The Doll's House

‘It’s proving tricky to unearth. Looks like everyone has gone to ground.’


‘We’ll need to do some digging. Get the CAB guys in. The money trail always leads somewhere. If anyone knows where to start, the guys in the Criminal Assets Bureau will.’ O’Connor stood up, stretching his arms. ‘This bloody haystack keeps getting fucking bigger, Lynch.’ Walking over to the wipe board, he looked at the headings from the previous night – missing wedding ring, mystery man and late-night shop, hotel receipt, method of killing, likelihood of another. O’Connor added the incident at the restaurant with Siobhan King to the list.

Turning back to Lynch in a more upbeat manner than he felt, he said, ‘Get French on the phone. Let’s see if we can get up close and personal with the family. Something tells me this investigation still has a long way to go.’





Clodagh


Orla’s letter was filled with the usual pleasantries. If Martin had read it, there was nothing in it for him to pay much heed to.

Once out of the house, my mood is less sombre. I have cash with me, so I think about hailing a taxi. I look across at a bus, pulled in at the stop on the far side of the main road. I wouldn’t even know what the fare is now. I remember bus rides with my father and Dominic, the three of us travelling into town, going into the shops for a treat, having lunch with ice-cream in tall glasses. When I talk to Dominic about them, he tells me I’m mixing everything up. That I couldn’t possibly remember because I was too small.

I wait for the traffic to clear before I cross the road, and as I do, the bus pulls away. There is a young girl in the bus shelter, sitting alone. She is holding a doll, her arms wrapped around it, rocking it back and forth like it’s a baby. I stare at her. She wants me to watch her. She has waves of curly ginger hair. It practically covers her whole face. When she looks up, there are hollows where her eyes should be, and her lips when she smiles are the same colour as my mother’s rose pink lipstick – the one in the golden case with the pretty roses in the middle.



Gerard doesn’t mention my bruises when I arrive. And, just like two days ago, he asks me to count backwards from two hundred, and soon I’m back in the garden. This time the flowers are different, red fuchsia and trailing white and blue lobelia hanging down from above. The ground is soft, full of wild flowers, pansies, daisies and huge sunflowers, all scattered among the high grasses. I can feel their cushioned carpet beneath my bare feet. It smells of summer. This time I can hear sounds, birdsong falling like the flowers from above. I walk down another flight of stairs, and I am back in the same corridor. I know the room I want to go to. Gerard asks me what age I am, and I tell him I’m seven.

I open the door to my old bedroom. There are toys on the floor, and in the corner is my doll’s house. I see Sandy sitting beside it. Sandy has curly blonde hair and sea-blue eyes. Her legs and arms don’t have elbow or knee joints, so they can only move in a certain way. Golly sits beside her, with his large yellow bow. His eyes look as if he’s about to be knocked down by a truck. That doesn’t matter, because his eyes are always like that, as if he’s been given the fright of his life.

I hear voices, loud adult voices, coming from below. A man is shouting. I don’t know who he is. I must have finished a snack. There is an empty glass on my bedside locker, which looks like it was filled with milk, and a willow-pattern plate with crumbs on it. Debbie, my other doll, is the first to break the silence.

‘Ah, go jump in a lake,’ she says, as if she doesn’t care about the voices coming from downstairs. Debbie always says things like that. Things you have to listen to. Debbie has airs and graces. She thinks she’s the most important doll. Unlike Sandy, she has elbow and knee joints. I don’t like her, really, but I don’t ignore her either. You’d have to be mad to ignore Destructive Debbie. She’d make you pay the price. Debbie and Sandy live inside the doll’s house, but Debbie is definitely the one in charge. She often whispers when the voices from downstairs get too loud, as if she wants Sandy and me to listen carefully, but then yells at the top of her voice when others speak low.

Debbie is not impressed today. She is not one bit happy. Debbie has attitude. You need to understand that when you’re dealing with her. She has rights on account of being both clever and beautiful. She’s telling me about the man, the one without a name. The one she knows likes Mum. I don’t think Dad is at home. It’s the middle of the day, and he would be at work. I can hear Gerard Hayden’s voice. He’s asking, ‘Who is talking, Clodagh?’