‘Oh yeah?’
‘Set me on the path to being a detective.’
Parnell settles onto a barstool. ‘Oh, this I have to hear.’
‘Then you shall.’ I take a deep theatrical breath. I’ve never told anyone this before. ‘OK, I’d have been about nine, maybe ten. Jacqui had picked me up from school and she was supposed to be taking me to Irish dancing but I’d hurt my foot playing rounders so we didn’t end up going. Anyway, when we get home I go upstairs to get something and as I walk past Mum and Dad’s door, I can see someone in the bed. Well, two people. And I’m confused because Mum and Dad are both supposed to be out somewhere – that’s why Jacqui had to pick me up – but I can clearly see two people. So I go a bit closer and peer through a crack in the door and I can definitely make out Dad, but I can’t see the other person. All I can see are her feet sticking out the bottom of the bed. And her toenails are this sort of damson colour. So I’m thinking “is that Mum?” and the idea’s obviously grossing me out so I can’t knock the door, but I can’t phone Mum either because a) I don’t have a clue what her number is and b) even at nine years old, I’ve got the measure of my dad and I’m thinking “But what if it’s not Mum?” So I do nothing, but I decide the next chance I get, I’m going to go through all Mum’s nail polishes to see if I can match one to Plum Paws.’
Parnell’s doing a great job of looking transfixed. ‘And you couldn’t?’
‘Nope, all pale pinks and boring nudes. But I decide that’s not conclusive proof anyway, because Mum could have just used the last of the damson polish and thrown it away, or she could have left it at Auntie Carmel’s or something, so I decide I need another plan.’ I tap the side of my head. ‘See, Sherlock Holmes, even then.’ Parnell grins. ‘So for weeks, right, I save my pocket money and I beg Jacqui to let me tag along a few times when she goes up to Oxford Street, and I keep looking and looking and eventually I find this dark purple polish in Boots, just like Plum Paws, and I buy it for Mum in the hope she’ll at least say, “Oh what a lovely colour, thank you sweetheart” but kind of hoping she’ll say – because it’ll be more conclusive, “Oh, what a coincidence, I had one just like this.”’
I pause, but I’m being deliberately melodramatic this time. Parnell’s loving it.
‘But she didn’t,’ he says.
I shake my head. ‘No she didn’t. She’s not exactly rude about it but she says something like “Good God, it’s a bit gothic, poppet” – I didn’t know what “gothic” meant but I could tell it wasn’t a good thing. And then she says, “It’s not the type of colour I’d ever usually wear but maybe I should have an image change, ha ha.”’
‘Oh dear.’
I nod. ‘Indeed. Anyway, I had this friend at the time called Katy Kielty and her mum used to take us swimming at Finchley Lido. She had dark purple toenails this one time.’ Another pause. ‘I’d found Plum Paws.’
Parnell laughs. ‘On one piece of circumstantial evidence! No forensics, no witnesses?’
‘Yeah, but she’d always fancied my dad so I had motive.’
‘Hold up.’ Parnell stops laughing and looks over the top of my head towards the TV. ‘This’ll keep us busy tomorrow. Forget Plum Paws, it looks like we’re on.’ To the barman. ‘Turn that up, mate.’
Steele’s elfin features fill the screen, earnestly appealing for witnesses to come forward to help solve this ‘particularly heinous crime.’ Her face is sombre, unflinching and flawless. Eyebrows perfectly shaped. Lips, a deep raspberry red. If Plum Paws triggered my desire to be a detective, meeting Steele stamped it across my heart and I’m willing to bet that I’m not the only female in the force who dreams of being DCI Kate Steele when they grow up.
‘Never shy of the spotlight, our Kate,’ says Parnell, not unkindly. ‘Do you know what Craig’s taken to calling her?’
I cock an ear but my eyes stay fixed.
‘Kate Kardashian. You know, because she loves the spotlight .?.?.’
‘Yeah, I get it, Boss.’ I put a finger to my lips. ‘Ssssh, I’m trying to listen.’
It’s a short piece. Just a minute or so of Steele being impressive and of course the two faces of Maryanne Doyle/Alice Lapaine contradicting each other at every turn – carefree and cocksure as an ebony-haired teenager, downcast and diffident by a blonde thirty-five.
But it’s the last ten seconds that floor me. The panoramic sweep across Mulderrin that captures the roof of Gran’s old house, the tilting ash trees lining Duffy’s field, the tip of the crucifix standing proud on top of St Benedict’s, where prayers were said for Maryanne Doyle even though everyone was adamant she was nothing but a feckless trollop who’d gone off to find more of her kind.
It has to be stock footage they’re using. Just some producer’s poetic attempt to contrast the rolling fields of her youth with the urban squalor of her death. Because there’s no way the UK media would have descended on Mulderrin just yet. Not without any clear links between the then and the now to spur headlines.
And we have no links to give them.
There’s no official links anyway.
Because the fact that one man was in the local area for both Maryanne’s disappearance in 1998 and her murder in 2016, is a poisonous seed that’s planted so far deep inside my psyche that I’m not sure I could prise it out, even if I had the guts, or the willingness, to try.
1998
Thursday 28th May
How to be a Spy, Rule 1: Learn the habits of your target!
Dad said he was popping to Reilly’s to buy smokes but I knew he’d sneakily bought 200 on the ferry because I’d been hiding behind the Toblerone stand, waiting to jump out on Noel. I also knew he’d only smoked sixty-seven so he had 133 left and no need to buy more. (I’d been keeping count because 200 sounded like a heck of a lot and I didn’t want him getting sick like Paige Flannelly’s dad who spat blood into tissues and weighed less than her Mum.)
How to be a Spy, Rule 2: When you come up against problems, be resourceful!
Spies should usually wear black but Mum had only packed my blue flowery raincoat with the pink spotty collar so I turned it inside out and hoped for the best.
How to be a Spy, Rule 3: Only carry essential items vital to your operation and survival!
I packed my diary, a pencil, some smoky bacon crisps and a small lump of cheese, because Mum said it was good for my bones, and I set off on my secret mission, trailing Dad to the bottom of the Pot-Holey Road (because the roads around here didn’t have proper names like Oxford Street or Farringdon Road, they were called things like the Long Road Out of Town or the Road Where Pat Hannon Keeps His Cows). Dad turned right by Duffy’s gate and I had to quickly duck down in the ditch when he stopped to make a call.
good inteligance intel – dad has a phone!
How to be a Spy, Rule 4: Learn to eavesdrop!
I spied them through a gap in the hedge and she was laughing. Not giggling, like she did with boys in the Diner, but proper wet-your-pants laughing and I’m sorry, Dad wasn’t that funny. Even when he did his Homer Simpson impression or told that joke about the chicken and the frog who went to the library.
She sounded like Cynthia, Uncle Frank’s skinny wife (we didn’t call her Auntie Cynthia, Mum put her foot down about that). Dad always said Cynthia had a laugh like a crow with a machine gun and Maryanne did a little bit too. It was a nasty noise. The sound of someone being mean, not funny.
‘That sounds like blackmail to me.’ I heard Dad say.
‘Fuck sake, you’re dramatic.’
‘And you’re deluded if you think it’s going to happen.’ Dad sounded angry now.
‘You’re deluded if you think you have a choice.’
How to be a Spy, Rule 5: Store gathered information in a safe and secure place!
I took out my diary and wrote the words down: