His place was different from where I lived with Joe. He cared little for all the things that Joe felt were important. Possessions were simply items of necessity. What obsessed him was his art and, for a time, me.
Sex was always immediate, as if the two of us had been starved. He had confident hands and his lips were gentle, sensual, before becoming harsh and needy. When his desire was at its most selfish, he felt both shocking and delightful. Afterwards, he would hold me, sometimes make fun of me, but then he would change again and become serious, talking to me in the softest tone, the one that utterly consumed me, the one I could not live without. From those early, intimate days, the one thing I remember most vividly was how he looked at me, as if I was some wonderful stranger who, having entered his life, would not be allowed to leave.
I cared little, at times, what he talked about, whether it was his art or his time in Canada, the land, the people. It was in Canada, far away from the confines of Dublin, that he had finally made the decision to study art. It was while away in a foreign place that he learned to appreciate the colours and textures of home, so that when he returned, it was as if he saw it all for the very first time. But for that decision – to return – our paths would never have crossed. My only connection to him would have been nothing more than Joe’s references to his ‘good-for-nothing brother’.
Meadow View
AS HE OPENED THE FRONT DOOR OF 15 MEADOW VIEW, he made a mental checklist of everything. Before leaving, he had gone through the same routine, checking the windows and doors last. One could never be too careful – breaking and entering was far easier than most people imagined and being familiar with the many tricks of the trade, he never took any chances. He combed the rooms thoroughly, ensuring that all was as it should be.
With everything to his satisfaction, he examined the reflection of his face in the hall mirror, fiddling with his shirt collar. Then he stood back and took in his full appearance. Sliding his fingers through his hair, which in the past number of years had developed slight tinges of grey on either side, a development he approved of, he couldn’t help but feel pleased about his overall look. He had no intention, at the age of fifty-two, of looking like some old fuddy-duddy, happy to wear smart jumpers and nondescript jeans when not in work. After all, he was physically fit, a non-smoker, a moderate drinker and he had a good eye for design and style. There was no reason he couldn’t continue to look this good for at least another fifteen years, once he adhered strictly to his regimes. He reached under the stairs and put away his walking boots, feeling quite the ‘frontier man’ – a description upon which he had moulded his appearance for a very long time, since childhood in fact.
At Cronly, the solitary framed photograph of his father had sat on the piano in the music room. He’d never met his father, but he had made up many stories about him. The image in the silver frame was of a tall, handsome man with arms wrapped around a white husky dog. Behind the man and his dog were mountains with snowy tips. He remembered how pleased he felt about this man behind the glass, this man who was his unknown father.
When he got older, around the age of eleven, he’d become suspicious of the picture in the frame. He had waited and chosen an afternoon when he knew Mother would be ‘otherwise occupied’ – that was how Mother referred to the times she’d go missing without explanation – to remove the image from the frame. When he released it from the outer casing, he discovered at the bottom of the image the words ‘Frontier Man’. It didn’t take long for him to work out that the picture was a cutting from a copy of National Geographic, for on the reverse of the image was an article about Tibetan monks. He never did find out any other information about the man in the picture, other than the simple truth that he was certainly not his father. This lie told to him by his mother would lead, over time, to the uncovering of many others.
He felt particularly energised after his early-morning stroll in the park, so he switched on his PC before he even started on lunch. Sometimes the darn thing took ages to crank up, but he had no intention of changing it unless he had to.
A police press conference was due to be held later, but there had been early-morning reports about a second girl who had gone missing. One report even noted that ‘criminal profiling’ was being carried out as part of the ongoing investigation. There was a reference to Kate Pearson in a couple of the articles, listing her training in the UK with prominent criminal psychologist Professor Henry Bloom.