We hugged then, for the longest time.
‘How’s about we forget everything, except that we’re both alive and that we’re both going to be okay?’ I squeezed Evie’s hand. ‘Because things are going to be okay, kiddo, I promise you.’
She looked at me then – tears making her eyes glisten – and suddenly I felt pressure on my fingers. She was squeezing back. She was smiling at me.
It was the most beautiful thing I’d witnessed in a long, long time.
Shortly afterwards, I managed to talk to Lorelei properly.
‘I’m so sorry about what happened to you, darling,’ she said, and I could feel her voice choke with sadness and regret that she hadn’t been able to prevent it. ‘I’m so sorry I didn’t get to warn you in time.’
‘You did everything in your power, Lor. You couldn’t have done anything more.’
Lorelei sighed. ‘To be honest, it took way longer than it should have. Donnagh’s record was so squeaky clean that it threw me for a while. But something about him bothered me – the way he just showed up in your life. The way he wouldn’t leave.’
‘What did you find out?’
‘That ex-wife I spoke to,’ she said quietly. ‘Maria.’
‘What about her?’
‘She told me things.’ Lorelei was silent for a minute. Then: ‘She was terrified. She kept slamming the door in my face. Finally I screamed at her through her letterbox that two women in England were in danger. One was already in a coma and the other was living with Donnagh but had discovered a spycam. That was when she opened the door.’
‘What did she say?’
Lorelei took a deep breath, as if to steady herself. ‘For a long time she didn’t say anything. She just cried. Eventually I got it out of her.’
‘Got what, Lorelei? What are you trying to tell me?’
There was a pause.
‘He raped her, Rachel,’ Lorelei said quietly. ‘Donnagh raped that girl.’
I felt myself go completely still.
‘She said they had got married way too young. She’d realized very quickly that he was controlling and a bully. At some point, she met another man and fell in love.’
‘Donnagh said his ex-wife had an affair.’
‘Not exactly. Nothing had happened between them. She just told Donnagh straight that she wanted out of the marriage. That she wanted a divorce.’
‘And his reaction was to brutalize her?’
‘Exactly,’ Lorelei said quietly. After a moment she continued, ‘Maria’s new boyfriend was from Mexico but, unlike her, he was illegal. Donnagh said if she went to the police he’d have the new guy kicked out of the US. It worked. She kept shtum.’
I stood there, phone in my hand, feeling as if somebody had punched me. How could he have got away with so much? How could he have been allowed to do almost the same thing to Evie?
‘Maria thinks there might have been other victims. She suspects there was some incident back in Ireland when Donnagh was a teenager, hushed up by his rich uncle. That that was why he was taken out of the country so quickly, why his uncle took him under his wing in America.’
‘So he’s a serial sex offender?’
‘Well, we can’t know for sure. But there’s anecdotal evidence to suggest he was.’
I slumped into a chair, completely winded. ‘And no one ever reported him? No one ever found out?’
‘No,’ Lorelei said simply. ‘He seems to have done a brilliant job at covering it up.’
He had nearly done the same thing this time round. If he’d killed Evie he’d have shut her up for ever. As for me, there’d be no witnesses back there in the flat – plus he’d taken Tom’s computer. Unless Tom had a back-up, which I imagined he’d already destroyed, it was his word against mine.
Later, as I shuffled back to my bed in the hospital, I bumped into DI Ainsworth, who flushed scarlet as soon as he saw me and began to deliver an excruciating apology. I held up my hand to halt him – too tired to feel angry.
Afterwards, in bed, I turned it all over in my mind. I still thought Ainsworth was an incompetent arsehole. But I’d been taken in by Donnagh just as much as he had. I’d allowed myself to be fooled by his beauty, attracted by his charm. I’d even bought into the whole sensitive, reformed-character act.
Yes, I’d had my suspicions. Yes, I’d done some research. But in the end I’d acted the same as everyone else who came within forty metres of Donnagh Flood.
I’d fallen just the tiniest bit in love with him.
And I’d forgotten the most important rule when it came to people who possessed both beauty and extreme cunning.
Watch your back.
62.
Evie
Once I knew Rachel was going to be okay, my own recovery was rapid. First my speech started to come back properly, so that I wasn’t just uttering single indecipherable words: I was beginning to speak fluently, like a normal person. It didn’t happen overnight – I had a lot of help from speech therapists – but slowly, the words trickled into my mouth.
It wasn’t just my body the hospital experts focused on but also my mind. I spent a lot of time with a psychiatrist. And the early sessions really were awful. For the first couple, all I seemed to do was cry. But I was determined to stick with it because of what I’d put Rachel through. I’d meant it when I said sorry to her. I wanted to change. Become a better person.
The psychiatrist diagnosed me as being on the bipolar spectrum. ‘Just like my father,’ I said, as soon as I heard the diagnosis.
Rachel had filled me in on how she’d tried calling him when I was in the coma. How she believed he suffered from bipolar disorder too.
‘Well, there is a genetic component to the illness,’ the psychiatrist said softly. ‘So if your father had it, you would be predisposed to it.’
‘Does that mean I’ll never be able to lead a normal life again?’
The doctor looked at me. ‘Were you leading a normal life before?’
‘Not exactly,’ I admitted. ‘There were a few incidents …’
We smiled wryly.
‘Look,’ the psychiatrist said, laying his palms flat on the desk. ‘I’m not going to patronize you and pretend it will be easy. You already know it won’t. But …’ he paused ‘… there are ways of making things easier. I would recommend a mixture of medication and therapy – hopefully more of the latter than the former.’
I welled up – not because I hated what he was saying but the opposite: it was such a relief.
‘You told me you love art. Is that right?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do.’
‘Bipolar and creativity have been linked. They theorize that the mania pushes people to levels of accomplishment and greatness others may never achieve.’
‘Listen, I’m no Michelangelo.’
‘Perhaps not. But during your recovery I want you to attend art therapy. I also want you to re-establish your link with art. For many people it’s their salvation when dealing with mental-health issues. I sincerely hope it will be yours.’
As the weeks went by, people came to see me, most importantly Janet. We had a long conversation in which I apologized profusely for everything that had happened and we hugged a lot.
Some of my workmates came to visit too: George and Bob. Thankfully, Nigel didn’t deign to join them, and neither did Tom – Rachel had already filled me in on his perverted stalking, how he was now barred from coming anywhere near me. It made me feel sick, but it also explained who the mysterious grunter had been when I’d been in the coma. It all suddenly made sense: it had been him.
Then someone else dropped by.
‘Artie,’ I said, barely able to believe he was standing in front of me. Apparently he’d been to see me briefly after the Donnagh incident, but I didn’t remember it.
‘I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch,’ he said. ‘Things have been kind of hectic.’
That day we didn’t say much, but Artie kept coming every few days. I didn’t press him for de
tails of why things were hectic: I figured he’d tell me when he was good and ready.
Finally he did.
‘I’m just back from America,’ he explained. ‘I was over with Shannon. She lost our baby a while ago.’
‘God, I’m so sorry, Art,’ I whispered.
‘It was a ruptured uterus … and it happened around the time we shared that kiss.’ Artie’s cheeks flamed red. ‘Shannon found the email I’d sent to you, telling you how great you were, and we had a massive argument. About two weeks later she had the miscarriage.’
‘And she blamed you?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Which, in fairness, I think she had a right to. It was my fault.’
I frowned, and shook my head. The kiss had lasted little more than a millisecond, after which Artie had pulled away, like a frightened pony, declaring he needed to get back to Shannon and saying sorry over and over again. If anyone was to blame it was me: I’d pushed myself onto him.
‘What happened next?’
Artie shrugged. ‘She left me. Went back to the States, warned me she’d use her father’s shotgun on me if I attempted to follow her. So I stayed in London.’ He dropped his head. ‘I nearly went out of my head with the guilt.’
‘Oh, Artie, I’m so sorry.’
A few minutes later he picked up where he had left off. ‘Rachel contacted me around then, asking questions about you, but I couldn’t face telling her everything that had happened. So I lied, told her me and Shannon were still together and denied anything had happened between the two of us.’
‘Nothing did happen, Artie. It was one minuscule kiss.’
Artie shrugged. ‘Yeah, I suppose.’
Something else occurred to me. ‘Did you send me another email, the day of my crash? Something about meeting up?’
Artie raised his eyes. ‘Rachel asked me that, too, and at the time it confused me because, genuinely, I hadn’t sent any such email. But eventually I figured it out. It was Shannon.’
‘What?’
‘It happened shortly after the miscarriage when she was inconsolable with rage. She was trying to lure you to a pub to punish you for what had happened. But at the last minute she came to her senses. She explained it all to me when I went over to see her a few weeks ago.’
‘Okay.’ I was struggling to keep up.
‘I went over to her shortly after you woke up, when it was confirmed you and Rachel were going to be okay.’
‘And Shannon was willing to talk to you this time?’
‘Yes, she was,’ he said, taking a gulp from a bottle of water. ‘Once she heard that you’d nearly died but that I still wanted to come to America, it was like a switch had flicked. She said she wanted to go ahead with the wedding. That she wanted to try for another baby straight away.’
Artie’s eyes looked sad now. Really, really sad.
‘And yet here you are.’
He bowed his head and nodded. ‘We tried, for a few weeks. Took a trip out west, to California. We both wanted to make it work …’
I sat in my chair, watching him, struggling against the desire to reach my hand out towards him. To touch him. ‘What happened?’
‘We went to a big festival in the desert. We’d decided that before we started trying to get pregnant again we’d have one final blow-out. We ended up doing peyote – the drug you get from the cactus.’
I stared at Artie, my eyebrows raised. Artie never did drugs. He was always the sensible one.
‘Anyway, on the morning we were due to leave, Shannon told me to go. I didn’t understand what she was on about. I thought she meant go and get some breakfast or something, but that wasn’t it.’ His eyes were sparkling with tears. ‘We loved each other. We still do. But, I don’t know, it wasn’t the same … It wasn’t enough.’
I was confused. What was he talking about?
‘She said, “Go to her.” I thought it was the drugs talking. But …’
‘Her?’
Artie was still babbling. ‘She said she didn’t resent me any more about the baby, that being in the desert had made her see she needed to let go of the bitterness, that she knew deep down it hadn’t been my fault.’
I was still listening, aware that my breathing was becoming shallower.
‘She said she admired my loyalty but she couldn’t force me into a marriage I didn’t really want. Especially given that I was clearly in love with someone else.’
He looked at me then.
‘She said it was obvious from the first moment she’d seen the two of us together. That it suddenly made sense why I’d chosen to work in Greenwich – I’d been secretly hoping to bump into you.’
‘Christ, Artie, you came looking for me?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Not consciously. Not specifically. To be honest, I thought I’d never see you again.’
I found myself taking his hand. ‘Artie, are you sure this is what you want? You know I can’t offer you the same things Shannon could. I’ve been diagnosed as bipolar. There could still be side-effects from the coma.’
Artie put a finger to my lips. ‘I don’t want you to offer me anything, Evie. That’s not what this is about.’
‘But it is, Artie. You need to know the truth. You need to know that I’m damaged. Cracked.’ I dipped my head so he couldn’t see my face.
Artie put his hand under my chin, tilted it upwards. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Cracked right down the middle. That’s how the light gets in.’
Epilogue
Rachel: day 298, nine and a half months later
While I was in hospital, the doctors told me something else I didn’t know – that I was pregnant. That afternoon with Jacob, after the thunderstorm, we’d made a baby. He was visiting me in the wake of Donnagh’s attack, but it had taken two consultants to convince him that the pregnancy was real.
‘How did the baby survive the fall?’ he’d asked, tears plopping down his cheeks.
‘Strong little bugger obviously,’ the consultant had said, smiling. ‘Plus the abdomen wasn’t damaged, luckily.’
‘You are keeping it, aren’t you?’ Jacob had asked afterwards, and I’d nodded. This baby was unplanned but I wanted it. I wasn’t quite sure why, but I did.
Now, eight months later, I’m finding it almost impossible to walk, waddling around, like some obese duck, willing the child out of me. I don’t even have Erica Jong for company any more – I let Mrs Flanagan keep her. To be honest, she’s better off there, given my state of near invalidism. I’m one week overdue and can barely move, except to shuffle around the house, take baths and think.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.
Three months ago, Donnagh’s trial kicked off. Lorelei flew in, along with Maria, Donnagh’s ex-wife, who took to the stand and testified against him, telling the court about his controlling nature, how he’d bullied her psychologically and raped her when she’d asked him for a divorce.
Tom was forced to give evidence, too. He admitted Donnagh had called over to his flat after my attack, threatening to slit his throat unless he handed over all back-ups of the camera footage. Tom had done as he’d been ordered – after all, it was in his interest to get rid of it, too – but the police had been able to retrieve some files deleted from his email. Apparently he’d been sharing some of his perverted documentary on the dark web. Not everything was there but it did include the file of Donnagh trying to rape Evie. It was likely to be the piece of evidence the case would rest on.
And, of course, we had other witnesses: the police officers, who’d found Donnagh in Evie’s hospital room, after he’d put masking tape over her mouth; Evie’s own account of how Donnagh had attacked her. Finally, there was the psychiatrist, Dr Kincaid, who testified that, while Donnagh could not be diagnosed as clinically insane, he appeared to display all the attributes of a sociopath, and symptoms of what he called ‘narcissistic personality disorder’. He explained that people with that diagnosis tended to fear rejection and abandonment, often stemming from childhood, and t
hat they often had extreme reactions to perceived slights or criticism. ‘Other prominent features include anger, competitiveness, power struggles, and a tendency to externalize blame.’
At that point, Evie and I had shared a look. They didn’t know the half of it.
I couldn’t believe how remarkably well my sister was handling everything. She didn’t seem fazed by the fact that she’d had to take the stand and testify against Donnagh, probably because she had Artie now – but also because she seemed so much more confident. She wasn’t completely back to her old self – she needed more rest than normal and her concentration span was quite short – but Dr Bartlett was optimistic she would make a full recovery.
‘She’s a lucky girl,’ she had said to me one afternoon, after I’d gone in to thank her for all she’d done. ‘Most people don’t survive an injury of that magnitude without some lasting legacy.’
‘Oh, she has a lasting legacy, all right,’ I said, meaning Donnagh and what he’d done to her. ‘But we’re working on that.’
I never heard a peep from our father. All that detective work linked to the postcard and it turned out Donnagh had sent it. He’d stolen it from Evie’s handbag and paid some stranger in the Gare du Nord to post it for him, his idea of a sick joke. That person must have been on their way to Calais at the time and had sent it from there – nothing to do with our father at all.
As for the handwriting, that had been another con – Donnagh had simply mimicked a different script when he’d scribbled down that sentence for me in the flat. It was something he’d been doing since he was a child apparently: forging documents.
It had all come out at the trial. The first half of it, at any rate.
On the seventh day, a new person arrived at the court: Donnagh’s uncle from Chicago. There were rumours he had put off coming because he was so appalled by what Donnagh had done. But he came anyway. He told the court that Donnagh had been born into ‘difficult circumstances’ – his father an alcoholic, his mother suffering with severe postnatal depression. He cried when he described what a cute child Donnagh had been, how fearless, inquisitive and beautiful he was. He choked up several times. He said he’d done his best, tried to turn Donnagh’s life around by bringing him to Chicago, where he had mentored him and offered him a partnership in the business.
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