The Godforsaken Daughter (6 page)

The house was silent.

They must all be asleep.

The events of the evening came back to her. She put her hand to her cheek. It still stung. No, she hadn’t dreamed that part. Her mother
had
slapped her. May and June
had
been nasty to her. But instead of feeling vengeful toward them, she felt unusually calm. Forgiving, almost.

These charitable feelings, which in the past would have seemed so alien, seemed right somehow. She felt fortified by them. Was this the birth of that new beginning the voice in the dream had promised? Could it be so?

She got up, and stood foursquare by the bed, as if testing the fact that she could stand up for herself.

Her head felt light, but at the same time she felt strangely energized. She crossed to the door, aware for the first time that she was putting one foot down solidly after the other. She found herself counting the paces. Only four from the bed to the door. She’d lived for the best part of twenty years in that room and had never before been conscious of the distance.

This detail surprised her, and it was accompanied by thoughts that were equally surprising. This was her territory. She, Ruby Clare, would take her place. No one would steal her peace away from her because she—Ruby—would not be giving it away. Not any longer.

She left the room and tiptoed onto the landing.

In the darkness of the corridor she saw a seam of light coming from under May and June’s bedroom door.

Unusual, at that hour.

Sometimes, however, they fell asleep reading. She’d just slip her hand around the door and switch the light off.

As she drew nearer she heard their voices. They were still up. Her sisters were arguing.

Intrigued, she put an ear to the door.

June’s voice: “What else could I say? I
. . . was . . .
trying to save you from—”

May: “.
 . .
bloody Manchester. You eejit. Of all places. Dublin. Cork, maybe. But Manchester!”

Ruby heard footsteps, a closet door opening.

It was too risky to linger. She tiptoed down the stairs.

The table was just as she’d left it. The discarded dishes scattered about, awaiting her attentions. The remainder of the pie left uncovered. The chairs in disorder.

Ruby took in the scene. She would clear it up in the morning, as she always did. She would keep the peace for the remainder of the weekend.

She went to the fridge and helped herself to a generous portion of sherry trifle. A reward of sorts.

She carried the bowl back up the stairs. Saw that the light in the twins’ bedroom was now off.

What was going on? Why had they been arguing over Manchester?

They rarely fought about anything. There was something mysterious going on. And Ruby knew that, whatever it was,
she’d
be the last to know.

Chapter six

Belfast, 1983

T
hey’d come within forty-eight hours, as promised: two police officers. A female sergeant named Hanson, together with her assistant, Constable Lyle. Lyle did not inspire confidence: tall and lanky with the diffidence of a schoolboy. But Hanson, who could easily have passed for the young man’s mother, made up for the lack. Unprepossessing, with dark hair and plain features, she exuded a solemn air of grim professionalism. The only clue to a life beyond the uniform: a discreet wedding band.

At their request, Henry led them up to the bedroom.

“What exactly are you looking for?” he asked, standing in the doorway, peeved at their aloofness and the nonchalant way in which they were invading this most private of spaces. Hanson had opened Connie’s underwear drawer and was casually rummaging through it.

“We’ll know when we find it,” Lyle said, hunkered down at one of the bedside lockers. “Like this, for example.” He was holding up Connie’s diary.

“You can’t have that!” Henry said, annoyed that he hadn’t done a more thorough search of the locker himself. “It’s private.”

“Yes, and for that very reason we’ll be needing it,” Hanson said, not bothering to look his way. She pushed home the lingerie drawer and turned. “Nothing is considered private when a person goes missing, sir. It’s the personal items that often hold the key.” He didn’t much care for the way she was sizing him up. “You
do
want us to find her, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. It goes without saying.”

“Then let us do our job. We’ll be finished shortly. A cup of tea would be welcome.”

Henry did as he was bidden. He was not used to being on the receiving end of another’s orders, but was finding that, in the present political climate and when dealing with the Royal Ulster Constabulary, it was best to comply.

A few minutes later, Sergeant Hanson joined him in the kitchen. Lyle was nowhere to be seen. “Constable Lyle will continue searching the other rooms,” she said, pulling out a chair at the table and settling herself. “You have no objection, Dr. Shevlin?”

“No . . . no, of course not.” He set a mug of tea before her and took the chair opposite. At such proximity he could smell her scent: a light, flowery essence, not at all in keeping with her gruff personality. She removed her peaked cap—revealing an expertly cropped mop of glossy hair—and set it down on the table. Withdrew a notebook from her breast pocket. Every movement slowly executed. She’d performed this ritual many times.

“I’ll be liaising with you from now on,” she said, opening the notebook and taking out a pen. “I’ve been put in charge of your case. Now, tell me about Constance. I need to know as much as possible.”

Henry shrugged. “Gosh, where do I start?”

“The day before she left, did you notice anything unusual in her demeanor?”

“No, not really.”

“‘Not really’ would indicate to me that you
did
notice something.”

She sounds like a trial lawyer at the bench, he thought. But giving evidence in court was, no doubt, part of her job.

“Just a bit pensive at breakfast. She hadn’t slept too well, so I didn’t read too much into it. When one is tired one’s mood usually drops.”

“She has sleep problems?”

“No, on the contrary, she’s an excellent sleeper. Out like a light way before me, normally. Just on the odd occasion she’ll have a restless night.”

“The last time you spoke to her was over breakfast on the morning of Wednesday, the twenty-fifth of May?”

“That’s correct.” He noticed she was recording his answers in shorthand.

“What did you talk about?”

“Oh, this and that. She was working on some stage sets for
. . .
for
Arms and the Man
,
I believe
. . .
in the studio in town. She was excited they were nearing completion.”

“Which studio?”

“Mondrian’s, on Kashmir Street. It’s an art gallery as well . . .”

“How did you and Constance meet?”

“In hospital.”

“She was a colleague?”

“No. A patient. She’d been admitted following the death of her mother
. . .
she’d taken an overdose.”

Hanson stopped her shorthand and looked at him.

“Her
. . .
her mother had died very suddenly. She—I mean Connie—had been very close to her. She just couldn’t cope with the loss. It was the first time she’d been confronted with death. Nothing had prepared her for it.”

“How old was she?”

“Twenty-one. She’d dropped out of college. Had started her first job—”

“Which was
. . 
. ?”

“Graphic design. Being creative, she wasn’t cut out for the discipline of it. Hated the nine-to-five routine. Her mother had been a shoulder to cry on. Very unexpectedly, that prop had been taken away. It was all too much for her. She’d been left bereft.”

“And you helped her through?”

“Yes. She credits me with having saved her from herself.”

Hanson gave him a puzzled look.

“It’s my job, Sergeant. To bring people to a better understanding of themselves—to save them, in a way. It’s an expression I hear often in my line of work. Nothing more than that.”

“When did your relationship begin? In the romantic sense, that is.”

“We didn’t start going out until after she was discharged from hospital, of course.”

“How long?”

Irritated now. “Look, is all this necessary?”

“Yes. How long?”

“A few months, perhaps. I don’t keep diaries. I don’t record every detail of my private life. Sorry to disappoint you.”

Hanson was unfazed. “And who contacted who first?”

“I called Connie. I was worried about her. I needed her to know that someone cared about her. She didn’t have any support, really. Her sister, Betty, was married with young children, her college friends resented her for leaving, so she was more or less on her own. Our relationship grew from there.”

“She was very vulnerable.”

Hanson had looked up from her note taking for the second time. The unspoken implication “and you took advantage of her” quite plain in her bald, unblinking stare.

“Vulnerable? Yes, you could say that. That’s why I felt very strongly she needed support.”

“You felt she might attempt suicide again.”

“Possibly.”

“Has she ever attempted suicide since?”

“No.”

“Is she on medication?”

“No.”

“And you’ve been married for—”

“Nine years.”

Hanson raised an eyebrow. “A whirlwind romance, then?”

“You could say that. We married within a year of meeting, yes.”

“Constance is now thirty, correct?”

“Yes
. . .
Her birthday was just
. . .
just
. . .”
Henry had to fight the tears back, remembering their celebratory dinner at The Pheasant restaurant on Victoria Street. Could it now, in retrospect, have been their last celebration together? “Just
. . .
just three weeks ago.”

“A milestone age, some would say. How did she feel about turning thirty?”

“Okay
. . .
I suppose. I mean, she didn’t dwell on it, if that’s what you mean. Not really.”

“You have children, Dr. Shevlin?”

“No
. . .
no, we haven’t.”

“You didn’t want them?”

“No, on the contrary
. . .
we wanted children, but Connie, she
. . .
she couldn’t have children.”

“She regretted that, obviously?”

“Yes, but had accepted that it was not to be.”

Hanson laid down the pen, laced her fingers together.

“Where do you think your wife might be, Dr. Shevlin?”

“I don’t honestly know. She’s never done anything like this before. It’s an absolute mystery to me.”

“Wednesday evening, when she didn’t return home, did you go out looking for her?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

“Would seem a natural thing to do in the circumstances.” She took a sip of the tea but her eyes never left his face.

“I assumed she’d gone shopping. She often did on Thursday evenings. Only, for some reason I mistook the days. I waited until closing time, thinking she’d be back. When she didn’t turn up I rang Betty. Look, I’ve been over all this with Constable Nelson. At the station. Is—”

“Does she work full time?”

“It depends. If there’s a production on, she’ll go in more often. If not, then she’ll work on private commissions and the pace is more relaxed.”

“By private commissions, you mean what exactly?”

“Oh, paintings, screen prints
. . .
for businesses, usually. Banks, public spaces
. . .
that kind of thing. She likes to work on large-scale projects.” He pointed to a substantial triptych on the far wall, which showed a picnic scene in the woods. “That kind of scale.”

Sergeant Hanson left her chair to take a closer look.

“She’s very talented. Where is this?”

“Ravensdale, County Louth. We walked through it once and had a picnic. Connie took photographs. She’s a recorder; she rarely leaves home without her camera.”

Hanson turned from her inspection of the triptych and resumed her seat. “Did she take it on this occasion?”

“What?”

“Her camera.”

“Probably.”

“You haven’t checked?”

“No. It never occurred to me. I checked for her passport and her handbag. The camera is small and she usually keeps it in her handbag. That’s why I didn’t feel it necessary to do a separate search for it.”

“Hmm . . . Does she have a best friend?”

“No.”

“No female friends?”

“Well, there’s Geraldine, I suppose.”

“You
suppose
?”

“Yes, from art-college days. They only meet three or four times a year.”

“Did you call her? This Geraldine
. . .
er
. . .”

“Reynolds. Geraldine Reynolds. No, I didn’t call her.”

“Why not?”

“Firstly, it would seem highly unlikely that Connie would take a bus a hundred miles to Sligo to visit Geraldine without telling me first. And secondly, I wouldn’t dream of calling Geraldine, and so cause her unnecessary worry.”

“Connie’s answerable to you in everything she does, then?”

“No, not everything. Of course not. I find your line of questioning intrusive, Sergeant.” Henry was really irritated now.

“Apart from her work at the studio, shopping, walking in Sir Thomas and Lady Dickson Park, visiting her sister, what other places might she be likely to frequent?”

“We go to restaurants, but always together. Can’t imagine Connie wanting to eat out alone. She likes company.”

“Your company?”

“Yes, I’m her husband. It’s natural for a husband and wife to want to be together.”

At that moment, Constable Lyle was heard coming down the stairs. He’d placed Connie’s diary in a cellophane bag and was holding something else.

“Anything to report?” asked Hanson.

“Apart from the diary, just this.” He handed her a bottle of pills.

Hanson read the label. “Indalpine? Can you explain these, Dr. Shevlin?”

“Yes, it’s an antidepressant. What of it? I’m a psychiatrist; medications sometimes find their way home with me. It doesn’t mean that either Connie or I are using them.”

Sergeant Hanson set the bottle down in front of him.

“If that’s the case, Dr. Shevlin, why is your wife’s name on the label and why are they dated to within the last fortnight?”

Henry tried to hide his shock. He studied the small print on the label, noted that Boots, on Royal Avenue, had dispensed the medication ten days before. It was a central address, in the very heart of Belfast.

“To be honest, Sergeant, I have no explanation. I had no idea Connie was taking these. None whatsoever.”

“Good work, Lyle,” the sergeant said. She scribbled something at the back of her notebook and tore off the page. “My contact number, Dr. Shevlin.” She handed it to him. “That’s enough for now, I believe. But if you think of anything—anything at all—do not hesitate to call me. Honesty is always the best policy in affairs such as this. Always.”

Henry showed them out, his mind in turmoil. Connie had secrets.

How could he not have known about the pills? How come he hadn’t seen them?

How come she hadn’t
told
him?