by Casey Hill
“I’m happy to talk to your daughter in lieu of the detective if you’d prefer.” She looked sideways at Chris for his blessing and he nodded, confident of her ability to get the maximum information out of the girl. “In the meantime, if you wouldn't mind getting together her clothes …” When Chris cleared his throat she added quickly, “after picking up a coffee of course.”
“Well, if you’re sure. I’ll just let Holly know. Can I get you anything?” she asked automatically, and Chris shook his head. Then looking at Reilly she jumped, as though startled, “Oh, dear I didn’t even notice, sorry. Of course you wouldn’t want anything with caffeine,” she said, her eyes flitting downwards at Reilly’s midriff. For the first time, Mrs Glynn managed what appeared to be a genuine smile. “When are you due?”
“On second thoughts,” Chris said, like he had suddenly changed his mind, “I think I will have a coffee, black. Would that be okay?”
Mrs. Glynn smiled automatically at him. “Yes, of course. I won’t be long.”
Once she’d given her daughter the heads-up about the impending interview, Susan Glynn disappeared down the hall, and Reilly sent Chris a grateful glance before she stepped into the room, leaving her colleague with the victim’s father who was still pacing the hallway, shouting at someone on the other end of the phone.
The lights were low in the hospital room, and a teenage girl who was obviously Holly Glynn was lying in the bed. Her honey-brown hair fell over her face as she faced the window, shifting with each breath she took. Reilly moved silently to the head of the bed and watched her for a moment.
Much like her teenage counterpart this morning, she looked so young and innocent, and the way the girl lay there almost managed to intensify that innocence. Reilly felt that same punch in her gut, thinking about the tragedy that had befallen both teens.
“Holly?” She cleared her throat, introducing herself, “my name is Reilly Steel. I’m an investigator with the GFU. I hear you guys had a rough morning…”
The younger girl swallowed and looked away, nodding a little.
“Why don’t you tell me what happened last night?” Reilly asked.
Holly closed her eyes and pushed her head into the pillow. “I was with Megan and Sarah … my best friends and some of my other classmates at her house. We were celebrating the end of our exams. One of the boys texted us, telling us about a free house and a party at Graham’s house, so we headed over there.”
“By the time we got to the house, I was a bit … tipsy. I can only remember it in snatches really - the music was really loud, and smoky, like I was walking through a haze or something. We stayed together for a little while us girls, but then we started thinning out as usual. I remember being outside on the decking with Graham, we were just talking about stuff…”
Holly stopped for a moment, as if trying to remember their conversation. “I remember lots of older guys being there too, his brother’s college friends. I saw Megan go off with one of them, headed down at the end of the garden towards the trees. Megan can be a bit … careless, so I went after her, tried to stop her, but I couldn’t catch up and then they disappeared.”
Reilly remained silent, preferring just to let her talk.
“I remember deciding to go home after that, the party was breaking up anyway and a few people were heading into town to a club. But I was tired and I’d promised Mum I’d be home by one, so I headed off. After a few minutes, someone - this guy - came out of nowhere and started to talking to me… The next thing I remember, I’m on flat on my back on the ground. But I managed to get away before he …” She winced. “All I remember after that is crying and stumbling through the dark, heading for home. I went in through the back door and straight up to my room.”
“What time was this - when you got home?” Reilly asked.
“I really don’t know - it felt like hours but I have no idea really… as I said it’s all a blur.”
“You said you got away before he did anything … ” she prompted gently.
Holly started to cry a little. “Yes. I managed to wriggle free when he was … opening his jeans, and kneed him between his legs. And then I ran off.”
Good girl…
Suddenly Holly asked her own question. “Is it a boy or a girl?”
The question took Reilly by surprise. “I don’t know yet.”
The teen gave her a weak smile, one that almost sent Reilly tumbling over the edge again. There was nothing more dismal than a victim’s smile. She wrapped the hospital blanket around her fingers. “You want it to be a surprise?”
Reilly wanted to tell her that the pregnancy was already surprise enough, but she stopped herself. The girl was obviously taking comfort in the fact that her interviewer was about to be a mother, and she didn’t want to dispel that, so she smiled instead and said, “Yeah. Something like that.”
For some reason she noticed, people equated being pregnant with a sort of positive quality, as though the fact that Reilly was carrying a child changed who she was, essentially. The fact was that she was no more caring or maternal than she had been before she’d discovered the pregnancy, but people treated her as though she was.
The thought made her uneasy – she was determined not to let this baby change who she was, or indeed others’ view of her.
She guided Holly through some routine forensic examination; held her hand as she took some finger nail scrapings and fingerprints. The teenager’s hands were so soft; entirely absent of any defensive marks, and her elaborate gel nails remained intact, suggesting it was unlikely that she’d fought back too hard, or left much of a mark on her attacker. She was a lucky girl that she managed to get away.
Reilly’s thoughts returned to Graham Hackett then. When she had initially learned about Holly’s attack, she immediately wondered if the boy was involved and whether an ensuing struggle could have led to his own demise. But seeing Holly now - a wisp of a thing as Kennedy might say - she knew that this girl had not been the one to overpower someone as well-built as the Hackett boy, nor indeed wield a weapon with the type of force that would have caved in the teen’s skull.
“OK, I think that’s us about done for now,” she said as she packed away the samples. “The detectives will want to interview you in more detail at a later date though - about your friend Graham and what went on at last night’s party.”
The girl looked terrified, but then smiled weakly and ran her hands over her hair in what appeared to be an attempt at straightening it out. Reilly wondered if Holly knew the full extent of the tragedy that had befallen her friend last night, but figured it wasn't her place to tell her.
She was trying to figure out the best way to announce that she had to leave, when Holly dropped her hands and looked down at the blanket. “You’d think I would remember more,” she said, her voice just above a whisper, “you’d think every last detail of such a horrible thing would stick in your mind. Instead, I’m not even sure that it happened at all…”
Reilly nodded quietly, unsure what to say. If her maternal instincts were going to kick in at some point, right now would be awfully helpful.
“Is that normal do you think?”
Just then the door cracked open, and Susan Glynn poked her head in. “Everything all right?”
Holly’s face brightened upon seeing her mother and Reilly automatically stepped back from the bed. She took it as her cue to slip away without answering Holly’s question.
But Reilly made her way out to rejoin Chris, she couldn’t help but think about what she would say if her own offspring asked her something like that someday.
Would she again just slip out of the room, tight lipped, hoping someone else would materialize to help her child?
6
When Reilly had disappeared into the hospital room, Chris was left alone with Holly’s father. Even with the formidable solicitor in his presence, he slipped right into detective mode.
“Good morning, Mr. Glynn, I’m Detective Chris Delaney,” he began smoothly, but th
e man turned on him with a piercing glare so fierce it made him question his decision to issue a greeting at all.
“Is it?” Michael Glynn snapped, his cheeks flushed a fiery red, something made more apparent under the bright wash of the fluorescent lights, “is it really a good morning? Is it a good morning for you, Detective? A vicious attack on a young girl and the murder of a teenage boy are things that really make your mornings?”
He must’ve looked taken aback, so Mr. Glynn continued, “Of course I know about the Hackett boy. I’m not some clueless member of the public, detective. It would do you well to remember that. And you’re only here because I want you here.”
Chris recovered quickly, having faced dozens of men like Michael Glynn throughout his career. Just as people grieved differently, people reacted to severe trauma differently too, and Glynn was obviously one of those men who reacted to situations outside of their control by doing everything in their power to control them, no matter how impossible that was.
Nothing Michael Glynn did now could change what that had happened to his daughter, but he would try to compensate the best he could.
Chris leveled his gaze and said in an even voice, “I understand your frustration sir, and I’m going to do everything in my power to find the person that assaulted your daughter but if you do want me here, then I suggest you let me do my job.”
Glynn took a moment to breathe, visualizing his beloved wife with her hand on his arm, advising him to remember the things that calmed him. Most people would think his quick-to-anger disposition would ruin him as a solicitor, but he was one of the few who had managed to harvest his passion and turn it into something productive and successful.
He had to remind himself, as Susan would, that the whole world was not a courtroom, and that he didn’t actually have any beef with the detective that was now preparing to pocket his questions and leave, which wouldn’t help his poor little Holly in the least.
“Okay,” Michael Glynn said, crossing his arms over his chest and letting out a breath of resigned air. “Ask away.”
“Thank you. About what time did Holly leave your house for the party last night?”
The anger Glynn had just about managed to dismiss, quickly bubbled to the surface again, “She didn’t leave for the party - she left to meet up with some of her friends to celebrate the end of exams. How she ended up at that godforsaken house is lost on me.”
Chris made a note of this and pushed forward, “Does your daughter attend gatherings like this one often?”
“I would like to say no, but after this, I’m not sure I know for sure where she’s been or what she’s been doing. I never would have allowed her stay out all night like that drinking and doing God knows what else with those Hackett boys.”
“What was your daughter’s relationship with Graham Hackett?”
Michael rolled his eyes. “Apparently they were … friendly, a few months ago, but then it just seemed to die out. I don’t why, but I was glad when it happened. Holly needs to focus on her schooling, not some hotshot who thinks he’s some kind of sports prodigy.”
Chris made a note of the tone in Mr. Glynn’s tone when he spoke of Graham Hackett. If Holly and Graham had once been item, and the father assumed the kid was responsible for his daughter’s attack…
“And about what time were you made aware of Holly’s…misfortune, Mr Glynn?”
“Not until this morning, not long after I left for work - so about seven thirty. Susan rang in a state, said she’d found Holly crying in the shower. Of course I guessed what had happened, what father wouldn’t? But it seems, thanks be to God, that the worst didn't in fact happen. Some animal didn't … have his way with my daughter.”
“Where were you in the early hours of one am and five am this morning Mr Hackett?” Mr. Glynn’s perceptive eyes, honed by his years of arguing in the courtroom, zeroed in on Chris’s train of thought. The solicitor huffed and crossed his arms again, reminding Chris of an angry dwarf. He added quickly, “I’m sure, Mr Glynn - given the circumstances - you can appreciate why I need to ask that question.”
The other man harrumphed. “I can and you’re right to. Because believe me, if I thought for one second that that young upstart Hackett had laid a hand on my daughter …” He seemed to think better of his utterance then, because he sighed heavily and said: “I was at home in bed with my wife. You can ask her. Either way, I grilled Holly about her attacker, and she’s adamant that it wasn’t him - she says it was a complete stranger. Someone pounced on her on her way home. I’m raging with her that she didn't phone one of us to pick her up even though the Hackett place is only half a mile down the road. But that’s not the point. Clearly no young girl is safe out on her own at night - respectable area or not.”
Chris figured that given the man’s profession, Glynn should know better than to assume that just because he and his family lived in and frequented a middle class neighbourhood that it should be somehow immune from criminal behaviour.
From what Chris had seen, no such place existed.
The solicitor huffed and crossed his arms again. “I think that’s enough questions for now,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “Rest assured I’m not the Hackett boy’s attacker as I’m sure your investigations will reveal pretty quickly. However, I’m counting on you to also find my daughter’s. Chances are they are one and the same.”
There wasn't yet enough information available about either situation to agree or disagree with him, but Chris concurred that the events were almost certainly related. Somehow. “I assure you, my colleagues and I will be working all angles, Mr Glynn. And we will need to talk to your family again as the investigation progresses.”
As Mr. Glynn turned on his heel and stomped down the hallway, Reilly exited Holly’s hospital room. Chris caught the remnants of the same pained expression that had been on her face when she saw Graham Hackett for the first time that morning, and he was starting to think that her condition was making her more emotionally vulnerable.
She shook her head at him as they met up in the hallway and made their way back out of the hospital. Chris, having been around her long enough, caught the meaning of the gesture.
“What is it?” he asked, as they came to the top of the stairway. Even in her pregnancy, Reilly refused to take the elevator. She wasn’t going to give up her fitness until she absolutely had to, though her bump was starting grow rapidly, and it was a small struggle for her not to puff for breath as they made their way down the steps.
She looked up at him, mildly surprised that he had said something to her about it. What surprised her most though, was that she answered him truthfully.
In other situations, she wouldn’t have been so quick to dump her issues on a colleague but Chris was a good friend and confident.
And of course unlike Reilly, he understood children very well. His relationship with his goddaughter, Rachel was case in point. Not too long ago Chris had invited her to come along for supper at his good friend Matt and Kelly’s home.
Whenever Reilly entered the family’s quaint little house in a well-heeled Dublin suburb not too unlike the Hackett’s, one of the first things that struck her was the smell. Although the house was immaculately clean and tidy, a latent scent remained, hinting at the messes that had been made previously.
The second thing came almost immediately after: little Rachel’s squealing trailing behind her as she raced for Chris’s open arms. Reilly took a step back and watched as he scooped the four year old up, grinning ear to ear and planting a wet kiss on her temple.
“Hello there, Trouble. Where’s Dad?”
Rachel had taken his hand then and led them to the kitchen, where Matt and his wife were having a discussion under their breaths, their smiles hinting at the content of the conversation.
Reilly noted the way Chris acted with the small girl, so easily, despite the lack of children of his own. They continued on like that throughout the night, Chris sporting and laughing with Rachel and she in turn gazing up at Chr
is like he was a knight.
Reilly’s own pitiful attempts at interacting with the child had left the household in an awkward silence, just the scraping of forks at the dinner table as Rachel either shook her head or completely ignored Reilly. But she was a nice kid, and Reilly knew the problem didn’t lie with her. She’d never been a kid person but perhaps she wasn’t fit to be a mother if such a sweet four year old couldn't take to her?
She sighed. Holly Glynn had seemed to like her well enough just now, but of course that interaction was under entirely different circumstances. She suppressed a shudder at the thought of Kelly and Matt worrying about their girl the way Holly’s parents were right now. How could any parent bear such strain?
Slowly, trying to contain the mess in her head, Reilly answered Chris’s question.
“It’s just… seeing these kids - the teenagers. The way life’s treated them so far, and they’re still only kids - or were in Graham Hackett’s case,” she added softly. “His parents and Holly’s obviously they love them and would do anything for them, and still – something terrible happened to them both. That makes you think there really is nothing a parent can do to keep their kids safe.”
Chris regarded her for a moment. Rather than coming straight out and saying she was worried about her own mothering skills, she had slid it into an observation of others.
He sighed and contemplated the best way to answer her, to help quiet her fears.
“Of course nothing a parent does in this world can make sure nothing bad will ever happen to their child, but I believe that the best parents try their utmost to put their children in a position to take the world by the horns. Bad things happen to people, you and I both know that only too well. But that has nothing to do with parenting. You teach them what you can and prepare them the best you can. And for what it’s worth,” he added softly, “you’ll do a great job.”
She rolled her eyes at him, but hid her secret pleasure at the compliment. His confidence in her managed to quiet her troubled mind, at least for a little while.