The Doll's House (33 page)

‘It’s all right, darling. Detective O’Connor is just leaving.’

‘Kate?’

Kate lifted Charlie into her arms. ‘Listen, you’re not stupid. You know the right thing to do.’

‘It doesn’t make it any easier.’

‘Get a good night’s sleep. We can talk tomorrow.’

‘I’ll let myself out. You put this chap back to bed.’ O’Connor attempted a smile at Charlie.

Charlie buried his face in his mother’s neck.

Kate was relieved to hear O’Connor pull the front door of the apartment closed behind him. Charlie wasn’t happy about being put back into bed. Nor, Kate reflected, would he have been happy to find his mother talking to a man other than his father in the early hours of the morning.

Unless Martin locked me into the house with chains across all the doors and windows, I wouldn’t let him, Dominic or anyone else stop me seeing Gerard Hayden this morning. My mind is shifting. I feel close to something.

Martin was suspicious before he left for work – I could see it in his eyes. He was watching my every move. Again last night he didn’t come home until very late, and he’s yet to explain why he took the photograph, or why our bedroom was cleared of all traces of me, other than an old toothbrush. After I’ve seen Gerard today, I’m going to take a taxi to Ruby’s flat. She doesn’t have lectures on Fridays, and if I have to wait there all bloody day to see her, I will. Whatever existed between Martin and me is well and truly over. We’ll all need to start working on a future with the two of us apart.

Dominic also rang last night. He, too, is playing it cool. In one way, I don’t give a damn about either of them. I care about the frightened little girl who once was me. I need to fight for her, even if I haven’t always been capable of it.

Thanks to Orla, I know Martin has listened to the recordings on my phone. Before I leave for Gerard’s, I listen to them again, pleased, at least, that he hasn’t deleted them.

On the way over to Gerard’s in the taxi, Ruby calls. There’s something different about her too. She seems less angry. When she asks if I want to meet her tomorrow, I can’t wipe the smile off my face. I say, ‘That would be great.’ It gives me a real boost. Maybe things can be different. Maybe we can start afresh.

The phone call also makes me feel more assured. I even chat to the
taxi driver about how cold the weather has turned. I feel like a normal person. But that will soon change.

When I reach Gerard’s, I will go back to that point from yesterday. Gerard isn’t one to give opinions. He says he needs to be beyond reproach. He can’t manipulate my thought processes. But he does more than listen, even if his words are carefully chosen. And I know he believes this is all connected to some trauma, and the darkness I feel exists in my past.

As I get out of the taxi, a sharp breeze nearly knocks me over, pulling me from my thoughts. The same apprehension I felt on that first day gathers inside me, a form of nervous panic. What if this time it doesn’t work? I want to go back to that little girl more than anything, but will my conscious mind let me?

Again Gerard answers the door as if he has been waiting for me beside it. Neither of us says anything beyond a simple ‘Hello’, but I realise I’m walking down the hallway faster than before. He makes no comment, but begins the ritual as he has done on other days, closing the blinds, lighting the candles, asking me if I’m ready to start. Today there is no need for any elongated delivery. It is as if, within seconds of listening to his voice, I’m back where we left off the day before.

‘Clodagh, you say you’re walking across the landing.’

‘I’m following my little-girl self. When she talks, she sounds like Debbie. We’re going on an adventure. We’re standing at the door to Mum and Dad’s bedroom. It’s dark, but I can see streetlights coming in from outside.’

‘Do you feel safe, Clodagh?’

‘Safe?’

‘Yes, safe. Are you afraid?’

‘I don’t know. It’s strange.’

‘What’s strange?’

‘Even though I don’t know what’s going to happen, I know I need to open this door, the one to my parents’ bedroom.’

‘Remember, Clodagh, the past cannot hurt you. It has all
happened before. All we are doing is visiting it. Do you understand me, Clodagh?’

‘Yes.’ My little-girl self opens the door for me. She struggles with the handle at first, but then it opens, not completely, but enough to see into the room. The slit is narrow, making it hard at first to distinguish who is in there. But then I see both of them. ‘I can see my parents,’ I hear myself saying.

‘Are you inside the room, Clodagh?’

‘Not yet, but I’m pushing the door further over. My dad is sitting in the darkest corner of the bedroom. His head is in his hands. He’s wearing his favourite pinstripe navy suit, the one with the long straight lines that travel for ever and ever.’ I pause. ‘He’s crying, Gerard.’

‘And where is your mother, Clodagh? Where is she?’

‘She’s standing by the window. She looks tall. She’s wearing really high heels. There is a cigarette in her mouth. I can see the mark of her red lipstick on the tip when she takes it out, blowing smoke clouds. Her face is angry, but it’s more than angry.’

‘You’re doing great, Clodagh. Now think hard. What other emotion do you think your mother is feeling?’

I look at her then, really look at her. Past the cigarette smoke, past her beauty, her long neck and lovely hair, tied neatly in a bun. I’m drawn to her eyes, and when I am, my first thought is to look away, for I see what is hiding beyond the anger. It’s a form of madness. I’ve seen it before, when I looked at myself in the mirror, at those times when I felt the most lost, and instead of my own reflection, I saw the warped face of ugliness inside of me.

‘My mother is …’

‘What is your mother, Clodagh?’

‘She looks like she’s on the edge.’ It’s only then that I glance at my little-girl self. She doesn’t sound like Debbie any more. She is singing that lullaby again, and when she does, without knowing why, I stare at the cradle in the corner, the one opposite where Dad is crying. I walk over to it, unsure of what I’m going to do or see.

‘I need to look into the cradle,’ I hear myself saying to Gerard, and all the while, my little-girl self is singing, swinging her arms back and forth as if she’s holding a baby doll.

‘Do you want to look in the cradle, Clodagh?’ Gerard Hayden’s voice is my only link with the present.

‘I don’t have a choice.’ My little-girl self takes me by the hand but now she’s humming as we walk over to it. She stands back when we’re within touching distance, and I step forward. I can hear Dad sobbing. My mother is still standing by the window. Before I look inside the cradle, with its white lace and tiny pink bow at the top, somewhere in my mind I acknowledge a silence that isn’t right, but, without looking inside, I know the crib isn’t empty.

‘She’s dead,’ I hear my mother hiss. ‘Killed.’

‘It was an accident, Lavinia. You have to believe that,’ my father pleads.

I pull back the pale pink blanket on the top. There is a cool cotton sheet underneath. When I take back the sheet, deep in the shadows from the canopy, I see her.

‘Touch her,’ my little-girl self says. ‘She’s still warm.’

I lean inwards, rubbing the back of my hand down the side of her warm cheek. It feels like nothing I’ve ever touched before, until I remember how I used to do the same thing with Ruby when she was small, over and over again, amazed every time I felt her tiny life, real, close, intimate and so fragile. But this is different because now I can feel the life fading. It is drifting to some place from which it can never come back. It is then that I feel tears filling my eyes. The first of them trickles down and drops on to her mattress. More than anything, I want to stop time.

‘She’s beautiful,’ I hear my little-girl self saying, as if my parents are not there. As if we are the only ones in the room.

‘Is she …’ I can barely breathe, ‘dead?’

‘Yes. There was a fight.’

I stare at my little-girl self, wondering why she sounds so calm,
relieved her voice doesn’t sound like Desperate Debbie’s any more, and her face is normal.

‘Did you see it?’ I ask her, the tears now streaming down my face.

Gerard asks if I’m okay. I can’t answer him. He belongs to a different place. He isn’t in this room. He isn’t inside the doll’s house. He doesn’t count, not any more.

‘I hid,’ she says, ‘Debbie knows the truth, but she’s not saying.’

‘Where did you hide?’

‘In my room – the one Sandy and Debbie like to play happy families in. They told me everything would be okay.’

I hear myself scream inside my head. The scream won’t go away. I try to speak, but no words will come out. Questions repeat themselves over and over in my mind, as if I’m in a dream and can’t find the answers. But the questions are simple.
Why did she have to die? Why do I feel I’m to blame?
I can feel my body shaking.

‘Clodagh, try to remain calm,’ I hear Gerard say. ‘Who is dead?’ But again, I don’t answer him. Not at first. I’m looking at my little-girl self, because I know she has something more to say.

‘There could only be one Daddy’s little girl.’

Kate hadn’t slept well, tossing and turning throughout the night. It was almost a relief to see glimpses of daylight creep into her bedroom on Friday morning. This was beginning to feel like the longest week of her life. Getting out of bed to shower, she couldn’t stop thinking about O’Connor from the night before. It was a mess in more ways than one. Charlie waking up was also playing on her mind. What if he told Declan? Did it bloody matter? She knew it did. Just as she knew that she wouldn’t have let O’Connor into the apartment at that late hour if Declan had been around. She was already behaving like a single woman, but she was also a mother, and no matter what she felt about O’Connor, or whatever mess he had got himself into, she was that first and foremost.

She switched on the small television in the kitchen. The headlines were still dominated by the canal murders so she changed to a channel showing cartoons. After setting the breakfast table, she checked her watch: seven forty-five, time to wake Charlie. Walking towards his bedroom, Kate felt uneasy. Was it because the temporary adjustment of the two of them alone had turned into a permanent one, or was it the aftermath of the conversation with O’Connor? Of all the people to break the rules, she would never have guessed it would be him. He had always struck her as solid, but he wouldn’t be the first, when a personal connection came into play, for whom the rules became guidelines, landing him in a whole lot of trouble. When Kate opened Charlie’s bedroom door, she smelt urine, her guilt about O’Connor slapping her in the face. What the hell was she at? She knelt down beside Charlie’s bed.

‘Come on, Buster. It’s time to get up.’

He gave a tiny moan, then turned away from her. Kate pulled
together his clothes – clean socks, pants, vest, his school uniform – and fresh sheets for the bed before waking him again. After she’d removed his wet pyjamas, she wrapped him in a large towel. There was barely a peep out of him as she carried him to the bathroom.

With the shower going full throttle, she put the wet bedding and dirty clothes on to wash. She would say nothing to Charlie about it, not when he slurped his cereal or at any other time.

Her mobile rang as she and Charlie were about to head out of the door. It was Hennessy.

‘Dr Pearson, we’ve found a match for the Susie Graham assault.’

‘Really? That was fast. Is he known to you?’ Kate continued, as she buttoned Charlie’s coat.

‘It’s a guy called Steve McDaid. He’s a mechanic, works local. The match is against a suspected assault in Liverpool a few years back. He was over there on a stag weekend.’

‘That’s good news.’

‘I’m pulling him in for questioning today. If I see any connection with your case, I’ll let you know.’

‘That would be great, Stuart. I have to go, but do call me.’

On the drive to school, Kate caught a glimpse of Charlie yawning in the back seat. She smiled to herself, thinking about his teacher, young Ms Nolan, and what she had in store for her, with twenty-nine other five-year-olds to contend with on this wet and murky morning.

Looking at the other mothers and fathers at the school gates, all getting ready to pick up their work and home lives once their children were safely deposited at school, Kate decided to use her time driving to Ocean House wisely. She made numerous phone calls, including setting up another follow-up meeting with Imogen Willis, then finally she dialled O’Connor.

He was on the back foot from the beginning. ‘Kate, look, about last night.’

‘Last night was last night, O’Connor. You know my feelings on the matter.’

‘I’m sorry for waking Charlie.’

‘I know you are. Now, listen, I’m heading into Ocean House. When is your next full squad meeting?’

‘The usual, ten o’clock.’

‘Good. Ring me with anything you have. I’ve a crazy schedule today, but I want you to get in touch as soon as you make contact with Dominic Hamilton, and Martin and Clodagh McKay.’

‘Lynch is setting up the meetings now. I’m sorry again about last night.’

‘No need to be. Look, O’Connor, I don’t mean to sound harsh, but do the right bloody thing.’

‘I’m working on it.’

‘I’d better go.’

‘Talk later, Kate.’

‘By the way, I’ve emailed you my follow-up report based on our conversation last night.’

‘I appreciate that, Kate.’

‘No problem. It’s what I do.’

Parking outside Ocean House, she thought about their conversation, and how much she needed O’Connor to do the right thing, regardless of the repercussions. She also knew she was giving him time to make up his mind. Would she report the incident, if he didn’t? A part of her wasn’t sure. She’d said he could talk to her in confidence, but that was before she’d known what she was agreeing to. If she had to, she would report it. She had no other choice. Certain lessons in life were hard learned. They had a habit of staying with you, no matter how many years passed. She had been younger than the latest victims when she was attacked. She also thought about her conversation with Stuart Hennessy. It would help Susie Graham to know the identity of her attacker if only because it would be one less unanswered question – a question to which, after all these years, Kate still had no answer. It led her to look into every sea of strangers, knowing one of them could be him.