‘It was a house fire,’ Maggie said with more conviction this time, eager to bring the talk of the fire to a close and revert the conversation back to Nuala. ‘Lois left the hob on and went for a walk. She was distracted, James having just left, and forgot to turn the hob off before she went out. She had a chip pan, an old tin thing, half full of oil; it set alight.’
‘Yes, that’s what the report says. It was an accident, a run of the mill kitchen fire, the fire chief never suspected arson and, as he filed it as an accident, a police investigation was never conducted. And the house wasn’t insured, so there was no motive there. It all looks, on paper, very straightforward. But I think Emma set that fire. I think she poured the oil in the pan, lit the gas burners and waited. It would only have taken twenty minutes.’
‘No!’ Maggie’s knees were jumping beneath the table. ‘She went to put the fire out but it had spread. It was drawn through the house by the draught from a bedroom window.’
‘Emma opened the windows upstairs so the fire would travel faster.’
‘No! She tried to help!’
‘Then why didn’t she?’
‘You weren’t there! I’d come back from the shops and saw the smoke from Lois’s house. I ran inside calling for her but it was Emma I found, watching the flames jump from the kitchen to the hallway, the ceiling black with smoke. I had to drag her out, she wouldn’t move. She was just standing there shaking from head to foot.’
Pale cocked his head, waiting for her to go on.
Maggie closed her eyes, pushing the heel of her palms into the sockets. ‘Half the village were on their way, the fire engine too, and in amongst them all I saw Lois.’
‘I can only imagine how upset Lois must have been.’
‘The first thing I did was go back to Emma. She was sobbing, convinced Lois was dead. I told her that it was OK, that Lois was fine. She was relieved. Why would she be relieved if she’d started the fire?’
‘You tell me.’
‘She didn’t do it! The only guilt she felt was over her inability to help. She’d frozen, too caught up in what had happened that day to think clearly. Her stepmother had just died, for heaven’s sake! She was in shock and grieving, not just for Elaine but for her baby, and for her relationship with James. It was my wake-up call: I realised I had to help her, so she could help herself. So I took her out of the village school and signed her up to the one in town, drove her there and back myself every day so she could focus on her schoolwork without local kids gossiping and bullying her, which they did, believe me. I encouraged her to do her GCSEs, her A Levels, I taught her how to run the pub as soon as she finished school. I changed my will, so she could take over when I died, so she’d have something to focus on, something to prove she hadn’t lost everything. It worked; she came round, was happier than ever.’
Maggie looked imploringly at the detective but he just smiled, shook his head. ‘Do you realise you’re the only person who’s told me this version? I’ve been told that Emma and James were seen arguing in the street just before he left the village that night. Emma was seen standing, staring, at Lois’s house before the fire started. And it must have started so very soon after James had left; maybe half an hour tops.’
Maggie’s fists clenched beneath the table. ‘Emma had no intention of killing Lois then and had no reason to kill her now. She had her future to think of.’
‘She seemed suicidal, or so her notes imply. Perhaps she didn’t care about the future.’ Pale reached into his blazer pocket and lifted out a letter, smoothing it out onto the table between them. ‘It’s a photocopy of the most recent note, the one we found in Emma’s back pocket. The original’s in evidence.’
Maggie lifted the piece of paper but her hands were shaking, blurring the words, and she put it back.
The detective read aloud. ‘I’m taking her with me. I can’t leave knowing she is still breathing. I should say that I am sorry, but I am not sorry.’
His eyes lifted to Maggie’s. ‘Just three lines. Our psych consult tells us she snapped. Her previous efforts were planned; this time she moved on instinct.’
Maggie’s arms fell to her sides, her eyes fixed on the note on the table.
‘Emma would have written more.’
‘She didn’t.’
‘She would have mentioned me.’
‘There’s something else.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Cyanide.’
‘Wh—?’ Maggie’s furrowed brow completed the question, tears dried up in surprise.
‘We found it in her bedroom, more than enough to kill herself. We’re analysing it to see where it came from.’
Maggie’s eyes fell back onto Pale. ‘Why would a normal girl like Emma have cyanide?’
‘I think it’s safe to say,’ said Pale, ‘that she was far from normal.’
That cold smile again.
‘You didn’t know her!’ Maggie’s face felt hot, her voice wavering as she tried to maintain control. ‘She wouldn’t do this, she wouldn’t leave me!’
But Pale was getting up, making to leave.
‘Please!’ The anger had left Maggie’s voice. ‘Read these and you’ll see.’ She held out the carrier bag of notebooks, maps and scrawled on paper. ‘It was her. Please!’
‘No one else has mentioned Nuala Greene, Mrs Bradbury,’ Pale said. ‘No one.’
‘Someone will have seen her.’
Pale was nearly at the door.
‘Have you asked Louisa, at the shop?’
He ignored her.
‘Have you asked anyone?’ Maggie cried but still Pale didn’t answer.
‘I’ll find someone.’ Maggie grasped at the detective’s sleeve, her fat fingers gripping the navy blue blazer. ‘I’ll make them tell you! I can still help!’
Pale spun round.
Maggie’s wrist twisted.
‘Are you telling me how to do my job?’ Pale’s face was an angry red.
‘I want to help! I have to do something!’ Maggie thought of the tyre tracks in the field, washed away by the rain. Of fingerprints wiped clean. ‘You haven’t asked anyone?’
‘You want questions?’ And now his fingers were on Maggie, prising loose her grip on the blazer. ‘I can ask questions. Have a premise licence, Mrs Bradbury?’
‘What’s that got to do—’ Did she? Oh Christ, did she have one of those?
‘How about a personal licence?’
Maggie stepped back, away from him.
‘Does the HMRC know all about the little cash-in-hand room you let out upstairs?’
Maggie curled her hands into fists, her hands trembling.
Pale saw the tremble.
‘You don’t want me asking questions, Mrs Bradbury.’
‘I’ll find someone. I’ll make them talk, make you see.’
Pale’s eyes were on Maggie’s dirty boots, her too-long trousers rolled at the hem. ‘You will, will you?’ They scanned over her belly, bulging out from beneath her shirt, her armpits ringed in sweat marks, the grey-white of her bra peeking from between the buttonholes.
Pale’s lips curved upwards, his smile full of pity.
Maggie tried to shout, ‘Yes, yes I will!’ but her throat was too dry and the words merely croaked.
Pale opened the door, walked through it without looking back.
‘I will!’ She found the words, but the detective was gone and Maggie was alone in the bar.
Her hands still shook at her sides. Sweat had gathered in the creases of her shirt and between her breasts. She could feel it building at the back of her neck. Her throat was no longer dry. ‘I’ll find her!’
Seven years ago
Emma
Wednesday, 11th August, 2010
She stood by the sink, the lino already melting at the doorway between kitchen and hallway, the flames leaving tongue-shaped scorch marks on the walls until eventually these, too, set alight.
She could feel the suck of the air, pulling the flames out of the kitchen and
on through the hallway, up the stairs and into the bedrooms.
She felt nothing, not pride, not righteousness, no vindication.
A crack of glass.
A thud on the floor, followed by another crack and thud, then another.
The photographs of James, ranging from baby to man, smashed one by one to the ground.
His clothes would be burning, now, upstairs. So too would his bed, his books.
He was leaving.
And it was all her fault.
Lois deserved all of this, Emma thought to herself as she watched the flames devour the house.
She had a sudden vision of what could have been. A nice, white maternity ward, Elaine holding Emma’s hand on one side, James holding her hand on the other, all urging Emma on with encouragement and pride, waiting for the moment her baby would be born.
But that wasn’t to be. That chance had gone, along with all the people who should have been there to support her. James should be there with her right now, holding her whilst she mourned.
The room was getting hotter, Emma’s face red with the heat. Though the windows upstairs were all open, pulling the fire through the house and upstairs, some of the flames were working backwards, inching across the lino towards Emma’s feet at the sink.
She closed her eyes, tried to block out the vision, but when her eyes were closed all she saw was her stepmother, her sweet Elaine. All she could feel was the warmth from those hands, a stroke to her cheek, a longing Emma couldn’t live with.
The flames were nearer, the smoke growing thick, the air so hot Emma could barely breathe. She didn’t move from her place by the sink. She stood, motionless, wondering how many deep breaths it would take to end her life.
A crash from behind, the kitchen door opening.
A gasp.
A scream.
Arms grabbing Emma, pulling her backwards.
Now there was blue sky above her, she was in Maggie’s arms, Maggie desperately asking, ‘Are you all right?’
She was being carried away from the flames, from the black smoke that had promised to take her away to her stepmother.
She was alone again.
She wrapped her arms round Maggie’s neck, the frying oil from her fingers marking Maggie’s shirt, and watched as Lois’s house burned.
Maggie
Friday, 24th November, 2017
‘What happened, Maggie?’ Jennifer Hill knelt down beside Maggie’s kitchen chair, put a hand on her friend’s slumped shoulder. ‘It’s been years since I’ve seen you like this, years. What happened to get you in such a state?’
Maggie shrugged her hand away, raised her head from the vomit-splattered table-top, gestured at the dead laptop in front of her. ‘I tried to find her myself,’ she slurred.
What had happened last night?
She had reopened the pub. That had been her first mistake. A last-ditch attempt to find someone who remembered Nuala, who would tell the police Maggie was right. None of the lads would talk to her last night, no one would say they had seen Nuala. She had rung the bell, called time, closed the door on them all and bolted it shut.
None of them believed her.
The bar, in their wake, was too big for once. The chairs were all empty, each sat in, at one time or another, by Emma. The photographs on the fireplace wall were frozen images. She thought of Tom, standing in front of the fire, a glass of whisky in his hand.
He was dead too, he was gone, and the bar was far, far too empty. Maggie walked to the kettle in the kitchen and flicked it on, made a cup of tea, lots of milk and a capful of gin, but this time she didn’t put the bottle away.
On the kitchen worktop, beside the entrance to the bar, was the laptop. Emma’s phone was still in police custody, her laptop held there too. But this one, ten years old and fixed at the hinge with scotch tape, was technically Maggie’s and the police had left it behind. Enough evidence, it would seem, had already been found on Emma’s phone and bedroom computer.
Evidence.
No one in the village would help her. They didn’t believe her, thought she was imagining things, half mad.
What was it Jennifer had said to her, about the things that could be found online, social media, Google, the like?
Maggie lifted the machine and sat it at the table, lifted the lid and turned the thing on.
No password, thank God, just the desktop screen. Maggie wracked her brain, tried to remember which icon was which, which one Emma had told her to click for the internet. She had never listened, that was the problem. She didn’t have the confidence to try it, didn’t see the need when Emma was there to do it for her.
Only she wasn’t here now; she was locked in a steel drawer at the morgue. The thought made Maggie wince, made her reach for the gin bottle, fill another cap and add it to her tea.
Finger over the mousepad she moved the cursor with painstaking care, watching as the arrow made its way to the internet icon.
She wasn’t an idiot. She’d done this before, used a laptop, a computer before. It was just a long time ago. There had seemed such little point in loading the thing up once Lee had gone; no homework to help with and so on. There had seemed such little point in anything.
Until Emma had moved in, needed looking after, made Maggie crawl out of herself and face life.
But now she was gone. Like Lee, like Tom. She was gone.
Maggie poured another capful of gin into her tea, then another, wiping her cheeks dry of the moisture from the mug’s steam. Discovered the moisture on her skin was from tears.
She blinked them away, rubbed her eyes. In the darkness, there was Emma, the shotgun, the blood.
There was Lois, bent over the table, her head resting in a black puddle.
Maggie jolted upright, knocking the laptop, its screen flickering. Maggie clicked on the internet icon. Waited for it to spring to life, remembering Emma huffing through the long wait for the page to load.
But it loaded far quicker than she had ever expected, luck perhaps on her side for once.
She moved the cursor again, floating the arrow to the bar at the top, using her index finger to type www. The address for Facebook appeared, as if by magic.
She could log in as Emma, search for Nuala online, search for James.
Emma’s username came up in the log-in page and that was where Maggie’s luck had run out.
She sipped her tea, added another gin cap, typed in the first password she could think of. Elaine.
Password not recognised.
She tried Maggie, tried James, Lunglow, Bradbury. Nothing got through, nothing worked.
She lifted her mug, realised all the tea had gone. She refilled it instead with gin and plain water. Her fingers were starting to warm up, feet fuzzy and warm beneath the table.
Different tactic.
She moved the cursor to the top again, typed in Google.
Filled the search bar with the words Nuala Greene.
Eighty-five thousand results.
She tried again, remembering Emma telling her to be specific, accurate, so this time added to the search: Nuala Greene, London.
Even more results came up, mocking Maggie and her ignorance, mocking her with page after page of the wrong woman.
If only she had her address, she would go there right now. If only she had one of those letters Nuala said Emma had written, if only Emma had written that address down.
She took a mouthful, clicked open a page, dismissed it and began again. Drink, click, dismiss.
The light was starting to burn her eyes, the computer screen out of focus. She got up, stumbled to the bar and fetched a fresh bottle of gin.
She tried again, adding James to the search, adding Irish, park, dead parents, adding red hatchback as if that would help.
She didn’t know what to do, how to narrow it down, how to make the right page appear.
Then something must have gone wrong, because she stopped clicking and the pages kept on opening by themselves. Page after page came up, closed
down, another one swiftly in its place. Images filled her screen that she didn’t ask for, didn’t want, text boxes, words flashing, photos.
A virus.
And she remembered why she never used the damn thing, how Emma had told her, time and again, to install security software. Why didn’t she listen?
She pushed the machine away, far away, watched as the screen finally blacked out.
She tried the on-switch, nothing happened. Tried control-alt-delete but that didn’t work either.
She took another sip from her drink.
Then another.
At some point she was sick.
At another point, she fell asleep.
At some point much later, she was woken by Jennifer’s cries.
‘Oh, Maggie,’ Jennifer said now, lifting the empty gin bottles and adding them to the black recycling box. ‘You know DC Ali came, earlier?’
‘I think I ought to go to bed.’ Maggie tried to push herself up but her stomach muscles went into spasm. She swallowed a mouthful of bile.
‘She said that they found something in Emma’s room, a type of poison.’
And Maggie saw Pale’s face as he told her about the cyanide, and she didn’t want to hear any more.
‘She made it herself, from apple seeds and lye.’ Maggie didn’t look at Jennifer’s face, but she could imagine her expression well enough. ‘You know she was always eating apples? She must have collected the seeds. Hundreds and hundreds of apple seeds.’
And Maggie could see Emma, apple in her mouth, sucking on the core, the sound as it cracked in her mouth.
‘They found the same poison at Lois’s house.’
‘Then it must have been planted!’ Ignoring her pounding head, contracting throat, Maggie managed to look up. ‘Surely that proves—’
‘No, Maggie. It was in a packet of chocolate digestives that Emma had sent her, years ago, but Lois had never opened them. The receipt was still in Emma’s drawer, underneath the poison and the notes. You know which notes I mean?’ And she tried to take Maggie’s hand, but Maggie shook her off. ‘She’s tried it more than once, Ali said.’
The sound that followed was the cry and screech of her heart tearing in two; it couldn’t be anything else.
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