by Andrea Mara
Patrick picked up, and I filled him in.
“Okay . . .” he said, after I’d explained it, and my heart sank as I waited for another dismissal. “It doesn’t sound like anything to worry about, but I know that’s easy for me to say – it’s different when you’re the one on the receiving end.”
I would have hugged him through the phone-line if I could. “That’s it – I just want to know who’s doing it and why.”
“Is it today’s paper?” he asked.
I said it was.
“So someone dropped it very early this morning, I suppose. It wouldn’t have been available before that, certainly not out here in Carrickderg.”
A valid point, but not one that clarified things any further.
“Jamie Crowley mentioned something about this author fella Ray Sedgwick who’s doing a talk in the library – said he’s an ex of yours and there was some trouble with Alan Crowley way back?”
I sighed. “Yeah, a rift that got out of control.”
“And could that have anything to do with this?”
I traced my finger on the newspaper, following the arc of the circle.
“Marianne, are you still there?”
“Yeah. Just thinking. I honestly don’t know. I’m not sure it’s Ray’s style and Jamie is certain it’s not Alan. I trust Jamie’s judgement.”
Now it was his turn to go quiet.
“What is it?” I asked.
“No, nothing,” he said, “just thinking too.”
With nothing more to say, I promised I’d email through a photo of the newspaper, and he said he’d send a car later that night. If nothing else, it might deter someone who was watching. I disconnected the call, and got up to close the curtains, though it was still only lunchtime.
A knock at the door minutes later made me jump. I peeped out through the curtains before answering but it was just Jamie, and some shopping bags.
“Hope you don’t mind me calling unannounced,” he said, “but I knew you’d say no if I offered, so here you go!” He held up two bags of groceries.
“What’s this?” I asked, pulling the door wide.
“There’s a big freeze coming tonight, and the shops are going to run out of everything again like they did three weeks ago, and you’re the only person I know who won’t have stocked up on provisions. Am I right?”
I smiled. “The cupboards are bare. I could have gone down this afternoon though.”
Jamie tilted his head to one side. “And would you have?”
“Okay, you win – here, hand me those and I’ll put the stuff away. Will you stay for a sandwich?”
“Absolutely. I bought the fancy bread – the one with the dates and walnuts – I’m not missing out on that. So how was Denmark?”
He followed me through to the kitchen.
I filled him in, watching his eyes go wide at each revelation. When I told him about Dina and Erik’s deaths, he shook his head.
“My God, Marianne, that’s horrendous. Are you going to go to counselling?”
“I don’t think so. It’s over now.”
He looked like he wanted to say more, but I took the sandwiches through to the sitting room and, side by side on the couch, we sat to eat.
“So do you think Ray’s talk will go ahead?” I asked, nodding towards the curtained window. “He’ll hardly be able to drive down here tomorrow if the weather forecast is right?”
“No harm if it’s cancelled,” Jamie said. “My da is still ranting and muttering about ‘that gobshite’ and God only knows what he’s got planned. I can’t see him letting what Ray did go by without confronting him.”
“Are you worried?”
“A bit. I did tell the guards. It was Maguire I spoke to, and he didn’t know anything about what happened – Geraldine would know, she’d remember, but I’m not sure if he passed on the message.”
“I’d say he did – he mentioned it to me today anyway.”
“Oh, were you on to them today?”
I reminded him about the newspaper.
“Maybe it’s a do-gooder – someone like me who thinks you don’t look after yourself and could do with supplies!” he said, laughing.
I didn’t join in. “Ah sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” His expression changed and he looked at me more closely. “Marianne, you’re really worried about this, aren’t you?”
He reached over and put his hand on my shoulder, his eyes full of concern and suddenly more than anything I wanted to bury my head in his chest and have a good old-fashioned cry. Instead I looked at the floor, and nodded.
“Anyway, I’d better eat this and get back to work,” I said when I could trust my voice again.
Jamie changed the subject – we talked about safe topics like TV and books and whether or not Danish pastries are called Danish pastries in Denmark.
Just before two o’clock, I opened my laptop and told him I’d need to log on for a call. He nodded and got up to leave.
Outside, the sky was a slate-grey cauldron and the first swirls of snow had started to fall.
“Will you be alright tonight – do you want me to –” he said, looking up at the sky and back at me, but he didn’t finish what he was going to say.
“You go on now,” I said. “Quick before it gets too heavy!”
And he did, with a small wave and a smile that looked sad, or wistful perhaps. I shut the door and leaned against it, realising too late that I wanted him to finish his sentence.
At six, I finished my final call, and stood to stretch my legs. Outside, the snow was coming down heavily, no longer melting on contact with the ground. I hope it sticks! we used to say when we were kids. It bloody better not, I thought now. The snow should keep everyone at home – it should keep me safer. But I couldn’t help feeling it was drawing him out again, drawing him back to me.
Nerves jangling, I locked the doors, and checked the windows. Desperate for distraction, I clicked into Facebook but even that didn’t work – there was a further barrage of notifications about the Blackwood Strangler arrest and I ignored them all. Barry had tagged me in a post about a case in France that looked like the Swedish one we’d researched but I ignored that too. If you look hard enough, you can find patterns and links between anything and everything, I thought, shutting down Facebook and opening my personal email.
And there, amid the usual slew of newsletters and LinkedIn requests, one email stood out. “Hello there” was the simple subject line, and the sender was Ray Sedgwick.
CHAPTER 63
2008
The night it all fell apart had started out so perfectly. We were in the Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire for the launch of Ray’s new book, in a beautiful high-ceilinged room, looking out over the marina. The sun was just beginning to set, casting an orange glow on the guests inside. There were readers and authors and local politicians, all helping themselves to wine and canapés and waiting for a glimpse of the man himself. He and I arrived a little late – and as we exited our taxi to go into the club, he stopped to check some important messages. There were no important messages, but he needed to be sure there were people at his launch before he made his entrance. When we did arrive, he was greeted with cheers and applause. No doubt there were many genuine fans in the room but, also, I suspect, a good smattering of people who had never read any of his books. And who doesn’t like a free glass of wine on an unseasonably warm Thursday night in March?
There were stacks and stacks of his new book, The Sophisticate, lined up on tables around a podium, and staff of Seven-Storey Books on hand with a till to facilitate purchases. I hadn’t seen the finished version of the book at that point. Ray had insisted I wait until the launch. The cover depicted a silhouette of a man in what looked like a cowboy hat and, thinking back, that’s when I felt the first tiny pang of concern.
A local councillor took to the podium to make a speech about Ray and his writing. “An important book,” he said. “One that paints a picture of an Ireland we all know well.”
I had no idea what the book was about and my curiosity was piqued. Ray had been writing furiously for over a year, but said it was bad luck to tell me anything about the book. That was fine with me – anything that distracted him from his ridiculous feud with Alan was a good thing.
The councillor was still talking about The Sophisticate. “When you scratch the surface,” he was saying, “unfortunately the underbelly is not pretty. It is often grotesque, in real life as well as in fiction.”
Ray nodded along, hands in pockets, looking at his feet. This was humble Ray, a part he played well when people were watching.
He looked up when the applause started and smiled bashfully as he thanked the councillor and took his place at the podium.
He thanked me, the people of Carrickderg and, rather majestically, the population of Ireland. Then he said something that caused the little pang of concern to swell.
“And there’s one person in particular I want to thank but he’s not here tonight – he was the inspiration behind the character of Ned in The Sophisticate.” A little “ooh” from the crowd made me wish I’d had the opportunity to know who Ned was. “Don’t worry, there’s no chance this person will ever find out – he’s not the book-reading type!” Ray continued, to what seemed like nervous laughter.
He went on to talk in glowing terms about his three years in our beautiful country of saints and scholars, then finished with an invitation eat, drink, and be merry.
“Have you read it?” a voice beside me asked, as I picked up a copy of the book.
“Not yet,” I said, “have you?”
The lady, a curly-haired woman in her forties, nodded. “I wouldn’t like to be that man he mentioned – the one who inspired Ned. It’s a good book, but I didn’t realise it was based on real life.”
I ran my hand over the glossy cover, and the silhouette of the man in the cowboy hat.
“What happens to Ned?”
“Ah, I won’t spoil it – you read it yourself and find out. Let’s just say it’s not what happens to Ned.” She raised her eyebrows knowingly, but I had no idea what she meant. “I’d better go find my husband – we only paid the parking for an hour,” she said, and whirled off into the crowd.
“So what’s it about?” I asked Ray, three hours and many glasses of wine later, as we sat in the back of the taxi to go home.
He winked at me. “Nice try but you’re going to have to put down your laptop and actually read it!”
“Ray . . . is it about someone we know?”
“Just read it, and you’ll find out!”
“But you can’t write about someone you know – surely that’s libel or slander or one of those?”
“Not if it’s fiction. I didn’t say it’s about someone, I said it was inspired by. And look,” he said, opening the book, “it says it right there – ‘All characters and events in this publication are fictitious’.”
“What if Alan reads it?”
“How did you know it was Alan?”
I made an ‘Ah, come on’ face but I don’t know if he could see it in the dark.
“Marianne, it’s fine.” There was an edge to his voice now. “Do you really think Alan reads anything other than tabloid newspapers?”
I shook my head. Three years in Carrickderg and Ray still didn’t understand how small towns work. Alan didn’t have to read the book. As long as people around him did, he’d know exactly what was going on.
It was after ten when we got home, and lightheaded from too much wine and too few canapés, I made toast, and sat to start the book. Ray poured himself a whiskey and got out his laptop to look for new reviews. I could feel him looking over at me every now and then, and there was something heightened in the air, thick and tense and blurred with wine.
The book started with scenes from a small town in Ireland, and a local man called Ned who seemed to think a lot of himself. Behind his back, people laughed at Ned, and the early chapters were devoted to lampooning him – the ‘man about town’ who walked with a swagger, but had no idea people saw him as a bit of a buffoon. Alan wouldn’t like it at all if he recognised himself, though it was possible he wouldn’t – he probably had no idea what people in Carrickderg really thought of him. And the details were a little different – Ned had a wife, and two young sons, John and Paul.
An hour later, I was about a fifth of the way through the book and thinking of going to bed.
Then I got to Chapter Twelve. My half-closed eyes sprang open and I sat upright on the couch. With a knot in my stomach, I made it halfway through the chapter before I had to stop – the scene unfolding between Ned and his small son Paul was too stark, too graphic, and far too disturbing.
“Ray?”
He looked up, eyes innocent but knowing.
“Yes?”
“How could you do this?”
“What?”
“It’s so very clearly Alan in the book, and then you make out that he’s abusing his son? What the hell were you thinking?”
“I didn’t. I wrote a work of fiction. It’s about a character called Ned.”
“Who is very clearly based on Alan – you even alluded to it in your speech.”
He shrugged.
I stood.
“You need to fix this – it reads as though Alan is some kind of monster, who abuses his son. People will think the Paul character is Jamie. Ray, what have you done?”
“Relax, Marianne, my publisher’s legal people gave me the OK. There are enough differences – Alan can’t sue.”
“But it doesn’t matter whether he can sue or not! For fuck’s sake, Ray, what matters is that people around here will think it’s Alan! Don’t you get that? It’s not about what’s legally right or wrong – it’s about what’s morally or ethically right or wrong. Jesus, I’m so mad right now I can’t bear to look at you!”
He stood too, arms by his sides.
“It’s art, Marianne, I don’t expect you to understand.”
“It’s not fucking art,” I spat. “It’s just the latest cheap shot in a ridiculous, childish feud. I can’t believe your publisher ran with it. Jesus, Ray!”
“Oh, it’s not ‘fucking art’, is it not?” He took a step closer. “And what would you know about that?”
Looking back, I can see the warning signs were there. But at the time, I was too mad to see anything.
“What would I know? What, because I work in IT and don’t write books, I’m some kind of philistine? I don’t have to be an artist to understand that this excuse for a book is nothing more than another lame attempt to get back at Alan. Jesus, it’s not even well written. It’s a vehicle to attack Alan, nothing more!” I could see little bits of spit flying out of my mouth and I was shouting, but I couldn’t stop now even if I wanted to. “I may not write books but I read a hell of a lot of them, and this – as you might say yourself – is trash!”
I flung it across the room so hard it knocked a picture off the wall. The crash of breaking glass stopped us both momentarily.
Slowly, Ray walked over and picked up the book. Then a shard of glass from the broken picture. He straightened up and looked at me. His eyes hard. He walked towards me, book in one hand, shard of glass in the other. The atmosphere in the room, so charged one second, so high with emotion, slipped to something else entirely. Something cold. I opened my mouth but my voice was stuck in my throat. My legs felt as though weights were pulling them down, my feet rooted to the floor. Ray took another step towards me. Stranger’s eyes, a face I barely recognised. The glass glinted in the overhead light and, as I watched, it nicked his skin, blood trickling along his palm. He looked down at it, and back at me. And took another step closer.
I needed to move, but I was frozen. There was no moving. There was nowhere to go.
He looked down at the blood again, and dropped the glass shard. It clattered to the floor, loud in the silence. Relief washed over me.
Too soon.
Far too soon.
Ray took another st
ep towards me, so close now I could feel his breath, hot and whiskey-soaked. Before I worked out what was happening, he’d done it. The pain, when it came, when his fist connected with my cheekbone, was like nothing I’d ever imagined. Suddenly I was on the floor, holding my face. Staring up. Shocked. Not making a sound. A scream stuck in my throat. A scream that nobody would hear.
His face was coming towards me. His arms reaching. He took both of my hands in his, and pulled me to my feet. He put his forehead against mine, his breathing heavy.
“You can’t talk to me like that, Marianne,” he whispered. “You just can’t.”
He pulled me into a hug, my head on his shoulder. Like a rag doll. A voiceless rag doll. As he crushed me to him, I stared at the wall behind. At the bookshelves, at the photo of my parents. At my dad, who in all the years had never raised a hand to me. At my mother, smiling, unaware of the violent death to come. I closed my eyes.
“You understand, don’t you?” he said into my ear, pleading.
“I do. It’s okay. But I need to lie down,” I whispered, my cheek still throbbing.
“I’ll make tea, and bring it in to you,” Ray said, tears in his eyes now. “Marianne, I swear to you, it’ll never happen again.”
“Okay.”
“You believe me, don’t you?”
“Yes, Ray.”
His face softened into a familiar smile. “You lie down, I’ll make that tea.”
In my bedroom, I turned the key in the lock. And, as Ray boiled the kettle. I called the police.
When he realised the door was locked, he tried everything. Begging, cajoling. Shouting, banging. At one point, he tried to shoulder the door in, but it held fast. I sat on the floor, my phone in my hand, praying he wouldn’t go outside to break the window.
“I’ve called the guards, Ray, they’re coming.”
That’s all I said. And in the end, that’s all I had to say. Maybe back home in New Jersey, he could have talked his away out of it. But not here. Not as the interloper the locals didn’t trust. Not in a town where everyone knew everyone and he was the outsider. I knew it and Ray knew it. By the time the guards pulled into the driveway, Ray was gone.