Zara pulled open the freezer door; as discretely as I could I looked inside. There were four items, one thing per shelf: an ice-cube rack, fish fingers, Goodfellas pizzas and bags of veg and rice. It seemed that the cookbooks taking pride of place on the shelf were purely for show, not that I should judge Zara’s eating habits and the low nutritional value in the kitchen on the week her son had disappeared and her partner died. If they were, then maybe the parenting books were as well. There was no breastmilk in this freezer at any rate.
Zara slammed the ice-cube tray against the glass. A couple of blocks clanged on the island. She swept them into the sink.
‘You soon get out of your routine if you aren’t doing it every day,’ she said. ‘It was eight o’clock last night and I thought to myself, that’s two days I’ve missed out on saying prayers with River at bedtime. He’d say, “God bless my nanas and grandpas in heaven, God bless Mummy and Raymond, and God bless Daddy”.’
The front door opened; then the living room door. A man was walking towards us into the kitchen, his face a mess: a sirloin of a bruise on the left cheek, two old scars shortening the ends of his eyebrows.
‘Shane!’ Zara screamed.
She ran at him and he caught her in an embrace.
Linskey and I exchanged looks. Her eyes travelled over Shane. I could tell she was thinking the same thing I was: if anyone had a type, Zara did.
Shane was short with dark brown curly hair, younger than Raymond, bulky too, but more muscular. As far as I could tell, he had two good working legs, though he was broken in many other ways. Zara must have had a desire to love unlovable men.
They were still crushed together until Shane pulled away long enough to cough. It sent tremors through him.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked Zara several times, but she remained in a full-throated fuss in his arms. Shane turned towards us. ‘Are you here for the boy?’ he asked.
He looked hard at me with what seemed like recognition on his face.
Before I could reply Zara said, ‘Raymond died. It was only a few hours ago.’ She started to cry. ‘He keeled over in the bathroom and hit his head on the sink. They’re here to see if I’m okay.’
This wasn’t strictly true; it was always about River. He was our first priority. It would have been nice to leave Zara in Shane’s arms, but the fact was that we were also there for him, seventy-two hours after his son had vanished. Thursday morning and here he was eventually, and he was on his own.
Zara lifted her head from his chest and looked at him. ‘What on earth has happened to you? Where have you been?’
‘I was beaten up,’ he said. ‘Carjacked. Lay unconscious all night.’
‘Oh my God,’ she said.
‘We need to speak to you, Mr Reede,’ said Linskey. ‘We’d like you to come to the station with us now.’
His eyes bulged like headlights. He asked Zara if she was going to be alright again; she told him she would get her neighbour to sit with her once the officers went.
Then we took Shane out of the house in silence out under that sky, cracked with cinder-blue veins, the traffic chanting on Newtownards Road.
Chapter 22
It took Shane a while to warm up. He sat facing us in the interview suite late on Thursday morning, cold and contracting, his eyes focused behind us at some point on the wall. It was three days since Zara opened River’s bedroom door to an empty bed.
Shane claimed to have been carjacked somewhere outside Armagh on his way back from Monaghan. I pushed the unlikely carjacking aside and went straight to his impromptu journey from Belfast to Monaghan.
‘Where in Monaghan?’ I pressed.
He let his shoulders fall from besides his ears and he sat forward. He made a bowl of his hands and let his words fall into it.
‘I was in Carrickmacross, County Monaghan.’
‘How long were you there for?’ asked Linskey.
‘From …’ He squinted, clucked his tongue like he was seeing time wind itself backwards. ‘From Sunday evening until Wednesday afternoon,’ he finally replied.
‘You spent three nights there, is that right?’
‘I did.’ He coughed.
‘Where did you stay?’ asked Linskey. ‘And be specific.’
‘My old house,’ he said.
‘Is there anyone who can vouch for you?’
‘Yes, Cahal. Oul’ Cahal Cleary. He used to own the house.’ The words shot out of Shane’s mouth at a faster rate than the chat in the car on the way.
‘What do you mean by used to,’ asked Linskey. ‘Shane, what do you mean by used to own the house?’
‘He’s given it over for his son, put it in his name.’ Shane eyed me, a look of relief waving over his face.
‘When did you see Cahal Cleary?’ I asked, lunging at him.
‘Yesterday. He told me about River. I still can’t believe it.’ Cough.
‘Why were you in Carrickmacross?’
‘It was my mother.’ He clammed up again.
‘What about her?’
‘She was unwell.’
‘How so?’
‘She had a stroke. Well, she said she did …’
‘Did you tell Mr Cleary this?’
‘No … I said it was a friend.’
‘Cahal is a family friend, is he?’
‘Not a friend of my mum’s, no.’
‘Why not?’
‘He doesn’t know her.’ Shane fell into a surly silence. He scratched his ear, the tip of it black to match the black eye, the busted nose.
‘But Cahal bought the house from your grandmother, isn’t that true?’
‘You were talking to Cleary?’
This bothered me. Why was Shane surprised that we’d gone to his home when his son had gone missing? It bothered me too that maybe Zara hadn’t been lying, that she really didn’t know all the details about his living there, that he’d never explained the housing arrangements in Monaghan to her.
‘Yes, we did. We were there yesterday,’ Linskey said. ‘The house didn’t look like anyone had stayed there for three nights. Where did you eat?’
‘It was only a place to put my head down. I was at Margaret’s.’
‘Margaret?’
‘McGuire. My mother.’
‘And you call your mother by her first name, do you?’
‘She was young when she had me. Gran brought me up. Margaret’s only fifty-one. I was brought up to think she was my sister and the black sheep of the family. I always knew she did something … bad. I didn’t know until I was sixteen when my gran sat me down to tell me that Margaret was my mother. I always knew it, I think. Deep down.’
‘Is she okay? Your mother?’
‘Sorta. She was let home from the hospital. It’s just when you hear the word stroke. I thought, fuck, I better get down there in case something happens, her being my only living relative … except River,’ he quickly interjected, then crossed himself. ‘But when I got down there, she wasn’t even in hospital – never been, said the doctor came in to see her and said it was probably a minor stroke but left her at home.’
‘Do you have an address for your mother?’ Linskey asked.
‘I wouldn’t know what house number, what street. I’m dyslexic that way. I know it to see. It’s a bungalow … with a garage.’
‘I find it strange that you didn’t mention your mother, and that you told Cahal it was a male friend.’
‘Now, I never said male. He must have just assumed, and in a way she is a friend. Margaret never raised me. I don’t owe Cahal any great explanation. He never had time to chat when I was living with my ex …’ He coughed.
‘Zara?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘Bronagh?’
‘Yes, Bronagh.’ Again, Shane looked surprised. He had obviously forgotten how people love to talk. ‘I was in the shop,’ he said, ‘and she came over and introduced herself. She knew it was me. Margaret, I mean. I can’t look at her now after all this time and think that’s my
mum, you know? I hardly remembered her from when I was a lad.’
‘You never went looking for her in all the time since you’d known that your grandmother was not your mother?’
‘I thought she didn’t want me. It turns out she did. It was the seventies. They took me from her and she was sent to a laundry. Sure, there are movies made about that kind of caper now. It was pure awful how they treated them girls.’
‘Yes, it was, but let’s get back to River,’ said Linskey.
Shane’s eyes fell again. ‘I don’t know what to say about River. I can’t believe no one has found him yet. What have you all been doing?’
‘And you had him for the weekend?’
‘I did.’
‘Where did you go with the boy?’
‘Friday evening, we stayed in, ate a pizza, watched a flick. We slept. Saturday … we went for a drive. I wanted to take him bowling, but last time he kept being reckless – wouldn’t use the safety ramp. I didn’t want to send him back to Zara with a broken toe.’
‘What did you do?’
‘We played in the yard – a bit of footie.’
‘How come his coat was found in the playground at Shaw’s Bridge?’
Shane didn’t seem alarmed at this, unlike Zara when we had told her. ‘River had his coat on when I sent him home,’ he said. His voice was ragged.
‘Sent him home?’ I asked.
‘Brought him home.’
‘And did you go inside when you brought him home, Shane?’
‘No, I sat in the car, watched him go in. Raymond waved out the front window to let me know he … to acknowledge me.’
‘You never went to the door?’
‘No, I’ve never been inside that house till there now.’
‘What about River’s medication?’ Linskey asked.
‘What about it?’
‘Did you trust River to bring it back into the house with him?’
‘Zara only sent me enough to last him the weekend. It wasn’t as if he was going to down it on the way in the door. I told you, Raymond was always watching once River got in.’
‘Were you on good terms with Raymond?’
‘Not bad terms anyway. He was a bit of … I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead but he was a woeful fucker – excuse my French. I thought Zara was being desperate taking up with him. It wasn’t a real relationship. She told me they sleep in separate beds. Slept. You know what I mean.’
‘But you’re on good terms with Zara?’
‘Wasn’t always. Not great terms now.’
‘Yet she tells you intimate details of her life with her new partner?’ said Linskey.
I thought the words new partner seemed unfitting about a man who was now safely dead.
‘Zara might have said something when I was keeping her going about him,’ Shane said, ‘when she kept bringing up Bronagh. I got caught up in Bronagh, thought it was easier to give up on River, let him have a different family, but Raymond – he was a waster. I know he was handicapped, but still, he could have done something. He was an accountant before, I think. What does having one leg have to do with number crunching? He was an educated boyo. I’d have been happy for him to play dad if he’d have got his finger out and given the boy a life.’
‘You’ve a strong dislike for Raymond, don’t you, Shane?’
‘No, not at all. He was just a … disappointment,’ he said softly.
‘But you were happy to abandon the boy?’ I said. I was thinking of how Raymond only had Shane’s number because of the barrage of abusive texts Shane had sent him. I had caught a glimpse of them on his phone. All one way, although I guess the other side of the conversation could have been deleted.
‘Fair dos,’ Shane said. He rubbed the left side of his head; it was significantly puffed up compared to the right. That thick red-brown bruise was sore to look at. He started to tell us about how he co-parented with Zara, how, when he saw how useless Raymond was, Shane returned to Belfast.
‘Nothing to do with Bronagh leaving you?’ Linskey asked.
He was about to protest, then shut his mouth. He was probably remembering that Cahal was a bit of a talker when he took the notion.
‘I was alone for months before I came back,’ he told us. ‘So if it was a rebound thing, after Bronagh, then no, you’re grabbing the wrong end.’
‘But you were back in Belfast for four months before you let Zara know you were back,’ I said. ‘So did you really come back for River? Or was there something in Monaghan you were trying to get away from?’
‘I wasn’t trying to get away from anything. You could even ask Bronagh.’
‘Would Bronagh tell us the same story, Shane? What story would she tell us?’
‘Brone wanted a baby and I had one I already didn’t see,’ he said. ‘Her being from England, I knew that if we fought she’d up and leave and take that child away. You have to learn from your mess.’ He smiled weakly.
‘Shane,’ Linskey said, leaning forward – she looked sickened with him – ‘Did you or did you not go to Shaw’s Bridge with River?’
‘I did not,’ he said, blinking slowly, that faint smile fizzling away to invisibility.
*
Linskey asked me to let Dunne know Shane’s story. ‘You do it, poster girl. You carry more bones,’ she said.
‘I don’t at all,’ I said.
Linskey was my superior – through time served only – and Dunne was a family friend, but I hadn’t the energy to be annoyed with her sniping remarks right then, so I went and rapped my knuckles on his door. He waved me in and set down the pages he was looking at.
His face was bleak. He put his hand out for my notes, scanning them as I told him what they said.
‘Chief,’ I said, ‘Shane Reede’s version of events are these: he claims to have left his phone at home and that he was carjacked somewhere near Armagh at five p.m. yesterday. He has given a description of the carjackers.’
‘Reede is saying that Ronnie Dorrian came to collect him, is that right, Sloane?’
Now I was under interrogation. It was the equilibrium of the job. It swung in and out of place.
‘We’ll check his story with his boss,’ I said, ‘but to be honest, Chief, I don’t think Dorrian’s the sort to help us. I reckon he puts his name to nothing either.’
‘Why didn’t Reede get in touch with us?’ he asked.
‘He said he wanted to get straight back. He was just thinking about River the whole time.’
Dunne read aloud: ‘Reede is saying he woke up in some hedges near Armagh, sore and fragile, after this carjacking.’
‘If fragile is a word that can be used in reference to Shane Reede,’ I said.
Dunne squinted at the page: ‘Reede was well aware we wanted to speak to him.’
I explained that Shane had said that when he stumbled to a service station at six o’clock that morning, he had every intention of phoning the PSNI but instead he had phoned Dorrian. Dorrian had driven down to collect him and brought him not to the station or to his own home but straight to Zara’s. Then Dorrian had driven on to the garage, and the time we saw Shane was the first opportunity we had to.
‘Do we have a description on the carjackers?’
‘Two of them. Reede said they were both in their early twenties. One had blond hair and a goatee beard, and the second was small and dark, with a line shaved into his right eyebrow.’
‘A goatee beard,’ Dunne said with a bemused look on his face. ‘Do people still wear those?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I suppose he had to say something. And what about the carjackers, what were they wearing?’
‘Shane can’t remember. Jeans, he thinks. But it was the blond one who, when Shane sat alone at the lights, pulled the door open and tried to grab Shane. He was wearing a black North Face coat. Shane put up a struggle, hence the bruises, and then the second one was in the passenger seat, pulling on the handbrake and shoving Shane towards the blond man. Shane told them
he had no money, and tried to get his hand into his back pocket to give them the money that he did have, which was about ten quid sterling and forty euros. Then they beat him up. Left him unconscious.’
‘A strong-looking fella like that, unconscious? Okay, Sloane,’ he said. ‘We’ll play along, if that’s what Reede wants.’
Chapter 23
We were tucked into a corner of St George’s Market that buzzing late afternoon, at a little makeshift pack-up-by-dinnertime tea room, similar to the one that Father liked on the Lisburn Road, but closer to me and safer; it meant I didn’t have to go near that part of town where Jason might be fetching coffee before going back to his home office.
Father looked out of place here; everything was too busy and fussy for him.
‘What are you having?’ he asked me.
‘Focaccia,’ I said. All I had the stomach for was bread.
‘Focaccia’s the kind of thing your mother liked,’ he said, sag-lipped. He had a habit of speaking of Mother as if she were dead and not just half a mile away, also near the Lisburn Road, being cared for by private nursing staff.
There was nothing as plain as an Ulster fry on the menu but somehow Father had managed to wrangle one out of the young waitress who sent a finger-drumming rolled-sleeved waiter to the Centra for the specific ingredients.
‘Gus is on a one-way path to nowhere,’ Father started while we waited.
Coral’s fourteen-year-old son had been acting out.
‘Gus is alright,’ I said.
Father looked at me in astonishment. ‘Why would you of all people say that?’
‘Why of all people?’
‘He’s breaking the law.’
‘Och, Daddy, he was caught smoking. We all did it.’
‘I didn’t, not once, and everybody else puffing their heads off.’
‘I know.’ I tore a bit of the bread off with my teeth and began to chew.
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