‘Nessa died?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That must have been difficult for you,’ he said, but Keelin didn’t reply. ‘Did you always want to work in that sector?’ he tried instead.
‘Domestic violence?’ Keelin asked. Jake sat back down on the súgán, nodding his yes. ‘Not when I was in school or anything. I never gave it much thought, to be honest. My dad was a quiet soul – the only time I heard him raise his voice was when Cork were playing Kerry in the Munster final and he didn’t like a decision the ref had made. He would never have hit my mother; he’d have been shocked at the very thought. Domestic violence was something I thought happened to other women. This is going to sound awful, but I thought it happened to women who weren’t as smart as I was or as well educated, women who were used to being slapped around because they came from “bad families”,’ she said, using her fingers to make air quotes. ‘I didn’t have a clue.’
‘You know what’s funny?’ Jake asked, leaning forward in his chair. ‘As a kid, you think that everyone else’s house must be the same as yours, that everyone’s family behaves exactly like yours does. It’s only as you get older that you learn life doesn’t work like that.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, when I was little I just assumed all fathers were like mine, wanting things done in the exact right way, which meant his way. He demanded dinner on the table at seven p.m. sharp, and the cutlery had to be laid out how he liked it. If they were even half an inch out of line, he would flip the table, just tip it right over. Then he would make my ma get down on her knees and eat the food off the ground, like she was a fucking dog. And I actually thought that was normal. My sisters did too. I’d look at them when my father was on one of his rampages and they’d barely respond, their eyes glazed over like it was nothing new. And it wasn’t new, not to us anyway.’
Keelin kept very still, maintaining eye contact with Jake so he would know he was being heard, that she was holding a space for him, bearing witness to his story. Old therapy tricks die hard, she supposed. ‘Tell me about your mother,’ she asked gently. ‘I’d love to know more about her.’
‘Ma came to Australia when she was seventeen,’ Jake said, fingering the frayed edges of the cloth place mat. ‘She met Lucas Taylor a year later and she was pregnant with me almost immediately. My sisters—’ He broke off, his throat pulsing with something unsaid, words that were unspeakable. ‘Ashleigh and Brooke – they were twins – they came ten months after me.’ He tried to laugh. ‘What’s that called here again? Noah told me but I’ve forgotten.’
‘Irish twins,’ she said. ‘Although I guess it’s Irish triplets, in your case.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Irish triplets.’ He blinked rapidly, as if to stop himself from crying. ‘Jesus. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this – I never talk about it. This isn’t very professional of me, is it? But I guess I just wanted you to know that I understand what it’s like to be famous for something you didn’t do.’
‘Jake . . .’ she started but she couldn’t find the right words. ‘I’d better go home,’ she said instead, gathering her phone and her bag. ‘It’s late.’
It was cool when they walked outside. ‘Hard to believe it’s July,’ Jake said as Keelin shivered, rubbing her bare arms vigorously. It was a clear night, the stars sharp in the sky like scar tissue on velvet, seeming so close you could almost touch them.
‘I’ll walk you home,’ he offered.
‘No.’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘I understand.’
And as he waved her goodbye, Keelin thought he just might. She turned to walk up the hill to Hawthorn House. The lights were off, the outline of the building looming black against the night sky, and it was then she looked at her phone. Five missed calls, six unread messages. Darling, Henry texted. I’m worried about you. Please let me know you’re safe.
‘Jake,’ she said, looking back over her shoulder, ‘this might sound like a weird question, but . . . were you ever angry with your mother? For everything that happened?’
He leaned against the half-door, his arms dangling over the edge. ‘If I’m being totally honest, I wish she had at least tried to leave,’ he said. ‘I wish she had protected us more. That she’d been stronger, I guess? She should have made the choice to leave him years ago; he was never going to change. She knew he was dangerous and still she stayed. Maybe my sisters would still be . . . I know that’s not fair of me to say, but it’s how I feel.’
‘Sometimes,’ Keelin said slowly, ‘leaving isn’t a choice that’s yours to make.’
Chapter Nine
The Kinsellas could never determine who had sold what to which outlet, but in the months that followed the murder, photos from the party were splashed across the newspapers. Henry with his shirt unbuttoned too low, a smidge of cocaine burrowed in his left nostril, bottles of champagne littering the ground behind him. An actress from a beloved BBC period drama, a joint in hand, her nipples visible through her sheer dress. Two of Henry’s school friends doing a pretend jig while wearing green leprechaun hats, the sort of cheap thing you’d find in shops selling Paddywhackery to tourists at an indecent mark-up. Ireland had been at the beginning of a recession when Nessa Crowley was murdered. People were losing their jobs, they were worried about how they would pay their mortgages and feed their children, and the photos from the party touched a nerve, like an exposed wire. Didn’t the Brits realise that Ireland was a free country now? They couldn’t just come over here and treat the locals like indentured servants. And was it true Misty Hill received funding from the Arts Board? they wanted to know, becoming increasingly indignant. Despite denials, there were persistent rumours a high-ranking government official had been in attendance that night. Was this what their taxes were being used for? And now a young woman was dead, an innocent caught up in something she didn’t understand. Seduced, no doubt, by the glamour and the privilege. And the money. The Kinsellas had always had plenty of money. Maybe too much, the islanders whispered. The money had been the start of it all. The money paid for the parties, and the parties had brought the outsiders. It was only then the trouble came.
What is she doing here? Keelin had asked Henry when she saw Nessa arriving at the party, a bottle of wine in hand. I don’t know, her husband shrugged, bored already. Alex must have invited her. Her son, his face lighting up at the sight of the Crowley Girl, hugging her hello. Their heads close, talking in low voices, sharing their secrets. Keelin couldn’t help but think of his diary, what she had seen in its pages, and she felt queasy at the sight of them together.
There was only one photo of Nessa taken that night. She was in a filmy black dress, cut tight to her body, and Keelin was beside her. Nessa’s arm around her waist, both of them smiling at the camera. The girl had smelled of apple shampoo, crisp, fresh. Keelin would remember that smell for the rest of her life.
That same photo accompanied the articles about the Misty Hill case in the years that followed, printed and reprinted in every outlet in the country. The story was irresistible, it had it all: beauty, celebrity, wealth, sex. Then there was Nessa, with her big eyes and long legs, that perfect face – she would haunt the Irish people for the decade to follow. Who had killed the Crowley Girl? they asked. Who could have done such a thing to someone so young, so beautiful? When would there be justice?
Chapter Ten
Johanna Stein, Keelin Kinsella’s childhood friend
Johanna: I’ve never talked about Keelin in this way before. I’m only doing this interview because . . .
Jake: Because?
Johanna: I’m sick of hearing other people talk about her, I guess. People who barely know her, who have no idea what the real Keelin is like.
Jake: What is the real Keelin like?
Johanna: Where do I start? (pause) I’m almost forty-seven years of age, and in all my life I’ve never met anyone who loves like Keelin does.
She was never Miss Popular or anything, never the person who had dozens of friends, not like Henry was. When she would come and visit me at Mary I – that’s the teaching college in Limerick, where I studied – my housemates would tell me afterwards they thought she was a bit standoffish. She didn’t make much of an effort, they complained. But Keelin was just shy. She didn’t let everybody in, but if she did, if you were lucky enough to be her friend, my God – that woman would go to war for you.
Noah: Can you give us an example?
Johanna: Oh Christ, let me think, I could be here all day. OK. OK, I remember this time, the first year of college it must have been, I’d come down to visit Keelin in Cork for the weekend. We were dressed in our finest, only delighted with ourselves, and we were standing outside a club when a group of guys started jeering at me, calling me a ‘fucking dyke’, and I just froze. I hadn’t even admitted I was gay to myself at that stage, let alone to other people, and it was terrifying to think that it might be so obvious, that strangers on the street could see it in me. And Keelin marched up to them, and it was almost comical – she was half their size and she had her finger in their faces, telling them they were bullies and they were pathetic and how dare they speak to me like that? I had to drag her away before she lost the plot entirely, started something she couldn’t finish. (pause) Just as we were falling asleep that night, she said, ‘You know that I love you, no matter what? I hope you know you can tell me anything, Jo.’
Noah: That’s all you need to hear in that moment, isn’t it?
Johanna: Yeah. And look, I knew my parents would be fine with it, no matter what my sexuality was, but I didn’t realise until that moment that I’d been worried about what Keelin and Seán would think; there wasn’t exactly a thriving gay community on Rún in the nineties. (laughs) I should have known it would be fine.
Jake: What did you think of the Kinsella family?
Johanna: Well, I was the only island girl who wasn’t in love with Henry or Charlie. That should’ve been my first clue. (laughs) Look, my parents weren’t from Inisrún; we were always seen as blow-ins, even though I was born there. That gave me the ability to observe, I guess. And it was obvious to me the Kinsellas were never going to fit in on the island, no matter how hard they tried.
Jake: Why not?
Johanna: Where do I start? Olivia wasn’t too bad; I think she had some sense of how she should behave around the locals, and Jonathan was grand too, really, although he liked the sound of his own voice after a few whiskeys but as for the two lads . . . The posh accents, and the clothes – I once saw a friend of theirs rocking up in a tweed cape and Hunter wellies, just play-acting at being ‘Oirish’, they were – and the money didn’t help either. It was like Monopoly notes, the way they threw it around. (pause) There was always this tension between the islanders and the Kinsellas, in my opinion. They needed that family, and no Irish person likes to feel beholden to an English man for their survival. The resistance is embedded in their very DNA. It was never going to end well.
Jake: And what about Henry himself? Did you like him?
Johanna: I did. (pause) In the beginning, anyway.
Chapter Eleven
The Crowley Girl
‘We don’t know anything about this girl,’ Henry said, taking a carton of milk from the fridge. ‘Have you seen her exam certificate? She could be a complete charlatan.’
‘Oh my God, you’re right. Nessa Crowley is probably an international scam artist. Hide the silver, quick.’
‘Very amusing.’ Henry poured cornflakes into a misshapen clay bowl Evie had made for him in art class, shaking a teaspoon of sugar on top. ‘I can’t even picture her; all those girls look the same to me. How on earth is one of them old enough to be in the second year of uni?’
‘Well, she is. I told you about the piece in the Examiner; her Leaving Cert results were among the best in the county. Were you listening to me at all?’ Keelin glared at him, her hands on her hips. ‘Seán and Johanna think it’s a great idea, anyway.’
‘Oh, excuse me. If Seán and Johanna think it’s a good idea, then that’s that. I don’t know why we’re even bothering to discuss the matter.’ He took a spoonful of cereal. ‘And really, darling, I’m not comfortable with you seeing Seán Crowley so much. How would you feel if I was going on “tea dates” with my ex-girlfriend all the time?’
‘They’re not dates.’ And I wouldn’t mind, she wanted to tell her husband, if your ex-girlfriend was alive for you to have tea dates with. But they weren’t allowed to talk about Greta Ainsworth, she and Henry. Not ever. He’d made that clear from the beginning. ‘You’re being ridiculous, babe. Seán is one of my oldest friends and we sort of dated for two minutes when we were teenagers. I’m not going to stop seeing him now because you’ve decided to throw a temper tantrum. You’re worse than Evie at times – do you know that?’
He froze, his spoon halfway to his mouth. He looked so outraged that Keelin couldn’t help but smile, patting her husband on the head as if he were a small child. ‘There, there, baba,’ she said in a mollifying tone, but he didn’t laugh like she expected him to do.
‘Babe, I—’ she began, when the doorbell rang. ‘That’ll be her now,’ she said, relieved. ‘Come here to me, ya dope. You’ve bits of cornflake stuck to your chin.’ She wiped his face clean, waving her hand at him to get rid of the bowl. ‘Be nice,’ she warned as she dragged her husband into the hallway after her. There was a young woman standing on the front porch, a neon-pink satchel swinging from her shoulder. Five foot ten inches of her in skinny black jeans and a ribbed vest top, freckles dusted across her nose, a blonde fringe sweeping over one eye. ‘Hi,’ she said shyly. ‘I’m Nessa.’
‘You don’t have to introduce yourself to me, don’t be daft. Thank you so much for doing this, pet,’ Keelin said, reaching out to hug the girl. ‘I can’t get over the height of you, and the figure! You’re only gorgeous. We’re all so proud of you; I can’t go anywhere on the island without someone falling over themselves to tell me how well you’re doing at UCC. Congratulations.’
‘Aww, thanks a million, Keelin.’ Her eyes widened as she walked into the hall, taking in the split staircase lined in pale grey velvet carpet, the delicate chandelier hung from a twisting silver spire, the oversized paintings on the eggshell walls. ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Your house is stunning.’
‘Would you stop, it’s grand. Now, you must make yourself comfortable here. Treat the place like it’s your own. Right, babe?’ She nudged her husband in the ribs.
‘Absolutely, Nessa. We want you to feel at home here,’ Henry said, turning around at the sound of footsteps on the stairs. ‘Here’s the man of the hour,’ he said. Alex came to a skidding halt when he saw who was standing beside his mother, the tips of his ears burning bright. He stammered a hello, scratching the back of his neck furiously. ‘Hi, Alex,’ Nessa said, half waving at him. ‘Do you want to get started?’
Why didn’t you tell me? he asked Keelin later. Why didn’t you say that it was one of the Crowley Girls who was coming to give me grinds? You could have at least prepared me, Mam.
She’s just a person, Keelin said, taken aback. Her son didn’t behave like this, not about girls anyway. He was usually too absorbed with his music and his video games to notice anyone else around him. Nessa Crowley is not some sort of mythical creature, Alex, she said.
But it was clear her son wasn’t listening to her.
Chapter Twelve
When Keelin woke the morning after dinner with Noah and Jake in Marigold Cottage, she had a headache, a tightness forming around her temples and across her eyes. It was still dark outside, no sign of sunlight straining beneath the heavy drapes, but Henry wasn’t in the bed next to her. She slipped her hands under the duvet to pat the sheets on his side, but they were cool to touch. She stretched her arms out, yawning, the stiff bones of her neck clicking into place, and she reached to grab her phone, u
nplugging it from the wall, and tapped in her passcode.
And tapped it again.
And again.
‘Henry?’ she called as she got out of bed, wrapping a dressing gown around her. She padded downstairs, pausing on the bottom step and listening so she could hear where he was. ‘Henry,’ she said when she walked into his study. He was sitting in the antique chair he’d bought at auction a couple of years previously, a dark mahogany with forest-green leather upholstery, an exact replica of the chair his father had in the Kinsella Group headquarters in London. His eyes were closed as an eerie piece of classical music blasted from the sound system.
‘Henry.’ She prodded him gently on the forearm. He opened one eye, saw it was her, and pointed the remote into the air, silencing the music instantly. ‘Camille Saint-Saëns,’ he said. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’
‘Very nice,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.’
‘That’s fine, darling.’ He looked down at her bare feet. ‘Keelin, you need to wear your slippers around the house. You’ll catch a frightful cold. We’ve talked about this.’
‘Yes, sorry, you’re right,’ she said. ‘I’ll remember next time.’ She held her iPhone out to him. ‘There’s something wrong with my mobile.’
‘What seems to be the matter?’ he asked, taking it from her. The wall behind him was mirrored and Keelin could see her reflection: her blotchy skin, patches of red breaking out around her nose and chin, her breasts hanging low under the silk gown. Nessa had had perfect breasts, she thought, swallowing the shame. But Nessa had been young, and she hadn’t given birth to two children, now, had she? Of course her breasts had been perfect.
After the Silence Page 6