The Woman Outside My Door

by Rachel Ryan

  “We’re going to get to the bottom of this. Whatever’s going on, we’ll figure it out.”

  She nodded.

  “I was thinking,” he continued. “What if it’s an elaborate burglary scheme? Kids often know the alarm code to houses, right? Or where their parents keep the keys. If you took the time to befriend a child, they could get you inside…”

  Georgina was shaking her head.

  “We’re not rich,” she said flatly, speaking into his shoulder. “Who would go to that much trouble to rob us?”

  “I suppose. It was just a thought.”

  They were both silent for a moment. Then Georgina said, “Bren—it couldn’t be anything to do with Emma, could it?”

  The side of Bren’s face she could see reddened. “Definitely not. She’s not the type to go all Fatal Attraction on us.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  There was a pause, during which Bren scratched his chin and appeared to contemplate something.

  “Here’s a thought,” he said slowly. “Cody’s drawings of his new granny… didn’t they look a bit like Vera?”

  “Vera?” Georgina almost laughed. “I don’t think they did. Anyway, Vera has nothing to do with this.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because we know Vera! Anyway, whoever was talking to Cody outside the door ran off within seconds. When I looked out, there was no one there. Vera wouldn’t be able to move that fast.”

  “Fair enough,” said Bren tiredly. “I’m just thinking aloud. The only other theory I keep coming back to is the awful thought that someone’s targeting Cody… Grooming him…”

  The word “pedophile” hung in the air between them.

  “But an old woman?” Georgina was grateful the profile didn’t fit. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Bren made a hmm sound in his throat. “It’s unusual, but it does happen.” She didn’t want to hear this, but he kept talking. “And people who target children sometimes use women to lure them in. Like those human trafficking groups that get older women to act helpful and motherly and say they’ll get the girls waitressing jobs…”

  Georgina stiffened against his side. “Yes, but it couldn’t be something like that. There’s no human trafficking in Ireland, is there? And anyway,” she barreled on, not waiting for an answer, “those people don’t target kids like Cody, who are safe and cosseted and loved. They target vulnerable kids, lost kids, kids who won’t be missed.”

  Saying those words brought an unexpected lump to her throat. She swallowed it back down. Downstairs, they could hear Cody shouting at his grandfather: “Bang bang, got you! Bang bang, you’re dead!”

  “Whoever he’s in contact with,” said Georgina, “it’s someone he likes and trusts. He’s lying to us to protect them.”

  She could feel the tension in Bren’s body. “If only I’d listened to you from the beginning,” he said. “If only I hadn’t been such a stubborn prick, then we’d have a head start on solving this. I’m so sorry…”

  “I know. You said.” Georgina wasn’t interested in his self-admonishments. “Let’s just focus our energy on figuring this out.”

  While she didn’t feel ready to accept his apologies, she did feel an overwhelming relief that she and Bren were back on the same team.

  * * *

  Later that day, they tried interrogating their son once more. But Cody refused to reveal the identity of his visitor. He refused to admit there had been anyone at the door at all.

  “I was just looking out, Mom.”

  “Just looking out the letter box?”

  He shrugged. Georgina exchanged a glance with Bren, who was standing with arms folded. She was cross-legged on the carpet in front of Cody, who was perched on the edge of the bed, legs swinging sulkily back and forth.

  “Sweetie,” she said, forcing herself to remain calm, “will you please tell us who was on the other side of the door?”

  Cody was silent.

  “Was it New Granny?”

  Nothing.

  “Was it the same person who gave you the Maltesers?” Bren interjected. “The lollipop?”

  “No,” Cody addressed his father. “There was nobody at the door. Mom is making it up.”

  Georgina’s fingernails dug into her palms. “Cody, Dad’s seen the phone records too. We both know there was really someone on the phone.”

  Cody averted his gaze sullenly. “I was just talking to my friend from school.”

  “Which friend?”

  “Umm… Patrick.”

  Bren said lightly, “Oh, okay. I’ll just call Patrick’s parents then and check.”

  Cody looked over sharply at his father. Georgina could almost hear the mechanics of his brain whirring as he considered his bluff.

  “Actually, no,” he decided. “It wasn’t Patrick.”

  “Who was it then, Cody?” Georgina pushed. “I promise I won’t get cross.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember who you were on the phone with?” She wanted to cry with frustration and fear. “Cody, that’s enough! You’re lying, and it’s not allowed. If you tell me the truth, I won’t be angry at all. But if you don’t, I’ll… I’ll…”

  She groped around in her mind for a punishment severe enough.

  “I’ll take away the Mega-Power Purple Slinger Machine Gun.”

  Cody’s features began to crumple, first in disbelief, then denial. “You won’t. You can’t! Granddad gave it to me! It’s mine!”

  “If you want to keep it,” said Bren, “answer our questions.”

  Cody was in the bargaining stage. “Please, Mom, I’ll be good.”

  “Just tell us who was on the phone.”

  “I told you! One of my friends from school, but I don’t remember who.” He’d reached anger now. “You can’t take my Mega-Power Purple Slinger Machine Gun! You can’t!”

  “We can and we will if you don’t tell us the truth,” said Bren.

  “I hate you!” Cody shouted before bursting into tears and racing out of the room.

  Georgina got to her feet and turned to Bren helplessly. She hadn’t flinched at the “I hate you.” She’d heard it before, and it was always taken back by clingy, cuddly Cody at bedtime: “I love you, Mom. I didn’t mean to be mean.” She didn’t feel hurt by Cody’s outbursts. She felt only one thing: afraid.

  Who was her son lying for?

  Chapter 31

  They decided to try a different approach. The following afternoon, Bren took Cody out for a treat, to see if he would open up.

  Cody had got over the trauma of having his favorite toy taken away. He was now in a good mood, enjoying the novelty of staying at his grandfather’s and being taken out on a school night.

  “Dad’s bringing me to the cinema and to Eddie Rocket’s. I’m going to get a milkshake!”

  “And if this doesn’t work?” Georgina asked Bren quietly as Cody put on his coat.

  “We’ll figure it out.” Bren squeezed her hand. “I promise.”

  From the doorway, Georgina watched them drive away, a hard knot in her stomach.

  “You all right, love?” Jimmy was looking at her shrewdly. “You seem a bit stressed.”

  “This business with the kitchen has my head wrecked, Dad.” She hated lying, but what else could she do? The truth was too dark and murky and tangled. And the fact that Rose’s name was caught up in it? It was too much, too heavy.

  “I’m going to sit down and watch a bit of telly,” Jimmy said. “D’you want to join me?”

  “Maybe in a bit, Dad. I’m going to go upstairs and get some studying done.”

  This was another lie. There was no way on earth Georgina could focus on her studies now. She did go upstairs, sitting at her old school desk and taking out a notepad and pen, but the heading she wrote across the top of the page read:

  CLUES

  Underneath, she began to jot down words and phrases.

  Park. Lol
lipop.

  “She said she was my granny.”

  Toffee wrappers. Drawings. Phone calls.

  Maltesers. Card.

  “Chocolate is the prize for boys who win the game.”

  Someone following me home. Someone at the door.

  Someone watching the house??

  She sat back and read over it, but the longer she stared at the page, the less sense she could make of it all.

  Her phone beeped. A message from Bren: No luck so far. He just keeps denying everything. We raised one stubborn kid.

  Georgina sighed. Distantly, she could hear the sound of the TV and the phone ringing. She imagined Jimmy heaving himself up with a sigh, ambling into the hall to chat to whoever was calling, then grabbing some crackers and cheese from the kitchen before returning to his armchair. He was undoubtedly watching some awful political talk show, arguing with the guests and hosts, addressing the screen as if they could hear him: “Ah, get up out of that, would you, you dirty liar! Are you going to let him get away with that?”

  Georgina felt a strong nostalgia for her childhood days: Jimmy shouting at the TV, Rose rolling her eyes in the background, the smell of a roast cooking. Perhaps she should join him, for a while, for old times’ sake.

  Through the ceiling, she heard the muffled “Hello?” as he answered the phone. She stood, stretched, and yawned. After tidying up the desk, she walked out onto the landing.

  She was at the top of the stairs when she heard a shout below. Followed by a heavy thud.

  “Dad?” she called, hurrying her footsteps. She went quickly down the stairs and into the hall.

  What she saw struck her with a jolt of shock so forceful it felt like a physical blow.

  Jimmy was on his knees on the carpet, gasping for breath. One of his hands was clawing uselessly at his chest, the other scrabbling for the phone, which had fallen just out of reach. His eyes turned to her in mute appeal.

  “Dad!”

  Georgina ran to him, breathless with terror. Eyes bulging, Jimmy clutched at her arm. For a moment, it seemed as if speech was beyond him, but then he managed to croak, “Call—an ambulance. I think—my heart—”

  And he collapsed. It was a tableau that would remain in Georgina’s memory forever: her father facedown on the floor, the fallen phone on the carpet beside him.

  Chapter 32

  The chairs in the waiting room were an alarmingly bright shade of orange. Combined with the dark green of the walls, it made Georgina’s stomach churn.

  “Hey.” Bren appeared in the doorway with a paper cup of the instant coffee from the hospital cafeteria. Georgina accepted it gratefully and took a sip. The bitter taste was strange on her tongue. She had cut out coffee many years ago, replacing it with green tea and chamomile. Right now, though, anything to keep her awake.

  “Why don’t you come home?” Bren asked her. “They said he’s stable.”

  She shook her head. “I want to be here when he wakes up.”

  Bren sat down and put an arm around her. She rested her head on his shoulder. They were silent in each other’s company for a while.

  “I better go,” he said eventually. “It’s late, and Cody’s still at Kelly-Anne’s.”

  “I know.” Georgina nodded. “It was very good of her to take him. Thank her for me, will you?”

  “I will.” Bren got to his feet.

  “Here.” She took out the keys to Jimmy’s house. “You are bringing him back to my dad’s, right?”

  There was too much pressing in on her, from too many angles. She couldn’t concentrate on being there for her father if she didn’t know Cody was safe.

  Bren took the keys and put them in his pocket. “Don’t worry, Georgie. All three of us are staying safely at Jimmy’s until we figure out what’s going on.”

  He leaned down towards her—hesitated for half a beat—and kissed her on the forehead. Then he straightened up, and they looked into each other’s tired, raw faces.

  “Hell of a time for this to happen,” he said.

  “I know,” she said. “I know.”

  * * *

  Hours crept by. Georgina must have dozed off on the ugly orange chairs at some point. She woke to a nurse gently shaking her. It was getting light outside.

  “Your father’s awake.” The nurse had a kind voice. “He was asking for you. It’s not official visiting hours, but come on through just for a moment.”

  Disorientated, Georgina sat up and ruffled a hand through her hair. Her mouth tasted sticky, of saliva and stale coffee. She needed to brush her teeth.

  “Thank you,” she said to the nurse.

  Jimmy’s hospital window faced the sunrise, and the pale shell pink light illuminated his gray, tired face. The doctors had called it a “mild heart attack,” which seemed an oxymoron to Georgina’s layperson ears. Still, the word “mild” had left her hopeful, and she was shocked to see how bad he looked: his face drained of color, wires and tubes connecting him to ominous machines.

  “Georgie,” he said wearily. “My great girl. Saved my life, you did.”

  She sat down on the chair beside the bed and took his hand. His fingers squeezed weakly back.

  “Sorry,” he said, the words seeming to cost him a great effort, “if I gave you… a bit of a fright.”

  He winked at her through his tiredness, and Georgina almost smiled.

  “Oh, Dad,” she said. “Don’t you go anywhere on me now.”

  “I won’t,” he promised. But he sounded so tired.

  They didn’t talk much. She assured him that Cody was okay, that he had spent the evening at his friend Patrick’s house, and that Bren would give him a suitable-for-seven-year-olds version of what had happened.

  “I’ll leave you to rest, Dad,” she said presently. “You sound exhausted.”

  “I’m knackered,” he said. “Heart attacks really take it out of you, what?”

  Reluctantly, she laughed. Encouraged, Jimmy slipped further into his comedic role.

  “Poor ol’ Georgie,” he said, “what a week. First the pipe in your kitchen goes, then your old dad!”

  Georgina felt cold. But she showed some of her teeth in what she hoped was a passable imitation of a smile. Jimmy seemed appeased.

  As she got to her feet to leave, a thought occurred to her.

  “Who were you on the phone to, Dad?”

  Jimmy’s head twitched towards her. “What?”

  “Who were you on the phone to when you collapsed?”

  He just stared at her. Perhaps he couldn’t remember the moments before the heart attack.

  “I just wanted to call them and let them know you’re okay,” Georgina explained. “They must have got the fright of their lives.”

  “Ah,” said Jimmy. “Yes. It was Billy, as it happens. Don’t worry, I got the nurse to send him a text for me.”

  “You’re way ahead of me.” Georgina kissed him on the forehead before she left. “I love you, Dad.”

  Chapter 33

  “Is Granddad going to die?”

  Georgina, tidying the breakfast table, looked up. Cody was standing in the middle of the room, schoolbag on his back, face puckered with worry.

  “No, sweetie. Granddad’s doing much better. The doctors say he can come home soon.”

  Cody didn’t look reassured. Since Rose’s passing, he understood death. There was still a frown line between his eyes as he left with Bren for school. Georgina watched him trail down the long driveway, a small figure with hunched shoulders, and her heart ached.

  When they had driven away, she went upstairs to her father’s bedroom. Jimmy had asked her to collect him some clothes, and also to “Bring me in some decent food, would you? This hospital muck is awful.”

  She hadn’t lied to Cody. Jimmy had looked greatly improved on her last visit. The color was returning to his face. He’d been sitting up in bed, reading the broadsheet newspaper.

  “Bring me in a bottle of red wine too, would you?” he’d added.

  “Yo
u’re joking, Dad,” Georgina had replied uncertainly.

  “I’m not. Something good. South African, maybe.”

  She rapped him gently on the knuckles with the pen she was holding. “The doctors say you have to lay off the wine. And the steak.”

  Jimmy only huffed. “A life without wine and steak? That’s not a life worth living.”

  Georgina didn’t find his grave humor quite as funny as he did.

  In the bedroom her parents had once shared, she found and folded her father’s clothes and packed them into an overnight bag. T-shirts, fresh socks, underwear… What else had he asked for? “A couple of good books.” She began to scan the bookshelves. They were mostly her mother’s old books. Marian Keyes, Maeve Binchy… Jimmy wouldn’t be caught reading those.

  Was that a James Patterson on the bottom shelf? She crouched down and slid out Along Came a Spider.

  As she did so, she glimpsed a narrow box at the back of the shelf, jammed behind the row of dusty books. Curiosity captured, she pulled out several paperbacks, piling them on the carpet, and maneuvered it out.

  The box was filled with small and forgotten things—paper clips, old postage stamps, pens—the kind of objects that gathered in the corners of long-lived-in houses.

  It also contained a number of loose photographs, in faded sepias and grays.

  Emotion welled in her chest as she picked up a black-and-white snapshot of her mother, taken before Georgina was born. The gray tones rendered Rose’s auburn hair the color of soot, and she stood with the awkwardness of a person unused to being in front of a camera, but none of this detracted from her beauty.

  Georgina glanced at and impatiently put aside several photos of people she didn’t know, before finding one of her parents on their wedding day. They were looking at each other with such love it brought a lump to her throat.

  She flicked eagerly through the rest. Jimmy was younger in these, enormously tall even then, but lanky rather than broad, and utterly baby-faced. Just a teenager. Seventeen, eighteen at most. And there was Jimmy’s brother, Billy, immediately distinguishable at any age due to his enormous nose and ears, looking dizzyingly young.