‘That may or may not be necessary.’ She was the first to look away, coiling back and holding off the strike for another time. ‘It depends on how our investigation proceeds. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr Lawson.’
The number of journalists outside his gate had increased by the time the police left. Karl pulled the curtain slightly to the side and watched as cameras flashed. Sergeant Moran ignored their shouted questions and strode purposefully past the reporters. No wonder the media were gathering. They reminded him of caged panthers as they paced the pavement, clutching takeaway coffees and speaking into their mobiles about the latest curve of the investigation.
He tried to ring Justin and Jenna but their phones remained unanswered.
‘How are you holding up?’ Barbara rang as he was defrosting his dinner in the microwave.
‘With difficulty,’ Karl replied. ‘I read Capital Eye.’
‘She’s a muckraker, Karl,’ she replied. ‘Remember what she wrote when that kid was shot in the inner city last year. She put his family through hell.’
‘She’s obviously determined to put me in the same place.’
‘What’s all this stuff about a secret cult?’
‘It’s rubbish,’ he replied. ‘Constance wasn’t in a cult. She was in a clique who liked living on the edge. And, yes, I did keep that information from her parents because I trusted her to stop behaving so foolishly. And, yes, Nicole has removed the kids from our house but only to protect them from the media. This stuff Amanda Bowe is writing is inflammatory but she’s hanging by her fingernails to the edge of truth. And now my house has been searched by the guards. The media are outside and there’s still no sign of Constance.’
‘I can’t imagine what her parents are going through.’
‘It’s hour by torturous hour. They can’t look beyond that. How are you managing?’
‘The magazine’s almost ready to be put to bed…’ She hesitated, then continued. ‘What should I do about the Tin Toy Soldiers review Constance wrote?’
‘Oh, Christ.’ He pressed his hand to his forehead. ‘I’d completely forgotten about it. We obviously can’t use it until we find her.’
When would that be? Grief welled inside him as he remembered her excitement when he had told her she could write her first music review for Hitz. She had called to his house one night when he was putting Sasha to bed.
‘Anyone home?’ she had shouted after letting herself in.
Sasha, who had been drifting asleep as he read her bedtime story, sat up immediately and shouted, ‘We’re in my bedroom.’
Nicole was on night duty at the hospital and Karl had been hoping to do some editing on his laptop once Sasha was asleep. He sighed as Constance bounded up the stairs, knowing that it would be at least an hour before his daughter settled down to sleep again.
Later, Constance had made herbal tea for herself and coffee for him, then curled up on the sofa to listen to tracks from the latest Tin Toy Soldiers album. She had been a fan of the band ever since he’d brought her and her friends to their concert some months previously. He had advised her to listen to the tracks a number of times and then write a review. If it was up to scratch he would publish it. At the front door she had flung her arms around him and promised he would have it in three days. True to her word, she had emailed the review to him on time.
‘I can easily fill the slot.’ Barbara spoke softly. ‘We’ll use it next month when all this is behind us.’
‘Yes, that’s what we’ll do.’ Hope… there had to be hope. Anything else was unthinkable. ‘Thanks for taking over, Barbara. I appreciate it.’
‘It’s the least I can do.’
‘Has Lar Richardson said anything? I rang to explain what’s going on. He was at a meeting and he hasn’t rung back.’
‘You know Lar.’ Barbara sighed. ‘He’s so involved with his new television channel, he hardly has time for anything else. I’ve spoken to him about Constance. He’s sympathetic and knows you’ll return to work as soon as she’s been found.’
Chapter Seven
Day Four
Unnamed Suspect at Centre of Missing Connie Case
Amanda Bowe
The search for missing schoolgirl Connie Lawson, 13, took a sinister turn yesterday afternoon when gardaí searched a house in the Glenmoore area close to her home. They remain tight-lipped as to the reasons for this search but despite this clampdown on media information, Capital Eye can reveal that a piece of intimate female apparel found in one of the bedrooms was removed from the house and taken away to be forensically examined.
House to house enquiries will continue today. The Garda Press Office have appealed to anyone with information, no matter how unimportant it may seem, to contact Glenmoore Garda Station where the search for Connie is ongoing. Her parents, Justin and Jenna Lawson, will hold a press conference this afternoon and make a public appeal for help in finding their missing daughter.
Everyone wanted a piece of him and Amanda Bowe had shown how it could be done. Journalists were shifting their perspective from the general to the personal, emailing or shoving lists of questions through his letter box. Karl watched from the living-room window as a male reporter interviewed Maria Barnes, who lived three doors away from Justin. Maria, after a quick glance over at Karl’s house, as if she guessed he was watching, closed her front door. The reporter crossed the road and rang his doorbell. When Karl refused to answer, he shouted through the letter box, introducing himself as Eric Walker and asking for an interview. His voice had an urgency that suggested he was approaching a deadline. His brown hair, chiselled with gel, had been combed into short, aggressive spikes. Eager and competitive, he wrote for the Daily Orb and was cut from the same mould as Amanda Bowe.
Eventually, when his questions remained unanswered, he shoved a sheet of paper through the letter box and returned to the cluster of journalists outside the gate. Ignoring the others, he sat on the garden wall and spoke on his phone.
Karl glanced over the questions. Each one was primed with suspicion.
Can you describe the ‘close relationship’ you have with your niece?
Did Constance tell you where she was going on the night she disappeared?
Did the closeness of your relationship cause friction with her parents?
Was your house searched by gardaí yesterday and a ‘piece of intimate apparel’ taken from it?
Does she come regularly to your house when your wife is on night duty?
Were you alone with her in your car on one occasion in the early hours of the morning?
He crumpled the sheet of paper and flung it into the rubbish bin. The last two questions could only have been instigated by something Maria Barnes had said. The Third Eye, Nicole called her. Someone who could always be relied upon to provide the latest update on what was going on in the neighbourhood. But why would Maria distort the truth? She was a gossip but not vindictive, or so he had always believed.
Nicole rang shortly afterwards. ‘Was it our house that was searched?’ she asked.