Red Ribbons (17 page)

‘Like what?’

‘Like anything. If someone was upset, or if a person needed help or something, Caroline was always the first to notice.’

‘She was sensitive, is that what you mean?’

‘Maybe. But lately when she was down and all, thinking those awful things about herself, no matter what I said, none of it made any difference.’

‘Emily, thank you. What you’ve said may help a great deal.’

‘She was very pretty, even if she didn’t know it.’

‘I know, and it sounds like she had a great sister, too.’

‘Not great enough.’ Emily’s eyes looked glassy, and it was obvious she was struggling to hold back tears.

Lilli Devine walked over to her daughter, cradling her like you might a younger child. Peter Devine looked at both of them, a man in total despair. The viciousness of their loss was palpable, like a vacuum sucking them down, beyond reach.

‘Lilli,’ Kate asked quietly, ‘would it be okay if Detective O’Connor and I had another look at Caroline’s bedroom?’

‘Of course,’ Lilli answered, her voice weak and brittle.

As Kate and O’Connor walked upstairs, Kate looked back down at Shelley Canter and the family, all of them looking like seasoned performers in the final act of some Greek tragedy.

≈

When Kate and O’Connor entered Caroline’s bedroom, the first thing Kate noticed was the view of the canal through the window. The room was exactly as you’d expect any young girl’s bedroom to be – cheerful, bright bedcovers with matching purple curtains, an array of items on her dressing table from tweezers to a small heart-shaped frame with
a smiling Caroline and another young girl. There was a portable television on a high bracket in the corner opposite her bed, and a white wickerwork laundry basket. To the right of the bed, there was a tower of schoolbooks, behind which stood a low wooden bookcase filled with books. The room smelled of freshly washed sheets and looked like a room the young girl might step back into at any moment.

‘I assume your guys have already examined this place from top to bottom?’

O’Connor raised an eyebrow, as if her question was ridiculous. ‘You assume right, Kate.’

‘Nice view of the canal. I’ll want to step outside again after we’re finished here.’

‘Sure. But what are you looking for?’

‘I don’t know, at least not yet.’ She nodded at the heart-shaped photo frame. ‘Who’s that in the photograph with Caroline?’

‘Jessica Barry, I think.’

‘Makes sense.’

O’Connor was looking at the bookcase. ‘She certainly was a reader,’ he remarked.

Kate knelt down to read the titles. ‘She liked to keep her books, look at the variety, probably every book she’s read in the last year or two.’

‘Can’t say I’m an expert on young girl fiction.’

‘It changes, O’Connor. There is a big leap at that age, moving from easy reading to young adult. Caroline has everything here from
Anne of Green Gables
to
Pretty Little Liars
.’

‘So?’

‘So, they all make sense, except for this one,’ she said, pointing at a particular book.

O’Connor knelt down beside her to see. ‘
The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe
? What don’t you like about that one?’

‘Apart from it being unusual reading these days for a young girl?’

‘I’m listening.’

‘Edgar Allan Poe married his first cousin, a thirteen-year-old girl called Virginia Clemm. Some people believe the couple’s relationship was more like brother and sister than husband and wife, although he was fourteen years her senior when they married.’

‘Did he not write about a detective?’

‘He did, a character called Dupin, but he wrote many things, including poetry. If this is a full collection, it will include his famous poem ‘Eulalie’, which was about his wife.’

‘I thought you said her name was Virginia?’

‘I did, but he liked the ‘l’ sound.’

‘Anything else about it?’

‘Well, Poe had a recurring theme in his poetry – the death of a beautiful woman. He believed that was the most poetic topic in the world. Perhaps if Caroline had started to believe she wasn’t attractive, it could be that her killer sensed her anxieties, might even have used them to his advantage to gain her trust. Perhaps this was his way of reaching out to her.’

‘And what about the wife? What happened to her?’

‘Died of TB in her early twenties.’

‘Cheerful fellow, no doubt.’

‘Well he may not have been cheerful, but if Caroline had a copy of his work then there is a strong possibility our killer gave it to her.’

Was Kate kidding herself or did O’Connor actually look slightly impressed?

‘Right, don’t touch it. I’ll get Hanley to go over it again, page by page. Are you finished here?’

Kate took a last look around Caroline’s room. ‘Think so. Let’s step outside.’

‘You go on. I need to have a quick word with Canter before I leave.’

≈

From the footpath on the canal side, Kate took in the view of what she now knew was Caroline’s bedroom. Stepping over the low wall running along the canal bank, she stood on the grass verge facing the house, her back to the water, then walked farther along the bank until she stood directly under the bridge. As the grass verge neared the canal bridge, it lowered by about a metre and a half, which meant Kate could still see the Devines’ house while being all but completely out of view from above.

When O’Connor crossed over to join her, she realised that at first he couldn’t see her. Eventually he spotted her under the bridge and came down. He looked around the spot where she was standing. ‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

‘I can’t think of a better viewing point than right here,’ Kate replied. ‘If he stalked her, O’Connor, he got to know her movements, followed her home. What better vantage point could there be than watching her in the safety of her own home?’

O’Connor looked up at the bedroom window, just like her abductor might have done. ‘So, Kate, if he was stalking her, why take her now?’

‘That I don’t know. He could have felt it was time to move their relationship to another level. Fantasising about Caroline, watching her, following her home, they all fed into some need he had, but it’s a bit like an addiction, it doesn’t remain stationary. He wanted more.’

‘This grass verge gets plenty of traffic, Kate. Look at it.’ The verge was littered with cigarette butts, sweet papers, even a couple of empty vodka bottles. ‘It could have been used by under-aged drinkers, someone homeless looking for shelter, even lovers. But if our Peeping Tom did use this area to keep an eye on Caroline Devine, then Hanley will be kept busy when he gets here. I’m not sure what he’s going to find after so much time, but if there’s something here, I’ll be damned if we’re going to miss it.’

I THOUGHT OF WEXFORD THIS MORNING. THAT LONG, hot summer in 1995 – the last year I considered myself a free woman. The good weather was part of the reason why Joe had pestered me for so long: ‘It would do us all the world of good,’ he kept saying, ‘especially Amy.’ But what he really meant was that it would do
me
the world of good.

Joe, I realise now, was handicapped when it came to dealing with his feelings towards me, especially where my bouts of depression were concerned, being a man with a mind that never entertained self-indulgent notions. With Joe, it was always about finding solutions, moving forward, no need to dwell on anything for too long, too much thinking can cloud your brain, no point in letting all that ‘overanalysing malarkey’, as he called it, get in the way of things. At times, especially near the end, he became more like a surrogate father than a husband. I guess, though, that was as much my fault as his. By the time of Amy’s last birthday, our daily conversations had slid into the type of exchanges you would normally have with neighbours or mild acquaintances. But, in fairness, I should shoulder most of the blame. I was the one who married him on false pretences. At least at the time, Joe was honest in his belief about loving me.

The drive down to Wexford was tedious. I felt locked in – with my own husband and daughter. What kind of person feels that way about her own family? Joe’s positivity irritated me, too. The music was loud, him singing at the top of his voice, getting Amy to join in
from the back seat whenever a song came on they both knew. Now, when I remember back then, I know if I had the ability to turn back time I would go back to that very moment, stop it right there and ask both of them what they were thinking. I could probably guess at Joe’s thoughts, but Amy’s thoughts – what were they?

The pretence we were somehow a normal family going away on holiday irked me as well. I allowed my annoyance with Joe to get in the way of any link I might have had with Amy. I never got to the point where I asked, or wondered, what her thoughts were. But if I’m being brutally honest, I’d have to admit that I barely thought about her on that drive down to Wexford. I’m not the first parent to fool themselves into thinking their children will always be around, that we can pick up wherever we left off, whenever we want to. We forget – I forgot – that life doesn’t work that way, that things happen that we cannot know about, unless we ask.

Apart from the singing and the humidity in the car, when I try to remember that drive I do recall that Amy’s mood was more subdued than normal. At the time, I had taken it as a blessing. She’d made the effort to join in with the singing when her father prompted her, but it must have been just pretence. Was it a pretence for Joe, or for me, or for both of us? Either way, I made no effort to join in with them. I was like some closed-up machine, thinking only about how much I missed Andrew. It had been seven months since our affair had ended and although there were times, thanks to the antidepressants and the alcohol, that I managed to shelve the hurt, I had never got him completely out of my head. I became like some silly adolescent with exaggerated notions of obsession, imagining ways we might meet up, or how it would feel to talk to him again, to be able to share the silliest of things, to have him back in my life.

I must have appeared quite alien to both of them, doing nothing other than staring out the car window as they sang summer songs at the tops of their voices, a wife and a mother who paid more attention
to the landscape than to the people who shared her life. In a way, I think I looked on both of them as the enemy, because they were the reason I had to pretend, to take part, to behave as normal. I remember wondering what Joe’s expectations were – just because I’d reluctantly agreed to go didn’t mean I was going to magically transform into a happy-clappy red coat. And again, I made the mistake of putting Joe and Amy together, as if they were both the one person and should be treated as such. Wasn’t that what I did? Hadn’t I let the distance between Joe and me forge a distance between me and Amy? I should have tried. I should have done that much at least.

How many times have I thought about that since I’ve come here? The sin of self-obsession. If my regret began anywhere, it began on that sunny drive to Wexford, my husband and daughter estranged to me, as I behaved like someone who cared for no one other than herself. In a way, that is why I accept my punishment so readily – ‘What goes around comes around’, another one of Joe’s favourite affirmations. If only I’d realised that chances don’t come by too often, that in that drive to Wexford I had at least a chance. I could have made things different. I could have simply turned to Amy and given her a smile, the smallest of gestures, just to let her know that I was there, that her mother cared about her.

If I had my way now, I would stop that car. I would stand right in front of it and when it was still, I would reach inside and give that lost woman in the front seat a good shake. Then I’d look to my daughter and take her by the hand. I’d bring Amy out of there to someplace safe, to me. I could give her one of those long hugs that don’t require words, like the ones I gave her afterwards, when it was too late. I would tell Amy I love her more than anything, more than life.

If I could go back, I would not go to Wexford. I would obliterate it from my memory and live a different life, a life with my daughter still in it.

HE MADE GOOD TIME GETTING TO TERENURE, THEN HE waited patiently at the top of Rose Lane until he was sure no one would see him slipping down to the garage. Even garage space was expensive to rent around here, but he had no choice after buying the terraced house in Rathmines. He needed to keep the old car parked safely, and this was the best option available.

When the garage door was shut tight behind him, he switched on the mahogany floor lamp he’d taken from Cronly, its bare hundred-watt bulb giving out plenty of light. Part of the reason he had chosen the garage was because of its mains electricity, and checking the coin meter before starting up the vacuum cleaner in the corner, he was pleased that there was still plenty of credit left. While vacuuming the car, he hummed to the familiar rhythm of an old church hymn, ‘Be Not Afraid’, putting a more upbeat slant on its normal rendition.

There was still some red ribbon left in the glove compartment. He sat in the passenger seat, where Amelia had sat the night before, and felt the coolness of the ribbon as he twined it between his fingers. He made a mental note to put the ribbon cutting away in the top drawer of his bedside locker when he got back to Meadow View. Continuing to caress the smoothness of the ribbon, he felt that same sense of wonder he had felt all those years ago.

He remembered the day he first found the ribbon, two days after his eleventh birthday, standing at the large sideboard on the upper landing of Cronly. He’d been angry with his mother, who’d once again
done one of her disappearing acts, and so soon after his birthday. She had left him alone before, but that was the first time she’d been gone overnight.

She’d told him he was old enough to look after himself. After sulking for most of the first day, he’d decided he would turn the next morning into an adventure, using his time usefully to make discoveries. He had always been partial to touching things, using the sensation to explore aspects of his surroundings that vision alone could not conjure. The sideboard on the upper landing was a favourite place, primarily because he’d enjoyed running his fingers along the intricate wooden detail across the top, allowing his fingertips to go in and out of the bevelled grooves. It had three top drawers, side by side across the top, drawers that were always locked. Underneath each one of them were three separate sections used to hold extra sheets and pillowcases. The reclaimed wood in the sideboard was the same type as the mirror he now had in the hall at Meadow View. It smelled of beeswax and age.