by Laura Elliot
‘What?’ Unable to disguise his shock, he recoiled from the question.
‘She was bullied, also. Those rumours about her―’
‘I’d nothing to do with spreading them.’
‘I believe you, but…’
‘But what?’ he asked. ‘Where exactly is this conversation going?’
‘Were those stories about her started by your friends?’
‘How often must I say it… they were not my friends.’ He was out of the chair and pacing, his food forgotten.
She, too, gave up pretending to eat. ‘I saw photographs of the three of you together in the archives today. You seemed like such a close-knit group.’
‘Is that what you were checking?’ The rush of colour to his cheeks added to her unease.
‘No, I came upon them by accident.’
‘What were you checking?’
‘Remember the montage of photographs we saw at the crematorium?’
‘Get to the point,’ he snapped.
‘There was one of Keith with a cigarette—’ She stopped and allowed the silence to lengthen.
‘So?’ His impatience was palpable, yet this was a time-standing-still instant when it was still possible to end this conversation and protect what was precious between them.
‘It was taken when he was in China. In Marianne’s diary she claims Shane Reagan found a cigarette packet with foreign lettering in that cottage. I checked when Keith was in China. It was two weeks before she claims she was assaulted.’
‘Ah.’ He slumped back into an armchair. ‘A cigarette packet with foreign lettering? Seriously, Rachel.’ He averted his head, as if he was offended by the sight of her. ‘You think my feelings towards them are connected in some way with her… that I’m in the frame… Jesus, Rachel? What are you suggesting?’
‘I’m trying to understand what is at the heart of this visceral hatred you feel towards them.’
‘Drugs.’ This sounded like a statement, not an explanation.
‘You were dealing?’ she asked.
‘That was the charge.’
‘So, you have a record?’
‘No. The charge was dropped. Big favour from Jack Bale but had it gone to trial my so-called friends were willing to give witness against me. I was an addict, never a dealer. Liam was the supplier, though he was just a frontman. Keith had the contacts. Christy found out what was going on, possibly a tip-off from Bale. He knew it would be just a matter of time before we were caught, so he intervened and I was caught in possession.’
‘Why did Bale drop the charge?’
‘My father pulled strings. That’s how things were done here. Bale claimed it was an act of mercy and I could begin again. But not in Reedstown. People like me pulled society down and he wanted me off his patch. So, I went. Does that satisfy you? Is it an adequate explanation or would you like to continue this inquisition?’
He had never tried to hide the fact that he was a drug addict, clean for twenty-five years but aware that the habit still had its claws in him. Christy Lewis would have had no hesitation in using him as a pawn to save his son’s reputation. Just as he had planned to do to her. Bob’s explanation made sense, yet it did not satisfy her. Skin in the game… a throwaway comment by a former sergeant with an attitude. She was giving his words enough credibility to destroy her marriage but Bob’s answers, instead of satisfying her, just created more questions. Why was he framed in such a ruthless way by people he trusted and believed were his friends? Why had he been viewed as the weak link? The out-of-control one who could bring others down with him? And if he had broken rank, what secrets would he have told? Her husband did not look like a man who had opened his soul to her. In his eyes, she saw desolation. Had it always been there, this impenetrable sadness, shielded from view by his love for her?
‘How can you call this an inquisition?’ she asked.
‘I’m a newspaperman, Rachel. I read the clues between the lines. I know what you’re thinking.’
‘No, Bob, you don’t. I read the clues in what is not spoken and your past has always been a mystery to me. You deny it matters yet you carry it with you. It weighs on you… here.’ She pressed her hand against his chest and felt his heart, the hard, drumming beat reverberating off her palm. And his face, she touched that too, felt his clammy heat, and knew that the truth was as far away as it was when she began this conversation.
‘I have a decision to make,’ she said. ‘Should I continue to allow a dead girl to speak from the grave? Or should I silence her by releasing a statement she made in the presence of Jack Bale, which denies the claim she made in her diary? What am I to do, Bob?’
He swallowed, his throat muscles contracting. ‘That has to be your decision, Rachel,’ he replied. ‘Knowing you, it will be the right one.’
34 Davina
A week since Christy’s death and the air in The Lodge was stale. Davina threw out a bunch of wilted flowers and drew back from the stench of stagnant water. She opened windows and doors, allowed light to flood the rooms. She had already been through his office in the constituency clinic, checking his files and shredding where necessary. Today, her chores were more mundane as she scoured and scrubbed in her efforts to remove all traces of her father-in-law from The Lodge. Now that the property market was stable again, she could sell it and raise funds for her various campaigns. The radio was on, white noise in the background … Now it’s your turn to clean up your own shit… Had she hastened his death with her questions, harried him into a fatal panic attack? She checked herself. What a ridiculous thing to think. It wasn’t that easy to kill a monster.
His death had precipitated a by-election. Her moment had come earlier than anticipated and her nomination would be accepted by the party. Keith had been more than a little surprised by the speed with which she moved, the phone calls to influential contacts who owed her… what? Access to Christy, insights into his thoughts, the right word in his ear, the sleight of hand that was sometimes necessary to change his mind? All that and more. Davina’s backroom days were over, or they would be as soon as the election results were counted; but not if they were smudged by her father-in-law’s murky shadow.
A phone-in programme had started on the radio. One of the callers was discussing her time in the Magdalene laundries. The same routine, mothers seeking lost babies, lost babies now adults seeking mothers. This was a happy story, a reunion that worked out, but Davina still searched for another channel before entering Christy’s bedroom.
He had smoked in bed. Her lips puckered in disgust when she saw the ashtray full of butts. Turning the mattress made no difference to the stale smell of tobacco. The rooms would have to be fumigated before she could put the house on the market. Hearing a soft thud, she looked down and saw a book lying on the floor. It must have been hidden under the mattress. She hoped it wasn’t porn. Grimacing, she flung it onto the growing pile of rubbish. The cover opened and the words ‘Marianne’s Diary’, written with a turquoise dayglo pen, seemed to rise from the page and hit her between the eyebrows. Hallucinating. She had definitely lost it. And who would blame her when her day had been spent dumping flowers in the green bin and chasing hideous voyeurs from the front of her house?
She picked it up with her fingertips and moaned softly as she turned the pages. Blotches and scribbles, words crossed out and squashed into what space was left on the line. Adele Foyle’s decision to edit the contents before she released the entries on her blog had been a wise one that had kept her out of the libel courts; Liam had been unable to put a stop to the blog – but he would have had no difficulty getting an injunction if a judge had seen this material. The wild accusations and incoherent passages, the names dropped carelessly onto the page. Jack Bale: no redaction of his name, or Christy’s. No problem roasting Gloria’s reputation. No qualms about defaming the dead. How was she managing to continue blogging when Davina was holding the source material in her hands? And why was it here, hidden under a mattress that could have been overturned if the Gar
dai had decided there was anything suspicious about Christy’s death and searched The Lodge? Davina saw her own name, and Julie’s also, underlined many times in connection to the stories that had circulated around Reedstown. Her fury grew as she turned the pages. How had this diary come into her father-in-law’s possession? Another grubby Christy Lewis secret. He must have planned to dispose of it but was caught short when his heart faltered and stopped.
Adele Foyle must have made a copy of the diary. Had she suspected it would be stolen when she diligently copied each page? She checked the blog. The latest entry was up.
I talked to my baby for the first time when I was there. I thought I’d be frightened being all on my own with only a mattress and a bucket but I wasn’t a bit scared. God, the real God, made it okay for me. Miss Quack Elisha came every day to check the baby’s heart and Miss Rebekah sent down her usual poison paws food, which The Quack insisted I eat because a healthy mother means a healthy baby.
It was so quiet in the tank. Deep enough to drown me but I’d company, pummelling heels and fists, hiccups and moments of stillness when I knew my baby was sucking its thumb. I rocked backwards, forwards, and sang lullabies. When I touched my tummy it was like there was a pulse beating in the palm of my hand.
Davina touched her cheek and was shocked to discover it was wet. This drivel was dangerously emotive and there was more to come. The blog needed to be closed down, and fast.
Keith arrived home. A flying stopover, he declared as he headed for the shower. He had a meeting to attend and would be home late. She was sitting on the edge of the sofa when he entered the living room. Clean-shaven, his hair still damp, a cashmere jumper casually slung over his shoulders, he could have been going anywhere. As always, she found it impossible to read him.
‘Sit down, Keith,’ she said. ‘I need to discuss something with you.’
‘I’m running late for my meeting. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’
‘Sit.’
‘I’m not a fucking dog, Davina.’ He sank reluctantly onto the sofa. ‘What’s going on?’
‘I found this under the mattress in The Lodge.’ She thrust the diary towards him. ‘I thought it was porn at first. Now, I wish it had been. At least I know where I am with filth. But this… what am I supposed to think?’
He took the diary from her and turned the pages, his eyes skimming over the entries.
‘How come I found it there?’ she asked.
‘I’ve absolutely no idea. When did my father ever confide in me?’
‘Don’t lie to me, Keith. It’s way too late for that. Did Christy steal it to protect you? Is this what cleaning up your shit means?’
Her emphasis jolted him to his feet. He opened his mouth, closed it again. Her golden-tongued husband whose vocabulary swept him into power, elected on the first count, was struggling to explain how his father had stared at him with such loathing from his hospital bed. Her hand was rising, swinging towards him. The smack of skin on skin, a furious joy, and he recoiled, stepped away from her, his eyes narrowed. He shook his head, his fingers pressed to his reddening cheek.
‘I know nothing about it,’ he said. ‘There never was any shit to clear up and if you want our marriage to survive don’t you ever again imply that there was.’
Her fury was being replaced by caution. That little slut probably put out to him. Davina only hoped he had had the good sense to resist her, otherwise her diary would roast him on a spit. And if he had been stupid enough to indulge in a momentary weakness and join the line-up in Loy Park, who else had indulged in Marianne Mooney’s dubious favours? Keith always had an entourage. Liam, of course. The faithful shadow with his acne and sniffles. He always seemed to have a cold in those days. A neglected waif with his whacko mother touring the countryside, promoting her books and her visions. Bob Molloy came to mind – but he was in never-never land most of the time. Too spaced out on drugs to do anything except hang around them until he went into rehab… and came back twenty-five years later, clean as a new pin.
Davina did not ask questions when she was with Jack Bale and he did not burden her with unnecessary information. She used to laugh at him and call him ‘Christy’s sidekick/bagman/sycophant’, but not any more. Not since he squeezed her elbow at the funeral and said, ‘You and Keith can call on me anytime you need me.’ She understood that he was giving his allegiance to the new order.
He was not surprised when she showed him the diary. That was reassuring. No smoke and mirrors to distort facts. She agreed with his view that Adele Foyle had stepped way out of line since she arrived in Reedstown. He swiped his phone and showed her a photograph. Transfixed, she stared at the document, a legal and genuine piece of evidence. She was appalled. Why had that not been used to end the charade being enacted online by the blogger? Davina did not ask how he had acquired it. All that concerned her was its value.
The statement he had photographed had been signed by him and another guard. Garda Gunning, she vaguely remembered him. Dead now, a brain haemorrhage at his desk. The way of his passing was quickly forgotten as she read Marianne Mooney’s confession. The scheming, lying slut. To think Davina had cried reading that last wretched entry… a momentary weakness that would never be repeated. The original confession was still under wraps in Reedstown Garda Station, Jack told her, but Rachel Darcy’s stubbornness was forcing his hand. How had she allowed that blog to run unchecked for so long when she had this evidence at her fingertips? Why hadn’t she leaked it? She wouldn’t be the first guard to slide something official and private into the public domain. It would have stopped all the speculation and gossip, the corroding suspicion. Davina had struck gold. The means to end a feeding frenzy of misinformation was in her hands.
Statement of Miss Marianne Mooney
Address: River View, Reedstown. Co. Dublin.
Occupation: Secondary School Student
My name is Marianne Mooney and I am a fourth year student at St Dominic’s Convent, Reedstown. I am fifteen years of age. On the night of 3 April 1994, Shane Reagan from 6 Riverton Crescent, Reedstown, Co. Dublin had intimate relations with me against my will. I asked him to stop but he penetrated me in the full knowledge that I was a minor.
This rape took place in a derelict cottage at Blake’s Hollow. He threatened to kill me and burn down my house with my mother in it if I reported him to the Gardai. I have refused a forensic medical examination, against the advice offered to me by Sergeant Jack Bale.
I have read over this statement and it is correct. I have been invited to make any amendments or changes to it and do not wish to do so.
Signed: Marianne Mooney
Witness: Sergeant Jack Bale
Witness: Garda Maurice Gunning
Date: 3 April 1994
Davina had expected an immediate reaction when she posted the statement on an anonymous blog which she named, ‘The Marianne Diary Exposed’ and she was not disappointed. Opinions varied but the majority of readers who commented were vitriolic in their condemnation of the diary.
Adele Foyle responded, of course she did, fighting back against the fallout. It was a pathetic attempt that did nothing to stem the negative flow. The names were not redacted on this occasion and Davina knew the gloves were off as soon as she read the announcement Adele wrote as her introduction to the entry.
This entry from The Marianne Diary was written earlier in the diary but I omitted it because of its controversial content. I have decided to release it and counteract the leak of a Garda statement that was signed by Marianne on the night she was brought to Reedstown Garda Station by her then boyfriend, Shane Reagan, to report the crime of rape. I believe this statement was coerced from her under a brutal interrogation and that she had no awareness of what she was signing.
Shane is a criminal because of me. That’s what Mr Lewis said when I saw him today. He was coming out of Mother Gloria’s office. He pretended not to know me but only stopped because I kept shouting his name. Christy… Christy… I knew he’d hate that. So
disrespectful. All I wanted to know was if he’d seen Shane but he got mad and told me to stop acting the innocent. I must have known Shane would run away as soon I blamed him for everything.
I called him a liar. I never said Shane was to blame, no matter how often Sergeant Bale forced me to say it. Mr Lewis’s face got so mad I thought he was going to hit me. He might have only Mother Gloria came out of her office and told him to cool it. I was crying so much she took me into the dorm and explained how I’d told the guards what really happened. She said I told them Shane violated me. I told her she was making a BIG mistake. The only thing I signed was the form Sergeant Bale gave me. He said Shane would go to jail for hitting Garda Gunning if I didn’t write my name at the bottom of it. That’s what I did so Shane could get out of the cell and go home. He’d stopped shouting about the cigarette packet by then. But I was afraid he was unconscious because of the blow he got from Sergeant Bale.
Mother Gloria said Shane went to Australia with his mam. I didn’t believe her, not at first, but it made sense. Carrie’s from there and it’s where Shane was born. He didn’t move to Ireland until he was two and his parents split up. He’s on the other side of the world, upside down to me, and I want to see him so bad. But that’s never going to happen. Not when he’s in Australia and I’m here packing poxy medals in boxes.
I did a wrong thing. Now Shane is never going to be allowed to come back to Reedstown or he’ll be put in jail. All because I wrote my name at the bottom of that page.
35 Adele
Adele removed her engagement ring and left it on the bedside table. An art deco design set in platinum; Daniel had bought it from a jeweller who specialised in vintage jewellery. Should she send it back to him by post or courier? She massaged cream into her hands, the wringing movements becoming faster, more agitated. The diamonds caught the beam from the bedside lamp and glistened with a cold intensity. She switched off the light and the glister from her ring radiated in the retinas of her eyes as she drifted off to sleep.