Can Anybody Help Me? (5 page)

Wind bubbled inside her and she willed the burp to stay down as she held her hand out for the notes he was carrying. Saw a look of managed concern on his face and decided she would rip his head off if he asked, in that precise way of his, if she was feeling okay. A side parting. Bloody hell. It wasn't like the rest of his colleagues were big into fashion. They all kept their hair short and neat. But Flynn looked like he still used Brylcream.

Annoying hair. Hmm, this must be what they meant by pregnancy hormones. She looked up and forced herself to focus.

‘So what did the caller say?'

‘It's all here.'

Flynn patted the paper in front of him. Completely legible handwriting. Of course. Claire felt her lower back twinge and shifted slightly in the chair, the dart of pain making her even more irritable.

‘I'll read them in a minute. Tell me what she said.'

And Flynn did so, in a detailed but bored way, as if there were something better he could be doing. In fairness to him, it was a pretty mad story. Some woman had called up talking about internet sites and fake names, personal messages and
how it was all connected to the missing woman, or might be. It sounded insane. But she could see the scepticism written all over Flynn's face and decided out of sheer contrariness, not to give him the satisfaction of agreeing.

‘I'll take a look, so.'

‘Really?'

He forgot to hide his surprise and Claire took a certain amount of satisfaction from seeing the mask of managed boredom slip.

‘Yeah. Of course. Could be interesting. Have to check all angles, you know? Hand it over.'

She snapped the papers from his hand and nodded in the direction of the door. Noted with satisfaction that he didn't like being dismissed in that way. His notes were concise, in fact there was very little to add to what he'd already told her, but she took note of the woman's name anyway. Yvonne Grant. Twenty-eight. The website was called Netmammy apparently. How incredibly naff. Not the sort of thing she could ever see herself using. Claire hadn't given much thought to maternity leave, but had vague hopes of getting the house painted, maybe finally finishing the garden she and Matt had been ignoring for years. She wouldn't be wasting her time on the internet …

‘Call on line one.'

Quigley's voice on the other end of the phone drove every thought of websites and side partings from her mind. A woman's body. An apartment block on the outskirts of the city centre, on the very edge of the Collins Street jurisdiction. She stood up, the twinge in her back forgotten.

‘On my way.'

As she walked through the office, she paused at Flynn's desk, feeling mildly guilty about her earlier sharpness.

‘Quigley says you're to come with me.'

Leaving his papers stacked neatly on the desk, he followed her out the door.

DH's shoes?

The feel of a soft pillowcase against her cheek. The little things. Yvonne closed her eyes. Even the very act of shutting her heavy lids was pleasurable. It had been – how long? More than five months since she had last done this. Crept into bed in the middle of the day, on her own, with no one else to worry about. For one hour only, there was no one else in the world who needed her.

Bliss.

She stretched out her legs and felt the ache in the small of her back grow, and then ease as she sank further into the mattress. Space. The entire bed, all hers. Her eyelids grew heavier. Sleep would come soon. The day's events whirled in her brain. She hadn't wanted to let Róisín go. Hadn't wanted to rest at all really. But Hannah had insisted, and she was probably right.

Her mother-in-law hadn't phoned in advance of her visit. Bill, Gerry's brother, had been expected alright. A builder's labourer by trade, he had been unemployed for several years now and, anxious to keep busy, had been obsessing about the small jobs that needed to be done in the new house. His plan for the day involved fitting a stair gate, changing the bulb on
the cooker and tightening the slightly dodgy handle on the back door, through which he was convinced his beloved niece would escape at any moment, despite the fact she was months away from even putting her feet on the ground.

‘Your godfather's here!'

Róisín, reclining in her bouncy chair, had looked startled when the doorbell rang and Yvonne grinned at her. They both liked Bill. Five years older than Gerry, he bore a strong resemblance to his brother, although his hair was receding slightly and his frame was stockier. He didn't have Gerry's sense of humour either. On a good day, her husband could deliver a biting commentary on life that would make Yvonne's sides ache with laughter. Bill didn't have that quick wit. But he didn't have his brother's ambitious nature either, which meant he wasn't permanently plugged into a smartphone and had proved himself an enthusiastic and readily available babysitter since they'd moved to Dublin.

So Yvonne was looking forward to Bill's visit. However, when she opened the door, she noticed he didn't look quite as happy and, as he lent forward to give his niece a clumsy kiss, she could see the tall elegant form of his mother emerging from his battered van and picking her way up the overgrown pathway.

‘Sorry. She insisted.'

Yvonne kept her smile wide.

‘No problem. It's wonderful to see both of you! How are you, Hannah?'

Her mother-in-law offered her smooth, heavily made-up cheek for a kiss and the citrusy tang of her perfume reminded Yvonne that she hadn't got round to having a shower that
morning. Oh well. Hannah would have to take her as she found her. They were family after all.

Bill, tool belt firmly in place around his waist, disappeared in the direction of the kitchen as Yvonne handed her squirming daughter over to her grandmother for a kiss.

‘Aren't you a little angel? Oh aren't you the pet?'

The little girl obliged with a gummy smile and Yvonne could feel herself relax. Hannah could be tough going sometimes. She'd had to be, her husband had died when Gerry was just five years old and she'd raised the boys on her own while holding down a full-time job. Just thinking about it made Yvonne feel both exhausted and inferior. But since moving to Dublin, Yvonne hadn't exactly been knocked down in the rush of people dying to make friends with her, and the older woman made herself available for coffee, and the odd lecture, on a twice-weekly basis, if not more. And, most importantly, Hannah adored Róisín. The little girl gurgled like something from a Mothercare commercial every time she called round. Not even babies acted up around Hannah. They wouldn't dare.

‘You look exhausted, Yvonne. Have you been getting enough rest?'

She hadn't felt the knife go in, but there it was, resting between her shoulder-blades. Hannah meant well; Yvonne knew she did. But sometimes even a simple enquiry could sound like an accusation, and she had to force herself to keep smiling as she led the way into the large, sunny, cluttered kitchen. Bill was already fiddling with the cooker hood and she pulled out two stools from the counter before putting the kettle on and noticing that there were no clean cups.

Hannah had noticed too and placed Róisín firmly in her bouncy chair.

‘Now, Mummy needs a bit of a hand this morning, doesn't she? Grandma's going to do the washing up and make us all a nice cup of coffee.'

‘Really Hannah, there's no need …'

But her mother-in-law was already gliding across to the sink and rolling up her sleeves.

‘You sit down, Yvonne, you're looking awful peaky. How is Róisín? Any sign of her sleeping through? Gerry said you were up four times on Tuesday … that can't be good for either of you.'

Unable to decide which was annoying her most – her mother-in-law's tone or the fact that her husband had been telling tales, Yvonne decided the best solution was to keep her mouth shut. Please, Róisín, she prayed silently. Cry. Look for a feed, decide you need a cuddle, anything. Rescue me. But the little girl was now happily playing with her toes, and didn't even look her way.

Within seconds Hannah had washed cups, produced a clean tea towel from God knows where, wiped away crumbs Yvonne hadn't even noticed and was pouring hot water into the cafetière she didn't use unless they had visitors. She poured Yvonne the first cup, added milk without asking and sat down in front of her own drink with a low, satisfied sigh.

Yvonne sipped, noting with frustration that the coffee tasted fantastic.

‘You're looking great, Hannah.'

‘Oh. Thank you, my dear!'

Unlike most Irish people, Hannah didn't shrug off compliments, but accepted them gracefully as if they were her due. They weren't a rarity. She must have been in her sixties but looked at least ten years younger, and Yvonne had never seen her less than fully made up, or without matching bag and high heels. This morning's outfit was typical, a pair of grey woollen trousers topped off by a silver silken cardigan, sitting just so over a silk lemon blouse.

Hannah took another sip from her coffee and gave her blonde, bobbed and newly blow-dried hair a quick, satisfied pat. She didn't look as if she belonged in a kitchen, Yvonne decided. She should be on a cruise ship, or in the lobby of an elegant hotel, a cigarette in one hand, a G. and T. in the other and a tall silver-haired man standing to attention nearby, ready for refills. She certainly didn't look like she belonged in the small, slightly scruffy two-bedroom apartment she currently called home.

Gerry and Bill had grown up in a rambling red-bricked house on Dublin's Southside, not unlike the one Yvonne was living in now. But like so many others of her generation, her mother-in-law had remortgaged the family home to purchase a number of buy-to-let apartments that were supposed to fund her retirement and, when their value collapsed, had had to sell her beautiful house to make up the shortfall. Home was now a rented two-bedroom flat, with the smaller of the bedrooms, for reasons Yvonne couldn't understand, occupied by Bill. She herself would rather have lived in a tent than share such a confined space with her mother-in-law, but Bill, being Bill, seemed just to have moved along with events as they occurred.

A car alarm sounded outside, and Yvonne's brain jolted awake. Dammit. It was impossible to sleep here during the day. There was too much to do, too much to worry about. Too many thoughts competing for space in her already overcrowded mind. Hannah. Nappies. MyBabba. The Guards. And her foolish, foolish imagination, unable to let things go.

Things would have been fine if Hannah hadn't seen the newspaper. The first half of her visit had been quite pleasant really. Hannah had been in great form, giving a breathless and frankly hilarious commentary on the activities of her ladies group and the difficulties that had ensued when Mary Carmody had swallowed a third glass of wine during their annual trip to the National Concert Hall and demanded a phone number from the second bassoon.

‘She thinks she's some sort of expert, you know,' she'd said, brushing a stray raisin off the counter top and onto the floor.

‘Just because her son got onto the music course in Trinity. God Almighty, we all know he failed the second year. I hate those women who ramble on about their kids. Yvonne, you'll have to stop me if you ever hear me do that!'

Yvonne, who had endured many conversations on the theme ‘My Sons and Their Wonderful Achievements', with the frequent addition of the subplot ‘Why No One Appreciates Them Like I Do', remained silent. Finally, in an attempt to stem the torrent of words, she picked up a newspaper that Gerry had left lying on the counter.

‘I see they still don't know what happened to that woman.'

Miriam Twohy's disappearance was still front-page news.

‘I was watching something about it on the news last night. Isn't it dreadful?'

‘Hmm.'

Picking Róisín up from her bouncy chair, Yvonne settled back on the stool and nodded towards the paper again.

‘Her family must be so worried. And her little girl …'

‘Yes. Well. You can't say she had no part in it.'

As the meaning of the comment sunk in, Yvonne could feel her heart starting to race.

‘How … I'm sorry, Hannah, what do you mean?'

‘I think we all know what happened there.'

Hannah sat up straighter on the stool and flicked a speck of dust off her grey woollen trousers.