Can Anybody Help Me? (19 page)

Her face softened into a smile. ‘She was great crack, Miriam was. A really lovely girl, back then. Do you have any idea who did this?'

Claire looked directly at her.

‘We're working as hard as we can. It was an awful thing to happen to her. And any information you can give us is of course vital. You said … you said Miriam was a lovely girl back then. Did something change?'

‘Well.' Deirdre raked her hair behind her ears and then rubbed her eyes fiercely. Claire could see an internal battle raging. It was clear that talking to the cop was the last thing she wanted to do. But something in her was telling her it was the right thing to do as well. After a moment she sighed, placed her hands on the table and began to speak.

‘I liked her the first minute I met her. And I can actually
remember the minute too; I was standing by the notice board outside the student centre on our first day in college. I was only in Dublin a day and I hadn't a clue. I was staring at all these notices about societies and stuff and it all seemed so big and … oh, I don't know … impossible. I hadn't a notion. I just wanted to kinda run away and hide; do you know what I mean?'

Claire hadn't been to university, but she had a BA in running away with a postgrad diploma in hiding. She nodded encouragement, and Deirdre continued in a low, but increasingly confident, voice.

‘She was gorgeous. I mean, I can actually remember what she was wearing. She wasn't stick-thin or anything, but she was tall and so striking. She had on this kind of orange smock top over a pair of flared jeans, and these amazing chunky black shoes. I'd never seen anything like those shoes. I'd gone into Sligo with my mum shopping for clothes for college and I'd bought these boots, you know the type of things I thought a student would buy, all laced up, brown with heels. And I felt like such a bumpkin beside Miriam! So I was just staring at her shoes and wondering how the hell I was going to survive three years in that place, when she came over and said, this place is feckin' huge? I am so lost. How are we ever going to get through the next three years? And it was just so mad that she was thinking the same as me that, well, we started chatting. And that was it really. I don't think we stopped talking for the next two years.'

Deirdre's eyes filled with tears and this time Claire didn't resist the urge to pat her hand. She remained silent, however, knowing from experience that that was the best way to keep
the story flowing. And flow it did. Rarely pausing for breath, Deirdre Richmond painted a picture of a female friendship of the type Claire didn't think existed outside of magazines. The two girls had been inseparable. Miriam would stay in Deirdre's flat after college nights out, and Miriam would visit Sligo on weekends. On the odd occasion they'd head back to Ballyawlann too, for Sunday lunch or to fill Miriam's mother in on edited highlights of college life.

‘I liked her house, I got on well with her mum. Sometimes I think we got on better than they did themselves, you know the way?'

Claire nodded.

‘I do. Can you tell me a little about the other friends she had? The night she disappeared, she told her mother she was meeting some school friends. Do you know anything about that?'

Deirdre shook her head, slowly.

‘No, not a notion. It was weird actually. I never met anyone she was in school with. I mean, I still know a few of the girls at home from secondary school, you know yourself, you'd have pints with them at Christmas or whatever. But not Miriam. She didn't keep in touch with any of them, as far as I know. It was like she started again in college, you know? Clean slate. So, no, I wouldn't know any of them.'

‘Okay.' Claire nodded. Two uniforms had already done door-to-door inquiries around Miriam's family home, and had met several young women who'd been to school with her, none of whom had any knowledge of a reunion. In fact, most of them had said the last time they'd seen Miriam had been on the morning of their final Leaving Cert. exam. The ‘school
reunion' she'd mentioned to her mother seemed to have been an excuse, made up to hide some other event. What that was, though, Claire didn't have a notion. She scribbled in her notebook before continuing.

‘And what can you tell me about Paul? What was he like, back then?'

Deirdre put her now empty mug down on the table.

‘Is this, like an official interview or something?'

Claire smiled at her.

‘No, just a chat. I mean, if I think we need a formal statement later, I'll get one from you and you can contact a lawyer, if you like. But for the moment all I need is a picture of Miriam, what sort of person she was. I was talking to her mum, but you know parents. They don't know everything that goes on, even if they like to think so.'

‘No.' Deirdre paused, and her blue eyes filled up suddenly with tears.

‘It's okay, you know. Whatever you say. You loved Miriam, I can see that from the way you speak about her. We really need to catch this guy, Deirdre. And any information you can give me could help us to do that.'

‘Paul was an awful bollix.'

The expletive sounded so wrong coming from the demure appearance that Claire almost checked the recording to see if she had heard correctly. Seeing her reaction, Deirdre's face split open in a grin.

‘God forgive me. But he was!'

Claire sipped her tea, giving what she hoped was an encouraging nod while straining to catch sight of the time on her phone. Deirdre had less than fifteen minutes before she had
to leave. Praying it would be enough to tell the full story, she gave her an encouraging nod.

‘He was cool, you know the type. Kinda posh. Wore a suit jacket and an open-neck shirt every day. Talked about Nietzsche. He had these brown shoes, I think you call them brogues? I thought they were ridiculous-looking.'

Claire hid a smile. Deirdre had retained a remarkable amount of information about someone she professed to dislike and she couldn't help but wonder if there had been more than one undergraduate interested in the bollix with the posh shoes. Catching the expression on her face, Deirdre blushed and then smiled.

‘Oh I know what you're thinking. That I fancied him too? Well maybe I did, a little, in the beginning. It was just … we weren't supposed to hang around with that type, you know? There were little gangs of them all over the university, the type of people who knew each other from home, who all went to the same school and then went on to do the same subjects in college. They're probably bringing their kids to the same baby yoga classes now. You know the type. That guy off the TV, Eamonn Teevan. He was one of them. He was doing a postgrad; he was a few years older than them but he hung around with Paul and all the DramaSoc guys. He was going out with this blonde girl, I can't remember her name. She moved to London, there was talk of her going to be an actress but I've never seen her in anything. But that's the type of crowd they were. Glamorous. And loud. Always in the bar.'

That was him. Claire thought back to the photo in the Twohys' sitting room. Eamonn Teevan. She watched
Teevan Tonight
most nights when she'd been working late and needed
to unwind before falling into bed. Matt couldn't stand the show, found the arguments contrived. But she enjoyed it, and relished the way the presenter punctured the egos of establishment figures who were more used to veneration.

Deirdre was still speaking.

‘We just weren't like that, me and Miriam. Well, she had the cool clothes, but she wasn't like them. Not really. We didn't really do the whole college bar thing. We went to the socials alright, we had friends. But we didn't go into town or clubbing or anything. We kinda kept ourselves to ourselves. Until Paul showed up. And then Miriam started hanging around with him and his friends, going clubbing with them. Skipping classes.'

Pushing Eamonn Teevan to the side of her mind for the moment, Claire urged the young woman on.

‘She didn't ask you to come along?'

‘Ah, she did in the beginning.'

Claire noticed how the younger woman's northern accent became more pronounced when she was annoyed.

‘She was always asking in the beginning. And then one day I was coming around the corner in the arts block and I heard Paul say, is your little friend going to tag along today? Those were the exact words. Little friend. So I just turned around and walked away. Tried to avoid him after that if I could. Ended up avoiding both of them really.'

‘Did you ever tell Miriam what you heard?'

The blue eyes filled with tears once again and the grin had disappeared.

‘No. I never told her. I started going out with William a few months later and, well, we just lost touch really. She rang me a few times but … I just felt she didn't want me around, you
know?' A large tear dripped onto the table. ‘I couldn't sleep last night, thinking about her. Like, did she know how much she meant to me? I should have made more of an effort. I met her mum this morning, she said she'd been talking about me and wished we'd kept in touch. And there were no other girls at the funeral, did you notice? None of the college crowd was there. Paul wasn't there. And now it's too late.'

The tears were flowing freely now, mixing with spilled coffee and sugar on the brown laminate table.

‘I thought she didn't need me anymore. And then this morning … There was no one there.'

Claire nodded, frowning. She read confusion in the other woman's face, and understood it. The picture she had painted was of a popular girl, surrounded with friends in college. One of the ‘in' crowd, even if only through her boyfriend. But the morning's congregation had been mostly made up of mourners from her parent's generation, their relatives and friends. The only people under forty had been three colleagues from her workplace and Deirdre herself. She certainly hadn't spotted Eamonn Teevan or anyone who had looked like they had been a big name around campus in UCD. It didn't make sense, and she looked at the other woman.

‘You said you lost touch in your final year. But that photo – on the Twohys' wall. You look fairly friendly in that?'

Deirdre blew her nose noisily on a napkin and nodded.

‘That was kinda funny, how that happened. The night before graduation, I'd gone to bed early, but about half-twelve, my doorbell rang and it was Miriam. She looked awful. Her makeup had run and there was a smell of drink off her. It was raining too and I just kinda grabbed her by the hand and
brought her into my flat. She was crying and saying something terrible had happened and that she couldn't talk about it. I didn't know what to do, really. I made tea. Sure, what else can you do? And she wouldn't say anything. Just drank the tea and said she was a nasty person and she deserved whatever was coming to her. I gave her a dry jumper. In the end, we just sat there and watched TV for a while. And as she sobered up, she got into better form. You know, we were laughing at stuff on telly and then we started talking about college and the stuff we'd done. Reminiscing. We ended up having a lovely night, we yapped for hours, about small stuff, nothing serious. It was nearly two o'clock before she went home. When we met at the graduation the next day, she was all over me, kept hugging me and telling me what a great friend I was and how I'd done her a huge favour the night before. Paul and all his mates were there, but she kept coming over to me and talking to me and telling me how she'd been an eejit and we'd have to stay in touch, that we'd start again. That's when William took a picture of us, and she handed him her camera and said she wanted one as well. All her friends were milling around in the background, but she had this real serious face on her as if she wanted a decent snap, you know? Something to remember.'

Deirdre's voice trailed off. Claire took a sneaky look at her phone. Jesus, they had about three minutes before she'd have to leave.

‘But ye still didn't stay in touch?'

‘No.' Deirdre's voice was flat, the warmth of the memories evaporating along with the steam from the vast belching coffee machine. ‘We said we'd meet up at the graduation ball that
evening. She said she'd keep me a place at her table, that there was a whole gang of them going, but she wanted William and me right beside her. I was delighted. I thought she'd changed, you know? That she'd seen through that gang of eejits and wanted to be friends again. More fool me. They never turned up at all. We were left sitting on our own at this huge table, and I was telling anyone who asked that I was keeping it for my friend Miriam. But they never showed. Afterwards, I heard they'd skipped the ball and had gone to some club in town. It wasn't glamorous enough for them, probably. They were too good for the rest of us in our rented tuxes and borrowed ballgowns. We weren't cool enough for them. And that was it. I only saw her a few times after that.'

She paused, then checked her watch and began to gather her belongings.

‘I'm sorry. It was a good while ago now. It probably wasn't much use to you really?'

Claire shook her head. In truth, she didn't know how much of the information would be useful. She had been here before, at the early stage of an investigation. Taken pages of notes and hours of interviews. It was impossible to tell what was useful and what was just another page in the story of a life. An ordinary life. And an extraordinary death. But this was how she liked to do things. Take in all the information and digest it afterwards. Usually someone would have given her the clues she needed. And usually they didn't realise what they'd said. It was obvious that Miriam Twohy's university life had been eventful, and she had a feeling that understanding the woman she had been then, and how she'd changed into a suburban mother with what could almost be described as a boring life,
would help her understand why she died. But it was just a feeling, nothing more.

She stood up and watched as Deirdre belted her coat around her.

‘You've been a great help. I'm sure Miriam's mother would appreciate it.'