Sleep Sister: A page-turning novel of psychological suspense (13 page)

‘It’s Christmas, Stewart. It’s bound to be difficult for him.’

‘It’s difficult for you too. Has he given a thought to how you’re feeling? Of course not. He’s holed up in that mausoleum with his whiskey and his self-pity and he doesn’t give a tinker’s curse about anyone’s problems but his own.’

‘That’s not fair—’

‘Don’t give me fair, Beth. No one ever said life was supposed to be fair. We do the best we can and get on with it.’ He rested the platter on the palm of his hand, composed his face in a smile and made his grand entrance into the dining room.

Gail clapped her hands when she saw his high chef ’s hat. Excitement shone from her eyes as he carved the turkey and ceremoniously served her first. Beth wondered what would be left of Christmas when their youngest child lost her belief in magic. No more wish lists winging their way to the North Pole, no more home-made Christmas cards, tinsel and sudden sightings of reindeer on rooftops.

Throughout her married life she had worked hard at creating enchantment for innocent minds to savour, building memories that would carry her children into the years ahead. No one ever suspected how much she hated this season with its synthesised carols and unrelenting commercialism. Or the relief she experienced the following morning when she woke and realised it was over for another twelve months.

After dinner, if the weather stayed dry, they would go for a walk along the estuary shore. The traditional Christmas walk. When the sky darkened they would return home to play Trivial Pursuit, eat chocolates and argue over poker hands. The younger children would dress up and perform their concert. Tradition: a demanding tyrant or a reassuring ritual threading the years together?

T
ork Hansen was busking
on Grafton Street. A group of mesmerised children watched him, fascinated by the flames he blasted above his head. Lindsey imagined her name floating towards her on a ball of flame and ducked behind a burly man with a child on his shoulders. When he was not delivering flowers for his mother in Woodstock, Tork was a fire-eater and, today, disguised as a dragon, he was promoting a newly opened Mexican restaurant. A part-time busker with dreadlocks and tattoos, he looked more like a stoner than any of her new friends, yet he disapproved of the garage gang.

‘You’ll regret hanging around with that lot,’ he’d warned her the last time she was passing Woodstock. ‘Kev Collins is trouble and he’ll take you down with him.’

Lindsey had laughed and demanded to know what kind of weed he was growing in his mother’s shop. Tork was not amused; nor was she. The garage gang was an exclusive secret club, or so she had believed, and it worried her that he knew about it.

She moved deeper into the crowd of pedestrians and hurried up Grafton Street to St Stephen’s Green. The ducks were nosediving into the pond when Kev sat beside her. The garage gang would have to do without him on Friday night. He was going to be a DJ in Ibiza when he got the right break but, for the moment, he was content to work in Dublin and he’d been offered his first proper, fully paid-up gig. He slipped a sealed plastic bag into Lindsey’s palm, casually holding her hand for a while longer in case anyone was watching.

She was conscious of the packet in the zipped pocket of her jacket as she left the park. Afraid of meeting Tork Hansen again she turned in the opposite direction and walked down Kildare Street. Dáil Éireann was lit up like a palace. A group of protesters waved banners outside the gates. Last night she had seen her great-uncle being interviewed on television.

‘Standing on the plinth, as usual,’ her father had said and her mother, entering the room, had switched off the television. Lindsey tried to remember what he’d been discussing but she was unable to remember anything he said. She knew that politicians were crooks, corrupt and full of crap, so it was kind of weird to be related to one.

As if her thoughts had conjured him from the ether, her great-uncle appeared, striding with his briefcase through the gates of Leinster House. He wore black leather gloves and had pulled his coat collar up around his ears. The protestors waved their banners and shouted at him but Lindsey sensed he wasn’t the politician they wanted to lynch. He strode purposefully past them and was beside her so quickly she had no time to avoid him. For an instant he looked puzzled then he slapped his thigh and boomed, ‘Little Lindsey McKeever. How are you, my dear child?’

He shook her hand and said it was wonderful to see her again. ‘And your family?’ he asked. ‘All in good form I hope?’

‘Very well, thank you,’ she muttered. How was she supposed to talk to a politician? The protestors certainly knew what they wanted to say. They began to shout about cutbacks at another politician, whose car was trying to ease out through the gates. They surged back so suddenly that Lindsey was almost knocked off balance.

‘This could turn nasty.’ Her great-uncle grabbed her arm to steady her. ‘Let’s get out of here before they trample you.’

He guided her across the road, his grip light but firm on her elbow. The noise fell away when they entered a hotel.

‘We’ll have coffee,’ he said. ‘The protest will be over shortly.’

The thought of drinking coffee with a politician was horrifying. What would he do if he knew she was carrying illegal drugs? She repeated the words to herself. They had a terrifying force that excited her. Imagine the scandal – ‘Politician in Drug Exposé’. It was hard to remember a time when her heart was not doing little skips of anxiety. The sense of panic, of being on the verge of discovery, was such a high, an overdose of adrenaline.

‘This is nice,’ he said when the coffee arrived. ‘I have so little free time when I’m in Dublin. It’s a crowded city but it can be the loneliest place in the world when you don’t belong in it.’

The hotel had swanky armchairs and was called Buswells. He said it was where politicians came when they were plotting how to knife each other in the back. He chuckled when she glanced nervously around. Not that she would recognise another politician if she saw one, though some of the older people sitting nearby recognised her great-uncle and stared quite rudely.

He told her about his home in Anaskeagh, how much he missed it when he was in Dublin on Dáil business. He enjoyed deep-sea fishing with his friends and climbing to the top of Anaskeagh Head where the view was magnificent. He made it sound like the centre of the world.

‘My mother hated Anaskeagh.’ Lindsey gulped the coffee, scalding her mouth. ‘She said it was hell on earth.’

He stroked his chin, as if he was remembering way back. ‘Perhaps it was to a child such as Beth. She took after her father, who had itchy feet. The faraway hills were always greener and Anaskeagh was a quiet place in those days. Not any more though. My son’s children are around your age and have no desire to leave home.’

‘How many grandchildren do you have?’

‘Six.’ He looked proud, counting out their names on his fingers. ‘Kieran’s three live in New York so I only see them occasionally. But I’m blessed with Conor’s family. They live in my old house. It’s too big and empty since my dear wife passed on, God rest her soul.’

His deep rolling voice grew pensive when Lindsey asked if he had any idea why Sara wanted to die.

‘No one knows what goes on in another person’s mind,’ he said. ‘We only think we know but that knowledge is based on the depth of our own feelings. The kindest thing we can do is to let her soul rest in peace.’

It sounded profound, the sort of thing a politician would say. It did nothing to help Lindsey understand. He was cute in a ‘has-been generation’ sort of way, calling her ‘my dear child’, but not in a patronising way, and able to listen without letting on he knew best. She told him about her paintings. He said a creative talent should be carefully nurtured and asked what inspired her. His questions challenged her, exciting her because her parents were never interested in discussing her art.

‘I’d be very interested to see your portfolio.’ He kissed her cheek as she was leaving and said it had been a pleasure to entertain such an intelligent, creative young woman.

‘Why don’t you come to our house for dinner some evening?’ she asked impulsively. ‘My mother would love to see you.’

A shadow crossed his face. ‘Your dear mother and I didn’t always agree on certain things when she was younger. We’d best leave well enough alone.’

He said time had wings when he was in such good company. ‘I hope we have the pleasure of meeting again, Lindsey. You must come to tea some evening in my apartment. Or are you too busy to spend time with a lonely old man?’ His smile was a question fixed strangely on his face, and he seemed pleased when she said she loved older people, especially Granny Mac.

‘Young people are always in such a rush these days,’ he said. ‘They never have time for those who’ve lived a little while longer. That’s all that separates the generations, my dear. A few short years.’

She thought this was quaint and sentimental, even ludicrous. Old age was a yawning gap. Lindsey could never imagine falling into it.

‘
W
hy don’t
you invite your uncle to visit us?’ she asked her mother when they were having dinner that evening. ‘He spends lots of time alone in Dublin and he gets awfully lonely.’

Beth sat perfectly still. Then her fists clenched on the table as if she were preparing to lift herself into the air.

‘When did you meet that man?’ she demanded.

‘When I was in town today. What’s the big deal? It’s my half-day from school.’

‘Albert Grant is not welcome in this house.’ She spoke slowly, as if Lindsey were incapable of understanding her. ‘You are not to have anything to do with him.’

‘Why? He’s really nice. I asked him to dinner but he said you wouldn’t make him welcome. It’s obvious he was spot on.’

‘Do you hear what I’m saying?’

‘Yes. But you’re not giving me a reason.’

‘I don’t have to give a reason.’ She stared at Lindsey as if she were a stranger with a bad smell who had wandered into her house. ‘As long as you live here you obey the rules.’

‘What rules? Thou shalt not talk to lonely old men. Which section of the rule book will I find that in?’

‘Lindsey! That’s enough,’ her father snapped. ‘If your mother tells you to do something she obviously has a very good reason for doing so.’

This only spurred her on. ‘That’s what I want. Just a reason. And what do I get? Behave yourself, Lindsey! Do as you’re told! Don’t ask questions! Obey the rules or we’ll kick you out!’

She was unable to stop, even when Beth rose to her feet and left the room. Lindsey realised she was shivering and it was only later in her bedroom with the music filling her head that she allowed herself to wonder at the inexplicable hurt in her mother’s eyes.

She was sitting cross-legged on the floor with her sketchpad when Beth entered her bedroom. She pulled the plug on the stereo, creating an instant ear-popping silence, and hunkered down beside Lindsey.

‘Those mugs would crawl across the floor if they had the space to do so.’ She pointed at the three mould-encrusted mugs beside Lindsey’s bed but she no longer sounded angry.

‘I’ll bring them down later.’

‘Do that.’ Beth pointed to the sketchpad. ‘Can I see your drawings?’

‘No. I’m just messing.’ Lindsey bent protectively over the page.

‘Shouldn’t you be studying instead of messing? I told you what your teachers said at the parent–teacher meeting last week.’

‘Six times you did. But who’s counting?’

‘Your grades have dropped, Lindsey. They’ve more than dropped – they’ve plummeted. I know how much you miss Sara, but you have to pull yourself together. Is there anything I need to know? Anything you’re not telling me?’

Lindsey sat perfectly still without replying.

‘Trust me, Lindsey. I won’t be angry if you tell me the truth.’

‘Why do you never talk about your life in Anaskeagh? It’s part of me too, you know. I’ve never met any of my relatives except for Marjory. You’ve never even taken us to Anaskeagh on holiday.’

‘I had a difficult childhood, Lindsey. It’s not something I wish to discuss.’

‘Sara said you were always causing trouble, fighting and breaking things and giving cheek. You ran away without saying a word to her, not even a note. But I guess when it came to leaving notes she got even in the end, huh?’

‘Why are you being so cruel, Lindsey?’

‘Cruel? It was cruel to try and drown Sara’s dog.’ Lindsey closed her sketchpad and shoved it back into her portfolio case. ‘What made you do such a horrible thing?’

She had not intended to ask the question. It just blurted out of her mouth, and her mother gasped as if Lindsey had punched her in the stomach.

‘What did Sara tell you?’ She sighed as if she was very tired.

‘Just that. Was she telling me the truth?’

‘Yes, she was. I did a very cruel thing. I’m ashamed that you should know about it.’ Her voice was so low Lindsey could hardly hear her.

‘But why try and drown a little dog? There must have been a reason?’

‘He kept licking my hands and clawing at me. He slept between us. I couldn’t stand it any more.’ She looked down at her hands and shivered. ‘I really don’t want to remember that time, Lindsey. Let’s just change the subject, shall we?’

For an instant, Lindsey thought her mother was going to cry. She wanted her to cry so badly. She hadn’t seen her shed a tear since Sara had died. Not once. Lindsey wanted those tears to overflow like a waterfall and then she could lean into her mother’s chest and cry her own tears, tell her secrets, spill them into their sorrow. She wanted to tell her about the row in Havenstone, the shouting voices that were growing louder in her head. The words that jumbled together like a crossword puzzle, a cryptic clue that would not go away. And how Friday night in the garage was becoming so important that she longed for it all through the week.

C
onnie McKeever had been
Peter’s surrogate mother. She had given him the love his own mother never had time to bestow. Did her son lift Peter’s child with the same tenderness and cradle her? Surely he would know his own daughter? His blood would rush with recognition if she appeared before him. His heart would bond with hers the instant they met. Lindsey had been six years old when her parents returned from England. Stewart’s child. He had never doubted it for an instant until that night when Sara, pale and remaining achillingly distant from the impact of her words, said, ‘Lindsey is your daughter. Isn’t it time you opened your eyes and saw the truth, you blind fool?’

Her mockery had been a dark pain. Peter understood that now, and only an echo remained of the rage that had driven him from Havenstone on that last, lost weekend.

Christmas Day was a blur but he remembered Beth’s adamant denials. A tigress defending her young. His rights did not matter to her. If there was a truth to be prised loose, he would have to seek it elsewhere.

Marina McKeever was waiting for him when he arrived at the restaurant. She smiled across the wine glasses at him, a languid temptress remembering old times as only Marina remembered them.

‘What else brings you to London, apart from an uncontrollable urge to look up an old flame?’ she asked.

‘A meeting with Sara’s publisher,’ he replied.

‘Oh, my darling. How wretchedly sad for you.’ Botox had immobilised Marina’s features against sympathy but she gave his hand a comforting squeeze before accepting the menu from the waiter.

The meeting with Sara’s publisher had been as emotional as Peter had expected.
Silent Songs from an African Village
was almost ready for publication. Jess had written the text that would accompany Sara’s photographs and the book, sponsored by Della Designs, would be a fund-raiser for the health centre the nun ran.

Throughout the meal, Marina talked about her new boyfriend. He sounded indistinguishable from the other men who had moved in and out of her life. No doubt this one would also break her heart. The heat in the restaurant was overpowering. The food arrived, tiny portions arranged with artistic flair on their plates.

‘Where on earth did you discover this place?’ Peter asked. ‘It must have been designed by a demented plumber.’

She glanced approvingly at the glittering chrome and glass décor, the utilitarian network of pipes across the ceiling, and assured him it was the latest
in
place. The place to be noticed. He believed her.

He cut across her description of a holiday in her boyfriend’s villa in Provence and asked, ‘How was Beth when she stayed with you in London?’

A short silence followed this abrupt change of subject. ‘Beth always stays with me when she’s in London…’

‘I’m talking about the time she left Della Designs?’

‘Oh… She was fine. Why do you ask?’

‘Fine?’

‘Yes,
fine
. Apart from the fact that you dumped her without warning―’

‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘Yes it was, Peter. Dumping girlfriends was your area of expertise.’ She placed her cutlery across her plate and rested her elbows on the table. ‘Is that why you asked me out?’

‘Of course not. I wanted to see you but—’

‘But you thought we’d take a little trip down memory lane, is that it?’

‘I’m not trying to upset you.’ He touched her arm, running his fingers along her tanned skin. She drew away from him, deliberately allowing his fingers to rest on the tablecloth.

‘From where I’m sitting, there’s only one person at this table who’s upset – and it’s not me.’

‘I’m simply trying to find out the truth about that time.’

‘What exactly do you want to know?’

‘Was she pregnant?’

She gazed impassively back at him and shook her head.

‘Marina, please… I
need
to know. Sara said something… It’s tormenting me.’

‘Sara always tormented you, Peter. Whatever she said, you must let it go. Lindsey is Stewart’s daughter. He knew Beth married him on the rebound but they’ve made a success of their marriage. The last thing they need is you stirring up the past, especially as it has nothing to do with you.’ She gazed coldly across the table at him and signalled to the waiter to bring the bill. ‘I hope you don’t mind if we call it a night? I’ve an early start in the morning.’

She glanced down at the bill and removed a credit card from her handbag. ‘I’m paying for this.’ She refused to listen when he protested. Her voice grew louder, attracting the attention of nearby diners as she pushed her credit card towards the waiter. Peter fell silent, knowing her ability to create a scene and wallow in the attention she would receive.

He followed her outside. ‘At least let me call a taxi for you,’ he said.

She shrugged and stayed silent when a London cab pulled into the side of the road. Peter gave her address and thrust a twenty-pound note into the driver’s hand.

‘Thanks, mate.’ The driver sounded surprised and appreciative. The journey to Marina’s apartment was short. Peter knew it well. He made no effort to follow her into the back seat and she, turning her face to the window, gazed steadfastly into the night.

T
he factory was
in turmoil when he returned from London. A rumour had started among the workers that production was being moved to the Far East. An immediate strike had been called and the machines silenced. Jon Davern informed Peter that he was resigning and the shareholders would make no further investment in Della Designs. He paused to allow Peter to realise the seriousness of the situation, then announced that the bank was calling in his loan.

Albert Grant was unavailable when Peter rang his clinic. His constituency secretary promised to pass on his message. Mr Grant was a busy man, she warned. She could not guarantee when he would return the call. Conor Grant was equally vague. His father had made a decision based on sound financial advice. An ungrateful workforce had left him no choice, and he was unwilling to risk any further losses.

It had been twenty years since Peter had taken over the reins of Della Designs. Twenty years blurring, undistinguished, wasted.