by Caz Frear
‘Yeah, your boss said she was married. Fair play to her. I’d like to meet him.’
One suspect meeting another suspect? I don’t think so.
‘Now’s really not the best time . . .’
‘O’ course. Jesus!’ He gives me a look that says, ‘what do you think I am?’ ‘I meant when the dust settles a bit, maybe . . .’
I nod vaguely, bring things back on track. ‘Her husband tells us she wasn’t the greatest fan of London.’
‘Sure, who is? You can’t get a pint for less than a fiver.’
I can’t help but bite. ‘Christ, I don’t know where you’re drinking? The tourist traps, I bet. You’re right, you definitely do need to get out more.’
If it sounds like flirting, I’m not. Flirting implies a certain amount of effort and guile and I’m capable of neither today.
Still, I overcompensate by going in for the kill.
‘Aiden, Maryanne’s husband can’t think of any reason why she would have been in central London. Maybe you can?’
If he’s annoyed, his face gives away nothing. ‘I haven’t seen my sister in nearly two decades, she could have had an appointment with the feckin’ Queen for all I know?’
I lean forward. ‘Or maybe she was visiting you? You could be the reason?’
His chin lifts. ‘I’m not following.’
‘Well, it just strikes me that here we have a woman who, by all accounts, can’t stand London, who never visits London, who seems content living her very quiet life in a sleepy village in leafy Surrey, and then her brother arrives in the capital two months ago, and all of a sudden London isn’t such a bad place?’ I leave it hanging for a second. ‘So can you see where I’m coming from? Can you see why I might make a connection.’
‘I can,’ he says, nodding, completely agreeable. ‘But there is no connection because I haven’t see her, and God knows I’d have been easy enough to find if she’d wanted to. She might have reinvented herself, but I’m still plain old Aiden Doyle. Same bloody haircut since time began. Same great big scar on me cheek where she slammed me with the hurley. Same cringy picture on the company website for years with the same bloody email address and contact number. If she’d wanted to find me she could have. She obviously didn’t.’
He glances at his watch, almost certainly trying to give the impression that if she’d hadn’t the time to care, then neither does he.
‘Can you confirm where you were on Monday evening/Tuesday morning between the hours of say, eleven p.m. and five a.m.’
I get the expected ‘are you having a laugh?’ look but that’s all. No gaping mouth flapping about in outraged protestation. No demand to see ‘who’s in charge of this investigation’, right before Steele makes them wish that they’d kept their mouth shut and stuck with little ol’ me.
‘I was at home, in bed.’
‘Can anyone verify that?’
‘Sadly not.’ He swipes his hand across his mouth, suppressing a tiny smirk. ‘I’ve been working like a dog since I got here and I haven’t had time for much verification in the bedroom department.’ A little laugh. ‘And that’s going to go against me, is it? Here was me thinking I was being a good lad, not stringing some young one along for an easy ride when I haven’t time to wipe my arse most days.’
‘With regards to your alibi.’ He laughs again – most innocent people do when an evening’s ironing suddenly becomes sworn testimony. ‘Did you speak to anyone on Monday night, between the hours I mentioned? Even a text could help rule you out. That’s all I’m trying to do here, Aiden, rule you out, so we can get on with finding whoever did this.’
He thinks about this. ‘I texted a mate in Oz at some point during the night, will that do? Bloody text from him woke me up and I gave him shite for it. Guess I owe him a pint now, eh?’ He scratches at his head again. ‘I suppose it must have been about oneish, I’d been in bed a while, anyways. I usually turn my phone off before bed but me old fella’s not been well so I’ve been leaving it on.’
A flash of Jonjo Doyle. A ratty little man who hated kids in pubs, ‘filthy’ foreign lager and all things English.
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘Not sure I am. He’s not got long left, I reckon another clean shirt would do him, as we say back home.’ He stares into his mug for a few seconds and then looks up suddenly. ‘He was a cruel, useless man, Cat, the cruellest of the cruel, but he’s still me dad, you know? I’d have preferred he’d gone to his grave not knowing this . . . Ah sure, maybe I won’t tell him . . .’
I nod my understanding, enjoying the sound of my name from his mouth. The familiarity.
‘There were rumours he’d killed her,’ he says, almost amused. ‘Well, not exactly rumours, just pub talk. Gobshites making up stories ’cos they’ve got nothing better to talk about.’
‘That must have been very hurtful. For you and your dad.’
He doesn’t milk the sympathy. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, he was handy with his fists, all right. He’d clumped her once – in public, too – so don’t go feeling too sorry for the bastard. But murder? No. No way. It hit him hard enough when Mam died. He’d never have harmed Maryanne, no way. Well, I mean, proper harmed, you know.’
The west coast lilt, the cheekbones and now a dead mammy. If I could marry him here and now, I would.
‘What do you think happened, Aiden? Why do you think your sister disappeared?’
Answer me the most significant question of my life.
He puffs out his cheeks. ‘Sure, you wouldn’t know what to believe. Some folk were saying – when they weren’t saying that me old fella had killed her and set fire to the body – that she had a bit of a thing for older blokes. There was talk of some married one in Galway, a doctor, but I never went for that.’ A tiny laugh. ‘Not that I wouldn’t believe it – Christ knows she’d make eyes at the pope himself – but it didn’t explain why she never got back in touch. With me, anyway. I mean, we weren’t dead, dead close, but still . . . you’d think . . . well . . .’ He stops talking, wipes a thumb at an imaginary mark on his face. ‘Ah, d’you know what, fuck it.’
Hurt swathed in layers of front. Boy-hurt.
‘What about her friends? Teenage girls talk. Did they have any theories?’
‘Friends,’ he says, sourly. ‘She was joined at the hip with these two bitches, Manda Moran and Hazel Joyce. God forgive me, but they were a right pair of wagons.’
Manda Moran draws a blank but Hazel Joyce steps forward. Red hair clamped back in a tight ponytail. Imitating Jacqui’s accent, making her sound like Eliza Doolittle.
‘I did think to meself that if anyone knew anything, it’d be them, so I pounced on them one night coming out of Grogan’s. Thought I’d put the frighteners on them. Play the big man, you know.’ He almost smiles at the memory. ‘Ended up making a proper tool of meself, I did. Hazel Joyce had these two big brothers coming up the rear and they knocked seven shades of shite out of me. And do you know all they said, well the Joyce one said, as I was lying on the ground coughing up a lung – “If you hear from Maryanne, tell her she still owes me twenty quid.” Can you believe that? She was always mad jealous of Maryanne, though. Maryanne was good-looking, you know, and Joyce had a face a dog wouldn’t lick . . .’
He reaches for a glass of water, pours me one too.
‘When did you stop believing Maryanne was alive?’
‘I don’t know, after a few years, I suppose. And then when that one started going on about declaring her dead, well, it just kind of confirmed that something bad must have happened. And she was always hitching into town, you know? Jumping into the first car that stopped, not a bother on her. “Too fucking lazy to walk,” me old fella used to say. From him! A man who’d been on the social his whole bloody life.’
‘What did the Guards make of it?’
‘Bog all, really,’ he shrugs. ‘Me old fella wasn’t exactly on great terms with them so that didn’t help. Although to be fair, she was se
venteen and she was known for being a bit wild. She’d ran away before, you see – only to Ballina for some festival but she was gone a few days, so I don’t think they paid much mind. Maybe I should have pushed them more but I was only fourteen. They’d have laughed me out the station.’
‘No other siblings?’
‘We’ve an older brother. He’d left home years before Maryanne went missing though and he’s in Canada now. We haven’t spoken properly in years. I get the odd Christmas card, pictures of his kids – well, they’re not kids now, they’re in their teens. I suppose I’ll have to give him a bell now . . . tell him about Maryanne, me dad . . .’
‘He doesn’t stay in contact with your dad?’
‘Nope. Let’s just say my folks weren’t really cut out to be parents. Both too fond of the sup. Mam was a happy drunk, at least. That’s how we saw it anyway. When the old fella was pissed, he’d dole out punches and rebel songs, but me mam, she’d be all kisses and promises. You know, things she was gonna buy us, places she was gonna take us. You knew it was baloney, but it was nice baloney. I miss her.’
‘How old were you when she died?’
‘I was twelve, Maryanne was fifteen. Cirrhosis of the liver. It wasn’t a nice death.’ A pause. ‘The women in our family don’t have much luck, do they?’ He reflects on this for a second but he’s not a wallower. ‘Come here, you said you’d answer any questions I have and I do have one. My question is, “what’s with all the questions?”’ What has Maryanne doing a runner out of Dodge all those years ago got to do with her being murdered yesterday?’
I steel myself to answer in the entirely politic, non-committal way that I’m paid to do.
‘We’re not sure at the moment. We’re just trying to get an idea of who she was. It could be the key to everything or it could mean absolutely nothing. I’m sorry, but that’s the most honest answer I can give you.’
And because screaming, ‘Wouldn’t I like to fucking know?’ in your face really wouldn’t benefit either of us.
‘Fair enough,’ he says – genuinely, I think.
He looks around the room, dwelling a beat or two on a canvas of pink poppies that I think he’s supposed to find soothing.
‘You know, Maryanne was a pain in the hole from the minute she got up in the morning until the minute she went to bed but she was my big sister, you know? She didn’t deserve . . . this. She wasn’t a bad person.’ He drags his eyes away from the poppies, plants them on mine. ‘Ah, would you listen to me, Cat. I haven’t set eyes on her in eighteen years, I’ve no idea what type of person she was. She could have been some gangland crime boss for all know. The Don Corleone of, where’d you call it, Thames Ditton.’ His smile gets broader. ‘Yeah, I could imagine that. Totally. Always had big plans, did Maryanne. Always so sure she was going to be someone. Be famous, like.’ A sharp rueful laugh. ‘She’s famous now, isn’t she?’
*
The office is quiet as I slink back in. Not exactly empty, but empty of anyone who’d have the remotest interest in what I’m up to. Seizing my chance, I breeze towards Steele’s office, smiling at people as I pass, even hovering for a few minutes to give my dishonest opinion on a pair of fleece pyjamas some Romeo has bought his lucky Juliet for Christmas.
Cool. Calm. Collected.
Just a lowly DC walking into a mighty DCI’s office and raiding her desk like a junkie scavenging for a fix.
Nothing to see here, folks.
I find the featherweight file under a pile of overtime sheets and there’s not much to see there either. They definitely weren’t joking when they said it was light on detail. I quickly scan the pages, all three of them – one standard Missing Persons form and two faded sheets which I’m loath to call witness statements as they read more like a sketchy Who’s Who of Mulderrin – a Sergeant Bill Swords’ private census, complete with withering observations and snippy little asides.
Martha Higgins – neighbour. Nothing relevant, couldn’t get any sense out of her, not playing with a full deck.
Manda Moran – friend. Hasn’t seen MD in days. Suggested some fella in Galway? Colette Durkin told her about him (Hazel Joyce told Durkin). Durkin a fierce liar though and M. Moran would believe the moon was made of cheese.
Colette Durkin – friend. Saw MD in the Diner on Sat morning (30th). Said she had ‘a right puss on her’. Denied knowledge of any fella in Galway. Wouldn’t know what to believe. Slippery as the day is long.
Pat Hannon – neighbour. Scuttered, uncooperative. Says MD has a ‘dirty mouth’ but a harmless old soul.
I find what I’m looking for three-quarters down the final page.
Jacqui McBride, fourteen, visiting from England (Agnes Kinsella’s crowd). Doesn’t know MD well, last saw her Thursday 28th sitting on St Benedict’s wall. Spoke briefly with parents. No relevant info.
So Jacqui had told the truth. She’d admitted she was a bit-part player and hadn’t tried to plant herself firmly in the thick of things like she normally did, back then more than ever.
In total it looks like Sergeant Bill Swords spoke with around twenty people. Not quite the ‘bog-all’ that Aiden Doyle suggested but perfunctory at best. A pass-muster B minus. Even the official Missing Persons form has a whiff of ticked boxes and jaded indifference.
Is the person suspected to be a victim of a crime in progress, e.g, abduction? NO
Is the person vulnerable due to age, infirmity, or any other factor? NO
Are there inclement weather conditions which would seriously increase risk to health? NO
Does the missing person need essential medication or treatment not readily available to them? NO
Does the missing person have any physical illness, disability or mental health problems? NO
Is there any information that the person is likely to cause self-harm or attempt suicide? NO
Has the person previously disappeared AND suffered or was exposed to harm? NO
Are there any indications that preparations have been made for their absence? Brother says bag is gone but nothing else obvious
Are there family and/or relationship problems or recent history of family conflict?
Jonjo Doyle well known to Guards for petty violent incidents
School, college, university, employment or financial problems? NO
Drug or alcohol dependency? NO
There’s part of me – the painstaking, zealous part that makes me tailor-made for Murder, despite what Steele thinks – that’s sick to my stomach at the thought of a teenage girl vanishing off the face of the earth and it warranting no serious follow-up. Yet tonight, as I crouch in Steele’s office, I could kiss Sergeant Bill Swords for his slap-happy half-job. For doing no more than what was absolutely required.
‘Spoke briefly with parents.’
And for his interpretation of the word ‘briefly’.
Because that’s not how I remember it. I remember two pots of tea drunk. A whole plate of fig rolls and half the coconut creams too. I remember the ‘Angelus’ ringing out at six p.m. and a big fat man, presumably Supersleuth Swords, leaping out of his chair, shocked that they’d been gassing for well over an hour when he had crimes to crack on with and cows to bring in.
But then, time always flies when Dad’s on good form.
And he was on sparkling form that day.
8
When I was fourteen I dyed my hair to look like Maryanne. Mousy-brown to liquorice-black in the time it took to wreck Mum’s newly tiled en suite. I knew straight away it didn’t suit me – it was less Maryanne, more Morticia – and I knew I’d pay dearly for the unholy mess I’d left behind, but it was worth every punishment that Mum could mete out just to see the look on Dad’s face, sucker-punched and speechless at the bottom of the stairs.
Sucker-punched, that’s how I’d describe him now. The shock of my face seems to flatten him. He looks pale and transparent. Only the beams from the halogen lights that criss-cross the ceiling give him any kind of colour. Any kind of humanity.
He’d been laughing as I’d walked in. Hunched over the bar, snickering at a video on some city-boy’s phone.
He’s not laughing now.
‘Catrina, you came back.’
I psych myself for a stilted hug – want one even, in some bone-deep, primeval way, but there’s nothing. Just a glass of white wine foisted across the bar and a slightly belligerent look.
‘I have to speak to someone quickly,’ he says, grabbing my arm – more proprietorial than paternal. ‘Do not move, do you hear me?’
I shrug like the fourteen-year-old I always revert to and hoist myself onto a bar-stool, pushing the glass of wine away. Across the bar, to the side of a tasteful but utterly joyless Christmas tree, Dad argues with a tall girl in a black backless dress. They’re too far away and I can’t see her face but as there’s tribal tattoos snaking all the way down her back, I work on the assumption that bad-ass body art and facial piercings often go together and I figure this could be Little Miss Lip-Stud. Dad’s current shag du jour. The sight of her bare skin twinkling diamond-white in the glare of the tree lights makes me feel like a maiden aunt, sat there on my bar stool, straight-backed and sweating in my buttoned-up parka, but I refuse to undo even one notch.
Not stopping.
I watch as Dad says something and Shag du Jour stomps for the door, throwing back one final insult and one pointed finger, like a witch casting a hex on the place. At least this one’s feisty, I think. He usually goes for giggly and saccharine. Curves in all the right places but all the personality of a crash-test dummy.
As he walks back over, he pulls at the back of his neck, releasing tension.
‘Upstairs.’
He lifts the bar hatch and beckons me through but I walk straight past and into the nearest booth. There are two half-eaten burgers on rectangular slate slabs and some sort of spillage but I sit down anyway, picking up a napkin and wiping up the worst. Dad slips in across from me. The king in his castle, almost regal on the velvet padded seat.