The Mystery of Mercy Close (29 page)

‘Okay. But, like the other ones, it’ll take three weeks before they have any effect.’

‘Oh God,’ I said. I actually moaned. ‘I don’t know if I can last three weeks.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I mean,’ I said, ‘that if you could translate the badness in my head into physical pain, you’d put a pillow over my face, out of compassion. I mean that if I was a dog, you’d shoot me.’

After a long pause he said, ‘I think you should consider going into someplace for a rest.’

‘Someplace? What do you mean?’

‘Hospital.’

‘For what?’ I didn’t really understand. I was thinking of the time I’d had my appendix out. ‘Do you mean a
psychiatric
hospital?’

‘Yes.’

‘But things aren’t that bad! We just need to find the right tablets! Just give me the bad tablets, the ones that will give me the seizures and schizophrenia and I’ll be grand.’

Reluctantly he wrote a prescription for the tricyclics with all the side effects, and although they did indeed give me a rash and a short-lived (possibly imaginary) case of tinnitus, they didn’t make me feel any better.

That was when I knew I didn’t have whatever was needed to keep on going.

Jay Parker and I spent the drive back from Leitrim in total silence. Dispirited doesn’t even start to describe it.

I’d been so sure, so utterly
certain
that Wayne was as good as found. In fairness, I tended to suffer from monomaniacal thinking – once I got hold of an idea I was like a dog with a bone, I wouldn’t let go of it – and it was hard to process just how wrong I’d been.

Not only had I not found Wayne but I’d also broken into the home of a world icon. Even though Docker didn’t live there, even though he’d never even visited, things could get heavy if he decided to go after me – barring orders and public shaming and rage from his many devoted fans.

I tried to reassure myself that he’d never know it was me. But people like him, powerful people, can find out anything they want. And then there was the camera above the gate. It probably had a great little film of me.

Oh Christ,
the gates
. Jay and I had had to depart leaving them wide open because my magic little device, which had so obligingly unlocked them, defiantly refused to close them. Worse still, we’d left Docker’s front door in smithereens. Maybe we should have tried patching the massive hole with cardboard and sticky black tape – if we’d managed by some unlikely chance to lay our hands on cardboard and sticky black tape – but we were so flattened by disappointment that it didn’t even occur to us. Now, halfway back to Dublin, I realized that if the glass wasn’t replaced, the local wildlife would take up residence and overrun the place. The door needed to be fixed, but I couldn’t do it myself. Even if I’d been an expert in glass, I couldn’t go back to Leitrim; it was too spooky.

I needed to tell someone about the door. But who? I’d no number for Docker, no way of getting in contact with him. Maybe I should try to organize a Leitrim glazier to fix it, while hoping to stay anonymous?

When we approached the edges of Dublin, the sun was beginning to light the sky. Docker’s house had been buried so deep in the tiny little boreens in Leitrim that it was now after three in the morning.

I spoke for the first time in hours. ‘Jay, where do you want to be dropped?’

He was leaning his head against his window and didn’t seem to hear me.

‘Jay?’

He turned to me. He looked as depressed as I felt. He was always so upbeat and positive that for a split second I felt sorry for him.

‘Were you asleep?’ I asked.

‘No. Just wondering where the hell he is … I really thought he was down there.’

‘Me too.’ The most terrible weariness washed over me as I realized I’d have to go right back to the drawing board. I’d have to interview the neighbours I hadn’t yet spoken to. I’d have to drive to black-pudding central in Clonakilty to talk to Wayne’s family.

But I’d do it. I’d keep rubbing away at the surface until something appeared. And there were still the reports from the phone and credit card people to come, so it wasn’t all bad. ‘We’ll find him,’ I said.

‘You think?’

‘Sure.’ Well, maybe.

That seemed to cheer him up. ‘You’re great,’ he said. ‘You’re just great. We always made a good team, yourself and myself, Helen.’

‘Ah … no, we didn’t.’ He’d just used up the tiny amount
of goodwill I’d briefly and mistakenly entertained towards him. ‘Where do you want to be dropped?’

‘Still living in the same place.’

Suddenly I was very angry with him, for crashing back into my life, for acting like we could resurrect our past intimacy, for assuming that I’d remember everything about him.

With icy politeness, I said, ‘You’ll have to remind me of your address.’

‘What?’ He was startled. ‘You know where I live.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

‘But you’ve been there a million times.’

‘Any stuff pertaining to you was packed into boxes and stacked away on high shelves in some dusty, inaccessible part of my brain a long time ago.’

That stymied him. I could feel him struggling to speak, but he was caught up in so many emotions that no words would come out. All of a sudden he went sort of dead, like a plug had been pulled. ‘Yeah, grand,’ he said flatly. ‘I’ll give you directions.’

By the time we reached his flat, it was four o’clock and the sun was already up. Bloody attention seeker. It was like a child who wants to be in
Glee
and can’t stop singing and dancing. ‘Look at me! Look at me!’

Jay got out of the car and gave me a grimace of a smile. ‘Say hi to Mammy Walsh when you get home.’

‘Mammy Walsh? I’m going to my boyfriend’s. Remember him? Six foot two? Astonishingly handsome? Well-paid job? Fundamentally decent human being?’

‘Great, knock yourself out. But don’t forget you’re still looking for Wayne.’

‘We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’

‘It’s already tomorrow.’

‘Whatever.’ I hit the accelerator and my car took off with a pleasingly disrespectful-sounding little squeal.

It was as bright as midday. The sun was a merciless white ball in a white sky but the streets were empty. It was as if a bomb had gone off, one that had killed all the people but left the buildings standing. It felt like everyone was dead and I was the only one left alive.

When I saw two young girls lurching home in high heels, I half expected them to chase after my car, snarling and cannibal-like. But they didn’t even look at me; they were concentrating too hard on staying upright.

By some bizarre stroke of good fortune I got a parking space only two streets away from Artie’s.

I let myself into the house and brushed my teeth – I always carried my toothbrush with me, even when I hadn’t just been made homeless. Because of the unpredictable nature of my job, I always carried
everything
with me: my make-up, my phone charger, even my passport. I was like a snail, I carried my entire life on my back.

I tiptoed into Artie’s darkened bedroom – oh, the delightful wonder of black-out blinds – and undressed in silence. In the darkness I could feel the heat from his sleeping body and smell his beautiful skin. Then I slid quietly into bed, between his lovely sheets, and let myself start to loosen and relax.

Suddenly his arm shot out and he hauled me across the bed and up against him.

‘I thought you were asleep,’ I whispered.

‘I am.’

But he wasn’t.

Artie liked his early morning quickies.

He started by biting my shoulder, little nips, almost hard enough to hurt in a way that sent shivers through me. Then he moved down past my collar bone and began circling one nipple, then the other. We were in total darkness as, with bites and kisses, he moved the length of my body, right down to my feet, my toes, then up again.

There was no conversation, it was just pure sensation,
until I thought I was going to explode, then he was moving into me, fast and furious. He waited till I’d come twice – I was relieved that at least that part of me was still in working order – then I felt him arching and shuddering and trying to bite back his broken cry of pleasure in case the kids heard. Within moments his breathing was even and steady again. He’d gone back to sleep.

Lucky bastard. I couldn’t sleep. I was exhausted but my head wouldn’t stop. I forced myself to breathe slowly and deeply and told myself sternly: It’s sleep time now; I’m in bed with Artie and it’s all okay.

It wasn’t working. I felt terribly uneasy. My sleeping tablets were just a few short feet away, in my bag, and I wanted to take one and obliterate myself for a while.

But not here. A sleeping tablet was too precious to waste. I wanted to be someplace where I could sleep without interruption and Artie was usually awake at six o’clock.

I realized I wanted to go home, and as soon as the thought crossed my mind relief burst inside me like a bomb – then I remembered, with a fresh lurch of loss, that home wasn’t home any more. The idea of going to the spare bedroom in my parents’ house didn’t have the same allure.

But the panic was rising. I couldn’t keep lying here with Artie’s arm round me.

I slid from the bed and dressed in the dark with an admirable minimum of clothes’ rustling – even in my bad state I could still take pride in my skill set – then left the bedroom, quietly closing the door behind me.

Soundlessly I floated down the glassy stairs. I am a ghost, I thought. I am a spectre. I am the living dead –

‘Helen! You’re here!’

‘Jesus Christ!’ I thought my heart was going to burst out of my chest with fright.

It was Bella, standing in the hallway, wearing pink pyjamas and carrying a glass of some pink drink.

‘Are you here for the barbecue?’ she asked.

‘What barbecue? It’s five in the morning.’

‘We’re having a barbecue. Later. This evening, at seven. We’re having home-made ginger ale.’

‘Lovely, but I have to go –’

‘Would you like a glass of wine?’

Actually I would have loved a glass of wine, but more than anything I had to get away.

‘Can I do your hair?’

‘I’ve got to go, sweetie –’

‘Why didn’t you come last night? We watched a great movie. About Edith Piaf. Oh, it was so sad, Helen. She had a hump on her back and had to become a drug addict because of it.’

‘Is that right?’ I wasn’t sure Bella had her facts entirely straight, but she was only nine so I let her persist in her delusions.

‘When she was a little girl, her mother ran away and she had to live in – what’s the word for the house where prostitutes live?’

‘A brothel.’

‘Yes, a brothel. But she didn’t become a prostitute, even though she could have. She loved only one man and the day after their wedding he was killed in a plane crash.’

Really? The very next day? If that was true, I thought, it was remarkably unfortunate.

‘She was a tragic figure, Helen.’

‘A tragic figure indeed.’ Whose words were those? They sounded like Vonnie’s. Had she watched the movie with them?

‘That’s what Mum said about her.’

Well, I had my answer. ‘I have to go now, Bella.’

‘Oh, do you? That’s really sad.’ She looked very downcast. ‘I have a quiz I want to do on you. I made it up myself, especially with you in mind, all about your favourite colours and your favourite things. But see you later, yes? Home-made ginger ale!’

Home-made ginger ale indeed. Who would have thought I’d have ended up dating a man who indulged in such practices? Or who had kids who did, at least? So odd, the whole romance thing, the way the most unlikely people got together.

Like, take Bronagh and Blake – you’d
never
have put them together. When they hooked up about four years ago, I was quite shocked and not just because I’d sort of thought it would always be just me and her. It was because Blake was a rugby-loving, boomy-voiced, money-mad Alpha, the type who automatically married slinky, long-limbed blondies, even if they’d been declared medically brain dead. You wouldn’t in a million years have thought that Bronagh would be his type.

And I would have bet the farm that he wouldn’t be Bronagh’s type either, but there they were, suddenly mad about each other.

At the time Blake was an estate agent but he was quick to reassure everyone that that was only temporary. Blake was a man with a plan: he was going to become a property developer, he was going to be wildly successful, he would buy cars with throaty roars and a mansion in Kildare and another mansion in Holland Park and a part-share in a private jet.

When I tried to mock him by saying, ‘Only a
part
-share, Blake? Why not the whole plane?’ he quickly cut me down by saying, ‘And pay for upkeep, airport fees and hangar costs? Joking me, Helen? The smart man goes for the part-share: all the convenience, none of the fixed costs.’

So, you know, I wasn’t exactly
wild
about him, but I had to admire his taste: he totally got Bronagh. He let her be as mad
as she was. Bronagh would never be a trophy wife – to put it mildly. Bronagh, even if she lived to be a thousand, would never throw perfect dinner parties. But still Blake included her as a pivotal part of all of his client-wooing outings.

There was one night when Blake organized tickets to a play at the Abbey for some of his glamorous potential clients and I can’t remember why but I was invited along too. It started off nice and civilized – pink champagne in the bar and handshakes and lots of ‘Pleased to meet you’s. But once we’d taken our seats and the lights dropped it all went to hell. Within moments Bronagh had started insulting the crap dialogue. I was expecting Blake to nudge her and hiss, ‘Shush! Not in front of the glamorous potential clients.’ But he didn’t utter a word.

At one particularly clunky line, Bronagh said really, really loudly, ‘OH, FOR GOD’S SAKE!’ And when I looked at Blake, he was shaking with laughter.

The minute the interval came – and I’m sure it couldn’t have come soon enough for the poor thesps up on the stage – Bronagh directed us to the bar, where she drew us all together in a cluster and said, ‘I’m organizing a breakout. Let’s abandon this pile of shite and have a drink in every pub between here and Rathmines. Who’s in?’ And instead of the glamorous potential clients drawing back aghast, they started yelping and howling and pawing the ground like a pack of wolves under a full moon, and off we went on the mother of all pub crawls. Shoes were lost; an organ-donor card was mislaid and subsequently turned up in the Philippines; three members of the party awoke the following morning in Tullamore, with no idea of how they’d got there; a man called Louis gave away his car (a BMW) to a homeless person and had to traipse around town the next day, looking for the man, in order to get it back; a girl called Lorraine came to, spread-eagled on her living-room floor and wearing a brand-new Prada coat, still bearing its Brown Thomas
price tag – 1750 – and the only possible explanation was that she’d broken into Brown Thomas in the dead of night and stolen it.