A Savage Hunger (Paula Maguire 4) (27 page)

Alice

But wait, you say. What actually happened to the relic, Alice? Well, of course they asked. It’s supposed to be priceless. Worth way more than I am, anyway. I said I’d lost it in the woods. I said I was so upset and traumatised I’d blacked it all out, and by the time Dermot turned up to find me I’d lost her. What a shame. That should keep them busy for a while, searching in the trees.

But that’s not the real story, of course. I can’t let them have all my secrets. So where is Saint Blannad? You know, I think we understood each other, by the end. I think she was sick of people staring at her, stripped down to her bones as she was. I think she wanted to hide herself. And so they won’t find her, not where I put her. And I know that someday I will come back to the lake shore, where she lies under the water, in the middle of all the mud and weeds and rubbish. I’ll come back and I’ll thank her. For helping me kill Alice, so that I could live.

She knew about the hunger. I know she’d recognise it, what you find on the other side of the pains. Those are just your body crying, like a baby, for what it’s used to. On the other side you see things. Your eyes blur and dance. Your breath is slow, gentle. Your heart slows way down and you feel light as air, the blood moving under your skin. You understand the hunger is only there to distract you from what’s really going on. When you get down to the bone, that’s when you’ve really won, really beaten the hunger, the flesh, the pain.

I looked up the meaning of ‘relic’ once, back when I still cared about books and grades and study. For an essay. The tutor loved that, you could tell. He congratulated me on my ‘etymological curiosity’. Anyway, I looked it up and it’s from Latin. It means ‘what is left behind’. These days, I find myself thinking about that. A lot.

Chapter Forty-Two

‘Any news?’ The day after was Paula’s favourite part of any case. When the loose ends were tied off, and the blood cleaned up, and everything put back in its proper place. Alice Morgan had been treated for shock and minor injuries, then released to her parents, who were insisting the press not hear any of the details of how their daughter had planned her own disappearance. When she recovered, she would be in for a lengthy questioning session as to how she’d managed to evade the police for three weeks. Peter and Katy were in custody. Dermot Healy’s parents were at his hospital bed, as he recovered from emergency surgery to repair his carotid artery. Paula herself was filing a report when Corry came to find her at her desk.

‘Well, Healy will be fine, though he might have quite a scar to show off in prison where, fingers crossed, he’ll be ending up before too long. Avril’s grand too. I’m going to recommend she be fast-tracked to CID – that was some good, brave work she did.’ Corry brightened. ‘Oh, and poor Willis is having a bad time of it – seeing as he refused to pull an officer out of danger.’

‘Will he get in trouble?’

‘We can but hope. Off the record, I heard that the ACC is planning to sound me out about going back up a level.’

‘That’s great!’

‘Well, we’ll see. And who knows what’ll happen after that. Willis isn’t really suited to Ballyterrin, I don’t think. He doesn’t quite grasp the . . . what’s the word?’

‘The subtleties?’ Paula suggested.

‘Exactly. The subtleties.’ Corry smiled. ‘Good work, Maguire. One body, long dead, and two solves, with no fatalities. That’s not a bad ratio. There’s even going to be an investigation into what they get up to at that anorexia clinic.’

Paula was glad something had come of her trip. There had to be a better way to save people, rather than holding them back from the grave with tubes and cuffs and never a second of privacy. ‘Maybe we’re getting the hang of this after all.’

‘Let’s not go too far. We both still need to explain to the powers-that-be why we ended up with someone pointing a gun at us, yet again.’

‘I guess it’s just a Northern Ireland thing.’

‘Still. You need to be more careful. You’ve that wee girl to think of now.’

And once again, she was Maggie’s only parent. Paula looked down at her desk, nodded. ‘I know. In fact I was thinking of going early, picking her up from my dad’s.’ Pat had started chemo now, and they’d have to rethink the childcare situation. They’d have to rethink a lot of things.

‘I’m sure I can turn a blind eye. Oh, and—’ Corry turned back, and the look on her face was a study in discretion, and exasperation, and understanding. ‘Brooking wants to see you, before he goes. He’s in the wee interview room.’

‘There’s something I need to say to you.’ Guy was waiting for her in there, in his grey suit, working on a stack of reports. Paula hovered, not sitting down.

Me too. Me too.
But she still couldn’t. ‘Oh?’

He ran his hands through his hair. He’d a fine head of it for a man of forty-two. She always wanted to push it back into place, run her hands through it, fair and springy. As she had on that one occasion – just one – when they’d been able to touch. How ridiculous it seemed. She’d had his child, carried her for nine months, fed her, nursed her. Yet only ever spent a few hours with him alone. How was she ever going to tell him?

‘Um.’ Guy sighed. ‘Well, you probably know I’m going back to London. The case is done now and I only came over to consult. My job’s there.’

She was nodding. Of course he was going back. ‘What are you . . . ?’

‘I just need to say this before I go. I wouldn’t have come back if I’d thought it would hurt you in any way, or make things hard for you, or disrupt your life. I hope you believe that. And I am so, so sorry for what’s happened. I thought if I went away – if I gave you space, you and Aidan could sort things out. You were always meant to be together. Weren’t you?’

Her voice was dry. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything any more.’

‘Well, I just wanted to say that. I never meant for any of this to happen. And – I don’t know if this is helpful now, or unhelpful – but there’ll always be a job for you on my team. Once things are sorted out here. If they can be sorted out. You’ll always have a place to go.’

‘I . . .’ Paula seemed unable to finish her sentences.

‘I know Aidan’s here. But Paula, he’s maybe going to be in there a long time. You know that. You and Maggie could have a new life.’

With him? Was that what he was offering?
Just tell him, for fuck’s sake. Just say, guess what, Aidan isn’t her dad after all, so you know what that means, surprise
 . . .

And then what? He’d know she’d let him think Aidan was Maggie’s dad, all this time, even though she hadn’t been sure? She realised she couldn’t bear to lose him again, not with Aidan gone too. She couldn’t tell him. She had to. But she couldn’t.

A nasty idea was forming in Paula’s mind. A hard, cold little voice that said Aidan was in prison and he might not be around until Maggie was grown, maybe even at secondary school. And if she and Maggie were both in London – safe, anonymous London, big enough to drown any secret, where none of the crimes touched them personally – then who knew what might happen? God. Could she do that? Was she really so calculating?

‘Say something.’ Guy gave a nervous smile. ‘I’m sorry if that was inappropriate. I just wanted you to know – there are options.’

‘I mean – it’s a lot to think about. And there’s Dad, and Pat and everything—’

‘There are flights too. Back and forth.’

‘I know. I’d like to think about it, if that’s OK.’

‘So . . . maybe yes?’

‘Not definitely no. That’s the best I can do right now.’ The look of joy on his face was real, unfaked, and she felt as if her chest were splitting and breaking with it, a kind of fierce, hurtful hope. Could she do this? Work with Guy, and not tell him the truth? Could she burn her life to the ground and start again, as Alice Morgan had? She pushed it to the back of her mind. Classic Irish coping mechanism. She’d think about it soon. Not right now, but soon.

Guy stood up. ‘I better go; my flight’s tonight and I haven’t packed. But maybe I’ll see you soon?’

‘Soon.’ She nodded. Her phone beeped and, distracted, she picked it up. In PJ’s usual clipped style it said:
builders done out of house said they found load of rubbish down behind cupboards could you take a look mags fine see you later dad.

They were finished. Her mind began to race ahead. Maybe this didn’t have to be it, stuck in this sad town, with all its memories, all its pain. She could sell the house, if the work was finished. She could do what she’d done at eighteen and refuse to be dragged down by it, by Ballyterrin, the weight of it sinking her like a stone into dark water. Refuse to let Maggie be dragged down either. She would go home now, and look around, and later she’d pick up Maggie and talk to her dad about what they might do next.

Guy turned back in the doorway. ‘I’m so pleased, Paula.’ His face open, happy.

‘Me too,’ she said. And meant it, for the first time in ages.

It was hard to believe, after the months of waiting, of coughing on dust and rinsing dishes in the bath, that it was finished. The builders, with their radio and crude jokes told not-quite-quietly enough and always calling her ‘love’, were finally out. The new cupboards were in, sticky with labels that would need to be cleaned off. The floor was gritty with sawdust, and the new hob still wrapped in plastic, but it was all there, clean and new. Paula ran her hands over it, smelled the fresh pine. For a moment she allowed herself to believe change could happen. This old kitchen, where she had said goodbye to her mother for what she didn’t know would be the last time, was transformed. Maybe someone would actually buy it, some young, sensible family who didn’t mind that a woman had gone missing from there back in the dark old days of the nineties, didn’t know or care so long as it was a good investment.

She found she was holding her breath as she looked round the kitchen, motes of dust turned to glitter by the afternoon sun. If she could leave this place, maybe she wouldn’t long for Aidan around the corner every time she came home, drinking his beer outside, watching
Peppa Pig
on the sofa with Maggie, or stuck in the paper and reading out bits of stories she didn’t understand. Maybe she wouldn’t be punched in the guts by loss every time she put her key in the lock. Not just for her mother now, but for something else too – the life she’d almost had. She tried hard to put those memories away, fold them inside her. That time was over, and the future had to be faced, whatever it brought. She knew that now.

On the counter was a small pile of things – this must be the rubbish her dad had alluded to, which the builders had found behind the old washing machine. She glanced at it – wooden clothes pegs, furred with dust; the instruction manual for a toaster that had been thrown out in 1997; a fridge magnet in the shape of a tomato. And what looked like a folded piece of paper. She moved it out of the dirt, half-glancing at it as she started tidying, shutting the cupboard doors, scraping at one of the sticky labels with her thumb nail. She opened it.

Paula
 . . .

And then her legs had gone from under her, getting the news much faster than the rest of her. She grasped the counter to keep herself upright. It was her mother’s handwriting. Not seen for almost twenty years, but she’d have known it anywhere. The rest of the note swam in front of her. How . . . ? She sat down heavily on the floor, smelling the fresh paint and sawdust-newness of it all. A note. But that didn’t have to mean anything. It could have been a shopping list. A reminder to turn the oven on. Anything.

But she found that, as the quickening in her heart grew instead of dying away, a memory was returning. That day in 1993. Late October, winter seeping into town, the light already fading as she got home. And her, aged thirteen, rushing in, tired and starving after school. Cold from the walk up the hill. And what did she do every day when she came in, though her mother told her not to? She threw her schoolbag up on the counter while she opened the fridge to rifle through it. Usually Margaret would be there to tell her off.
Get that bag down off there don’t spoil your dinner now.
But that last day. The silence of the house, the uncurtained windows, the feeling of unease that hadn’t quite reached Paula’s brain yet but was creeping up the backs of her legs and hands. Had there been a movement? Had something skittered away as she threw her bag up there, so careless? Had she knocked something down the back, unseen, unnoticed?

Had this note lain down there for nearly twenty years?

Her hands shook. The paper was so thin, the ink faded. And before she could bear to see what it said, Paula lay down with her head on the new kitchen floor. Begging for the strength to read it, and face what it held, however much it felt like it might kill her.

Dear Paula. When you get this you’ll realise I’m not here
 . . .

Alice

The teacher says, ‘Can anyone tell me what is meaning
millefeuille
?’

There’s a hesitation from the rest of the class, a buzz of sudden back-in-school fear. I put my hand up. I can do this, because the person I’m being right now – Ali – would. She’s a bit of a swot, Ali. And why not? After all, she doesn’t have to pretend not to know things, or not to care.

‘
Oui
, Ali?’ The teacher likes me, despite her stern French manner. She’s right to be stern anyway. Baking requires discipline. Numbers, maths. It has right and wrong answers. Not like life.

‘It means a thousand leaves,’ I say, imagining the forest, where it was peaceful. Where I buried Alice, with blood and bone.

‘
Exactement
.’ She nods, and begins to tell us the recipe – the butter, the flour, the sugar. So many calories. The ingredients are on my cool marble block in front of me. Good for making pastry, firm and cold. The afternoon sun slants in the window and my fellow students shade their eyes. They’re an OK bunch. Mostly angsty mums or nervy young men who think they’re Gordon Ramsay. All here because they want to be someone else. They don’t want to be Patricia or Odette or Tim any more, housewife or accountant or working in a Little Chef. They want to change.

Not me, though. I already changed who I am. And I would tell them, if they asked, that rebirth is not without pain. You have to bleed, and cry, and be alone and be broken, and after it, when the truth is out, your friends and family won’t want to see you any more. The police will want to charge you, but they won’t know what with – seeing as you were the victim, of rape, of kidnap. Your parents, who if we’re honest haven’t ever known what to do with you, will pay you off with enough cash to keep you away. They’ll come back to you one day, probably, when they’re old and sick, because blood is thicker than water. But my blood is thicker still, red and dark and clotting. I know. I’ve seen it. So here I am.

I reach for the butter in its gold packet, the beads of moisture dripping on its side. Not melting but malleable, just right. When the teacher is helping Monique read the recipe, dumb, sweet Monique, I slip a bit into my mouth with my finger, and it’s cool and soft and salty. It tastes like good times, and comfort, and joy. It tastes like being happy. And as it slips down, oily and fatty, ready to be churned through my body and settle on my hips, I know one thing for sure – I won’t ever feel the hunger again. Finally, I am full.