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Back in my room, I pace the floor. I don’t have a large room, so I don’t have far to go, back and forth. I wonder if my curiosity about the girls is a good or a bad sign. Why do I care? After all, they aren’t Amy. It’s daft thinking this way. What can I possibly achieve by finding out more about them? Did I imagine the similarities in the first girl’s looks? Is it of any importance? Maybe I’m trying to bring Amy back. Maybe I want to relive all of it again so that, somehow, it will make sense.
Ever since I made the decision to ask Dr Ebbs for the photograph, I’ve started to think and feel things I haven’t thought or felt for a very long time. To a great many people, the photograph of Amy would have been something I should have asked for from the beginning. But for me, asking for it, even now, feels undeserving. Feeling undeserving is something I’m well used to, but what I’m not used to is how my heart and my head feel. It’s as if they’re opening up in ways I’ve long since forgotten. All the remembering, thinking back about Joe and Amy, and Andrew, it’s forced me to think about the person I used to be. I know I can never be her again. I wouldn’t want to be. She’s a stranger, a woman no longer of relevance. Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that woman is what this is all about. Maybe all these years I’ve fooled myself into thinking my punishment was to live out this nothing existence, when really it should have been about facing that woman again, my old self, and really looking at who she was and why, other than self-punishment, she should still be here.
I don’t understand any of it clearly, but somewhere inside of me something is shifting, like an enormous tidal wave moving inland, slow, quiet, but devastatingly forceful. Before the fire, like most other people, I thought I understood death. That having lost others – parents, grandparents, friends – I had an insight into it. I was wrong. That kind of grieving tells you nothing about losing a child, because the loss of your child isn’t like anything else.
When I think about the murdered girls, I think about how their parents are feeling, the hell they must be going through. Nothing will ever bring their daughters back. They won’t ever hear them laugh or cry, or argue or sing, or any of the things they used to do. All they will feel will be the aching sadness and emptiness in their hearts. It will eat away at them until what is left is worn down, no longer fit for purpose. They will know the only thing worse than looking forward is looking back. I’ve lived that life for the past fifteen years. I know it as well as anyone can. I know the hellish silence that comes with death, when the only sound is the sound of your own madness.
Bridget will give me answers to everything I ask her. I’ll explain that I don’t fully understand why I need to know about these girls – perhaps it’s because of the similarities to Amy. I’ll tell her that I don’t mean the girls or their families any harm. She won’t think badly of me, she doesn’t think about people that way.
I get into bed and pull the bedcovers over my head. I feel cold. Maybe the shaking will help me sleep. Anything is easier than thinking.
Mervin Road
Sunday, 9 October 2011, 10.30 p.m.
KATE SAT ALONE IN THE DARK, HER MOBILE PHONE switched off. She thought about phoning her mother, about checking with O’Connor, she even considered ringing Declan, but somehow nothing seemed right any more.
She had allowed Charlie to stay up late, taking her time getting him ready for bed, not minding when he’d insisted on a million stories. He had asked her why she looked sad, and instantly she’d regretted not hiding her feelings better. They’d played Snap and she’d let him win, enjoying his laughter when his hand had snapped down on top of hers. But with Charlie now asleep, it was as if somehow everything had stopped. The investigation would have to stay on hold for another while; all her rushing around, all the things that had seemed so important for so long, didn’t seem quite so important any more.