‘Constance tells us everything and she never said anything about a gang like that.’ The taller of the two girls, Tracey Broome, blue eyes glistening with unshed tears, was adamant. ‘We wouldn’t keep secrets like that from each other.’
Amanda was inclined to believe them. Afterwards, she wondered if that was a choice she made and then forgot as she continued to delve further into Karl Lawson’s unfolding story. The Fearless sounded like something from an Enid Blyton plot. These sophisticated teenagers lived their lives through their iPhones, not through the pages of an old-fashioned children’s book. The photographs on Connie’s phone bore this out. Shopping centres and school discos, end-of-term plays, school tours, beach parties on the dunes with the sun, not the moon, shining overhead and, of course, the gigs with Karl Lawson. The girls said he was ‘cool’. All those free tickets and autographs. All those selfies taken with celebrities to show off in class. Amanda had checked the selfies. Some had been taken with the members of Tin Toy Soldiers when they played the Ovid. The band were seasoned musicians, who had been around the block more than once. When Amanda saw how the singer looked at the girls, a lecherous middle-aged rocker checking out young meat, she had wondered whose buttons Karl Lawson was pressing by bringing those kids backstage.
At first, this was just a fleeting thought. Gone and forgotten as she tried to build a profile of Connie. She had decided early on to change her name. Constance sounded too out-dated and prim. It didn’t suit the image Amanda had of her. Connie was almost fourteen but looked older, sixteen even, in her photographs. Something about her mouth, that lustrous bottom lip, inherited from her uncle. On her it had looked sexy-vulnerable. On him it signified arrogance.
Tracey believed Connie had been in love with him. ‘No matter what we were talking about, she’d bring his name into the conversation,’ she said.
Gillian disagreed and claimed Lucas O’Malley was the one Connie really fancied.
Lucas O’Malley, when Amanda interviewed him, was equally dismissive about The Fearless. He was amused by the idea that she should think he hung around with Connie and her friends. Fifteen years of age, he had the petulant allure of a boy-band singer and Amanda had no difficulty believing Connie was infatuated by him. As the search continued, she was convinced The Fearless was a figment of Karl Lawson’s imagination and this belief grew as hope faded.
While Hunter had provided much of the insider information to Amanda during the search, the Arizonian angle was due to her own tenacity. She was online, checking information on Karl Lawson, when she discovered the features he had written for Cannonade about bands in Arizona: an obscure hip hop band from Winding Falls, a bluegrass band from Tucson. He had also taken some brilliant shots of bands gigging in Phoenix. Ah, Amanda thought. No mention of Arizona on his website or any of the social media sites he used. Why not? She checked further and eventually discovered his name in the Winding Falls Echo. A short report in an obscure newspaper. Her hunch confirmed.
Selina Lee was reticent when Amanda phoned. The soap star had refused, at first, to speak about her assault. She insisted that Karl Lawson had nothing to do with the horror of that night but Amanda was convinced she was lying. The victim protecting the perpetrator because the truth was harder to handle.
Her own mother had lived under the same code of denial. Imelda Bowe fell down steps, walked into walls, hit her head off the open doors of kitchen presses and smacked her daughters for leaving them ajar. Amanda had heard it all, hiding with her sister and their cat in the tiny bedroom they shared. Walls, steps, doors… they never dared contradict Imelda or challenge their father’s fury. The truth hidden behind dark glasses, long sleeves and lies.
Selina Lee had invested in Karl Lawson and was too far into denial to change her story. The reporter on the Winding Falls Echo confirmed Amanda’s suspicion. An unsolved crime. He’d always had his doubts about Karl Lawson and had a cop friend who agreed with him.
The media went into a frenzy after the Arizonian revelations. Amanda was interviewed on radio and television, especially when the story reached its ghastly conclusion. Blunt-force trauma to her head, that was how Connie Lawson died, the pathologist announced. The details had been horrendous, the evidence against Karl Lawson overwhelming, especially the discovery of the Blasted Glass CD in the pocket of Connie’s black leather jacket, signed by the band members and dated just before she disappeared. Even without the statements from his wife and nephew, it was obvious that Connie had been in his house that night.
That evidence had been sufficient to remand him in custody to await trial. Each week, Amanda expected to hear that a date had been set for the trial to begin. But government cutbacks were eating into all aspects of public life. The legal system was no exception and a backlog of cases, as well as a shortage of judges, was causing delays. She would forget about him for brief periods. The convulsions of the crime world never slowed down and she had moved on to other stories.
She also had to fend off a police inquiry that was launched shortly afterwards to find out how she had acquired so much confidential information. Guards had been interrogated, suspicion spreading like a virus through Glenmoore Garda Station and beyond, even reaching the press office. Hunter said the atmosphere was toxic but no evidence of collusion was found and the inquiry had been quietly shelved.
Amanda had remained calm throughout her own interrogation. She had come a long way from the nervous, young journalist who began her career with Capital Eye as a reporter of nail-bitingly boring county council meetings and, in the true spirit of journalism, she would go to jail rather than reveal her source.
Her days were busy, frenetic even, yet she remained conscious of Karl. In the middle of writing up a feature or doing an interview, she would recall his expression as he was escorted into the police station. How he had looked directly into her eyes, as if trying to understand the process that had led them both to that moment. She had turned away, relieved that he would soon be behind bars and unable to vent his fury on her.
At such moments of recollection, she would argue with herself. She was simply a cog in the media wheel. One lone voice among the many who charted those seven frantic days when it seemed as if the nation was holding its collective breath until the heart-breaking news finally broke and they could grieve the loss of such a young life.