Red Ribbons (38 page)

This time around, I have to succeed – with or without the good doctor’s help.

GARDA ADELE BURLINGTON HAD BEEN ANSWERING calls on the helplines since the start of her shift at ten that morning. It was her third day doing the same thing: recording details received from the public, and rating the calls for passing further up the line.

‘Public Information Line.’

‘My name is Dr Samuel Ebbs.’

‘How can I help you, Dr Ebbs?’

‘I’m phoning in connection with the murders of the young girls in Dublin.’

‘Where are you calling from, Dr Ebbs?’

‘St Michael’s Institution. I’m the senior psychiatric consultant here.’

‘And what information do you have?’

‘Well, it’s to do with a patient under my supervision, Ellie Brady. She’s been remembering information about the murder of her own daughter, something that happened fifteen years ago. You do understand why I am hesitant about making this call?’

‘Dr Ebbs, any information you give me will be treated confidentially, I assure you. You can talk freely.’

‘Okay. Ellie Brady is a long-term patient here, and is believed to have been responsible for the death of her daughter fifteen years ago.’

‘Her daughter’s name?’

‘Amy. Amy Brady. She would have been of similar age to the victims in Dublin.’

‘And what has Ellie told you?’

‘She believes the person who has committed the current murders killed her daughter as well.’

‘You sound hesitant, doctor?’

‘Ellie is under psychiatric care for a reason. I have no way of validating any of the information she has given me, but according to her, the way the girls were found, with the plaiting, the ribbons and the crucifix, was exactly how she found her daughter. It was a long time ago, but she is adamant.’

‘Will we be able to speak to Ellie Brady if that proves necessary?’

‘That is the problem. At the moment she is under sedation because of her heightened anxiety. As I said, I don’t know if any of this is true. My main concern is that if it isn’t true, interviewing Ellie would only serve to elevate whatever medical difficulties exist.’

‘Could you give me your telephone number, Dr Ebbs? I will need to call you back to validate the contact source.’

‘Certainly.’

Waiting for the return call, Samuel was still unsure if he had done the right thing, but either way, he had made the decision, and all he could do now was manage things from there. When the officer finally rang in through the main switchboard, she assured him she would pass the information on to the investigation team. He gave his mobile phone number should they need to contact him outside office hours.

He hung up feeling unsettled about the call and his divulging of patient information. It was up to the police now how they chose to proceed. He had done everything he could do.

HE THOUGHT ABOUT KATE. HER EYES HAD LOOKED TIRED this morning. She must have spent the night crying, poor thing. She had tried to hide it, of course, for the sake of the boy. Not that he’d appreciated it, mind you. He had barely waved to his mother at the school gates. He would have done anything to have had a mother like Kate, but most people don’t get that lucky. Most people have to play the hand they’re given. Silvia had understood that. She’d looked on difficulties as challenges, not knowing how cruel real evil could be. He should have protected her, he knew that now. It was no excuse, being only a boy. Learning about his mother’s meddling had brought clarity, but it hadn’t lessoned his guilt. That would be his burden to bear.

He fed Tabs, then took his time walking back up the stairs. He felt relief once he closed the bedroom door and pulled the curtains closed to darken the room. Lying on the bed, he allowed his mind drift, just like he had taught himself to do as a boy.

Events over the past while had taken their toll on him. Certain aspects – Mother, dealing with that other business in Tuscany – were inevitable necessities, but that didn’t lessen their impact. Justice had waited far too long to be done. He still remembered returning from Suvereto, how lonely and lost he had felt, no longer interested in all the things that used to enthral him. Silvia was perfectly safe now. She was in a place where no one could hurt her. Mother’s instruction had been clear: there would be no mention of what had happened in Italy; he was to keep his big mouth shut. Nothing, she had warned him,
would be achieved by bringing up that awful mess again. Besides, the bishop had given his word that he would look after them. Their money worries were gone, their future independence guaranteed. Things would be different from now on. She could buy him all the comics and toys he wanted; all he had to do was ask. Two weeks earlier, her words would have meant everything to him. Two weeks earlier, he hadn’t known Silvia.

He had kept his side of the bargain and had never mentioned it to a living soul. Over time, he had accepted it for what it was. We all have burdens. Had it not been for her ailing health and the painkillers, her evil brain wouldn’t have been tricked into telling him what had really happened. Once he knew the truth, events had to take their own course.

It had been at the beginning of his third week at Castello de Luca that he’d realised how much Silvia meant to him. They had been acting out a play about Joan of Arc. Silvia was Joan, while he’d imitated the angry crowd, kneeling on a pile of straw to burn her at the stake. When he’d cried, he thought she would laugh at him, think him stupid, but she hadn’t.

‘Don’t cry, William. I hate it when people cry.’

‘I’m okay.’

‘You’re not. You’re sad. Don’t be sad.’

‘I can’t help it.’

‘Did I upset you?’

‘No.’

‘Well then, why are you crying? Is it the play? We can do something else. We can pretend we’re going on a great adventure, the way we do when the castello gets dark.’

‘It’s not that.’

‘What is it then?’

‘I don’t want to go home.’

‘Why not?’

‘I have no friends there.’

‘But everyone has friends.’

‘I don’t. They all hate me.’

‘Why do they hate you?’

‘I don’t know. Mother says they’re jealous.’

‘Are they?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know. They just do, that’s all.’

‘It won’t be so bad. We can write. You love stamps and stickers. I’ll put a different one on every time I send you a letter.’

‘But I won’t see you. You’ll forget about me.’

‘Friendship isn’t like that, William. It stays even when people are apart.’

She had been right. He had never lost her. She was far too important.

Years later, when his mother had become convinced that Silvia was haunting her, a part of him had wanted to believe it. Despite her hysterical blubbering, he had been excited by the idea. Of course, he’d spoken to the young girl fifteen years earlier. He befriended her. He’d even taken her to his hideout and given her one of the tiny crucifixes to keep her safe. But he’d known she wasn’t right.

Mother had never been the same afterwards.

Caroline had been the only one who ever came close, and just like Silvia, she had no idea how special she was.

He was older now, his needs had changed. Like him, Kate had suffered and known vulnerability, had overcome it on her own. She was his intellectual equal, forever striving. If Silvia had lived, she would have been just like Kate. Fate had played its final hand. All this sorry mess now required was for Kate to get inside his head, to understand him. But she could only see part of the picture. He needed to explain things properly to her. She was upset over that husband of hers – he was Charlie’s father, after all – but he wasn’t good enough for Kate. She didn’t realise it yet. But she would. She was a very clever girl.

OLLIE COULDN’T FIND STEVE IN ANY OF THE USUAL spots and he wasn’t answering his mobile phone. If it hadn’t been for his meddling, Ollie could be relaxing at Beachfield instead of playing a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. He wished Steve Hughes had never come near him with that damn photograph.

Smyth’s bar was the only pub in the town where he drank. As it was lunchtime, he decided to give up looking for Hughes until he had a full belly for the job. It was quiet in the pub; October was a bit of a slow month, which suited Ollie just fine. He took a seat at the bar, in front of the large television screen, and called for his usual. As he savoured his first pint, he ordered bacon, cabbage and potatoes; none of that curry crap for him.

No sooner had the plate of food arrived in front of him than the horse racing was switched over to the news. He had heard about the murdered girls, you couldn’t avoid it, but when the photographs of the two girls appeared on the big screen, he thought he had gone a bit mad. He told himself it was just Steve Hughes and his wild talk getting under his skin, but the more he looked at the girls’ pictures, the more uneasy he felt. When the reporter mentioned a Toyota Carina car, it put paid to any enjoyment his dinner offered him.

If he couldn’t get Steve Hughes on the phone in the next half hour, whether he’d put that Polaroid photograph back or not, Ollie was going to have to take things into his own hands. Those girls may
have been killed in Dublin, but last he’d heard that’s where William Cronly was living. He didn’t relish the prospect of what lay ahead, but then, the only thing worse than having to drag up old history was getting himself into more shit.

MORE THAN MOST, I UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF loneliness. I’ve lived it since the day I came into this place. When you’re institutionalised, you forget the way people in the outside world think. You’re no longer able to understand normality. I’ve seen it happen to other women too, some of those I’ve shared my life with for the past fifteen years. I’ve seen how the day to day of doing nothing defies the logic of the human race outside these walls. Days soaked in routine: the time you wake, the time you sleep, mornings and evenings made up of breakfast, dinner and tea, your room, your bed, the half-people you all become. It’s often the complete absence of anything new or different that sends you really mad. Without realising, I’ve become that way myself.

For days now, I’ve had the sense that things were shifting, changing. It was in
the little things, like how I stood at the mirror down from Living Room 2, looking at it like I was trying to see something, find someone. How I thought that that someone might have been my old self, even though I knew she was nowhere to be found. When I opened up to Dr Ebbs about Amy, she seemed real again, as if somehow, even after fifteen years, I could find her more quickly than I could find myself. I’d cried for her, something I had not allowed myself to do before. I’ve questioned myself every day I’ve been here, watched the sun creep into my room each morning, witnessed the seasons change outside, year in, year out. I kept on going in order to punish myself for not seeing all the things I should have seen. I failed to pay attention to the little things and, the worst sin of all, I became so focused on myself I let my daughter slip away from me.

I know who her killer is. I’ve seen his face in here many times, it comes back to me in fleeting pieces of memory. I see him talking to Amy, although I can’t be sure the face I remember is true or imagined. He laughs at me before I go to sleep. He tells me he has Amy instead of me. Looking at my copybook, I hold the pen tightly, like I want to crush it, feeling the sweat build up in my palm. There are so many things I remember about that summer and yet even now there are parts I still struggle with. It’s hard to get it right. It’s like looking for the story behind the story, catching shadows you missed first time around. Things you didn’t realise were important – a look Amy might have given, words dismissed without really listening because you believed them trivial – have now become weighted down with significance and meaning.

The memories are circling inside my head. Ever since I wrote those three words in the copybook, the voices are going around and around, like a carousel moving too fast. All I can catch is the fusion of coloured lights, words jumbled into their repeated rhythms, unable to be slowed down and deciphered.

I realised something this morning, something I should have realised long ago. It’s just me now. Since Amy, it has always been just me. What I need to do is think, to remember anything that could make a difference. Doing nothing is no longer an option, even though I’m not completely sure why that is the case.

My hand is shaking on the page as I try to remember. I see the dirt road, the one off the main pathway to the beach. I walked it one of the days with Amy. She wanted to show it to me. I remember hearing people’s voices from the beach, but I couldn’t see them. They seemed distant, the sand dunes on our right blocking out the view. On the left, there were flattened fields with bales of rolled-up hay and on either side of the path, the wild grasses. Amy pulled some up and made a pretend fan.

We walked along the road until the sand dunes disappeared and the hay fields went out of view, and we saw the woodlands. The clearing wasn’t far, just past some trees with blossoms of white sprays. I didn’t know what kind of trees they were, but Amy knew, she said they were elderberry, that they bloom with white flowers, but after summer red berries grow, berries the colour of cherries. She’d explored the path before with him. I paid no mind to her.

When she asked me to walk farther, I told her I was tired. I wasn’t tired. All I wanted was to go back. Amy was so keen to show me something. What was it? It was something about a hideout. What else can I remember? Every detail is important.

I start to write it all down, beginning with the elderberry trees, and our last walk at the back of the sand dunes.

THE LAST TIME OLLIE GILMARTIN HAD SPOKEN TO Garda Damian Murray had been four months earlier. Some busybody made noises about a bit of alleged poaching, and Garda Murray had called him in for a little chat. He’d been nice enough about it – just laying out the lie of the land, so to speak. Ollie had time for the man, thought him a fair copper, so he was relieved to see him behind the front desk when he walked into the station.