by Jackie Walsh
‘Is there a problem?’ she says, noticing my delay.
‘No, I just don’t need to pee yet.’ I look up at the vent. I should not have done that because then she looks up at the vent. I have confirmed her suspicions.
‘It’s not there,’ she says.
‘What… what’s not there?’ My throat is so dry my voice cracks.
‘This.’
Catherine holds up the Ziploc bag that I had hidden in the vent. Out of nowhere a strange feeling cascades through me. Like someone has pulled a plug and drained all the fear out of me. I don’t care that I’ve been caught. It’s almost a relief.
I look down, scuffing my foot backwards and forwards across the cold tiled floor before lifting my head.
‘Yes. It’s mine. I did that.’
The next breath to enter my body is slow and deep and brings with it a sense of peace.
* * *
The following two hours are touch and go. There’s a meeting between Fionn and Catherine and Margaret, the head coordinator of the facility. I was called in to make my appeal to be allowed to remain at the clinic. I said very little. I was sorry. I wouldn’t do it again. I was ready to commit to the programme. I didn’t think I held much power over their decision so I didn’t say anything else.
Fionn requests a one-on-one session with me and they agree. We talk. I tell him what has happened with Andriu. Which made me hate Tara and my life. I even tell him about the threatening text I received the week after Tara’s mam died. We talk for over an hour.
It feels good. For the first time I am communicating for real. Not interpreting my life but seeing it for what it is and accepting what has happened. I don’t want to soak in my past any longer. I want to stop drinking, to be a doctor again. I tell Fionn I am ready to commit if they’ll still have me. That is the easy bit.
The hard bit goes on behind the door while I wait outside. It doesn’t take too long though. Fionn must have recognized my epiphany wasn’t fake because after about twenty minutes I am called back into the room. The decision is made. I will be given one more chance. And one more chance is all I need to get my life back.
Chapter Fifty-Six
A few hours later I’m summoned to the same room but this time Detective Lee is sitting on a chair at the far side of the room when I step inside. She points to the sofa opposite for me to sit down. Today she’s wearing her hair differently. It’s rolled up at the back of her head but her face is still framed in red wispy stray bits. She’s wearing dark trousers, a big woolly jumper with what looks like a snowflake pattern across the front of it and a rain jacket which she removes when I enter the room.
Scratching my arms through my long sleeved T-shirt, I sit down, thinking that the heat in this room is going to roast her. Detective Mullins, her partner, is sitting on a low stool beside her. He shifts awkwardly because his legs are far too long for the stool and his knees are almost reaching his face. He looks like her elf.
After a few more unsuccessful moves to make the stool work he must realise how stupid he looks because he stands up. Then walks to the wall where he takes out his notebook. Mullins rests his foot up against the wall behind him.
When I see him do that, it reminds me of the day I met Tara. How she copied me when I had my foot up resting against the wall. I swallow. My heart sinks when I consider the damage I’ve done. How could I have thought that badly of Tara, believing that she would sleep with my boyfriend? Why didn’t I have faith in our friendship? I should have at least asked her if it was true but I was so upset and with Andriu gone I decided to hate her instead.
What must she have thought? I left her when she needed me most. Walked out on her the same week she buried her mam. Andriu was gone. I was in pain, confused and I wanted her to be too.
‘Faye, thank you for agreeing to meet with us again. I know it’s not ideal…’
The detective glances around the meeting room, which is the one I usually have my sessions with Fionn in. She speaks softly, acknowledging my situation, believing me to be weaker than her usual subjects because I’m in here. The detective is wrong. I’m stronger.
I stare directly at her, letting her know she can stop the crap talk and get on with it.
‘Something has come to light, Faye and we thought maybe you’d be able to help us.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘As you know, we are investigating the murder of Avril Ryan at Huntley Lodge sometime after the eighth of September 2016, when you were a resident there.’
‘Yes,’ I nod.
‘Have you remembered anything you want to tell us?’
‘No.’
‘The “Cabhrui” website, maybe?’ She holds my stare.
‘Sorry?’
‘“Cabhrui”, a website that helps people who want to end their own life.’
‘What about it?’ My heart is hammering on the wall of my chest but I’m so good at lying now, I can easily disguise my shock. ‘Never heard of it,’ I say, following my comment, as all good liars do, with a bit of embellishment: ‘Is there really a website that does that? I thought that was illegal in this country.’
‘It is, Faye, but that’s not what we’re interested in. We’re here because the site was run by Avril Ryan. It’s possible someone knew she was running it and was blackmailing her.’
‘Or she was blackmailing someone who used it,’ Mullins adds.
Inside, I’m wilting. Is this true? Could Tara have got into trouble with the woman? Was Avril Ryan trying to blackmail her? My eyes are still focused on Detective Lee. Shaking my head from side to side, I put a calm expression on my face and tell her I know nothing about the website. Then she mentions Tara and it takes all my strength not to punch her in the face to shut her up.
‘You don’t see Tara Moore anymore, she tells me.’
‘No, we went our separate ways… boyfriend trouble.’ It’s the first thing I can think of.
‘Oh? She never mentioned that.’
‘She doesn’t know. I did something I wasn’t proud of and I found it hard to hang with her after that.’
Detective Lee frowns.
‘Oh. It’s nothing illegal,’ I chuckle. ‘I was young… stupid.’
Detective Lee isn’t impressed by the lack of interest I’m showing. She’s staring me down. Trying to make me think she can see through my lies. But she’s wasting her time.
‘Okay,’ she finally says.
‘Is that it?’ I say, about to stand.
‘No, there is one last thing.’
Mullins moves his foot off the wall and stands forward. He pushes his steel-framed glasses up on his nose. I get the feeling Lee is about to reveal the real reason she called here today.
‘You received a text, Faye, around the time Avril went missing. Avril Ryan sent it to you. Can you tell me about that?’ She shifts forward in her chair.
Breathe, Faye. Keep your eye on her and slow down your breathing. Don’t let her see how rattled you are.
‘I receive hundreds of texts, any text in particular?’
Lee looks over at Mullins. He looks back at her, shrugs his shoulders then looks at me. The mood in the room has shifted. I’m now under attack.
Detective Lee is waiting for me to say something. She pulls her chair forward a bit as if getting closer to me is going to make me talk. Maybe she thinks she’s putting me under pressure. She’s wrong. I know pressure. This is not pressure.
‘No, I don’t remember getting any text from Avril Ryan,’ I say.
‘Well, I have the transcript here, the text was sent to your number.’ She recites my phone number. ‘That is your number, isn’t it? And it was your number three years ago because I checked.’
I’m doing my best not to show how panicked I am beneath my confident demeanour. The truth is, I feel like throwing up on the spot. Is it possible Avril Ryan was planning to blackmail me? She’s the one who sent that text. Did Tara get one too? Oh my God, did Tara kill her?
Clenching my hands into fists, tryin
g to stop them from shaking, I watch as Lee opens up the file Mullins hands her. She glances at me, then reads the text message out loud.
‘I need to speak to you urgently, yourself and your friend are in danger, please ring me back at this number as soon as you can and don’t speak to anyone until I see you.’
Lee closes the file marked ‘Avril Ryan’. She hands the file to Mullins and turns her attention back to me.
My mind is somersaulting. Should I say something now? Should I say I never received that message? That the text I received simply said, ‘I can destroy you’.
Once again I drag strength from the air around me. Breathing deeply, I calm my mind and tell myself not to say anything until I speak to Tara.
‘Honestly… I did not see that text.’
‘But you texted her back.’ The detective’s eyes are open wide like two spotlights shining on me.
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Yes, you did. I have the transcript here, right in front of me.’ She takes the file from Mullins again and opens it up, looking at the page before glancing back at me. She must see how shocked I am, the blood draining from my face. Surely she’s questioning if I am in fact telling the truth.
‘It’s from your number, Faye. You arranged to meet Avril Ryan at Huntley Lodge.’
My mouth is gaping open. This can’t be true. What is going on? My vision blurs. I rub my eyes.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I didn’t! I never sent Avril Ryan a message.’
Did I? Lots of things in my past are vague but surely I’d remember that. I look at Mullins then back to Lee.
‘I didn’t arrange to meet Avril Ryan. I never saw that woman in my life. I never saw that text message either.’
Chapter Fifty-Seven
‘Faye… Faye…’ someone is pushing my shoulder. I open my eyes and see Aoife standing there. Her soft blue eyes are open wide and staring down at me.
‘What happened? Are you alright?’ she says, sitting on her bed opposite me. ‘I saw her in there, but it was too late to do anything.’
‘What?’ I open my eyes fully and sit up in the bed. ‘You saw who?’ My head is still muzzy and my mouth dry. I lift a bottle of water from my bedside cabinet and empty it in one go. It’s like a cold shower washing through my body, making me more alert. I’m in my room. Aoife is talking to me. Oh fuck, the cops were here. I close my eyes again and rest my head back down on the pillow.
‘You should have told me, Faye. I could have said it was mine but it all happened so quickly, I…’
What is she talking about?
‘Or I could have given a sample for you. I could have left it in the bag early Monday morning before you came back and then they wouldn’t have discovered it was stale urine.’
Oh Christ, she’s talking about the urine sample. Aoife isn’t aware that my tragic story of trouble and strife has moved onto the next chapter. What I wouldn’t give for a bag of pee to be my problem now.
‘It’s okay Aoife, it doesn’t matter now.’
‘But I would have,’ she says.
It strikes me as funny how open to deception people in here are willing to be.
‘Well, you would have been wrong, Aoife, believe you me. Take my advice. I’m learning the hard way. Toe the line in here, Aoife, get it over with as soon as you can. I’m back to the start now, no privileges, not even my phone.’
Aoife jumps off the bed and pulls her phone from under the mattress.
‘Look,’ she says, holding it close to her chest, grinning from ear to ear.
‘Congratulations,’ I say, wishing she’d go away and leave me alone. I’m so confused. I need time to think.
The detectives finally left after telling me they’d be back in touch soon. Detective Lee said I was to go nowhere and was only short of laughing when she looked around the room, highlighting where I was, as if to say I shouldn’t find that request too hard to keep. I didn’t care. I had too much to worry about for her bitchiness to be a problem.
I still can’t get my head around what she said. Is she lying? Is she even allowed to lie? Was I supposed to jump up and contradict her, tell her what was really in the text and reveal that Avril Ryan was in touch with me? If that was her plan, it failed.
I kept my mouth shut. The only thing I uttered to her after that was to tell her that if she planned to keep harassing me while I was at such a delicate crossroads in my life, I would be getting a solicitor. I didn’t like her response, which was to recommend I did so. Now I have to make a phone call to my father and tell him what’s going on. Ask him to get me a solicitor. If this doesn’t kill him off, I don’t know what will.
Aoife has skipped out of the room, leaving me alone. Thankfully, I have a session with Fionn first thing in the morning. He’ll tell me what to do. What to do about Tara. Should I call and tell her what happened with the detectives? She did say to contact her if they were back on to me but it’s just a few days to the wedding. I don’t want to ruin that too.
I’m looking at the ceiling, doubting everything in my head. What if I did have something to do with Avril Ryan’s death and I blanked it out? That can happen with alcoholics. They have special erasers inside their head to help them rub out parts of their past that are too difficult to live with. Is that what happened to me?
No, it isn’t. I know exactly what happened back then. It was the most painful time of my life and instead of erasing it like I should have, I relived it every day, allowing it to destroy me… and now I find out it wasn’t the truth.
Turning my head around I put my face into the pillow to soak up the tears and the sound of pain seeping from my body. Did Tara get into trouble when I left her? I don’t want to think about it. Am I going to be arrested for something I didn’t do? I don’t want to think about that. Are my mam and dad going to live the rest of their lives sad because of me? I definitely don’t want to go there. There is only one thing I need to think about. How do I fix all this?
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Tara
In three days’ time I’ll be married. I’ll be Mrs Tara Jones, and this makes me happy.
This morning I packed a lot of the clothes I’m taking to Australia with me. Summer dresses, bikinis. I put the winter stuff in bags for the charity shop. I thought I’d be sad pulling out all those memories from the wardrobe, but I wasn’t. I was elated and it took my mind off the investigation. I imagined myself in my summer clothes lying on the beach or strolling around my house in shorts and a T-shirt and now I can’t wait to get there. Lucas has decided to leave most of his stuff behind him. He says he’ll have no need for it when he gets home.
My father rang earlier asking if there was anything I needed him to do. There wasn’t. He said he had his speech ready and was really looking forward to the wedding. It was good to hear him so upbeat.
It’s just a waiting game now. Everything is set to go, thanks to Amy and her hard work. She kept a lot of the stress and worry that goes with planning a wedding away from me. I’m not sure how I would have got to this stage without losing a few years off my life if it wasn’t for her, especially with all that has happened.
Lucas is spending his last day at work today. He was sad leaving the apartment this morning. He’ll miss his colleagues, though he hopes to still be dealing with them over the phone and Zoom when he gets to Australia because he has applied to be stationed in the European section of the Melbourne office. Which he’s pretty sure he’ll get. I really hope he enjoys his last drinks with his workmates tonight. They’re giving him a send off and I’m sure for Lucas it will be pretty emotional because he loved working here. He said he hopes his colleagues in the Melbourne office are as great as the people he met in the Dublin office. I hope they are too. I want Lucas to be happy.
I’m disappointed Faye never rang back. I really thought she would. I left two messages because the phone kept going straight to voicemail without even ringing. I hope she hasn’t changed her number or lost her phone. She’s probably just busy but I want her
to know I’m here if she needs to talk about anything. If she’s worried about the investigation.
When Andriu rang late the other night I was surprised. He asked if we could meet up and I told him it was a hectic week for me. Then I felt guilty. Andriu came all the way from London for my wedding and I was brushing him off. So I arranged to see him tonight, here in the apartment at around eight. I hope he doesn’t stay long because I plan on soaking in a bath, putting on my PJs and relaxing in front of the TV for the night. Tomorrow, things are kicking off with the rehearsal at the church, then dinner at my dad’s favourite bistro. This is my last chance to have a quiet night in.
The frost that covered the balcony earlier this morning is beginning to freeze over again. I’m hoping the weather gets a bit warmer by Saturday otherwise we’ll all freeze to death in the church. It’s a big old church and no matter what they throw at it, it never seems to warm up. I was there last week with Amy and the florist and we were all shivering with the cold the whole time.
I step outside onto the balcony. The cold air wraps around my body. Crossing my arms over my chest, I listen to the siren in the distance. Somebody somewhere is in trouble. I think of the detectives. I haven’t heard from them in a couple of days but that means nothing because they could be anywhere, finding out anything, getting ready to pounce. They did say they would leave me alone this week because of the wedding and I hope they keep their word.
When I told Lucas what Sean said about not mentioning the ‘Cabhrui’ website, he said I should follow Sean’s advice. He’s the professional. He knows what he’s doing. But it doesn’t sit well with me, all this deception. Maybe the detectives would lose interest in me if they knew the truth. But what is the truth? What happened to Avril Ryan at Huntley Lodge?
In the background, my phone rings so I hurry inside but I’m too late, I’ve missed a call from Sean. I redial but it goes straight to voicemail. Then my phone beeps. He has left me a voice message.
