When dinner was finished, Sean remained seated at the table.
‘Mam, are you okay?’
‘I’m fine, Sean. How are you, though?’
‘I feel great, honestly. But you…’
‘It’s just this case I’m working on. It’s draining me.’
‘Chloe said a girl from her school was murdered. Is that what’s upsetting you?’
Lottie smiled wanly and reached out a hand, laying it on top of her son’s. ‘Yes, it is upsetting, because I have no idea why she was killed. It’s so sad.’
‘It’s not your fault, Mam.’
‘I should have looked out for her more.’ It occurred to her that she should be looking out for her own family more too.
‘Did you know she was in danger?’ Sean asked.
‘The fact that her grandmother had been murdered… well, I should’ve been more diligent with her care.’
‘Ah, Mam. Don’t beat yourself up over it. You can only do so much. You’re only one person. You can’t do everything for everyone.’
‘Sean, you are so wise at times…’ Just like his father.
‘But?’
‘But you need to do your homework. Please don’t spend so much time on those computer games. They’re not good for your brain.’
‘I got this really good one, Mam. You’d love it. A bit like GTA, but it’s set in Ireland. Guards and all.’
‘I hope I’m not featured in it.’
Sean smiled. ‘Actually, Mam, I think you are.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s this woman guard and she is a real pain in the arse. Just like you.’
Lottie laughed. ‘Sean Parker, you take that back.’
‘She even looks like you. It’s so weird. There I am, playing this game, and the cop is just like my mam. Do you want a go?’
‘Maybe first I should solve a real crime. Go on. Do some homework and try to get to sleep early.’
‘Don’t I always?’
Without any warning, Sean stood up and wrapped his arms around Lottie, kissing her cheek. ‘You be careful, Mam. I don’t want to lose you too.’
She couldn’t answer. Just sat there staring at the door easing closed as her son left the kitchen. When had he grown up so much? As tall now as his father had been, and he was only fourteen. Her brave, strong son. Growing up to be just like his dad.
Linking her fingers, Lottie looked down at them. Long and freckled. Were they like her father’s? Was she like her father? What had he really been like? What drove a family man to pull the trigger of a gun and obliterate his own life and that of his family? She knew that his actions had indirectly caused the death of her brother Eddie. What had Peter Fitzpatrick been involved in for his life to end in such a bloody finale?
Her throat felt dry and she craved a drink. No. She had to think of her children and grandson. She couldn’t self-destruct like her father had. History couldn’t repeat itself.
Making up her mind, she shoved back her chair and ran up to her bedroom. Opening her bedside cabinet, she took out the bottle of vodka. Back down in the kitchen, she unscrewed the cap and watched the clear liquid swim through the plughole. When she turned round, Katie was standing in the doorway, rocking little Louis in her arms. Chloe lounged behind her. They were both smiling.
It was those smiles, more than anything, that gave Lottie hope for the future of her family. She took little Louis in her arms and inhaled his baby smell. She felt the soft pads of the palms of his hands beneath her fingers, and on either side of her, Katie and Chloe linking her arms.
Seventy-Nine
The reality of staking out a house was nothing like he had imagined. He’d been following the key players for ten months or more, and he still couldn’t get used to it. Couldn’t get used to being used. He parked his car half a mile away and walked through the terrain he had scoured on Google Maps. The flashlight from his phone lit up his steps and he was careful to hold it downwards so as not to alert any night owls of his progress. Not that many were out in the incessant rain.
Vaulting the back wall, he lowered himself easily into the garden. No lights on in the house. All in bed. Slowly he walked around the side, the drumming of the torrent masking his footsteps. No alarm system. But he already knew that. Better to be sure, though. Returning to the back door, he checked how the lock worked, then extracted a small toolkit from his wallet and got to work.
He knew the layout of the house. The drawings were online, attached to the developer’s planning application from seven years ago. Easy. Acclimatising himself to the lack of light, he waited for his eyes to focus via the illumination from the red digits on the cooker clock. Listened. The tinkle of water trickling through radiators on a night timer. The creak of furniture settling. The whoosh of the wind against the back door. Checking once more that the blinds were down and no one was moving upstairs, he switched on the torch again.
The settings for breakfast chilled him.
There were children in this house.
He thought of leaving.
Could he walk away?
No. Not now.
Too much at stake.
With no time left to waste, he pushed open the kitchen door and entered the rest of the house.
The Late Eighties
The Child
I have no concept of the passage of time.
I have no idea how old I am.
I know Johnny-Joe died.
They say he overdosed after digesting the seeds he was supposed to be planting. Ha.
Six hundred and sixty-six. Johnny-Joe’s favourite number. Never less; never more. Wail at the sky, he would, if I miscounted. Sickened me. Every time I had to go into that garden with him. Well, I put an end to that little job. Stuffed all six hundred and sixty-six seeds down his old yellow throat. One by fucking one. I did it, and I never want to hear that number again. He didn’t protest much. I told him the devil said he needed him to eat them. Johnny-Joe. Ha!
Today, I have a visitor. Not once, in all the time I’ve been here, however long that may have been, has anyone called to see me. I’ve no idea what this is about. Could someone have finally remembered about me? I often wonder about the other one. The other part of me they didn’t lock away. Or maybe they did. Somewhere else.
My head hurts as the nurse pulls the shirt tight to my chest and closes up the buttons. An awful yellow yoke, with white daisies. Daisies! I hate daisies almost as much as I hated Johnny-Joe and his fairy seeds. I don’t mind the trousers, with their wide flare, though they are a little too tight.
I’m brought to the other side of this mad place. None of that peeling paint and shitty smells. It’s painted and shiny. Keep the sunny side out, at all times. I leave my ward, with its screaming and shrieking, and after a walk down a never-ending wide corridor and out through a dozen tall doors, unlocked and locked again behind me, I am deposited in a room with three chairs and a small square table. The windows are high and arched. The paint on the walls is yellow. Like my shirt. Yuck.
I pull up my socks from where they have slipped down in my shoes and pick at the elastic until it snaps and the sock folds once again around my ankle. I do the same to the other one. They have cut my hair tight to my head and combed it straight. I quickly run my fingers through it and shake my head vigorously until I’m sure it is all standing on end. Now I feel contented. I’m not going to play their game. I’m planning my own.