She is interviewed by Garda Browne and an older woman, who introduces herself as Sergeant Moran. She has a brisk handshake and a short haircut that emphasises her broad neck. A woman who will command any space she occupies. She looks familiar but Amanda’s terror is too strong to take in features, names or information.
Sergeant Moran asks if she and Lar have enemies. A rhetorical question. Of course they have enemies. Amanda receives enough hate mail and social media abuse to verify that fact. As for Lar, he hasn’t risen to his heights without stepping hard on too many toes along the way. But to take their son… how much hate can one person harbour towards another?
Later, when she is leaving the school, she understands why the sergeant looks familiar. She had been involved in the search for Connie Lawson. She must have transferred from Glenmoore to Rockfield. It’s clear from her steady gaze that she also remembers Amanda and the publicity surrounding that investigation.
Now, as then, Capital Eye is the first to carry the story in their late-afternoon edition. Barbara Nelson, another face from the past, her goth hair tamed with highlights, and a softer palette around her eyes. She moved to Capital Eye when Hitz folded and now she’s chasing scoops, as Amanda used to do. The fact that Amanda was once a prized member of staff obviously means nothing when it comes to exploiting an angle. How could Shane do this to her after all the years they worked together? How demented she looked in his photos, as demented as any mother would be under such circumstances.
Marcus is on the evening news. The television channels use the photograph from his first day in school. He looks so solemn in his St Bede’s uniform, nervous yet excited. She watches the footage of her arriving that afternoon. The bloom of guilt on her cheeks as she ran past the school railings, staggering on her heels, her leather skirt rucked too high over her thighs.
The LR1 news desk reports only on Marcus’s disappearance. Shaming the boss’s wife in public is not a good idea for those who wish to keep their jobs.
Marcus’s room has been tidied by Mrs Morris. His Super Plink doll lies on the bed, waiting for his arrival home. Usually, he takes it with him in his schoolbag but he forgot it today or, perhaps, he deliberately left it behind. A big boy now, too grown-up to play with toys, unwilling to be teased and called a ‘baby’ by the other pupils. But he is a baby, she thinks. The baby she loves with such fierce, protective passion… all forgotten on the whim of another, dangerous passion.
This morning with Eric has the shimmer of a dream that glistened briefly and was soon forgotten. She cannot think about it as she smooths the plink’s soft pelt. The eyes shine with a startling green light. Of the seven dolls Ben Carroll created, Super Plink is Marcus’s favourite and would have brought him some comfort, wherever he is. She hugs the plink to her chest as if, somehow, this can convey her love to her son and transmit to him the courage he will need in the hours ahead. The plink portrait stares at her from the wall. Ben Carroll had drawn her son with just a few strokes, yet he’d captured Marcus’s rapt expression, his trusting, inquisitive gaze.
The full moon shines above the trees, a voluptuous, orange belly that fills her vision as she steals through the grounds of Shearwater to ring Eric.
‘Why didn’t you return my calls?’ he whispers, as if he, like her, is afraid they can be overheard. ‘I’ve been going out of my mind with worry. What’s happening? Is there any word on Marcus?’
‘Nothing yet. I can’t bear it. I can’t… what if Billy Shroff organised – or Killer…?’ The familiar nickname catches against her throat and she’s unable to continue.
‘Why would they—’ Eric begins.
‘Why wouldn’t they? You’re doing a story on them. You know what they did to me before.’
‘But they’ve no idea I’m working on anything out of the ordinary,’ he says. ‘I’ve a good source, who’d warn me if they had any suspicions about the investigation.’
‘Your source is a criminal. A liar, a murderer, even. You can’t possibly give credence to anything he tells you? They must have found out why you were in Spain—’ She stops, her voice shaking on this possibility. ‘I let Marcus down,’ she says, flatly. ‘This is my punishment. I should never have listened to you.’
‘Amanda, stop. What happened between us today has nothing to do with Marcus. How could it? No one knew we were meeting except us – and you didn’t know until I rang you this morning.’
Eric sounds grim and certain, but he is plucking suppositions out of thin air – thin air… what does he know, he or anyone else?
‘The Shroffs have no reason to take Marcus,’ he continues. ‘He’ll be found soon. Someone is bound to have noticed any unusual behaviour. It’s just taking time for the pieces to come together.’
She forces herself to listen to him. To run shrieking into the wilderness of her imagination will not help Marcus, yet she’s trapped there, her mind on fast-forward, speeding her towards terrifying conclusions.
‘Check with your source,’ she whispers.
‘That’s what I’m going to do,’ he replies. ‘All my instincts tell me this has nothing to do with the Shroffs. But if there’s the slightest hint that this is gang-related, I’ll contact the police immediately.’ He pauses, lowers his voice. ‘What will you tell Lar if he asks where you were this afternoon?’ He, who exposes ruthlessly, now fears being exposed.
She’s incapable of thinking straight, yet she feels the kernel of self-survival hardening within her. Her marriage is over if Lar discovers the truth. He will claim custody of Marcus and ensure that in the eyes of the law she is an unfit mother, who could not even keep her son safe, and Marcus must be – has to be – safe.
‘I’ll tell him I drove to Howth to persuade Jackson Barr to appear on my show.’ The journey from the crime writer’s secluded house to Rockfield would take roughly the same time as it took her to drive from Eric’s apartment.
‘But everyone knows Barr doesn’t do interviews—’
‘That’s why I decided to speak to him personally.’ She won’t tolerate Eric’s uncertainty. ‘I hadn’t realised he was out of the country until I arrived at his house.’ She needs to end their conversation. It’s a distraction when Marcus’s return is all that matters. ‘Have you a better idea?’ Her breath shudders. ‘If so, let me hear it.’
‘It could work.’ He knows how keen she was to interview the crime writer. ‘Who’s going to be able to prove otherwise?’