When Your Eyes Close
Page 16
‘Is your mother still alive?’
Michelle shook her head. ‘She died two years ago – Multiple Myeloma – it’s a cancer inside the bone marrow.’
‘I’m sorry. What about your father?’
‘My parents split up years ago. He lives in the north. We don’t really keep in touch.’
Caitlin looked at Michelle and wondered if the reason she liked her so well was because they had so much in common. ‘I know how it is. Both my parents are dead. They died when I was little … an accident.’
Michelle nodded. Caitlin didn’t think she looked very surprised, although she was probably just being diplomatic.
‘Do you have any siblings?’ Michelle asked.
Caitlin shook her head. She thought of the boy, it was a hazy memory now, so much so that she wasn’t even sure it had happened. ‘No, just me,’ she said. ‘I was adopted by a couple, but they broke up about a year after they took me in. He didn’t want me, and she blamed me for his leaving. We’re not close. Actually, David’s mum is more like a mother to me now. She’s the only family I’ve got.’
‘How old were you when your parents died?’
‘Five. But I remember them as though it was yesterday. My mother loved to sing, my dad too. They were always making recordings. I’ve got a cassette, one that was in my tape recorder, that my mother used to play sometimes to get me to go to sleep. I don’t know where everything else went … I was only allowed to keep a couple of toys. One of the social workers took me to my house and told me I could pick out just two things. The rest I suppose got packed up to go to some charity or other, but I’ve still got that cassette with them singing and joking.’
‘Wow. That’s incredible. It must be hard, though, listening to it. What happened to them?’
Caitlin shrugged. ‘Car accident … some crazy driver ran a red light.’
It was a story she’d grown used to telling. It didn’t even feel like a lie anymore. And even if it was, it wasn’t her lie. She’d believed it, visualized it for years until she’d found those clippings – so to repeat it came naturally. She wondered how Michelle would react if she told her the truth. She’d never told anyone the truth. Not even David.
‘About the fortune teller though,’ she said, shaking herself from the past, ‘it wouldn’t really be my thing. It’s not that I don’t believe in it, I’m open to most things, it’s more that it would creep me out. I’m a coward like that.’ She smiled, made a point of looking at her watch. ‘Now we’d better get to looking at this article – I hadn’t meant to keep you all day.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Michelle
Michelle didn’t know what to make of Caitlin’s account of how her parents had died. It wasn’t that she might have been lying that bothered her, not really. In her place, Michelle would have attempted to evade the question altogether. It was the fact that Caitlin didn’t look as though she were lying, so either she was very adept at it, or she believed what she’d said to be the truth. She hadn’t had a chance to tell Nick yet. She’d rather wait until they were face-to-face.
‘What’s up? You seem miles away,’ Conor said as they made their way away from the North Quays and towards Abbey Street.
‘Oh, nothing.’ Michelle knew she’d been quiet. She’d been thinking about what Caitlin had told her that morning, about her adoptive parents being cold. She didn’t know how much of it, if anything, she should tell Nick. He’d blame himself, she knew that. If Johnny Davis hadn’t lost it, Caitlin wouldn’t have been adopted. End of.
It was beginning to drizzle with rain. Michelle pulled up the hood of her blue raincoat and quickened her step to match Conor’s. It had been one of the tough parts of volunteering at first, being out in all weathers, but she’d grown used to it and now she didn’t mind so much. Strangely, she seldom seemed to get sick even when she got soaked through.
It was strange too, she thought, how little she knew about Conor. They’d been doing the rounds together for more than six months, but their talk never moved beyond the superficial. She liked him. He struck her as unflappable, someone who would remain calm no matter what way the tide turned. ‘Do you think there should be an onus on adoptive parents to tell a child about their past?’ she asked him now.
He didn’t answer straight away. ‘I suppose it depends on the circumstances and on the child – whether they could handle it.’
‘And what if it was something bad – say the parents had been murdered, for example?’
‘Hmm … I don’t know. I mean, thinking about it, my instinct would be to tell the child the truth, but there are so many reasons why kids end up in care and all of them are bad. It’s like … what if your parents were junkies? Would it be better to know that or just to think they gave you up and you never knew why? You could argue that the kids should know – for medical reasons if nothing else – because there might be a chance that they’ve inherited some genetic illness. I guess for that reason alone I think it’s important for everyone to know who their biological parents are. Murder though, that’s pretty rough …’
‘Yeah, it might be easier to tell them that their parents had been killed in an accident.’
‘Could be. I mean, you wouldn’t be hiding anything like medical facts – but then you couldn’t tell the kid their real identity either. They’d be bound to find out the truth; all they’d have to do is type the names into Google these days. A headline story like that, it’d come up straight away. Interesting dilemma. What made you bring it up? Is it something you came across when you were doing those interviews?’ He looked at her sideways, blinking against the rain.
Their next stop was huddled a few hundred metres away in a doorway, sleeping bag disguising the human form – not an inch of anything visible.
‘It was just something I saw in a documentary,’ she said.
When they stopped by the man in the sleeping bag, she took out the photo of David. She’d mentioned to Conor what she was planning before they’d left, told him how the woman she’d written the article for had her own story. She hadn’t mentioned Nick.
The man, sitting on sheets of cardboard, was one of their regular stops. He had been on the streets for as long as Michelle had been with the Simon Community.
‘Hey, Stevie, how are you doing today?’ Conor leant down and handed the man his usual sandwich: tuna and cheese. If you gave him anything else, he’d make a face. That was the thing about volunteering, you got to know the people, their likes and dislikes.
Michelle held the picture of David out to him. ‘Stevie, have you ever seen this man?’ Stevie stopped unwrapping the sandwich to look up. He sat forward and peered at the picture.
‘Might have …’ he said. ‘What’s he done?’
Michelle shook her head. ‘He’s missing. I thought I’d show the picture around, see if anyone recognized him.’
‘Hard to know, but … there’s a fella like him I’ve seen up at the Capuchin … has a beard, but he looks like him round the eyes.’ Stevie traced around David’s eyes without touching the print. ‘Yeah, could be …’ he said.
Michelle felt a bubble of excitement. She knew she shouldn’t. There was every chance that Stevie was wrong, but still. They exchanged a few more words with the man, and Conor passed him a ten-pack of cigarettes before they moved on. Seeing Michelle arch an eyebrow he gave a rueful smile. ‘I know, but what else has he got?’ he said, and Michelle smiled. Conor often gave something to the regular faces, if not cigarettes, then a second-hand book.
At every stop she showed the picture of David. The next few people shook their heads, saying they didn’t know him. Then she handed the photo to a woman who stared at it for a few minutes before slowly nodding. She jabbed at the picture with her index finger. ‘Yeah, I think I’ve seen him … down at the day centre.’
‘The Capuchin?’ Michelle asked.
‘Yeah. In the mornings. I go down there, have a shower, you know.’
‘And you’ve seen this man?’
Two possible sightings. She knew it shouldn’t, but it raised Michelle’s hopes. ‘Do you think there’s anything in it?’ she asked Conor.
He shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t pin my hopes on it, but you never know.’
She nodded. Conor was right. It would be some fluke if she found Caitlin’s husband that easily, but still … She wondered if she ought to say anything to Nick. There was no point unless it could be substantiated. She’d go to the centre and show David’s picture to some of the volunteers there. She knew they must see a lot of faces, but if he was someone who went there regularly, they might just recognize him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Nick
Nick was sitting at the table with his laptop in front of him, Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’ at low volume in the background, when he heard Michelle’s key in the door. Rowdy, lying in his bed in the corner of the room, lifted his head to look up, then jumped out, tail wagging, and went to the closed living room door.
‘Hey, what are you up to?’ Michelle dropped her backpack, stooped to pet the dog, and then put her arms round Nick’s neck.
He gestured towards the screen. ‘Trying to find out as much as I can about Caitlin’s husband. I found his name easily enough; he’s still a Facebook friend of hers. Naturally, there haven’t been any posts for over a year. His surname’s Casey and he worked at Gabriel’s boys’ school. He’d been there for several years before he disappeared, according to the dates. I wrote down a few names, people who seemed to like everything he posted, had a bit of banter going on. Of course, that doesn’t mean those people were close to him. We all know what Facebook is like; people you haven’t seen in twenty years might look like your best friends. I did come across a familiar face though – a guy called Andy Quinn who was playing in the band at the wine bar with Caitlin. There are a lot of photos of the three of them. I imagine he’d be worth talking to. Although he wasn’t too friendly the night I met him, he seemed really possessive of Caitlin and not necessarily in a healthy way.’
‘Nick?’
‘Hmmm?’ He was still looking at the screen, scanning through different sites. He looked up when Michelle pulled out a seat and sat next to him.
‘I’m not sure Caitlin knows what happened to her parents.’
‘What do you mean?’ he said.
‘We talked about it earlier when I went around to her office. She said that her parents died in a car accident.’
Nick nodded, his mind working. ‘Okay …’
‘I was thinking about it, and maybe she said it because she didn’t want to say they’d been murdered, I probably wouldn’t, but … I don’t think she was lying … it was too smooth.’
‘But her name is Davis, right? If the adoptive parents had really wanted to make sure she didn’t find out, surely they’d have changed her surname. They’d realize that all she’d have to do is search, the same as I did, and bingo, she’d find out the truth.’
‘Not necessarily, I mean it would’ve taken a lot more effort back then, things weren’t at the click of a button. And besides if they didn’t tell her her parents’ Christian names…’
‘True.’ He paused, digesting this, thinking that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if Caitlin didn’t know. At least she’d have been saved the pain of that. ‘Did she say anything else? Anything more about her husband?’
‘Not particularly. She’s close to his mother. Her adoptive parents split up, the man wasn’t in the picture at all, and the woman … they’re not really close.’
Nick shook his head. ‘I’ve got to find this guy. At least find out what happened to him. It’s the only thing I can think to do …’
‘What if Caitlin finds it strange? I mean, if you talk to this guy Andy, he’s surely going to tell her, and what would she make of that?’
‘That’s true. But I don’t have a choice. I have to talk to the people who knew David. The Internet will only get me so far.’
‘What if you talk to her? You could tell her you’ve got a friend who’s a detective or something, that you could ask him to look into it as a favour … I know if my husband was missing, I’d be willing to accept all the help I could get.’
Nick squeezed her hand. ‘It’s not a bad idea. Better than looking like a pair of do-gooders she’s just met.’ He got up and paced the room. ‘What exactly did she say about her adoptive parents, was it bad?’
Michelle shrugged. ‘Like I said, the guy left. She seems to think the woman blamed her. The woman wasn’t cruel or anything, just cold I think. The way Caitlin put it, it sounded like she just went through the motions of caring for a child. She’s already been through so much in her life – do you think maybe if she doesn’t know what happened with Johnny and Rachel, it might be better to keep it that way?’
‘Yeah, I suppose it’s partly cowardice, but I was thinking the same. Of course, we don’t know that she doesn’t. Maybe she’s just repeated it so many times it’s easy for her to say.’
Michelle nodded. ‘I was thinking about it all afternoon, whether children have the right to know where they come from. I don’t know what I’d do in that situation, if I were the parent I mean. I think I’d probably lie too. How could you expect a young child to understand? Maybe when they were older, but then too much time would have passed … I’d probably never get around to telling them.’ Michelle yawned.
He guessed it had been a long day for her. He was feeling shattered himself. But then he’d felt like that most of the time since his diagnosis. ‘Why don’t you head up to bed? I’ll be there shortly, as soon as I tidy up down here.’
He saw Michelle hesitate, then she spoke. ‘There’s something else. I wasn’t even going to mention it because it might be nothing. I’ll know tomorrow …’
‘What?’
‘I thought it might be a good idea to show David’s picture when I was doing the soup run, see if it jogged anyone’s memory, if anyone had seen him. Two of the people I showed it to said they might have seen him at the Capuchin day centre. Neither of them could be sure, and it might come to nothing, but I’m going to go over there to talk with some of the volunteers.’ She stifled another yawn. ‘Like I said, I wasn’t going to say anything until I’d spoken to them …’
Nick nodded. He couldn’t believe all that Michelle was doing to try to help him, first by making contact with Caitlin, then by finding out about Lydia, even if that had come to nothing. Now this, a lead – no matter how tenuous – in the search for Caitlin’s husband. He stood to hug her, then winced as a stabbing pain stopped him in his tracks. Michelle moved towards him swiftly, putting a hand on his arm. ‘You okay?’
He exhaled, afraid to move too suddenly again. ‘I haven’t been great. I keep getting these pains.’ He took her hand. ‘Michelle, I just want to say thank you … what you’ve done so far, it’s incredible. You’re incredible, but then I already knew that. Even if nothing comes of tomorrow, don’t think I don’t appreciate you trying. Go on now, you head up to bed, I’ll be there in a few minutes. Oh, by the way, how would feel about going to the wine bar on Wednesday evening? Caitlin did say we should come, and maybe we’d get a chance to talk to that guy Andy. He might be more amiable if you’re there. Wouldn’t think I was hitting on Caitlin at least.’
Michelle turned at the door and smiled. ‘It’s a date,’ she said. And he smiled back through another searing pain.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Caitlin
Caitlin arrived late so she wouldn’t have to speak to Andy before they began playing. He was already seated along with the rest of the group and they were clearly waiting for her to arrive. Andy looked up as soon as she pushed the door open; she could feel his eyes on her as she entered the bar. She was relieved to see Michelle and Nick were sitting at a table in the corner near the door. Good, let Andy see th
at she had more friends, that she didn’t have to rely on him.
‘Hey, we thought you weren’t coming. Is everything okay?’
‘Yeah, fine,’ she said. She smiled briefly to take the chill from her response, then set her case on the floor and snapped the locks open. Andy didn’t have time to say anything more as she took the violin in her arms and nodded to the group to show that she was ready.
She didn’t know if it was her irritation with Andy, or if the paranoia of recent events had coloured everything, but the proximity of the other musicians made her feel claustrophobic. She felt their eyes on her as she played and any prolonged look, any awkward glance, was a cause for suspicion.
At the interval she stood, ready for escape.
‘Caitie,’ Andy called, and she had to stop. ‘Would you like a drink?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m good, thanks,’ she told him, laying her violin in the case and crossing the room to where Michelle and Nick sat.
‘Wow, you play so well,’ Michelle said, rising from her seat to embrace her warmly. Nick stood too and shook her hand, which struck her as endearingly formal. He asked her if she’d like a drink, and she glanced towards the bar and saw Andy pay the barman. He turned quickly, catching her eye before she could look away, and she turned back to Michelle, hoping that would discourage him from joining them. Much to her annoyance, he did anyway.
‘We met a couple of weeks ago,’ he told Nick. ‘Didn’t know that you had already met each other?’
‘We didn’t,’ Caitlin said stiffly. ‘I didn’t know that Nick was Michelle’s boyfriend.’
‘Ah,’ Andy smiled. He looked pleased that her two new friends were a couple, that Nick was suddenly no threat – as a man at least. He held his hand out to Michelle. ‘Andy. Lovely to meet you. Can I get you anything, a top-up?’ he asked, eyeing their glasses of juice.