The Doll's House (7 page)

‘Where are you? I called to the house and didn’t get an answer.’ His tone is sharp.

‘I’m not a prisoner.’ My voice immediately matches his.

‘I didn’t say you were.’

‘What do you want?’

‘That’s a lovely way to greet your brother. I just wanted to talk.’

‘I’m in Mum’s bedroom.’

‘I see,’ he says. Like I’ve told him someone has died.

‘Dominic?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Do you think she was lonely here?’

‘How the hell should I know?’

‘Was losing Dad the ruination of her life?’

‘For fuck sake, Clodagh, that was forever ago.’

‘But it matters, it all matters. I learned that in rehab.’

I hear him sigh.

‘Dominic, can I ask you something?’

‘What’s that?’

I look around my mother’s bedroom, a kind of foreboding crawling over me, like a snake easing its way inside me. I spit it out before I think better of it: ‘Dominic. Why did she stop loving me?’

‘She did love you.’ He’s trying hard, I know that.

‘I wanted to drive her to the doctor that morning, the morning she got sick, but she shut me out.’ I’m sounding hysterical. ‘Ever since her death I’ve tried to think of the two of us having a proper conversation. Normal stuff, the kind most daughters and mothers have.’

‘Calm down, Clodagh. You both talked all the time.’

‘Talked about nonsense, you mean. Where we went on holidays, or what each of us wanted for Christmas. None of it was important. And then at the hospital—’

‘I thought we were putting that behind us.’

‘I can’t, Dominic. I tried to, but I can’t.’

‘Suit yourself.’ The anger is back in his voice.

‘Dominic, do you know what I’m just thinking?’

‘What?’

‘This is the first time since Dad died that I’ve been in her bedroom on my own.’

‘It can’t be. Before the funeral—’

‘You and Val collected her stuff. I was in Gaga Land, remember.’

‘Clodagh, no one blames you for that, not now.’

‘Yes, they do,’ and then I say it: ‘She always loved you more. Mum was different with you.’

‘I’m not listening to this rubbish.’

‘Why not, Dominic? Because it’s the truth? Is that it?’ I’m shouting at him.

‘Jesus Christ, Clodagh.’

I can’t hold back my anger. ‘Two peas in a pod, you and her together. I was always the outsider.’

‘One day soon,’ he’s roaring back at me, ‘you’re going to have to stop feeling sorry for yourself, Clodagh, and forget about all that shite. Did they not teach you that in rehab?’

‘It wasn’t a fucking school, Dominic.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t know, seeing as how I never had the luxury.’

My hand is shaking as I press the disconnect button on the phone. I turn to the photograph of my mother on the bedside locker. ‘Happy now?’ I say, with as much loathing as I can muster.

Kate took photographs of the surrounding area, beginning with the houses at either side of the canal, including the one from which the witness had made the vital 999 call. They were Victorian, most converted to offices. Others looked divided, like Kate’s building on Mervin Road, into separate apartments. By now there was plenty of activity along the terrace, but in the early hours of the morning, it would have been a different story.

Turning towards the canal, Kate saw the long grasses swaying in the water with the October breeze. She photographed the canal bank from different angles, as well as the bridges at either end of it, including the one with the reporters.

Because of Jenkins’s celebrity status, huge resources would be pumped into the investigation. Information would arrive like a tsunami, members of the public believing they had been close to the victim. Like the previous investigation Kate had worked on with O’Connor, when the age of the young victims had created such an outcry, the public’s attention would be a double-edged sword, feeding the investigation while stretching it to the maximum.

Although Keith Jenkins’s body had been removed, the large white tent in which the state pathologist had carried out his initial investigation was still
in situ
. Kate looked down at Hanley and his crew. Hanley had grown a beard since they’d last met. From her current vantage point on the bridge, like the reporters and television crew behind her, she watched the team in their white bodysuits working alongside the
various uniformed police officers and detectives, including O’Connor, stationed outside the cordoned-off area, a world within a world. It was almost as if those who were part of the crime scene were under some kind of microscope.

The seagulls that swooned and squawked overhead, seeking leftovers from the previous night, seemed to be waiting for their moment to pounce. Kate thought about what the area would have looked like the night before, after an international soccer match, with unhappy fans falling out of the bars and nightclubs nearby. The canal linked many of the inner suburbs of the city, so a few hours before the sighting by the young mother there could have been any number of people walking up and down it. The 999 call from Grace Power had come in after most of the crowd would have dispersed. Still, the killer had taken a chance in bringing his victim here. The thought was in the forefront of Kate’s mind as she watched O’Connor.

It had been nearly a year since she had worked with him, and it wasn’t a surprise that he hadn’t been in touch. Once an investigation was over, there was no reason for either party to make contact. Speaking to him earlier on the phone, she’d been surprised by her own reaction. Despite the nature of their conversation, she was pleased that they would work together again and had assumed that O’Connor would be too.

Damn Dominic. Not that I give a toss about his idiotic comments regarding rehab. It’s all the other stuff that riles me.

After Mum had become ill, I felt numb for a long time. Denial, they called it during therapy. We continued to play our shambles of a game, pretending everything was okay between us, as if we had a normal mother-and-daughter relationship. But all our talking was no more than surface banter, spreading out like candyfloss spun from nothing – and another reason to get that telephone number from Val.

During her last days, when I pressed her about Dad’s death, all she would say was ‘Not now, Clodagh, please not now.’ But it had been different with Dominic. Even at the end she had confided in him.

I clench my hands. They all think it was her death that drove me back to the bottle, but it wasn’t. It was her and Dominic’s closeness, especially in the weeks coming towards her death, and if Dominic lived for another two hundred years, he would never understand that. Sitting on her bed, my fingers loosen, my hands spreading out across the crisp white embroidered cover.

When I cross the landing and open the door of my old bedroom, the first thing I see is my doll’s house in the corner. I told Martin I wanted to take it before the house was cleared out. Like Dominic, Martin doesn’t understand my need for these things. I can’t remember the last time I opened it, but I know the tiny yellow flowers in the blue vase are still there, with the small china cups and plates. The furniture, the picture frames, the dolls, they’re still there too. Even Ben, the brown terrier with his bright red collar, will still be holding the black-and-white-spotted ball in his mouth.

I hear traffic speeding outside on the main road, dulling the sound of the tide breaking on the strand. Looking around my room, I’m relieved that none of the furniture has been removed. The pine wardrobe, the dressing table, my old bed, they are all as they should be. The bedcovers have been changed, of course, and the array of bits and pieces scattered across the top of the dressing table was cleared away a long time back.

I smile, thinking about the dressing table piled with notes from school, nail polish, hairspray, lipsticks, the small photos stuck into the silver clasps on the mirror. For the life of me, I can’t remember where the black-and-white photo strip of me and Orla has gone. We were sixteen, a right wild pair. But Orla had known when to stop.

She made contact before the funeral, telling me how sorry she was, and if I ever needed anything, even though she lived in Boston, she was only ever a phone call away. Perhaps in better circumstances our conversation would have felt less forced, but it was still kind of her to call. When you feel lonely, even the actions of someone from the past can relieve the isolation.

In the corner, I kneel down, touching the tiny white sash frames of my doll’s house windows, jumping this time when my mobile bleeps – a text from Martin:
Where the hell are you?
The whole world wants to know where I am today. I’d better answer him. If I don’t there’ll be no peace later. I text him in reply:
I’ll be back soon. I’m getting papers from Mum’s
. He won’t be happy, but I don’t care. I’m still angry after my conversation with Dominic. I’d thought about taking a drink earlier on, to say to hell with it, an alcoholic’s answer to everything. Drink when you’re happy, drink when you’re sad, when there’s a reason to celebrate, when there’s a reason to cry. But there’s Ruby. Because of her, until the day I die, I won’t forgive myself if I hit the bottle again, but that doesn’t mean I feel strong enough not to slip.

When Ruby was younger, she didn’t understand my drinking. I learned that in rehab too. Children develop trust issues, the alcohol messing with their parent’s emotions, ecstasy one moment, anger and
desolation the next. The child never knows what to expect, changing their behaviour to gain your attention, not realising that none of your mood swings are connected to them. The bottle, the alcohol and the beautiful blur call all the shots.

Now it’s different. Ruby knows what’s going on. Her anger is palpable. I don’t blame her. I’ve let her down. I’ve let everyone down, but her most of all, and I damn well know that feeling better than anyone.

Two hours after leaving the crime scene, Kate pinned the images couriered by O’Connor to the wall of her study. The simple act of pinning them up, bringing the victim, his life and death close to her, formed the intimacy that began her task of working out the kind of person who had committed the crime.

Knowing Charlie wouldn’t be back for another hour, Kate decided to go for the run she’d promised herself earlier. It would be a good way, she hoped, of digesting the images she’d seen.

Outside there were dark rainclouds, but once she heard the repetitive sound of her feet hitting the footpath, and her breath got into a settled rhythm, it wasn’t long before her mind returned to the images.

The first group of photographs were of the body prior to its retrieval from the canal, Keith Jenkins’s brown hair floating in the water like a mass of tangled seaweed. His arms and legs were stretched out in perfect alignment, his outer clothing ballooning with water and air. His shirt, covered with blood, had loosened, revealing the lower part of his upper torso. It looked a mess. The froth O’Connor had referred to was also visible, oozing from his mouth and nostrils. The short time the corpse had been in the water meant there hadn’t been any bloating, although the skin had the faded colour of death.

O’Connor had confirmed the victim’s wallet and other personal possessions were intact, yet although Jenkins had been married, Kate noted there was no wedding ring on his left hand. Perhaps he didn’t wear one, or he’d removed it prior to going out that evening. He had a reputation for being a bit of a ladies’ man. But as a well-known figure,
he would have gained little from hiding his marital status, unless the ring had been removed by someone else. If it had, there were very different implications.

Depending on what Morrison came up with on the stabbing, if this turned out to be a crime of passion, the ripples might reach close to Jenkins’s home life.

I’m not altogether sure why I’ve come here, back to where I spotted good old Stevie McDaid. Watching him in the alleyway brought back something sordid. Nonetheless, at least here I can be on my own and do some straight thinking. It hasn’t ended with Keith Jenkins. If I doubted it before, I don’t doubt it now. There’s satisfaction in knowing he’s gone. Like any other piece of lowlife, best forgotten. He didn’t go too easy, and not before he’d pushed that final nerve before going under. The thin strands of the spider’s web move further out. At times the links feel faint, almost transparent, but at the core, Keith Jenkins was the beginning of it all.

I could have taken Stevie out as well. Beaten the crap out of him for good measure. He was always one step closer to shithead than most other scumbags. I have enough anger in me to do it. But now the thought of killing feels more measured, and that’s important. Bet he would have laughed in my face, jerked around even if his head was near done in. His kind is made like that. Part of their survival mechanism. Brought up that way from the time their mothers and everyone else decided they were worth shit.

Maybe that’s why Stevie always wanted to smell of roses, pretending to be the furthest thing from scumbag that his small intelligence imagined he might be. Either way, makes no difference now. Like Jenkins, he wouldn’t be of the mind for changing. The only thing that would change Stevie McDaid is a bullet in the head. It would have to be a perfect shot. Miss the target by a millimetre and Stevie would laugh in your face, wearing the hole like some kind of bloody medal.

It made me sick watching him with that girl, pushing himself
inside her like she was some kind of dead thing he’d found discarded but worth dragging into an alleyway for a fuck. That was what he shouted in her ear as he came off inside her. He was already too far gone for me to do anything for her. A couple of minutes earlier, I might have pulled the lowlife off her. The bastard even used her skirt to wipe himself, standing back, smirking at her.

I got one decent look at her, sixteen at the most. I think she was crying. Out of habit, I flicked my lighter, lit a cigarette, not thinking. He looked my way, aware of an uninvited stranger. ‘Fix yourself. Come on, will ya?’ I heard him say. It gave the night an aftermath of something rotten. At least this time the girl was a stranger.