The shrink clicks and the faces of two girls standing side by side appear.
‘In Australia in 2007 these two sixteen-year-olds, Jodie Gater and Stephanie Gestier, also made a horrific pact.
‘They were part of a musical subculture known as “Emo” after a type of music characterized by emotion and a confessional tone.
‘Their online messages were “F*** this world/ Don’t ever judge me.”
‘And in many ways, all teenagers are Goths and Emos, even the ones playing the soundtrack from Glee in their bedroom. It helps when we know them to see: they’re the kids in black T-shirts, skinny jeans and sneakers, who hide their faces behind straightened hair. Their sleeves are pulled down over their sore wrists, and they wear lots of eye make-up. They’ve got the weight of the new adult world on their shoulders. Their iPods are blazing in their ears and when a parent asks them to do something they act like condemned prisoners. They think adults don’t understand them, and, in many ways, we don’t. We’ve been there ourselves, but we’ve come through, so we know what they’re feeling is a phase, but to them – trapped in the time and space – their problems are life-and-death stuff. They’re becoming adults, and it’s an utterly changed world. They’re trying to get to grips with it, and so should we.’
She flicks off the projector and signals for the lights to go on. ‘Does anyone have any questions?’
Sexton squints against the brightness and puts his hand in the air.
Other hands started to lift, but he stands before the shrink gets a chance to choose.
‘Yes, the man at the back, go ahead.’
‘Have you been to Bridgend yourself, in the course of your research?’
‘Yes,’ she answers.
Parents are twisting around to look at Sexton.
‘I just wanted to ask what drugs are used in the treatment of depression,’ Sexton says. ‘To be more exact, I want to know if Serozepam, specifically, was used.’
The shrink shakes her head emphatically. ‘Actually, studies have shown us that Serozepam is a major inhibitor of serotonin. Which, in medical terms, means it contributes to depression, and doesn’t cure it.’
20
Sexton goes back to the station to try to find out more about Lucy Starling, the only survivor in the suicide spate. Since she’s the only one still alive, she might be able to fill him in. Maybe she got sent the vile video.
Nothing shows up on the computer records under Lucy’s name, which is interesting. He’d thought, given her impulsiveness in taking her mother’s car, which Bronwyn Harris had mentioned, it was possible she’d have been cautioned for something. Teenage tearaways get lots of chances before things ever go to court, but all warnings and Anti-social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) are logged on the system. He’d half suspected some previous form, because it seemed unusual to graduate straight to joyriding without testing other waters first. There’s absolutely nothing. He spots the asterisk beside her address linking the file to another, and clicks on it. One ‘Nigel Starling’ made a number of calls to Gardaí complaining about his windows being broken … tyres slashed … and … Sexton winces … dog poo being shoved through his letterbox. Sexton can see from the file that Nigel didn’t accuse anyone directly, so the job wasn’t actioned. In other words, nothing was done. He can see from the dates that the last complaint was four months ago. Things must have calmed down for Lucy’s dad – if that’s who Nigel is – he decides. The address is the same as the one he’s got for Lucy.
He logs out and runs a couple of searches using her name in Google. Lucy crops up on Facebook and Ask.fm. He signs in to Facebook with the phoney details he’d set up on a compulsory social-networking course a couple of years back.
He glances up from the computer as McConigle enters the room.
Sexton goes back to the screen. There are loads of Lucy Starlings on Facebook, but only one living in Dublin. In her avatar, she’s wearing a pair of low-slung jeans and a vest top; her midriff is bare in between. Her hip is cocked to one side and she’s sticking her tongue out. Her hair is up in a ponytail. If he didn’t know otherwise, he’d have said the heavily made-up girl looking back at him was eighteen or nineteen. With a pair of beer goggles on, he’d have been willing to put her at twenty. That thought makes him shudder.
In ‘About’, her profile reads: ‘Sexy bitch gagging for it.’
Sexton clicks on Lucy’s photo albums. She looks like a hooker in every one of the pictures. All the shots were posed in her bedroom in negligee tops and panties, or skimpy dresses. Sexton’s eyebrows go up a notch. She is pouting and strutting provocatively at the camera in all of them.
He goes back to the search and clicks on the Ask.fm link. It’s a Latvian-based company which has got a lot of stick in recent months in the newspapers because of the kids’ deaths. Its anonymous Q&A format has enraged parents’ groups. Users – mostly teenagers – get sent questions from nameless people in a forum anyone with an account can see. The obvious question is why does anyone sign up, or even respond to vile questions? – but it is only ever asked by people from Sexton’s generation, or older.
The issue is that while most social-networking sites are forcing users into giving their details to hold them accountable, Ask.fm is doing the precise opposite, and it’s trading on the notoriety. He can see how the controversy will appeal to teens. Up until around five years ago, Facebook was doing the same. Internet police – anything associated with being responsible – put kids off.
Lucy’s profile picture on the Ask.fm site is one of her trademark barely there outfits. Under her name, and photo, her biog reads: ‘Fuck me!’
He reads:
You going to Back Gate 2moro nite?
You bet ;)
I’ll finger ya at it so
Fuck you
You wearing your thong, it’s so hawt?
Course, ye :D
i <3 ur ass ;)
Thats good, :) ha:L
bra colour?
Red :L
Things id do to your arse
:L
did you give Billy a hand job
nopes?
so you would consider having my cock up your ass
NO:L
fancy my cock in your ass
not really :L:L
you’re a desperate heuuur
you’d know, swear :L:L
He jots down the weird symbols that punctuate the sentences.
‘Oi, that’s my desk,’ Fred Oakley says, heading over.
The DS is a heavy-set former rugby player who’s managed to get Jo Birmingham’s goat up because of his sexist attitude towards answering to women. The job Oakley signed up to is under siege in another way. One hundred stations have closed in order to slash departmental costs in recent years, and the knock-on effect, combined with the directive on logging every tea break, was that desk space was now at a premium.
‘Fuck off,’ Sexton tells him.
Desks are only ever claimed on a first-come, first-served basis.
‘It’s illegal to download anything that brings the force into disrepute,’ Oakley sneers, peering over Sexton’s shoulder, ogling Lucy’s profile shot.
Sexton pushes against the desk, making the chair wheel backwards and into Oakley.
‘I would, though.’ He winks at Sexton.
‘One of these days I will be waving at you through the bars in the Joy, you know that?’ Sexton smirks.
‘How come girls like that didn’t exist when I was growing up?’
‘Oh, now you’ve grown up, have you?’ Sexton retorts. ‘What age is your kid anyway?’ he asks, to remind him that he is the father of a girl not much older.
‘Which one?’ Oakley asks.
‘The teenager.’
‘Which one?’
‘I thought you only had one!’
‘What, with this aim?’ Oakley reaches for his nuts and gives them a Michael Jackson shake.
Sexton shakes his head. ‘You’re a sad bastard.’
‘Y
eah, but at least I’m getting some.’
‘Yeah, if you roll Vera over.’ Sexton has a thought. ‘How are you on those weird symbols kids use?’ He holds out his notepad to show him what he’s written. ‘Give one of your kids a ring for me, will you?’
Oakley plucks the pad off him. ‘Don’t need to. Every text I get is full of this. If I didn’t know it meant I’d be collecting her from ballet when I should be picking her up from swimming, if you get my drift.’
‘Just translate …’
Oakley points to one with his finger. ‘This one “<3” means “love”.’
Sexton frowns. ‘A greater-than symbol and the number three? How do you make that out?’
Oakley tilts the pad. ‘It’s a love heart, see? And this colon followed by a capital “D” is someone laughing heartily … this one’s a wink, this is a snigger, as in a cheeky joke. “L” means Loser, and the “P” after a colon is supposed to be the shape of a tongue in a cheek under a set of eyes. Unless …’ Oakley angles the pad another way. ‘’Course, it could always be …’ He makes a pumping motion with his wrist at the side of his face and pokes the opposite cheek out with his tongue.
Sexton grabs his pad off him. ‘That image is going to stay with me for the rest of the day.’ He sees McConigle is on her own and takes the opportunity to approach her.
‘Did you get a phone number for Anna Eccles?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, have you organized to have the wood triangulated?’
She stares at him blankly.
Sexton shakes his head. ‘Do you even know the provider yet? They could give us the phone’s history.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll put Oakley on it.’
‘Oakley?’ Sexton glances across the room at him. ‘I wouldn’t trust him with a cup of tea.’
‘You don’t have to,’ she reminds him.
‘How many has the chief assigned you for the case?’ he presses.
‘Oakley, and three uniforms,’ she admits.
‘A team of four! For fuck’s sake!’
‘And Foxy is keeping the jobs book,’ she argues.
Most gardaí retired from the force by the age of fifty-five, but the station’s bookman – Sergeant John Foxe – had joined the force later than most and, at sixty-five, was due to retire at the end of the week.
‘Listen, you need me and you know it. Let me interview a parasuicide in Anna’s school. Her name’s Lucy Starling and she’s still alive. I could ask her if she knows anything about that “How to” video.’
McConigle shakes her head. ‘The chief was pretty clear …’
Sexton curses and starts to walk away.
‘But, if you have to interview the student because of the report you’re compiling, I’m sure that would be extremely useful,’ she adds.
21
The Starlings’ house looks nice enough, but it’s in a shit location. Rutling Street has a block of notorious, drugs-ravaged flats at one end, and a chefs and sparks college around the corner, meaning most of the accommodation has been converted for students. Sexton stares as he spots a surgery sign on a separate entrance at the side.
The woman who answers looks too old to be a fourteen-year-old’s mum. She reminds Sexton of that hairy angel whose album he bought for his mum one Christmas.
‘I’m Detective Inspector Gavin Sexton,’ he says, holding up his ID. ‘The juvenile liaison officer for the area. Can I have a word?’
Heavy eyebrows shoot up behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. ‘Oh. OK. Come in. I’m Nancy Starling. Is this about Lucy?’
Sexton nods and follows her down the hall to the kitchen, where she holds the kettle under a tap. He calculates that a woman who doesn’t look a day under sixty would have been forty-six at the time her daughter was born.
‘How can I help?’ she asks. Her accent is more mid-Atlantic than Welsh, he notes.
‘I’m working on a report on the recent suicide cluster,’ Sexton explains. ‘To try to build a picture of what’s going on with the kids … what’s happening and why.’
‘Why does everyone think Lucy was trying to kill herself?’ Nancy snaps.
‘You don’t believe she was?’ Sexton asks.
‘I’ll tell you exactly what I think, once I’ve explained to Lucy what’s going on. She’ll have heard the bell and be wondering. She’s always been the most curious little thing. You should have seen her when she was a toddler. She used to follow me everywhere, afraid she’d miss something.’ Nancy stops, pushes her fingers under her glasses and rubs her eyes quickly.
‘Have you got children?’ she asks, pulling herself together and taking her glasses off to clear steam spots with the hem of her camel-coloured polo-neck, before sticking the glasses back on.
Sexton shakes his head.
‘You’re still young, plenty of time. Stick the tea on.’
She heads off.
Sexton pulls open presses until he finds the one with mugs, pulls out two. He drops a teabag in each, yanks open drawers to locate cutlery, drops a spoon in each mug, and helps himself to a couple of gingernuts left on the workbench.
‘You could do with cutting back on snacks between meals,’ Nancy tells him as she returns. ‘At your age and weight, you’re asking for trouble. If you’re having sugar cravings, I’d be prepared to bet you’ve got diabetes. It’s a lot more common than you think.’
They move to the kitchen table and sit.
‘You’re the GP, I take it?’ Sexton asks, taking out his notebook.
‘Yes. My husband Nigel’s a homeopath. Or he was before we moved here. We lived in Bridgend, in Wales, where all the children died before. We thought we were getting away from the horror. Sod’s bloody law, eh? I’ve phoned Nigel to tell him you were here, and he’s on the way. What is it you need to know for your report?’
‘I’d like to find out about the circumstances surrounding Lucy’s … accident,’ Sexton says. ‘Establish whether she’s one of the kids affected.’
Nancy sighs. ‘I was working. My practice is in a couple of rooms at the side of the house. I run a Methadone clinic once a week, or I used to. I’ll have to cut back on everything now, obviously. Or close. I am the only GP in a five-mile radius willing to dispense Methadone, so you can imagine the amount of patients I have to see on a Friday night. I insist they all give me a fresh urine sample when they come in, to make sure it’s their own. It’s very time-consuming.’
‘Were any of the teenagers who died seeing you, as a matter of interest?’ Sexton asks. He wants to know if he’s found the Serozepam dispenser.
She shakes her head and looks at him curiously. ‘No, thank God. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience. I’ve enough to deal with as it is.’ She studies her hands. ‘I’ll have to live with the guilt of not being there for my daughter for the rest of my life.’ She pauses, pulls herself together. ‘Lucy told her dad she wanted to go to a concert. Nigel offered to give her a lift, but she’s always been very wilful.’ She glances up quickly and corrects herself. ‘They all are at that age; Lucy was no more wilful than most. Have you written that down? I’d like to change it if you have. “Wilful” is the wrong word. I mean “impulsive”, a typical teenager in other words.’
She rubs her forehead, stressed.
Sexton looks up from his notes, motions a hand for her to keep going.
‘We didn’t notice my car was gone until a good hour after she’d left,’ Nancy continues. ‘We tried calling her, but the phone was diverting straight to her mailbox.’
She starts to sob. ‘A moment of madness, that’s all it was. One that’s going to define the rest of Lucy’s life. I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘God works in mysterious ways, I suppose. Without our faith, we’d never get through this. But, sometimes, it’s just so hard to understand why.’
Sexton shifts on the chair. ‘Can you give me Lucy’s number?’
‘Sure,’ she says, reeling it off.
He jots it down. ‘I’d like to have a look at the phone, if
you don’t mind.’
‘That will be more difficult. We don’t know where it is. We never got it back after the crash. It only occurred to us afterwards, but it didn’t seem to matter at the time, given everything else going on. Why?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sexton says. ‘What time did Lucy leave the house?’
Nancy wrings her hands. ‘Around six thirty, I think. Nigel will be better able to answer you on this.’
‘Where was the concert on?’
‘The Phoenix Park.’
Sexton looks up. ‘But wasn’t Lucy’s crash at the Scalp in the Dublin mountains? I checked the log before I left. She was miles away from the Phoenix Park.’
Nancy shrugs helplessly.
‘Lucy will be able to clarify, I’m sure,’ Sexton says. ‘Can I talk to her? Is she here?’
Nancy looks at him strangely. ‘Weren’t you told? Lucy can’t move.’
Sexton glances up. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realize she was paralysed.’
‘Paraplegics can sometimes move their heads, some can even walk. Lucy can’t even swallow, Detective. The only thing that she can move is her eyes. She can communicate though – incredibly. It’s a testament to her character. She’s a tiny little thing – only four foot eleven, but she was always so … strident.’
They both turn at the sound of the front door crashing open and footsteps thundering down the hall.
22
Nigel Starling storms into the kitchen like a man possessed. He paces over to Sexton, too close, invading his space, poking a finger into Sexton’s chest.
‘You make me sick,’ he blasts.
Sexton wipes drops of spittle from his face and pushes him off. ‘What’s the matter with you?’
Nigel steps back into the space. ‘Lucy’s fourteen! Don’t you have any real criminals to find, or can’t you resist an easy target? What kind of man are you?’
Sexton crosses his arms. ‘What?’
‘Are you planning to prosecute her? Is that what this is really about? What are you going to do? Adapt her prison cell? She’s already locked in without you ever locking her up.’
Nancy forces herself between him and Sexton, facing her husband. ‘Stop!’ she tells him.
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