Are You Watching Me

by Sinéad Crowley

  Her tone was conversational, her eyes dry, but she had abandoned the cup now and began to tear small pieces off the tissue, depositing them neatly in a pile on the table.

  ‘Cancer. Diagnosed in June, dead by Christmas. A year later, my mum got married again. That was . . . That was tough too.’

  She looked up at Claire.

  ‘It was really shit, actually.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Can you?’

  The pile of paper snowflakes on the table was growing quickly.

  ‘Brian, her husband, he’s a nice guy. Safe, you know? An accountant, of all things. He’s OK; he’s not, like, nasty or anything. But he’s not my dad. So I moved out. My dad left me this apartment he owned in town, and enough money to go to college. So I had a home, at least. Mum and Brian moved away themselves, soon afterwards, to the States. Mum had another baby. We speak on the phone the odd time; I don’t go over much. She seems happy.’

  Slowly, deliberately, she extended an index finger and poked a hole in the centre of the snowy pile.

  ‘That sounds tough, alright.’

  It was exactly the right thing to say and Claire glanced over at Flynn, impressed. But her colleague didn’t notice. Instead, he just caught the young woman’s gaze, and held it. Claire was reminded of a farmer who had lived down the road from them when she was small. He had had a reputation for catching stray animals – horses, dogs, even a sheep once. He could look them in the eye and tempt them towards him, gain their trust somehow before penning them in again. He used to have the same expression on his face as Flynn had now, Claire remembered. Gentleness, compassion in his eyes. And there was a watchfulness about him too, a sense he knew exactly where he wanted things to go from here.

  ‘And what age were you, when all this happened? Seventeen?’

  ‘Yeah. Well, nineteen by the time I’d sorted my things and gone.’

  ‘That’s young to be left on your own.’

  Flynn’s words echoed Claire’s own thoughts and the girl shrugged.

  ‘It doesn’t seem so at the time, though, does it? You know, you’re nineteen, you’re out of school – you’re, like, the queen of the world. You can tackle everything. Except, I couldn’t. I couldn’t, and I ended up fucking up really badly.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Claire was interested now, not just in where the story was going but in the girl herself – how she had got from there to here.

  ‘I got a place in Trinity, to study arts, and I went for a few months. But my head wasn’t in the right place for any of it. The shyness, the anxiety – whatever you call it – came back, worse than ever. I was completely terrified of going to lectures, couldn’t stand the thought of having to get up and speak in front of people. And it got worse. The more afraid I was of making a fool of myself, the more I hid away. I didn’t even want to eat in the canteen in case someone asked me to join them. Then one night I forced myself to go to a social, the smallest one I could find. I was climbing the walls of the apartment, I was so lonely. So I went along to the Games Society, of all things – just to get out of the house. And there was free beer. And I had a pint. And . . .’

  She looked at them, a faint smile appearing.

  ‘I was happy for the first time in years – at peace in my own skin. I hadn’t really drunk alcohol before. My dad had asked me not to and I pretty much did everything he told me, back then. But this feeling was amazing. I could stand and yap away to people and I didn’t go red and I didn’t stutter. It was the best night of my life, to be honest with you. I felt like shit the next morning, obviously. All the usual nerves, and worse. Did I say too much? And were they all laughing at me? But there was a simple solution to that, wasn’t there?’

  She smiled again, bitterly this time.

  ‘Just grab another beer.’

  Claire nodded. She wouldn’t be the first student to go a bit doolally, first time away from home. But, in this case, there seemed to be more to it. Liz was still talking.

  ‘I ended up dropping out. The rest of them seemed like kids, running home at the weekends to get their washing done. I had literally nothing in common with them. I had plenty of money – my dad left me pretty well off – so I started going out in town at the weekends and hanging around with a different crowd. An older crowd. They didn’t care who I was or what I did, as long as I got my round in. I didn’t bother going back to college after Christmas, and after a few phone calls they stopped chasing me. It can be quite easy, actually. To disappear.’

  She gathered the torn tissue in one cupped hand, divided it, made another pile.

  ‘There were a lot of guys too. Happy to hang around with me. Not surprisingly, really; I always stood my round.’

  For the first time, her voice faltered and Claire saw in her face the shadow of the nineteen-year-old she had been. And then she blinked, the teenager disappeared and there was aggression in her voice when she next spoke.

  ‘You need to hear all this, do you?’ She sounded accusing, as if they were steering the conversation and not the other way around.

  They said nothing and, after a moment, she sighed.

  ‘Yeah, well, whatever. I was a piss head. That’s the short version. So, yeah.’

  The nineteen-year-old was back again, confused and embarrassed, and Claire was surprised to find herself wanting to reach out and touch her hand.

  I know what it’s like, she wanted to say. To feel alone, and desperate. To wake up one morning to find the only person who understands you is gone and everyone else is driving you mad. I was lucky; I got out in time. But not everyone finds an escape route, or the right one.

  She didn’t say any of it, but the girl seemed to sense Claire’s empathy.

  ‘There are whole piles of it I don’t remember – blanks, gaps, whatever you want to call it. When I look back, it’s like it all happened to a different person.’

  She looked at Flynn this time.

  ‘It’s been over two years since I got my shit together, properly got away from it all, but sometimes I’ll be in town, or in a shop, or something, and someone will come up to me and say, “Hey, how are you? Haven’t seen you in a while!” Or, “Hey, that was a great night we had that time; bet the head wasn’t the best the next morning.” And half the time, I don’t even know who they are. It’s pretty terrifying, actually, especially if it’s a guy.’

  Her cheeks were flushed again, her breathing shallow.

  ‘Sometimes I’ll meet someone and he’ll be, like, “Hey, remember me? Remember that night?” And, a lot of the time, I can’t remember anything. So that’s why I didn’t come to you, why I didn’t want to tell you about the letters. Because I knew you’d be all, “Is there anyone you can think of who might wish you harm?” And I’d have to say I hadn’t a clue. I was just fucking mortified, thinking about it. And terrified I’d have to start thinking about it again.’

  Her hands were clasped now, fingers intertwined as she kneaded the palms together.

  ‘There’s something else too. I’ve never actually told anyone this before. Anyway. There were a few nights when the stuff we were doing wasn’t, you know, legal. Drugs, and that. We were in this pub one night – a lock-in – not the type of place I usually went to. I was dating this guy and he knew someone, you know the way it is.’

  She paused and then named a pub, notorious for its connection with the Dublin criminal underworld. Claire frowned. Not the type of place she could imagine a gang of over-privileged students getting their jollies. Liz looked up briefly and then ducked her head again.

  ‘Yeah. You’ve heard of it. So, around three in the morning, the place was raided. The guy I was with was shitting himself. He had . . . He didn’t want to be searched, put it that way. So he dragged me out through the kitchen; there was a back door – he said we could get out that way. This other girl followed us out. I don’t even remember her name. She was someone else’s girlfriend, but she was totally wasted. This guy I was with, he kinda hooshed us over the bins at the bac
k of the yard and then climbed out after us, and we started running down this dark lane. It was a miserable night, lashing rain. Then I heard this thud behind me and the girl had tripped over something, or fallen, I’m not sure which, and she didn’t get up.

  The words slowed and she dipped her head again.

  She was just lying there on her face and her legs were at a kind of a funny angle. And she didn’t move. The guy . . . The guy I was with told me I had to leave her there. He was yelling at me; he said he was on probation, or something, and it would be this big deal if he was found with anything dodgy on him. He said I had to move, now, otherwise he’d leave me behind too. I was totally freaked out – there were guards everywhere, you could see blue lights flashing over the roofs of the houses. So I followed him. And I left her there.’

  She pressed her fingers against her eyes as if she could rub out the memory.

  ‘I left her there, and afterwards I couldn’t get her out of my head. Anything could have happened to her. I was afraid to turn on the TV or listen to the radio for weeks after, in case I heard that a body had been found, or something. I was in bits – so fucking scared. I was totally paranoid that she was dead and there’d be this murder enquiry and that they – you – would be after me. I just kept heading out every evening, drinking and trying not to think about it. It was horrific. And then Tom saved me.’

  She looked up and saw the question unformed on Claire’s lips.

  ‘Yeah, Tom. Tom, and running out of money, and wanting it all to stop, I suppose. But it was mostly Tom. He turned up at the right time. Picked me out of the gutter, literally, helped me through the whole withdrawal thing, found me the right people to talk to. And he gave me a job. That was almost two years ago. I never found out what happened to her. I don’t even know her name. I’ll never forgive myself but . . . Well, in a way, I suppose working at Tír na nÓg felt like I was making amends. Putting something back. Helping other people, because I didn’t help her.’

  Flynn looked puzzled. ‘I see where you’re coming from, but what I don’t understand is why you did all those interviews, then? All that TV stuff? I mean, I can understand why someone with your . . . your background, shall we say, would want to work in Tír na nÓg and help others. But why chose to put yourself out there like that?’

  ‘Because Tom asked me to do it.’

  The nineteen-year-old was gone again and the woman opposite Claire looked older than she was.

  ‘I owed him. When he asked me to come to work for Tír na nÓg, it made sense. He helped me, so I could help others. And I thought it could be, like, a fresh start, in a place where no one knew me. Then I met this guy I knew from school, Dean Evans, he’s a journalist now and he asked me to do the interview for the news.”

  Interesting, thought Claire, how Mr Evans had popped into the story, and she filed the information away for future use. The young woman was still talking:

  ‘So Tom was all, “Oh, that’s a great idea.” I just felt I couldn’t refuse. And every time I went on TV or on the radio, people started sending money to the centre and I was kind of locked into it. Tom looked so happy; he kept talking about how we could improve things with all the donations we were getting. So I felt I hadn’t a choice, really. And then, the weird thing was, I actually started to enjoy it.’

  She looked straight at Flynn for the first time.

  ‘Sorry if this sounds all “me, me, me”, but the whole media thing has been really good for me. Like a real sign, you know, that I was getting my shit together. Then the first letter came and I was totally freaked out by it. Even though it looked harmless. So I chucked it away. And when the second one came, I was too afraid to tell the guards, because I was too embarrassed and ashamed to say that there are whole fucking months of my life that I can’t remember.’

  It was a lot of information. But one point leaped out at Claire.

  ‘The first one?’

  Liz sighed. ‘Yeah. There was another letter, maybe two weeks ago, only this one came to Tír na nÓg. Same guy again, Stephen, saying he was keeping an eye on me and that he’d like to meet me sometime. And there was another clipping from the paper – a bit about me, this time. Dean said it was nothing to worry about, that that sort of shit happens all the time to people on TV, so I threw it away. I assumed he knew what he was talking about. And he was right; I mean, loads of people have been trying to get in touch with me since I started going on TV. I don’t really do social media, but I’ve had a look a few times. So I believed Dean when he said it was normal. But then I got the second letter . . .’

  Her voice trailed off and she shivered before speaking again.

  ‘I’m really sorry. I thought I could, you know, start again? But everything I touch just turns to shit.’

  ‘Well. It sounds like you’ve been through a tough time. But you shouldn’t have destroyed those letters, you know.’

  ‘I panicked. I’m sorry. That’s not much use to you, but I am.’

  Claire shrugged. She had a lot of sympathy for the girl, really she did, but there was work to be done. ‘Stephen was the signature on both letters?’

  Liz nodded again, miserably. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘OK.’

  Claire closed her notebook with a decisive thud. It wasn’t an unusual name, but there had been a Stephen somewhere in James Mannion’s story; it rang a bell alright. So at least it was something to go on.

  She gave the girl a half smile. ‘I think that’s all, for the moment. I do appreciate you being so honest with us. It goes without saying, of course, that if you get any other communication like the last one, you have to tell us.’

  Liz rubbed her eyes wearily. ‘Of course. Certainly.’

  ‘So is there anything else you need to tell us?’

  She shook her head and made a faint attempt at a smile. ‘That’s enough, isn’t it? My life and times. I hope you can make some sense of it. Because I sure as hell can’t.’

  Flynn gathered his own notes. ‘Is there someone coming to get you? Mr Carthy?’

  Liz shook her head. ‘No. I need to be alone for a while.’ She looked from one to the other in turn. ‘I’m OK, aren’t I? To go home?’

  Claire thought for a moment. ‘I’m not mad about the idea, to be honest. Not since the second letter came to your home address. Is there anywhere else you can go?’

  The girl nodded. ‘Yeah. I guess. I don’t think I’d feel safe at home, anyway. I’ll find someone.’

  Claire stood up. ‘You sure? I mean – I understand family isn’t an option.’

  Liz stood too, and forced her shoulders back. ‘I’ll be fine. Feel a bit better, actually, having said all that. Hope it helped.’

  ‘You can be sure it did.’ Flynn reached across and shook her hand. ‘I’ll give you a lift. Wherever you decide to go.’

  The girl looked up at him, the dark smudges under her eyes distinct against her pale skin. ‘Thanks. I’ll go to Tír na nÓg.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Second body linked to Tír na nÓg charity.

  Protect our elderly! #prayforJames

  Fantastic. Claire clicked out of Twitter and threw her phone down on to her desk. The second murder was still prominent on all of the main news sites. It had taken the Guards in Cork some time to track down Eugene Cannon’s brother and bring him to Dublin for the formal identification of the body, but several of the better informed hacks – chief among them Dean Evans, she noted – had already named him in their stories and were reporting a link with Tír na nÓg. And several tweeters, or twitterers, or whatever you wanted to call them, were echoing calls made earlier on a radio station for a vigil to be held for the dead men, to highlight, as one tweet put it, the need for ‘extra resources’ to help others like them. Well, they were perfectly entitled to do that, Claire mused. But she couldn’t help bristling at the implication that the Gardaí weren’t acting fast enough to protect the city’s elderly. And she also worried that any sort of public event might do more harm than good. If the murderer g
ot off on getting attention – and many of them did – she couldn’t think of a better way of giving it to him.

  ‘Lots to think about there, so?’

  Flynn, who had driven Liz Cafferky back to Tír na nÓg, walked into the room and took his seat across the desk from her.

  ‘That didn’t take long.’

  ‘No.’ Flynn frowned. ‘I believed her, did you? I mean, it was a sad story, but it sounded accurate enough. It’s not easy, being nineteen, even without that sort of shit happening.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  Claire had been thinking a lot about being nineteen, since Liz Cafferky’s interview had ended. It was at about that age, maybe a little younger, that she herself had lost her boyfriend and her relationship with her parents over the course of one black weekend. The fact of the matter was, without support and good advice from a local guard, she might not have ended up in the Garda training college at all, but someplace else entirely. And, who could say? Her story mightn’t have been dissimilar to Liz’s.

  ‘It’s a tough age for any sort of big change.’

  Flynn was probably speaking from experience too, Claire mused. Well, no ‘probably’ about it. He was clearly cool with his sexuality now, but it can’t have been easy, growing up in Ballygowherever. She wondered when he had told his parents. Had he told them now, even? It was none of her business, but the question intrigued her. She hadn’t ever thought of Flynn as having a personal life before. Now it seemed it may well be full of drama.

  The buzz of her phone interrupted her thoughts. Matt, again. She’d barely spoken to him in days, other than to exchange information about Anna. She’d been so wrecked on Saturday night she’d fallen into bed at the same time as the baby, and he’d gone for a run on Sunday before shutting himself into the sitting room to work on a business proposal of some sort. Her mind almost totally occupied by Eugene Cannon, Claire hadn’t listened to the details. Anyway, she’d answer him in a minute. She’d a few notes to write up first.