‘Shanamore.’ Natalie pronounced each syllable distinctly. ‘It’s in East Cork. By the sea.’
‘And you want to go there?’
‘What? No.’
‘Then why …?’ Mike rolled his eyes, exasperated. ‘Look, Nat, I’ve got to go. We can continue this – whatever this is – later. Okay?’
She didn’t answer.
He came to her, bent to kiss her lightly on the mouth. ‘Are you okay, Nat?’
She nodded. ‘Fine.’
He studied her face. He clearly didn’t believe her.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘You better go. You’ll be late.’
He kissed her again. ‘See you later.’
‘Bye.’
She waited until she heard the noise of his car’s engine fade, then she sprang into action with an energy she hadn’t felt in weeks.
She moved room by room, floor by floor, checking every nook, cupboard and drawer.
It took her less than ten minutes to find it stashed in a drawer in the spare bedroom.
At first, Natalie stepped back in shock, slamming the drawer shut again in the process, as if there was some lively, deadly, terrifying creepy-crawly creature in there that she just couldn’t let out.
That she didn’t want to let out.
But she had to.
How was this possible? Mike hadn’t even been home when the envelope arrived. She hadn’t told him about it. He couldn’t have seen it, wouldn’t have known where she’d hidden it. Unless … Had he been expecting it? Had he known it had arrived and it was just a case of finding where she’d put it? Had he gone looking for it during the night, moved it?
Natalie felt sick.
He’d hidden it from her and then denied its existence. He was gaslighting her. Isn’t that what they called it?
She thought back to that moment in the kitchen, Mike searching for the menu, asking her to describe the blonde woman with the ponytail ... He’d said the woman sounded familiar but that he didn’t know where from. What if he did know? What if all this crap about work lately wasn’t actually about work at all? What if there was something else going on?
He’d called her paranoid. More than once.
But it wasn’t paranoia if something really was going on.
Natalie had thought the woman with the black glasses was following her because she was Natalie O’Connor. It was that Alice, coming to the house – that’s what had made her think that. But what if the woman with the black glasses was following her because of Mike?
The stranger wasn’t behind her on the street, or sitting across from her in a café.
The stranger was in her house, in her bed.
And in the midst of all the pain, there was a strange kind of …
Was that relief?
This was something she could prove. This was something real, something tangible, something no one would dismiss as #firstworldproblems. She could pin her unease, her unhappiness, her anxiety to this and people would get it.
They’d believe it.
But first, she’d have to prove it.
She’d have to get proof.
Natalie threw some things in a bag. Clothes, her make-up bag, the T-shirt she’d slept in last night. She sent an email to the organisers of the event she was due to attend later in the week to cancel; she couldn’t even contemplate putting on a face for such a thing right now. Immediately after she pressed SEND, she felt bad and called them to do the same thing in person, feigning flu.
The last thing she did before she left the house was scribble a note for Mike on the notepad in the kitchen. She didn’t want to give anything away, didn’t want to give him another opportunity to mess with her head, so she wrote:
Someone dropped out of a spa night at a place in Killarney. [It had to be far away enough that he couldn’t come check up on her.] They’ve asked me to fill in and, to be honest, I could really do with it. [Only half a lie.] It’s a digital detox thing so my phone might be off, but don’t worry. [This way, she wouldn’t have to talk to him and fake that everything was fine.] I’ll be back late tomorrow, I think. I’ll call if that changes. Nx
He might think it was weird that she’d left him a note instead of calling or texting him to tell him – and it was, but she didn’t want to give him the opportunity to talk her out of it.
Moreover, he might figure out where she was going and if he did, she’d need this head start.
Natalie checked the timetables on her phone. Trains to Cork left on the hour, every hour, and then a bus would take her from the city centre to Shanamore. If she got to Heuston in the next forty-five minutes, she’d be at the cottages before dark. She briefly considered booking a hotel in Midleton, the biggest, nearest town, and paying for a taxi to bring her to Shanamore and back, but she didn’t know exactly what she was looking for and until she did, she didn’t know how long it might take to find it. She’d have to stay in Shanamore for a night, at least.
She went to the cottages’ website for a second time, to get the phone number.
A male voice answered after only one ring.
‘Shanamore Cottages.’
‘Hi,’ Natalie said. ‘I’m just wondering – would you by any chance have a vacancy tonight?’
‘I didn’t meant to startle you.’ He flashed an apologetic smile stocked with crooked, yellowed teeth. ‘My name is Richard. Richard Flynn. Local artiste and blow-in. No doubt you’ve already heard of me. By another name, though, I’m sure. This little backwater delights in its gossip. You were in The Kiln earlier? Sincere apologies for not introducing myself then but that girl in there, she’s the worst of them.’ He mimed a mouth moving with both his hands. ‘I often say, we don’t need a parish newsletter when we’ve got her. She’s the one who told me who you were, right after you left. Audrey, I believe?’
While he spoke, Audrey was discreetly scanning the car park. Her decision to park right at the end of it, in the spot furthest from the entrance – and so the road, and help – now seemed a foolish thing to have done in the dark. There was still only one other car here and it was as far away as it could be while still being in the car park, next to the path that led down to the beach. There was no sign of its owner and now Audrey wondered if that was Richard’s car.
There was no one else around that she could see and the only sounds were the whipping of the wind and, just barely discernible underneath it, the crashing of distant waves. The only saving grace was that they were standing not far from the beam emitted by the only light in the entire car park, the one that had been erected to illuminate the NO DUMPING sign, and that, feet away, the light was still on inside Audrey’s car.
She’d been saved from total darkness then, but not yet from him.
Richard had come to a stop just a fraction too close, a single step past the boundary line of comfortable and on into her personal space. He was close enough that even in this light she could see the plume of red soreness on either side of his mouth and flakes of dandruff lifting from his scalp at his hairline. When he spoke, he carried a pungent, sour smell on his breath. What was most disturbing, however, was not any particular detail of his appearance or his lack of oral hygiene but the sense that, with this determined proximity, he was forcing her to look. He didn’t seem at all self-conscious or uncomfortable with his physical self but yet seemed intent on making her feel that way about it.
It felt like a cruel, deliberate game and Audrey was in no mood to play.
She took a step back, putting a hand on the open driver’s door. She made like she was leaning against it but her real motivation was to position herself for an emergency ingress, poised to jump back into the car, slam the door, lock the door and speed off, just in case.
‘Can I help you with something?’ she asked.
‘In fact, it is I,’ Richard said, twirling his hand theatrically as if he were performing Shakespeare, ‘who can help you.’ He paused. ‘I have a story. A big one. An exclusive.’
Audrey raised
her eyebrows. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’
‘But you don’t like gossip.’
His face hardened. ‘This isn’t gossip. It’s news.’
‘What is it?’
‘You’ll want to record this. And’ – he smiled – ‘I have a few terms.’
‘ThePaper.ie doesn’t pay for stories.’
‘Perhaps conditions would’ve been a better word. I’m not looking for money. What I want is for you to acknowledge where you got this information. You must refer to me by name in the piece. If any other media outlets contact you after you’ve published your story looking to get in contact with me, you must supply them with my details so that they can. I’m prepared for this to be an exclusive for you in the first instance, but after that I want to be able to tell my story to whoever wants to hear it. I take it that’s agreeable?’
If circumstances were different, Audrey would have burst out laughing, but she was standing in the middle of nowhere with a man described by the woman whose disappearance she was investigating as ‘creepy’ and she was certain she’d just watched a video of that woman’s violent and brutal death. So instead she said, ‘Sorry, but I’m a journalist, not a publicist.’
Richard took a step even closer and whispered, ‘Young lady, I think we both know you’re neither.’
Audrey’s body tensed involuntarily, an evolutionary alarm warning her that danger was near. Her phone was in the car. The keys were in the ignition. She had nothing in her hands or her pockets, nothing she could use to defend herself. Richard was so close now that she doubted she’d get inside the vehicle in less time that he’d need to stick his body into the apex of the open door, preventing her from closing it.
She had one defence left, a move as old as time. She took a step back on her right leg, keeping the heel off the ground, planting her left foot firmly, ready now to bring a knee right up into his balls with as much force as she could muster – which, considering how annoyed she was that he thought he could behave this way and get away with it, was going to be an absolute fuckload.
Her knee would make sure that Richard’s only intimate relationship in the foreseeable future would be with a catheter. She almost wanted him to try something, just so she could do it.
Go on, give me an excuse.
Richard said, ‘I saw her.’
‘Who?’
‘Don’t insult me with stupid questions.’
‘I asked that because I heard you in the café earlier. When you said you hadn’t seen her at all.’
‘I told Orla I hadn’t seen her. As previously stated, I don’t like gossip. Listening to it or providing it.’
‘So you lied.’
‘Then, yes. But I won’t lie to you now. And you should probably be recording. Do you have one of those little recorder things?’
His tone couldn’t have been any more patronising.
‘How about,’ Audrey said, ‘you tell me your story first and then, if I want to, I’ll record you telling it again?’
‘I can assure you of one thing, sweetheart, I won’t be repeating myself.’
‘It’s 2018. I’m not your sweetheart.’
‘Of course.’ Another cold, reptilian smile. ‘Apologies.’
The light in the car went off, abruptly turning him into little more than a silhouette before her. The light above the NO DUMPING sign was behind Richard, which meant its beam was illuminating her for him.
The car must have some kind of automatic cut-off system. Audrey needed that light back on, now.
‘Let me get my phone,’ she said.
She moved her body inside the driver’s door, bent down and reached into the car to flip the light back on.
Every muscle was tensed, braced for a blow to the back of the neck or hands closing around her throat.
But none came. She was able to pick up her phone – no reception, of fucking course – and even pull the keys from the ignition.
The moment she slipped them into her pocket she wondered if she’d made a mistake, whether a weapon in her hand was really better than a getaway car ready to go, but it was too late for second thoughts now.
Deep in the warmth of her pocket, she rubbed the pad of her index finger against the tip of the car key and reassured herself with the thought that it could do some serious skin-scratching if the need arose.
Stealing a car, watching snuff films, arming herself against a potential murderer … It struck Audrey that, in the last twenty-four hours, life had taken quite the turn.
‘All right,’ she said, straightening up. She set the Voice app recording on her phone and then held it out and at an angle, in a bid to minimise the roar of the wind. She looked at Richard. ‘Tell me what you know.’
_________
Richard exhaled and looked off into the distance, in the direction of the water. Audrey turned to look too, but there was nothing to see. It was cloudy; there was no real moonlight. And impossible to differentiate sea from sky. The only light other than the one inside Dee’s car and the one they were standing underneath was the lighthouse, miles offshore, a flickering, mid-air orb.
‘I met her,’ he said. ‘Natalie. On two occasions. We spoke. The first time I was up at the cottages—’
‘Doing what?’
‘This will go better if you don’t interrupt me.’ He glared at her, then cleared his throat. ‘As I was saying … I was up at the cottages. Last Tuesday morning. Early. I’d say around eight. And to answer the question that is undoubtedly forming in your head – what was I doing there? – the truth is I wasn’t doing much of anything at all. I just like to walk up there sometimes. The cottages all back on to the same stretch of grass. A communal garden, he calls it. Hardly. Anyway, I was walking along there. I thought the cottages were empty. I saw something moving through the window and I went to have a closer look. It was her. She saw me and, well, I suppose I gave her a bit of a fright. Unintentionally, obviously. I promptly apologised and then I left immediately.’
He stopped and looked at Audrey, which she took to mean as permission to ask questions now.
‘You went up to the glass?’
He nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m not sure what you mean …?’
‘They’re holiday cottages,’ Audrey said. ‘People stay in them all the time. Surely movement equals guest, especially that early of a morning. So why go up to the glass?’
‘I can assure you people don’t stay in them all the time, and most certainly not in November.’ Richard gave a little shrug. ‘I thought it could be Andrew. I was just going to say hi.’
‘Are you two friends?’
‘No, but …’ He hesitated. ‘I went for that job too, you know.’
‘Managing the cottages?’
‘But they gave it to him. Judged a book by its cover, didn’t they? Or two books, I should say. And I was the one found wanting.’
‘That doesn’t explain why—’
‘I like to keep an eye on him, okay?’ Richard snapped.
There was clearly more to this story but Audrey didn’t want to get him sidetracked.
‘When you say you apologised to Natalie,’ she said, ‘did she come outside?’
‘No. I sort of, you know, motioned through the glass.’ He held up both hands and lowered his head, as if miming the act of an apology.
‘So you two didn’t actually speak?’
‘Not then,’ he said, ‘no.’
Audrey waited for him to elaborate but he just looked at her, patient and waiting, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
He was going to make her ask the question. Dick indeed.
‘When then?’ she asked flatly.
‘It was at the beach,’ he said. ‘Later that same day. Not long afterwards, actually. I drove there to go for a walk. I saw her sitting on a bench. I thought, this is an opportunity to apologise – properly – for frightening her, so I went and did that.’
‘And?’
�
��And we had a pleasant conversation.’
‘About what?’
‘Oh, nothing of import, really. The usual.’ He waved a hand. ‘The weather. Shanamore.’
‘How did she seem?’
‘Fine.’
‘How long did you talk for?’
‘Perhaps five minutes? Maybe less.’
‘Can you remember anything specific she said? How about why she’d come to Shanamore?’
He shook his head. ‘It was just all, you know, pleasantries. Although, she did say something curious, in light of where we find ourselves now. She told me her husband would be joining her later that day. Isn’t that strange?’
Audrey made a hmm noise.
Richard didn’t know it, but he’d just inadvertently revealed something about his interaction with Natalie that he either didn’t want to admit to Audrey or wouldn’t acknowledge. Natalie’s little white lie confirmed what Orla had said: that Natalie found their encounter unpleasant and Richard as creepy as hell.
‘Who left first?’ she asked. ‘You or her?’
‘Her.’
‘And you, what? You stayed on the bench? Kept walking?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Why is that relevant? I didn’t follow her, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
‘I’m just wondering if maybe Natalie was on her way somewhere specific. Or to meet someone else.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. Which, of course, didn’t answer the question. ‘What do you think?’
‘Of what?’
‘Of my story.’
Audrey thought, interesting choice of word.
‘I mean,’ Richard continued, ‘say you were our friends, the Gardaí.’ He lifted his chin. ‘What would you think?’
‘Well … I suppose I’d be confused as to why you went for a walk on what must surely be private property and then, almost immediately afterwards, got in your car and drove to the beach to go for another walk, and at both locations you happened to cross paths with the same woman who was a visitor here and previously unknown to you, a woman whose whereabouts are now unknown.’
‘You talk just like them. Did you know that?’
‘Like who?’
‘The pigs. Although the one we have here is probably best described as a piglet, wouldn’t you agree?’ He looked down at Audrey’s phone. ‘Now, I’m afraid you’ll have to turn that off for this next bit.’
Rewind Page 21