Caroline had been the only one who ever came close, and just like Silvia, she had no idea how special she was.
He was older now, his needs had changed. Like him, Kate had suffered and known vulnerability, had overcome it on her own. She was his intellectual equal, forever striving. If Silvia had lived, she would have been just like Kate. Fate had played its final hand. All this sorry mess now required was for Kate to get inside his head, to understand him. But she could only see part of the picture. He needed to explain things properly to her. She was upset over that husband of hers – he was Charlie’s father, after all – but he wasn’t good enough for Kate. She didn’t realise it yet. But she would. She was a very clever girl.
Gorey, County Wexford
Monday, 10 October 2011, 12.30 p.m.
OLLIE COULDN’T FIND STEVE IN ANY OF THE USUAL spots and he wasn’t answering his mobile phone. If it hadn’t been for his meddling, Ollie could be relaxing at Beachfield instead of playing a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. He wished Steve Hughes had never come near him with that damn photograph.
Smyth’s bar was the only pub in the town where he drank. As it was lunchtime, he decided to give up looking for Hughes until he had a full belly for the job. It was quiet in the pub; October was a bit of a slow month, which suited Ollie just fine. He took a seat at the bar, in front of the large television screen, and called for his usual. As he savoured his first pint, he ordered bacon, cabbage and potatoes; none of that curry crap for him.
No sooner had the plate of food arrived in front of him than the horse racing was switched over to the news. He had heard about the murdered girls, you couldn’t avoid it, but when the photographs of the two girls appeared on the big screen, he thought he had gone a bit mad. He told himself it was just Steve Hughes and his wild talk getting under his skin, but the more he looked at the girls’ pictures, the more uneasy he felt. When the reporter mentioned a Toyota Carina car, it put paid to any enjoyment his dinner offered him.
If he couldn’t get Steve Hughes on the phone in the next half hour, whether he’d put that Polaroid photograph back or not, Ollie was going to have to take things into his own hands. Those girls may have been killed in Dublin, but last he’d heard that’s where William Cronly was living. He didn’t relish the prospect of what lay ahead, but then, the only thing worse than having to drag up old history was getting himself into more shit.
Ellie
MORE THAN MOST, I UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF loneliness. I’ve lived it since the day I came into this place. When you’re institutionalised, you forget the way people in the outside world think. You’re no longer able to understand normality. I’ve seen it happen to other women too, some of those I’ve shared my life with for the past fifteen years. I’ve seen how the day to day of doing nothing defies the logic of the human race outside these walls. Days soaked in routine: the time you wake, the time you sleep, mornings and evenings made up of breakfast, dinner and tea, your room, your bed, the half-people you all become. It’s often the complete absence of anything new or different that sends you really mad. Without realising, I’ve become that way myself.
For days now, I’ve had the sense that things were shifting, changing. It was in the little things, like how I stood at the mirror down from Living Room 2, looking at it like I was trying to see something, find someone. How I thought that that someone might have been my old self, even though I knew she was nowhere to be found. When I opened up to Dr Ebbs about Amy, she seemed real again, as if somehow, even after fifteen years, I could find her more quickly than I could find myself. I’d cried for her, something I had not allowed myself to do before. I’ve questioned myself every day I’ve been here, watched the sun creep into my room each morning, witnessed the seasons change outside, year in, year out. I kept on going in order to punish myself for not seeing all the things I should have seen. I failed to pay attention to the little things and, the worst sin of all, I became so focused on myself I let my daughter slip away from me.