in some air. ‘No… no… I’m sorry, Scott. I didn’t mean that, honey. I didn’t mean it.’
Her shoulders begin to shake. She wipes a tear that had rested on one of the bags under eyes, and then looks around herself again. The night is dead. Eerie. Creepy. Until car lights shine in the distance, coming towards her. The lights slow down, then a horn beeps.
Helen shifts into first gear, presses at the accelerator and drives off, waving her hand up in the air in apology to the driver behind.
She thinks back through the night as she drives in no particular direction at all; back to when she bluffed her way into Terenure Garda station to meet with Charlie; to when she took him to the Red Cow Luas HQ to view CCTV footage; to when she went to Patrick Tobin’s house; to when she went to Brother Fitzpatrick’s local pub and ordered him outside. Twice. To when she splashed his face with water. Twice. To when she confronted Tommy Smith in the snooker hall; to when she pinned poor Charlie up against the shop shutters and bullied him into lying to his SI; to when she sat on his desk and gripped onto his car keys; to ramming that car up the back of a Land Rover; to entering the house of an innocent school girl and telling her mother she was there to save her from killing herself.
She stops the car near the canal, its lights reflecting off the calm water. She’s often thought about ending her own life. She wanted to do it straight after hearing of Scott’s suicide. It was Cyril who woke her and Eddie up one Monday morning, just gone four a.m.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Cyril said. Helen knew by the look on his face that something awful had happened. ‘It’s Scott, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Scott! Scott!’ she yelled up the stairs.
‘He’s not up there,’ Cyril said approaching her slowly. He threw his arms around her, hugged her as firmly as he could. ‘He’s dead, Helen. Him and two friends. They took their own lives. I’m so sorry.’
She’s replaying that moment now as she stares out of the windscreen and almost feels tempted to press down on the accelerator, drive straight into the canal. The car would probably take about twenty minutes to sink fully under the water. Two minutes after that she’d be gasping for breath.
‘That’d be a fuckin stupid way to do it,’ she mumbles to herself. ‘Horrible. At least Scott and his mates did it quick. They were breathing in fresh air one second, the next they were gone. Forever.’
She sighs, then presses the balls of her palms into her eye sockets and wiggles her wrists.
‘Wake the fuck up, Helen,’ she says. ‘Think. Think!’
She switches off the ignition, kills the lights that were shining onto the canal’s ripples and then pulls at the lever beside her chair, so that it flicks backwards, allowing her to slouch into a lying position. Then she begins to suck on her lips; a tic she always produces when she’s floating deep into her mind.
‘It’s so quiet,’ she says, leaning up to peer out the windows. ‘It wouldn’t be this quiet if Alan Keating was up to something. If he’s pulled something off, there’d be sirens all over this neck of the woods. Think, Helen. Come on. Think for fuck sake!’
She shakes her head with frustration, clenching her hands into a ball.
‘Uuugh, what am I doing?’ she says, pressing at the lever beside her seat again and pumping it back to an upright position. ‘There can’t be two girls out there… there just can’t be. Why did Tommy Smith run away? It doesn’t make sense. Does it? Come on, Scott. You’re the only one who can tell me. Please. Give me a sign. Give me a sign, son.’
Her jaw drops open when she feels her phone vibrating in her pocket. She reaches for it, stares at the screen and notices a strange number. Her finger is trembling as she presses at the green button; almost as if she thinks Scott will be on the other end of the line.
‘Hello,’ she says tentatively.
‘Helen,’ a familiar voice says.
She sits upright.
‘Charlie… is that you?’
&nbs
p; ‘Yes, Helen. Listen… we’ve just had a phone call made to the station a couple minutes ago. I thought the right thing to do was to ring you as soon as I heard.’
23:50
Ciara
Ingrid tilts my head up so she can look at my face. I think she felt one of my tears when she was running her fingers through my hair. I smile up at her, then shift to sit more upright, resting my ear on to her shoulder. Neither of us says anything; we just stare out the front window.
I wonder what she’s thinking about. Probably her parents and Sven. Why wouldn’t she? She’s going to miss them. And they’re going to miss her. They’re worth thinking about. Not like my family. I’m not going to miss one thing about my parents. I know they’re the reason my head is so messed up. They shouldn’t have had me. They clearly didn’t want me. That’s why I’m depressed. It’s why my mam sits at the kitchen island every evening drinking wine and why my dad never comes home. None of us like being with each other. All of us are trying to escape in some way; him by working as much as he can, her by getting drunk. And me. By dying. At least I have the courage to end it all and get away from my crap life. Not like them. Chickens.
Won’t be long till we get to our stop. Ten minutes or so. I knew it’d be around midnight when we finally did it. Me and Ingrid talked all of this through. It’ll be over in the blink of an eye. No pain. No suffering. Then somebody will find our bodies. They’ll ring the police. The police will ring our parents. There’ll be lots of crying; lots of drama. It’s the thoughts of that drama that drives me to suicide more than anything. They’ll deserve all the pain they’ll feel when they’re told the news.
I let out a sigh, then lift my head off Ingrid’s shoulder and wipe at both of my eyes. I’m really tired. Though it doesn’t matter. I’m almost asleep forever. The whole weight of tiredness that being depressed brings will no longer bother me; the whole stresses in school about being the short fat one will no longer bother me; the pressure of passing exams will no longer bother me; being lonely in my own home will no longer bother me.
The Tick-Tock Trilogy Box Set Page 72
