The Sleeping Season

by Kelly Creighton

  ‘We’ll get the nursery teachers to give their prints too,’ I said, ‘though I think a certain person might be mortally offended.’

  Linskey nodded. ‘Miss Honey.’

  ‘We have his parents’ prints, don’t we?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Yes, his mother’s and stepfather’s prints we do have,’ I said. ‘Though the boy’s bio-dad hasn’t weighed in yet. We’ll get his prints as soon as and see how they compare.’

  ‘And the dog that was found in the water?’ asked Linskey. ‘Have we had any word on it?’

  ‘I believe it was unchipped when tested,’ Kate said. ‘Unlicensed too. Some people shouldn’t own animals, don’t you think?’

  ‘Some people are animals,’ I said.

  Chapter 12

  ‘It sounds like Zara has a victim complex,’ I said to Linskey as we drove through mid-afternoon traffic on our way to Zara’s doctor’s surgery.

  ‘That’s the worst thing a parent can teach a child – that they’re a victim,’ said Linskey. ‘All we need in life is resilience.’

  I agreed. Thing was, the good, the bad – you started to think you deserved it. Resilience was the thing I’d learned from my parents. It’s why they still went on despite everything.

  ‘Ever see Jason?’ Linskey asked.

  People didn’t mention him much – I certainly didn’t – and her question caught me off guard.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘sometimes.’

  But I hadn’t, not in a while, not standing outside the apartment peering up at my window, like he had done relentlessly for so long. I wanted to brush over it, sweep it into a groove, but Linskey wouldn’t allow it. It was how she got info out of people.

  ‘Where do you see him, Harry?’

  ‘At the gym.’

  ‘Didn’t you get custody of the gym?’

  ‘I thought I did,’ I said, staring out of the passenger window. ‘Anyway, I’m running now.’

  ‘Running away?’

  ‘Am I? From what?’

  ‘Processing things.’

  ‘It’ll be two years come January,’ I said. ‘I’ve had plenty of time to process. That’d be like me asking you if you see Geordie.’

  ‘But Jason only filed for divorce recently, didn’t he? That opens up the scar again.’

  When I’d been considering joining the PSNI, almost the first thing everyone told me was how impossible it would be to hold down any semblance of a love life. They didn’t say it outright. I’d been invited to a talk facilitated by women from different ranks on the service. They each gave their insight into life on the job. The further up the ladder the women had climbed, the more likely they were to be single. But not through choice. They tried to have it all, but something had given way – their marriages, in most cases.

  Maybe it wasn’t an accurate sample group, considering there must have been those who’d given up the job instead. Then I wouldn’t have got to hear their story. But I was also acutely aware that each woman who stood in front of the room, these PSNI women I’d patterned myself on who gave out their name, age, rank and marital status, like Miss Northern Ireland hopefuls, couldn’t have it all.

  I remembered Linskey saying, ‘I’m thirty-five. I’m a constable and I’m married.’ She had gone on to tell us about the path, how she couldn’t see herself doing anything but police work. It was Diane Linskey who convinced me I was doing the right thing. ‘No two days are the same,’ she had said.

  It sounded like everything Father had told me. Exciting and challenging. When I whinged about being on the beat for two years – I wanted to get stuck straight in – he told me how the years were short because the days were long, and he was right.

  Linskey lived for policing ever since her teenaged brother was killed and no one was convicted. She didn’t mind saying this to a full room, but she never mentioned it again after. She had been the only speaker that day who wasn’t separated or divorced. Now we both were. But it wasn’t my career that broke my marriage.

  ‘How was Jason?’ Linskey asked. ‘Do you talk? Does he act civil … at the gym?’

  ‘At the gym, he does. Yes,’ I replied. ‘Whatever civil is!’ I only said it because I couldn’t bear to get into it.

  ‘Start using the gym in work,’ Linskey told me. ‘He’ll think you’re trying to bump into him.’

  ‘Told you, I’m starting to run again. Out in the open.’

  ‘I think you need to talk it out with him.’

  ‘I don’t want him back, Diane. I never want him back.’

  ‘I know …’ she started.

  ‘Then what’s the point?’ I snapped, angry at Linskey for pushing it.

  I’d never understood the violence of some people’s love. A kid born as the result of a one-night stand is a Love Child; a strangulation victim is usually caught up in what we call a Crime of Passion. I’d always hated those juxtapositions. Love, to me, was always about acceptance. But habits are made, and broken, in ninety days.

  Three months into my relationship with Jason, I saw that he was a man with strong values. I saw that love doesn’t always turn a blind eye or plod happily along. I saw that he loved with vehement conviction.

  Jason was charming. Everybody loved him. He had red hair, pale milky skin, hazel eyes and a wide mouth that was always smiling. Jason was giddy in my presence for the first while. It was all-consuming. But for quite some time, since we’d started trying, the sex hadn’t been considerate. Three years of trying for a child. Yes, I could have just said no. I did, in a way. He could smile all he wanted, he could charm people as much as he liked, but he couldn’t have everything his own way. And I just wished Linskey would drop it.

  At the doctor’s surgery, we got out of the car and went inside, overtaking a man and woman on mobility scooters with rain covers. With a look on her face that angered me even more, the receptionist told us that Dr Lancaster had patients to see.

  ‘What do you want to see her about anyway?’ she asked, a line of patients looking us up and down for jumping the queue.

  ‘Dr Lancaster told me on the phone that she could see us now for a few minutes,’ said Linskey. ‘I believe it won’t eat into anyone’s time but hers.’

  I heard a tut in the queue that seemed to come from a brash blonde woman who wore her handbag across her chest, like milkmen once wore their money bags. She was wearing three quarter length trousers and a powder-blue ‘Help for Heroes’ hoodie. I gave her the look that made me the Bad Cop out of Linskey and me.

  ‘Well,’ said the receptionist, ‘she didn’t tell me about it.’

  ‘Rita,’ said Linskey, looking at her name badge. ‘Would you give her a wee call and tell her we’re here?’

  I knew how this would go, that Rita would pout and do it. But I was angry.

  ‘Rita,’ I said, ‘you look really familiar. Have I ever arrested you?’

  ‘No, you have not,’ she said, her skin reddening in a scarf around her neck. She lifted the phone and told us to go to Room 4, round to the right. Dr Lancaster was free. I bit my smile down as we walked off.

  ‘Naughty, naughty,’ Linskey whispered.

  Dr Lancaster had the notes ready: the Epilim, the request for sleeping medication, which she had advised Zara to hold off on until they could get to the root of the problem.

  ‘So River has got epilepsy?’ I asked straight up; I’d no intention of keeping her back from her patients.

  ‘River spent a few nights in the sleep clinic and sure enough, he displayed abnormal brain patterns on his EEG,’ the doctor told us.

  ‘What about ADHD?’

  Dr Lancaster hesitated.

  ‘Do you think it’s a proper disorder?’ I asked. I remembered Charlotte saying it should be called D.A.D. instead because kids with the disorder were usually lacking a father figure in their lives.

  ‘Yes, it’s real,’ the doctor said, ‘but there are a lot of misdiagnoses about. There’s this fashion – has been for a while – to label and not try to find the root cause. I w
as happy to send River to get a proper examination from a team of multi-disciplinary professionals.’

  ‘Did they detect ADHD?’

  ‘He was identified as having the symptoms, yes. They’re planning a review in a couple of months’ time, and there’s the possibility he may start some sort of behaviour-modifying medication.’

  ‘And would that be okay to take with Epilim?’ I asked.

  I could feel Linskey looking at me. Other than methods of contraception, I used to know nothing about medication. Then Mother’s condition surfaced. I learned even more when Charlotte’s youngest son Timothy was born. I thought about Raymond calling himself an expert in epilepsy. I felt like an expert in disability – in long, lingering, in-your-face disability – and I was going to advocate on River’s behalf, for River and his hidden disorders.

  ‘We were cutting his dosage – five millilitres to two millilitres,’ said Dr Lancaster. ‘Which could definitely explain the hyperactivity. A lot of change – an adjustment stage.’

  ‘What if he stopped taking it altogether?’

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend it.’

  ‘And Zara isn’t pregnant, is that right?’

  Dr Lancaster brought up her notes. ‘Not that I know of. Zara hasn’t been to us for a test, that’s all I can say.’

  Linskey gave her the smile that usually wrapped up our meetings.

  ‘There was an incident,’ said the doctor.

  Linskey sat forward and her smile slipped away.

  ‘Two years ago was the last time I saw Zara for herself. I prescribed Diazepam for her nerves. It was a temporary measure.’

  ‘Can we ask why?’

  ‘A neighbour brought River home once from pulling the flowers out of their flowerbed, Mrs Reede explained to me. The neighbour, a man I think it was, dragged River by the scruff of his neck the whole way home to tell her what had happened. She hadn’t even realised River was out of the house. Mrs Reede was terribly upset. She was crying, said she got into an altercation with him.’

  ‘So she got put on medication for this, for her nerves,’ I said.

  ‘There was a house move, a split from her partner and it was the pre-diagnosis time of her boy,’ Dr Lancaster said impatiently.

  ‘I think she’s only lived in the house eighteen months,’ I said.

  ‘There were two moves,’ the doctor corrected me. ‘One after her separation and another when she moved in with Mr Marsh.’

  ‘You know Raymond?’

  ‘I’m his GP too.’

  ‘And Zara is his partner?’

  ‘She’s his carer.’

  ‘What does this mean?’

  ‘What I will say is that Raymond has been a calming influence on River, to my mind. Although … there is something.’ Dr Lancaster read from her computer screen. ‘While in Raymond’s care – Zara was out at a meeting – Raymond took River to the hospital with burns on his torso and legs from pouring a scalding cup of tea over himself. The boy spent two days in hospital. A skin graft wasn’t deemed necessary in the end.’ The doctor looked at us before turning back to the screen, the cursor flashing to one side.

  ‘Age stood him in good stead. The surgeon at the Royal decided that River’s skin would repair itself fully. There’s just the trace of a scar now on his outer thigh.’ With one finger, she traced a small semi-circle on her own leg. ‘River came to me for aftercare.’

  I thought about the meeting Zara had been at. I’d gathered she was a homemaker, an at-home mum. Zara wasn’t a ‘meeting’ type of woman.

  ‘So what we have is an incident and that Zara has been struggling,’ I said.

  ‘An accident, I’d guess,’ said Dr Lancaster. ‘I will say this for Zara, she never asked for any more Diazepam after that batch. She said it spaced her out and she couldn’t take it. A lot of breastfeeding mums don’t like to take medication.’

  ‘Was she still nursing? River would have been – what – two?’

  ‘Absolutely. Yes.’ Dr Lancaster smiled, showing a dead tooth. ‘Zara has never requested antidepressants, which is unusual in the mothers of children like River. The statistics aren’t good for the parents of children with special educational needs either. And the divorce rate is high. Eighty per cent.’

  ‘But Zara’s still married to Shane Reede, isn’t she?’ I asked.

  ‘Separated.’

  ‘But we were under the impression that the separation happened pre-ADHD, or at least before anyone had suspicions that the condition might be present.’

  ‘Some relationships fold without extra pressure,’ Dr Lancaster said. ‘With special needs children, it’s even harder. Now, I need to get back to my patients.’ She rose from her chair. ‘I hope that was a help to you.’

  Chapter 13

  Most theories on crime are devised by people who are not criminals. Hence, more than one hundred calls were made to the case’s designated number to advise us to check this and that. Just theories. There wasn’t one sighting.

  Afternoon and evening linked their shadows together on Tuesday, the day after River disappeared. Chief Dunne gave another statement to the press office in which he stated we were now exploring the possibility that the disappearance was the result of a criminal act. Yet more photos of the child were released and the public thanked for all their efforts to find him.

  Linskey sat across the desk, her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, relaying information from Brian Quinn in forensics.

  ‘No signs of a break-in on the windows and doors. No prints other than the family’s upstairs. No footwear impressions.’ Then her eyes blazed. She nodded, put down the receiver. She asked if I remembered the dressing-gown belt. Vaguely I did.

  ‘It was over the bannister,’ I said.

  ‘That’s right. There were the fibres from it at the end of the bannister, on the wood and on the handle of River’s door, but nowhere else that was checked.’

  ‘They were using it to lock him in his room?’

  ‘Exactly.’ Linskey wet her lips a little. ‘Do you think they were doping him to make him sleep?’ she asked. Taking the lid off her pen she began to write notes as they occurred to her.

  I yawned, massaging my shoulder with one hand. I let my head roll left to right and back, heard the cracking of my neck.

  ‘Could be, and the sink was full of little medicine spoons,’ I said.

  ‘It’s one theory,’ said Linskey.

  I had dismissed the spoons, just like the belt, because in Charlotte’s house the teaspoons always seemed to go missing, like socks, she would say, hovering over the kettle, doing her caffeine dance. I would find these little plastic spoons in the drawer for her instead of silver ones. I would see the older kids with them wedged in their yoghurts. It was like they preferred using them for their novelty.

  ‘Isn’t it weird that Zara isn’t on meds?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t. A mother’s place is in the wrong,’ said Linskey, wrapping clear tape around her fingertip, peeling it off.

  ‘But could Zara have been getting Raymond to get medication for her?’ I said. ‘Could she have been taking his?’

  Linskey didn’t reply; she started writing again. All I could hear was the swish her pen made on the page and the faint beeping of the green man outside, guiding everyone safely across Holywood Road.

  While Linskey was busy with her own thoughts I took a spin to the old petrol forecourt off Ladas Drive. This was RAD Carpets, the sign told me, but the ‘pets’ in ‘Carpets’ had been struck through and ‘parts’ written above it. Blame the illiterate signwriter for that oversight, I thought, or the boss’s thick Belfast accent while giving the order.

  ‘You the woman looking for Shane?’ a man said. I recognised his voice from the phone.

  I asked him his name.

  ‘Depends who’s looking me.’ He winked.

  ‘Detective Inspector Harriet Sloane. Are you Ronnie Dorrian?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Ronnie said. He
was in his sixties, shorter than me, and had sleek strands of hair covering his bald head and a long face with two waxy red cheeks.

  He invited me into the office where a pin-up was tacked to the wall. I had the feeling she was the only person with a vagina who ever graced the room. And what a vagina! It was on full display, the camera looking up at her mortified expression from crotch level. She was in the most uncomfortable position imaginable, her inflated breasts squeezed together by two rake-slim arms, her perfectly manicured hands holding her legs apart so you could see her perfectly manicured bush. Her make-up was garish, her brown hair big and backcombed. The fading colours told me the poster was as old as I was.

  ‘He’s not here,’ Ronnie said, wiping his black oily hands. ‘Shane’s back in Monaghan. He had some emergency to deal with back there yesterday.’

  ‘An emergency bigger than this one?’

  ‘That’s everything he told me,’ Ronnie said. ‘Said he’d tell me everything when he gets back, and he’ll be back first thing this morning. I’m expecting him in anytime now, love. He’s supposed to be working late on that motor over there.’

  ‘Do you know if he’s heard about his son?’

  ‘No. What about him?’ said Ronnie.

  ‘His son River. He’s been missing since yesterday morning. It’s all over the media. A little four-year-old.’

  ‘I don’t pay attention to the news.’ Maybe Ronnie was telling the truth. There was no radio playing, no newspaper lying about. Just CD cases of Neil Diamond. ‘And we’re more colleagues than mates. Maybe he wouldn’t tell me anyway. That’s really personal business.’

  ‘When you’re talking to him next, tell Shane that my colleagues and I would like to speak to him at Strandtown PSNI station.’

  ‘I will do, aye.’ He made to leave the office.

  ‘Did Shane say anything else that you can think of?’

  ‘Oh, I thought you were done, love. Let me think … He did … thinking about the wee boy now … Shane said something about that clampet his ex lives with now.’

  ‘Raymond Marsh? He was talking about Raymond?’

  ‘Aye, that’s him. Marsh.’

  ‘What did he say about Raymond?’