I Saw You (31 page)

McLoughlin squeezed around the back of the desk and into the narrow space. The guard slipped a disk from its cover and slotted it into one of the machines. He picked up a remote control and
pressed a button.

McLoughlin saw the picture come up on the monitor. The guard fast forwarded, then stopped and pressed play. Gerry Leonard and Peter Feeney walked in through the front door. They headed
purposefully for the lift. ‘No one stopped them?’

‘They say they work for agency who sell apartments. They say they have things to do in show apartment. They go on up.’ The guard pressed eject. He took another disk from the pile and
began to play it. ‘Look, here, camera on penthouse landing. See?’

McLoughlin saw, all right. He saw Leonard roll up his sleeves. He saw the snake tattoo. He saw the can of paint and the brush. He saw the door to the show apartment open, then close behind
them.

‘That’s great, thanks.’ He put his hand into his pocket and found his wallet. He pulled out a fifty-euro note. ‘Thanks,’ he said again, as he pressed the money into
the guard’s top pocket. He took the disks from him. ‘I’ll look after these. Don’t worry about that.’

The guard smiled. His teeth were shiny, metallic. ‘No problem. I like Marina. She very nice lady. I very sad when she die. You think this painting thing have to do with her?’

‘I think maybe.
Spasiba bolshoi.
’ McLoughlin held out his hand.

‘Thank you very much too. You’re welcome.
Perzhalsta.
’ The guard shook it vigorously. ‘
Spackoyny noitch.
’

‘And goodnight to you.’

McLoughlin got into the lift and pressed the button for the penthouse. He leaned against the cool marble wall and closed his eyes as it moved quickly upwards. ‘I saw you’ painted on
the walls. ‘I saw you’ whispered into her phone. ‘I saw you’ written on the back of the photographs. The lift hissed to a stop and the doors slid open. He stepped out on to
the landing and felt in his pocket for the keys. He opened the door and walked into the sitting room. He sat down at Harris’s computer and touched the keyboard. He slipped the DVD from the
camera in the lobby into the slot and clicked it open. He found Gerry Leonard. He watched him talk to the guard on the desk, then wait for the lift. He clicked forward. And a woman came into the
lobby. She was slim, dark. She was wearing a summer dress. She waved to the guard as she passed his desk, then spoke to him. She reached into a big wicker basket. She pulled out a watermelon. She
threw it towards him and he caught it. She was laughing. He was laughing. McLoughlin took out the DVD and inserted the one from the camera on the upper landing. He found Leonard as he went into the
apartment. Then he found Marina. She stepped from the lift. She pushed open the door. She went in. He watched, he waited. Five minutes later she came out. Her phone was to her ear. She looked
stricken, frightened. She pressed the button for the lift. She put away her phone. Then she turned from the lift and pushed open the door to the stairs. She disappeared.

He moved back through the DVD. He wanted to see her again. Bring her to life on the computer screen. The lift doors opened. Workmen stepped out. Painters, decorators, men in suits with brochures
and briefcases. The lift doors opened. Marina stepped out. But this time she was not alone. The camera showed a tall man with dark hair. His shoulders were broad, his features distinctive. He
turned towards the camera. He put his hand on her shoulder. She smiled at him. That wide, welcoming, smile. Dominic de Paor opened the door to the apartment. He stood back and she walked through.
He followed her. The door closed behind them.

McLoughlin stared at the computer screen. He replayed the scene. He watched them come out of the lift. He watched them on the landing. He checked the date. It was two days before the paint
incident. He switched the DVDs. He saw her come into the lobby. She waved to the guard as she passed the desk. She was alone. She stopped to look at a large plant in a huge terracotta pot. De Paor
came through the automatic doors. He didn’t look at her. She joined him at the lift. They didn’t speak. They didn’t look at each other. They got into the lift. The doors closed.
He switched the DVDs again. The lift doors opened. Marina stepped out. De Paor put his hand on her shoulder. She smiled at him. She opened the door. He stood back and she walked through. He
followed her. The door closed behind them.

‘What were you doing, Marina?’ he whispered.

And he heard her voice: ‘Help me, please, help me.’

And he remembered what Poppy had said. About Mark Porter and Dominic de Paor. How Porter would show up with flowers and presents. And when de Paor was finished with a woman, Porter got the
leftovers.

His phone rang. He pulled it from his jacket. He looked down at the screen. It was the local Garda station.

‘Inspector McLoughlin,’ the voice was young, female, ‘this is Stepaside station. Just wanted to let you know that your house alarm has been activated. We rang your land line,
according to procedure, but there was no answer. Where are you?’

‘I’m in the city centre. I’ll go home immediately.’ He pressed eject and the DVD slid out of the computer.

‘We have the number of your local key-holder. Will I call him?’ The voice sounded calm.

‘No, it’s fine. I’ll be home in half an hour.’ He put both DVDs into his pocket. ‘It’s probably a false alarm. Thanks.’

He’d have to wake Johnny. Borrow his car. His own was still in the city centre where he’d left it that afternoon.

‘Fine, but in the meantime a car from Stepaside is on its way. I’ll let you know if there’s a problem. Is that all right?’

‘Yeah, that’s great. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Thanks.’

He looked around the room. It was as before. Bright, cheerful, welcoming. He hurried down the stairs and into Harris’s bedroom. He was lying face down, spreadeagled across the bed.

‘Johnny.’ He shook his shoulder. ‘Johnny, wake up. There’s a problem. I need a hand.’

The bus let the girl off at the turn for Sally Gap. The driver watched her as she crossed the road and began to walk away up the hill. It was the third time this week she had
travelled with him. A pretty little thing, he thought, with her shiny brown hair tied back under a red scarf, her long patterned skirt and sandals. She reminded him of girls he had known when he
was young, way back in the sixties. Hippy girls who smelt like this young one, of that Indian perfume – patchouli, it was called – wearing clogs or sandals, with a leather thong tied
around the ankle. He had warned her to be careful up that mountain road. ‘You never know,’ he said, as he slowed to a stop. ‘Don’t take any lifts up there.’

But she just smiled and shook her head, so her silvery earrings tinkled, then lifted her hand and waved to him as she crossed to the other side of the road. He waited until she had disappeared
around the first bend, then drove slowly away towards Roundwood. He wouldn’t let any of his daughters go up there by themselves, he thought.

Vanessa heard the bus move off. She didn’t look back. Silly man, she thought, with all his warnings of the dire consequences of walking up the road to Sally Gap. He
didn’t know how lucky she was. He didn’t know that she wasn’t going off on some stupid quest for adventure. He didn’t know that she was going home, back to the Lake House,
that she was part of the family who owned it, and in three days’ time, when she became eighteen, part of it would be hers. For ever.

She fumbled in her bag for her iPod and slipped on the earphones. Helena had played her some opera. A singer called Maria Callas. She had told her all about ‘La Callas’, as she
called her. How she came from a poor family in Athens. How she had had a voice that moved men to tears. How she had been in love with a man called Onassis, a small, ugly man, but a man of power and
influence who filled her with passion and desire. But he had left her, abandoned her for Jackie Kennedy, a pale and bloodless woman, Helena said, whom he married for show and respectability.
Callas’s voice filled her head as she walked quickly along the narrow road. Helena had shown her the old records she had collected. A huge pile of them. The covers were beautiful. And so was
Callas. Helena had held her photograph up to her face and kissed it. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think there is a resemblance between us?’

And Vanessa had agreed that there was. The jet black hair that framed the white face with the high cheekbones, the strong nose, and the eyes rimmed with dark liner.

She stopped to catch her breath, then jumped into the shade as a convoy of army trucks lumbered past. There were always soldiers up here. She had never seen so many before. They waved and smiled
from the back of the truck and she waved and smiled too, then stepped out into the sunshine so she could see the view ahead. The road, like a narrow dark ribbon, curling up the side of the mountain
on one side, and on the other, the deep valley and the lake just visible like an antique mirror, the kind she had seen in the Lake House, the silvered glass uneven and patchy so it reflected
imperfectly. She was too far away to see the house. It was hidden deep at the end of the valley, but she could see the tops of the trees that surrounded it. And she could picture it in her
mind’s eye. The front door standing open to welcome her. And Helena in the kitchen making scones, the dog asleep in the corner by the Aga. The dog that now did not fill her so full of dread,
that did not bark, but stood up and wagged his long tail, smiled, opening his pink and black lips, then ambled over, sniffing her skirt and resting his head on her thigh, his large yellow eyes
liquid and glossy like clover honey. As she stood still as a statue, heart thumping in her chest, then reached down to pat him.

She began to walk again, impatient to get there, not to waste a second of the time she would have with Helena. She was so interesting. She knew so much. About art and books, about music and
antiques, about history and archaeology. It was amazing to be with her. She had a way of making all her knowledge come to life. She could describe how the landscape around the lake had been created
and make it far more vivid and real than any of the CGI effects in TV programmes about dinosaurs. She was awesome. In the dictionary sense of the word.

Now Vanessa could see the gate ahead. She stopped and reached into her bag for a bottle of water. She unscrewed the top and took a long drink, then walked down the slight incline towards the
keypad on the gatepost. She tapped in the code, the gate swung open and she walked through. She crossed the pressure panel on the other side and waited for it to swing shut. She still
couldn’t get over it. Helena had told her the code.

That day, not long ago, the first day they had met, Vanessa had been walking down the pier, daydreaming, trying not to think about her mother and Marina and the grief that hung around the house
like a giant black shawl. And she had seen the tall dark woman with the huge dog. The dog, padding along by her side, so calm, so quiet, so completely at ease. And the woman had shown her that the
dog wouldn’t hurt her. Had made her feel secure, powerful, even. They had walked together down the pier. And when the time had come to go their separate ways, the woman had told her she knew
her name, she knew who she was. And she wanted to be her friend.

‘I don’t know what you’ve heard about me.’ The woman had taken her hand. ‘All kinds of terrible things, I’m sure. But life’s too short to carry a
grudge. Soon we will be neighbours. Won’t we? Soon you will inherit Dove Cottage. So, please, come and see me. It’s not far. There’s a bus you can get most of the way.’ She
had squeezed her hand tightly. ‘You’ve never been to the Lake House, have you, since you were a baby? Well, it’s time to remedy that. You are James’s daughter. I can see
that just by looking at you. You remind me so much of my son Dominic when he was your age. And if my daughter had lived, I’m sure she would have been like you too. So, please, make an old
woman happy. Come and see me.’

‘Your daughter? I didn’t know you had a daughter?’ Vanessa said. ‘What happened to her?’

The woman didn’t reply.

‘Sorry.’ Vanessa winced. ‘I shouldn’t have asked. My mother’s always telling me to think before I speak. Sorry, it’s none of my business.’

‘No, it is your business,’ the woman told her. ‘After all, my daughter was your half-sister, wasn’t she?’ She paused. ‘It was what they call a cot death. She
was six months old. She was healthy, strong, beautiful. I went in to her one morning and I thought she was still asleep. Then I noticed she was very pale. I touched her cheek and it was cold. I
picked her up and her body was white and stiff. Like a hard plastic doll. The doctor said she had died not long after I put her to bed.’

The dog leaned close to the woman’s leg. It whined.

‘So you’re Helena – is that right?’ Vanessa tried to sound calm.

Helena smiled. ‘Yes. And you’re Vanessa. Such a pretty name. Your father’s godmother was called Vanessa. Did you know that?’

Vanessa shook her head.

Helena patted the dog’s head. He looked up at her, his forehead wrinkled. ‘Yes. James loved her very much. I remember him saying to me that he was closer to her than he was to his
own mother. You know how that can be, I’m sure. Sometimes one’s mother isn’t the easiest person in the world to talk to,’

Vanessa nodded. ‘That’s true. They say it’s because you’re so alike. Although I don’t think I’m like my mother. I don’t look like her.’

‘No,’ Helena said slowly. ‘No. You obviously take after the de Paor side of the family. So,’ she smiled, ‘you will come and see me, won’t you? Sometimes I get
lonely by myself, even though Dominic comes every week, sometimes more often, and he phones me all the time. He’s such a wonderful son. I’m so lucky to have him. Although,’ she
frowned, ‘you may not want to come after what happened to your other half-sister. How sad and how strange that she should die in the lake too. How awful for your mother. How is she?’
Her eyes were sympathetic and concerned.

And Vanessa couldn’t help but reply: ‘She’s very sad. She misses Marina very much and can’t believe that she took her own life. She says it wasn’t like
her.’