by Caz Frear
I reach under my bed for the shoebox and take out my red fluffy notepad – the place where I write the unspeakable things when my head can’t contain them.
‘Journalling,’ a counsellor called it. ‘A safe place where you give voice to your fears until you feel you can share them.’
And I write. Fast, uncensored but as methodical as I can be. This is no time for jumbled thinking.
WHAT I THOUGHT I KNEW:
In 1998, Dad was involved in the disappearance of Maryanne Doyle?
In 1998, Maryanne Doyle disappeared and Dad knew something about it??
Maryanne Doyle was never seen again – murdered???
WHAT I KNOW:
Maryanne Doyle wasn’t murdered in 1998. She was alive until yesterday.
Maryanne Doyle has been found a few hundred yards from Dad’s pub.
In 1998, Dad lied about knowing Maryanne Doyle – THIS IS FACT
So you see, some fears can never be shared. Some fears are so cataclysmic that to share them would be tantamount to suicide.
Life as I know it, obliterated.
1998
Tuesday 26th May
Scary’s dark curls, Geri’s big boobs, Baby’s blue eyes. My three favourite Spice Girls rolled into one, stood at the top of the road with her thumb out.
‘It’s called hitch-hiking,’ Dad said, starting the car. ‘There’s no buses or tubes around here, poppet, so you have to drive or hitch a lift if you want to go anywhere.’
‘Hitch-hiking,’ I repeated, swilling the word around. ‘Can we give her a lift?’
‘Ah, I don’t know,’ Dad said, like he didn’t really mean it. ‘Mum wouldn’t like it.’
‘But Mum’s not here.’
‘That’s my girl.’
He grinned at me in the rear-view mirror and I grinned back but I instantly got the bad feeling. The one I always got when we lied to Mum – nervy, like I had bats in my tummy. Normally Dad would buy me treats and the bad feeling would pass. Cheese and onion crisps always did the trick.
We turned left at Gran’s gate, towards town. ‘I suppose Jesus taught that we should always help strangers?’ Dad said.
Dead right. Matthew 25: 35-40. I’d learned it in Holy Communion class.
Not that she was a complete stranger. I even knew her name: Maryanne. She worked in the Diner where Jacqui hung out and once when we’d picked Jacqui up, she’d served me a banana split and told a table full of boys that her favourite ice-cream was ‘cock-flavoured’.
Jacqui’d found this hilarious. Dad pretended not to but I’d clocked a smile as he’d counted out the two pounds fifty. He’d smiled at her again when we left.
Back in the car, Dad peered up at the sky, reading the clouds. ‘Mmmm, you know it looks like it could rain. Maybe we should pick her up.’ He turned his head. ‘But not a word to Mum, sweetheart, you know what she’s like.’
I didn’t actually. All I knew was that if I wanted to share a car with the next best thing to a Spice Girl, I’d have to promise to keep the secret.
*
If I’d known she’d completely ignore me, I wouldn’t have bothered. She didn’t cast one single glance back. Didn’t even say hello. Stuck-up like Posh Spice, I decided.
She wasn’t stuck-up with Dad though, firing question after question at him for five solid minutes. Who? Where? Why? What?
Was he here with his wife? Did he mind if she smoked?
Dad said she’d better not. ‘The wife wouldn’t like it.’
‘Do you always do what your wife wants?’ I could see her smirking in the wing mirror.
When we dropped her off just outside the town, she asked Dad one final question.
‘So will you be out this evening, Mike?’
It was Padraigh Foy’s sixtieth, she said, and there’d be free beer and fierce craic in Grogan’s if he fancied it. I shouted from the back that he didn’t fancy it because he’d promised to watch Spice World with me, but I don’t think she heard because she just walked away. Not even a thank you or a quick wave. It made her less pretty being that rude.
*
We didn’t watch Spice World that night, or any night after. Every time I asked, Dad said he had to meet a man about Something Important and that Jacqui would watch it with me instead, but she never did. Jacqui only ever wanted to watch Friends or The X Files (or ‘her own reflection,’ Gran would say when she’d think we couldn’t hear her).
Dad must have been meeting a man about Something Very Important as he didn’t come home until gone two, not once. I’d hear the bing-bongs ring out on Gran’s grandfather clock.
He did bring me back a pack of cheese and onion Taytos though, to make me feel better.
Nothing says sorry like a pack of cheese and onion crisps.
7
The next day, our cosy little crack squad turns into a full-scale jamboree with twice the number of people chasing up leads and striding about looking determined. I spend my time intermittently throwing up in the toilets and smiling at new faces, intently staring at my laptop in the short bursts in between, desperate to avoid direct eye contact with Parnell and Steele. Luckily they’ve both been squirrelled away in Steele’s office all morning alongside Chief Superintendent Blake and a couple of other Big Knobs – I know they’re Big Knobs because Steele told me to use the decent mugs when she sent me to make coffee. It’s the only interaction we’ve had all day.
Around three this morning, I’d entered an almost altered sense of consciousness where I convinced myself that I had the backbone to walk into Steele’s office at nine a.m. sharp and come clean on everything I knew about Maryanne Doyle. It was the right thing to do, I’d reasoned, burning with a righteous professionalism I never knew I had; in fact it was the only thing to do if I ever wanted to face myself in the mirror again, and crucially it was the timing of my epiphany that sealed it.
Three a.m., known as ‘Dead Time’ – the hour when the barrier between the living and the dead lifts and the ghosts start to move between realms.
So it was Mum telling me to come clean, basically. Or so I’d believed until the marijuana haze wore off and the clarity of daybreak returned me to a far more basic instinct – self-preservation – and a far more pragmatic perspective.
What exactly do I know anyway? That my Dad definitely didn’t kill Maryanne Doyle in 1998, but that he’d lied about knowing her?
It’s barely a line of enquiry, never mind a smoking gun.
‘So what are we calling her then?’ Flowers sticks a photo of Maryanne Doyle to the incident board, wholesome and dewy with those cushiony pink lips and blue eyes twinkling like helium stars. ‘It’s going to get bloody confusing now. Is she Alice or Maryanne?’
‘Hard to believe it’s the same person,’ says Craig, shaking his head. ‘I mean, I’m sure we all looked different in the Nineties – you wouldn’t have called me The Famine back then for a start, I was a bit of a porker, if you must know – but this Alice, Maryanne, whatever we’re calling her, she looks completely different. Like the life’s been sucked out of her.’
Renée gives a sideways glance. ‘I think it’s called age, Craig. Stress. Modern life.’
‘Stress?!’ says Flowers. ‘Living on a private island and cooking scampi and chips in the local a few times a week?’
I exchange a ‘dickhead’ look with Renée who passes it on to Ben.
‘Well, I think we should go with Maryanne,’ says Seth, ‘inside these four walls anyway. If that’s who she was born, that’s what we should call her.’
‘No.’ It bursts out of me, loud and vehement. ‘She changed her name to Alice so that’s how she wanted to be known. We owe her that courtesy, surely?’
Kinsella’s my Mum’s maiden name, you see. I was born a McBride but I changed it to Kinsella after she died. A memorial to the only person I’ve ever really trusted and an irrefutable ‘fuck you’ to my dad.
Although, I am starting to trust Parnell, I think. It isn’t anything he’s done as such. We haven
’t been in any life-or-death situations together, unless you count the time we arrested a suspect outside a supermarket who tried to attack us with a frozen leg of lamb. It’s just his presence I trust, his relentless steadiness.
It shores me up, somehow. Makes me steadier.
Seth shrugs a ‘whatever’ and looks towards Steele’s office where the Chief Super and the Big Knobs are filing out. Steele’s in the centre and Parnell walks behind in his best shirt-and-tie combo, the tie bobbing on his hillock of a stomach. If it wasn’t for his nose hair, I’d say he looked cute. The Big Knobs leave but Blake stays behind, smouldering by the back wall like an aftershave model. Not yet forty, Chief Superintendent Russell Blake’s the poster boy for the Met’s High Potential Development Scheme. A politician through and through, all PR, Policy and sharp Prada suits.
This is pure rumour, of course. I’ve never actually spoken to the man, although I did once hand him a napkin in the staff canteen.
Steele bangs a desk with a stapler and we all come to heel.
‘Right, folks, I trust you’ve all made friends and I don’t need to make introductions. Couple of things – firstly, I just want to extend a big thanks to Chief Superintendent Blake for’ – she looks around the room – ‘giving us the extra resources because clearly this case has just got a lot bigger.’ Blake gives a sombre nod. ‘Secondly, because it’s now bigger, I’m going to be taking on more of a co-ordinator role – the brains of the operation, if you like – and DS Parnell will be stepping up to Acting Detective Inspector, so all roads lead back to him, OK?’
A murmur of ‘fair play’ rings around the room. I’m obviously pleased for him but I can’t help getting a pang of new sibling syndrome. More people to manage means less time steadying me.
‘So the brother’s ID’d the body and he’s confirmed it’s his sister, Maryanne Doyle.’
‘The moron brother’, as Jacqui used to call him
‘Maryanne went missing from Mulderrin, a small village on the west coast of Ireland, in 1998. Not a call or a letter or a proverbial sausage since. We’re obviously waiting for a DNA comparison before we go public but basically, it’s her. He was able to tell us several distinguishing features.’
‘So might the killer,’ I say.
‘What? He kills her then draws attention to himself?’ muses Seth. ‘He’d have to be supremely confident, or supremely mad.’
‘It’s not unheard of.’
‘And confident fits with the relaxed dude on the CCTV,’ adds Ben.
Steele picks up the stapler, tosses it from hand to hand. ‘Mmm, I think the brother’s a bit taller than CCTV man, although it’s hard to say for definite so I wouldn’t rule him out. Anyway, look, the file’s been sent from Ireland but I’ve been warned it’s a bit thin on detail, and I’m not sure how much attention we should be paying it, in any case. It was eighteen years ago, people go missing all the time, and “Maryanne Doyle” was alive and well and living as Alice Lapaine until yesterday so there may be absolutely no relevance at all.’
I cling to Steele’s words yet feel sick at their implications.
Could I have been wrong about Dad all this time?
But then why? Why did he lie?
In the cold light of day, with doubts flooding my head, this question starts to seem naïve at best. OK, Childhood Me might have allowed herself to believe in the steadfast honesty of Grown-ups, but Grown-up Me knows that people lie all the time, and for an abundance of reasons, not all of them sinister.
But he knew her.
He flirted with her.
She disappeared.
Then he lied.
Pieces of a puzzle I completed a long time ago. Could I have been wrong?
However, now isn’t the time for regret or introspection. Now is the time to get hold of that file.
‘I’ll go through the Ireland stuff,’ I announce, maybe a little too eager. ‘Let you know if I think anything needs following up.’
Steele looks to Parnell, formally passing the crown.
‘No, I want you to interview the brother,’ says Parnell. ‘He’s coming back in, after work.’ He refrains from adding ‘the heartless git.’ ‘Go easy, but see if you can sense any motive, because if we’re looking for reasons for why she might have been in London, the brother’s a reason, isn’t he?’
I nod, there’s nothing else I can do. It’s an instruction from a senior officer and a favour from a friend. A patronage of sorts. But rather like the Mafia, Parnell’s public show of faith means I now can’t let him down without bringing him down, and yet I’m letting him down just by sitting here with my memories – Maryanne serving ice-cream, licking Rizlas, putting my Tinkerbell pendant into her denim jacket pocket.
Flirting with Dad. Calling him the Diet Coke man.
Acting Detective Inspector Luigi Parnell deserves far better than me.
‘Right, back to the grindstone folks,’ shouts Steele, waving ta-ta to Chief Superintendent Blake as he slips out. ‘Parnell’s off to the post-mortem later so news from that very soon.’
‘Lucky me,’ says Parnell, who after nearly thirty years’ service still shudders at the sound of the rib shears.
Renée picks up her bag. ‘Think yourself lucky, Boss. I’ve been lumbered with telling Thomas Lapaine that his wife had been lying to him about her identity for the past fifteen years. Wanna swap?’
He doesn’t. Most of us would take stomach contents and rib shears over the awkwardness of emotional pain any day.
‘I’ll tell you who is lucky though – that one, there.’ Renée points at me, grinning. I’m confused. ‘Ah, of course, you didn’t see Aiden Doyle when he came in first thing, did you? Well you’re in for a treat, lady, the man is an absolute D.I.S.H.’
‘Sexist!’ shouts Flowers, and for the first time today I crack a genuine smile.
*
Much later, I walk into the ‘soft’ interview room – the squishy, pastel sanctum we preserve for children, vulnerable people and now smokin’-hot brothers of dead Irish colleens – to find Aiden Doyle tapping on his smartphone, left knee bouncing. Six feet something of pure crackling energy and cheekbones you could cut turf with.
I can’t fault Renée’s taste. The moron brother doesn’t look so moronic now.
I half expect to recognise him but there’s nothing, not one single recollection. I’m not sure why I’m so surprised as I didn’t really register boys when I was eight. Boring, non-pop-star boys anyway. To me, every teenage boy was just another superfluous version of Noel – spiteful, monosyllabic and unwashed – whereas teenage girls embodied everything I thought was good about life – giggling, glitter and clip-cloppy high heels.
Maryanne was wearing candy-pink peep-toes the day we gave her a lift.
I offer my hand. ‘Detective Constable Cat Kinsella.’
‘Kinsella. There’d be Irish in you then?’
His west-coast accent curls around my heart like an old blanket. Gran, cousins, aunts, old men with old sheepdogs. Nice people I never saw again after that holiday.
‘My Mum’s side,’ I say, sitting down. ‘Thanks for coming back in, Mr Doyle – and thanks for sorting a photo so quickly. I’m sure this has been a huge shock and I’ll answer any questions you have the best I can, however I’ll warn you, we have far more questions than answers at this stage.’
‘No problem.’ He stands up, dwarfing me. ‘And call me Aiden. Mr Doyle makes me think of my old fella and believe me, it’s not a happy thought. Do you mind if I help myself to tea?’
‘If you don’t mind that it tastes awful.’
He smiles and goes about his business. No obvious signs of distress. Although in fairness, eighteen years is a long time. Maryanne’s been out of his life longer than she’d been in it.
He sits back down, sighs. ‘Well, yeah, it’s been a shock, all right. Not that she’s dead, I mean, I kinda assumed she was dead. It’s more that she was alive all this time, you know?
You and me both, mate.
 
; ‘I looked out for her for years,’ he goes on. ‘Like, I went to Galway once for a piss-up, just after the leaving cert, and I thought I saw her in the queue for the Alley.’ He smiles. ‘As if Maryanne would have been seen dead in the Alley, of all places. Always thought she was a class above, you know.’ There’s no side to that statement, just fact. ‘Then I thought I saw her at a football match. Mayo v Roscommon. Spent hours and hours rewinding and pausing the tape, convincing meself it could be her from a certain angle, if you added a few kilos. I suppose I just wanted to think that she was out there somewhere, having a good time, going to nightclubs, watching the match. She was football mad, you know. Well, footballer mad.’
I let him talk, tactically and for pure enjoyment.
‘I stopped looking after a while, though. Then after seven years, this woman from some new set-up, Missing in Ireland Support Services, rings up and says we can apply to have her declared dead if we want.’ He raises an eyebrow. ‘“If we want,” she says, like it’s a great fucking option.’ Then, ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t swear.’
‘Swear away. You’re not in confession.’
‘Ha, not in a long time, Detective. Same as yourself, no?’ I smile. ‘Anyways, we didn’t have her declared dead. I mean, what would be the point? She didn’t have an estate or anything, unless you call a crate of shit CDs and more shoes than Imelda Marcos, an estate.’ He scratches at his head like he’s tearing at his brain rather than tending to an itch. ‘Jesus Christ, I just can’t believe she was right here in London, right under my fucking nose.’
He doesn’t apologise this time.
‘We think she was only in London for a few weeks. She lived in Thames Ditton, in Surrey.’
A quick hunch of the shoulders. ‘Don’t know the place. Don’t know London that well, to be honest. I’ve not been here long meself, got transferred from the Dublin office two months ago, and it’s been non-stop work, work, work. I need to get out more.’
I want to ask what type of work allows for distressed denim jeans and threadbare grey T-shirts but it’s not exactly relevant. We’re not on a date. ‘Aiden, we’re trying to find out why Maryanne was in London in the weeks prior to her death. We’ve spoken with her husband . . .’