The Lost (37 page)

‘It was the American lady. It was Maddy. She gave it to her.’

Paula took this in. ‘And – did Siobhan tell Cathy?’

She nodded shamefacedly. ‘At breaktime. We found Cathy in the cloakrooms, and we showed it all
to her, and she cried.’

‘What day was this? Was it the day she went missing? You lied about what time she left school?’

Another slow nod. ‘She was that upset, miss, she ran out. She stayed for afternoon register and then she went, about two o’clock. I think she was going to see
him
. Ed.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Well, she’d nail varnish and makeup and that on. We’re not meant to have that at school. But the thing is, miss, I don’t think he wanted to see her. He had another girl, we thought. We saw him with her.’

Paula was fairly sure she knew the answer, but she asked, ‘Who?’

Another sigh. ‘Katie. I think he liked Katie after that.’

Of course he did. Katie, who was now also apparently pregnant, and also missing. ‘Anne-Marie, this might sound strange, but do you by any chance know what shoes Cathy had on that day?’

The girl didn’t even look puzzled at the question. ‘Her fancy ones. Heels. We’re not meant to wear those either.’

‘Are they patent, with a sort of strap across the front?’

‘Yeah. We bought them down in Dunnes one day.’ Fresh tears welled up. ‘Miss, I never meant to lie. It’s just Siobhan, she said we should do it, and – I didn’t want her to be mean to me too, miss. I just wish I could tell her how sorry I am – Cathy. She was my best friend. Do you think if I prayed, she’d know?’

Paula patted the girl’s cold hand. ‘It can’t do any harm. Now why don’t you go back. Your play’s starting soon. And thank you, Anne-Marie. You did the right thing.’

As she watched the girl trail down the aisle, her white robe sagging, Paula was thinking about a pair of shoes. Patent leather, high heels, size five. The ones she’d seen outside the Carrs’ house on a rack, where Cathy must have left them when she got home that day. The
last day anyone had seen her alive.

The square was even busier now, as dusk closed steadily in. The place thronged with teenagers, the boys scuffling their large shoes in doorways, backs turned protectively; the girls coatless, thin arms goose-bumped, laughter rising high and nervous. You could feel it in the air – it was a night when things would happen.

Paula pushed her way through the crowd, aiming for the opposite end of the square, where the Gazette offices stood on a side street. Her ears echoed with excited chatter, and the large screen was already flickering into life. They’d be starting soon, and then what? Would it be too late to find Katie, wherever she was?

She had reached the street and was hurrying down it, ducking past the groups of kids which still kept coming, when a blur of movement caught her eye. There was a small alley down the back of Dunnes supermarket, the place they unloaded pallets and took out rubbish. She’d always avoided the place because local drunks also used it as a handy toilet. Someone was in there. A gleam of fair hair in the shadows.

‘Who’s there?’ Paula moved into the alley, out of the busier street. Overlooked by bare walls, it was already dark in the corners, the stink of urine strong. Her fingers touched the reassuring shape of her phone, zipped into one jacket pocket. She peered behind a large green bin. ‘Is someone there?’

Then she was slamming against the breezeblock wall, all the breath knocked out of her. Ed Lazarus was an inch from her face, his wiry arms holding her shoulders down. Shock made her mind move slowly, and for a moment she took in how terrible he looked – a dirty sweatshirt, hair dark with sweat, several days’ beard on his cheeks.

Paula writhed. ‘Get the fuck off me!’

The man was panting. ‘Listen! Listen, I just want
to talk!’

‘Let me go!’ She tried to scream. ‘Help, someone!’

You wouldn’t have known to look at him, but he was strong. He put his arm over her throat and leaned in so close she could smell him, a mix of fear and unwashed clothes. ‘Shut up, OK? Shut up or I’ll hurt you.’ His voice was a low hiss.

She couldn’t get away. His face was too near; she turned hers to the side. ‘What are you doing here? The police are looking for you.’

‘I know.’ He was breathing hard. ‘They came to the Mission. But it’s not me. That’s what you need to understand.’

Paula made herself look him in the eyes, keep her voice calm. ‘Where is she, Ed? Where’s Katie?’

‘Katie?’ He looked puzzled, his hands relaxing their grip on her a fraction.

‘Yes, Katie Brooking. She’s gone missing, as if you didn’t know. You better not have hurt her.’

His green eyes went wide. ‘Listen, Paula, you have to listen. I didn’t do it. It’s not me you want. Katie – I didn’t even know she’d gone, I swear – and Cathy – it wasn’t me, OK? It wasn’t me!’

She struggled but he held her fast; her head banged painfully against the wall. ‘I know you’ve been with them. All those girls.’

His voice grew panicked. ‘Listen . . . yes, I was with them. But I didn’t kill Cathy. I didn’t even see her that day, that Friday. I know she was looking for me, but I wasn’t with her, OK? I—’

‘You were with Katie.’ It all tied up so neatly.

‘Yes. OK, you’re right, I was. But I never – I’d never hurt them! I don’t know anything, I swear.’

Paula tried to breathe. She fought the urge to push his pale hands off her, his touch unbearable. ‘We’ll find her, you know. You better tell me where she is.
Come on, Ed. If she’s not hurt, tell me and we can find her safe. She needs to go home.’

He moved away from her in a sudden impatient gesture, clutching at his head. ‘I’m trying to tell you! I don’t know where she is! I was with her, yes. And Cathy. All of them. I – I couldn’t help it. But I didn’t hurt any of them. I’m not like
him
.’

She didn’t understand. ‘Who?’

He moaned. ‘My father. I’m not him. I’d never hurt them.’

Paula’s hand moved to the zipper of her coat pocket. Could she get her phone out in time? No, he’d see. She took a deep breath. ‘Then who, Ed? Who did it?’

‘I—’ he gaped at her. ‘I’ve been trying to think. And then I realised –
she
could have done it. She was gone that day, that Friday. She knew Cathy well. And Katie – she knew all of them.’

Paula was confused. ‘Who do you mean, Ed? Who knew them?’

‘Maddy, of course.’

Maddy Goldberg. For a moment, Paula stood frozen. ‘Listen, Ed – why don’t you come with me, we’ll go to the station, and you can tell me all this and—’

He laughed, a dry desperate sound. ‘You must think I’m stupid, Paula. You want me to say I did it. Well, I didn’t. So you’re on your own now.’ Then he was gone, flashing round the side of the wall and out into the street. Paula ran after him but his fair head was already disappearing into the crowd. She pulled out her phone, calling Guy’s number. Gerard would be well away by now.

‘Shit!’ Voicemail. She tried Gerard too; no answer. They must be in the briefing at the station, working out how best to catch the man who’d just had his arm over her throat. She spoke urgently into the phone. ‘Listen, it’s Paula – I’ve just seen Lazarus. He’s in the square. He’s here now. You have to send some officers. I’m—’ She didn’t know how to explain
what she was about to do. ‘Call me as soon as you can, OK? Please hurry.’

She slipped the phone back into her pocket, paralysed by indecision. But no, she couldn’t go after Lazarus on her own. He was much stronger, and much faster, and she’d never find him in this crowd. Besides, there was somewhere more urgent she needed to be.

‘Aidan?’ From the outside, the newspaper offices looked deserted. On the lower floor, the window was boarded, broken glass sparkling over the ground. As Paula pushed open the door, it stuck on the post that had piled up behind the letter-box. Clearly, no one had been in or out for days. She stooped and picked up one letter, held it to the faint orange light from the square. Pencilled on the envelope:
To keep the Gazette going.
Inside, a crumpled fiver. Another, several pound coins jingling inside.

Slowly, she ascended the silent stairs. ‘Aidan?’ No answer. The steps were littered in paper, trodden over with footmarks. The bailiffs had taken everything.

‘Aidan O’Hara, if you’re here, you better get the feck out now.’ The building was giving Paula the freaks, only her own voice echoing in the dark corners.

At the top of the stairs, a shadowy figure stooped into view. ‘It’s yourself, Maguire.’

‘Of course it is. Who else’d come and drag your arse out of here?’ She went up a few steps more, to where the lights from the street lamps fell over his ravaged face. ‘They shut off the power?’

‘Aye. Shut off everything.’ A half-empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s hung from Aidan’s hand. His words were slightly slurred.

‘Well, aren’t you the picture of health and sobriety.’

‘What d’you want?’

‘Is this where you’ve been hiding yourself
away?’

Aidan was wearing ragged jeans and an old grey T-shirt she recognised from way back. Guns ’n’ Roses. He passed his free hand over his unshaven face. ‘Nowhere else to go. Lost the flat months ago.’

‘Thought that might be it.’ She walked up the last few steps.

‘You’ve come to gloat, have you?’

Anger boiled up in her. ‘I’ve come to see if you’re OK. Screw you, Aidan. Twelve years and you still can’t phone me after? What’s the matter with you?’

Aidan raised his head, eyes weary and old. ‘In case you didn’t notice, they cut off everything round here. That includes the phone lines. And the business mobiles.’

She pushed past him into the devastated office, still determined to be cross. ‘You couldn’t have got in touch somehow? I mean, Christ, it’s been a long time coming, what we did.’

Aidan shut the door with a snap. ‘And what the hell’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You know exactly what I mean.’ Inside, the office was a wreck. Footprints in ink all over the floorboards. Only two cheap plywood desks remaining, pulled out at strange acute angles. The floor littered with old front pages, scattered pens. It looked as if everything of any value had been hauled out the door, down to the last paperclip. The electrical sockets stood empty and dusty. ‘They took your computer?’

‘They practically took me underpants, Maguire.’ Aidan sat down by a sleeping bag placed on a mound of old papers, where he appeared to have been squatting for several days. Another empty bottle of JD rolled on the floor beside him.

‘When did you last eat?’

He lowered himself down heavily.
‘Who needs food when you’ve got my friend Jack?’

‘Jesus Christ, Aidan. If you’d the sense to walk downstairs, you’d realise this paper’s about more than you.’

He shut his eyes.

‘Hello! What do you think this is?’ Paula waved the handful of envelopes she’d scooped up from the hallway. ‘People are so keen to keep this bloody paper afloat, they’re sending their life-savings. God knows why they want to read about the best Irish dancing outfit in town, but apparently they do. It was even on the news. And what are you doing? Nesting in here on the papers like – like a bloody hamster, a child’s hamster, and drinking away what few brain-cells you have.’

Aidan said nothing.

‘Did you even hear me?’

‘I heard you, Maguire. I’d say they heard you in the South. Do carry on with your insightful commentary on my life.’

Then Paula was across the room and beating him about the head with the envelopes. ‘People care about you! People bloody want you to carry on telling the truth, and you can’t make it further than the floor!’

‘Never bothered you the other night.’

‘Ah, here we go. Go on then, let’s talk about it.’

‘Talk about what?’ He still hadn’t opened his eyes.

‘I don’t know, about the fact you finally nailed me, after twelve years? Is that what this is about?’

Aidan opened one dark eye a slit. ‘This discussion seems familiar, Maguire. Are we suddenly back in 2000?’

‘I suppose we are.’ Furiously, she paced the room. ‘I suppose we never left it, if you want to go there. So, this seems as good a time as any to talk about how you dumped me because I wouldn’t put out. That’s what it was, wasn’t it?’

‘I’m not having this conversation.’

‘Why not? Don’t you think you owe
me that, after all these years? You broke my heart, Aidan. And just because I wasn’t ready then, it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have been . . . I mean, I knew it would be hard, you going to uni a year ahead, but I thought you’d wait for me. And then I have to hear about it in some bloody
email
, that you’ve shagged some Dublin girl and we’re over.’

‘Over? Fuck’s sake. Did I ever say I wanted it over? I mean, there was that other girl – I fucked up, yes, but Christ, just some girl – you didn’t have to cut me off forever. I tried to ring you. PJ wouldn’t let me near the place, then you were gone. Saoirse said you did the same to her. What happened to you that summer? Glandular fever, we’re meant to believe. Was that really it?’

‘It’s none of your business what I—’

‘Glandular fever so bad you wouldn’t see anyone all summer? You even missed your birthday. We had all those plans.’

She was shaking. ‘You should have thought of that before you shagged around. I’d have done it, if you’d just waited, if you’d had a shred of common decency, or patience.’

Aidan started up, sitting on his stack of papers. ‘For fuck’s sake. I never even
wanted
to sleep with you, as you’d see if you’d an ounce of sense in your head.’

She stared at him. ‘Well, fuck you too.’

‘Wait! I mean, Jesus, Maguire, you were such a
good
girl – do you remember? All your top marks and your wee camogie skirt, going to Mass with your daddy, making his tea . . . and you were so vulnerable. Christ, you might have talked the talk, but after your mammy went you were so broken—’

She flinched. ‘Don’t you talk about my mother!’

‘I just meant . . . you were sort of so pure. I didn’t want to be the one to ruin that. You weren’t ready. And I was – well, there was me in Dublin, and I
was drinking hard then, drinking every day, going down some kind of spiral, and you’re back in Ballyterrin in your school uniform. It wasn’t right. I was no good for you.’