She puffs out her cheeks.
‘I eh… I’m waiting on my friend, then we’re gonna decide what to do.’
Ingrid shuffles her way in front of me, her eyes still wide.
‘We need to go,’ she says, grabbing at my hand.
Debbie gasps a little, as if she choked on her breath.
‘Well, out of this room anyway,’ she says sweeping both of her arms towards the hallway.
I feel bad again. Weird. It really seems as if Debbie doesn’t want us here. As if she is done with me; has moved on to other kids and would rather forget that she ever helped raise me. I’m old to her now. Too old for her to care about. It’s only kids she likes.
Then the doorbell rings and Debbie looks at us as if she’s annoyed; as if we’ve done something wrong on her.
‘I just wanted to say goodbye,’ I say, wrapping my arms around her. She pats me on the back.
‘Hey, why don’t we meet up soon? I can take you to that park you like in Harold’s Cross. We can buy ice-cream, hang out for the day.’
She’s said that to me a few times over the past year. We still haven’t done it. Then she releases me from my hug and walks towards her hall door and opens it.
‘C’min, Gerry,’ she says. ‘Don’t mind the girls. They’re just leaving.’
An old man walks in and stares at me and Ingrid. He looks older than my dad. How the hell is he friends with Debbie?
‘Okay, girls, out ye go,’ Debbie says, almost shoving at the two of us.
My heart sinks. I can’t believe this is the last time I’ll ever see her and she doesn’t even want to know. She doesn’t have time for me anymore. Fine. She’ll miss me in the morning.
‘Goodbye then,’ I say.
‘Bye,’ Debbie calls out without even looking at us. Then the door bangs shut and we’re out in the tiny garden, standing right next to the stinky bins.
‘What the hell was all that about?’ I say.
Ingrid doesn’t answer, so I turn to her. Her eyes are still wide.
‘Ingrid!’
‘Oh my God,’ she says holding her hand to her forehead, ‘did you see what I saw… in the living room?’
◈
Larry continues to breathe heavily behind Helen. She’s turned her cheek in his direction three times now, just to let him know she’d rather he fucked off. But the poor fella hasn’t copped her irritation.
‘Nothing yet?’ Charlie asks.
Helen stares over at him, one of her eyebrows raised.
‘Don’t you think I’d tell you if I saw something?’
Charlie swallows, then returns his gaze to the screen in front of him, his nose just inches from it.
‘If we’re gonna see anything we’ll see it now, right?’ he then says. ‘According to this screen it’s 6:48. The call to Terenure will be made in one minute. Fingers crossed it’s caught on camera.’
Helen doesn’t answer. She moves her face nearer to the screen, stretching and then blinking her eyes to relieve some of the strain.
‘How old you reckon he is?’ she asks.
Charlie takes one step to his left, stares at the figure Helen’s pointing at.
‘About fifteen,’ Larry says.
Both Helen and Charlie look over their shoulder at the bald head behind them. Larry takes one tiny step backwards and sinks his neck into his shoulders a little, finally becoming aware of his insignificance.
‘Yeah, about fifteen, I s’pose,’ Charlie says as he and Helen return their gaze to the screen. ‘Think it’s him?’
Then the figure on the screen lifts the phone he had been holding in the palm of his hand towards his ear.
Charlie stares at Helen; his stubby nose a little too close for her comfort. She balks away a bit, all the while staring at the black and white image. She watches as the figure hangs up the phone, before he flips it in the air and catches it.
‘It is him, isn’t it?’ Charlie says a little high-pitched. He’s beginning to let his excitement pour out of his mouth.
‘Well… that call was made at bang on 6:49 and it must’ve lasted the same eighteen seconds as the call you played for me earlier,’ Helen says. She rolls her tongue around her mouth. ‘The direction this figure is walking to,’ she says turning to Larry, ‘he’s going towards the next stop, what is it?’
‘Suir Road,’ Larry says. ‘You want me to call up that footage?’
Helen nods her head, then places her hands in to the deep pockets of her leather coat.
‘This is so cool,’ Charlie says.
Helen stares at him, until he realises what he had just said was rather uncool.
‘Kay, here we go,’ Larry says, tilting another screen towards both Charlie and Helen. ‘This is the Suir Road stop from 6:49 onwards.’
‘How long does it take to walk from Goldenbridge stop to Suir Road?’
‘Two, three minutes. Straight down the canal,’ Larry says.
The three of them stare at the screen while Kristine, who had been tapping away at the keyboard on her desk, stops and turns to look at them. She watches their faces, waiting on a moment of realisation to drop on one of them. But it doesn’t come.
‘It says 6:53 now on the screen, he hasn’t walked this way, he’d be here by now.’
Helen spreads both of her lips open, so that her clenched teeth are showing. Then she slams the palm of her hand against the top of the screen.
‘Bollocks,’ she says.
‘What’s it matter?’ Charlie says. ‘We got a shot of him. Isn’t that enough to go on?’
Helen holds her eyes closed in annoyance and then lets a sigh slowly exhale its way out of her nostrils.
‘I wanted to see what direction he was walking in next, Charlie. It might help us catch up with him.’ She nods her head and stretches her brow sarcastically as she says this. Charlie sinks his neck into his shoulders. Helen has an incredible ability to make men do this. It’s why she initially fell in love with Eddie; because he never shied away from her. He was her perfect match. Always has been.
‘He could have gone anywhere after the Goldenbridge stop, right? Over Goldenbridge itself into Inchicore. Across to Drimnagh past the Marble Arch pub? Onwards down the other side of the canal towards… Jesus, he could have splintered off in any direction after that, right?’
‘Yup, on towards the hospital or perhaps Kilmainham. Could have even headed up towards Rialto.’
Helen allows another sigh to shoot through her nostrils. Then she chews on her bottom lip as Kristen answers a ringing phone.
‘Larry, two more police officers at the front desk looking to view CCTV,’ she says.
‘Ah, must be the friends you were telling me about,’ Larry says to Helen as he makes his way towards the door.
‘Hold on, hold on, Larry,’ Helen shouts out, ‘Charlie, take out your mobile phone, get a clear picture of the best still of that young boy we have. Kristine,’ she says as if she’s an army major barking out orders, ‘can we make this image any clearer?’
Kristine rises from her desk, begins to tap away at a keyboard right next to Charlie.
‘Shall I go get your colleagues—’
‘No, hold on!’ Helens says, holding the palm of her hand towards Larry.
He creases his brow, begins to wonder what the hell is going on.
‘That’s as clear as I can get it,’ Kristine says.
Helen nods towards Charlie, ordering him to take a picture with his phone.
‘Kay let’s go,’ Helen then says, cupping his shoulder.
‘Larry you can go get the other officers… is there a eh… Ladies room you can show me to on the way?’
Larry nods slowly. ‘Yeah, there’s one just here, down this corridor.’
Charlie and Helen leave with Larry, forgetting to thank the only person who was actually helpful to them while they were in the control room. Kristine doesn’t mind. Is used to not receiving praise for the mundane tasks she carries out.
‘Through there,’ Larr
y says pointing at a door.
‘You come with me, Charlie,’ Helen says.
Charlie stops walking. ‘What? Sorry? You want me to go to the Ladies with you?’
Larry stops walking too, but when Helen turns to face him, he gets the gist and then heads towards reception to allow the other offices through. Helen strides to the door and holds it open to allow Charlie to enter before her. He scratches at his forehead, wondering what the fuck Helen is up to, inviting him into this pokey, smelly cubicle.
‘Let me see the photo?’ she says, still holding the door ajar. She peeks through the crack of the door, then back at Charlie. After he’s handed her the phone, she peeks through the crack again, notices Cyril and Leo from her own station being led to the CCTV control room.
When they’re inside, the door closed behind them, Helen pulls at the toilet door and walks out. Charlie doesn’t know what to do; whether or not he should follow her. So he stands still, waits on instruction.
Helen brings his phone closer to her nose, refocuses her eyes to the image of the boy. He looks blond, though it could be brown hair. His face isn’t really clear. Could be anybody, really.
‘Fuck sake,’ she mumbles to herself. Then she pivots her head left to right. ‘What the fuck?’ she says. She turns around, strides in her own unique way towards the toilet and pushes the door wide open.
‘What the hell are you doing? Will ye come on?’ she says.
Charlie opens his mouth to respond, then thinks better of it, so he just follows Helen like a trained puppy dog back down the corridor, past the reception and out towards his own police car. He’s still wondering what the hell just happened when he presses at a button on his key ring, allowing Helen — who is still a couple yards ahead of him — to swing the passenger door open and sweep her tall frame inside.
He scratches at his head again, then opens the driver’s door and gets in himself.
‘Eh… sorry, Helen, but eh… what was all that about?’ he says.
‘What was what about?’ she says as she reaches for her seatbelt.
‘Why eh… why did you invite me into the toilet?’
‘Oh, that?’ Helen responds. She sniffs her nose. ‘Normally lights in toilets are more clinical…. to stop people from shooting up in them. You can’t find a vein if the light is clinical. Did you not know that?’
Charlie creases his brow at her, making himself look as young as the boy he took a photograph of just a few minutes ago.
‘Public toilets in bars and restaurants maybe, but not a bloody office toilet,’ he says. Then he shrinks into his chair a little, in fear of what way Helen will react to him questioning her.
She swipes a sleeve across her mouth, wiping up some of the moisture under her nose.
‘Yeah, you’re right. There was no clinical light. Just thought we should give it a go,’ she says.
Charlie’s brow hasn’t uncreased and his silence makes Helen look at him for the first time since they returned to the car.
‘I just wanted to see what other Detectives were looking into the CCTV footage, wanna know who’s on the job, okay?’ she says, relenting.
‘Why?’
Helen shrugs her shoulders.
‘See who we might need to lean on later if we need anything.’
Charlie scratches at his head again, the lines in his brow still wedged deep.
‘But why the secrecy, why didn’t we just tell them we had a visual of the boy who made the phone call?’
Helen whistles, a slow piercing whistle. ‘Wow, young Charlie, you’ve a lot to learn about this Detective business,’ she says. ‘Now; given the information we have, where d’ye think we should go next? If you were leading this investigation, where would your next port of call be?’ she asks, changing the direction of the conversation.
Charlie sits more upright, grabbing the steering wheel with both hands, then makes repeated bop sounds with his lips as he thinks through Helen’s question.
‘Well,’ he says, ‘we don’t really have anything, do we? A grainy picture of a boy who looks to be in his mid-teens. We don’t know where he went after the call… so eh…’ he scratches his forehead again, ‘I actually don’t know.’
Helen allows a small snigger to creep its way from the corner of her mouth.
‘You’re right,’ she says. ‘That is all we have. One grainy picture of a boy. A boy whose friends are going to commit suicide in about four hours. It’s not much to go on. But we can’t sit here and wait for those two girls to tie nooses for themselves. We have to act. Think. Where could we possibly get information from about the boy in this image?’
Charlie brings his fingers to his mouth and begins to tap away at his bottom lip.
‘Sorry, Detective Brennan. But I actually don’t know. Walk the streets, show young people the image, ask if they know who he is?’
Helen nods.
‘Not bad, Charlie,’ she says. ‘We could do that. But that’d take an awful lot of time. Time we don’t have. What about the school next to that Luas stop, the one on the Drimnagh side of the canal.’
‘Yeah, Mourne Road school. What about it?’ Charlie asks.
‘That’d be the place to start wouldn’t it? Rather than ask a hundred teenagers on the streets of Inchicore and Drimnagh if they know this youngfella, we can ask the Head of the school. He’s bound to know every teenager in that whole area.’
‘Ahhh,’ Charlie says as he places the key in the ignition.
Then he pulls the car out of its parking spot and heads towards the Naas Road.
‘But hold on a minute,’ he says, ‘the school’ll be closed now. It’s half eight in the evening.’
Helen flicks her eyes towards him.
‘Jesus, Charlie… you do have a lot to learn.’
She takes her mobile phone out of her pocket and begins to flick her fingers across its screen.
20:25
Ingrid
The doorbell ringing frightens me, takes me out of the shock I’m in. I can’t believe it. Debbie?
My eyes are wide when an old man walks in, wearing a suit. He must be fifty, sixty even? I don’t know. I’m not good with ages.
He stares at me and Ciara as if he’s never seen two teenage girls before.
‘Kay girls, out ye go,’ Debbie says. She holds both of her arms out, almost pushing us to the door. That’s fine by me. I want to get out.
‘What the hell was all that about?’ Ciara says when we’re standing in Debbie’s tiny front garden.
I don’t answer her. I’m too busy thinking about Debbie. I think I’m in shock.
‘Ingrid!’ Ciara says.
‘Oh my God,’ I reply. I still haven’t decided if I want to tell Ciara. It’ll break her heart. ‘Did you see that… in the living room?’ I ask. Ciara’s face goes all scrunchy. She does that when she’s confused. ‘Cocaine,’ I whisper. ‘Loads of it on a little mirror. I know. I’ve seen cocaine in films.’
Ciara’s face is no longer scrunchy. She’s making an ‘O’ shape with her mouth. Her eyes are kinda making the same shape too. She knows I’m not making this up. I’ve never lied to Ciara. I’ve never lied to anyone. Not until tonight. Not until I told my mum I was going to Ciara’s to study.
Then Ciara swallows really hard.
‘Debbie? Drugs?’ she says. ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’
Ciara blinks then twists her head left and right. I know Ciara inside and out. I know she wants to go back in there. She’ll have to know the truth. So I hold my hands to the back of both her shoulders and try to lead her out of Debbie’s gate, back to the bus stop.
‘C’mon,’ I say. ‘We’ve got to go say our goodbyes to Harriet and Miss Moriarty.’
But Ciara bends forward a little, places her hands on both of her knees and begins to breathe a bit heavier.
‘C’mon, Ciara, let’s go. You’ve said goodbye to Debbie. Two more stops. Then we can finally get ourselves away from all these thoughts. Please. C’mon… let’s go.’
<
br /> She stands up straight, blows a large breath through her lips and then heads straight for Debbie’s door, pressing her finger against the bell and holding it there until Debbie snatches the door open.
‘Whatcha playing at, Ciara?’ she says. She seems to have lost her bathrobe; is back in just her bra and knickers again.
Ciara storms by her, heads straight for the living room. I don’t want to follow her in. But I kind of have to. I have to be by my friend’s side.
When I get to the living room I see the old man with his shirt all open, lipstick marks on his chest. Ciara is pacing around the living room, looking for the mirror I told her had cocaine on it. When she looks up at me I nod my head to the corner of the room, where a nest of tables sit. Ciara walks over to it, picks up the small mirror and then stares at Debbie.
‘Ciara Joyce, that is none of your—’ but before Debbie can get her full sentence out, Ciara holds the mirror above her head and throws it as hard as she can against the wall. She walks over to Debbie and I can see her jaw moving in circles, like it does when she gets really angry. I blink my eyes, because I think I know what’s going to happen next. Ciara raises her hand, slaps Debbie across the cheek and then turns to me.
‘Let’s go, Ingrid,’ she says. And we do. We run out of the house, out the garden gate and down the avenue. After a while we are both out of breath. Both hunched over, holding on to our knees.
‘Whew,’ Ciara says, before she starts laughing. ‘That was mad.’
I look at her in shock. Though I don’t know why I’m in shock. I know Ciara better than anyone. I know she can be really angry one minute, laughing her head off the next.
‘What did you do that for?’ I say.
She stops laughing and looks up at me.
‘That bitch is doing drugs,’ she says, pointing back to the avenue Debbie lives on. ‘She was supposed to be one of my best friends. Like a parent to me. The only adult I thought cared for me.’
Ciara takes steps closer, waving a finger at me as if it’s all my fault. But I catch her as she continues to rant, and wrap both my arms around her. I let her cry on my shoulder. Again. This is nothing new. Though it was quite the opposite last night.
The Suicide Pact (The Tick-Tock Trilogy Book 3) Page 6