One Under

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  It was a mid-terrace doll’s house, typical of the immediate area, and Connolly knew the layout from experience: two rooms and a kitchen downstairs, three bedrooms and a miniature bathroom upstairs. A frayed-looking woman in an apron opened the door to a smell of potatoes cooking and the sound of boy-children quarrelling somewhere within. Connolly instantly recognized the mammy hairdo and the faded eyes behind the glasses. ‘Mrs O’Hare?’ she asked, and though the boys were arguing in pure Shepherd’s Bush, she wasn’t surprised when the woman answered in a County Clare accent.

  ‘That’s me. And who might you be when the sun shines?’

  ‘Detective Constable Connolly, from Shepherd’s Bush Station.’

  She frowned, but it seemed less with concern than faint weariness, as though she was about to be bothered with some pointless bureaucracy. ‘What’s this about, so? I hope you’ve not come bringing me trouble. Me kids are all home safe, thank God, bar Deenie that’s gone round the shops, but she’s only been gone five minutes.’ Then, belatedly, came alarm. Her hand jumped to her throat. ‘Oh, dear Baby Jesus, it’s not me husband?’

  ‘No, no, don’t worry,’ Connolly said hastily, ‘it’s nothing like that.’

  ‘Thank the Lord. You had me heart going there like the butcher’s pony. So what did you want? Only I’ve the kids’ tea to get.’

  ‘We’re making enquiries about Kaylee Adams,’ Connolly began.

  Despite the tea to get, Mrs O’Hare seemed to settle slightly on her feet, as if in for the long chinwag. ‘Ah, God rest her, what a terrible thing! Deenie said they gave it out at school today she was run over. And the gouger never stopped, is that right? He should be locked away, and the key tossed.’

  ‘I understand Kaylee was a friend of Deenie’s?’

  ‘Ah, they were, worst luck. They were very tight for a time, those two.’

  ‘And that Kaylee was here on Saturday?’

  Mrs O’Hare frowned, which made her glasses slip down. She pushed them back up and said, ‘Well, now, that I can’t tell you. I was at work Saturday. But Deenie’ll be back in a bit. D’you want to come in and wait?’ The boy-battle within reached a crescendo and she bellowed over her shoulder, ‘Keep the head shut, you boys, or I’ll be in and give you such a clatter!’ The volume dropped a notch, and she seemed to hear something else. ‘Oh Mother of Mercy, me potatoes’re boiling over! Just come in, close the door.’

  She dashed away. Connolly followed more slowly. The narrow passage had stairs straight ahead, and the wall between them and the door was hung with pegs on which a great mass of coats of all sorts and sizes greatly reduced the passing-space. On the floor below them was a jumble of shoes and trainers. A glimpse through its door showed that the front room was the ‘best parlour’. The patterned wallpaper was hung with a variety of crucifixes and religious reproductions that made her feel quite at home. There was a three-piece suite, a television, a mirror over the fireplace, and framed family photographs on every surface.

  The back room was almost entirely full of a table with chairs round it, at which three boys were (or weren’t) doing their homework, overseen by a large, highly coloured print on the wall of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Blessed Saviour had apparently torn open his own chest to reveal the throbbing organ, which was inexplicably wound round with a blackberry runner, and his eyes were rolled upwards in understandable agony. Connolly was glad her mother had favoured The Light of the World over the more visceral representations that haunted Catholic childhoods, but the three boys didn’t seem to be bothered by their grim guardian. They were robustly ordinary boys in scruffy school uniforms and looked about nine, eleven and thirteen, and they fell silent and stared open-mouthed at Connolly as she came in.

  Mrs O’Hare poked her head round the kitchen door. ‘Have manners!’ she snapped. ‘Stand up when a lady comes into the room!’

  The boys scrambled to their feet, and Connolly smiled her thanks and said, ‘Good afternoon. Carry on with your homework. I’ve just come to talk to your mammy.’

  She progressed to the kitchen doorway, while behind her the boys sat down and got their heads together for an urgent murmur. The room beyond was tiny, being the scullery of the original layout, as she knew from her own home in Clontarf. It had space only for a gas stove, sink, refrigerator, work surface with a cupboard beneath, and a door in the corner which was probably the larder. Two people could have passed each other in there, but not if they were both obese. Opposite her was the back door, but these houses had no gardens, only a slip of a yard behind for hanging out washing. There were two rows of garments out there now, pegged out and waving their arms in the breeze.

  The potatoes were simmering in a large pot, and Mrs O’Hare was chopping onions. A shrink-wrapped packet of mince lay on the counter-top. Mince, taties and peas, Connolly thought. The good old stand-by.

  Mrs O’Hare looked up. ‘Tuesday’s my day off, because I work Saturdays. Not that it’s much of a day off – what with the washing to do and everything, I’m worn thin be nightfall. But we try and have a meal all together of a Tuesday. Brian’ll be home about half past six. The rest of the week Deenie gets the boys something after school so they don’t have to wait. They go to St Joseph’s, but Robert Towneley’s is nearer, so by the time they get home she can have something on the go for them. They get so hungry. Growing boys’ll eat you out o’ house an’ home, so they will.’

  ‘I know,’ said Connolly.

  ‘You’ve brothers?’

  ‘Four sisters. I’ve boy cousins, but. So Kaylee Adams was Deenie’s best friend, I’m told?’

  ‘Used to be,’ said Mrs O’Hare shortly. ‘I don’t think they’ve been so close lately.’

  ‘What did you think of her?’

  ‘To tell you the truth, I didn’t like her much when Deenie first brought her home. A bit of a madam. Too old for her age, you know the sort? Too sure of herself. I thought she’d be getting Deenie into trouble, so I wasn’t best pleased at the friendship. But it has to be said, she never misbehaved in this house. A bit cheeky now and then, maybe, but no trouble. And Deenie never had many friends, so I laid low and said nothing. I was glad for her to have someone.’

  ‘Kaylee got into trouble a few times for shoplifting – that must have worried you.’

  ‘Well, I never really knew about that – not until afterwards, when she’d already got a hold and tried to put a shape on herself. And you see, it’d come out that she stood up for Deenie and stopped her gettin’ bullied, so I thought a bit better of her.’

  ‘Tell me about that,’ Connolly invited.

  She pursed her lips, remembering. ‘The two of them came home from school one day – well, I was here, so it must a’ been a Tuesday – and Deenie’s in floods and her shirt’s torn and there’s dirt an’ scratches on her face, and Kaylee’s all over blood from a clatter on the nose, and it looks like she’s gettin’ a black eye. So I was giving out to Deenie about fighting, when Kaylee starts in telling me to leave her alone. Well, I wasn’t taking that from no little madam, when it was probably her started the fighting in the first place, because it has to be said Deenie’s always been a bit milk-an’-water – but then Deenie says, no, Ma, you’ve got it wrong. And it turns out some bullies had cornered Deenie outside the school gates, an’ Kaylee just wades in and fights the lot of ’em. And it wasn’t the first time, either, according to Deenie. So after that I took kinder to her.’

  ‘She sounds as if she was a good friend.’

  ‘Well, there was benefits on both sides. At one time she was round here practically every night after school, and I was having an extra mouth to feed. But it has to be said she didn’t have much to go home for, if what I heard was true. Mother’s a head case, so they say, and no father in the picture. She used to call for Deenie in the mornings too, at one time, on the way to school. I suppose Deenie’d give her breakfast – I have to leave for work early, so Deenie feeds herself and the boys. There was a time I started thinking we’d adopted her. But then she s
topped coming round so often, and her and Deenie weren’t so thick any more.’

  ‘When did this happen? I mean, when did the friendship start to fade?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know exactly. Last year some time. You know what girls are. They have their own little lives, and now they’re friends and now they’re not. I can’t keep up. You’d have to ask Deenie. I’ve enough on me plate taking care of a husband and three sons, without worrying about that one and every little teenage tiff she has. But Kaylee’s definitely not cropped up in the conversation so much lately. So really—’ she raised faded eyes to Connolly’s face – ‘I don’t know that Deenie’ll be able to help you much. Ah, that sounds like her.’

  The front door had opened and slammed. Connolly turned and stood back from the kitchen door so that the mother could get a clear view. The girl was shrugging off her anorak, jamming it on top of the pile, and then she stumped heavily down the passage towards them with a plastic carrier in her hand, her body language speaking of unhappiness. She didn’t see Connolly until the last minute, and stopped uncertainly, looking from her to her mother questioningly.

  She was a plain girl, plump with puppy fat, her nose too big for her face, her skin blotchy, her mousy hair frizzy, long, and tied back carelessly with a scrunchie. Her lack of prettiness was not helped by a look of sullenness and discontent, or the school uniform that seemed to be a size too small for her, so that her burgeoning bosom was packed away bulgingly like washing in a pillow case.

  ‘This is Constable Connolly, who wants to have a word with you about Kaylee,’ said Mrs O’Hare with a firmness that allowed no dissent. ‘Did you remember the peas?’ Deenie passed over the bag, from which Mrs O’Hare unpacked a large bag of frozen peas, a tub of spread, and a frozen strawberry cheesecake – a special extra, Connolly supposed, for the culmination of the togetherness family meal. It had a bright red label on the front, 89p reduced from £1. Connolly knew from experience that the treat inside would be a great deal smaller than the box, and that it would only really divide into four – the male half of the household. She had long experience of the way Irish mammies thought.

  Deenie watched her mother as she slouched on the other side of the doorway, her head slightly averted from Connolly. Mrs O’Hare looked up sharply. ‘Well, don’t just stand there like an ancient ruin! Take the lady into the front room where it’s quiet. I don’t want the boys listening in,’ she added sotto voce to Connelly. ‘They mustn’t be disturbed when they’ve their homework to do and exams to be thinking about. Mind and answer her questions properly, Deenie, and don’t be all night about it – I need you to get the washing in before it rains again.’

  Deenie turned, without meeting her mother’s eyes, and began to walk away. Connolly went to follow her, when Mrs O’Hare spoke again, ‘Oh, mercy me, haven’t I lost me manners entirely! Will I make you a cup o’ tea, miss? Deenie, fill the kettle!’

  Connolly liked the fact that she didn’t know the correct way to address a detective constable. It spoke of a basic innocence – even if she didn’t have much tenderness towards her daughter. ‘No, thanks all the same,’ she said. ‘Not for me. I’m fine.’

  FIVE

  But She Was Too Young to Fall in Love

  In the cramped little parlour, surrounded by religion and kin, Connolly felt the comfort of familiarity. Things were shabby but Sunday-clean, the little bits of decoration hopelessly naff and touchingly cared for. There were starched white antimacassars on the sofa and chair backs, plastic flowers in a vase, china ornaments on the mantelpiece and a lingering smell of furniture polish in the air.

  Deenie stood inert just inside the door, looking as if she’d never move again.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ Connolly invited. ‘Don’t worry, Deenie, you’re not in trouble. I just want to find out what I can about Kaylee.’

  The girl lurched across and slumped into one of the armchairs. Connolly sat on the sofa catty-corner to her and tried an encouraging smile as she examined her. It seemed to be more a general discontent than sharp grief over the death of a beloved friend. She got the impression of a girl no one much cared about. Deenie picked at the cord binding the arm of the chair. Her nails, Connolly noticed, were bitten.

  She tried a curve ball on her, to shake her up a bit. ‘Are you still getting bullied at school?’

  Deenie looked up, surprised. That was not the question she’d expected. ‘No,’ she said at last. ‘That’s all finished.’

  ‘Kaylee scared them off for good, did she?’

  ‘I dunno. They sort of lost interest, I s’pose. Some of ’em were older, and they’ve left.’

  She had no vocabulary to describe the disruption of a pattern, but Connolly understood. ‘She was a good friend to you,’ she suggested. Deenie shrugged. ‘You were best mates.’

  ‘We were,’ Deenie said. ‘Till she started going round with that Shannon and Tyler. Then she never had time for me.’

  Ah, so that was it. Resentment. Thwarted love. Jealousy. That might give her something to work with.

  ‘What, she dropped you for them?’

  ‘No, not … Not exactly. We were still mates, I s’pose. But she was always busy with them. I’d be like, “Are you coming round tonight”, and she was like, “No, I’m going out with Shannon and Tyler”.’

  ‘That’s Tyler Vance, is it?’

  ‘Yeah.’ It was said disparagingly.

  ‘You didn’t like her?’

  ‘She was all full of herself. She was like, “Oh, I’m so pretty, I’m so lovely, everybody’s mad about me.”’

  ‘So you weren’t one of their gang?’

  ‘It wasn’t a gang. It was just them.’ She looked up resentfully ‘And I told that policeman, after Tyler – you know – in the river. I told him I was never her friend. Why d’you keep asking?’

  ‘It’s all right, I believe you,’ Connolly said soothingly. ‘What about Shannon? What’s her other name? Shannon what?’

  ‘Shannon Bailey. She’s left school now. She was the year above us. Soon as she was sixteen, she left.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Last June.’

  ‘Did you like her?’

  ‘She was all right,’ Deenie said with another shrug. ‘She was a bit of a nutcase, but … I never had much to do with her. She was sort of a loner, till she took up with Kaylee. Then they were, like, really tight. With that Tyler.’

  ‘So when did all that happen, then – when did Kaylee get so close to Shannon and Tyler?’

  She shrugged, but as Connolly kept waiting for an answer she said, ‘I dunno. Last year. Maybe – round Easter? We were gonna do stuff in the Easter holidays, but she was all like busy with them and I hardly saw her.’

  So that would be around April, a year ago, Connolly thought. Then Shannon left in June, and probably the remaining two, Kaylee and Tyler, got even closer and Deenie was shut out. And Tyler died in January.

  ‘But Kaylee still came round sometimes?’ Connolly suggested.

  Deenie shrugged. ‘Like, since Tyler died, she started wanting to hang out with me again. A bit.’

  She stopped, and there didn’t seem to be any more to come. Connolly said, ‘She was keeping her stuff here, wasn’t she?’

  Deenie looked surprised. ‘You what?’

  ‘Her sister Julienne said she was keeping her stuff here, to keep it out of her mother’s way.’

  ‘Julienne? She’s just a kid, what does she know? Anyway, have you seen my room?’ Obviously a rhetorical question. ‘I get the small bedroom ’cos the boys have to have the big one, and you couldn’t swing a cat in it. There’s not enough room for my stuff, never mind anyone else’s.’

  ‘But she was here on Saturday, wasn’t she? What time was that?’

  ‘Lunchtime. She come round lunchtime and said we should do something.’

  From her voice, Connolly gathered that was unusual. ‘You were surprised? You said she wanted to hang out with you.’

  ‘Well, we were still mates at
school, sort of. But I never saw her weekends. We’d walk home from school sometimes.’

  ‘So last Saturday she, what, just turned up?’

  Deenie shrugged. ‘Yeah, sort of. She turned up and said what you doing and I said nuffing. So we went and got pizza from the place at the end of the road, and come back here and eat it, up in my room, and, like, talked.’ Her expression softened. ‘It was nice, sort of.’

  ‘Your mum was at work.’

  ‘Yeah, and Dad was out with the boys, so I was on my own.’

  And lonely, Connolly thought, in a receptive mood for the old friend who wanted to be forgiven.

  ‘So it was like old times?’

  She wrinkled her nose in thought. ‘Not really. She’s different now.’

  ‘Different how?’

  ‘We used to be all laughs and having a good time together. But then she got in with Shannon and Tyler and she was all serious, like pretending to be a grown-up. She never talked about stuff any more.’

  ‘What did she talk about?’

  ‘Money, mostly. She’s always talking about money. Saying she’s saving up to get out of this shithole – that’s what she calls it,’ she added, defensively. ‘Start a new life, sort of. Soon as she’s sixteen, she says. Well, that’s not until December. She was fifteen just before Christmas. I’m not fifteen till May,’ she added sadly.

  ‘Being fifteen’s not so great,’ Connolly said.

  Deenie gave her a sceptical look. ‘Better than fourteen.’

  ‘Where was Kaylee getting the money from?’

  ‘I dunno. I reckon her boyfriend was giving it her,’ she said indifferently. ‘She had this older boyfriend.’

  ‘Did she? What’s his name?’