Ask No Questions

by Claire Allan

  I have a coffee before I leave for work, and then stop and grab another coffee – extra large – on the way in. If I could source an intravenous caffeine drip and attach it directly to my veins, I absolutely would. At least, I console myself, it’s a Monday and, as the song says, Mondays are manic. Hopefully, a busy day will keep me distracted from the waves of exhaustion that are just waiting to wash over me.

  My head hurts, so I rifle through my drawer to find the strip of paracetamol that has been there for the last six or seven months. I’m not one to reach for pills, but these are desperate times.

  Once I’ve logged in to my computer, I check my emails. There’s the usual Monday morning stuff. Court lists, press releases on upcoming events, a round robin from the police press office detailing any incidents of note over the weekend. My stomach tightens when I see a paragraph headlined ‘Break-in at city centre apartment complex.’

  Police are looking for information about a break-in at a flat in the Riverside Complex, which took place sometime between the hours of 11 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Saturday evening.

  The female resident of the apartment returned home to find her front door open and threatening graffiti sprayed on the walls of her bedroom. Nothing appears to have been taken in the break-in.

  Police are appealing for anyone who may have seen anyone behaving in a suspicious manner, or who may have information about the incident, to contact them at Strand Road Police Station.

  ‘Fuck,’ I swear, not quite under my breath, as my phone rings that single tone of an internal call. I already know it will be Ryan.

  ‘Was it you?’ he says as I answer. ‘Is that why you called over on Saturday night in such a strange mood? Was it your place? I’ve a message here saying that a DS Eve King wants to speak to me. What the fuck, Ingrid?’

  His voice is quiet, but there’s no denying the angry intonation in his speech. It’s grossly unfair of him to do this over the phone while he very clearly knows I’m sitting in a busy newsroom and not at liberty at all to comment on any late-night visits to his home while his wife was away.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, keeping my tone professional. ‘It was my place, but I’d prefer not to talk about it. I’ve a lot of work to do here, so do you mind if I just get on with it?’

  ‘A threatening message, Ingrid. What did it say?’

  ‘It was just some nonsense. Didn’t even make sense. The police are exaggerating,’ I lie. ‘But look, I’m due in court in half an hour, so I really need to get going.’

  I’m actually not due in court. It’s not my day for sitting on the press bench reporting on the city’s penitent petty criminals, but I’ll do it anyway. Tell Trina she can stay at her desk and that I don’t mind going. Anything to get me out from under Ryan’s watch. And tonight, for once, I’ll make sure to leave before him so as to avoid another one of his lectures.

  As I pack up my bag, swig back the rest of my coffee and throw a new reporter’s notebook into my bag, I glance through the window that separates Ryan’s office from the rest of the newsroom. He has a face like thunder as he talks to some other poor unfortunate on the phone, possibly even poor DS King. In fact, by the look he fires in my direction, the expression of shock closely morphing into anger, I’m almost sure he is talking to DS King. I grab my phone and rush out of the office. I’ll get a taxi to pick me up from the side of the street and I’ll definitely ring the garage to find out just when they expect my car to be ready.

  It’s dark when I get home and I can’t lie – I feel nervous heading back to my flat, even though the police have promised extra patrols in the area. The lights in the corridor are, thankfully, working again and when I reach my door, it is closed and locked. I let myself in to where I’d left a lamp on in the hall so that I wouldn’t be returning to darkness. Everything is calm and as I left it.

  I flick the switch on at the kettle and drop two slices of bread into the toaster. It’s a lazy dinner, but it’s all I have the energy for. I make a cup of tea and sitting down at the table, I rifle through my post, checking for anything of importance. I’m examining my latest credit card statement (very depressing, as it happens), when my phone vibrates with a notification.

  It’s a friend request on Facebook. I click to open it and am greeted by a semi-familiar face. He’s older now, of course. The years have been kind to him – he is very handsome, as it happens. There’s a cheeky glint in his eye, one I remember from twenty years ago. One that is most certainly no longer there in his brother’s eyes – Niall Heaney, Declan’s twin.

  I’m intrigued enough to accept the request immediately and start to stalk my way through his Facebook page, looking at all the pictures of him smiling, shirt and tie, clean-shaven face. His shirtsleeves rolled up, exposing toned and tanned forearms. Him on what looks like a sunny holiday. Him standing in front of a group of gap-toothed children, all of them giving the thumbs up to the camera. The caption reads: ‘Great work in our accelerated reading programme this year from Primary 5. This is my favourite part of teaching.’

  The flurry of likes and comments from his, mostly female, followers leaves me in no doubt that Niall Heaney is popular with the fairer sex. I’m reading the responses, some of the blatant flirting, when my phone pings with a Facebook Messenger notification.

  Hey stranger, thanks for accepting my request! Hope all is good with you. You certainly look good;)

  I cringe a little at the compliment. I know he most likely says this to all the women in his life – or at least all the women of a certain age who he thinks he might stand a chance with. I’m familiar with his type.

  I was in Derry at the weekend, catching up with the family. Declan was saying you’re researching Kelly’s murder, for the anniversary. He said you might want to chat with me.

  I smile. I do indeed want to talk to him.

  I don’t suppose you have any more plans to be back down in Derry? I type. These kinds of interviews tend to go better face to face.

  He replies with a smiley-faced emoji, which isn’t entirely appropriate given the seriousness of the issue we are due to discuss, but I hope it means he’s amenable to it. There’s no doubt you can draw more out of a story from someone sitting across the room from you than you can over an online chat, or even a phone call. I watch the three little dots appear on the screen that indicate he is typing and I wait for his response.

  I didn’t have plans, but I can make them. Working all week, but how does your Friday night look?

  Friday night is not usually a time I choose to work, but there’s no doubt it will add to the narrative to have Niall’s side of things in his own words. I’m sure I can manage to keep things on a professional level. I reply that Friday night would suit and we arrange to meet in Starbucks in the Foyleside Shopping Centre.

  After what has been a stressful day, I feel the tension start to slip from my shoulders. I decide a bath will relax me completely, so I go to my bedroom to gather my dressing gown and my book to read while I soak. I look at my bed, stripped bare. I’ve thrown out all the paint-stained bedding. I’ll buy a new duvet and pillows tomorrow. The graffiti on the wall is still there – vivid and stark. I’ve arranged for a painter to come and cover it, and he’s coming tomorrow, too.

  I stare at the words, examine every detail. A chill runs through me, followed by a burst of anger. I don’t have anyone’s blood on my hands.

  I never did.

  I decide to sleep on the sofa in the living room again, a throw pulled over me for warmth.

  It’s a fitful night, one where I question everything. Where I question if I do make the world a worse place because of the job I do. Ask myself how much I have given up to get to where I am in my career. I’m not proud of myself. I have lied. I have manipulated people. I have done what I’ve needed to do to get the story before my competitors. I have worked harder and longer to establish myself. To prove I’m as capable as any of my male colleagues. That I’m better than Ryan Murray. That I’ve taken what he has taught me but exceeded his ambit
ion.

  Is it wrong to be so ambitious? I ask myself that often – more so at four in the morning. Especially when I feel alone. When I realise I’ve put my work over almost everything. When even my romantic life is entangled in career progression. Or at least it was to start with.

  I think of Ryan, of the push and pull of our relationship. There was affection there once. Maybe it’s still there, buried somewhere. But now, I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to be summoned to his office again. To be berated like an errant child.

  At five in the morning I send him a text. Tell him I’m taking a personal day. I need a personal day. Time and space to get my flat, and my head, together. He replies with a cursory ‘Okay.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ingrid

  Wednesday, 23 October 2019

  Liam and Bernie Doherty still live in the same house that they lived in twenty-five years ago. Their surviving children have grown up and moved out, starting their own families and building their own futures. But apart from the absence of bikes abandoned in the garden, or football boots left on the front step, there is very little about the exterior of the Doherty family home that differs from how I remember it looking all those years ago.

  The same wooden fence lines the front garden, the same metal gate sways in the wind. I close it behind it me. I remember that being one of the things Ryan did teach me when I was a cub reporter. Show everyone respect – always close the garden gate after you. It’s a small gesture but it tends to work. People see you are more considerate.

  Looking up towards the front door, I try to remember when I was last in this house. Was it that night? I try to remember did we carry our plastic bags to the front door of the Dohertys’ house looking for loot that evening. My memory is hazy.

  Before I have time to reach the top of the path, the front door is pulled open and a tired-looking woman, her bobbed hair greying, looks out at me. There’s a soft smile on her lips as she welcomes me in – but I know that it’s not genuine. It’s an act. I imagine Bernie Doherty has become quite the expert at false smiles over the years. It’s not exactly a secret that she is out of her head on prescription medication most of the time. Diazepam and whatever other mood stabilisers she can get her hands on.

  I remember hearing my mother saying that it was as if Bernie Doherty went into the ground with Kelly. The woman who was left behind was little more than a shell of the person she used to be.

  ‘Ingrid,’ she says, ‘c’mon in and go through to the living room. I’m just making a pot of tea.’

  The fifth rule of journalism, after always close the gate, is never to refuse a cup of tea. It’s an easy conversation opener – it relaxes people.

  There is a fire blazing in the hearth and the TV has been muted. I can see Phillip Schofield is very animated about something. I slip off my coat and sit down, taking in the dated décor around me. The pictures on the walls – of all the Doherty family. Liam and Bernie on their wedding day. The three Doherty boys, JP, Christopher and Liam Jr, and, of course, Kelly. She was the baby of the family. The only girl.

  There are more pictures of her on the walls than anyone else. The pictures look dated now, too – have that fuzzy quality of snapshots taken in the late Eighties and Nineties, slightly blurry and faded over time. One professional photo of Kelly hangs above the fireplace – her hands together in prayer, her blue eyes looking directly at the camera. Her expression is solemn as she stares out of the mahogany frame, the picture of innocence in her first communion dress. The same dress she was wearing when she was murdered. Despite the heat, which is verging on overpowering, I shiver.

  Bernie walks back into the room, with a tray laden with two mugs, a small bottle of milk and a plate of chocolate digestive biscuits.

  ‘Do you take sugar?’ she asks. ‘Or are you sweet enough?’

  ‘Sweet enough,’ I reply, reaching out to take a mug from the tray and refusing the offer of a biscuit. ‘Is Liam joining us?’ I ask.

  She sits down, her tray now resting on the coffee table in the centre of the room.

  ‘I don’t know. He doesn’t handle this well, you know. He’s not mad about the idea of this story. It’s hard for him, you know. Still. He’s up at the cemetery. Do you know, he never misses a day. Sometimes he even goes more than once, if he’s having a bad day. And with her anniversary coming … and that man wanting to appeal …’ Her voice breaks and she drops her gaze for a moment, staring into her mug, before taking a deep breath and looking back up at me. ‘Well, it’s extra hard at the moment.’

  ‘It must be,’ I say. ‘I can only imagine.’

  I try to age Bernie Doherty, putting her early sixties at the very most. But she looks older. Like she’s had enough now. Her face is lined with wrinkles, her knuckles swollen and arthritic. Her eyes look as though they have been permanently bloodshot from the moment she heard about her daughter until now.

  She shrugs. ‘People always say that, you know. They can imagine what it’s like. Truth is, they can’t. Unless you’ve gone through it, unless you live knowing that your child most likely died in absolute terror and you didn’t keep her safe …’ She pauses for a moment. ‘Well, unless you’ve been through it, there’s no way of imagining just how awful it is. Not accurately, you know. And you wouldn’t want to, either. Nobody should have to have the thoughts we’ve had to live with.’

  I feel a blush creep up my neck. She’s right, of course. ‘I can only imagine’ is such a nonsense phrase faced with something like this.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘You’re right, of course.’

  Bernie goes quiet, stares off into the middle distance. She worries at the wedding ring on her finger, blinks and looks at me. ‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ she mutters. ‘You didn’t kill her. You were just a wain too, weren’t you? It could’ve just as easily have been you, but Kelly was the unlucky one. That’s one of the hardest things to get our heads around. That it was just bad luck. It could’ve been anyone.’

  A chill runs through my bones, again because she’s right. It could’ve been anyone, which means it could’ve been me.

  Liam Doherty looks haunted when he arrives back at the house. He’s painfully thin. Old. His hair is grey, his beard unkempt. He stops at the door of the living room, taking off his coat, and looks at me before looking at his wife. She, by now, is clutching a tissue, which is disintegrating with her tears. Her cup of tea is untouched.

  ‘Liam,’ she says. ‘You’re back. There’s tea in the pot. I took the bag out so it wouldn’t stew.’

  He looks at me, then back at Bernie, before he turns to leave without speaking.

  ‘You will come in and talk to Ingrid here, won’t you? You remember Ingrid? Went to school with Kelly and the boys. She’s going to make sure no one forgets our girl. Especially now,’ Bernie calls and he stops walking.

  For a moment he just stands very still.

  Then he looks at me, his eyes cold. ‘Yes, I remember her,’ he says, still looking directly at me before turning his head sharply towards his wife. ‘I’m not in the form for talking. I told you I didn’t want us to do this. I don’t think any good can come of it.’

  ‘But it’s her anniversary coming up,’ Bernie says. ‘It’s time we finally spoke. People should know about her. How amazing she was.’

  ‘The people who matter already know,’ he says, his voice tight. ‘All this will do is have people talking about how she died, like it’s some form of true crime TV show. Well, I won’t have it. Those who knew and loved Kelly will always know and love her. I don’t need some gutter journalist telling the world how my girl was murdered.’

  He glares at his wife, but she drops her gaze. He swears under his breath and storms out of the living room towards the kitchen.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Bernie says, her face beetroot with embarrassment. ‘I’m sure he doesn’t mean it. I thought he’d come round.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I soothe, even though I’m bitterly disappointed. ‘I know this is unbearabl
y hard for you both.’

  ‘He thinks he let her down,’ she says, staring at the open door. ‘He should’ve protected her. He’s never been able to forgive himself for that. He blames himself more than he blames Harte. Always has. It’s a daddy’s job to protect their children, he says.’ She glances down at the floor. ‘I’ll never forget it, you know. The noise that came out of him when they brought her home. I was off my head on sedatives from the doctor, you know, but I still remember it. That would’ve cut through any haze.

  ‘He was like a wounded animal, roaring over her coffin.’ Her voice is breaking and tears are flowing freely. ‘He kept telling her he was sorry. Telling her she could have anything she wanted if she just opened her eyes and came back to him. Promised he’d take her to Disney World. If she’d just get up. Kissing her face, stroking her hair. His wee baby.

  ‘I couldn’t even stand up to pull him away, and the boys squealing, crying beside me. Him trying to rub some warmth back into her hands. “C’mon, pet,” he said to her. “Time to rise and shine. Don’t you be leaving me now.” It was more than we could take, you know. And then … well, then she was buried and Christ, do you know what it’s like to be expected to leave your child in the cold ground? To walk away from them? How were we supposed to do that? How is any mammy or daddy supposed to do that?’

  Bernie sniffs. She is lost in her memories and I’m taking notes, recording her words, and my heart is cracking for her. But I can’t lie. I’m also thinking this is incredible stuff. Will make for a brilliant story in the paper, or chapter in the book. This is gold. Sometimes I wonder if I am nothing more than the gutter press, just like they say.

  She keeps talking.