The Sleeping Season

by Kelly Creighton

  ‘Okay,’ she said, her voice cracking.

  David came back on the line. ‘I’m going to call around everyone,’ he said. ‘Timothy’ll be okay.’

  ‘Without a doubt,’ I said.

  After I hung up I stared at my phone; I couldn’t breathe. Linskey was standing by my side asking why I never told her about the star chart. I managed to get out that it was because she wouldn’t talk to me.

  ‘Look, we need to working together again properly, for River’s sake,’ Linskey said. She should have been annoyed, only it was hard to be angry when we finally had our man.

  Dunne called Higgins, Simon, Linskey and I into a meeting room where photos of River were up on the board.

  ‘We’ve found our young man. We’ve located River Reede,’ he said.

  *

  Shane sat facing us again, Lance to the right of him. He wasn’t smiling now. Everything was different.

  Linskey pressed record and spoke into the machine. ‘Shane Reede, Saturday 22 October 2016. The time is 8:37 p.m. Shane,’ she began, ‘your solicitor is here for advice. You don’t have to listen to him. You are over eighteen.’ She paused. There was no rush now for anything.

  ‘You were helpful enough before, Shane,’ I jumped in. ‘Please help us take this in the right direction.’

  Lance nodded at Shane.

  ‘No comment,’ he said.

  ‘River has been found,’ Linskey said.

  Lance and Shane darted their eyes at each other, at Linskey, at me.

  ‘We know now, Shane,’ I said. ‘We know. So think carefully, and I would strongly advise you to say something at this point.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘For the tape, Mr Reede is shaking his head. Can you speak instead? Is there anything you want to say?’

  He blinked back tears.

  ‘Can you tell us where your son might have been found?’

  ‘Just tell my client where his boy has been found and if he’s safe,’ said Lance.

  ‘I’m quite sure Mr Reede knows where River has been found, and the … condition of the child.’

  ‘Why did you put River into a suitcase?’ Linskey asked. ‘Why did you throw his body into the ocean?’

  Shane started breathing rapidly, shallow noisy breaths. I kicked the table leg.

  ‘What happened to River?’ I shouted.

  ‘I really have to ob—’ began Lance.

  ‘Talk to us, Shane,’ Linskey said.

  Shane let his head fall into his hands. His leg was jiggling so furiously now everyone could hear his heel knocking up and down off the ground. Then he straightened up, pulled at the neckline of his hoodie, as if he was fighting for air, and his eyes went out of focus.

  Chapter 47

  When I heard the news, I recalled Jamesy Lunney and his missing fingernails. I thought of Hanna-Caitlin Clarke, the restaurateur’s daughter, and how she had felt her father’s warm hands on her throat, how the last thing she had seen were the black seeds of Hans’ eyes.

  And I thought about the twelve-year-old girl who, on a nature trail with friends from school, knelt in the sand at Buncrana Bay that Saturday evening and prised open a brown leather suitcase that earlier that day was tossed to the shore by the boiling surf.

  Inside the case had been the body of a young boy, coiled like a fossil. His skin was pocked and frayed and washed clean of blood.

  River’s small body was covered in holes. A preliminary investigation found that he had been savaged. His sodden blue and green pyjamas were shredded and clung to him; his nappy had disintegrated although the stickers at his hips were still fused. There was a semi-circular scar on his thigh from the old burn.

  River Reede, our young man, lay in the morgue at Letterkenny Coroner’s Court as we sat in the interview room with his father, with his murderer, while our odontologist checked River’s small fund of dental records.

  Chapter 48

  Linskey relayed the details of the find to Shane Reede. How bluntly the words fell from his tongue.

  ‘I only went upstairs for a shower before I was going to bring Riv home on Monday,’ he said. He choked on his son’s name. ‘I just wanted one more night with him, you see. It’s hard in a house by yourself.’

  ‘Did you go into Zara’s house and lift him?’

  ‘No. I threw a handful of stones at his window. He looked out his curtains and came downstairs – let himself out.’

  ‘You don’t have to say anything,’ Worth told him, defeated, setting his pen on the desk and folding his hands in his lap. But Shane was in full flow, haemorrhaging facts; he needed to unburden.

  ‘When I came downstairs, the dog had him gripped in his jaws. I couldn’t stop him. I kicked the dog – punched him. He was tossing River about like a rag doll.’

  ‘But there’s no evidence you have a dog,’ I said.

  ‘It was a security dog for work. Ronnie had him for the garage, but there were complaints about him. He’d whimper all night, so I brought him home in the evenings; during the day he sat in RAD.’

  ‘Didn’t you have a bowl for the dog?’

  ‘Yes. But I threw all the dog’s belongings – food, bowl, collar and lead, bedding – in the wheelie bin and put it out for collection.’

  ‘This is the dog that was found drowned at Shaw’s Bridge?’

  Shane nodded.

  ‘Can you speak for the tape, please?’ said Linskey.

  Worth sat back, hands behind his head again, only this time he was a spectator. His game was over and no one had won.

  ‘Who threw the dog in the water? And tied up River’s little green coat? Who did it with you?’

  ‘Nobody.’

  ‘Was it Ronnie Dorrian?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘Is that a yes? Did Ronnie help you clean up?’

  ‘No. He only came to get the dog.’

  ‘And the coat?’

  ‘And the coat.’

  ‘What did he do with the coat?’

  ‘Left it in the park.’

  ‘Did you arrange this?’

  ‘No. He just said he’d sort it – make it look like River had wandered off. He only told me what he did with it when I called him from Armagh.’ Shane scratched the side of his face.

  ‘And the suitcase?’

  ‘I threw it from the cliffs. My son … my son. I tossed him away the same way Ronnie did with the animal that savaged him. I took that animal in because I pitied it, and that animal destroyed my boy. I may as well have done it myself.’

  ‘Where’s the jeep, Shane?’

  ‘Burnt it.’ He pulled his sleeves up to show the burns. He was weeping. ‘I would never have hurt River. Never.’

  *

  I was on the phone to the press office, telling them that I needed to inform Zara before news of the boy’s body could be released, that she mustn’t find out from the television.

  ‘The other fingermark must be Ronnie’s,’ I said.

  ‘I bet that little immigrant car washing squad Ronnie has aren’t legal either,’ said Higgins. ‘Some trafficking caper going on.’

  ‘Maybe, but prioritise,’ Linskey told him.

  Simon came bounding in. ‘Linskey and Sloane, you’re both needed in the medical room. Reede has tried to slash his wrists with his zip.’

  When we arrived, the medic was attempting to treat the wounds, while Shane tried to fight him off. After everything I’d heard that day and I was still alarmed by the violence in him.

  ‘I can’t live with this,’ he shouted. ‘Please, just let me get on with it. Please.’

  ‘Shane, you need to calm down,’ I said, trying to establish eye contact.

  ‘Zee can’t know how Riv died,’ he said.

  ‘She has to know, Shane,’ said Linskey solemnly. ‘It’s her right.’

  After an hour Shane had quietened enough to talk to us in an interview room.

  ‘The dog wasn’t a bad dog,’ said Shane. ‘River must have had one of his seizures … maybe he fell
to the floor. I thought I heard a scream, like they do before they drop. It’s the only way this could have happened. When I collected him on the Friday, there was no epilepsy medication in the bag. Zara was at the hospital doing her milk run. Raymond must have forgot. I should’ve just gone back at bedtime when I realised I didn’t have it. I didn’t though – didn’t want to go out again once we were settled. I thought, he’s only on a small dosage now, maybe he’s not on it at all any more. That weekend River was really settled, more than usual. I thought the medication must have been messing him up. I should have called Zara. I didn’t.’

  ‘Maybe River screamed because the dog was attacking him?’

  ‘No, no, Razor wouldn’t have attacked him for no good reason. Once when I was really drunk – stocious – and fell asleep on the sofa, he bit me.’ Shane pointed at the scars at either side of his eyes. ‘But he was only trying to wake me up. Razor wasn’t a bad dog.’

  ‘Okay, Shane,’ I said.

  ‘I wanted Zee to be able to live with hope,’ he said. ‘Hope keeps you going.’

  Chapter 49

  By one o’clock on Sunday morning, it wasn’t as cold as it had been. The rain stopped as we pulled into Witham Street. I sat on in the car, trying to psyche myself up to break the news, but then Zara looked out, wide awake and waiting for us. When she got to the door and saw us bow our heads as we entered the hall, she opened her mouth in a wide silent scream, hit out at the air and crumpled to the floor.

  It was me who picked her up, but it was Linskey, naturally, who told her what had happened. We made her tea she didn’t drink. Linskey put her arm around her and let her cry. We stayed with her until the sun came up.

  She said she knew about the dog – River had told her. Zara said that she had raised it once with Shane but he had dismissed her fears.

  ‘I’d nagged him enough – to do the charts, to give the medication. I didn’t like the thought of River being in the room with a security dog, but I didn’t speak up enough.’ She dabbed her eyes with a tissue. ‘I didn’t want to give Shane an excuse to abandon River again, not since Riv had started to look forward to seeing him. I should have been a nag. I shouldn’t have trusted him. I was just sick of having to fight for everything.’

  At 6 a.m., Ness came in to sit with her. Zara put on a home recording of her, Shane and River. He must have been eighteen months old in it. He was climbing a tree and smiling, and suddenly real in a way he had not been to me before.

  There was a boy who now was dead. He had light brown hair and blue eyes, and even in the video he was being kept on the straight and narrow. There was a boy who didn’t quite fit, who should have had the time to learn how, like we all have to. That time had been taken from him. River lived only for a short time, but he had lived before he died. I saw that now.

  Ness watched, struggling to keep her own emotions in check, as we all had to. We had to be strong for Zara.

  Back at the station was when it escaped me. I dabbed at the tears dripping from my chin. Linskey pretended she didn’t see them. She told me she’d asked for a transfer to another district and that Dunne had said he’d see to it with immediate effect.

  ‘We can work around it,’ I said, taking my running clothes out of my locker.

  Linskey didn’t reply. I knew she thought I was incapable of friendship, but what she didn’t see was that I thought of her more like a sister, and that this job was my family. That if I had to choose one, I would always choose this.

  Epilogue

  Linskey brought the parakeet back to the station just before Christmas, saying she had no time to look after it. But what I heard was, Why should I care about anything, Harry, when you clearly don’t?

  ‘That’s fine. I’ll give it to my father,’ I said, trying not to react to her sting.

  I had called into Witham Street later that day, just to see how Zara was holding up. I suppose I’d become attached to her. After we talked, she followed me out to the car and she saw the parakeet.

  ‘Is that the bird that flew into Strandtown the day Riv went missing?’ she asked, her eyes lighting up.

  ‘Yes, it’s the same bird,’ I said.

  ‘It’s been living in a police station since then?’

  ‘No, it had a home, but—’

  ‘Does it need a home now?’ she asked.

  ‘It does.’

  She put out her hands. I lifted the cage from the Skoda and gave it to her. She peered in at the bird.

  ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘I’ll take it.’

  I tried to tell her that she didn’t have to, but she had already walked back inside the house, turning only briefly to nod at me and say thanks, then closing the door gently with her foot.

  At the coroner’s court today, I asked Zara how the bird was.

  ‘The bird’s fine,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘He’s company, like how some people leave the TV on. He’s noisy … so that’s good. Sometimes I let him fly about the room. He can be quite affectionate, believe it or not.’

  Zara was holding River’s stuffed Thomas the Tank Engine. When I asked her how she was holding up she told me she still did her milk runs. Now it’s what she lives for, until they tell her to stop, which soon they will.

  I was trying to hide my bump behind piles of paperwork, but she saw it and clammed up. I thought for a moment it embarrassed her. I waited, but no colour rose up her blue-white throat. Still, Zara couldn’t wait to get away. Ness was waiting on the steps for her, speaking with Linskey, who was keeping her distance from me. I could hear that they were talking about Shane, who was on charges for manslaughter, for knowingly being in possession of a breed of dog that is banned, for breaking and entering in Donegal the previous year, for two counts of automobile theft and destruction, and for perverting the course of justice. He is facing years.

  I wish I could say how that will go. Truth is, you never know.

  I said a brief goodbye to everyone after the inquest, then rushed to the hospital, where the great grey concrete planters had broken out in crocuses and a cool breath of January air wrapped itself around me. I walked to the maternity unit, my yellow folder clutched against my swollen belly.

  The nurse nodded at me. ‘Your first?’ she asked, as she did the initial checks.

  They all ask that, no matter what you say to them. There is more than an air of condescension in it. I always hesitate, but I suppose this one is my first.

  She sent me to the waiting room and I sat with two other women, who were also at the half-way mark, and their partners. The two couples were chatting amongst themselves; it was baby number two for them both. They smiled knowingly at each other when I said number one. One couple were going to find out the sex and the other wanted a surprise.

  I was called in first. My bladder was bursting; I felt poisoned by the tank of urine inside me. During the scan, the midwife left to fetch the doctor and I found myself thinking again about seeing Zara on the day she got the news.

  I saw the paused image of River on the screen and couldn’t stop worrying. I was thinking about Timothy too. What if my baby was disabled in a physical way they could see in the scan, or what if they couldn’t, and then it’d be too late to do anything except love him – or her – once they were born.

  There was this awful crying coming from the room next to mine; one of the couples I’d been chatting to in the waiting room. I think the woman must have lost her baby. I felt like I was outside my own body. Then the doctor came in, a Filipino lady. She scanned my tummy.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, Harriet,’ she said over the top of the crying, as if it wasn’t happening. ‘Your babies are fine, strong and healthy.’

  ‘Babies?’ I was dazed.

  I couldn’t stop wondering which couple I had heard grieving. And when I was leaving I couldn’t see either of them, so maybe I’ll never know. But I remembered the doctor’s last words to me: ‘Next time, don’t come alone, alright?’

  I went straight from the hospital to see Mother. I hung my coat
and scarf on the back of her door. Her blue eyes barely took me in. I sat in front of her, held her papery hand in mine. It felt weightless, nothing but skin and marrow.

  ‘Charly told me that she and Timmy were here to see you earlier,’ I said, looking at the outdated Christmas cards still on the wall. One was a Christmas tree made from Timothy’s handprints in green poster paint. His trademark handprint art. A website I’d found the night before said that at this stage of my baby’s development it would have friction ridges on its fingers by now.

  ‘Mummy, wait till you see this,’ I said.

  I opened my handbag and took out two images of my new humans that looked like sand blown into a shape with a straw. Mother blinked at them. I examined them myself.

  ‘The boys are outnumbering the girls this time round,’ I said. I’d asked the nurse about the gender, wanting nothing else in my life to take me by surprise.

  I sat with Mother for an hour. I brushed her hair, talked until my voice was raw, and left ten minutes after Coral arrived. I told her the news about the babies. As I left, I had to drive past my old house near Osborne Gardens, the house where Jason had held me captive at gunpoint. The place sat in darkness. I couldn’t tell if he was there or not.

  *

  I’ve admitted to Brooks that I never wanted to be a mother, that I don’t think I’ll make a good job of it. Brooks says I’ll be fine. Much as I love him, I take everything he says with a pinch of salt.

  I’m still getting used to the fact that sometimes the lost can be found. But in a way, he’s still lost, that’s the strange thing. He can be sitting there watching TV with me, we can be laughing at the same jokes, eating the same meal at the same table, and I know he has left parts of himself everywhere.

  He is lying on the sofa watching some Sky Arts documentary when I get back to the apartment.

  ‘You’re late,’ he says, pretending to tell me off like a huffy child.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Not a thing.’

  I look at my brother, so paper-thin you could fold him and post him. He still hasn’t put his things into the spare room, kidding himself, but not me, that he isn’t going to stay long enough to make himself comfortable.