A Savage Hunger (Paula Maguire 4) (19 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

‘Cheers!’

Paula looked with distaste at the cheap white wine, the summit of the pub’s meagre ‘cellar’ – i.e. one fridge half-stocked with alcopops. For a Friday night the place was quiet, a few old men in flat caps and some couples enjoying the two-for-one deal on steak, chips and a Portobello mushroom. The steaks were so large they were hanging over the side of the plates.

Her hen do – something she had thought, and secretly hoped, would never happen – was here. And that meant her wedding was suddenly tomorrow and she was meant to be off for two weeks. The honeymoon in Spain was booked. Maggie was staying with PJ and Pat. Paula had supposedly handed over her case notes that afternoon – though Alice and Dermot were still not found, and that meant she was turning it over and over in her mind, like a stone worn smooth with handling. No answers. Nothing put back in its place. It didn’t feel right to stop.

‘So,’ said Corry, setting down her own glass with a small grimace. ‘I don’t think we can make any jokes about your last night of freedom and so on, seeing as you’ve already a wee one at home.’

‘Please don’t.’ She’d stipulated it: no willy straws, no sex jokes, no innuendo, no pink. Avril had still turned up with a sparkly pink tiara. Paula had worn it for ten minutes then accidentally on purpose left it in the ladies. The pink L-plates she had refused entirely. She wondered if Avril was feeling sad about her own aborted wedding – she loved all this, the fake-naughty screams, the glitter, the teary laughter. Hers had never taken place, the engagement to all intents and purposes falling apart the minute she’d met Gerard Monaghan. As it was she seemed subdued – out of her cover for the night and with the wedding the next day, it could be hard to manage the shifts in tone. Corry and Paula were deliberately not asking her anything about it. Paula herself just wanted to go home and drink gin in front of
Newsnight
. She forced a smile. ‘It’s hard to believe sometimes – I never thought I’d get married.’

‘I knew you and Aidan would end up together,’ said Saoirse, who was waiting to start IVF again, and drinking J2O. ‘They were the cutest couple at school,’ she confided to the table. ‘Like Angel and Buffy or something. Dawson and Joey. All intense and lovey-dovey. So much angst and drama!’

‘He never climbed in my window. My dad would have arrested him on the spot.’

‘My da’s still like that.’ Avril fished around in her wine spritzer with a straw. ‘Mind you, Gerard’s lot are as bad. I was round the other week and his mammy got out the holy pictures and started testing me on the saints.’

Everyone laughed, though Avril’s strained expression did not ease. Sectarianism was now a gentle joke, and no one would really stand in the way if Gerard and Avril got married. It was all easy, too easy. Paula felt a prickle of anxiety between her shoulders.

This feeling was exacerbated when the door opened and two striking women came in, one with short dark hair and a trouser suit, the other fair-haired, in a print dress. She lit the place up, though she was leaning on a stick. Paula jumped up. ‘It’s Maeve and Sinead.’ She had a brief moment of wondering how her uber-Catholic cousin Cassie would take to this, Aidan’s best friend and her new wife, then reached out to them.

‘I was expecting more pink,’ said Maeve, scrutinising her. ‘Do you not need an L-plate or two?’

‘Don’t you dare.’

As Maeve leaned to hug Paula, the left side of her face was exposed, still red with scar tissue. Two years before she’d been badly burned, her lovely face damaged. But her hair was salon-shiny and her blue eyes sharp as ever. ‘We’d have been here sooner but the missus refuses to use Satnav.’

‘And
my
missus can’t drive to save her life. Hi, Paula.’ Sinead, a razor-sharp lawyer, hugged Paula. Ever since Aidan and Paula’s
rapprochement
, the four had become good friends. Paula was slightly ashamed she’d ever suspected Maeve of designs on Aidan; some behavioural expert she was.

The party shook down, with greater and lesser degrees of success. Saoirse and Maeve were soon nose to nose talking about IVF. Sinead and Corry were having a good bitch about Southern court judges. Paula’s cousin Cassie, who’d got married the previous year, was telling Avril a very long and complicated story about some issues they’d had with their hotel: ‘. . . and I told them and told them, there’s English people coming, we need a vegetarian choice, and they said it was extra . . .’

After a while, Paula saw Avril get up, swaying, and head to the ladies. Saoirse, the non-drinker, cocked a head at her. Paula nodded – she’d go.

It was cool and quiet in the ladies, a respite from the pounding Shania Twain in the bar, which apparently was stuck in a nineties time warp. ‘Avril?’

A voice came out of a stall. ‘Yeah.’

‘You all right?’

‘Yes, I just . . .’ She sighed. ‘I’m really tired. The wine’s going to my head.’

‘Well, nothing wrong in taking it easy. The wedding’s tomorrow, we don’t want to be too hungover.’

‘No. OK.’

The door opened and Avril came out. Up close, Paula saw there were dark circles under her make-up. She was wearing a short floral dress and lots of foundation, her fair hair straightened, as if trying to distance herself from her student get-up. She washed her hands under the tap.

‘Is it getting to you?’ asked Paula. The psychology of being undercover was harder than people imagined. The strain, day and night, of pretending to be someone else. Holding yourself rigid even in your sleep. Not to mention the fact that if someone had hurt Alice, they might still be around.

‘I can handle it.’

‘I’m sure you can.’

‘But – it’s just so hard, Paula.’ Avril leaned her head against the hand dryer. ‘It’s so hard. Even if I’m nice to Katy I just feel like I’m lying – she’s really upset, you know, even if she doesn’t show it sometimes – and I keep thinking of Alice, if someone did something to her . . . I’m sleeping in her bed, even. It’s weird. And now Dermot going too—’

‘It’ll be over soon,’ said Paula soothingly. ‘You don’t have to go back after the wedding if you don’t want to. Especially now we know about this rape allegation.’

‘No, I do. Someone knows something, I’m sure of it. I just don’t know who. Or what. I think Peter likes me, so he might tell me something – and Katy, she’s starting to trust me, so maybe I’ll be able to find out what—’ Avril shook herself. ‘Listen to me. It’s your big night! I shouldn’t be talking shop. Let me get you another drink.’

‘Oh, no, I don’t—’

She was gone. Paula turned to look at her own reflection. In the mirror she too looked pale and tired. A discarded feather from a pink boa hung in her hair, clashing horribly with the red. Tomorrow she’d be primped and preened to within an inch of her life. And one person, the one who should be lacing her into corsets and driving her as mad as Auntie Phil had driven Cassie, would not be there. Her mother was still gone, and all these milestones – Maggie’s birth, the wedding, renovating the house – just felt like throwing more dirt on her grave. Kicking over her traces, until it would be one day as if she’d never existed.

There was a bang and Maeve hobbled in on her shiny pink crutch. Paula moved to hold the cubicle door for her.

‘Ta.’ Maeve went in and closed the door, calling out as she peed. ‘Where’s the quare fella tonight?’

‘Oh, he’s out with Saoirse’s husband and a few guys from the paper.’

‘And the wee one?’

‘She’s at her granny’s.’ Paula had wondered about inviting Pat tonight, but baulked – you could invite your stepmother to your hen do, of course, but not your soon-to-be mother-in-law. ‘You’re sure you don’t want to stay at mine?’

‘No thanks, I’m not too good with stairs. We’re booked into a nice hotel. Well, nice-ish, I mean, it is still Ballyterrin.’

So that meant Paula would spend the night alone – Saoirse couldn’t sleep over as she needed Dave to inject her with hormones in the middle of the night, and Aidan was supposed to be staying with them too. She could have slept at PJ and Pat’s, but she felt it would be fitting, to have one last night truly alone. Just her and the ghost of her mother.

Maeve came out and leaned her stick against the sink as she washed her hands. ‘He seems great, I must say. I’ve never seen him so well.’

‘Oh. Good. This Conlon news threw him a bit.’

‘He’ll be OK. He’s a daddy now, it’s changed things for him.’ Maeve caught her eye in the mirror. ‘I heard your man was back. Brooking.’

Of course, as a journalist, Maeve always knew things. ‘Um. Yeah – they brought him over for this Alice Morgan case. I didn’t know.’

Maeve hesitated. She wanted to say something, clearly, acknowledge the elephant in the room, and Paula suddenly couldn’t let her. ‘We’re doing our best,’ she said in a rush. ‘Aidan and me. I didn’t want any of this, the wedding and that, but we’re OK. He loves Maggie. He’s a great dad.’

‘Ah, I know he is. Sure he never stops going on about her.’ Maeve nudged her affectionately. ‘Anyway, I knew it as soon as I saw you, Maguire. I said to myself, that’s the woman who’s fit for Aidan O’Hara.’

‘You did?’

‘Oh aye. Only person I know who’s even nosier and more stubborn than he is.’

‘You’re a fine one to talk, Ms Investigative Journalist of the Year.’ Maeve had won this award the year before, despite her injuries.

Maeve pulled another feather from Paula’s hair. ‘Thank God for Google, eh? My days of running down alleys are over, I think. Now come on, Bridezilla. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.’

Chapter Thirty-Four

‘You take this one.’ Saoirse, sober and bossy, was putting people in cabs, checking her phone. Avril was already slumped in one, eyes closed. Paula hoped she wouldn’t be sick.

‘How are things on the “lads about town” stag do?’ Paula nodded to Saoirse’s phone.

‘Dave says he’s home already. Got a dodgy pint or something. Couldn’t handle his booze, more like.’ Saoirse’s husband was a huge, rugby-playing bear of a man, and Paula imagined he’d actually come home early in order to see his adored wife.

‘Any sign of the groom?’ she said lightly, thinking how odd that sounded.

‘Not sure. Still out, I guess.’

‘Well, just make sure he gets there tomorrow.’ She had visions of Aidan passed out in a ditch. ‘I don’t want to be standing up there like a gom in a big white dress and no groom.’

Saoirse’s phone bleeped again. ‘Dave says he behaved himself. Only on the beers.’

‘Good.’ She hugged her friend, loosened up by booze. ‘Thanks for this. See you tomorrow for getting Tangoed?’

‘You will indeed. Hair and make-up at nine.’

Paula shuddered. ‘Promise you won’t let them make me too orange? I mean, seriously, with this hair I can’t pull it off.’

‘I’ll do my best. Off you go.’

In the cab she leaned her head against the cool window, checking her phone. There was a chaotic text from Pat, who had just discovered emojis, or the ‘wee picture yokes’ as she called them, about how she’d be up at six to steam her hat and how Maggie had gone off to sleep clutching her headband for tomorrow. Tomorrow Paula would marry Aidan. Her fingers hesitated over the screen, thumbing his number. He’d behave. It was his stag do, she wasn’t going to bother him.

She paid the driver and let herself in. In the hall she saw a light was on upstairs. A memory grabbed her – the day two years back when she’d come home to find an intruder there, fleeing, but not before stabbing Paula and leaving PJ for dead. He’d been lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. She flicked on the lights – nothing, of course. Silly. ‘Hello?’

From upstairs, Aidan’s voice, muffled. ‘Maguire. You’re back early.’

‘Yeah, early start and that – are you not meant to be at Dave’s?’

‘Ach. I didn’t want to disturb him. Can’t handle his drink, for all the size of him.’ She stood at the bottom of the stairs. The bathroom door was ajar, but as she watched, Aidan moved to shut it, and she heard the lock go. Aidan rarely even closed the door when he was in the bathroom – she was always moaning at him as he peed in full view, whistling a tune.

‘What are you doing?’ She could hear running water.

‘Shaving. Get a head-start for tomorrow.’

‘Did you not leave your gear at Saoirse and Dave’s?’ He didn’t answer. Frustrated, she went into the kitchen. Maybe he’d overdone it on the booze and come home hoping he’d be passed out before she got back. His jacket was over a chair. She looked at it, but didn’t touch. That was a road she did not want to go down. One of Maggie’s toys was on the side, an irritating Barbie-like doll, all legs and boobs and fake blond hair. A present from Paula’s Auntie Phil. Paula saw it had been dressed up in a confection of lace and net – a bride. Maggie had scribbled on its face with red crayon, perhaps in a cry for greater diversity. Paula set it down carefully, decided she couldn’t be bothered making herself a cup of tea. The kitchen looked surprisingly clean – she’d meant to give it a wipe before people landed in the next day, but she hadn’t managed it. It was unlike Aidan to notice dirt, yet she saw a streak of cleaner drying on the floor. Had he mopped? She didn’t think he had ever mopped before; in fact it was a source of some discord.

On impulse, an impulse she hated, Paula opened the high cupboard where they kept a bottle of whiskey. She wasn’t even sure why they had it, except it would seem wrong in an Irish home not to have one round the place. She squinted at the level of the amber liquid. It hadn’t gone down. At least she didn’t think so.

She went up. Rapped on the bathroom door. Silence. ‘What?’

‘I’m going to bed now, I have to be up early. Can you let me get in?’

‘Just a minute.’

Why was he shaving at one a.m., for God’ sake? She listened to him splash around, irked. The door opened. There he was, stripped to the waist, his jeans dark with water. ‘You took your time.’

‘I thought you’d be out still.’ He looked at her, and she couldn’t tell if anything was wrong. ‘Relax, will you. Is this going to set the tone for our married life?’

‘If you hog the bathroom it might.’ She looked behind him. ‘Can I go in now?’

‘It’s all yours.’ He stretched, the muscles in his chest shifting. She couldn’t imagine a time when she wouldn’t want to touch him, run her hands over his skin just for the sheer pleasure of it. ‘Like what you see?’ He did a mock body-building pose.

‘Just checking out what I’ll be stuck with.’

‘Stuck with, she says! Listen, I’ll go in Mags’s room, then I’ll head out early before you’re up. Preserve that sense of mystery, or whatever the bollocks reason was that I had to stay at Dave’s.’

‘I think so we can hoodwink God into thinking there’s been no extra-marital badness.’

‘Let’s hope the priest doesn’t notice Herself, then.’ He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, chastely. ‘Sleep well, Maguire. Cos tomorrow’s gonna be a long one.’ He went into Maggie’s room and shut the door. Paula found herself looking around for his T-shirt. Usually Aidan would leave it in his wake, but there was no sign of it in the bathroom or on the landing. She went in, and saw the smear of drying red on the underside of the basin.

She regarded it for a while, but she’d come across enough blood in her time to know it when she saw it. He’d cut himself shaving, maybe. In a hurry, with her hassling him. She tore off some toilet paper and wiped it, flushed; all gone. In the mirror her face looked pale and worried. Paula took a deep breath. She could not do this. Could not suspect her husband all the time, of terrible crimes, of lies, just because she spent her life unpicking other people’s. Just because her mother had kept secrets, and was gone, it didn’t mean everyone had. And just because her mother had left a man, and a daughter, left them alone in this very house – by choice or not, there was no way to tell – it didn’t mean Paula would. It didn’t mean she and Aidan couldn’t manage this. Of course it didn’t. And so she was going to do it, and give it her very best shot, because that was all anyone had to offer.

Paula was very good at opening Maggie’s door without making a sound. She peered in at Aidan, already curled up and asleep on the bed. His hand was thrown back, and in the street light Paula could see the cuts and scrapes on his knuckles.

Paula was woken in the morning by Maggie, her red hair in bendy rollers, but still in her Peppa Pig pyjamas, bursting through the door and jumping on the bed. ‘Oof! What are you doing here?’

‘Granny brung me.’

‘
Brought
me.’ Maggie ignored her, burrowing under the covers. She was developing a real Ballyterrin accent, which had come as something of a shock to Paula. If she’d thought of it at all, she’d imagined her future children would grow up in England, with polite little Southern accents.

‘Where’s Daddy?’ Maggie had found no one else in the bed, just her mother in an old vest top and pyjama bottoms. Where
was
Daddy? A good question. Paula had lain awake for hours, hearing every car up and down the main road, listening for sounds next door, but she must have fallen asleep by the time he left.

‘He’s at Auntie Saoirse’s house, getting ready.’

Maggie was worrying at Paula’s plait. She liked to lay it alongside her own, to see the matching colour, pretend she had long hair. ‘Auntie Saoirse’s
here
, Mummy.’

‘Is she?’ Paula could indeed hear voices downstairs, Pat and Saoirse, and the make-up girl, and she was still not even showered. ‘Mummy better get up then.’

‘Yes, get
up
, Mummy.’

‘OK, OK. You go on down then. Be careful on those stairs.’ In the bathroom, she confronted her own pale face, the shadows under her eyes almost green with exhaustion. Hungover and tired, and worried sick about the groom – exactly as a bride should be. She sighed. Aidan was right, it was going to be a long day.

Afterwards, it had all somehow blurred into one. Several hours went by of people sticking clips in her hair and running hairdryers and curling her eyelashes and jabbing at her cheeks with sponges. The make-up girl had foundation three inches thick herself, and Paula kept saying, ‘Please, not too much, I honestly don’t wear a lot.’ Saoirse was there, her hair already done but wearing her glasses and a checked shirt over jeans. Flowers were being put in water by PJ. White roses in bud. Paula thought of Yvonne, carrying her blooms up the road, and she wished they’d chosen any other flower for the bouquets. Pat was buzzing about steaming her hat, and putting on mascara, and fretting over when the cars were arriving. Maggie had an unaccountable tantrum over her beaded headband and Paula had to scoop her onto her knee, smudging her make-up and causing exclamations all around. Finally Saoirse was helping her put the dress over her head, the world momentarily muffled in all that silk and lace.

‘Ah, look. You’re beautiful.’ Saoirse stepped back.

‘You better not cry, Glocko,’ said Paula sternly. ‘There are things worth crying about, and me stuffed into a dress made in a Chinese sweatshop isn’t one of them.’

‘OK.’ Saoirse dabbed her eyes. Paula regarded herself in the mirror of her parents’ old room. The dress, for all it was cheap, sparkled with beads and lace. She’d insisted on a halter neck, not having the chest for strapless. The dress clung to her down to her knees, then the heavy silk pooled round her feet. Her hair was up, strikingly red against her pale skin and dress. ‘Hmm. Could be worse, I suppose.’

Saoirse was gathering the folds of her own lilac dress. ‘I’ll tell them you’re ready.’

‘Just – yeah. I just need a minute.’

Alone, for the last time in a long while, she drew in her breath. The room was quiet, the clothes hanging in the wardrobe, the blinds casting shadows. It had been her and Aidan’s for two years now, but Paula could still feel her mother there. Feel the secrets she must have been hiding that day in October almost twenty years ago. Imagine how things would be if her mother hadn’t gone, if everything was still in its proper place. Maybe she’d still be marrying Aidan, never having left Ballyterrin. Or maybe she’d have gone with her parents’ blessing, married some English fella, or no one at all.

It didn’t matter, in the end. This was the life she’d ended up with. There was no other. She took a deep breath. It was time.

In the car, squashed in beside her suddenly silent father in his grey morning suit, Paula convinced herself Aidan wouldn’t be there. That’s what last night was about. He’d probably done a runner and she’d get some message saying he was already on a ferry to England . . . she fumbled in her clutch bag for her phone, which was blank of messages.

‘All right?’ asked PJ.

‘Yes, just . . . um. Bit nervous.’

PJ said nothing for a moment. ‘Don’t be worrying. He’s been down there this ages.’

‘Who?’

‘You know who. I got your man Dave to text me, just in case. He’s there all right. Don’t you worry.’

Her hand snaked over the folds of silk, found her dad’s. She wasn’t going to say anything maudlin about wishing her mother could see her, and neither was he. They were just going to get on with things and try to be happy. Because when it came down to it, that was all you ever could do.

Now they were at the church. Everyone inside. The photographer snapping away. Saoirse with Maggie by the hand, ready to go in first. PJ asking was she ready, taking her arm to guide her up the steps. She was trying to breathe. Then they were in the porch, and she could see rows and rows of heads through the glass of the doors.

Was that him, up at the front? Dark hair, a suit. She couldn’t see his face properly. The light in the church was dusty, opaque. Her legs under the stupid, itchy dress were heavy and she held her breath. There was the team, Avril in a little hat, hair and lips glossy. Gerard beside her, red and scrubbed in a suit. Fiacra, some look of sadness on his face, making him very old and very young all at once. Dave all spruced up too – a reminder that she’d missed his and Saoirse’s wedding, how unforgivable. Pat in her ‘mother of the bride and groom too, it’s awkward, let’s not mention it’ outfit of old gold. She was pleased to see Bob had come with Linda, his wife. Someone must be minding Ian, their disabled son. Her father had gone in too, stumping to his seat with one last squeeze of her arm. She’d asked not to be given away, thinking it old-fashioned, sexist even, but as she stood in the porch she wished there was someone to propel her forward, show her the way. She heard Maggie’s voice rise above the hubbub –
Mummy
– and the sound went up, light as a balloon. They didn’t know she’d arrived yet, and so she got to watch her own wedding for a moment, in the church where they’d held her mother’s memorial, the smell of damp hymnals and rubber hassocks, the heavy weight of gilt – and guilt, for that matter. Oh God. She was frozen. She didn’t think she could actually take a step forward on her own. Where was Aidan? Why couldn’t she see him properly? God help him, if he was late for this . . .

‘Paula.’

Him. What was he . . . ? At first she thought he’d come to give her away, walk her down the aisle – and she was almost grateful for a second. Later, she would not forgive herself for that small moment, that slip, of being pleased to see him.

‘What are you doing here?’ Had she invited him? No, of course she hadn’t.

‘I’m sorry.’ He stepped into the church porch in his navy suit, his eyes finding hers. ‘I’m so sorry to do this today, believe me, I . . .’

Paula was suffocated under the veil. She threw it back. ‘Do what?’ Outside there was a white car. Blue markings. She understood it was a police car, same as she saw every day, but her brain couldn’t work out what it was doing here, parked outside the church. On her wedding day. Then she saw the uniformed officers, and realised she’d let her bouquet fall to the ground, the white roses landing with a damp flump.