I Saw You (37 page)

McLoughlin could see the boat through the stand of beeches at the lake end of the deer pasture. It was tied up at the little jetty. There was still no sign of life in the
house. He hurried through the trees, his feet crunching on the beech mast that lay inches deep on the mossy ground. He reached the boat. He stopped and flopped down beside it to catch his breath.
The wood of the jetty was warm. He leaned over and scooped up a handful of lake water. He splashed his face, then wetted his handkerchief and mopped his neck, letting the warm liquid dribble down
his back. It felt lovely. He’d have given anything to strip off and lower himself into its smooth, silky darkness. But this wasn’t the time or place, he reminded himself. He got up on
to his knees and peered into the boat. It was in pretty good condition. The paint was faded but there were no signs of rot or decay. He leaned down on the gunwales and the boat tipped beneath his
weight. Tipped, but did not sink beneath the surface. He stood up, then untied it from its mooring ring and began to pull it around the end of the jetty, then back towards the shore and the
entrance to the boathouse. He pushed at the wooden door, which swung back on its hinges. He moved quickly inside, the dinghy following like an obedient pony on a leading-rein.

It was dark and cool. He stood on the wooden walkway and tied the boat loosely to a ring on the wall. Then he stepped down into it. The boat dipped and swayed beneath his weight. Imagine, he
thought. Imagine you’re drunk and stoned and lying here in the dark. He sat on the rear seat and let himself slip to the side so his head was resting on the gunwales.

‘You have decided that you’re going to end it all. You’re going to jump overboard,’ he said aloud, as he swung his legs over the side. As his weight shifted, the bow
reared up. He took off his shoes and rolled his trousers as far above his knees as they would go. Then he sat on the edge and pushed down. The boat gave way beneath him. Water slopped up and
dribbled over the side. He swung his legs in and bent down to look at what had accumulated in the bilges. There was hardly enough to fill the bailing bucket. Certainly not nearly as much as there
had been in the boat after Marina’s body had been found. The only way water could have got into the boat was if someone had poured it in. Or? Or? Or?

He got out of the boat and slipped down beside it. The water sneaked up his legs. Shit, he thought. He should have taken off his trousers. Too late now. He stood beside the boat. Then he leaned
down on the gunwales, half pulling himself up but keeping his feet firmly anchored on the lake’s sandy bottom. As the boat tilted at a steep angle, water poured in. He stood back, let it go
and watched as the boat righted itself. The lake water slopped from one side to the other, then settled. He leaned over and looked in. At least six inches. Not as much as there had been the morning
Marina was found. But he could see now how it might have got there. Someone leaning on the gunwales, maybe holding the boat down, that would do it. Someone leaning on the gunwales while the woman
was asleep so she fell out into the water. Someone leaning on the gunwales, pushing and pulling the woman out of the boat. Someone strong, heavy, pushing their weight down, so the woman in the boat
toppled out, and as she disappeared into the lake, water rushed in to displace her.

He pulled himself back on to the walkway. He thought back over the statements he had read. He remembered sitting in the kitchen here, listening to Helena as she described how she and her dog had
got up early to go for their morning swim. She had described it vividly. They had seen the boat drifting. She had waded out to catch it, to make it fast to the mooring ring on the rock wall. She
had seen the woman’s body lying in the rapids. She had gone to look at her. She had realized that she was dead. She had raised the alarm. He bent to roll down his trousers, put on his shoes.
But what if she had found the boat, as she said, and Marina was still in it? Unconscious, perhaps, but alive. And she had leaned on the side of the boat, and tipped her into the lake so that she
drowned? Johnny Harris had said she drowned. Her lungs were filled with water. So she was alive when she went into the water. Alive, but unable to save herself. Alive, until Helena found her.

He pulled his laces tight and tied them in neat bows. He stood up. It was about time he brought Brian Dooley in on this. Of course, he’d probably dismiss it as the fevered imaginings of a
retired guard with too much time on his hands. But maybe he wouldn’t. Dooley wasn’t the worst. He bent down and untied the dinghy. He’d better put it back where he had found it.
Try not to alert anyone that someone had been here. But as he put out his hand to push open the door he heard a voice. He drew back, but there was no escape. The door swung open.

‘Well, looky, looky, what do we have here?’ Helena’s voice was loud, triumphant. She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and the dog sprang forward. It stopped
just short of McLoughlin, its front feet planted wide, the hackles on its shoulders rising with its growl. But McLoughlin’s attention was on the girl standing in the doorway, her head slumped
forward and a band of leather around her thin white neck. ‘What have you done to her?’ he asked quietly.

Helena turned to Vanessa. She jerked the dog lead and Vanessa’s head jerked in response. ‘Not much. We’ve just had a bit of fun, haven’t we?’ She tightened her grip
on the leather strap and forced Vanessa’s head up. Tears slid from the girl’s eyes. She did not speak.

‘Let her go.’ McLoughlin made as if to move. The dog barked once, a short, sharp sound, which stopped him.

The girl sobbed, shoulders shaking. McLoughlin could feel his own legs trembling. ‘Let her go,’ he whispered. ‘Please, take me instead.’ Remember Mary, Margaret had said.
He remembered. Her body wrapped in black plastic as she was pulled from the canal, beaten and abused. Her black curls shorn. He remembered Margaret’s face as she looked down at her daughter.
He had seen other mothers’ faces too. Before that day and after it. He couldn’t bear to think of Sally Spencer. And the look on hers.

‘You? What would I want with you? You’re nothing to me. Nothing to anyone. I know you, Michael McLoughlin. You’re a nothing man.’ Helena turned to Vanessa. ‘This is
who I want. This little one, who twitters like a bird.’ She reached out and touched Vanessa’s hair. The dog whined. ‘You know what day it is tomorrow, don’t you, Mr
McLoughlin? It’s her eighteenth birthday. And you know what that means? Tomorrow Dove Cottage and the land around it become hers. Isn’t she a lucky little girl?’ She jerked the
lead again. ‘Look at me, girl, when I speak to you. Pay attention.’ Vanessa’s head snapped up. Her eyes were closed. Her face was the colour of skimmed milk. ‘Dove Cottage,
pretty name. But it’s not called after the bird, with its smooth feathers and neat little beak. It’s the Irish word,
dubh
, the same as the lake, Lough Dubh. Black, black,
black.’ She shook her head so her hair fanned out around her head. ‘Black, black, black is the colour of my true love’s hair.’ Her voice was strong and melodic. ‘Black
because of the water from the bog. Black because of the lake’s depth. It’s bottomless, you know. No one knows how deep it is. Will I put rocks in your pockets, Vanessa? Will I let you
sink? Or will you float, as your sister floated? Such a pretty sight in her red dress, floating with her face in the water.’ She stopped, smoothed her hair back, tucked it behind her ears.
‘Now, to the business at hand. I have a plan.’ She clicked her fingers in Vanessa’s direction. ‘The note. Give me the note. Such a nice note. Just like the note I wrote for
her sister. Now, where to leave it? That was the question.’ She tilted her head to one side. ‘And then a brainwave. She had left her bag up in one of the top bedrooms. So I popped the
note in it, and kicked it under the bed. Such a good idea to put it there.’

Vanessa pulled a folded piece of paper from her pocket. ‘Now, read it for the nice man.’ Helena put out her hand and twined a lock of Vanessa’s hair around her fingers.
‘Smarten up, girl, off you go. Loud and clear.’

McLoughlin listened. The words were familiar. She asked for forgiveness, if not in this world then in the next. Her voice faltered as she reached the end. ‘I love you, Mum. I’m sorry
for all the pain I’ve caused you.’ She began to sob.

‘When?’ He stared at Helena, at the smile on her face.

‘Soon. We’ll go out for a row on the lake. The dog, the girl and me. Out to the deepest part. And then the girl will say goodbye. She will leave her clothes in the boat. The note
will be in her pocket. The dog and I will swim to the shore. We’re strong swimmers.’ She clicked her tongue. The dog moved forward. McLoughlin could feel the sweat prickle in his
armpits. His mouth was dry. The dog lifted his nose. His nostrils opened wide. The inner skin was pink and shiny. McLoughlin tried to think.

‘Just tell me one thing.’ He shifted carefully from foot to foot. The dog followed his movements with its shiny brown eyes. ‘Marina. You did kill her, didn’t you?’
He looked at Vanessa. She was shocked, disoriented. Her pupils were huge.

‘Kill her? Well, did I kill her? That’s a debatable proposition. I leaned on the boat and she fell overboard.’

Leans on the boat. The girl opens her eyes. Help me, she says, please help me. The water pours into the boat. The girl falls to one side. The water pours into the boat. The girl slides
out.

‘She deserved it. She let my husband die. She sat here,’ she pointed to the boat, ‘she sat here and she watched him drown. That man told Dominic. He saw her. He saw what she
did.’

‘She was fifteen, Helena, not much more than a child.’ He slipped his hand into his pocket. He could feel the hard plastic of his phone.

‘Fifteen? Not much more than a child? She was strong, she was healthy, she could swim. She was wearing a life-jacket.’

She sits and watches him. She’d told him to put on his life-jacket. He ignored her. I hate you, she thinks, you never listen to me. She sits and watches him. He sinks beneath the water.
He kicks himself up into the air. Help me, help me, he cries. She sits in the boat and watches him drown.

Helena was shouting now. ‘He was helpless! She let him die!’

Vanessa whimpered. ‘It’s not true, is it? She didn’t do that, did she?’

‘Shut up! Shut the creature up!’ Helena hit her across the face and Vanessa fell back.

McLoughlin’s fingers slipped across the keypad. ‘And why did she do that, Helena? What was James doing to her that made her hate him so much?’

Helena hit him then, her fist balled, a blow to the nose that made him stagger.

‘You think he was interested in her? You haven’t a clue. You know nothing. You’re out of your depth. You’re drowning. The water’s creeping up over your chin, over
your mouth, over your nose. Soon you’ll disappear completely. You’ll be gone and no one will even miss you.’ She screamed. A scream of triumph. ‘And we’ll be on our
own again. My son Dominic and me. We need no one else. No one. We’re all that matters.’

McLoughlin could taste blood. He could feel it on his lips, his chin.

‘Poor Marina. She wanted Dominic to like her.’ Helena’s face was lit up. A bright shining light that came from within. ‘She was so frightened that he would find out what
happened in the boat. She would do anything to please him. When they went back to school after James died, Dominic told me, he was having the best time. Marina was at his beck and call. He got her
to torment that boy, Mark Porter. They were all at it. It was his game. And they played it for him.’

She walks towards the tennis courts. She has to do it. Dominic has told her. And she is so scared that Dominic knows. Knows what happened in the boat. And he will tell her mother. And her
mother will never forgive her. She will do whatever Dominic asks. He has a list of tasks. Ben Roxby is top of the list. Give him what he wants. And then there’s little Mark. We’ll have
some fun with little Mark, won’t we, Marina? Poor little Mark. He doesn’t realize what we’re doing. He just wants us to like him. He wants you to love him. Go on, Marina, and
I’ll watch you and tell you if you’re doing well.

Blood was dripping down his shirt and on to the wooden floor. The dog sniffed. Vanessa whimpered again.

‘So what is it about the men in your family and Marina?’ He had to concentrate. He had to keep calm. He had to think. He tried to visualize the buttons on the phone. ‘You know
that Dominic was fucking Marina, don’t you?’

‘Of course he was. Of course I knew!’ Helena screeched. ‘He was playing her. Like a trout on the end of a line. Letting her out, then reeling her in. Until she was exhausted.
And he could grab her, pierce her with his gaff, net her, drag her on to the ground. Watch her gasping for breath. Then smash her head with a rock.’ She raised her arms high in the air, then
let them drop. ‘He found out what happened in the boat. And he was punishing her.’

‘Punishing her with the messages and the photographs?’ She smiled again. It struck him that her lipstick was smudged. She clapped her hands. ‘I wish I’d been there to see
her face when she got those photos. But I saw plenty of her that night at the party. I saw her and I made a nice little film with my camera. Plenty of details. Pity you haven’t seen it, as
you seem to be so interested in her.’

A beautiful night. A full moon. The house filled with people. Loud music playing. Tables laden with food, with bottles of wine, vodka, whiskey, gin. Mark drives Marina down
the track by the lake. She is scared. She doesn’t speak. She should never have come. Dominic will be here. She is frightened of him. Does he know what she did? She has tried to find out. She
has been getting the messages, the photographs. The words written on the walls of the apartment. Dominic must know. But she can’t bring herself to ask him. The lake is so beautiful. The moon
hangs above. Its blue light ripples across the water. Dominic will be here with his wife. Marina hadn’t wanted to come. But Mark begged her. She felt so sad for him. So sad for what she had
done, how she had made him suffer. But she knew it would be a mistake to come here.