Too Close For Comfort

by Niamh O'Connor

  27

  2011: Dublin, Ireland

  THE FREELANCE REPORTER scanned the letter he’d just written one last time.

  Mr Levi Bellfield Esquire,

  HMP Wakefield aka Monster Mansion ;)

  5 Love Lane,

  West Yorkshire,

  WF2 9AG

  ENGLAND

  Dear Levi,

  I seen you on the box and wanted to write about how I believe you’re INNOCENT of all them bus-stop murders. If you ask me you’ve been STITCHED UP due to unfair press coverage. I saw the girl you picked singing and dancing at the ironing board and on the CCTV with her short skirt and big smile, but what I didn’t see was the film of you jumping out of the bushes to whack her over the head like they said you did. So you had an empty flat fifty yards from where she was last seen – BIG DEAL! So you trained whippet puppies for coursing at Yately Heath where the mushroom-pickers found her – BIGGER DEAL!! So you drove a red car and someone in a red car tried to abduct an eleven-year-old girl, the day before she was murdered – BIGGEST DEAL!!!! It’s all circumstantial, and not hard evidence. If you don’t mind me saying it, you’ve been framed, mate. I read how your girlfriend said you slashed photographs of blonde models in magazines and said they were sluts, that does not make you guilty of eight murders, it makes you HONEST, ha ha! I heard your nickname is MR TRUTHFUL, I rest my case your honour. I heard you told your pal women were like pet dogs, well what I have to say to that is it depends what they look like, hehehe. They said your mam used to wipe your bum until you were twelve, LUCKY YOU!!! As for the story about you moving the mouth of the girl whose drink was spiked and who you rode in the cubicle of the club where you worked as a bouncer, ever thought of a career as a ventriloquist, mwahha!!! They said you were knocking down girls at bus stops and reversing over them, what I want to know is did you damage your sump, LOL! But seriously the last thing I wanted to tell you is keep the chin up, mate. There is absolutely NO PROOF to link you to that fourteen-year-old girl in 1980, other than her being in the wrong place at the wrong time, i.e. your school – PMSL! Keep the faith, you’re the victim of a TRIAL BY MEDIA, mate, and when you get to sue the state for a MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE case, you’ll be a millionaire, too. I would very much like to make your acquaintance, by the way, and if you could write back to me at the address on the back of the envelope, I would be much obliged.

  Yours sincerely, A.N. Other

  PS Nice haircut

  After folding the letter and placing it in the envelope, the reporter licked it closed and popped it in the letterbox. He’d lost count of the number of ‘vile paedophiles’ he’d lured into correspondence with letters just like this. He’d got splashes out of every one of them. He was working for the Irish edition now he’d moved over, but keeping his foot in the door of HQ with a story for the UK earned him lots of brownie points, and in the current climate that was no bad thing.

  28

  THE GRIMSBY FAMILY Circus big top was pitched in a field off the M50, a ten-minute walk from Nuns Cross. Liz couldn’t quite believe she’d come to the circus, of all places, with the day she’d had, but she couldn’t let Conor down. After he’d spotted it was 7.00 – the time printed on their tickets – he’d become distraught in Frieda’s place, claiming that Liz had ‘tricked’ him, and that she’d never had any intention of bringing him to the circus. If a normal kid had behaved like that, they’d have been branded spoilt, but Conor’s two settings were black and white. Anything in-between and he floundered. He could handle the world when there were rules. It was spontaneity and change and chance that made him have a meltdown. He never got out of bed until the clock read 7.30 exactly. If an earthquake had struck, he’d have stayed put – virtually paralysed – until the time was right. Car journeys were only doable if he knew where they were going and they took the same route as the previous time they’d been there. His mum and dad had told him he was going to the circus – so he was going to the circus.

  ‘If you don’t tell me where Dad is, I’m going to run away,’ he’d sobbed, becoming inconsolable in Frieda’s garden.

  Liz had lost track of the time, exhausted from all the trailing about, but she jumped at the chance to flee the barbecue, shocked to discover that she knew so little about the people she’d signed up to a lifetime of debt to live alongside. She needed a trip to the circus like a hole in the head, but she didn’t know what tomorrow would bring, and she knew that if she cancelled the excursion, Conor would think he’d done something wrong and blame himself for whatever life threw at them next. She had to keep some sense of stability and continuity in his life, now that it was set to change so much.

  Clutching his hand, Liz handed over the tickets, hating the way that the woman at the counter with false eyelashes was staring. Conor had started ‘stimming’ – flapping his hands, jerking his head and rolling his eyes. He did that when he was in ecstasy. It was all the flashing neon. His fingers felt like they’d been connected to an electric current. She used to say, ‘Quiet hands,’ to him to make him stop, so ignorant people like the one in front of her now wouldn’t gape. But not any more. Other mothers didn’t tell their children to stop being happy.

  ‘Thanks for bringing me, Mum,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t really have run away. I’d have come back after checking if Dad was here.’

  Her heart surged with equal amounts of love and sadness. He was such a special, sweet boy, with more empathy in his little finger than most ‘normal’ people who could make eye contact. He was the gentlest person she’d ever seen around babies and animals. How could Derek have brought such dangerous people into their son’s life? It just didn’t add up. She knew he loved Conor as much as she did. That niggling voice struck up again. Maybe Derek was innocent …

  As they neared the ringside flap, the music blaring from inside became deafening. The stink of elephant dung and musky perfume was overpowering. Conor stopped walking, his body tensed. Liz sensed he was summoning up all his courage. She reached into a pocket for a set of earplugs and popped them into his ears. Autistic kids had amplified hearing. A psychologist had explained that this was why they found concentration so difficult.

  ‘Imagine trying to focus on anything in a disco, other than the noise and lights, because that’s what’s going on around them.’

  Worried he’d want to go home before they’d even got in, and then spend the night regretting it – and not wanting to set him up for failure – Liz looked around for something to distract him for long enough to allow him to overcome his fear of noise. She spotted a tent with a fortune-teller’s sign, and recognized the name.

  A round of applause broke out from the ringside. According to the ringmaster’s megaphone, the trapeze artist had just performed some kind of big-deal, mid-air somersault. Conor put his hands over his ears.

  ‘Hey, why don’t we go in there for a bit, it’s quieter?’ she said, removing one of the hands he’d sealed to his ears, and pulling out the earplug so she could speak to him. She nodded in the direction of the little tepee.

  His face broke out in a relieved smile. Liz had never had any time for clairvoyants before Ellen disappeared, but over the years she had turned to every kind of psychic going, wanting to find some little grain of hope.

  ‘Can you ring Dad, in case he’s decided to go home first to get my homework done and doesn’t know where we are?’ he asked, shouting through the noise.

  ‘There’s no signal here, son,’ Liz lied, ducking and pushing the flap of the tent aside to see if anyone was in there.

  The sight of Dolores, Liz’s co-worker in Supersavers, sitting at a little round table with a tasselled scarf knotted at the back of her scalp and big jangly earrings on made Liz smile for the first time all day. Dolores had mentioned getting a nixer here as a medium. A lump rose in Liz’s throat. She watched as Dolores, eyes closed, chanted to a woman sitting opposite her at the table with her back to Liz.

  Goosebumps spread across Liz’s skin. After about a minute of convulsive movements, Dolo
res slumped like she’d been zapped with a bolt of lightning. Her head flopped forwards.

  With a jolt, she sat upright suddenly, her eyelids opening, strands of her long henna-coloured hair coming undone.

  Liz let the flap drop down quickly and waited until the woman had emerged before hurrying in with Conor herself, a queue forming behind her.

  ‘Tarot, palm, angel cards, ouija board or crystal ball?’ Dolores asked without looking up.

  ‘None,’ Liz answered, sitting down opposite her. She reached out for Dolores’s fleshy hand, big gold signature rings on every one of her red-taloned fingers, like a set of knuckledusters.

  Dolores looked up in surprise. ‘Hello, chuck,’ she said cheerfully. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I need you to get in touch with the dead for me,’ Liz said, fumbling for the locket she wore permanently around her neck, clicking it open and pushing it across the table.

  Dolores grinned as if she believed Liz was winding her up, and then started to cough convulsively.

  ‘It’s not Derek, is it?’ Dolores said, when she’d stopped spluttering. She still hadn’t glanced at the picture in Liz’s locket. She looked embarrassed, and then tried to hide it, leaning over to get at her handbag on the ground and mumbling about needing a sweet for the tickle in her throat.

  Liz checked to make sure Conor hadn’t made a mental link between the words ‘dead’ and ‘Derek’, remembering that he’d asked if Derek was dead earlier.

  ‘Can we go now, Mum?’ he said, with a glazed expression.

  ‘Tell me that’s not why you’re here?’ Dolores prattled on as she sat up. ‘Derek’s all right, isn’t he? I mean, I didn’t ring after you left the shop this morning because I knew we’d have heard if there’d been any developments … you know … for the worse?’

  Liz pulled a ‘not in front of Conor’ expression and reassured her that Derek was fine. But Conor was starting to scratch the back of his hand. The skin was already broken and red raw from where he had worn it down during his last meltdown.

  Liz separated his hands, and put them on the sides of her own face. It was her way of saying, ‘Not much longer.’

  Conor started to talk to himself, another one of the figaries that set him apart. Liz stood to wrap her arms around him; jitters had started making their way down his arms. He was starting to unravel, focusing on the sawdust on the floor, she realized. Sand and snowflakes had the same effect. The sight of multiple particles triggered his anxiety about change.

  Liz stood to take Conor’s hand and walked him over to the flap, telling him she’d just be another minute.

  Dolores picked up the locket and tilted her head as she looked at it, casually sucking the sweet she’d retrieved. Her eyes darted from Liz’s face to the picture of Ellen admiring herself in the mirror. She’d been so vain that Liz had snuck up behind her to snap her pose. Ellen wasn’t one bit impressed. Her expression said it all: a mixture of indignation and surprise. Liz had cut out the background – their bedroom – and just kept that image of her sister’s gorgeous face to fit it into the necklace.

  ‘It’s to do with Derek and something that might or might not have happened years ago,’ Liz whispered, checking over her shoulder to make sure Conor couldn’t hear.

  He was rocking on the balls of his feet. Liz spoke quickly, glancing at him regularly to check he was OK: ‘I need you to ask her some questions for me, like what happened, and who killed her …’

  She strained over her shoulder. ‘Deep breaths, darling. Not much longer.’ She turned back to Dolores again. ‘I need you to ask her …’

  ‘Ask her what?’ Dolores said, sounding incredulous.

  From the flap in the tent a voice called, ‘Get on with it.’

  Liz glanced at Conor again as she struggled to find the right words. Every time she thought about the last time she’d spoken to her sister, she felt as angry as she had back then.

  ‘If Derek did it,’ Liz whispered, brushing away a tear.

  ‘What if the answer hurts you badly?’ Dolores asked softly.

  Liz looked away.

  Dolores didn’t take her eyes off Liz. ‘Don’t blame yourself. You did nothing.’

  ‘I found out too late,’ Liz explained urgently. ‘I can’t turn back the clock. I didn’t know he was capable of that …’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’

  Liz leaned her head on her hands. ‘I keep thinking I’ve got it wrong, everyone’s got it wrong, Derek wouldn’t—’ She looked up. ‘I mean he couldn’t. Can you just ask Ellen …’

  ‘This is taking the piss,’ a voice called from outside. ‘The lion-tamer’s show is about to start.’ A string of heckles followed.

  ‘Ask her,’ Liz said, determinedly.

  Dolores sat back and shook her head.

  ‘Please,’ Liz said.

  But before Dolores could answer, Conor screeched, ‘Dad!’

  Liz turned.

  Conor’s face was animated, pointing to the flap. ‘Mum, I just saw Dad looking in at us!’

  Then he bolted out.

  29

  JO SAT IN the Daily Record boardroom, at the far side of a glinting mahogany table from the reporter named Niall Toland, who she’d first laid eyes on in the mountains that morning. The two men on either side of him had been introduced as his editor and his lawyer. The paper was pitched at middle Ireland, which meant it put human-interest stories on the front page instead of celebrity sex scandals. But by all accounts the ‘compact’ (the word ‘tabloid’ would have upset mid-market readers) had been haemorrhaging sales ever since middle Ireland was decimated by the recession. Not that you’d have guessed it from the flash boardroom with floor-to-ceiling windows. Still, Jo knew from experience that the same hunger that drove the redtops to get the story at any cost drove the broadsheets and the compacts, too.

  Niall was in his late thirties, slightly unkempt-looking owing to his head of bushy curls, and bordering on obese. He was wearing a faded white shirt with a criss-cross of rusty stains that looked like ketchup on it, and one of the flaps was not tucked in. Jo longed to tell him to wipe the smug look from his face, that her wanting to speak with him wasn’t a feather in his cap.

  ‘Considering I requested an informal meeting, you seem to be taking this pretty seriously,’ she said, looking from the spindly lawyer with officious round spectacles to the bear of an editor with the well-known face. He’d been a prop forward on the Irish rugby team in the nineties, and had a pundit’s spot on a TV sports show. His opinions were invariably inflammatory, and he never called a match result right.

  ‘Any suggestion that we would interfere with a live criminal investigation has to be taken extremely seriously in the current climate …’ the editor replied, before hesitating. ‘Sorry, what would you like us to call you?’

  The hack grinned and looked down, like he had just got some private joke.

  ‘“Chief” is fine,’ Jo said. ‘I thought the practices that closed the News of the World were a one-off.’

  The lawyer started wringing his hands.

  ‘That is what you’re referring to?’ Jo asked the editor.

  ‘Yes, well, no,’ the editor stammered. ‘I mean, yes, of course, they were a one-off, but no, I didn’t think a discussion about what happened to Milly Dowler was on today’s agenda. It had nothing to do with us. It’s of no interest to us. Our business is—’

  The lawyer gave an exaggerated cough. The editor stopped talking. They all had the look of people kicking each other under the table.

  Jo stood, and walked behind them to the window looking out on the city’s skyline. ‘You’ve got a bird’s-eye view from up here,’ she said, keeping her back to them. ‘From up here everything’s got perspective, hasn’t it? You get to see the wider picture, the potential ripples and ramifications—’

  ‘What’s the point of this?’ the lawyer asked.

  ‘I sent a detective here today to find out where Niall got his information about the body in the moun
tains, and when. It will aid me in my attempt to establish the victim’s last movements. That officer was given the runaround. If I leave here without that information, I’m going to make sure, Niall, that you are charged with being an accessory to murder.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he answered, straining round to make eye contact. ‘Everyone knows a journalist can’t reveal his sources.’

  His accent was northern Irish. Jo guessed Monaghan. Leaning both hands on the back of his chair made him squirm uncomfortably, which was exactly how she wanted him.

  ‘There were other questions which you also refused to answer,’ Jo said. ‘As far as I’m concerned that means you are protecting a killer.’ She paused and looked at the editor, though the question was for Toland. ‘I’d have thought that, given the closure of the News of the World, you’d have considered it your duty to help me find who killed Amanda Wells. Newspapers have to pull up their socks on issues like journalistic integrity these days, don’t they?’

  ‘Of course, we’ll help you wherever we can,’ the editor replied.

  ‘But I can’t reveal my source,’ Niall clarified, looking at him, ‘under any circumstances.’

  ‘What would your readers think if they knew you were refusing to help me find who killed a woman?’ Jo asked. ‘Because that’s what you’re doing.’

  ‘My conscience is clear,’ Niall said. ‘I did what I was supposed to do. I passed the information on to your lot, and it turned out to be true. You should be thanking me. Chief.’

  Jo stood up straight and folded her arms. ‘Let’s try this again, shall we? Do you know who your source is?’