‘Jesus.’ Orla started shifting her weight from foot to foot. ‘I didn’t think you’d actually come here …’
She glanced behind her, towards the store.
‘I live nearby,’ Audrey lied. ‘I was passing through.’ She hoped Orla wouldn’t question this because she had no clue what was nearby or where you’d be going that would necessitate passing through. ‘I’m writing a follow-up to yesterday’s story and I could really do with your input. I know you emailed but it’s always better for me to hear it from the source, to have a conversation. I won’t use your name if you don’t want me to. But this would be really helpful, Orla. Not just to me, but to Natalie. And Mike.’
Orla brightened. ‘Mike?’
‘Yeah,’ Audrey said. The girl’s whole demeanour had changed; she must be a Mike fan. Or maybe it was just the opportunity to be of service to Irish Instagram’s Golden Couple. ‘I just spoke to him and I told him there was someone here who had spoken to Natalie and I think …’ She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘I think it really reassured him. You know, that someone spoke to her after he last saw her at their house. It’d be a great comfort to him, I’m sure, if I could give him more detail. He’d really appreciate it. He’d appreciate you doing that.’
Orla was chewing on her lip, presumably weighing up her options.
‘Okay,’ she said eventually. ‘Let me get your eggs first.’
But the eggs ended up sitting off to one side, untouched and congealing, while Orla told Audrey what she knew.
She repeated what she’d shared in the email. Natalie had come in here – ‘She sat at the same table, come to think of it’ – and she and Orla had chatted for a few minutes. Natalie had said she was in Shanamore for peace and quiet. She’d asked why there were so many cars outside but no one in here. ‘The locals park here and get the bus into the city,’ Orla explained when she saw from Audrey’s expression that she had the same question – and she said that Mike had visited the village recently, but she didn’t say for what or when. Orla hadn’t seen him and she’d told Natalie that.
Natalie had also asked Orla not to tell anyone or post online that she’d seen her in Shanamore, which Audrey scratched two lines under for emphasis in her handwritten notes.
There were new, extra details too. Natalie had seen what Audrey had failed to: there was a framed picture of her, one of her Instagram posts, hanging just inside the door. In it, she was holding a mug from a collection produced locally at the pottery and for sale in store.
‘That was my idea,’ Orla said, clearly proud. ‘And I told her so.’
They’d spoken about Andrew, the delightful young man who’d just shut a door in Audrey’s face.
‘My host for this evening,’ Audrey said wryly. ‘He seems a little … off?’
‘Oh, he’s a lot off, that one.’
But when Audrey asked her to elaborate, Orla just waved a hand and said something enigmatic about the village rumour mill. She seemed only to want to talk about Natalie.
The local creep who’d talked to Natalie down at the beach was named Richard Flynn but he had the much more memorable moniker of Icky Dickie. Again, though, there was no specific, concrete reason for why ‘everyone around here’ thought this guy was icky – at least, none that Orla was willing to share. It just seemed to be an accepted fact, evidence pending.
But according to Orla, Natalie had thought he was creepy too.
‘Where would I find him?’ Audrey asked.
‘Icky Dickie? Oh, just walk around here for a while. He’ll find you.’ Orla sighed. ‘Or – I wouldn’t recommend this – he’s usually in Murphy’s every night. That’s the pub across the road. Not the shit one, the completely shit one. How long are you planning on staying?’
‘Just tonight, I think.’
‘And you’re up at the cottages.’ Orla looked at her pointedly. ‘Like Natalie was.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Well …’
‘You think something happened to her there?’
‘You don’t think that?’
Audrey didn’t. She had been assuming that Natalie was still here, holed up in one of the cottages, but if Andrew was to be believed, he had no other guests. So now she was presuming that Natalie had moved on to the next stop on her road trip, The Don’t Tell My Husband You Saw Me Tour 2018. Audrey was hoping that she’d find something here, some breadcrumb left behind, that would point her in the direction of it.
But Orla made an interesting point.
Audrey thought of her strange encounter with Andrew, replayed it in her mind, reanalysing his behaviour. But even with him hanging up on her yesterday … If Natalie had said the same thing to him as she’d said to Orla, to not tell anyone that she’d been here, then he was just obeying the wishes of a former guest by denying that she’d stayed there.
The guy was a bit weird, yeah, and not exactly born for the hospitality business, but he was no Norman Bates.
‘Is there a Garda station here?’ Audrey asked.
‘Just down the road.’ Orla pointed. ‘Past the petrol station.’
‘Did you tell them you saw Natalie here?’
‘Him. We have the sum total of one guard. And no, because the article said to ring the guards in Dublin. At the number on the appeal thingy. Which I did. My dad agreed that was the right thing. We own the shop. Up at the petrol station?’
‘What’s his name?’
‘My dad?’
‘The guard.’
‘Seanie. Seanie Flynn. Sergeant Seanie, we all call him. He’s new. Only been here a few months. All the ould fellas give out about him because they think he’s fierce young. Too young to be telling them not to drive home from the pub, you know yourself.’
Audrey wrote the name in her notebook.
‘And no one’s called you back yet? From the Gardaí, I mean.’
Orla shook her head. ‘No.’
‘And you don’t think Natalie could still be here?’
‘Nothing happens in this village without everyone else knowing everything about it. Unless Natalie has been locked inside one of those cottages, without food and without leaving for the last week, she’s gone. I didn’t see her again after last Tuesday. Neither did my dad.’
‘Wait,’ Audrey said. ‘Did your dad see her a first time?’
‘She was in the shop.’
‘When?’
‘I think right after she was in here. She bought a phone, he said. One of those pay-as-you-go ones. That’s how I know she was in there. Dad was saying to Mum, “You won’t believe what I sold today …” Those things have been hanging there for years, you see. Mum was always trying to get him to dump them, they were so old and dusty. I asked him who bought it – because I was thinking, What an eejit, those phones are relics – and he said some woman, and I asked him to describe her, and it was her. That’s weird, right? Isn’t it? Natalie has an iPhone X. She posted about it. So what did she want some crappy old plastic phone for?’
‘I don’t know,’ Audrey said. Her mind was racing.
None of this was adding up. Mike had told her that on the morning she’d left, Natalie had, out of the blue, asked him if he’d heard of Shanamore. He’d said no, never. Then he’d asked her why she’d asked him that, and she’d – in his words – ‘clammed up’. Then she posts the suitcase message online and leaves the house. She’s already cancelled an appointment she knows she has in three days’ time. She comes here, to Shanamore, 160 miles away. She spends at least one night at the cottages. She goes for a walk on the beach. She comes to The Kiln for coffee, meets Orla and asks her not to tell anyone that she’s here. She goes to the local shop and buys a crappy phone, even though she makes her living off a phone app and has a top-of-the-range device already. At some point, she leaves the cottages and, possibly, asks the weirdo manager not to tell anyone she’s been there either. A week later, she’s a missing person.
What the hell was going on?
There had
to be something that joined all the dots, but Audrey couldn’t see it.
Not yet.
‘He’s in the shop right now,’ Orla was saying. ‘My dad. You could go talk to him. But, ah, don’t tell him I contacted you, okay? He thinks we should all just mind our own business. Just say that you’ve heard she was here and you’re asking around. Show him her picture. You don’t get too many new faces this time of the year. He’ll remember.’ Orla reached across to pick up the plate of untouched eggs and the cup of now cold coffee. ‘Let me get you fresh ones.’
‘Yeah,’ Audrey said absently. ‘Thanks.’
Mentally, she was making a to-do list. Visit the shop to talk to Orla’s father. Drive to the beach. Ask Andrew about Natalie and check in. Read the other emails you got to see if anyone else spotted Natalie in Shanamore. Talk to the local Garda, Seanie Whatshisname. Go to that pub and look for Sticky Richard. Call Joel before you lose your job.
Movement, in her peripheral vision.
Audrey turned to see a man had entered The Kiln and was walking in through the store, towards the café. He was tall, older, his body shape obscured by the many layers of clothing he wore. She could see a shirt collar peeking above his scarf, and the hem of a woollen jumper through his open jacket. It was one of those adventurer ones, all padding and pockets.
When he reached the café, he pulled a navy wool cap from his head, revealing a head of wild, greying hair. A folded newspaper was tucked under his shoulder. He went straight to a small table in the furthest corner, behind Audrey, leaving a whiff of body odour in his wake.
Just then, Orla re-emerged from the kitchen, carrying Audrey’s fresh coffee. Her eyes widened when she saw the newcomer. She looked at Audrey, widening them more.
She seemed to be trying to communicate something, but Audrey had no clue what the message was.
‘Morning, Richard,’ Orla said then. Her voice was louder than necessary, her pronunciation exaggerated. ‘I’ll be right with you.’
She put down the coffee in front of Audrey, who’d got the message: this was Icky Dickie.
‘Hey,’ Orla continued, moving towards his table. ‘We had a woman in here last week. Natalie O’Connor. The Instagrammer? I saw online last night – she’s missing. No one has seen her in a week. Isn’t that weird?’
Audrey closed her eyes and silently recited her favourite curse words. Orla was being about as subtle as sriracha sauce.
‘That so,’ Richard said.
‘Did you see her?’
‘Did you?’
‘I did. In here.’
‘Well’ – there was the smack of paper; it sounded like Richard had opened out the broadsheet to full width and shaken it taut – ‘you better tell Sergeant Seanie that then.’
‘So you didn’t see her?’ Orla pressed. ‘Because I thought maybe—’
‘I didn’t see her,’ Richard spat, suddenly and loudly, making Audrey flinch. Then, in a more measured tone: ‘Now, love: tea. A pot of. Or maybe I’d be quicker making it myself?’
_________
There was only one person working in the shop at the petrol station, a sullen teenage boy with a spray of acne on his neck and a Cork GAA jersey whose bright red hue was only exacerbating the issue. Unless Orla’s father’s name was Benjamin Button, this wasn’t him.
Audrey picked up a pre-packed sandwich, a bag of Haribo and three cans of Red Bull. The diet of champions. While paying for them at the counter, she looked up and saw two pay-as-you-go phones in plastic cases hanging from hooks in the wall. Orla hadn’t been exaggerating. These were relics, six or seven years old, with screens small enough to suggest they weren’t at all smart. Their plastic cases were thick with dust.
‘How much for the phones?’ Audrey asked Sullen Boy.
He turned around and gaped at them like he’d never seen such things ever before in his whole life. When he lifted one down and turned it over to look at the back, his fingers left streaks in the dust.
‘Twenty-five including twenty-five credit.’ He held it up. ‘You want one?’
‘Ah, no. Thanks.’
Audrey did want one, because she hoped that maybe if she bought one and brought it back to the cottage and stared at it for long enough, the reason why Natalie had done the same thing might magically reveal itself.
But she had to watch her spending.
And that was a stupid plan.
Afterwards, Audrey drove down to the beach. She parked at the Far Strand where the only access was a narrow road. There was a barrier at the entrance to the car park preventing vehicles taller than an SUV getting through, alongside a rubbish bin overflowing with plastic bags and empty beer cans. There was space for ten or twelve cars and Audrey’s was the only one there.
As she parked, she had a thought: had Natalie come here by car?
She’d been assuming she had, seeing as there wasn’t exactly a high-speed Metro link from Dublin to Shanamore. But the Garda appeal hadn’t mentioned that Natalie’s car was missing, so either she didn’t have one or it was still at home. If she didn’t drive, how did she get here? You’d first have to get from Dublin to Cork, by train or by bus. Had she booked a ticket? Had anyone checked that? Had Mike? Did they share a bank account?
Audrey put a note in her phone to remind herself she had these questions. Then she locked up the car, tied up her coat and headed for the beach.
The tide was in and the wind was high. Grey waves were racing each other up the shore, breaking into white foam explosions. This action had created a narrow strip of smooth, wet sand just beyond the water’s reach. After that was an uneven layer of pebbles, larger stones, heaps of dried seaweed and rotting driftwood, flecked with cigarette butts, empty plastic bottles and the odd beer can. There was no one else around and it was absolutely freezing. Gulls squawked loudly overhead, which made Audrey nervous. Her aunt had once been shat on the head by a seagull and it was a sight she’d never forget. There’d been enough gloopy white poop to fill a milk carton.
She stood on the pebbles with her hands dug deep in her pockets, surveying the scene through watery eyes. Behind her, what had looked like a gentle hill on the other side ended suddenly with a jagged cliff face, a drop of thirty or forty feet straight down. Just visible at its peak were the roofs of a few grubby mobile homes. A campsite, presumably closed for the winter.
Although Audrey’s childhood summers were spent on beaches on the west coast – Galway, Clare, Kerry – the Irish seaside experience was the same everywhere. She remembered blue skies, splashing in salty water and Tayto sandwiches seasoned with the grit of actual sand. Everything was always warm: the air, the sea, the skin on her nose and the tops of her shoulders. And everything looked like the photos in her mother’s old albums, blurry and overexposed, bleached. She knew no Irish summer was invariably warm and sunny and that there must have been times when she and Dee were homicidal and cooped up inside because of rain, but she didn’t remember them. Time was a kind editor. Audrey felt sorry for the kids who’d never get a chance to forget their crappy summer days, because their parents uploaded every moment to Instagram, immortalising them for ever.
Shanamore Strand, however, was decidedly not Instagram friendly.
Why Natalie O’Connor had chosen to come here was just as big a mystery as where she might be now.
_________
Audrey was back at Shanamore Cottages fifteen minutes before noon. She’d walked the beach until she felt sure she was turning blue, killed half an hour in her car typing notes on her laptop and then driven back at thirty miles an hour. Andrew came bounding out of his cottage as soon as she turned into the complex, waving and smiling.
She pulled up at the end of his drive and rolled her window down.
‘You can park outside your one,’ he said. His voice was friendly now, his face bright; someone must have had a shower and a Solpadeine since she’d seen him last. He pointed to the cottage opposite and said, ‘Number six.’
Andrew skipped after her car so he was a
lready stationed at the cottage’s front door when she got out of it.
‘Where’d you go?’ he asked. ‘The Kiln?’
‘Yep. And then the beach.’
‘Cold down there today, was it?’
Audrey nodded. ‘Absolutely freezing.’
‘Good thing I’ve the heating on for you.’ Andrew unlocked the front door of the cottage and pushed it open with a flourish. He motioned for her to enter, smiled. ‘Ladies first.’
Audrey mumbled her thanks. The change in his demeanour was a bit off-putting. She silently willed him to take it down a notch, for both their sakes.
Then she stepped inside the cottage and instantly forgave all.
The ground floor of Cottage No. 6 was just that – all one floor, no rooms, open space squared. The air was warm but not stuffy, and dotted around the room were orbs of golden lamp light. A bright, modern kitchen gleamed to the rear. The backs of a set of leather couches separated the kitchen from the living space, which was dominated by a snazzy-looking fire encased behind a sheet of black glass. Above that hung an enormous flat-screen TV.
She was only here for one night and here to work, but still, it made a nice change from Dee’s box room where the only seat was a lumpy single bed and the TV an 11-inch laptop screen perched on her knees.
‘I hope you like it,’ Andrew was saying. ‘And I must apologise about earlier. I had a migraine. I wasn’t myself.’ He explained that there was a bedroom and bathroom upstairs, that he’d set the heating to constant but there was a panel in the kitchen Audrey could fiddle with if it got too hot, and that there was a welcome basket ‘with a few bits and bobs’ in the kitchen.
When she asked if there was wifi, Andrew’s face fell.
‘There is,’ he said, ‘but it’s not very strong. We get a lot of complaints about it and I have to explain it’s this area. It shouldn’t be too bad for you, though, you’ll be the only one using it. It’s when you get, you know, five cottages with families and all the kids are online, and …’ He smiled. ‘Well, you know yourself.’
‘So I’m your only guest,’ Audrey said. ‘Is that normal for this time of year?’
Rewind Page 12