Can Anybody Help Me?

by Sinéad Crowley

  ‘There’s just the two of you?’

  Gary Twohy nodded.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Miriam’s mother shivered and Claire immediately regretted the use of the present tense. She leafed through the remaining photographs. The childhood ones revealed nothing other than the fact that the Twohys had lived in Ballyawlann all their lives and yes, everyone did have red-painted ‘feature walls’ in the 1990s. But a trio of shots at the bottom of the pile held more interest. They had clearly all been taken on the day of Miriam’s graduation and were the same size and shape as the picture that had been framed on the wall. In one, which also featured the blonde-haired girl, Miriam had been caught mid-laugh. The two young women were clutching their parchments and had been distracted by someone or something to the right of the camera. In a second, Miriam was on her own, posing awkwardly under a tree with her degree rolled in her left hand. The third photo was a group shot, four young people posing together in front of the camera while three young men walked past in the background. One of the three looked familiar and Claire stared at it, trying and failing to remember where she had seen the profile before.

  ‘That’s Paul.’

  Fidelma Twohy rose and pointed out the tall man with the dark curls who was standing beside Miriam, holding her hand.

  ‘The fair-haired girl is Deirdre, they were best friends in college and the chap holding her hand is … oh what was his name? Jesus, he was in this house often enough. They were going out too, the four of them used to hang around together. Oh what’s his name …?’

  Nervously, she clasped her hands together and began to twist her tarnished gold wedding ring around her finger. Her son reached forward and touched her hand.

  ‘Here, sit down, Ma. Mind yourself. It’ll come to ya. It’s not important anyway, is it?’

  ‘Well.’ Claire stared at the picture, concentrating on the four in the foreground. But something about the second group was still niggling at her.

  ‘It’s best to get all the information we can, really. Look, Mrs Twohy …’ She turned and held the woman’s gaze. ‘What I’m trying to do here is build up a picture of Miriam. Who she was, where she went, who she knew.’

  ‘She didn’t go anywhere. I’ve told yous this, I’ve told yous all this. She got up, she went to work, she collected Réaltín, she put her to bed. That was it. She did nothing! Nothing to deserve …’ Her voice wobbled, but she held on tight and recovered. ‘Nothing to deserve this. Jesus, sometimes it feels like yous want to blame her or something.’

  ‘Not at all.’ Claire reached forward, and patted her hand awkwardly. ‘In cases like these we often have a chief suspect. Someone who has threatened harm before … someone who might have a reason to wish the vic—’

  She swallowed before continuing. ‘The person who has died. To wish them ill.’

  Now she sounded like her old English teacher. She took a deep breath. ‘But from what you told us there was no one like that in Miriam’s life. Her partner, or her ex-partner is away in Australia, she didn’t seem to have a large circle of friends or a particularly active social life. So I just need to learn more about her. Who she was. Who she was meeting that night. We need to find out what happened, and we need to do that as quickly as possible.’

  The older woman flinched. ‘Are yous afraid he’ll do it again?’

  Claire shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. But we have to keep that as a possibility. So any information you can give us is really important. We need to know where Miriam went that night and why.’

  From the hall came the sound of a baby snuffling. Gary rose and left the room without a word. His mother shook her head.

  ‘Miriam never went out, even. That picture yous gave to the papers, that was from her work Christmas Party, the year before Réaltín was born. That night … that last night, she told me it was a school reunion thing. God forgive me, I didn’t think to ask any more than that. I was delighted she was going out, to be honest with you. We didn’t really like Paul, well, you might have guessed that. And since he’s been gone, well I was keen on her getting out, you know, meeting people. People like her.’

  Her eyes flickered towards the pile of photographs again. It was clear to Claire that people ‘like’ the Twohys wouldn’t necessarily have university degrees.

  ‘She said it was some sort of school reunion.’

  Fidelma Twohy frowned. ‘It didn’t make a huge amount of sense to me. She hadn’t seen any of those girls for years. She didn’t really have a best friend, to be honest with you. She was pally with Deirdre in college, from the photo.’ She pointed towards the wall. ‘But I don’t think she really spoke to her anymore. I don’t know what happened, they were thick as thieves in college, and then. Well. Things fizzled out, I suppose, after Réaltín came along. Miriam said she didn’t have time for anyone else. So when she said she was meeting up with some girls, well, I didn’t ask questions really. I kind of encouraged it, to be honest with you. Told her we’d mind the child here, that she should make a night of it. I mean they’re all doing it now, aren’t they? Having reunions? On the internet and that. God knows they had enough to say to each other back in the day. I thought it might suit her to meet up with a few of them, now they all have babbies. That they’d have more in common.’

  Claire remained silent. Several letters proposing ‘reunions’ had arrived at her mother’s house over the past twenty years. Her mother always faithfully forwarded them on, and Claire, just as faithfully, filed them in the recycling bin. The requests usually came by email these days. The delete button was even handier than the bin. There was only one person from school Claire wanted to be reunited with and he wasn’t going to be turning up in the Square Bar any time soon. She looked over at the fireplace.

  ‘Maybe Deirdre will be able to help?’

  ‘She’ll be at the funeral.’

  Fidelma Twohy took a deep breath and sounded more composed.

  ‘She rang here last night looking for details. God love her. She was in bits on the phone. She hadn’t talked to Miriam in ages, said she had been meaning to ring her …’

  ‘That’s fucking fine for her, isn’t it?’ Gary came back into the room, a red-faced baby in his arms and the two women looked at him. ‘It’s all very fucking well meaning to ring her, isn’t it? She wasn’t much use to her when the baby was born. None of that college crowd were around then. Apart from that knob Paul.’

  ‘Language.’ Mrs Twohy reached for the baby who was now beginning to complain. Rising from the chair, Claire took another look at the pile of photos in her hand and picked out the shot of Paul. Miriam had been a tall woman, but even in her heels he towered over her. His height was emphasised by his gangly, bony figure, which the graduation robe did nothing to hide. Long, lanky streak of misery, her mother would have called him. Same thing she had said about Aidan, before. He looked a bit like Aidan actually, or how Aidan would have been.

  There he was again.

  Suppressing the thought, she held the photo away from the bundle, between her two fingers.

  ‘So, Miriam and Paul met in university? They were in the same class?’

  ‘Yeah, right!’ Gary spat out the words. ‘That was the bleedin’ problem, wasn’t it, Ma? The wrong fucking class.’

  ‘Gary.’

  But the admonishment had been half-hearted and Gary continued, addressing his comments to Claire this time.

  ‘That fucker is from Foxrock. He was only messing around with Miriam. I don’t know what the fuck she saw in him. She brought him over here once, bleedin’ eejit. Wanted to know had me da seen the rugby at the weekend. Knob.’

  Claire sat back into the large black chair, still staring at the picture, the feeling that she was missing something niggling at her.

  ‘Were they going out for long?’

  ‘On and off through college. He dumped her then after they graduated. She was in bits, so she was. I was delighted, so I was. He fucked off to Australia, good enough for him. Miriam wa
s better off.’

  ‘But he came back.’

  Gary looked at her scornfully.

  ‘Well, he got her bleedin’ pregnant, didn’t he? Yeah, he came back. Came back and kipped in her flat, fucking freeloader.’

  His mother gave him a sharp glance, but didn’t comment.

  ‘The woman wants to know, Ma. That’s what she’s here for.’

  Gary leant forward on the sofa, his elbows balanced on his knees and eyeballed Claire. ‘Miriam had a grand job, you know? She was set up, living in town, lovely little apartment. Dear gaff, but she was earning enough for it.’

  Claire looked down at her notebook. ‘She was already teaching?’

  ‘Lecturing. Media Studies and English. Sounded like a bit of a fucking doss course to me, to be honest with ya. Teaching students how to watch telly, Jaysus. I’d get an A in that, what?’ He gave a jagged smile before continuing.

  ‘She offered that little fucker a place to stay and six months later she’s over here crying, telling me ma she’s knocked up and he doesn’t want anything to do with it.’

  ‘So he left her.’

  ‘Not straight away. He fucked off when she said she was pregnant and then turned up at the hospital the night Réaltín was born, moved back into the flat till the child was three months and then fucked off again. Back to Australia, they’re welcome to him. That’s the last Miriam heard of him. That’s the last anyone heard of him.’

  ‘He rang me last night.’

  Mrs Twohy dug around in her pocket, inserted a soother in the now wriggling child’s mouth and then continued.

  ‘You were gone out, love. He rang the house, here. Said he wanted to say he was sorry. Said he didn’t have the money to come home for the funeral, but that he wanted to pass on his regards. He didn’t mention the baby.’

  For the first time since Claire had arrived, her face crumpled and she reached around the child to grab her arm.

  ‘He won’t take her, will he? Not Réaltín. You don’t think he’ll take her?’

  The question hung in the air for a moment and then, as if she knew she was being spoken about, the child spat out the pacifier and let out an anguished and angry wail.

  ‘You’re alright, sweetheart.’ With an ease which came from years of practice, her grandmother pulled her into her shoulder and rocked her gently. ‘You’re alright, pet. C’mere to me now.’

  Hearing the grandmother’s voice shake, it was hard to figure out who was comforting who.

  ‘He’ll be a suspect, won’t he?’ Gary stood up and walked over to the window, his fist making a tight ball. ‘I know how this goes. It’s always the husband, isn’t it? Or whoever. Partner. I mean he says he’s been in Australia. He’ll be a suspect bu’?’

  Claire kept her voice even.

  ‘It’s very early days, Gary. But we’ll be speaking to everyone who knew her.’

  ‘You will catch him.’

  His voice was low and steady, pauses punctuating the words. Gary turned and walked towards Claire’s chair, looming over her. He was not a tall man but his bulk made him intimidating.

  ‘You will catch that fucker.’

  ‘We’ll do our best, Mr Twohy.’

  ‘Miriam was …’ He took a deep breath and suddenly he too was crying, large salty tears running down either side of the hooked nose. ‘She was the best thing ever to come out of this family. I’m dirt compared to her. I’ve a record, I might as well say it to ya, you’ll find out quick enough anyway.’

  Claire, who had already taken note of the assault charge and subsequent conviction on his file, said nothing.

  ‘I’m bleedin’ dirt I am, in comparison to her. She was a star. She got out of here. She was going to make something of herself. That muppet knocked her up, but that was okay, she was okay, she was going to make it. Her and Réaltín were going to have a great life, a proper life. And now some bastard has killed her. And if I find it was Paul fucking O’Doherty, I’ll rip his head off with my bare hands, so help me God, I will.’

  Claire rose from her seat, forcing him to take a step backwards. He wiped his eyes, and gave her a watery smile.

  ‘I’m probably a suspect too, and me da. I know how this works. And I’m telling you something, I don’t like cops.’ He bent closer until she could smell the stale cigarette smoke and the remains of last night’s beer on his breath. ‘I don’t like cops, but youse are all we have now. You find who killed her. Or I will.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  A squall of rain lashed against the windscreen and she squinted out into the grey. Bloody awful day. The window wipers sighed rhythmically and her thoughts swayed with them. Must go home. Should go home. Baby will be starving.

  Well, she wasn’t going to wait around. If he wasn’t where he said he’d be … But just as she was mentally planning how to get out of the arrangement, she saw him standing, as promised, by the bus stop on the main road. Excellent. She’d be on her way in no time.

  Pulling over, she lowered the car window and blinked as raindrops spurted in.

  ‘Hi there.’

  The voice was soft, hesitant. There was something decent about it.

  ‘Are you FarmersWife?’

  ‘I am!’

  It was funny, to hear the name spoken out loud.

  ‘Here, sit in, for God’s sake. You’ll be drenched. I have the bottles in the back for you, hang on …’

  She opened the car door, then heard it click shut as she bent through the gap in the front seats, leant into the back and hauled the brown cardboard box towards her. Wondered, abstractly, just how big her arse looked from this angle.

  ‘I’ve left the instructions in there, they’re fiddly yokes. Oh!’ It was an involuntary response. Oh. She looked down at the gun, and up to his face. A movement she’d seen in a million movies. Assumed it was a joke, a very bad one. Gripped the box tightly and looked him in the eye.

  ‘Get out of my car.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  His arm was relaxed, the gun steady in his hand.

  ‘Not until we go for a little drive.’

  ‘Would you ever …?’

  But she swallowed the second half of the sentence as the eyes narrowed and the voice grew cold.

  ‘I’m telling you to drive.’

  There was no decency in his tone any more.

  The rain was coming down vertically now and, moving automatically, she put the wipers on full blast.

  A car sped past. Maybe she should sound her horn, flash her lights, do something that would make the driver look her way …

  ‘Don’t even think about it. Not if you want those three beautiful boys to be okay.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus.’

  Her throat dried. Swallowing furiously, she kept her two hands on the steering wheel, stared straight ahead and managed to choke out the words.

  ‘Have you done something to my children? I swear to God, if you’ve touched a hair on their heads …’

  ‘I haven’t gone near them, FarmersWife.’

  There was a touch of mocking amusement in the voice now.

  ‘Haven’t laid a finger on them. Not on Cathal, nor on Mikey, or on that gorgeous little baby. Nice of you to post a picture by the way, handsome little man! I haven’t touched them. And we want to keep it that way, don’t we?’

  ‘What … what do you want? What do you want me to do?’

  ‘For the moment? Just drive.’

  She couldn’t think of anything else to do. So she just drove.

  Those first thirty seconds. They got him every time. Jim turned off the engine and closed his eyes as the music fizzled and popped in his brain. His hands beat the familiar rhythm on the dashboard in front of him. Mighty stuff.

  Shaking his head, he started the engine again and braced his feet against the clutch as he eased the vehicle forward. That sound system had been worth every penny. The face on the oul fella though, when he’d mentioned he was getting an iPod dock in the tractor.

  ‘An i
Pod? Sure what would you need one of them for? Waste of money.’

  Although he’d expected the reaction, Jim had felt his shoulders tense anyway, his hands clenched under the kitchen table. Always the bitter word. Always the implication that whatever thing he was doing, it wasn’t the right thing.

  And then Martha had jumped in, teased the old man and made everything okay. Winked at her father-in-law, reminded him he’d had a transistor balanced in the cab every day of his working life and hadn’t he told them himself many times that the radio used to shorten the day? And what was an iPod only a fancy radio. The old man had chuckled – chuckled! Jesus, Jim didn’t know that raspy oul throat could make such a sound. But he wasn’t going to waste any more time on him, simply poked Martha’s toe with his own under the table and winked a thank-you. Found himself hoping that the kids would sleep through the early part of the night, give them a bit of privacy. And then reddened when he realised that the gleam in her eye meant she was thinking the exact same thing.

  He pressed on the accelerator and Bono’s voice receded into the background as the tractor mounted the slope at the far end of the field.

  That was probably the night AJ was conceived. Well, no probably about it. With two active lads they didn’t get that many opportunities. And now they had three. Tough going sometimes. But great crack all the same.

  Slowing the tractor, he eased it smoothly out of the field and onto the narrow road. Carefully scanned the horizon before increasing his speed again. Only last week he’d read about a man in Donegal, who’d backed his car out of the driveway and hadn’t seen the child standing in the way. Jesus. Poor bastard. Jim turned the volume up on the speaker and hoped the music would chase the image away. He’d seen the story in the Star and read it out loud over dinner, made a big deal about it, jabbed his finger at the picture of the poor unfortunate baby and looked around at each of his children in turn.

  ‘Are ye listening to me now? That babba was after going outside without telling his mama or his dada where he was. And look what happened to him. That babba didn’t listen to his mama or his dada.’