The Lost (32 page)

Topless, Aidan stood
in the window. His back was turned to her. ‘People need to know the truth. At least Da would have been proud. It’s not like I’ll get shot for what I write.’

‘You might not get shot, but you’ll get closed down!’

‘Come on, Maguire. Get out while you can. I’m staying.’ Just in his jeans, he sat back at the chair and swinging, placed a pencil between his teeth like a cigarette. ‘Hide round the corner and you might miss them.’

‘But you can’t stay here! You don’t know what they’ll do.’ Paula was stumbling to the door, shoving her underwear into her bag in a daze.

He shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

She cast one last look back at him, at the door. She could hear the men sweating up the stairs. ‘Aidan! Why did you do it? I’m going to be in so much trouble!’

He turned. ‘I’m sorry, Maguire. We’ll talk. Just not now, OK?’

Paula lunged out the door and hid round the small turn of the corridor that led to the toilet. Peering out, she saw three large men barging through the doors. Two of them had lists on clipboards. The third had a large crowbar. As they elbowed open the door into the
Gazette
office, she heard Aidan say in a camp English accent, ‘Ah, good fellows. I’ve been expecting you.’

Covering her ears as the sounds of smashing started, Paula crept down the stairs with her knickers in her bag and her head exploding in confusion.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

There weren’t many people
around in Ballyterrin at six in the morning. Nevertheless, Paula felt deeply embarrassed as she walk-of-shamed it back to the car and drove off home through the murky gloom, brightening to a thin cold dawn. PJ was of course up as she went in. She used to wonder did he have some kind of sixth sense for being there when she most didn’t want to get caught. Though she’d never really done anything she needed to hide at eighteen. Back when she still thought letting Aidan undo her bra was a mortal sin.

‘Morning, Dad.’

PJ lowered the
Irish News
and fixed her with his beetle-black eyebrows. ‘You were out late.’

‘Well, I had to get him settled.’ She started to take her coat off, then realised her shirt was done up wrong, and put it back on. She saw PJ notice this.

Her father cleared his throat. ‘What’s the story then?’

‘Oh, he’ll be all right. I got him before he was too far gone.’

‘Mm.’

‘How was Pat?’ She switched on the kettle, grateful as the hiss filled up the meaningful silence from her father.

‘She’ll do. Been through worse.’ PJ looked pointedly at his watch. ‘You can’t have got much sleep, Paula.’

Don’t blush don’t blush
. ‘I got a bit. Didn’t want to leave him alone.’

‘That was very good of you. At least you’ve no work today.’

‘I might go in
anyway. I’ll sleep an hour or so now.’ Paula took her tea and escaped upstairs to her narrow box-room. But it was all too familiar, too strange – lying in that same bed, looking up at the same crack in the ceiling, thinking once again about Aidan’s hands on her skin. Except this time, she hadn’t made him stop. All in all, Paula’s mind wouldn’t stop whirring, and after an hour, when the Saturday traffic was already starting to rush in the distance and the birds were beginning to sing, she accepted defeat and got up to get ready for work.

The first thing she saw on entering, early, was Guy at his desk. A sudden stab of guilt took her breath away. What was that for? It was nothing to do with him if she slept with Aidan. He’d made it very clear he saw her as nothing more than a liability.

She contemplated sneaking past – Guy had his head in his hands again – but decided that would look suspicious. And she’d nothing to hide, had she? She knocked on the glass door of his office.

‘Come in.’

‘You’re here early.’

He rubbed his hands over his face. ‘Paperwork. Maddy Goldberg’s been alibi-ed.’

‘She has? Who by?’ But Paula could guess.

‘One of Cathy’s teachers said Maddy met her at the school on Friday afternoon. They were going for coffee – they’re friends, apparently. Cathy would have been getting out of Crawford’s car then, and maybe into the mysterious silver one.’

‘If it’s who I think, they’re a bit more than friends, Guy, I—’

He sounded exhausted. ‘It’s no crime though, whatever they are. And the Goldberg girl knows the law. We can’t touch her until we get something more concrete.’

Paula digested this; another
lead gone. ‘So what do we . . .’ She saw what was on his desk. A copy of the
Ballyterrin Gazette
, fresh off the press. ‘How did you get that? It’s not out till Monday.’

‘I was sent it.’

‘Oh.’

‘You’d better sit down,’ said Guy.

‘I didn’t know about this,’ she started. ‘It was nothing to do with me.’

He frowned. ‘I wasn’t going to suggest it was. We can’t muzzle the press, although it’s not exactly good for the investigation. Have you seen it?’

‘Er . . . not really.’

‘I don’t know how he got hold of this. Apparently a “source” told him Cathy went to visit her father on the day she disappeared. O’Hara’s looking at a serious libel suit.’

‘That wouldn’t stop him.’

‘If it’s true, it throws our whole timeline out. She didn’t go straight home – she must have left school earlier, gone somewhere else before Crawford picked her up.’

‘To see Lazarus?’ It was bad, what Aidan had done, but at least this way Guy knew the truth.

‘I don’t know. O’Hara’s basically printed everything you were saying – all three girls went to the Mission, the two that are dead, and Majella. Why are we letting it into our schools and so on. All the links with the other church that you dug up, the God’s Shepherd lot. But that’s not the really damaging thing.’

‘No?’

‘He’s printed the names of the company directors who financed the Mission here in Ballyterrin.’

‘And?’ She had a feeling she already knew the answer to this.

Guys face was grim. ‘Eamonn Carr
is one of them. What’s that going to look like? The local paper says the dead girl’s father is linked with the group that might be behind her death? It’s going to destroy any fair trial we might get.’

‘Aidan’s . . .’ Paula tried to explain. ‘He knows all this. He doesn’t even care. Did you know Eamonn Carr also basically owns the
Gazette
now? Aidan’s got no money. The paper never made a penny for years.’

‘But he still did this?’

‘That’s Aidan.’

‘Hmm. I suppose you have to admire that kind of bloody-minded stupidity.’

That was a fair summation, she thought. Then she had a flash of remembering the night before, under the desk, and her stomach was knifed by desire and embarrassment. ‘So what happens now?’

‘I don’t know.’ He sat the paper aside. ‘That isn’t the real problem for us.’

‘No?’

‘No. This is.’ He pulled towards him a large packet of documents. ‘I received this last night from Eamonn Carr’s legal team.’

Paula stomach sank again, but not with desire this time.

‘It’s about you, I’m afraid. How you’ve – let me read it – harassed his children at home, targeted a friend of his who runs a beauty salon, carried out your own side-investigations . . . It goes on. He also says you can’t possibly be impartial in a case like this one.’

‘I see.’

‘Don’t you want to know why he says that?’

‘I can guess.’

Guy looked at her. ‘Paula. I checked through the files.’

‘Good for you.’ She folded her arms.

‘You gave a police statement in 1993.’

‘Yes, I
suppose I did.’

‘You didn’t think you needed to tell me? About any of it?’

‘What, that I spoke to the police seventeen years ago? Or that my mother’s been missing since then?’ She shrugged. ‘What was I meant to say? “Yeah, she’s gone, we don’t know where she is, she may be dead”? I don’t have any updates. If I did, I’d be sure to tell you.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s just I needed to know this, really.’

‘Everyone else knows.’ But then he wasn’t from around here.

‘I think there’s a lot everyone knows that I don’t.’ He paused. ‘Will you tell me what happened – just the facts? If you can.’

Oh God, she was so sick of it. She’d promised herself she would never talk about this again. She ticked it off on her fingers, the old old story. The only one she had to tell. ‘What do you want to know, Guy? It was 1993, as you’ve discovered.’

‘How old were you?’

‘Just thirteen. I came home from school, and unlike every day of my life up to then, my mother wasn’t there making me a cup of tea. So I waited. I didn’t think to ring the police, because I was thirteen. I had no idea she’d any kind of life except, you know, waiting for me and making me a cup of tea when I came in.’

‘Go on.’ His voice was low.

‘Well, I waited for two hours and she never came back. You know how when you’re young, you just sort of think it’ll be all right? Like there’s no way your parents could ever let you down, so you don’t even consider it? I thought if I sat there, she’d come in and we’d have a biscuit and—’ She shook her head. ‘Then Dad came in from work and said, “Where’s your ma?” and I said I didn’t know, she wasn’t here, and I saw his face. That’s when I knew – she wasn’t going to come walking in. So he called the police – well, he
was
the police – and they came, and
that’s when I gave the interview. That what you want to know?’

He was looking at her. ‘And?’

‘And nothing. They never found her, not a trace. When I came in, the door had been left open – which I should have realised was weird. It was open and sort of swinging in the breeze, so they thought someone must have taken her. The IRA, maybe. There was some talk that Mum . . . well, that she had something to do with the Army, helping them in some way. Informing, like. There used to be a barracks outside town. It was a load of rubbish, anyway. Or because of Dad being a Catholic RUC officer, it made her a legitimate target. You know.’

‘The IRA? Was she one of those Disappeared, did they think?’

‘Most of the Disappeared were taken in the seventies and eighties, and Mum was much later than that. But it had some of the hallmarks of it, yes. And if you remember, things were getting pretty bad again in the early nineties. Someone dead every day. Same year as the Warrington bomb attack.’

‘The file said you saw a man near the house?’

‘The day before, I came home from school and Mum was at the back door, talking to someone. I saw him walking past the kitchen window on his way out. A man in a sort of hat. I thought it was the milkman, but I should have realised he came in the mornings. That’s really all I know. That’s the story.’

‘So all this time, all these years, you’ve found out nothing?’

‘They found bodies a few times. We went. It wasn’t her.’ Running down the hospital corridor, time slow and sticky as if her feet were in treacle. Her dad, face in his hands.
It’s not her, Paula. It’s not her.
‘Can I go now?’

‘Paula—’

‘What? I’ve told you all I know.’ She was shaking. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Guy – sir. I don’t mean
to be rude. I just don’t talk about it. I mean, what’s the point?’

Guy was still staring. ‘I can’t believe they just stopped looking.’

‘Well, they had more things on their mind than some Ballyterrin housewife slipping out and not coming back. They kept interviewing Dad. Over and over. I don’t think they looked at anyone else, once they got it in their heads he’d something to do with it. Dug up our back garden looking for bones, all Mum’s roses . . . that was a bad day. And they used to make me look at the bodies, in case he lied. But it was never her.’

‘Christ. I’m so sorry.’

‘So? That’s what happened. It’s not like I can change it. Do you want me off the case?’

He said nothing for a long time. Then ‘I’ve been very hard on you.’ She looked away in exasperation. ‘It’s just, after what happened . . .’

‘The “indiscretion”, as you called it?’

He flushed. ‘That makes it sound dreadful. I should tell you – I was afraid, I suppose, that everyone would see the effect you’d had on me.’ He was speaking very quietly. She couldn’t look at him. ‘You know what I mean, Paula?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she muttered.

‘I can’t say any more. But please believe me – if I’ve been too harsh, it was just because I couldn’t treat you like I wanted to. You’ve been right all along, it seems. Even if your methods are a bit . . . off the wall.’

‘But?’

‘But, if you’re right, and it’s all to do with the Mission, or even the Carr family – although I wonder now what the difference is . . .’ It was exactly what Aidan had said. How annoying. ‘If that’s right, I can’t jeopardise the investigation.’

‘You want me off it.’

‘If you could just stay in
the background – maybe go through those older cases again. Take a bit of time away?’

Paula gave a brief frustrated scream. ‘Christ!’ He looked alarmed. ‘Oh, I’m fine, don’t worry. All this time I’ve been saying, Look at the Mission, look at Eamonn Carr, and all I hear is, Don’t upset people, Paula. He’s a pillar of the community, Paula. The suicides aren’t connected, Paula.’

‘We don’t know for sure that they are.’

She gave him a look. ‘See? And now you’re saying I was right, but I can’t work on it any more?’

Guy spoke coolly. ‘If you’d stayed within the rules, Eamonn wouldn’t have grounds to say any of this. You may notice I’m turning a blind eye to the allegations that you visited witnesses off your own bat. This beauty salon thing, for example.’

He had her there.

‘Please, Paula. I certainly don’t want to lose your expertise. If you could just—’

‘Behave myself.’

‘Yes.’ He looked embarrassed. ‘And if you could also forgive me for how I’ve been with you. There is a reason for it. And maybe after this, you and I can . . .’

She gave another smothered scream. ‘Sorry. It’s just – your timing couldn’t be any worse if you tried.’ She stood up. ‘I’m going to go before I chew my own arm off. What do you want me doing then, if anything?’

He looked sheepish. ‘Why don’t you go home for the rest of the day? Then maybe some of the older cases, you could look into them further.’