Heartstones (30 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

Within minutes Phoebe was in the car. Kylie’s surprised face watched from the window as the little Morris Minor drove away from
Star of the East
at high speed.

In Waterford Phoebe had to stop for petrol. A newspaper headline on the garage counter blazed with the words
Missing
 – 
Oscar-Winning Film Director’s Granddaughter Vanishes.
Underneath was the same picture of Honey that they’d used on the news: Honey in her school uniform with a red-brick wall behind her. Phoebe had last seen the picture propped up on the dresser in the Castle kitchen with a glitter-frame surrounding it and a little calendar hanging from the bottom. Without the frame the picture seemed bleak, the brick wall almost menacing; Honey wasn’t smiling, her sad eyes were looking down instead of at the camera. She looked lost.

Back on the road Phoebe didn’t stop. She passed the cottage where she’d asked for help two days before, and wondered if she dared stop to ask to use their phone to at least tell Fibber and Katrina she was on her way, and find out if there was any news. But Phoebe kept on driving; she didn’t want to waste the time. If Honey was still missing there must be something she could do; even if she was just out on the moors with the volunteers, surely an extra body would help. Phoebe tried to think of places Honey might go; the boathouse must have been checked and all around the Castle grounds. Phoebe thought about the weedy pond ringed with gunnera and the dilapidated green houses and the ice-house with its tragic history. Had they looked in all those places? Phoebe shivered and pushed dark thoughts into the recesses of her mind.

The journey seemed to take for ever, the route much longer than before. Phoebe put her foot down and prayed that Sean’s repair to her engine would hold out. Hours passed before signs for Kenmare loomed into view. After that the road narrowed and Phoebe found herself behind a succession of tractors and hay lorries with nowhere to pass. She beeped her horn to no avail, and narrowly avoided a collision with an oncoming coach when she tried to overtake a lorry.

At last she saw the sea and knew she wasn’t far away.

Carraigmore was bathed in incongruous sunshine. As Phoebe entered the village, the painted shops and houses looked too bright and cheerful, the flowers too abundant, and the buckets and spades outside the general store much too redolent of fun.

There were at least five Gardai cars and a dog-handler’s van parked along the high street, as well as two television trucks and numerous unrecognisable cars. A glamorous woman, flanked by a cameraman and a youth with a large fluffy microphone, was stopping passers-by and asking questions, no doubt about Honey. Phoebe parked her car in the lane behind the pub to avoid being interviewed.

The back door stood open. As Phoebe walked through the yard she could see Katrina standing at the cooker stirring something in a pan. The usually tidy kitchen looked chaotic. Dirty mugs and half-eaten plates of sandwiches were strewn all over the table, while Ordnance Survey maps lay, spread out, across the work-surfaces. Katrina turned as Phoebe stepped through the door.

‘Oh, you are back!’ She threw her arms around Phoebe and squeezed her until Phoebe had to pull away to breathe. Then Katrina led her to the table, picking up a pile of waterproof coats from a chair to make space for Phoebe to sit down. Katrina sat down beside her and Phoebe saw that, for the first time since she’d met her, she wore no make-up.

‘Sorry, is all mess here,’ Katrina gestured around her. ‘The kitchen has become the base for searching party. Never have I made so many cups of tea.’

‘Tell me what’s happened.’

Katrina’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘I think that it is my entire fault, I should have stayed with Honey, never left her on her own upstairs.’

‘Why? She’s often upstairs on her own.’

‘But on Sunday she is so upset and angry with Theo, I tried to calm her but my mind is on Fibber coming back from Tralee with Mrs Flannigan and also with looking after your sister who is very ill with hangover and does not remember the night before – she thinks she deserves people to be nice to her!’

‘Why was Honey so upset?’

‘She keep saying that she was going to make Theo change his minds.’

‘Change his mind about what? About selling the Castle?’

‘And I think she wanted him to change his minds about you.’

Phoebe looked at the table. ‘He must have been very angry when he found out about David.’

‘No, Phoebe he wasn’t angry.’

‘But he dashed out of the pub so fast, his face looked horrified.’

‘He is stunned, yes, a bit shock, yes, but he think you would come to talk to him later on at the Castle, he said you had an arrangement to go to see him there. When you didn’t come he went to look for you at the boathouse and then he find that you are left.’

‘I thought he wouldn’t want to see me ever again.’

Katrina’s dark bob swung from side to side as she shook her head. ‘No, that is not right. When he finds that you gone it is very early in the morning. Still dark. He is desperate to find you, to get you to come back, to tell you that he does not care about what Nola said. He is thinking you will go back to England, so he drive all the way to Rosslare to see if he can stop you, but you are not there.’

Phoebe put her head in her hands; why hadn’t he caught up with her; his car would have been much faster than hers? Then she remembered the tall beech hedge where the car had broken down; it would have completely obscured the Morris Minor from view.

‘He come back here at lunchtime and he is very sad and when Honey hears that you are gone she is very, very sad and she is sure that Theo has made you go, and she is shouting that she hates him and goes upstairs upset. I am trying to talk with her but she is crying so much she will not listen, so I put on a
Harry Potter
DVD and leave her to calm down while I am making up bed for Mrs Flannigan and giving your sister many cups of black coffee.’

‘Why didn’t Theo take her home at that point?’

‘He is gone to look for Rory to see if he know where you might be, and then when he comes back he starts drinking whiskey, sitting here at this table, and he has phone call from the developers on his mobile. He does big sigh and says, “Why the bloody hell not”, and he accepts their offer for the Castle and then he say to me that he will be taking Honey to America as soon as he can. Now we think Honey might be hearing him because when I go back upstairs to see her she is gone; and the window is open in the bathroom and we think that she climbed down from flat roof on to the old beer barrels at the back. We found this in the yard and think Honey is dropping it when she jump down.’ Katrina put the small jade dragon Phoebe had given her on the table.

Phoebe closed her eyes, what a mess. She should have gone to talk to Theo, she should have thought about how Honey would feel if she left. As usual she had just run away.

‘And also she leave this upstairs,’ Katrina pushed an A4 sheet across the table. The writing on it looked like it had been photocopied from a much smaller note.

i haf gon uway doo not tri to fiynd mee

‘The Guards have the original,’ Katrina’s voice trembled, ‘as evidence.’

Phoebe imagined Honey trying to work out how to spell the words and thought her heart would break. ‘Have they looked everywhere?’

‘They are still searching the moor and all around the Castle, but today they also have the boats.’

‘Oh God.’ Phoebe covered her face with her hands.

Katrina picked up a tea towel and wiped her eyes. ‘They are running out of hope, I think. Theo is distraught but he is out with Fibber and nearly all the village is helping the Guards search, even your sister has been looking. We are trying to keep it from Mrs Flannigan. I have such worry that she will see Honey’s picture on the news. I am trying to be acting like normal but she is asking all the time for Honey and is wondering why Fibber is out.’ Katrina broke down again.

Phoebe stood up. ‘I must go and help them look. This is all my fault. If only I’d never come to Carraigmore in the first place. If only I hadn’t tried to pretend that David had been my husband.’

Katrina put her hand on Phoebe’s arm, ‘Phoebe, do not be too hard on who you are. We all have secrets we try to hide.’ She glanced at the doorway and lowered her voice. ‘I will tell you my secret that no one knows, not even Fibber, not even Maeve when she was alive. In Slovakia I have a little boy; well he is not so little now, he is nine years old. I also have husband.’

‘You’re married?’

Katrina nodded. ‘Yes. To a bad man. When we first meet he is kind and very handsome, rich; here I think you would say he is
good catch
. But after we are married he start to get mean, he beat me up, he broke my arm, my ribs, my fingers, he burned my face with cigarette butts.’ Katrina turned her cheek and Phoebe could see a row of small red scars that were usually hidden by foundation and blusher. ‘And I find out he was crook.’

‘That’s terrible.’

‘I run away from him, I take my baby son and go to my mother far away from him in the country, but we are not having enough money even to eat so I come to Ireland to earn money to send home. I was only to be here for a year but now seven years is gone and I have not seen my son or my mother, but I know they have money for food and I write every month, and my mother writes and tells me how my little Boza is getting on.’

‘And Fibber doesn’t know?’

‘No.’ Katrina was silent for a few moments, her fingers gathered a little pile of crumbs together on the table. Phoebe noticed that her nails were broken. ‘I do not want him to know I am married to a criminal, and I do not want him to think badly of me leaving my child behind for all those years.’

‘But Katrina, he would understand.’ Phoebe sat down again. ‘He would see that you had no choice, you had to leave your violent husband and you had to make sure that your mother and your son could survive.’

‘Sometimes I think I will tell him but then I do not want to risk losing him. I love him.’

‘Oh Katrina, he loves you too. I’m sure he’d never think badly of you.’

Katrina’s almond eyes met Phoebe’s own. ‘And I think that Theo he likes you very much. He does not think badly of you just because you had love for a man who was married to someone else.’

Phoebe shook her head. ‘It’s not going to work out with Theo. I’ll never be able to live up to Maeve, I’ll always feel I’m living in her shadow.’

Katrina sighed. ‘Theo and Maeve; maybe it was not all perfect like you think.’ She swept the little pile of crumbs into her hand. ‘Life, it is not clear like a bath; mostly it is like a big muddy pond, full of dirt and slime,’ she paused, ‘and it gets even muddier when someone like your sister comes and stir it up with big stick.

Phoebe smiled. ‘Katrina, you have a wonderful way with words.’ She stood up. ‘But now I must go and help with the search.’

‘Will you first do something for me? It would be big help if you could sit with Mrs Flannigan while I finish cooking her the lunch. Soon it will be one o’clock and we must make sure she does not see the news.’

‘Mrs Flannigan won’t want to see me, I’m sure.’

‘Oh yes,’ Katrina stood up and went back to the stove, ‘she is asking for you all the time.’

Phoebe pushed open the door of Mrs Flannigan’s sitting room. She could see the old woman sitting in an armchair propped up by pillows. She looked much smaller, her face like dough, puffy and pale. Phoebe walked into the room, the little Jack Russell lay curled up on a cushion beside the fire; it lifted its head and seeing it was only Phoebe promptly lay down and went to sleep again.

‘Hello, Mrs Flannigan, how are you feeling?’

Mrs Flannigan didn’t answer; her eyes were fixed on the television screen, some sort of quiz show flashed with bright lights every time a contestant said a word. Phoebe sat down on the edge of the sofa, inwardly longing to be outside with the search teams. She felt sure that Honey was still alive somewhere. She had to stop herself constantly looking out of the window to see if anyone was coming up the garden path with news; she’d promised Katrina she wouldn’t look too anxious.

‘What are they doing?’ Phoebe asked nodding to the television. She was trying to look interested, trying not to look as restless as she felt.

Mrs Flannigan remained stonily silent.

‘Is it naming capital cities?’

Still silence.

‘Has anyone said Helsinki yet? And what about Bratislava?’

‘He had hair like yours – all those wild curls.’ Mrs Flannigan’s voice was croaky as if she hadn’t used it for some time.

Phoebe scanned the contestants on the screen, none had curly hair. ‘Who do you mean?’

‘Michael Flynn.’ Mrs Flannigan instantly had Phoebe’s full attention. Phoebe picked up the remote control and turned off the sound on the television. Mrs Flannigan shifted slightly in her seat, dislodging the pillow from behind her head. Phoebe sprang up to put it back, but Mrs Flannigan batted her away with a veiny hand and let her head fall back so that she was looking up at the ceiling. ‘I suppose you think you know all about him, don’t you?’

Phoebe wondered how much she should say? She could see how frail the woman had become, and she didn’t want to distress her in any way, but she longed to know what had happened all those years ago.

‘I knew that my grandmother and Michael Flynn were in love.’

‘In love,’ Mrs Flannigan repeated the words slowly. ‘Yes, I suppose that summer they seemed to be in love.’

Phoebe considered what to say next. She moved along the sofa, closer to the old woman’s chair.

‘And I know the truth about Dr Brennan,’ Phoebe said.

Mrs Flannigan let out a snort. ‘What? That he liked young men?’

‘Yes,’ said Phoebe.

Mrs Flannigan’s voice grew stronger, ‘What a scandal that would have been if it had come out.’

‘So he had to run away to Africa?’

‘Yes.’ Mrs Flannigan was silent for a while. She still stared up at the ceiling, as if she were watching images of the past above her, as though the ceiling were a screen. Phoebe noticed how her hand plucked at the edge of the blanket that was spread over her knees. Just when Phoebe thought she wouldn’t speak again she said, ‘That wicked man, that priest, he had him blackmailed.’