Liz sank into one of the room’s two mismatched chairs and heard an ominous creak. Falling apart, like everything else in the place. But at least the building was quiet that afternoon, and peace, rather than designer furniture, was what she needed. Coffee with Dean had been fun but the café had been too crowded and the conversation too fast, too involved. Over two years had passed since she’d restarted her life, but she still wasn’t great with crowds or even normal everyday banter and her friend’s chatter about ‘profile’ and ‘reach’ and ‘social media’ had thrown her completely. After yet another distracted ‘Mm hmm’, Dean had finally noticed her unease and offered to walk her back to the office afterwards, but she’d declined, craving her own company. Now, after a walk through the city centre, her iPod blocking out the world, Liz was almost back to herself and ready to work again.
And there was plenty to be done. Liz’s appearance on the giant plasma screen might have impressed Dean and a few randomers in the coffee queue, but it had done nothing to tackle the teetering pile of post on her in-tray. Five of the envelopes were brown and she could see the letters V, A and T peeping out from at least two of the plastic windows. Her job title, laughably, was that of ‘Communications Executive’. Tom had probably dreamed it up to satisfy whatever government department had offered to pay her a few bob as a graduate trainee. But, in reality, the role involved doing everything he didn’t want to do. Paying bills, organising grants, dealing with plumbers. Being nice to the neighbours. Stuff he’d totally let slide over the past few years. It suited Liz fine. She could do the donkey work and he could get on with saving lives.
Saving lives. The words made her shiver. She had never thought of it like that before. But wasn’t that what he did, when all things were considered? After all, he’d saved hers.
She had been on the boardwalk the night he’d found her, the wooden area overlooking the river in Dublin’s city centre. She had been lying on the ground, her cheek pressed against the slats and remnants of Chinese food dumped there pre-, or possibly post-digestion. It made her nauseous now, just to think about it, but that night she had been too far gone to care.
‘Are you alright? Can you tell me your name?’
She couldn’t say it, but managed a ‘Fuck off’ alright, and turned her head away from him, shrugged his hand away when she felt it on her back, kept her eyes closed in the hope that he’d go away, but Tom Carthy was a persistent bastard.
‘Are you ill? Is there anyone I can call for you?’
The next thing she remembered was the roughness of the car-seat fabric under her head and a smell of chips that would have made her puke if there had been anything there left to heave. Tom told her afterwards that she’d agreed to come with him and that, with his help, she’d been able to walk to the car herself. Liz believed him. Tom was a big guy, and she’d been even thinner back then, but even at three o’clock in the morning the sight of a formally dressed fifty-something man carrying an unconscious twenty-four-year-old back to his car would have surely raised some eyebrows. But she had to take his word for it because most of that night was a series of blanks interspersed with hazy memories. The car radio, playing country music at low volume. A streak of city lights against the window. The smell of vomit drying into her jeans. The radio played a song about a woman who had been gone a long, long time, and she remembered thinking that, if she was going to die, then at least she would be warm and dry.
Anyone could have taken her that night. Looking back now, from the safety of her office, her wonky chair and her teetering in-tray, Liz still shivered at the thought of it. She could have been raped, killed, thrown in the river, and no one would have missed her. She had been completely helpless and completely alone. There’d been others, earlier on that evening; they’d partied for hours, but her money had run out and, with it, their interest in her. They had left her slumped by the side of the river, completely disabled by booze and blow and a couple of tablets she didn’t even know the name of. And, thanks be to whatever God had been watching out for her, Tom Carthy had found her. After the car journey, there were more gaps, but she did remember milky lukewarm tea and a musty blanket spread across a lumpy sofa – a feeling of warmth and being safe for the first time in a long time.
Months later, Tom told her he hadn’t slept at all that night. Had sat on a chair outside the sitting room and berated himself for being so stupid. He should have taken her to a hospital, he’d told her, called an ambulance or the guards. He ran a men’s drop-in centre; it had been stupid to bring a girl there. But he had made an impulsive decision and, in doing so, had saved her. And that’s why she owed him. And that’s why she was working five days a week in a job that paid her, badly, for three. That’s why she had agreed to go on TV.
Tom Carthy rarely asked her for anything, so, when he did, she’d walk across hot coals to give it to him. Although, recently, she had started to wonder if that wouldn’t be easier . . .
‘Cup of tea, my darling?’
Liz blinked, looked up and then gave a faint smile as Richard poked his head through the open door.
‘Yeah, OK. Sure.’
She pulled the chair gingerly across the floor until she was sitting at the computer. There was so much to be done; the question was which task was more important. Richard returned and pressed the cup of tea into her hand, his fingers lingering on hers for far longer than was necessary.
‘That’s lovely, thanks.’
Refusing to catch his eye, she waited till he’d left before raising the cup to her lips. She put it down again, the brown stain at the lip an unlovely reminder of how many had drunk from it before her. Right, that was that decision made. Tír na nÓg had a voluntary code whereby, if you drank from a cup, you washed it, but most of the lads were lazy about this at the best of times and the pathetic trickle from the kitchen tap was making them even lazier still. They needed to find a plumber urgently, and someone who wouldn’t fleece them as well.
Putting the cup down on the desk beside her with a grimace – not only was it dirty, but there was scum floating on the top – Liz turned on the computer and launched the internet browser. She chose Google from the drop-down menu and then paused. What was it Dean had said? That she was trending on Twitter? Bollocks. She didn’t even know what that meant. Mad stuff. Still, though, now she was here . . .
She entered the search engine, typed in her name and then gazed, open-mouthed, as the results unfolded. There were pages of them. Newspaper articles in which she was quoted. A thread on a discussion forum about an interview she had done – one poster thought she had made ‘incredibly intelligent points’, another felt she was ‘out of her depth and talking through her arse’. A third opined that she had a great arse. A separate thread was devoted to her arse. Liz flushed, remembered the TV interview she’d done while standing up and the ‘set-up shot’, where the cameraman had filmed the back of her head while the reporter asked her questions over again. Clearly, more than her head had made it into the final edit.
Shaking her head, she remembered something else Dean had been wittering on about and ran another search, this time combining Tír na nÓg and Facebook. And there it was: the official Tír na nÓg Facebook page. Even to her untutored eye, Liz could see it was basic – no photos of Tom or any of the clients, just a blurred image of the outside of the building and a few lines of text:
Tír na nÓg is a drop-in centre for men who need to find a sense of community, some companionship or simply a cup of tea in Dublin’s north inner city. All welcome.
So far so innocent, and Liz recognised the words that Tom had used in a thousand grant applications. But it was when she clicked into the comments under the photograph that her heart began to plummet.
Hey, isn’t that were that hot girl works?
Does Liz Cafferky read this page? I’ll donate to her any time.
I’ll fundraise for ya if I can get Liz Cafferky’s number.
Liz Cafferky shud be president for what she done for old people and the way
she comes across on the TV is brilliant.
Damien here from Liffey Live F.M. Anyone have a contact number for Liz?
Hey, Liz, going to message you my number. Call me!
I think I was in college with Liz Cafferky. Would love to reconnect. Can you get her to call me on 087 . . .
Suddenly dizzy, Liz bent double and felt the chair almost skid out from under her. She jammed her feet against the lino and fought for breath. Too much. Too soon. Not now.
Focus, Elizabeth. But the panic was coming in waves.
I think I was in college with Liz . . .
He might have been. She couldn’t remember.
Blackouts. That’s what they called them. But it wasn’t the darkness that was the problem, more the flashes of memory that told her how bad things had been.
Evenings spent sweating in warm nightclubs, and then the rush of fresh air and cold brick against her back. Her top, hitched out of her jeans in one smooth movement. Her belt unbuckled.
‘You’re sure, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
Even when she didn’t understand the question. Even when she didn’t remember if it had been asked.
Beer breath mixing with hers. A tongue, poking. An arm burrowing. Once, her head held immobile, her cheek trapped in a large, clammy hand.
‘You’re sure, yeah?’
Yeah.
Because something was better than nothing at all.
The panic was sucking her under now, red heat flooding her cheeks. She pressed her fingers hard against her temples, trying to remove the memories, or bring them back. Either would be better than the grey fuzz in her mind. How many men had there been? She hadn’t a clue.
She had thought she had left all that behind, had earned the right to start again. The whole TV thing had been unexpected and terrifying in many ways, but there was a sense of achievement wrapped up in there too, a validation. Tangible proof that things were better now, that she could start again, had started again. But maybe that wasn’t possible, after all.
Her breath was coming in short pants and she knew that if she didn’t calm down she was heading for another blackout, this time from oxygen deprivation. She hadn’t had a panic attack in ages, but still recognised the signs.
Breathe. Relax. It could be nothing.
You’re a terrible person.
A trickle of sweat ran down her back, her face was radiating heat and her mouth was bone dry.
You did bad things.
What was it Dean had said?
‘This sort of thing probably happens all the time . . .’
They know what you’ve done.
She reached down and scrabbled in her pocket for her phone, found Dean’s number and opened a new text message.
I need . . .
Then she deleted it and locked the phone again.
He wouldn’t understand. Or maybe he would, and that would be worse still. She couldn’t face telling him the whole story. He knew a small part of it; she’d had to tell him something to explain what she’d been doing in all the years since school. Tom knew more of it, but neither of them had the full picture, and that was the way she wanted it. If all the stories joined together then what had happened in her past would become real again and she couldn’t live with that.
She put the phone back in her bag, sat straighter on the chair, forced her chest to inflate and then deflate again. Shuddered. Inhaled. Felt the oxygen hitting her blood stream. Exhaled. Don’t think; be.
She turned to face the screen, forced herself to read the messages again:
I think I was in college with Liz Cafferky. Would love to reconnect. Can you get her to call me . . .?
Meaningless. There was no meaning to it. It wouldn’t mean anything to her. Not if she didn’t let it.
She slowed her breathing even further, focused on tuning out the buzzing in her ears. She thought about Tom, and what he’d say to her if he was here:
Don’t mind them. It’s just some oul rubbish. It’s nothing to do with you, not really.
The Tom in her head was talking sense. She closed her eyes and focused on listening to him, told herself that the messages were just some shit, people flapping their gums, nothing to do with her, not really.
Then she clicked out of the Facebook page, swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm tea and stabbed the words plumber and north Dublin into the computer keys.
Chapter Six
‘You’ll have another cup?’
Flynn opened his mouth to accept, then caught the full force of Sergeant Boyle’s glare and shook his head, with some regret. He shifted his weight from one foot to another and resisted the urge to tug at his collar. Jesus, did no one on this road ever think to open a window? The smell in this sitting room was nothing compared to the stench next door, obviously, but the atmosphere was still stifling, a cloying mixture of overripe lilies, old-lady perfume and apple tart, cut through with the gassy emissions from the old-style Superser heater in the corner.
Across the room, the tall, grey-haired man who was perching awkwardly on the edge of a brown leather sofa took a sip from his own tea and sighed. His face was still a sickly grey colour, and his hands on the cup were shaking, but he seemed both awake and alert, a big improvement on how he had been just half an hour before.
As soon as he heard Boyle’s muffled exclamation, Flynn had raced into James Mannion’s kitchen to find her, arms outstretched, straining to keep the tall man from collapsing on top of the victim’s body. It must have taken some strength for her to do it, he mused. Although, the thought of what the tech guys would have said if they found out she’d let some bloke wander in off the street and dive on top of the corpse would undoubtedly have primed her muscles.
He’d helped her up then, and together they’d hauled the semi-conscious figure upright, before carrying him carefully across the floor and propping him in a sitting position against the wall.
‘Tom Carthy,’ he’d managed to mutter when they’d asked him his name, but he had refused, or hadn’t been able, to say any more. Given the violence of his reaction and the fact that he clearly had a key to the murder victim’s house, Flynn assumed they’d be taking him straight to Collins Street for questioning. But Boyle wasn’t mad about the idea and, after following her back out into the small, narrow hall, Flynn understood why. Through the partially open front door, they could see that the usual crowd of rubberneckers had gathered on the street outside. Following a bollocking from Claire at having let Carthy in without warning, the uniform who had been posted at the crime-scene tape was doing his best, but the camera phones were out. One short, sixty-something man, his tweed jacket straining across his ample middle, was declaring to anyone who would listen that a white van full of ‘dark lads’ had been patrolling the area for weeks now, and that the guards had refused to take him seriously when he’d complained.
‘All we feckin’ need.’
Flynn understood Boyle’s frustration. At least in the old days you’d get an hour or so into an investigation before some well-connected hack ambled along to ask stupid questions. Now every eejit with a smartphone had a picture of the crime scene up online before you’d a chance to confirm the victim was dead. And if they got a shot of a man being taken away in a car for questioning, the image would be trending on Twitter before the lads in Collins Street had taken down his surname.
A sharp knock from the kitchen caused both of them to swivel round. Another uniform, the red-faced and red-haired Garda Halligan, had come to the back door and was staring in bemusement at the two bodies on the floor.
‘Sorry to interrupt, sergeant, but the lady next door says she wants to make a statement. She reported the death, you see . . .’
Boyle’s face had cleared. It had only taken a few moments for the three of them to raise Tom Carthy to his feet and retrace Garda Halligan’s steps through the tiny backyard, out into the lane and through the wooden gate leading to the house next door. So now here they were, wedged into the neighbour’s sitting room, the lady of th
e house smiling as calmly as if she was hosting her monthly book-club gathering. All a bit social for Flynn’s liking, but at least the would-be reporters outside had no idea what they were doing.
Sergeant Boyle, who had been scribbling into her notebook, pulled herself up straighter on a wooden chair that had been pulled in from the kitchen, and cleared her throat.
‘Mrs . . . um . . .?’
‘Delahunty. Margaret Delahunty. I did give all those details to that lovely young chap.’
‘I know that, Mrs Delahunty. My apologies. It’s very kind of you to invite us in. I’m sure Mr Carthy feels more comfortable here.’
‘Are you sure you won’t have a hot drop?’
‘No, honestly. In fact, we really need to speak to Mr Carthy now, so . . .’
‘Oh, grand, of course. I understand.’
Mrs Delahunty settled back in her own chair, patience written all over her face.
Flynn snorted – more at the expression on the sergeant’s face than anything else – and then got the full side-eye treatment from his superior officer.
‘I know Garda Halligan is still in the kitchen, so if you could just . . .?’
The pause lasted one, two, three seconds, but finally the older woman got the hint.
‘I suppose I should leave ye alone, so.’
‘That’d be great, Mrs Delahunty. We won’t be long.’
As the door finally closed, Claire pulled her chair until she was sitting directly opposite Tom Carthy and Flynn took another look around the room. Structurally, of course, it was the same as the one in which the body had been found next door, but the decor couldn’t have been more different. Instead of books and bizarre dairy-based sculptures, Margaret Delahunty’s walls were lined with glass-fronted cabinets and graduation photographs. She lived alone, she had told them, but her sitting room was still that of a family home.
Are You Watching Me Page 4