‘She isn’t up at Military Road for any good fucking reason, Kate. He’s taken her, I know it.’ There was a fury in his voice that she hadn’t heard before. O’Connor hung up the phone before she got a chance to say anything else.
For once, she was pleased Declan kept his silence. She needed to think. Her professional pride was hurt. Damn O’Connor for hanging up on her. Egotistical shit – but what if he was right? What if she had called this one wrong? She walked into the kitchen, automatically flicking on the kettle, even though she had no intention of using it.
Picking up her mobile, she rang O’Connor back. She expected it to go to his voicemail and was surprised when he answered.
‘O’Connor, if it turns out bad and you do find Amelia Spain up there, I know why he moved quickly.’
He held his silence. She heard him sighing, then speaking. ‘Kate, you better have something good to tell me.’
‘He’d already groomed her, maybe even disregarded her.’ Another silence. Kate continued. ‘For whatever reason he moved on, but the finding of Caroline’s body must have spooked him. If I’m right, Amelia may turn out to be the one who got away who became a complication he needed to get rid of.’
‘Jesus Christ, Kate, we’re talking serial killer territory here.’
‘And I want to be part of finding him.’
Declan entered the kitchen, catching her last words, muttering under his breath, ‘Saint Kate, wants to save the world.’ His sarcasm was not lost on her, but O’Connor was her focus now.
‘Kate, you know what the force feels about using outsiders. And you’ve fucked up on this already, don’t forget.’
She wanted to scream at him but instead she held back, although the angry tone in her voice was undeniable. ‘I don’t give a damn, O’Connor, officially or unofficially I can help you. I want to be involved.’
Ellie
WHEN DARKNESS COMES, I FIND SOME PEACE LISTENING to the sounds of the familiar – the creaking of beds in the other rooms, the rattling gutter that has needed to be repaired since the storms last winter. Even the sound of my own breath as my face burrows into the pillow has become a form of practised regularity. How long have I felt security in predictability?
When the lights outside the door go out, I know I will suffer a long night. Since meeting Dr Ebbs earlier, my mind has been rattled – but I had felt rattled even before I saw him. Maybe it is yet another aspect to my life of nothingness, how I can sense even the slightest shifts in mood. I did well enough today, shielding it from the others, those lonely women who share my time in here. Some of my fellow patrons have come and gone a long time back, some more like visitors to a mad house than anything else. I guess for them, those who stay only a short while, their real place in life is outside of here. Others, like me, have been here so long we have drifted into the soul of this Godforsaken place. In here, you get used to sharing your thoughts with just yourself. It feeds into the madness of it all.
I haven’t decided if I am going to write anything. In fact, the very thought of it sends chills through me, as if someone has opened a door and a gale is blowing through it. It bashes the door of memory back and forth, and the very thought of it causes a banging inside my head. What does he mean by ‘the beginning’? Beginning of what? Of when I started to feel crazy or of when I stopped caring?
I think back to the affair, as if it might provide a beginning of sorts. It was so long ago – can I really remember it as it was then?
He was different to Joe, that was for sure. Even though they were brothers, they had nothing in common, either with each other or how they were with me. When Joe looked at me, it was almost as if he was apologising for being there – but Andrew wasn’t like that. He looked me straight in the eye, as if no one else existed. When I think about it now, a part of me wonders if he was the only man I’ve ever loved. Afterwards, just like the others, he didn’t believe me. I held no grudge. Afterwards, I held nothing.
My pregnancy had not been planned; it wasn’t something I had even thought about. In the beginning, I wasn’t even going to tell Joe. It happened at the end of my first year at college, and it certainly wasn’t the news my mother had expected.
Going to college was something that hadn’t been within her reach. She was so proud of me. As things turned out, her dying before Amy’s death was a blessing. At least she didn’t have to face that final heartbreak. If my father had been alive, things might have been different. He was always the one I was closest to and he taught me everything, from how to fish to how to fire his hunting gun. I remember my mother being cross when I told her about the gun. I couldn’t have been more than eleven when I shot at my first hare. Funny the things you remember years after.