Donna was emptying her locker – tossing pieces of paper into a waste paper bin, the rest of her belongings into a carrier bag. She stopped every few seconds to wipe tears from her face or to sniff loudly.
‘I’ve had enough,’ she gulped between sobs. ‘I can’t put up with him talking to me like that any more. He can stick his job.’
‘Donna!’ I said. ‘Don’t let him get to you like that. He’s not worth it. He’s just upset about everything,’ I soothed, reaching into my pocket for a tissue and handing it to her. ‘It’s not something to be walking away from your job over. Not with children to feed and clothe.’
‘He’s not the only person allowed to be upset,’ she said, her chest heaving with sobs. ‘He doesn’t own grief, you know. He isn’t the only person caught up in this fucking mess. He’s no right to speak to any of us like that – least of all me.’ Her face was still blazing with embarrassment after such a public talking to. She roughly wiped her eyes and pushed a strand of her auburn hair that had come loose from her ponytail behind her ear and resumed packing her things.
‘There’s only so much a person can take,’ she sobbed. ‘I’ve tried to understand. I’ve done everything I could to be as good as she was. To make sure this place kept running smoothly. I’ve been the one who worked on when everyone else went home – even though I was going home to three boys who wouldn’t know how to boil a fucking egg never mind cook a dinner for themselves or for me. I was the one who made sure we didn’t miss appointments. That arranged the bloody flowers for her funeral. It was me! Everything I do has been for him. But what do I get in return? Shouted at – and I know you all heard. Jesus Christ, I’m surprised Rose didn’t wake from the dead with the commotion!’ she said, sniffing loudly. ‘Do you know how humiliating that is? They’ll all be talking and laughing. They’ll all think “Donna’s a laughing stock”. And the thing is, he won’t apologise for it. He’ll just carry on as always not thinking about what he does to people. I’ve had enough, Emily. I really have.’
At that her fight left her, replaced only by her sorrow and humiliation as she crumpled with emotion and I pulled her into a hug – her sobs shuddering through her and my shoulder growing wet with her tears.
‘Take deep breaths,’ I urged her. ‘Everyone here loves you – you do hold the place together and if he can’t see it now it’s his problem. Don’t let him have you walk out – what would that achieve?’
I was so angry I was tempted to storm in myself and tell him exactly what I thought of the way in which he had spoken to her. I was even tempted to tell him I knew exactly what way he had treated Rose too. He was nothing more than a spoiled child of a man. A bully. And you didn’t let bullies win.
‘Put your things back in your locker. I’ll make you a tea and if himself asks me about it, I’ll tell him outright he owes you an apology. I’ll cover for you in surgery with him while you compose yourself. Redo your make-up and hold your head high. Don’t walk out on your job – your income.’
She gave me a watery smile and let me make her a cup of tea while she sat mopping up the tears that kept falling. Slowly they stopped and a calm washed over her.
‘Thank you, Emily,’ she said, sipping from the mug of hot tea. ‘Thank you for talking me down. I don’t know what I would have done. Would I have walked out on my job and left myself without any money to look after my children? Oh God …’
‘Look, you’re still here. You’re going to get through this, okay?’
‘I don’t know what I’d do without you,’ she said, and the warmth in her voice made me in turn feel warm inside.
‘It goes both ways,’ I said.
*
With how I felt that morning I would have been happy to never work directly with Owen again – but I told myself if he had lost his temper so quickly with Donna that morning he must be on edge.
Perhaps the news that the police were moving forward with their investigation had rattled him. It was, after all, possible that he knew it was only a matter of time before the evidence pointed them in his direction.
I thought of how I’d seen Owen lift Kevin McDaid’s file. I wondered, had he put it back? I’d check later I told myself as I took my seat in the surgery and waited for the first patient to arrive.
I tried to focus on the positive – if there was such a thing as a positive in this situation. The more rattled Owen became, the more the evidence pointed to him, the less it pointed to Ben. The less it pointed to me being the intended target. I clung to that thought while everything else seemed such a mess.
Owen stalked into the room and sighed deeply as he looked at the records of our next patient. ‘Where’s Donna?’ he asked. ‘We’ve a root canal after this and it’s beyond your ability.’ His voice was sharp and I bristled.
‘She’s helping out with a problem in reception. I said I’d cover for her until it was sorted. You know Donna, she knows that computer system better than the rest of us. She’ll have it sorted quickly,’ I lied. I wouldn’t let him know he had succeeded in upsetting her.
He sighed again. ‘I suppose I should apologise to her,’ he said. I raised an eyebrow.
‘I was out of line just now. I know that. It’s not like me to lose my temper.’ (I held in the words: ‘that’s not what I’ve heard’.) ‘It’s just seeing him all over the paper – smiling like butter wouldn’t melt. If only the world knew what he was really like,’ he said, before leaving the room to call in our first patient. There was no point in my telling him that the whole point of the article was to show the world exactly what Cian was like – the real, loving, caring, Cian. Owen wanted to believe what Owen wanted to believe and that was all there was to it.
He walked back in with a nervous-looking teenager who was due a check-up.
‘I brushed my teeth three times this morning,’ the spotty-faced youth said. ‘So they should be extra clean.’
‘We’ll have a look and see then,’ Owen said, his trademark friendly smile back on his face, as if he hadn’t just upset almost everyone who worked for him, and led one of his most loyal staff members to consider quitting on the spot.
*
At lunchtime I declined the usual sandwich from the deli and said I was nipping out to get a bit of fresh air instead. I walked down Shipquay Street to the Peace Park, just across the road from the Guildhall. Sitting down on one of the park’s benches, I took my phone out to call Cian.
I had been itching to talk to him all day – to fill him in on what had been said in the newsagents but also to tell him that Owen seemed to be unravelling. I knew that would make him happy and I wanted more than anything to make him happy. I also wanted to hear how he was. He had been so devastated the day before.
I scrolled through my contacts and dialled his number. He answered the phone after three rings, but his tone was sharp.
‘Emily, can I help you?’ he almost barked. No hello. No softness. No hint of ‘I’ve only got through the last week or two because of you’. It was as if I was an unwanted disturbance to him.
I felt wrong-footed. For the briefest of moments I wondered had I dialled the right number? But it definitely was Cian’s voice on the other end of the line.
‘I was just … calling to … see how you are,’ I stuttered. ‘After the article … and everything.’
He sighed, deeply. ‘I’m right in the middle of something. I’ll call you later.’ He hung up without a goodbye, leaving me sat on the bench, wondering what on earth had just happened.
I found it hard to force a smile on my face as I put my phone back in my bag and slowly made my way back up Shipquay Street and onto the Sandwich Company to grab a salad that I didn’t really have the appetite for and a coffee that I didn’t really want to drink. At least Donna seemed brighter when I walked into the staff room. She was sitting on her own, sipping a coffee and reading a magazine. She smiled as I sat down opposite her and stared at my lunch.
‘He apologised,’ she said, her eyes glittering. ‘Profusely. Said he didn’t mean to take out his frustration on me. He even bought me a bunch of flowers from the corner shop,’ she said, nodding towards the sink where a sorry-looking bunch of carnations were resting in some water. ‘Okay, they don’t look like much, but it’s the thought that counts. We should probably cut him some slack. He is under a lot of pressure.’
‘We all are,’ I said, sitting down and staring at the salad in front of me, knowing there was no way I’d eat it.
‘You seem out of sorts,’ Donna said, reaching over and squeezing my hand. ‘It’s not like you, Emily. You’re the one who keeps us all smiling – what’s wrong?’
To my shame I felt tears prick at my eyes but there was no way I could tell her what was upsetting me. She wouldn’t understand. I did feel soothed by her telling me that I made people smile. But that only made me want to cry a little bit more. I hastily wiped a tear from my eye.
‘Oh, nothing. Just PMT or something. You know me, soft as they come. Been feeling a little out of sorts all day.’
Donna smiled and reached into her bag. ‘I have just the thing for you then,’ she said, pulling out a bar of Dairy Milk. ‘I was saving this for home time but your need is greater than mine.’
‘No,’ I said, shaking my head, ‘I’m fine really.’
But she opened the packet, broke off a square and pushed it into my hand before sitting the rest of the bar in front of me.
‘Don’t be silly. It’s medicinal, I insist,’ she said.
Not wanting to offend, or perhaps not having the energy to offend, I lifted the piece of chocolate and popped it in my mouth where it melted – sickly, sweet, sticky.
Donna raised an eyebrow. ‘Maybe you’re still sick, from yesterday?’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t have come in, you poor thing. Look, why not take the rest of the day off? Go home, have a good cry and a good rest and I guarantee tomorrow you’ll feel better.’
Once again I didn’t feel I had the energy to argue with her so, deflated and suddenly exhausted, I lifted my bag – leaving the salad and the remaining chocolate on the table – and set off for home, feeling as if my legs were slowly turning to lead.
*
When I got home, I downed three anti-anxiety pills with a long glass of water. I knew from experience this would calm me down enough to allow me to fight off the darkest of thoughts. If I was lucky – really lucky – they would make me drowsy enough to have a sleep, to escape watching my phone to see if Cian would call back. To escape the urge to call him again and ask him what was going on. He had sounded so cold. The familiar feeling of being a nuisance to someone – a headache they couldn’t get rid of with two paracetamols and a glass of water – was starting to wash over me and I didn’t like it.
Soon, I could feel the blissful haziness of the pills start to unfurl through me, so I wandered to my bedroom and stripped to my underwear, throwing my uniform that I had so carefully ironed that morning onto the floor in an undignified heap. Without washing my make-up off, I climbed into bed and pulled my duvet up over my head, hoping to escape into a blissful, numb sleep.
When I woke, fuzzy-headed, mouth dry, disorientated as to what time of day or year it was, I reached for my phone. Blinking and trying to focus, I looked at the screen in front of me.
A flashing email notification and three missed calls. Clicking straight into the missed calls, I offered up a silent prayer. Please let them be from Cian. Please let them all be him phoning me to explain. To say he was sorry. To ask me to call over.
But the calls weren’t from Cian. One was from a private number. One was from Donna’s mobile and the other from Scott’s landline.
There were two messages left on my voicemail. Was it too much to hope Cian was calling me from a private number? I dialled into my voicemail and listened with decreasing patience as the automated voice read out the number that had left the first of the messages. It was Donna.
‘You’re probably sleeping. I didn’t want to call and not leave a message and have you worrying what I was calling about. I was just calling with gossip really – but I’ve heard the police have just conducted a search on Cian Grahame’s house. He must be hiding something, Emily. He must have been fooling us all. I’ll let you know if I hear any more. Get a good rest. See you tomorrow!’
She sounded cheerful. Euphoric even – at complete odds with the horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I listened on to the next call. Tori this time. Less cheerful. Positively not euphoric.
‘Erm, Emily. The police have just been here. That Detective Bradley? He was looking to talk to you? In relation to the investigation? He asked a few questions about you, Emily. How long we’d known you, etc.? Anyway, Owen gave him your contact details and I think you should expect a call if not a visit.’
The horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach grew and rose up, spilling out all over my bedroom carpet.