Lying in Wait (5 page)

The new flower bed in the back garden initially unsettled me. Naturally it brought up memories of my sister. But I find you can get used to anything eventually.

Shortly before Christmas, Andrew and I went out to dinner together. I very rarely went on nights out, and they had been even less affordable since Paddy Carey, but I thought he needed a little treat. We had been through so much. Besides, I wanted to talk to him in a public place where he would not be able to overreact. I made sure the maître d’ found us a corner table where we could not be overheard.

I waited until the main course before I broached the subject.

‘You love Laurence and me, don’t you, darling?’

‘What … yes … why are you asking me that? Of course I do.’

‘It’s just that … if anything should happen … if anything were to be discovered –’

‘Christ, Lydia.’ He dropped his cutlery.

‘I mean, it’s all fine, I’m sure we’re safe now. The fuss has died down. Nobody is looking for her any more, but just
if …
’

‘What?’

‘Well, I hope that you would think of Laurence.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘If they caught you,
if
, for some reason, they found evidence and could arrest you, and there was no way out of it, well, you could say you did it on your own.’

He looked at me, open-mouthed, and I was glad I had chosen this quiet restaurant, because I knew that if we had been at home he would have shouted and thrown things around. I have always known how to manage my husband’s temper.

‘You see, darling, if Laurence lost both of us, in such awful circumstances, his life would be ruined. But if they got you, you could say that it was just a transaction gone wrong. A lovers’ tiff. You could tell them that she was trying to blackmail you, and that would be true! But I could say I didn’t know anything about it, and Laurence and I could go on afterwards and rebuild our lives. Isn’t that what you would want for us, darling?’

His lower jaw quivered, and when he eventually spoke he sounded, ironically, as if he were being strangled.

‘I was a fool to go along with your crazy plan. I did it because I loved you. I will do whatever you want. You get your own way, yet again. You always do. But don’t pretend you are doing this for Laurence.’

Andrew never understood the strength of a mother’s love.

I
hated the way they said ‘disappeared’, as if Annie Doyle had vanished into thin air when clearly something had happened to her, something bad. The idea of my father being involved in a woman’s ‘disappearance’ would have been absolutely preposterous before that day. He was a respectable guy and, reading between the lines of the
Sunday World
, she had been a junkie and a prostitute. He had never even had an affair – not that I was aware of, anyway. But he knew something about it. I was sure of that.

First, he lied to the guard about having been home that night, and then he tried to tell me that he’d been in bed when I knew he was out, because his car wasn’t there when I got home. Mum went to bed early with one of her migraines and he must have sneaked out afterwards. That was suspicious enough, but when I read about the silver-plated identity bracelet in the newspaper, I was really alarmed. The report detailed things that Annie Doyle had been wearing when she disappeared.

Two days before that, my mother had asked me to replace the hoover bag. She hated dirty work and it was always my father or I that did this chore. When I had removed the bag, something shiny was poking a tiny hole through it. I pulled it and a filthy, dust-covered string came out. When I blew off the dust, I could see a thin metallic chain attached to a narrow bar. The bar was inscribed with the name ‘Marnie’. The clasp was stained a deep red. There were no links at the other end of the bar – half of a bracelet, I guessed. I casually
wondered who Marnie was, and put it in a kitchen drawer, assuming it belonged to my mother. I thought it might have been hoovered up by mistake, but I forgot to mention it to her.

Now, having read the latest on Annie Doyle, I understood its significance and realized that Mum would never have worn such a bracelet. Mum wore only gold antique jewellery. A silver-plated bracelet would have been too modern and cheap for her. When I got Dad on his own in the kitchen, I showed him the bracelet that I’d found.

‘I found this in the hoover. It’s not Mum’s, is it?’

‘Give it to me.’ It was an order. ‘It’s just some rubbish.’

He threw it into the bin and promptly left the room without any explanation. I fished it out of the potato peelings and the pieces of fat cut from the previous night’s meat. When I had rinsed it under the tap, I wrapped it in tissue and put it in my pocket. I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but I knew it was evidence of something. I dreaded to think what, but it seemed important that I should hang on to it.

And then, a few days later, I was coming home from school when I noticed a squad car pull up outside our gate. I almost started to hyperventilate. Were they here to arrest Dad or was it just one of their routine visits? A heavyset guy got out just as I turned into the driveway. I recognized him from the television news. It was the man in charge of the missing person investigation. Another man sat in the back seat and a uniformed guard was the driver.

‘How’r’ye, son. I’m Detective Sergeant Declan O’Toole, and that there’ – he nodded towards the back seat – ‘is Detective James Mooney. Do you live in there?’ He pointed towards our house.

‘Yeah.’

Detective Mooney got out of the car and stood behind O’Toole. ‘And what’s your name?’

‘Laurence Fitzsimons.’

‘And is your father home?’

‘I don’t think so. He doesn’t normally get home until after six.’

Detective Mooney nodded and walked back towards the car, but O’Toole told him to hold on. He had a sly smirk on his face. I didn’t like him.

‘So you’re the son of Judge Fitzsimons, are you?’

‘Yeah.’ I wanted to run away up the driveway, but the guard put his hand on my shoulder to keep me there.

‘Well, aren’t you a fine big lad.’ He was trying to be my friend. I said nothing. ‘Tell me something, Laurence, do you remember the weekend of the 14th of November, two weeks ago now.’

‘Yeah, why?’

‘Were you home that weekend yourself?’

I wondered if I should ask to have a lawyer present, but the detective was keeping it all very casual. He wasn’t writing anything down. But I was terrified.

‘I was in my girlfriend’s house that Friday night. You can check with her.’

‘Ah here, no need to be defensive, sonny. I’m not accusing you of anything at all, it’s just a routine thing I’m doing here, y’know?’ He was much more confident than Mooney, who I had heard questioning my dad. He was … jolly.

‘Why are you asking me about that weekend?’

He ignored my question. ‘And tell me now, was it a late night like, that Friday? What time did you get home to your own bed? Or did you?’ He nudged and winked at me as if we were a comic double act.

‘I had a midnight curfew. But I was home just after eleven.’

‘A curfew, eh? And were your mam and dad waiting up for you to get a full report?’ He winked again.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘You’re sure now? Both of them?’

‘Yes.’ I kept my voice as still as possible, though I could not control the flush in my cheeks. The lie came so easily, it surprised even me.

‘And did your dad go out again that weekend at all?’

‘No. We all stayed in.’

‘Don’t you have a great memory?’

‘I remember it because I sprained my ankle and Mum and Dad were home the whole time, fetching me stuff.’

‘Grand, that’s all I needed to know, sonny. I’m just crossing people off a list. It’s a dirty job, but sure, someone has to do it, ha?’ He winked again and went to get into his car.

‘Are you not going up to the house?’ I said, nodding towards Avalon.

‘No need, no need at all.’

Detective Mooney, who had stood silently all this time, whispered urgently into O’Toole’s ear. O’Toole waved him away, annoyed, but said, ‘Oh, one more thing, does your dad ever wear a hat? A trilby-type hat?’ He pulled a photograph of a hat out of his pocket. ‘This shape,’ he said, pointing at the photo. I heaved a huge sigh of relief.

‘No. Never. He doesn’t have a hat.’ O’Toole looked at Mooney with smug satisfaction on his face.

‘Good, good, that’s it then, I’ll be on my way.’

‘But why are you asking about that weekend, and my dad and a hat?’

He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Ongoing investigation, but you’ve nothing to worry about now, off you go!’ He tooted the horn and drove off.

They were looking for a different man, a man who wore a
hat. I needn’t have lied at all. Dad was guilty about something, though – maybe he had gone out that night for another reason. I was almost relieved to think that he might be having an affair, and the bracelet belonged to his fancy woman, Marnie. None of the reports had mentioned the name on the bracelet, and one would assume that it would be the woman’s own name, Annie. So Marnie must be Dad’s floozie. That was better than … whatever had happened to a missing prostitute. The knot in my stomach loosened.

Mum was cutting fabric on the kitchen table when I came in.

‘Mum,’ I said jovially when I got in the front door, ‘Dad’s off the hook. They’re looking for a fella in a hat!’

She didn’t look up. ‘What
are
you talking about, darling?’

‘There were two detectives outside just now, and one of them was asking me about that night, the night he questioned Dad about, but they’re looking for a guy in a hat.’

She smiled sweetly. ‘Good heavens, a guard asking you questions. What did you tell him?’

‘I told him Dad and you were here when I got home from my night out and that Dad didn’t even own a hat.’

She laughed. ‘So ridiculous, questioning a schoolboy.’

‘I hope they catch him.’

‘Who?’

‘The fella in the hat!’ I foraged in the fridge for some cheese and cut two slices of thick bread from the loaf.

‘Leave room for your dinner,’ said Mum. As if.

I was relieved that I no longer had to think about this girl. After the newspapers had been thrown out, I had retrieved them from the bin and cut out the articles about the missing woman. Unusually, Dad had recently been buying all of the newspapers, including the ones he had claimed to despise. We were not a house that would ordinarily take the
Sunday World.
At first, there was just information about where she had last been seen, a description of what she may have been wearing, but the later reports suggested that she was leading a sordid life. I had been poring over them nightly, looking at her snaggle-toothed grin, her misshapen mouth, desperate to rule out my father’s involvement. I had raided the desk in his study, looking for evidence of an affair he was having, but really looking for some link between him and Annie Doyle. I don’t know what I expected to find – a photograph? A legal case file that named her? It was ridiculous and I knew it. Prostitutes did not give receipts or hand out business cards.

I had had nightmares in which I was having sex with Annie in Helen’s distorted bedroom, and others in which I was stabbing her viciously with my father’s silver letter-opener and then I’d see my mother’s face, and I’d wake up, drenched in sweat and guilt-ridden. Now I was free of all that.

Until two days later, when I noticed a gap on the shelf where my grandfather’s old trilby hat had been for as long as I could remember. I asked Mum where it had gone. ‘Oh, I think your father finally threw it out,’ she said absent-mindedly, and all the fear and anxiety swept back up into my heart. I nervously asked Dad if he had thrown out the hat.

‘Why do you want to know?’ was his first question, before he claimed that he didn’t know what had happened to it, his voice quivering as he spoke.

I knew. I knew for sure he was lying.

I didn’t do anything with this knowledge. I was scared of what it meant. I had lied to the guard now, so I could go to jail too. What had he done with the woman? I know we were broke, but if he was going to kidnap someone, shouldn’t he have chosen someone rich? He wasn’t that desperate, surely. And where were the ransom demands? The IRA had kidnapped a man but everyone knew it was the IRA, and they
kidnapped a rich guy, a foreign industrialist. My father was not a stupid man. That led me to the idea that maybe Annie Doyle had been in trouble with the IRA or some criminal gang, and Dad had given her the money to move away abroad with a new identity. Dad was helping a young woman in trouble. Wasn’t that more likely? But if that was the case, why were the police not involved? Maybe the guards were not being told because the case was so sensitive that it had to be entrusted to a judge. I tried to believe that version of events because, as unlikely as it seemed, the alternatives were too dreadful to contemplate.

I did my best to avoid spending time with Helen in the following weeks, but she phoned regularly, ostensibly to check that I hadn’t told anyone about the sex.

‘I don’t want them to think that I’m a slut.’

I didn’t tell her that the boys in my class already called her a slut, even before we’d had sexual intercourse.

She continued, ‘It’s just something I needed to get out of the way, you know? To see what all the fuss was about.’

I could feel her disappointment. I guessed if she had wanted to offload her virginity, I would probably not have been her first choice. As hurtful as this dawning realization was, I wondered if other boys had rejected her before she chose me. And then I wondered how likely it was that a boy in my class would have refused sex from any girl. So she did choose me. Poor Helen.

‘Sorry,’ I said, when we first talked on the phone after that night.

‘God, no, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have … it was just … let’s never mention it again.’

‘Sure.’

There was a pause and then I had to ask because I needed to know. ‘So are you my girlfriend or anything like that?’

‘Do you want me to be?’ She was slightly incredulous. How the hell was I to answer that?

‘Well, I suppose …’

‘Great, that’s great.’ Her voice brightened. I wasn’t sure what to say.

‘… Are you still there?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s OK then? To call you my boyfriend? And we don’t have to … you know …?’

‘What? Ever?’

‘Well, maybe … sometime, but not soon … OK?’

‘OK … well, goodnight.’

‘See you tomorrow?’

‘Yes, probably.’

‘Goodnight.’

I should have been celebrating the fact that I had a girlfriend, even if it was just Helen, but I was afraid to have a confidante. If I voiced my fears, that would legitimize them and make them real. Helen got upset and clingy. She was paranoid and claimed that I had obviously just been using her for sex. She swore that if I told anybody we’d done it, she’d tell them what a small penis I had, and that even if it was huge, the flab of my belly would have hidden it anyway. I had really struck gold with my first girlfriend.

Helen visited Avalon, often uninvited. ‘Jesus! Look at the fucking size of your house!’ she said the first time she came over. I shushed her, asking her to be polite in front of my parents. She just about curbed her language, but I could tell that she didn’t really care what people thought of her. I knew that Mum and Dad were unimpressed by her. Mum was cold and stiff in her presence, made awkward polite conversation and then left the room. Dad caught her siphoning vodka from a bottle in the drinks cabinet into a small lemonade
bottle one time. I had taken the blame and said it was my idea. Normally he would have been incandescent at something like that, but he just shuffled away, muttering. I’m sure he thought Helen was a bratty teenager, but maybe he was relieved that I had a girlfriend. As far as I knew, he didn’t tell my mother about the vodka. Helen didn’t care.

Christmas holidays came finally on the 19th of December. It was a mixed blessing to be out of school. On the one hand, I didn’t have to face the bullies, but on the other hand, the courts were closed and my dad was at home a lot more. I was nervous around him. Also, there was the small matter of my school report. Since the night the guard had come to our door, I had given up doing my homework or revising. I was not concentrating on schoolwork at all, preoccupied as I was by the fact that I was living with a liar and a murderer, probably.

I thought about forging the report. I wasn’t bad at forgery. In my old school I used to do it for friends, but in St Martin’s I had quickly offered up this skill to avoid beatings. I forged sick notes from parents, school reports, train tickets. There was one attempt to have me forge £10 notes, but then they’d beaten me up when it proved unsuccessful, as I’d told them it would be. I decided to be honest about the report, but I worried about my father’s reaction.