She turns towards them and waves. They’re almost upon her when a shadow comes from behind the bushes, grabbing her and forcing a familiar looking knife to her neck. They all gasp. It’s him.
“Turn around and go back to where ye came from and no-one gets hurt,” comes the voice from behind the hood.
The four subconsciously make a semi-circle around him. There’s no escape. He’s trapped. If he goes any further back, he’ll enter the water.
“I mean it. I’ve killed before. I have no problem just slicing her throat and throwing her into the river. Now get back, I say. I want ye al-“
“Dad?”
Ava’s head snaps to her left. Towards Cathal. Emmet stops what he’s saying, his head turned towards Cathal. Spluttering a few words, before recollecting his thoughts.
“Everyone move back and away from me if ye want her to live. Let us go in peace. We’re in love. We’ll be on our way an-“
“Dad, let her go.”
He groans before pulling back his hood.
“Get out of the way, Cath.”
“Dad, what the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m asking ye all to leave me alone. Me and her had a great life away from ye all, and we will again. So move now, or you’ll all be sorry.”
“He’s your dad?” Mark looks astounded.
Cathal and Ava meet eyes before he nods. Ava stares at Emmet, free from a hood and out in the moonlight. Although years and years older, there’s no denying that that’s the same guy from the picture sitting in Cathal’s house. How had she not noticed? Had Cathal known all this time? She doubts so, judging by the look on Emmet’s face. He looks… Embarrassed.
“You’ve killed before…”
“Awk, Cathal don’t play soft. Ye really think your ma and Orla’s ma just walked out on me? On me, like? I’m the fuckin’ best thing happened ‘em. Naw, hardly. They’re both buried beneath that new shed I built out the back.”
Ava gasps, shaking her head. What a monster. She hears vomit hitting the ground from her left, but she doesn’t dare take her eyes off the man. Off the knife. Too afraid of what he’ll do to her mum.
“Now, man. I think you need to leave that lady alone,” Mark begins to step forward, arms held up so Emmet can see that he’s unarmed.
“Stand back ye cunt,” Emmet struggles back, constantly looking behind him.
The water slowly creeping ever closer.
“What you’ve said tonight is fine, mate. Just go on. We won’t say a thing. Take the money. How much money is that, now? You could get far with that. Never have to be found. Just go, but please leave the lady behind.”
Mark’s always been like this. Thinks he can resolve any situation. Even though he has absolutely no idea what’s going on. Emmet’s feet must be wet now, you can hear them squelching underneath the grass. He must be inches from the water’s edge. His eyes focused on Mark, mere feet away from him.
“Stand back, boy. I won’t tell ye again. You think I won’t kill her ‘cause I love her?” he chuckles darkly. “It’s never stopped me before.”
“Mate, just-“
It all happens so fast. Mark takes a step forward and Emmet takes a jab at him, but when he recoils, he loses his balance and falls into the river, dragging Fiona in along with him.
“Mum!” Ava screams.
Without hesitation, Mark dives in after them.
“No, Mark. Don’t!”
But it’s too late. He’s already nowhere to be seen. Ava, Robyn and Cathal stand at the side of the river watching for any signs of life. Straining their eyes against the darkness and their ears against the howling of the wind. It’s almost impossible. Cathal even brings out his phone and turns on his torch app, but the weak light doesn’t even break the surface of the water closest to them, never mind further out.
“There,” Cathal shouts a few moments later, pointing to a part about thirty metres downstream, rushing along the banks, shortly followed by the ladies.
Moments later, they see two figures fighting with the current, bobbing in and out of the water. Are they fighting with the current or with each other? Or both? No, it looks like one is clinging to the other for support. Attempting to climb onto the other for safety. But it’s too dark and they’re too far away for them to see properly. Ava gets an idea.
“Rob, do you still have Zoe’s number?”
Robyn nods, handing over her phone.
“Hiya, Robyn. Long time n-“
“Zoe, it’s me. Ava. There are three people in the river. Quick, please, hurry. We’re just under the new bridge. One of them is Mark.”
She hangs up then, just as she sees shadows moving close to shore. The water’s calmer here. Just shy of the fast flow downstream. Cathal is able to jump in to knee height and, moments later, retrieve one of the figures fighting with the current.
“Oh, thank God. Mum!”
Ava jumps in and meets them halfway, helping bring her mother to shore. She coughs and splutters, before lying on the ground gasping for air.
“Mum, are you okay?”
Fiona nods, still coughing, looking up at her daughter.
“I can’t lose you again. Mum.”
“You won’t, love.”
Ava wipes the tears from her eyes. Relief leaving her as she examines the water, searching for Mark.
“Where’s Mark?” Fiona’s chest still sounds like it’s filled with water as Robyn wraps her in her old shawl.
“I don’t know, Mum.”
“He made me grab onto him. He swam me out of the current. I thought he was right behind me.”
Ava shakes her head. That asshole. He’d gone back to try and save Emmet. He always plays the hero card, even now when it can get him fucking killed.
Chapter Seventy-Nine:
The rescue boats come and go, but still there’s no sign of the men. The foursome sit in the ambulance with giant sheets that look like tinfoil wrapped around them. After Fiona had been looked over by a professional, they were left alone with their mugs of too-sweet tea. Ava had fought with them, saying she wanted to go look. To help. But they told her it was ridiculous. Everywhere was flooded. They didn’t even know what shape the banks were in. One slip could result in her falling in too. It takes all her energy to keep her bum on the seat in the ambulance, her legs jiggling with apprehension.
“This is all my fault,” Fiona gazes out onto the river. “All my fault.”
“Don’t say that, Fee.”
“But it is, Robyn. I was the one brought this monster into our lives. I was the one that went with him instead of taking my chances with that stupid gang. I messed everything up. I always have. Always bloody will.”
Ava hugs her mum as tight as physically possible with the giant sheets separating their embrace.
“Alright, Mrs Friel. How are you doing?”
They all look up to see an older looking volunteer shuffling up the bank towards them.
“Erm… Grand, Frank. And yourself?”
“What’s brought you all here tonight, then? It isn’t the boys in the water, is it?”
They all nod.
“Jesus. Nasty business that. Your family have a rough time of it, don’t they? First your sister, then your husband. Who’s this now?”
Ava and Fiona’s heads snap towards Robyn, their mouths gaping wide.
“Ah… A friend of the family tonight now, Frank.”
“God love yees, I hope we find them safe and well,” he nods towards them before trudging back up towards the road.
An awkward silence befalls the back of the ambulance. That is, before Ava and Fiona’s shouts burst out at once.
“’Your husband?’”
“Uncle Damien?”
“What the hell does he mean ‘your husband?’”
“You told me Uncle Damien was up in Letterkenny doing some work.”
“What’s going on, Robyn?”
They both fall silent, staring at her. Robyn smiles sweetly towards Cathal, who takes a while
to get the hint, before coughing and making his way back up towards the road.
“Tell us, Robyn. Now!”
Robyn flinches at the force of her sister’s order.
“Look… Damien and I… We went through a rough patch.”
“A rough patch?” Ava laughs. “You were constantly at each other’s throats. That isn’t a rough patch, Rob.”
“Aye I know, I know. Right… Well… I’m sorry to bring it up, and don’t take any blame please, Fee. But once you left… I found it so hard to cope with your secret. I took to drink and prescription drugs. My head was fried. A complete mess. Then, when Ava left… I stopped cleaning the house and cooking dinner. There were times he would come home and he’d find me in the exact position that he left me in. Just gazing out the window. It took its toll.
“Then… One day… He had to go to Belfast for some conference. And he came back and he just… Wasn’t the same. I asked him what was wrong and he just ignored me. He left and came back in the early hours of the morning completely steaming. I’ve never seen him that drunk, and you remember your Uncle Damien. He couldn’t drink for shite. He started arguing with me, saying that I was a horrible person. I’d had a few myself, so didn’t even attempt to fight back… Then he told me.”
The pair know what’s coming before she says it. Robyn stares into her sister’s eyes, guilt etched over her face.
“He saw you. Up in Belfast. Must’ve been on one of your outings. He’d come straight home, not even bothering with the second half of his conference. He asked me if it was true. Asked if I knew. I hesitated, and that was enough confirmation for him. He burst into tears and slammed the front door in my face.
“I never heard from him again. A few weeks later, the police were at my door. Said they’d found a body in the river. The dental records matched his. I told them not to release his name. I was the only family he had. I couldn’t do it to you, Ave. I couldn’t have someone else… Disappear from your life.”
Ava shakes her head at her aunt. Irony not wasted on her that Damien had disappeared, even before now. She can’t believe what she’s hearing. All this time and she’d kept everything inside. No wonder her mind wasn’t what it used to be.
“I need to be on my own.”
“Ave, wait.”
She ignores both of the women’s protests and batters downhill, towards the river. A few yards short from the water, she collapses onto the soaking grass and bursts into tears. She lies there and cries. Cries for her mum. Cries for Mark. Cries for Robyn. Cries for Uncle Damien. Cries for herself and what she’d gone through. Not only the past three years, but the weeks and days leading up to tonight.
When the tears stop coming, she sits up and lets herself sink into the ground, looking out onto the lights currently searching the river for her boyfriend and the murderer who had almost made her commit suicide.
Chapter Eighty:
They lie on Ava’s sofa and watch the TV. Her mother and her. It feels weird, having her in this house. A house that was bare of memories of her. The news is on. They watch the carnage that was last night. But not their carnage. No, Derry’s carnage. Millions of pounds of damage for the city. Bridges collapsed. Homes destroyed. Cars washed away.
Then, when the locals are finished being interviewed, the news reporter stands at the side of the Foyle Bridge, telling them that two bodies ‘accidentally’ entered the river last night. That makes Ava’s blood boil. People will think they were drunk. That they fell in. Mark should be made out to be a hero. He jumped in and saved her mother, despite not even knowing who she was, and went back to save a psychopath who was going to kill him mere moments before. He should be celebrated, not brushed off as a hopeless case.
They’d made it home after midnight last night. The roads were so bad with the floods the ambulance had to go a special way. They were surprised Robyn’s house wasn’t affected, being so close to the water’s edge. Luckily, everything was untouched. They’d barely said goodbye to her as she left them. They’ll ring her later today and see how she’s got on. If all of this has taught them one thing, it’s that you don’t know what someone else is thinking, no matter how strong their front. They can’t stay angry at her forever, she has no one else.
A knock at the door makes them jump. Ava stands, smoothing her top before they make their way to the front door. There stand two police officers. And by the look on their faces, they aren’t here to give good news.
“Oh, no,” Ava doubles over, grief flooding through her.
Her mother helps the female officer pick her up off the wooden floor in the hallway and rest her on the sofa. They say that two bodies were found. They believe they’re a match for Mark and Emmet. They didn’t make it. She doesn’t take any of it in. It’s as if they’re talking to someone else. About someone else. Then, as if a TV on mute, she can’t hear them at all. There’s a ringing in her ears and she just stares at the carpet.
Her mother does a lot of talking beside her, but she doesn’t hear what she says. Maybe she’s explaining herself? Revealing who she really is? Will she go to prison? Be made to make statements and stand up in court? She’s not sure.
She’s aware of them moving around her, but she just focuses on the ground. Thinking of all the times she spent with Mark in this very room. How they’d had their whole lives in front of them. But now? She had taken all that away from him.
****
Cathal closes the front door after the police leave. They didn’t know his dad had even been missing. He’d been worried that they would be taking him up for fraud. Luckily, they hadn’t made the link… Yet. He hopes they won’t. To them, his dad was a delinquent that had found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He’s sure that Ava and her mother will be telling the police their side of the story. But for all they know, his dad still could’ve been collecting his brew. He knows Jimmy, his dad’s mate in the dole office, won’t tell the police squat. Would rather spit on them. He’s safe.
That’s when he becomes aware that he should feel much more than fear that he might have been being imprisoned. He should be upset. Crying. Angry. Aren’t those the stages of grief? Cathal isn’t sure. His dad was never there for him, and he’d been absent for so long that it’s weird to actually know that he’s dead. He’d never made much of an impact on his life.
Now, Ava. Ava had. He thinks on the times to come. The times she’ll invite him for drinks and movie nights to talk about their similar situations. Playback last night and the different scenarios that could’ve happened. Share their grief. An event like this will glue them together for a long time, if not for life. That’s plenty of time to get to know one another properly. Perhaps be more than friends? Indulge their darkest secrets to one another until she knows him inside out? But there’s always something that he’ll keep from her. That he’ll keep from everyone. Keep in the dark that last night, when Fiona and Mark were attempting to struggle out of the water, Fiona near collapsing, he’d done something sick. Something that makes him believe he is his father’s son.
“Here, take her,” Mark had coughed, unknowingly throwing his girlfriend’s mother towards safety, whilst Cathal had taken all of Fiona’s weight off him, resting her in the shallow water.
Mark continued to fight against the current, splashing about and constantly getting pushed downstream. He had reached a hand out for Cathal to take. Cathal reluctantly took it, before getting an idea. Pulling him from the tide, Mark’s body relaxed. Gasping for gulps of air. With one swift movement, pretending like he was turning around to check on Fiona, who was still dipping in and out of consciousness beside him, he’d turned around so aggressively, bumping all his weight onto Mark, who lost all balance, scrabbled around for something to grab onto, before dropping once again into the current.
And just like that, Mark was gone, snapped up by the undertow. Cathal saw his face. His eyes. Shock. Betrayal. Fear. That is, until the black water swallowed him up… And upon hearing the police’s reports this
morning, it looks like it has finished with him, and has finally spat him back out again.
A Note From The Author:
Although the majority of this book has been spurted out from my imagination, there’s still the underlying theme that will hit home with the people of Derry, and those around the world. Suicide and depression are stigmas, and the battles that Ava is facing in this novel are being faced in real life by people all over the world, especially in Derry. The Foyle Bridge is notorious for bringing the end to so many people’s lives. Young or old. Man or woman. Catholic or Protestant. It doesn’t care what victim is next.
We as a city need to stand together to help fight this deadly killer. Although not mentioned in the book, there are around 40 different organisations in Derry City targeting mental health, including Me 4 Mental and Aware NI to name a few. These people are doing what Ava is doing. They want people to talk about their problems. I believe no problem is too big or too small that risks you losing your life over. And I can say that hand on heart as someone who has also battled with mental health throughout my life.
The Foyle Search and Rescue are also mentioned in the book and are a real organisation who work tirelessly around the clock to make the water a safer place. I can’t begin to imagine the sights they’ve seen and news they’ve had to give, but still they continue what they’re doing on a voluntary basis to help the people of this city.
If you’ve enjoyed this book or have been bitten by the real-life problems and issues that the characters deal with, I would please urge you to donate to these causes. They need all the support they can get. Donations can be taken on their respective websites. Thank you.
About The Author
Bradd Chambers grew up on the outskirts of Derry~Londonderry in Northern Ireland. From a young age, he started reading and writing stories. He exceeded in English at school, and went on to obtain an NCTJ Diploma in Journalism at his local college, before graduating with a 2:1 in the same subject from Liverpool John Moores University. He has studied Creative Writing for years at colleges around the UK.
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