The Lost (6 page)

Paula gently disengaged her hand. ‘That’s right. You’re Cathy’s form tutor?’

The smile dropped. ‘We’re so worried. I keep telling myself, if only I’d talked to her – but sure you never know, do you? I saw her that day – break time on the Friday. I was on cloakroom duty. They’re not meant to hang around in there, but she was on her own, and she’d been crying.’

Paula took a few steps away, looking round the classroom, which was cheerfully upholstered in green and yellow crepe paper, poems and posters stapled up for the edification of the girls. Ten chairs had been arranged in a horseshoe in the middle of the room, desks pushed back. ‘Did you speak to Cathy, when she was crying?’

‘Och, I could see she didn’t want to talk. The girls know I’m always here for them. We have a problems box.’ She proudly patted a shoebox which had been covered in hand-written question marks and a small sign that said
Ask Anything!
‘I read them out anonymously in form class and we have a wee chat.’

‘So you’ve nothing
to add on where Cathy might have gone, nothing that might help?’

‘If only I did. She’s a lovely girl, hard-working, bright, popular – all that. I mean, she was crying, yes – but they always are! If so-and-so sits with the wrong person at lunch, or so-and-so sees a boy the other likes – well, I’m sure you remember. It’s non-stop drama at that age.’

Paula looked at the chairs. ‘Are you having a meeting?’

‘Oh yes, I’m getting ready for lunchtime – my little discussion group. I set it up at the start of the year, after—well . . .’ The teacher lowered her voice. ‘We had a pupil kill herself over the summer. Terrible thing.’ She mouthed the word. ‘
Hanging
. So I’m trying to be there for the girls more, support them. Anyone can come. We have little chats, discuss anything that’s on their minds, do some role-play and things. It helps them to deal with the issues they’re facing.’

Paula considered the empty chairs. ‘Did Cathy come?’

‘Oh yes – yes, she did.’ As if it had only just occurred to her.

And you didn’t think to tell us sooner?
‘But not last Friday?’

‘No, no. She didn’t come that day. I suppose that must have been when she disappeared.’

Paula had thought it odd that the Principal arranged meetings in the Chapel, but she understood why when, with Guy gone back to the station, she slipped into the quiet room, which contained only a stained-glass cross over a simple wooden table. It was peaceful, intimate – the kind of place where you’d want to whisper out your secrets.

A girl sat in the front row, eyes closed, hands pressed together.

‘Anne-Marie?’ Paula kept her voice low.

The girl looked up. She
had bad skin which she’d caked in makeup, and ratty blond hair done up in elaborate clips. ‘You’re the police lady?’

‘Sort of. My name’s Paula. Were you praying for her? Cathy?’

The girl nodded.

Paula sat. ‘So, what class are you out of?’

‘Maths.’

‘Miss Connolly, is it? Does she still have that old red jacket?’

The girl smiled faintly and looked at her bitten nails. So much for trying to connect.

‘Anne-Marie, I need to ask you a few things, just to check what you remember. When did you last see Cathy?’

The girl took a deep breath. ‘Last Friday, just at the gates out there. After school. Mammy picked me up, but Cathy said she was going down the town.’

‘Was that strange?’

‘A bit. Normally she’s not allowed. Some of us go on a Friday but she wasn’t meant to. Then later I tried texting her, like, but she never replied.’

Paula frowned. ‘She had a phone?’

Anne-Marie gave an
are-you-daft
look. ‘Yeah. Course.’

‘Right. And did Cathy have a boyfriend, Anne-Marie?’

She saw the girl think and shake her head. ‘She never met boys. I go to the disco sometimes, but—’

‘She wasn’t allowed?’

Anne-Marie lapsed into silence.

‘Was it hard for Cathy to meet boys, then?’

She mumbled, ‘That’s why she was on at me to go down the Mission. She said we’d meet boys, but there weren’t any nice ones. They were all rotten, except for the leaders.’ She stopped herself, as if surprised at the three full sentences she’d uttered.

‘The Mission? What’s that?’

‘It’s on Friday
nights. We sing songs and that. Like a church.’ She shrugged. ‘They’re nice. It’s like they really listen.’

‘Where is it, the Mission?’ She didn’t want to confuse the girl by asking more about what it was.

‘Down on Flood Street, you know?’

‘I do.’ Paula digested this. ‘Were you meant to go that Friday?’

‘Yeah, but, like – Cathy, she’d already gone before then. Before the time we’d normally go.’

‘Did Cathy seem OK to you before she went – not sad, or weird?’

Another shrug. ‘Dunno. She was OK.’

‘Right. Just another question, Anne-Marie – did you or Cathy ever meet Majella Ward?’

‘The traveller girl?’ She shook her head firmly. ‘No.’

‘Did you know Louise McCourt?’

The girl looked confused. ‘Course, we had an assembly for her.’

‘But did you know her to talk to, like as a friend?’

‘No.’

Paula tried to recall the list of Cathy’s hobbies, provided by her mother. ‘Louise didn’t do choir, or first aid, or – did she go to the Mission?’

‘Oh yeah,’ said Anne-Marie, surprised again. ‘Course she did. Loads of people go to the Mission. Their mums don’t mind, ’cos it’s like Mass.’

Chapter Six

After several hours with
a succession of tight-lipped teenagers, Paula wasn’t finding out any more about Cathy Carr, or indeed Louise McCourt. It was frustrating, when she was sure these same shy teens would be hollering their heads off at the bus stop in just a few hours. She wandered down to the office to hand back her visitor’s pass, texting Guy to say she’d finished. Was that allowed, texting in school? No one even had mobiles when she’d been there.

In her day the office ladies had been scary gatekeepers who’d interrogate you about sick leave, but as an adult Paula received a smile from the curly-haired woman at the counter. ‘Please God you can find the wee one. It’s a crying shame.’

Paula still quailed, as if in possession of a forged exeat note. Catching sight of framed class pictures on the wall, she gestured at them. ‘Could you show me Cathy’s class?’

‘Aye, of course, come on in.’ The woman lifted the barrier and Paula went under, still with a small surge of fear. ‘Top right there. Lovely wee girl.’

Paula’s eyes were scanning quickly over the other photographs, in search of someone else. She found the name in tiny letters on the brass plaque. There she was, in the picture below. A bigger girl than Cathy Carr, reddish curls, big warm smile.

‘When were these done?’

‘It’s usually summer, end of the year.’

So just weeks after this, something had prompted smiling Louise McCourt to end her own life.

The gates of St
Bridget’s closing behind her gave Paula a welcome feeling of release. She was far too old to be back there, remembering all those tears and resentments, the whole place reeking of periods and cheap perfume. As she turned back to look at it, Paula heard a voice up close in her ear. A warm breath of Polos.

‘Back to school then, Maguire?’

She didn’t turn. ‘You know you’re not meant to hang out at the school gates.’

‘Funny. Last schoolgirl I went for was you, as I recall.’

‘Lucky me. What d’you want, Aidan?’ She faced him, and found familiar dark eyes level with hers. Aidan O’Hara hadn’t shaved in days, and looked as if he’d slept in his blue shirt, but still she stepped back, away from the flood of feeling that hit her in the chest.

‘Any word on the girl?’ he asked casually, jingling change in his jeans.

‘Ah, here we go. Got a tape-recorder in your pocket?’

‘No, just pleased to see you.’ A smile was spreading over his lean face, and she flicked her hair, cross.

‘I hear you’re the Editor now – why don’t you find out things for yourself?’

He laughed. ‘I will surely. Nothing gets past the mighty
Ballyterrin Gazette
.’

She saw Guy’s car coming up the road. ‘There’s my lift, will you move yourself.’ With some satisfaction, she noticed Aidan’s old Clio was parked nearby, same car he’d had at eighteen. But that brought back memories of its own.

‘We’ll be running an interesting article this week,’ he said, moving aside to let her pass. He leaned against the Clio with his hands in his pockets. ‘Can the English Inspector get to the heart of Ballyterrin’s secrets?’

‘He’s doing his best.’ She waved Guy over.

‘Especially with his history – can he cope?’

‘What are you
on about, for God’s sake?’

‘Have to read the paper to find out.’

Paula made herself turn, walk to the car without letting him see he’d riled her.

‘Who was that?’ Guy pulled away, and she let herself look back. Aidan was still leaning against the car, watching her.

She turned away. ‘Just some eejit.’

‘You all right going in here?’

‘I’ll be fine.’ She said it confidently, but in truth she’d never been into the traveller camp before. For years it had sat on the outskirts of Ballyterrin, down by the silty mudflats of the dock area – a place of fear, of lore. She belted up her trench-coat against the thin rain falling.

Guy parked his BMW near the entrance to the camp, on a barren stretch of wasteland outside town. ‘Sometimes they throw bricks,’ he shrugged. ‘OK to walk?’

Paula was always OK to walk, because she didn’t wear heels. Female officers didn’t, and she’d learned that everyone took you more seriously if you could race after them when needed.

The camp consisted of about sixty caravans – some huge and plush, some ramshackle – the ‘travelling’ community who now sat, unmoving, dipping in and out of the town as they pleased, drawing prejudice like a lightning-rod and providing employment for the place’s social workers, doctors, and dole officers.

Guy walked with long strides, and even in her flat boots she struggled to keep up. Rain was collecting in dank puddles on the muddy ground; there was a smell of sewage and neglect. He said, ‘I’m sure you’ll be aware of the sensitivities here. The PSNI have been carrying out interviews since we realised Majella was gone, but there’s a huge backlog to get through, and we’re behind on time.’

‘They didn’t report
her for two weeks, I see.’

‘The parents didn’t, and the school didn’t want to interfere, they said.’ She could hear the anger in Guy’s voice and liked him more for it. No one had worried about interfering when middle-class Cathy Carr went missing. ‘It was Majella’s sister called it in, in fact – when the news broke about Cathy. She’s only twelve. The school thought Majella might have gone to get married, but Theresa said no way. Said there’d have been a huge ceremony. They’ve got money, the family, though you’d not think it.’

‘Yeah, that sounds right. So you think she’s really missing?’

‘Seems like it.’ He ushered her up to the first caravan, large and white, surrounded by a neat fence, and she noticed he was shielding her with his body, as crowds of men in tracksuits began to gather several yards away. The gesture seemed instinctive, and she had time to wonder dimly if Guy had been in the Army. A vicious black dog was tied up outside the caravan, snapping at her heels. Paula made herself stand up tall, show no fear.

‘Here we are. The Wards. Actually, they’re all called Ward.’ Guy sounded embarrassed. ‘Majella’s family are the Paddy Wards – he’s one of the community leaders. They won’t tell us much, I’m afraid.’

Paula nodded; they wouldn’t have much use for the police round here. Then the door of the white caravan flew open and a wrinkled woman shouted out, ‘Yis are too fecking late, she’s gone now.’

‘Mrs Ward?’ Paula took in the woman’s missing teeth and gilt earrings, skin avalanching out of a vest top and pedal-pushers.

‘No fecking point coming round here now – me daughter’s gone.’ Letting the door swing shut, Majella’s mother ducked back inside. Paula had a fleeting glimpse of a clean-scrubbed floor where a baby sat nappyless, pushing a broken Barbie round in circles. She held the door open.

‘Mrs Ward? I’m
new, how are you? Paula’s my name. I just wanted to ask a few questions about Majella.’

‘She won’t talk to yis.’ Paula and Guy turned to see a skinny girl in a navy school uniform, high ponytail, hoop earrings. ‘You’ll have to talk to me. Theresa.’ She pronounced it
Treeza
. Theresa led them around the side of the caravan, where plastic patio furniture stood collecting rain. ‘Yis are back for more, then.’

‘This is Ms Maguire – Paula. She’s going to help us find your sister.’

‘Not doing a good job so far, are yis.’

Feeling thoroughly steeped in teenage girls, Paula let herself be sized up by the twelve year old. ‘Where did you last see your sister, Theresa?’

‘Told yis, she went off to school on Friday, never come home. Da went mental, sent me brothers down the town to get her. But she wasn’t there, she wasn’t nowhere.’

‘You’re at the same school as her?’

‘Aye.’ She should have been there now, Paula thought.

‘She normally came home straight away?’

‘She did them after-school courses and that. Da didn’t mind them. Computers and that shite.’

‘But no one called the police when you couldn’t find her?’

Theresa shrugged; the police didn’t count for much in the camp. She was grasping her phone and Paula glimpsed the screensaver, wet with drops of rain – a girl with a mane of chestnut hair, braces on her teeth.

‘That’s Majella? Can you tell me – how was she, before she went?’

Theresa looked down at her sister’s picture. ‘Same as always. She’s a right moody cow, our Maj.’ She shrugged again; at just twelve she had that teenage insouciance thing nailed.

‘So it was
a Friday, the last time you saw her. Where was she meant to be, do you know? Is there an after-school course that day?’

Theresa thought about it, fiddling with the phone in its pink diamanté case. ‘Dunno. Typing, maybe.’ She scowled up at them. ‘The peelers reckon Da took her off to get hitched.’