Liam and Bernie Doherty still live in the same house that they lived in twenty-five years ago. Their surviving children have grown up and moved out, starting their own families and building their own futures. But apart from the absence of bikes abandoned in the garden, or football boots left on the front step, there is very little about the exterior of the Doherty family home that differs from how I remember it looking all those years ago.
The same wooden fence lines the front garden, the same metal gate sways in the wind. I close it behind it me. I remember that being one of the things Ryan did teach me when I was a cub reporter. Show everyone respect – always close the garden gate after you. It’s a small gesture but it tends to work. People see you are more considerate.
Looking up towards the front door, I try to remember when I was last in this house. Was it that night? I try to remember did we carry our plastic bags to the front door of the Dohertys’ house looking for loot that evening. My memory is hazy.
Before I have time to reach the top of the path, the front door is pulled open and a tired-looking woman, her bobbed hair greying, looks out at me. There’s a soft smile on her lips as she welcomes me in – but I know that it’s not genuine. It’s an act. I imagine Bernie Doherty has become quite the expert at false smiles over the years. It’s not exactly a secret that she is out of her head on prescription medication most of the time. Diazepam and whatever other mood stabilisers she can get her hands on.
I remember hearing my mother saying that it was as if Bernie Doherty went into the ground with Kelly. The woman who was left behind was little more than a shell of the person she used to be.
‘Ingrid,’ she says, ‘c’mon in and go through to the living room. I’m just making a pot of tea.’
The fifth rule of journalism, after always close the gate, is never to refuse a cup of tea. It’s an easy conversation opener – it relaxes people.
There is a fire blazing in the hearth and the TV has been muted. I can see Phillip Schofield is very animated about something. I slip off my coat and sit down, taking in the dated décor around me. The pictures on the walls – of all the Doherty family. Liam and Bernie on their wedding day. The three Doherty boys, JP, Christopher and Liam Jr, and, of course, Kelly. She was the baby of the family. The only girl.
There are more pictures of her on the walls than anyone else. The pictures look dated now, too – have that fuzzy quality of snapshots taken in the late Eighties and Nineties, slightly blurry and faded over time. One professional photo of Kelly hangs above the fireplace – her hands together in prayer, her blue eyes looking directly at the camera. Her expression is solemn as she stares out of the mahogany frame, the picture of innocence in her first communion dress. The same dress she was wearing when she was murdered. Despite the heat, which is verging on overpowering, I shiver.
Bernie walks back into the room, with a tray laden with two mugs, a small bottle of milk and a plate of chocolate digestive biscuits.
‘Do you take sugar?’ she asks. ‘Or are you sweet enough?’
‘Sweet enough,’ I reply, reaching out to take a mug from the tray and refusing the offer of a biscuit. ‘Is Liam joining us?’ I ask.
She sits down, her tray now resting on the coffee table in the centre of the room.
‘I don’t know. He doesn’t handle this well, you know. He’s not mad about the idea of this story. It’s hard for him, you know. Still. He’s up at the cemetery. Do you know, he never misses a day. Sometimes he even goes more than once, if he’s having a bad day. And with her anniversary coming … and that man wanting to appeal …’ Her voice breaks and she drops her gaze for a moment, staring into her mug, before taking a deep breath and looking back up at me. ‘Well, it’s extra hard at the moment.’
‘It must be,’ I say. ‘I can only imagine.’
I try to age Bernie Doherty, putting her early sixties at the very most. But she looks older. Like she’s had enough now. Her face is lined with wrinkles, her knuckles swollen and arthritic. Her eyes look as though they have been permanently bloodshot from the moment she heard about her daughter until now.
She shrugs. ‘People always say that, you know. They can imagine what it’s like. Truth is, they can’t. Unless you’ve gone through it, unless you live knowing that your child most likely died in absolute terror and you didn’t keep her safe …’ She pauses for a moment. ‘Well, unless you’ve been through it, there’s no way of imagining just how awful it is. Not accurately, you know. And you wouldn’t want to, either. Nobody should have to have the thoughts we’ve had to live with.’
I feel a blush creep up my neck. She’s right, of course. ‘I can only imagine’ is such a nonsense phrase faced with something like this.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘You’re right, of course.’
Bernie goes quiet, stares off into the middle distance. She worries at the wedding ring on her finger, blinks and looks at me. ‘Nothing to be sorry for,’ she mutters. ‘You didn’t kill her. You were just a wain too, weren’t you? It could’ve just as easily have been you, but Kelly was the unlucky one. That’s one of the hardest things to get our heads around. That it was just bad luck. It could’ve been anyone.’
A chill runs through my bones, again because she’s right. It could’ve been anyone, which means it could’ve been me.
Liam Doherty looks haunted when he arrives back at the house. He’s painfully thin. Old. His hair is grey, his beard unkempt. He stops at the door of the living room, taking off his coat, and looks at me before looking at his wife. She, by now, is clutching a tissue, which is disintegrating with her tears. Her cup of tea is untouched.
‘Liam,’ she says. ‘You’re back. There’s tea in the pot. I took the bag out so it wouldn’t stew.’
He looks at me, then back at Bernie, before he turns to leave without speaking.
‘You will come in and talk to Ingrid here, won’t you? You remember Ingrid? Went to school with Kelly and the boys. She’s going to make sure no one forgets our girl. Especially now,’ Bernie calls and he stops walking.
For a moment he just stands very still.
Then he looks at me, his eyes cold. ‘Yes, I remember her,’ he says, still looking directly at me before turning his head sharply towards his wife. ‘I’m not in the form for talking. I told you I didn’t want us to do this. I don’t think any good can come of it.’
‘But it’s her anniversary coming up,’ Bernie says. ‘It’s time we finally spoke. People should know about her. How amazing she was.’
‘The people who matter already know,’ he says, his voice tight. ‘All this will do is have people talking about how she died, like it’s some form of true crime TV show. Well, I won’t have it. Those who knew and loved Kelly will always know and love her. I don’t need some gutter journalist telling the world how my girl was murdered.’
He glares at his wife, but she drops her gaze. He swears under his breath and storms out of the living room towards the kitchen.
‘I’m sorry,’ Bernie says, her face beetroot with embarrassment. ‘I’m sure he doesn’t mean it. I thought he’d come round.’
‘It’s okay,’ I soothe, even though I’m bitterly disappointed. ‘I know this is unbearably hard for you both.’
‘He thinks he let her down,’ she says, staring at the open door. ‘He should’ve protected her. He’s never been able to forgive himself for that. He blames himself more than he blames Harte. Always has. It’s a daddy’s job to protect their children, he says.’ She glances down at the floor. ‘I’ll never forget it, you know. The noise that came out of him when they brought her home. I was off my head on sedatives from the doctor, you know, but I still remember it. That would’ve cut through any haze.
‘He was like a wounded animal, roaring over her coffin.’ Her voice is breaking and tears are flowing freely. ‘He kept telling her he was sorry. Telling her she could have anything she wanted if she just opened her eyes and came back to him. Promised he’d take her to Disney World. If she’d just get up. Kissing her face, stroking her hair. His wee baby.
‘I couldn’t even stand up to pull him away, and the boys squealing, crying beside me. Him trying to rub some warmth back into her hands. “C’mon, pet,” he said to her. “Time to rise and shine. Don’t you be leaving me now.” It was more than we could take, you know. And then … well, then she was buried and Christ, do you know what it’s like to be expected to leave your child in the cold ground? To walk away from them? How were we supposed to do that? How is any mammy or daddy supposed to do that?’
Bernie sniffs. She is lost in her memories and I’m taking notes, recording her words, and my heart is cracking for her. But I can’t lie. I’m also thinking this is incredible stuff. Will make for a brilliant story in the paper, or chapter in the book. This is gold. Sometimes I wonder if I am nothing more than the gutter press, just like they say.
She keeps talking.
‘At the start, he’d go there every day. For hours. He’d bring a book and read to her, you know. Buy her some of the toys she wanted, the dolls and teddies, and put them on her grave. When the snow fell that year, I had to wrestle a blanket from him. “She’ll be cold,” he told me. “It’s too cold up there.”
‘He had a breakdown, you know. Ended up in Gransha for a spell. The “madhouse” as he called it. I remember being jealous of him, that he got to escape it all for a while. They had him so doped up he didn’t know his own name, while I was left trying to pick up the pieces. With three boys who didn’t have a clue what was going on and that trial coming up. There’s days I wonder how I’m still standing at all.’
I look at the fragile, broken figure sitting opposite me. I know she’s just existing. She stopped living the same time Kelly did.