‘And for each other,’ she replies.
The police come and go, both plain clothes and in uniform. Amanda can tell by their stances, their blank expressions and gentle politeness, that they fear the worst. Nothing has changed since yesterday. People are still searching, divers still diving. All leads are being followed, insists Caroline, the family liaison officer, when Lar rages at her and accuses the guards of sitting on their hands. His tolerance, always low when things are not working to his satisfaction, is barely contained as the hours pass without word and his sense of helplessness increases.
Soon afterwards, he leaves to visit the search centre that neighbours, along with parents from Marcus’s school, organised in the Rockfield town hall. Mrs Morris makes coffee and sandwiches and carries a tray into Amanda’s office.
‘You have to keep up your strength,’ she says.
The thought of swallowing anything solid clamps Amanda’s throat. She is being destroyed by inactivity. The urge to slash through forests of undergrowth, break down the doors of houses, strangle suspects so that they are compelled to spill their secrets into the open, that is all she wants to do. She waits for the police to phone or call, and Mrs Morris, who says Amanda must call her Alice, consoles her with stories of children who were lost and then found.
Lar looks defeated when he returns from the search centre. And old, so old. The evening news comes on. Marcus’s school photograph is used and, once again, footage of her arrival at St Bede’s rolls across the screen. LR1 is the only television station to illustrate their news item with film recorded from the press conference.
Another day draws to a close. Lar takes a sleeping tablet and hands one to her. They lie together, a chaste embrace as they wait for oblivion to claim them. And then, on the instant her body relaxes, Karl Lawson’s voice flows effortlessly through her mind: vengeance is mine… mine… mine…
It’s dark outside when Marcus wakes up. He’s warm and cosy in bed but he needs to pee. The light shines on the plink at the bottom of his bed. He sleeps with a different one every night. So far, he’s slept with Plucky, Ace and Derring-Do. It’s Bravo’s turn tonight.
He opens the bedroom door. Rainbows shine above him. In the Sudsy Room, Super has left a box in front of the toilet so Marcus can stand on it to pee and another bigger box at the basin so that he can wash his hands afterwards. The window is open. He can see the moon. It’s like the pumpkin head they made today. They took out all the squishy bits in the middle and cut out eyes and a nose and a mouth. Super put a candle inside it and it looked like the pumpkin head was on fire.
He stands on his tippy-toes and looks down into the apple garden. The trees are like monsters with wavy arms. There’s a light shining brighter than the moon, only it’s on the ground. Marcus sees a man standing in front of the light. A car is parked on the grass. The man is a robber and he’s got Super’s car. He’s trying really hard to lift something off the ground. A cloud covers the moon and the man isn’t there any more. It’s like the night Mammy went swimming and Marcus thought the robber was chasing her.
He has to tell Super. He creeps quiet in case the robber comes into Plinkertown Hall. Super is not in the Chow-Chow Room or the Wow-Wagon or in Sleepy Nook. Marcus is afraid to cry in case the robber hears. He wants Mammy but she’s still in a Big Apple with Daddy. He’s fed up playing the recording of Mammy in the swingy chair. He wants her arms around him. To smell her special smell, like flowers in the garden. He goes back to bed and pulls the duvet over his head. Then it’s okay to cry really loud.
‘What’s the matter, little man?’ Super comes into Sleepy Nook and wipes Marcus’s tears away. He’s breathing heavy, like Mammy does when she goes jogging. He sits on the edge of the bed and tells Marcus not to be frightened. He’s chased the robber from the apple garden with a big stick and he’ll never come back again to frighten Marcus.
‘Did you box him really hard?’ Marcus asks.
‘As hard as I could,’ says Super. ‘Right in the middle of his fat, rubbery nose.’
Marcus laughs so loud that the tears come again. But they’re okay tears because Super is safe and the robber didn’t take his car away.
‘I want to be Bravo tomorrow,’ he says and Super nods, like that’s a really good decision. Tomorrow is Hallowe’en and they’re going to a special fancy-dress party.
‘Now, go back to sleep,’ says Super. ‘And if the bugs bite…’
‘Squash ’em tight,’ says Marcus.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Day Five
Telly Babe Caught on CCTV
Lucy Knight
Sensational information has come to light regarding the mysterious behaviour of telly babe, Amanda Bowe, on the afternoon of her son’s disappearance. The Daily Orb can now reveal that she was caught on CCTV driving into a service station off the M1 to take a phone call from a guard, who intended sending a squad car to collect her. What was she doing on the M1 when, from Howth, she should have been driving on a completely different route? This raises the question once again… who did Mandy meet on that fateful afternoon?
Was her late arrival at her son’s exclusive, private school linked to handsome telly hunk, Eric Walker? LR1’s poster boy crime reporter arrived home a day earlier than planned from Spain where he had been tracking the movements of the notorious Shroff family as they strutted around the swimming pools and discos of the Costa del Crime. Is it possible that he was discussing tactical manoeuvres with Bowe in his Skerries apartment when her son went missing and her elderly husband, LR1’s flamboyant owner, Lar Richardson, was in New York? Your fans want answers, Amanda. Why did you lie about your whereabouts on that afternoon when you were questioned by gardaí? Why do you refuse to answer questions from a concerned media, who want to report the truth and assist in the desperate search for your little boy?
Her bedroom door is locked when Lar bangs his fist against it and demands admittance. He’s hoarse, choleric with rage. If she lets him in, he’ll beat her up. How can he not? Her father never needed a reason and Imelda never knew how to deflect his fury – not until the day she took the iron she was using on his shirts and pressed it to his face. Her daughters had left home by then and she no longer needed to deflect his anger from anyone but herself. She walked away from his screams and never spoke to him again.