She picked the paper up, shook it and out of the corner of her eye read the headline.
‘Family Mourns Death of Local Mother.’
Ah yes. She remembered something now, filtered through from the babble of inanities that had flowed out of her mother over the past twenty-four hours. Something about a woman, and a car found by the side of the road. A hosepipe maybe? There had been so many ‘God Help Us’s’ and ‘God Rest Her’s’ in her mother’s story that she had found it hard to separate the facts from the euphemisms. Sitting in the overheated kitchen, resting her elbow on the warm range, she had in fact come close to drifting off while her father criticised Saturday night television in one corner and her mother droned endlessly on in the other. There had been children, she thought she remembered that much. Not in the car. That was a Blessing. Two of them? Or maybe three. A young father, left to carry the burden. Claire wondered how Matt would cope if the same happened to him. Knowing Matt, he’d manage perfectly well.
BEEEENNNN NNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRR!
She almost leapt out of the seat as the truck’s horn blared from behind her, blinked and realised she had veered into the centre of the road again. Whoops.
Lifting her head, she gave an apologetic eyebrow raise to the rear-view mirror although the lorry was now overtaking and the driver was far too high above her head to see her. Sorry, mate. Maybe it was time for that coffee after all. Tea. Christ, she missed coffee. Might chance one today. It was practically medicinal.
Slowing down, she kept her eyes steady on the road until the sign for the next exit loomed ahead of her. Athlone. Perfect. There was a McDonald’s outside the town, she’d visited it on the way down. She could grab some petrol at the same time. Swallowing down a faint sense of guilt at her inattention, she slowed even further and took the exit. And almost ran straight into the back of a hay-loaded tractor. Christ. Her heart leapt again and took its time in returning to normal. Steady on, Claire. Get a grip. Still an hour to go. She flicked the radio channels again, trying to ignore the headache that was building at the back of her temples and the child who, as if agitated by adrenalin, was turning somersaults. Took a sip from the bottle of water in the cup holder, and felt nauseous as she realised it had been sitting in the car for at least two days, but swallowed it anyway. She’d be fine. She’d take a break and be fine.
Wisps of hay were escaping from the load on the tractor in front of her, and as she closed her window she felt moisture gather under her arms. The tractor stopped suddenly and, craning her neck, she could see a yellow-jacketed workman holding a red sign. Typical. You took to the road on a Sunday to avoid traffic and they decided to dig it up instead. There was a slight buzzing in her ears now and she opened the car window, trying to ignore the smell of silage that was seeping in. A cup of tea. And maybe a burger. She’d be fine. There was a row of cars behind her now and she tried to ignore the rising feeling of claustrophobia, the pressure building in her bladder. Jesus, girl, don’t go there. Putting the car into neutral, she reached over to the passenger seat, grabbed the paper, pulled it towards her and read the rest of the story. Anything for a bit of distraction.
Community united in grief over sudden passing of local mother of three. Tragic death leaves family devastated.
Untimely sudden death. Local newspaper speak. Untimely usually meant cancer, sudden didn’t. Another word leapt out. Tragic. Definitely suicide. Her mother had been right. You didn’t need local radio when Nuala Boyle was around. She had left three children behind her. And a husband. Selfish bitch.
Claire shuddered. Twenty years later and that was still her reaction. Aidan had taken his own life and ruined hers and now she couldn’t hear the word suicide without feeling angry. Her headache was building and she opened the window and then closed it again, torn between blue tractor smoke and stale car air. What temperature was it anyway? She hadn’t thought about what to wear for the journey, just pulled on Matt’s fleece that just about fitted her and headed away. Her mouth dry, she longed for another sip of water but couldn’t risk the pressure on her straining bladder. Time to text Matt, It would kill another few minutes.
Tossing the paper into the back seat she ran her hand again around the rubbish on the passenger side. A wrapped plastic package. She hadn’t put that there either. Sandwiches. And an apple. Ah, Mam. Claire had insisted she didn’t have time to stay for lunch, coming down ‘home’ for the funeral of the elderly neighbour had been difficult enough, she had to get back to the investigation. Work. That was an excuse not even her mother would dare to quibble with. But the chicken had been roasted and was now apparently the filling of a large and lavishly buttered sandwich. And yes, a clean bottle of water. Jesus. Claire sniffed again. Shaggin’ hormones.
The sandwich looked lovely. But McDonald’s would be lovely too. As the traffic in front finally began to move with a belch of noxious fumes, she found her phone, buried under a copy of the Twohy case file. Easing into second gear, she sent a quick text to her husband. ‘On Road. CU Soon.’ No kisses. He didn’t deserve them, having pissed her off in every phone call he’d made in the last twenty-four hours.
They just didn’t get it. None of them did. Pregnancy wasn’t an illness. She could still do her job. Had to. There was a woman dead, and it was up to her to find the killer.
The tractor pulled into a field just ahead of her and she finally moved the car into third, driving as quickly as she could down the road, following the brown-and-yellow signs. Flynn had done good work on Friday. Between the information he’d learned in the pub and the chat she’d had with the Twohy parents, they’d been able to piece together a fairly decent timeline of Miriam Twohy’s final movements. Her parents had picked up her baby daughter from her house at around half past six. She had been, according to her mother, dressed and made up, ready to go out. She hadn’t gone into details, but had implied she was going out with a couple of girls from school. They were to meet in one of the pubs on the south side of town. Have a pizza and a few glasses of wine. The baby was to stay over with Miriam’s parents to give her a bit of freedom. Not that she expected her to stay out all night; she wasn’t the type, her mother had assured Claire with a twitch of her unkempt eyebrows. But Miriam hadn’t had a night away from the child since she had been born. Her mother felt she needed a break. And the reunion seemed the perfect opportunity.
But, as they now knew, there had been no reunion. Claire had gained access to Miriam’s Facebook page. She hadn’t needed the techy guys to help her as it was public, but it was also almost completely bare, showing little evidence of use other than a few photos of Réaltín as a much younger baby and six or seven birthday messages from a couple of months before. A friend request from Deirdre Brady, née Richmond. No contacts had made with school friends, no messages left or details of a night out posted on her wall. It wasn’t much of a digital footprint to have left behind.
Lost in thought, she approached the roundabout without warning and overshot the exit to the fast food restaurant, forcing her to drive around again. They needed to find out who the young mother had met in the bar, and why.
Miriam had lied to her mother about the purpose of the evening which was hardly a sin, or even surprising. But the barmaid’s description, as reported by Flynn, sounded off to Claire. A young, good-looking woman like Miriam didn’t usually go into pubs like O’Reilly’s on her own, dressed for an evening out. Nor did she seem like the type to hang around waiting for a blind date that didn’t show. And when the man did arrive, why was she buying drinks for him? No row, no accusation that he had left her on her own too long? Just a couple of drinks and they’d headed off together, apparently completely comfortable in each other’s company.
Claire thought back to the grainy black-and-white video taken outside Merview, which had been provided by the security company. Miriam had looked fine. A little tipsy maybe, but fine. At one stage she had tossed her head back and laughed at a joke told off-camera. She had the easy, relaxed movements of a woman in her
comfort zone, among friends. With a friend. But her mother insisted she had no boyfriend, her brother backed up the story and her oldest friend from college said her last email had referred to being better off alone. So who had she left with? And why?
Claire turned off the engine and sat for a moment. Brushing the rubbish off the passenger seat, she grabbed her phone and handbag and stepped out of the car. A smell of chip fat hung in the air and she swallowed, thinking about the sandwich in the car before realising she’d have to take a piss anyway and might as well contribute to Ronald’s empire while she was at it. Had she brought her purse with her? Sighing, she opened the car door again and bent down to grab her handbag. Her head swirled. She reached for the leather pouch on the floor and then stopped as black dots danced in front of her eyes. Closed her eyelids. Time for a break. Pulling the bag towards her she opened her eyes but everything was swimming now, the black dots breaking and reforming at the centre of her vision. Jesus, she was going to throw up. Nightmare. Not here, not in the car park. Clutching her purse she began to inch her way towards the restaurant door. Two minutes. Two minutes and then she’d be inside, sitting on the toilet, catching her breath. She’d just left it too long, that was all. Needed a break. A little rest, a sit down and …
The thought disappeared as her breath escaped her lungs with a whoosh and she felt herself plummeting towards the ground.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
‘For the next three months.’
‘Ah, would you ever give over.’
‘I mean it, Claire. Your arse is to be glued to that sofa. You heard what the doctor said.’
‘You heard what the doctor said.’
Claire repeated, mimicking her husband’s concern in a way that used to make him smile. But Matt was the far side of furious and unwilling to be jollied out of his mood.
‘Don’t start.’
His voice was steady, but unusually harsh. She turned her head away, unable to meet his eyes. She stared instead at her hands, folded on top of her bump, which looked bigger than ever from her prone position on the sofa. Not on her ‘bump’. On her stomach. She hated that word, bump. Baby bump. Baby on board. Stupid phrases. Cutesy. Matt could have looked cutesy too, standing as he was in the gap between the kitchen and the sitting room, pen behind his ear, cloth shopping-bag in hand. But despite the embroidered motif there was nothing soft or domesticated about him this morning.
Matt never got angry. That was one of the things Claire appreciated about him, one of the reasons, if she were being honest, that their relationship had lasted so long. She herself was a thrower, a shouter and when pushed or pregnant, a crier. But usually, no matter how furious her mood, he would just sit and watch and wait for the fury and the rage to die away. Sometimes if her digs hit home, he would wait for a pause and insert a reasonable comment, a move which never failed to infuriate her and usually started the shouting again. But he was never nasty. And when her fury had been spent, he was always willing to have the conversation, tease out the problem, move things along. Sometimes his reasonable attitude got to her and she wished he would shout, or shake a fist or unleash a stream of curses the way she was prone to do. Well, last night she had got her wish. He was angry now.
He had been angry for over twelve hours, ever since he’d burst into the public ward of the maternity hospital and found her sitting up in bed, texting Flynn and rummaging through the case file she’d insisting on bringing from the car. Up until then, she suspected he’d been too worried to be annoyed. No expectant father wants a call from the maternity hospital to say their wife has been admitted, but a quick chat with the doctor on call had put his mind at ease about the big picture. There was nothing wrong with the baby. And, technically, Claire was fine too. She had fainted, after a combination of lack of food and high blood pressure brought on by stress. High blood pressure that ‘probably’ – the doctor had looked over her glasses for emphasis – probably wouldn’t lead to anything more serious. If Claire agreed to rest for the remainder of her term.
‘No bloody way’ had been her initial response. Insane, undoable and unnecessary. She had looked to her husband for the unqualified support he always gave. But Matt’s face, now that the initial fright had diminished, had been shuttered and grave.
‘You heard what the doctor said.’
He repeated it like a mantra, before leaving her overnight for ‘observation’ and again in the morning while driving her home at a funereal pace, the car almost stalling at every speed bump. And now, lying on the sofa, remote control in her hand, she was starting to realise he was serious. And she mightn’t be able to argue her way out of this one.
‘I’ll be back in a couple of hours. You’re not going to move, are you?’
‘Hardly.’
Claire pouted, and then realised how childish she sounded. In fairness, she had given him quite a fright, not to mention the McDonald’s manager who had phoned an ambulance, the Gardai and a fire engine when confronted with a collapsed pregnant woman outside his freshly swept door. She’d be lucky if she didn’t end up the lead story in the Westmeath Independent the following week. By the time the emergency services had arrived, sirens blazing, she had been sitting at the edge of the children’s play area, sipping water and wondering how best to get herself out of the situation with minimum fuss. But the paramedics had been positively Matt-like in their insistence that she come with them, and she had quickly found herself being transported to Dublin. Not without her briefcase, though.
And at least she still had that. Matt had wanted to confiscate it, but Claire had bristled visibly at the suggestion and he had realised that it was one battle too far. She could keep her paperwork as long as she moved no further than from the sofa to the bed for the rest of the pregnancy. It wasn’t reading and writing that had got her into trouble, he’d intoned solemnly. It was the rest of it.
‘Steak for dinner?’
Matt gave a flicker of a smile, which, under the circumstances, Claire decided to return. He crossed the floor and bending down grabbed her shoulders for a long, clumsy hug.
‘I only want what’s best for you two, you know that.’
‘Yeah.’
Claire patted his shoulder awkwardly. Clearly having decided that his lecture had been absorbed, her husband stood up, his mood significantly lightened.
‘So I have that meeting at twelve and then I’ll go to Tesco on the way home. See you around four? Do you have everything you need?’
Claire forced a bright smile.
‘Sorted, thanks.’
‘Great.’
Within moments, Claire heard his car engine start and she sank back on the cushions with a sigh.
So. Here she was. Stuck on the sofa. With so much to do. She’d have to call one of the lads later, for a start, get her car picked up from Athlone and driven home. It was alright for Matt to talk about resting, but he wasn’t thinking of stuff like that, was he? The practicalities. It was all very well him being nice and reasonable and You Heard What the Doctor Saidish, but that wasn’t going to get the job done. Bloody stupid pregnancy body. She couldn’t believe it had let her down like that. She was mortified.
Claire shifted on the sofa again and poked irritably at the remote control. There was nothing on but cookery programmes. Matt had called the Super earlier that morning, informed him she wouldn’t be back to work till after her maternity leave, nine months away. Nine months! It was like starting the whole bloody process all over again. The Super had been sympathetic, of course. Matt hadn’t revealed the full details of the conversation. But Claire had a sneaking suspicion the phrase ‘could see it coming’ had been used. And she wasn’t one hundred per cent sure from which side.
But at least her jailer husband had let her ring Flynn, and had gone out of the room while she did it. To make a pot of nettle tea, which Dr Google had informed him was good for blood pressure. Bleaurgh. But his evil brewing had given her enough time to ask Flynn, well, order him really, to keep her in the loop. Not offici
ally, of course. The investigation into Miriam Twohy’s killing was now being coordinated by Inspector David Byrne: a tall, sickeningly healthy gym bunny who was a notorious rule follower and, Claire knew, wouldn’t allow her to make so much as a phone call of inquiry while she was on leave. Claire allowed herself some grim humour in imagining how DI Byrne, with his south Dublin accent and love of blue jokes, would get on with Brylcreamed Phil. She’d pay money to see those case conferences. But Byrne’s appointment and the inevitable personality clash would probably keep Flynn on side. She wasn’t asking for much. Just the odd email and call to keep her up to speed, that was all.
Sighing, she picked her phone up from the coffee table. Even holding on to that had required negotiation. Matt had initially threatened to confiscate it too, worried she’d spend hours on to her colleagues, chasing up leads and generally working as hard as she could without actually changing out of her pyjamas. But, she’d pointed out, the primary use of the device was for communication. Her mother was up the walls; she’d need daily updates if she wasn’t to carry out her threat of coming up to Dublin and moving in until the baby arrived. And Matt wasn’t going to be able to give up work for the next four months: they couldn’t afford it. Freelance IT specialists didn’t get holiday pay. He’d have to leave the house sometimes, the phone would be her lifeline. He’d finally agreed and left it within reach.
Only problem was, there was no one she wanted to call. Her fingers tapped irritably through the names in her contacts book. What she really wanted was a good moan and she couldn’t think of a single individual who would want to listen to her. Not her mother, oh no. The only message she was sending westwards was that everything was okay and the doctors were only being cautious. Last thing she wanted was Nuala Boyle sighing and clucking from the sofa on the far side of the sitting room. But she wanted someone. She felt sad and sick and frustrated and worried, and she wanted to tell someone, someone who wasn’t Matt. She just wanted to give out really. Let off a bit of steam.
Can Anybody Help Me? Page 18