‘I’m so sorry,’ he says. ‘But I’m looking to speak to Jake Dewey.’
‘And did you think you were gonna find him in the car?’
Lenny shakes his head and smiles.
‘Sorry – I’m just a big fan. Thinking of buying one for myself actually. Does Jake enjoy driving it yeah?’
‘Jake’s never driven it. That’s my car.’
Lenny’s mouth makes an ‘O’ shape, then he slightly gurns with embarrassment.
‘It’s Michelle, isn’t it? Michelle Blake?’
Michelle’s stare turns inquisitive.
‘Dewey. I haven’t been called Blake for fifteen years.’
‘I’m so sorry… of course. Dewey. Mrs Dewey.’
‘Ye know, I’ve been talking to you for one whole minute and you’ve apologised to me three times already… whaddya want?’
‘I’m sorry eh…’ Lenny scratches at his forehead, blinks rapidly. ‘I need to speak with Jake as a matter of urgency. Would it be okay if I came inside?’
Michelle tilts her chin into her neck, then opens her eyes wide.
‘Lookin’ like that?’
Lenny stares down at himself, realises he looks like a drenched rat.
‘I got caught in the rain and…’ he shrugs his shoulders.
‘Well, Jake’s not in; he’s away in Belfast working.’
Lenny squelches up his mouth, wants to swear; feels as if the possibility of him earning a million euro gaff may have just evaporated.
‘Who’ll I tell him was looking for him?’ Michelle asks.
Lenny pauses, looks back down the garden path, then at Michelle again.
‘I’m Lenny Moon – Private Investigator.’
Michelle takes three steps closer to him, folds her arms.
‘Oh yeah – what are ye investigating? How to piss people off by staring into their cars?’
Lenny huffs out a small laugh, rubs his hands together back and forth as he blinks his eyes.
‘I’m eh… I’m eh…’
‘Go on, spit it out,’ Michelle says, now resting both of her hands on her hips.
‘I’m investigating the disappearance of your daughter.’
12:55
Gordon
He stands up to watch over me as I scribble on another torn page from my novel.
This is the will and testament of Gordon James Blake.
His big belly inches closer to me, almost resting on the edge of my bed. I feel nervous writing this, as if I’m back at school doing an exam. Don’t know why I’m nervous; I stopped being intimidated by this asshole years ago.
I hereby wish to leave the home, addressed 166 South Circular Road, Inchicore, Dublin 8, Ireland to Alan Keating.
I draw three lines to fit the necessary signatures and then smile up at him.
‘Good man, Gordy. I promise I will get you some information on Betsy’s disappearance. Something that will give you peace of mind going into your surgeries.’
He scratches at his nose as he says this, a sure sign he’s lying. Then he removes his coat from the back of the chair he’d been sitting on and throws it on.
‘So you’ll just leave that there,’ he says, pointing at my bedside cabinet, ‘and if I do find you something original you’ll activate that will, yeah?’
I nod my head.
‘Sure thing, Keating.’
He takes a step closer to me again, his face turning back into the kind old granddad he can inhabit any time he wants to.
‘I’m really sorry about everything that’s happened to you, Gordy. Not just Betsy, but this… this situation you find yourself in today. You were always a good man; you haven’t deserved any of the shite you’ve been served in life.’
I offer him another of my fake smiles and then mouth the word ‘thanks’.
‘I’ll be back with you before three… and I’ll have something. I promise I’ll do my very best. And if I do have something for you, I’ll look after that house, Gordy. I’ll treasure it.’
He winks, strolls away from me and out of the ward. Before he’s three steps down the corridor I pick up the will I had just written for him and rip it into tiny pieces, then toss it on the floor.
It was weird talking to that cunt again. I’ve blamed him for all that’s gone wrong in my life. But I’m as certain as I’ve ever been that he had nothing to do with Betsy’s disappearance. Though just because I can rule him and Barry out, it doesn’t make me feel any better.
Not only did I lose Betsy in 2002, I lost my wife as well. I knew even before Betsy disappeared that I was losing Michelle anyway. I was aware she was having an affair. I didn’t catch her or anything, I could just tell. Not only had we stopped having sex, but we’d stop communicating with each other. She was beginning to ‘work late’ at the bank and basically showed me every sign I needed to see that she was fucking somebody behind my back. I didn’t know who it was until months after Betsy went missing. Michelle had the audacity to stamp on my heart when my heart was already broken. She said she was falling out of love with me anyway, but the fact that I looked after Betsy so carelessly – to the extent that she went missing on my watch – ensured she didn’t just no longer love me, but hated me.
That’s what she said to me three months after Betsy went missing. She screamed it at me in the most explicit of terms. ‘I fucking hate you, Gordon… properly hate you. I’ll never forgive you for this.’
It’s still never been made clear to me, because she never looked me in the eye and suggested such a thing, but I think deep inside me that she felt as if I had something to do with Betsy’s disappearance initially, especially around the time the cops were questioning me. But she did stick up for me in some respects; she told the police I had always cared for Betsy, even if I was never likely to be named ‘father of the year’. But soon after I was cleared as a suspect, Michelle broke the news that she was leaving.
I found out about a month later that she was seeing this Jake Dewey bloke. I needed to find out about him; wondered from very early on if he had something to do with Betsy going missing. Perhaps he snatched her so that me and Michelle would split up. I haven’t found anything on the fucker, aside from the fact that he’s a smug cunt. But I still haven’t ruled him out, probably because I’ve got nothing else to go on. If Lenny can give me something… anything today that clears Dewey, then I will genuinely leave him my house. I’ve got no one else to leave it to.
‘Hey,’ she says, offering me a big smile.
‘Hey yourself.’ She sidles towards me, takes a seat. ‘How did your meeting go?’
‘All good. We have everything in place to be set up. You’re going to be in great hands with Mr Douglas – he’s the best heart surgeon in Ireland. Once you do your part – staying relaxed – we’re very hopeful we can get you through all this.’
It’s either the tone of her voice or the delivery of what she says that reminds me of a young Michelle. I’m not quite sure what it is. I just know that I feel comfortable in Elaine’s company.
‘So… eh…’ she says, ‘would you like to continue what we were talking about… or d’you want to talk about something else or just watch tele… whaddya think?’
She crosses her legs, gets as comfortable as anyone possibly can in those horrible plastic chairs.
‘Sorry?’ I say, scratching at my head. ‘What was it we were talking about?’
‘Betsy. You just informed me Betsy Blake was your daughter before I had to go.’
‘Oh… I could talk about Betsy all day, every day.’
Elaine smiles again, but it’s not a happy smile, more sorrowful than anything.
‘Are you sure you want to talk about her today… if… y’know… if you’re supposed to be staying calm, keeping relaxed?’
I sigh a little, scoot down in the bed a bit and let the back of my head sink into the pillow. So much has happened this morning that I can’t get my head straight. I remember talking to Elaine now, just before she headed out for her meeting. She
knew of Betsy, was totally shocked when I told her she was my daughter. I stare up at the stains on the ceiling.
‘She was only four years old… would be twenty-one now,’ I find myself saying. I hadn’t even decided in my own head that I was going to continue talking about my daughter. ‘I was supposed to be looking after her while Michelle – my wife at the time – went shopping for the afternoon. It’s all my fault. All my fault.’ I pinch my forefinger and thumb into my eyes. I feel Elaine reach out a hand and rest it on my knee. ‘It wasn’t the first time… I once left Betsy alone in the kitchen and didn’t she split her head open, falling off a chair and onto the tiles. I loved her, still love every inch of her, but I wasn’t a great dad. I was too easily distracted.’
‘Gordon,’ Elaine says, now standing up. ‘You don’t have to… not if you don’t want to. We can talk this all through tomorrow if you want… after you recover from your surgeries.’
I take my fingers away from my eyes, open them. She’s staring down at me, that sorrowful smile still etched on her pretty face.
‘Why don’t we turn on the tele, watch some crappy daytime TV, huh?’ she says. ‘It’ll help you relax.’
I sit back up, dry my eyes by sweeping the palm of my hand across my face, then smile back at Elaine.
‘Anything but Loose Women,’ I say.
Elaine laughs as she reaches for the remote control. After a few clicks of a button, she stops on an old episode of Top Gear.
‘I like this,’ she says, ‘my dad got me into cars.’
I look over at her, wonder how much more perfect her dad was to her than I was to Betsy. I bet Elaine’s dad never left her alone while he was working, I bet he never left her alone in the kitchen to split her head open.
‘Perfect,’ I say.
I try to get as comfortable as I can in my bed, then watch Jeremy Clarkson make a tit of himself by interviewing an A-list celebrity. The guy’s such a buffoon. Though the buffoon seems to be having a positive effect on me. It’s either him or Elaine’s company. She’s right, watching tele does allow me to escape from my own head. Suddenly I’m matching Elaine’s little giggles. Never in my life did I think I’d ever laugh at something Jeremy fucking Clarkson said.
‘That you?’ Elaine says turning to me.
‘Huh?’
‘The buzzing.’
I look down to my lap. My phone’s alight. I pick it up, the number ringing unfamiliar, then press at the green button.
‘Hello.’
‘Is this Gordon Blake?’
‘Yes… who’s this?’
‘Gordon, I just heard your terrible news, it’s me – Ray De Brun.’
Eleven years ago
Betsy
‘Double figures, huh?’
Dod pushes his shoulder against mine as he says that and smiles at me.
I never thought of it like that. Double figures.
I suck in a big breath and then let it out as hard as I can. I miss just one of the candles. But Dod blows it out for me, then looks up at me and laughs. I laugh too. I love when it’s my birthday.
Dod didn’t just bring a cake down the steps with him, he brought three presents too. I really hope they’re all books – every one of them. But I know one present looks too small to be a book.
‘Go on then.’
I reach for the rectangular present first, rip the paper off it and bring it close to my eyes. It’s a box-set of books: called Harry Potter. Six of them. Brilliant. I think I read the name Harry Potter in one of my magazines before. Didn’t know who it was. But I will soon. I hug Dod really tight. Really, really tight.
‘Supposed to be the best books ever written.’
‘Really?’
‘So they say.’
I stare at him. He looks just as excited and as happy as I am. I don’t know why. It’s my birthday, not his.
‘Has Harry Potter been on the television as much as I have?’
Now he looks confused. He turns his head and stares at me as if he doesn’t know what I’m saying.
‘Remember you told me I was on the television a lot?’ I say.
He still looks confused.
‘You said that to me a few years ago. That I was on television lots of times.’
‘Did I?’
It makes me sad that he’s forgotten. It’s one thing I will never forget. It has actually made me happy ever since Dod told me I was on television and now he’s just forgotten all about it. I really like Dod. He buys me lots of things and makes my room really beautiful and bright. But sometimes he hurts my insides a little bit. I don’t think he means it. Not in the way he used to hurt my outsides; like the time he dragged me down the steps by my hair because I screamed in the upsteps toilet, or the time he threw me against the wall. But my insides seem to hurt when he has forgotten something he’s said to me or the way he doesn’t let me talk about the memories I had before I came to this room. I wish he would let me talk about my memories because it helps me remember Mummy and Daddy and my old house. The memories seem to be getting smaller and smaller. That’s why I talk to Bozy about them when I can. I talk to Bozy about my Mummy’s smile and about playing football with my Daddy.
‘Go on… open this.’
I take the present from him and rip the paper really quickly. It’s not more books. It’s a box with a really bright yellow coloured blob on it.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s a lava lamp.’
‘A lava lamp?’
‘Yeah – you can put it in the corner here.’ He points over to the corner near the steps. ‘It’ll help brighten that area up and look…’ He opens the box, takes out the lamp. ‘The colours all change and go in different directions.’
Dod looks more happy about this lamp than I am.
‘Ye don’t like it huh?’
‘I do. I do. Thank you, Dod.’ I wrap my hands around him again for another hug.
‘You wished it was more books, didn’t you?’
I lean off him. I don’t want to hurt his insides, but I remember that I should always tell the truth to Dod.
‘I love books the most.’
He doesn’t get angry. He hasn’t been angry Dod for years now. I think angry Dod is gone forever. I hope he is.
‘Well, I think you’ll like this present more than books.’
He picks up the small present and hands it to me. I shake it and wonder if I can get any clues from how it sounds. But it doesn’t make any noise. Not really.
Then I open it quickly. It’s weird; black with loads of buttons on it.
‘What is it?’
Dod smiles. It’s a big smile.
‘Come with me.’
I follow him up the steps. Even though he hasn’t been angry Dod for years I still feel frightened when I’m up the steps with him, just in case I make a noise or something. When we are at the top he walks into the room I am not allowed to look into. I just wait outside and close my eyes.
‘C’mon.’
‘What?’
‘Come in.’
I open my eyes.
‘Come into that room?’
‘Yep.’
I feel really frightened now. But I walk in only because Dod asked me to. It’s beautiful. It has three really big brown chairs in it. One with room for three people and the other two have room for one person. There is carpet. I haven’t seen carpet since Mummy and Daddy’s house. And there are big white curtains. I feel like I’m going to cry. I’m not sure if I’m excited or frightened. Dod kneels down beside me, holds up my hand that’s gripping the strange present I just opened.
‘Here… press this red button at the top.’
I do press it and then the big black box in front of me shines a big light… it’s a television. Dod’s television. I see the first person I have seen that isn’t Dod in six years. She is beautiful. All smiley with blonde hair. Tears come out of both of my eyes.
‘Told you you’d love it.’
Dod grabs me and holds me really tight
to him.
‘One hour every day I’m going to let you watch television with me. You’re a big girl now. Happy birthday, Betsy.’
13:00
Lenny
Michelle holds her hand out to try to steady her balance before giving in and slumping down into an armchair. Lenny has never met the woman before but he already knows that she’s more pale in the face than she is on any normal day. She fidgets with her fingers, then begins to pull her wedding ring on and off rapidly.
Lenny remains quiet, was oblivious to how Michelle would react to such news. His assumption led him to believe she hated her ex husband, that she really didn’t give two shits about him. Certainly not to the extent that all of the blood would drain from her face.
‘When you say fifty per cent, what do you mean exactly?’ she says, staring at nothing.
Lenny shifts his balance from his left foot to his right foot.
‘I don’t know the ins and outs specifically, but eh…’ he says. Michelle stares up at him, awaits an answer to the question she posed, ‘his surgeries are so complicated that there is a major risk of him not waking up.’
‘I can’t believe it. I probably should believe it. He’s not even capable of looking after himself… but I… I…’
Lenny sits down without being invited to do so on the couch across from Michelle. She doesn’t react, continues to stare into space.
Lenny squelches his mouth with unease. He genuinely didn’t give himself time to think this through.
‘Which hospital is he in?’
‘Tallaght,’ Lenny says.
‘I can’t… I mean… I can’t get up to see him. I’ve got to wait for the twins to come home from school.’
‘Twins?’ Lenny asks.
Michelle stares at him. Then looks towards a family portrait in a glass frame that’s sitting on the mantelpiece.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, her eyes refocusing, almost as if she has been turned back on after being on standby for the past two minutes. ‘You’re a PI did you say… did Gordon send you to tell me this news? That why you’re here?’
The Tick-Tock Trilogy Box Set Page 35