Forget Me Not

by Claire Allan

  Julie sighed, dragged on her cigarette again. ‘It’s her, Rachel. They had jewellery – that bracelet she always wears. They described the tattoo on her wrist. The identification is just a formality. It’s definitely her.’

  The feeling of that sliver of hope disintegrating almost broke me in two. ‘But maybe …’ I offered to no one in particular, the sentence dying on my lips as I realised how futile it was.

  Julie just shook her head. ‘I wish. I really, really wish. I can’t stop wishing and hoping, but Ronan was as sure as he could be. He’s going with their parents. He says he’s not sure his mother or father will be up to the task of identifying her. He might have to do it.’

  My heart ached for Ronan, Clare’s older brother by eighteen months. As much as he’d roll his eyes at us and our giggling, melodramatic, annoying teenage ways, he’d been almost as much a part of our gang back then as any of us were. He and Julie had even shared an ill-fated snog at the youth club Halloween disco once. It was such a drama at the time. Drama. We hadn’t known the meaning of the word.

  This wasn’t how our lives were supposed to go. Julie, Clare and I – we were meant to live to a ripe old age and become our own version of the Golden Girls. This wasn’t meant to be how it ended. I wondered whether I should have a drink, after all. Numb the senses. Dull the edges, just as Julie was doing.

  ‘Do they know what happened?’ I asked, not sure if I was ready for the response.

  Julie’s hand shook more as she took another sip from her glass, shuddering slightly as the vodka slid down her throat.

  ‘It definitely wasn’t an accident,’ she said. ‘He didn’t have details – I’m not even sure that I want to know them. But the police are treating it as a murder inquiry. I imagine it’ll be all over the news by teatime.’

  Brendan walked back into the room and handed me a mug of tea, but my hand was shaking too much to hold it. I sat it on the coffee table in front of me and looked at my friend. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say. It was taking all my strength to keep breathing normally.

  ‘She was so happy, Rachel. I don’t know when you last spoke to her, but she was so happy. Said she felt her life was finally going in the right direction. She was finally over that bloody break-up and was ready to move on. It was the brightest I’d seen her in years. I don’t understand it. Who would do this to her? You know Clare like I do; she wouldn’t ever hurt a fly. I don’t understand …’ She finally gave in to her tears, her body shaking.

  I thought of the last time I’d seen her. It was about three weeks before. We’d met for a hurried brunch one Saturday. She’d been so happy – glowing, in fact. Told me she believed more than ever that it was absolutely true that life began at forty. She was happy in work, hoping for a promotion, and she’d met someone.

  I wondered about him. Did he know? Jesus, could he have done it? We knew so little about him. Had the police spoken to him yet? Did they know who he was? Clare had always been coy about him when we’d talked. Said she didn’t want to ‘jinx’ it. But she’d met him through a dating app and they’d been out a couple of times.

  ‘He’s a real gentleman. Not a player, like so many of the men on those sites. He seems genuinely interested in a relationship,’ Clare had said.

  I’d warned her to take it slowly. She was a romantic at heart – threw herself into relationships too easily. Allowed her heart to be broken. She’d reassured me. ‘We’ve not even slept together yet,’ she’d whispered, blushing. ‘But I’m enjoying the snogging sessions.’ She’d sounded so upbeat. Young. Innocent. I’d been almost jealous of her joie de vivre.

  ‘Joy of life’. How quickly things had changed. I sat, numb, looking at Julie.

  ‘Have the police spoken to her new man?’ I asked.

  Julie shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe. If they can find him, but you don’t think he’d be behind it, do you? He was making her happy.’

  ‘There’s something about it all that I don’t like. Did she ever tell you who he was?’

  Julie shook her head. ‘She said we’d meet him soon enough. I wasn’t going to push further … Oh, God!’ She doubled over again. Another gut punch. ‘What if they don’t find him?’

  ‘There’ll be stuff on her phone. Her computer. They’ll find something,’ Brendan piped up. ‘But don’t jump to conclusions. Let the police do their job.’

  ‘I can’t breathe thinking about it,’ Julie said, tears falling thick and fast.

  I felt useless. I couldn’t ease her pain. I couldn’t make sense of any of this. I just hugged her while she cried.

  The sound of sobbing was nipping at me. It was too loud. My head was too full. My heart was too sore and yet at the same time I felt as if I were reading lines from a script. No one had these types of conversations in real life. No one. I dropped my head to my hands, covering my eyes, blocking out the glare of the sun through the window.

  The doorbell ringing pulled me back to the present. I sat up, moved closer to Julie so that I could hug her as she cried. It seemed such an inadequate gesture.

  I heard a man cough as if to announce his presence, and turned round to see Brendan standing with a man in a suit and a uniformed police officer.

  ‘This is DI Bradley,’ Brendan said. ‘And his colleague Constable King. They wanted to talk to you, Julie. And probably you, too, Rachel, come to think of it.’ He turned to inform them that I was one of Clare’s oldest friends, too.

  ‘Rachel Walker?’ the policeman asked and I nodded.

  ‘Yes, it’s good to have you here too, then.’

  I nodded again.

  Julie and I shifted apart. She pulled the cuff of her cardigan across her face again to dry her tears – her skin now red and angry.

  ‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Mrs Cosgrove, Mrs Walker,’ Bradley said, looking at both of us in turn.

  ‘So, it’s definitely her?’ I asked, knowing even as I spoke that it was a stupid question. He’d hardly be here if it was someone else.

  ‘A positive identification was carried out a short time ago,’ he said.

  I felt my body sag and Julie grabbed my hand. Brendan invited the two officers to sit down on the armchairs on either side of the room. DI Bradley took the seat closest to us and pulled out his notebook.

  ‘We’re trying to speak to as many people as we can, as quickly as we can, to try to gauge Ms Taylor’s last movements. Her brother, Ronan, gave one of my officers your details. He said you were very close to the deceased.’

  I shuddered at the use of the word ‘deceased’. It seemed wrong. I felt angry. He shouldn’t be reducing who she was to how her life ended.

  ‘We are … were … very good friends with Clare. Yes,’ I said.

  Julie just nodded.

  ‘And can I ask, both of you, about the last time you either saw Ms Taylor or spoke with her? When was the last time you received any communication from her at all, be it a text message or social media chat?’

  Julie spoke first.

  ‘I saw her yesterday. At work. We work in the same building – the pensions office. Or we did.’

  ‘And how was she? Did she talk of her plans for after work?’

  Julie shook her head. ‘It was a busy day. We just had a brief chat at lunch. Mostly nonsense stuff. About the book she was reading and holiday plans. I said I’d call her later and maybe we should go for a drink at the weekend.’

  ‘And you?’ he asked, turning to me. ‘When was the last time you spoke to her?’

  ‘I think we had a chat on Facebook a few days back. It was something and nothing. I think I asked her how things were going with her new boyfriend. Hang on, I should have it here on my phone.’

  I noticed the glance pass between Bradley and his colleague at the mention of a boyfriend, and I rifled in my bag to pull out my phone, scrolling through my messages to find the last chat I’d had with Clare.

  God, if only I’d known it would be the last chat I’d have with her, I’d have said more. It would have be
en more heartfelt than a simple exchange of gossip. I handed my phone over.

  ‘Do either of you know the identity of this new boyfriend?’ DI Bradley asked.

  I shook my head before looking to Julie. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she did know, given how close they were, but she was looking downwards.

  ‘I don’t,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry. Clare was so scared of jinxing it, she wanted to keep it to herself for now. It was all fairly new, you see. Do you think it’s him? You do, don’t you?’

  ‘We’re at the very early stages of the investigation. At this stage we’ve no clear suspects, but nor have we ruled anyone out. How new is fairly new?’ DI Bradley asked.

  ‘Maybe a month, six weeks at most. Something like that.’

  We were interrupted by a knock on the door. Brendan popped his head around and spoke.

  ‘Sorry, love. I’m just going to go and pick up the kids from school. I’ll take them to your mother’s house, keep them out of the way for a bit.’

  Julie nodded, her eyes darting to the packet of cigarettes on the coffee table. She clearly wanted to smoke another one.

  I glanced at the clock on the mantlepiece and realised with a start that it was almost three o’clock and I usually picked Molly up from daycare at three thirty on a Wednesday. I needed to go, too, or I’d be late.

  ‘Actually, DI Bradley, I need to go, too. I have to pick my little girl up from crèche, and I need to collect my car from work first. I’m sorry, my husband’s working in Belfast and there’s no one else who can collect her.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘But could you call into the station at some stage in the next twenty-four hours if at all possible? We’d like to take a full statement and get a copy of these messages, Mrs Walker.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, taking his business card from him. ‘I’m sorry to have to rush off.’

  I was lifting my coat from the arm of the sofa, when Julie spoke.

  ‘How did she die?’ she asked, her voice small. ‘What happened?’

  Constable King shifted a little uncomfortably in her seat. ‘At the moment we can’t say too much while we await a postmortem examination, but it looks as if the cause of death was severe blood loss brought about by knife wounds.’

  I felt my stomach tighten again. My legs weaken. I thought of Molly standing at the door of the crèche, some brightly coloured painting in her hand ready to be shoved in my direction with a smile. I thought of how we usually sang nursery rhymes all the way home in the car. How my evenings, which I’d considered so completely dull and ordinary, could never be so again.

  I desperately needed to speak to Paul, but more than that, I ached to speak to Michael. Michael who could distract me from any pain, who could help me block the horrific reality of what had happened. Michael who was my guilty pleasure, and my darkest secret.

  Chapter Five

  Rachel

  ‘Mammy, why are you sad?’ Molly blinked at me, her bottom lip trembling as I undid her seat belt and lifted her from her car seat.

  I’d been trying to act normal for her; clearly, I wasn’t doing a very good job.

  But just how do you tell a three-year-old something so catastrophic has happened? She trusted me implicitly to protect her from all the bad in the world. This would prove to her that I wasn’t infallible. That bad things happened. Horrible things. And while it’s a lesson we all have to learn, I didn’t want to be the one to take the innocence from my baby girl.

  ‘I’m just a bit sleepy,’ I lied, kissing the top of her head. ‘You know how you get really grouchy when you need a nap? It’s a bit like that.’

  She looked at me for a moment, her blue eyes staring out from under the mop of tight blonde curls surrounding her face. I swear she could see right through me – knew I was lying – but just chose not to challenge me. Not this time.

  ‘Okay, Mammy,’ she said. ‘Let’s go see Daddy and Beth.’ She took my hand in hers and pulled me towards the front door.

  ‘Daddy’s working in Belfast still,’ I told her, ‘but Beth should be home and I bet she’s ready for cuddles from her best girl in the world.’

  Molly beamed at me, delighted to have her place as best girl in the world reinforced, and I let us into the house, calling upstairs to my older daughter that we were home. I really needed her to take Molly out from under my feet for a little, just until I called Paul and then, of course, Michael. I should have been seeing him that night, at the creative writing class I tutored, but I’d hardly be teaching that night. Not after what had happened. It would have been wrong. Everything felt wrong, even the most mundane tasks.

  Beth appeared at the top of the stairs, still in her school uniform, but her hair was loose around her shoulders and she was wearing her fluffy slippers instead of school shoes.

  ‘You called?’ she asked, giving me the same inquisitive look her little sister had just moments before.

  ‘Beth, could you mind Molly for a bit? I need to make a few phone calls.’

  ‘Mum, what’s going on?’ she asked, walking down the stairs towards me. ‘Trisha Donnelly was on Snapchat telling everyone you’d just walked out of class today. What’s up? Is it Dad?’

  She was twelve years older than her little sister, but she looked just as vulnerable as she walked down the stairs towards me.

  ‘Mammy says she needs a nap, ’cos she’s a sleepyhead,’ Molly said, throwing her padded jacket on the floor and grabbing her favourite teddy bear from the hall table.

  Beth raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow. ‘Mum?’ she asked again.

  ‘It’s not Dad. Dad’s fine. I’m going to call him now, but please, Beth, could you just mind Molly for a little? Put on a DVD or something. Just make sure I get a little peace.’ I heard the wobble in my voice and inwardly crumbled.

  ‘You’re scaring me, Mum,’ Beth whispered as if Molly didn’t have the ears of a bat.

  ‘Darling, please, I’ll explain it all shortly. But don’t worry. Everything’s okay.’

  I felt awful lying to her, but this wasn’t something you just blurted out. Truth being told, I didn’t know how to say it. How to find the words.

  Reluctantly, she led her little sister into the living room and I climbed the stairs to our bedroom, where I sat on the edge of the bed and took my phone out. It was Paul’s number that I dialled first. It rang three times before he answered. On hearing his ‘hello’, I felt my composure slip.

  ‘Paul,’ I said, my voice breaking. ‘You need to come home. Something really awful has happened. I need you here.’

  ‘The girls?’ he asked.

  ‘They’re fine,’ I assured him. ‘It’s Clare. Paul, have you seen the news about the body found at Coney Road?’ I realised I’d started to shake.

  ‘Yes, I saw it … but, God, no, Rachel,’ Paul said, his voice low. ‘It’s not Clare? It can’t be.’

  ‘Police confirmed it this afternoon,’ I said, my voice breaking. ‘It was murder, a knife wound.’

  I finally gave in to sobbing as I heard my husband try to soothe me down the line.

  ‘I’ll be home as soon as traffic allows,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe it, Rachel. This is awful.’

  I couldn’t even speak to say goodbye, so I just ended the call and curled up into a ball on my bed, burying my head in my pillow so that my daughters wouldn’t hear my sobs. I didn’t want to alarm them. I wished there was someone here to hold me and soothe me as I cried.

  I knew I should have wished for that person to be Paul, and in a way I did. But more than that, I wished it were Michael. I needed him. My body physically ached for the comfort he could give me. Knowing that I wouldn’t see him tonight was hard, when I just wanted him to hold me and tell me everything would be okay in the way only he could.

  I tried to slow my breathing, to regain control of my emotions, and I dialled his number, saved in my phone as Michelle. Just in case, I’d thought, long before I realised just what I was getting myself into.

  ‘Hey, you,’ h
is voice, smooth, comforting, came down the line. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you later. Can you get away for coffee afterwards?’

  At this point normally we may have laughed at the word ‘coffee’, knowing that it was about more than coffee. We’d not slept together. Not yet. But it was, we’d both realised, only a matter of time before we couldn’t hold out any longer. Before I took the final step, which would brand me a cheat forever.

  ‘I won’t be there tonight,’ I told him. ‘I’ve texted them and asked for a substitute to be sent in.’

  ‘Does that mean you’ll be pretending to be there and we might just have more time together if I skip class, too?’

  I so wanted to say yes. I so wanted to be led astray by him. I wanted to be distracted by him, taken away from the horror that had been unfolding all afternoon.

  ‘Michael,’ I said, loving even the sound of his name, ‘I wish it were that simple. My friend’s dead.’ I gulped back a sob, closed my eyes and tried not to picture how she may have been found. ‘That poor woman out on the Coney Road. It’s Clare.’

  ‘Oh, Rachel,’ he soothed. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I wish I could do something to be there for you. Is there any chance we could see each other even for five minutes?’

  I shook my head, told him no. ‘Paul’s coming back from Belfast now. We’ve got to tell the girls yet. And the police want a statement, so I’ve got to go to the station, too. It’s all just a nightmare. I can’t even …’

  ‘It’s okay,’ he soothed, his deep soft voice washing over me. ‘You know I’m here for you whenever you need me. You do believe that, don’t you? You know how I feel about you, Rachel. I’ll do whatever you need me to do to help.’

  ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen – these next few days, I just don’t know …’

  He sighed. ‘Don’t worry about the next few days. Just take it a day at a time, Rachel. An hour at a time if you need to. I’ll be here when you’re ready, whenever that may be. Even if it’s just for five minutes.’