The Mystery of Mercy Close

by Marian Keyes

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Artie, let’s get a couple of things straight. You’re not my type.’

  A mask of polite enquiry settled on his face. ‘And what is your type?’

  Instantly I thought of Jay Parker, his energy, his fizz, his fundamental untrustworthiness.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I said. ‘All that matters is that you’re not it. And I don’t like the baggage you come with. However, on the plus side –’ I listed the different options on my fingers – ‘A) I really fancy you. B) I really fancy you.’

  He looked at me for a long moment. ‘You’re forgetting C.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Which is, I really fancy you.’ We locked eyes. ‘I really, really fancy you,’ he repeated. In a low voice he said, ‘I’ve thought of nothing else since I met you. All I want is to be with you, to take off your clothes, to taste your skin, to touch your hair, to kiss your beautiful mouth.’

  Suddenly I was finding it difficult to breathe.

  I swallowed hard. ‘I’m rescinding my rule,’ I said. ‘About not sleeping with someone on the second date.’

  Artie stretched out his arm into the space between the tables and, as if he’d conjured someone out of thin air, a waiter materialized behind him and took away the credit card that had magically appeared in Artie’s hand.

  Within seconds the waiter was back with the payment machine and Artie keyed in a few numbers, and then we were on our feet and he was helping me into my swingy charity-shop coat and we were walking very, very quickly, almost running, back to the car.

  Before we got there, he grabbed me and pulled me into a doorway and began to kiss me and I kissed him back, then I had to push him away. ‘No.’

  We couldn’t have sex right there on the street and that’s what would happen if we didn’t stop. ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘Be strong. Get me to some sort of bed.’

  He drove and we didn’t speak. There was nothing to say. It was almost horrible, as tense as a car journey ferrying a critically ill person to a hospital. Everything slowing our progress, every red light, every dithery driver in front of us, was agonizing.

  He took me to his house. And the beauty of him combined with the beauty of his home sent me into some sort of overwhelm, in which I could barely remember anything, except that it was one of the nicest nights of my life.

  The following morning he woke me while it was still dark outside. He was already dressed. Dreamily I asked, ‘Do I have to hop it now? Before your kids come back?’

  ‘No. I have to go to work. I’m sorry, I tried to change some meetings, so we could have time together this morning, but it wasn’t possible. But you can stay as long as you like, just pull the front door behind you when you go. I’ve made you pancakes.’

  ‘Pancakes?’ I said faintly. How peculiar.

  ‘And I’ve something for you.’

  ‘Oooh, lovely.’ Naturally enough, I was expecting an erect penis, but it was actually a pot plant. A dark-green aspidistra, almost black. Borderline sinister.

  I sat up in the bed and stared at it. It was amazing.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘I … Christ, I don’t know what to say. I love it.’

  ‘I chose it myself.’ He was keen to tell me. ‘Bella didn’t help. I thought it would fit in, in your apartment.’

  ‘You’re right. It will. It does. It’s utterly perfect.’

  It was how I’d known, despite all the impediments – to wit, his demanding job and his three children – that he ‘got’ me, that perhaps he and I might go the distance.

  So I went back to sleep and when I woke it was daylight and I floated around the glassy wonderland of a house, doing forensic snooping.

  As you might expect, I was very curious about Vonnie, and the fact that she was responsible for this wonderful home only made me more hungry for information. There were a few pictures of her dotted here and there and she was a stunner. You only had to look at her to know that she was one of those women who will always be skinny, skinnier even than her fifteen-year-old daughter, without having to make any effort. She favoured a boho chic look, dressing in shrunken little cheesecloth tops, no bra, faded jeans and flip-flops. Then I saw a picture of her dressed up in a Vivienne Westwood suit and Paloma Picasso-red lipstick and she looked so fabulous I had to swallow hard to tamp down the fear.

  But it was the pictures of Iona that I was really interested in. I picked up photos and stared at her long floaty hair and her beautiful vague eyes and tried to mentally psych her out. I am stronger than you, I thought, scrunching up my face with intensity. You don’t scare me. You won’t scare me.

  31

  Mum insists on calling SatNav ‘the Talking Map’, like she’s a medieval peasant who believes in witchcraft. And a good job I had it because on the old-fashioned, non-talking, paper map there was no road where Docker’s house was supposed to be. The lake was there all right, you could see that, but no road. I suspected that even with the help of the devilish Talking Map, Docker’s Leitrim house was going to be hard to find. It would be an excellent place to hide out.

  We’d been driving a good half-hour before I told Jay Parker where we were going. There was no reason for the delay. I suppose I just wanted to be cruel and, all credit to him, he didn’t torment me with questions, just sat and played angry birds on his phone.

  Eventually I said, ‘We’re going to Leitrim.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Docker has a house there.’

  Suddenly he was sitting up straighter. ‘What’s this Docker thing?’

  ‘I found some documentation. There’s a connection between Docker and Wayne. Has been since “Windmill Girl”.’ I was battling between the need to stay mysterious and the desire to show off.

  Jay was trying to contain his excitement but it was filling the car. ‘How did you find out that Docker has a house down there?’

  ‘You don’t need to know.’ It didn’t exactly make me seem like a super-sleuth if I told him that my own mother read about it in Hello!.

  ‘Where exactly is it?’

  ‘Take a look at the map there.’

  Jay pored over the paper map and when he saw how remote Docker’s house was, he said, ‘Wayne’s there. Game over. We’ve found him. I knew you were on to something big … Christ, you’re good.’

  ‘Why didn’t you want me to tell John Joseph?’

  ‘I did want you to tell him –’

  ‘You lying article!’

  ‘– just not yet.’

  ‘But you and he are on the same side?’

  ‘Oh yeah, for sure.’

  His tone was a bit off, it was a little too try-hard, and suddenly I realized something. ‘God, you don’t like him!’

  ‘Ah, come on, Helen. You can’t say that. There’s a lot to admire. He’s hard-working, a great businessman … he’s very focused.’

  ‘That’s right.’ I took my eyes off the road to flick Parker a scathing glance. ‘He’s very focused.’ I made it sound like a dreadful slur. ‘Okay, shut up now. I’m turning on the radio.’

  ‘Still listening to Newstalk?’

  ‘Don’t say “still” like you know me.’

  But I was ‘still’ listening to Newstalk. I liked every programme on Newstalk; I felt like the presenters were my friends.

  Jay went back to his angry birds and I listened to Off the Ball, but somewhere around the Longford–Leitrim border the roads got narrower and we lost Newstalk. I did some frequency flicking and managed to pick up some local station, which, in its low-key, parochial way, I found comforting.

  By ten o’clock we were on the far side of Carrick-on-Shannon and the landscape became increasingly phantasmagorical. Pewtery lakes appeared with startling suddenness. Pools of glassy water, spiked with reeds, leaked from the ground. Drowned fields, quivering with stillness, stalked the road and the never-setting sun cast the entire county in an awful lavender light.

  I’ve heard people say that having
depression is like being hounded by a big black dog. Or like being encased in glass. It was different for me. I felt more like I’d been poisoned. Like my brain was squirting out dirty brown toxins, polluting everything – my vision and my taste buds and most of all my thoughts.

  In that first awful bout two and a half years ago I felt afraid all the time. Mostly nameless fears, just a terrible sense of impending catastrophe. It was like having the worst hangover ever. It was like the day after a big night when the fear is at its worst. But at least with a hangover you can swear off the vodka martinis, indeed all alcohol, and you know that if you wait it out it’ll pass. Also, you know you can blame it on the chemicals. You know that it’s not your fault.

  One night, during the last time, I’d tried to erase the horror by getting really, really, really drunk, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t get lift-off, I couldn’t escape the blackness, and the next morning was the worst of my life. I felt that, overnight, I’d dropped about a thousand floors below the surface. Bad as things had been before then, I hadn’t imagined that I could ever feel so appalling. It’s just a hangover, I told myself. Hold on for a day or so and it’ll go, like all hangovers, and you’ll go back to feeling normal terror, not this catastrophic stuff.

  But it didn’t pass. I stayed a thousand levels down. And after that I was afraid of getting drunk.

  I clutched my steering wheel and prayed I wasn’t going back into the hell. I was dreading all that came with it: the medications that didn’t work, the weight gain, the constant thoughts of suicide, the yoga classes. Worse than the yoga classes, the fool blokes you got in the yoga classes, with their drawstring linen pants and talk of their ‘heart centres’ …

  It was around then that we lost the local radio. We drove in silence until talking to Parker became less unpleasant than staying with my own thoughts.

  ‘What have you been doing for the past year?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  I made a scoffing noise. It was impossible for Jay Parker to do nothing; it was always go, go, go. Spending time with him was like being on a roller coaster – exciting maybe, but after a while you start to feel sick.

  ‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘I’ve done nothing. I didn’t get out of bed for a month.’ He stared out at the empty landscape. ‘I was destroyed. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t work for nine months. This job with Laddz is the first thing I’ve done.’

  Well, he needn’t expect any pity from me.

  I returned to the subject that was still needling me. ‘Why didn’t you want me to tell John Joseph about Docker? What are you up to?’

  ‘Nothing. I was just being … you know … childish. I wanted to know something that other people didn’t. Just for a while.’

  ‘You’re up to something,’ I said. ‘Some sideline. You forget I know you. You’re always scheming and looking for the angle on things.’

  ‘I’m not. I’m different now.’ He grabbed my hand and forced me to look at him. His eyes were dark and sincere. ‘I am, Helen. I’m different.’

  Angrily I shook him off. ‘Do you want me to crash the fucking car?’

  A building loomed at us out of the ghostly countryside. ‘Is that a garage?’ I asked. ‘I need some Diet Coke.’

  But the garage was closed. It looked like it had been closed for years. Since the 1950s. Peeling paint and faded reds and an appalling air of abandonment.

  I got out of the car anyway. I needed to make a phone call without Jay Parker breathing down my neck. I had involved Harry Gilliam in this thing and now that I was convinced Wayne had gone to ground voluntarily, I’d better call him off.

  Harry picked up on the third ring. There was so much clucking and squawking in the background I could barely hear him say hello.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt your charity cockfight,’ I said.

  ‘What is it, Helen?’

  ‘That matter I discussed with you. I no longer need it looked into.’

  A long, cluck-filled silence followed.

  Eventually he said, ‘You found your friend?’

  ‘Not exactly, not yet. But I no longer believe his disappearance to be … a concern.’

  More silence. More clucks. I don’t know how he managed to convey such menace.

  ‘I’ve already expended some resources on the task,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m very sorry.’

  ‘You be careful, Helen.’

  ‘Are you threatening me? Or is this a genuine warning? I’m not too good on subtext at the moment.’

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘My hen is on.’

  A crescendo of clucks reached me, then abruptly the line went dead.

  I stared at the phone for a very, very long time, then I made myself move. A voicemail had come in. It was from Mum and there was something weird in her tone.

  ‘Myself and Margaret, we’ve finished unpacking for you.’ With awful clarity, I realized what the something weird was – she’d found the photos. ‘We found some nudey pictures of Artie.’ Her words were a little strangled. ‘I see now …’ She forced herself to continue. ‘I see now what you see in him.’

  Jesus Christ. Jesus Jesus Christ. Jesus Jesus Jesus Christ. What had she done with them? Torn them up? Discreetly rewrapped them in my underwear? Or carefully inserted one in a floral Aynsley frame and put it on the polished oval table with the photos of her grandchildren?

  You could never tell with that woman. Sometimes she marauded, breathing fire, taking the moral high ground, but other times she liked to think of herself as down with the kids.

  Either way, I could never go back to that house. Never.

  ‘Come on,’ I said to Jay Parker. ‘Get in the car.’

  We kept on driving and eventually darkness fell and the Talking Map led us further and further into strange, wild country. This was taking a very long time, much longer than the couple of hours I’d anticipated.

  We drove along tiny twisty roads, along sharp upsetting turns and into grassy boreens that petered away into lakeside sand.

  Twice I had to turn the car round and retrace our path, peering into the bare lightless landscape, searching for some hidden turn that I must have missed. Darkness spread for miles around us in every direction and I began to feel like Jay Parker and I were the last people on earth.

  Hopelessness was starting to get a grip on me, when all of a sudden the Talking Map said, ‘You have reached your destination.’

  ‘Have we?’ I said in surprise.

  I hit the brakes, reversed a few speedy, squealy metres, then hit the brakes again. The car headlamps lit up a pair of gates, intimidatingly solid, at least three metres high. They were set into a high, unfriendly wall and although I couldn’t see much in the darkness, what I could see looked very professional, very private.

  I jumped out of the car, Jay hot on my heels, and tried to push the gates open. But to my frustration they were sealed tight and smooth. There was no give in them at all; clearly they were locked electronically rather than manually.

  Wildly, I twisted and turned, desperate to see something to help me. To be this close to finding Wayne … I had to get in.

  Right. There was an intercom set into the wall. I reached towards it and recoiled away from it simultaneously. I was so excited, but nervous too. I didn’t want to fuck this up.

  I looked at Jay. In the orangey glow of the headlamps his face was showing the same mix of triumph and anxiety I was feeling.

  He nodded at the intercom. ‘Should we … you know … press it?’

  My head was racing. Did we need the element of surprise? If Wayne knew Jay was here would he do a legger and hide up to his neck in the lake until we’d gone?

  Probably not, I decided. It wasn’t as if he was a criminal on the run.

  ‘Press it,’ I said. ‘See what happens.’

  ‘You do it,’ Jay said. ‘I don’t want to.’

  Funnily enough, I didn’t want to either. I was exhilarated and anxious and finding this all very
unsettling, but it wasn’t illegal to ring a bell, so I pressed the button and held my breath, listening hard, wondering whose voice would speak. Wayne’s? Gloria’s?

  Above my head there was a whirring noise and quickly I looked up. A camera was moving and positioning itself to get a good look at me. ‘Christ!’ It was really creepy.

  ‘Is someone in there?’ Jay sounded panicked, or maybe excited. ‘Looking at us?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe it’s an automatic device, triggered by pressing the button.’

  I stepped back out of the range of the camera and Jay and I waited in anticipatory silence, hoping the intercom would crackle into life.

  Nothing happened. Not yet.

  ‘Try it again,’ Jay said.

  So I stepped forward and pressed the button and once again the camera whirred into life, twisting and turning above me. That made it more likely that it was just sensor-triggered, rather than operated by a human being. I didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing.

  Still the gates didn’t open and no one spoke to us, and after a while I rang the bell again. I gave it four or five more good goes, proper long presses, but no response.

  ‘If someone’s in there,’ I said. ‘I don’t think they’re going to let us in.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ Jay asked.

  Well. I had a little electronic gadget. It might open the gates. But it might not. I didn’t understand electronics. All I knew is that sometimes my little device opened electronic gates and sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes it seized the gates completely, so that nothing, not codes, not buttons in the house, would open them, and a man had to come and completely reprogram the whole system.

  If that happened here, we’d just have to go over the wall.

  I got my little device out of my bag and held it against where I thought the lock might be, then pressed the button and – to my great relief – the gates began to smoothly and silently part.

  We got back in the car and quickly drove in. A concentration-camp-style lamp was sensor-activated by our approach, nearly blinding us. And then, before us, was the house.