Night had fallen by the time I reached the Carney house again. Ann opened the door before I had a chance to ring the bell.
‘I wondered if you’d come back,’ she said. ‘I’m glad you did. I’m sorry for earlier,’ she added. ‘We were wrong to dump all that on you.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘Still,’ she said, ‘it wasn’t right. But when Sean gets an idea in his head, he can’t let it go. I went along with it for the sake of peace, but I shouldn’t have. He’s not here, by the way. I sent him down to the pub to watch the soccer match. It was either that, or kill him.’
I laughed.
‘I’m not joking,’ Ann said.
But, for the first time since we’d met, she was smiling and, for those few seconds, I glimpsed who she had been before.
‘Will I make more tea? Or maybe wine? I’m sure there’s a bottle somewhere.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘No thanks. A glass of water would be good, though.’
I followed her into the kitchen. A square pine table with four matching chairs took up one corner. In the other, an old television kept watch over two well-worn armchairs. This was where they spent most of their time, I realised, the place they tried to keep going. The front room, with all the photographs, was where they went when the trying got too hard.
Ann was at the sink, letting the tap run, filling a glass, handing it to me. I drank it off quickly and gave it back. She filled it again.
‘Come,’ she said.
We sat quietly together at the table and I sipped at my water and it felt like I didn’t have to say or do anything.
‘Is there anything you’d like to ask?’ Ann said after a while. ‘About the adoption or Deirdre growing up, what she was like? I have the family albums in the top of that high cupboard over there. It would be no bother to take them down and—’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Maybe I’ll take you up on that offer some day. I think I have as much as I can handle for now.’
Ann nodded.
‘You need time,’ she said.
‘Time doesn’t always heal, in my experience,’ I said.
‘Nor mine,’ she said.
‘Especially where a wrong’s been done.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘People talk about closure. Whatever it means, we never got it. We were left with so many unanswered questions. And now this Jeremy Gill thing that Sean has dreamt up. He’s been looking for an excuse to contact you for months. Gill’s visit for the festival gave it to him.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
Ann looked at me.
‘You don’t?’ she asked. ‘Well, you wouldn’t, but Finn, I know him. Whatever he says, this is a lot less about Jeremy Gill and a lot more about Sean wanting to meet you, wanting to have a link to Deirdre to—’
‘I thought it was because he wanted to warn people about the danger,’ I said.
‘It’s that too,’ Ann said. ‘And he has some notion as well that because you’re a solicitor you’ll find some legal way of punishing Gill. If it was Gill. But so what. Whether it’s him or someone else, they got away with it, and there’s nothing we can do.’
‘The thing is,’ I said. ‘Maybe there is.’
‘Look,’ I went on. ‘If Sean’s hunch is right, Gill deserves to pay for what he did. There’s no chance of bringing a criminal prosecution. As you know, the DPP is the person who decides whether or not somebody should be charged. Here, because the main witness, Deirdre, is deceased, no prosecution is possible.’
‘So that’s it, then,’ Ann said. ‘Same as what the guards told Sean.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘There is another possibility. You could pursue a civil case; in other words, a claim for damages for the loss you’ve suffered, though any case would be extremely difficult for all sorts of reasons. But there’s a lower standard of proof in a civil case. It’s called “the balance of probabilities”, rather than “reasonable doubt”, as it would be in a criminal case. That helps.
‘Even so, it would be nearly impossible to bring it home,’ I continued. ‘To succeed we’d need evidence – a lot more than Deirdre’s mention of the Academy in her note.’
‘I don’t know,’ Ann said.
‘It wouldn’t be easy. We’d have a huge hill to climb in proving the link between Gill and Deirdre’s death – proving that he caused it, I mean. It’s not that expensive to issue proceedings, though costs climb very quickly. To start, we’d need to have a stateable case.’
‘I’m not sure I’d be interested in taking any case, when most likely it’s hopeless,’ she said. ‘Anyway Deirdre never wanted the law involved. And I don’t know how this turned into a case against Jeremy Gill. I don’t know how it turned into a case at all.’
Ann was right. The impetus was coming from me. And if Sean’s main reason for contacting me had been to find an excuse for him to have a link with Deirdre, why did I have to do anything? Any action would, in all likelihood, never get to trial. Gill had enough money to employ an army of lawyers who could tie us up in forensic knots for years to come. But Deirdre Carney was my sister. And she hadn’t died of cancer, or in an accident. Someone was to blame.
Still, I couldn’t run an investigation, or issue proceedings, without the Carneys. As her parents, they had the necessary legal and moral standing. I was sure Sean would support my efforts. It was Ann I had to convince. I felt myself managing her, knew how it would go. I’d release information in pieces, and guide – manipulate – her towards the decision I wanted. A part of me squirmed at what I was doing; another part, the part I liked less, didn’t care.
‘First of all,’ I said, ‘I want you to know that I agree with you. On the face of it, we have little or no chance with this case, legally speaking. But I want to try to find evidence, if it’s there, against Jeremy Gill. It’s possible that Deirdre was pointing a finger at him with her note, and with the timing of her death in the aftermath of his award nomination. The way I’m thinking is that there have been some civil cases taken in the States by the surviving relatives of people who have committed suicide. It’s that kind of action I have in mind. To do that we’d need to show that Deirdre and Gill met, that they had been alone together, at the very least. After that, we’d need as much as we could get. We’d have to find witnesses. And we’d have to show that the deterioration in Deirdre’s mental condition started at that time and continued, so that her death was directly linked to the event. I’d have to look at the coroner’s report and we’d need psychiatric expertise and reports and––’
Ann interrupted, shaking her head.
‘There’s a big difference between being alone with someone and rape.’
‘You’re sure that’s what it was?’ I asked.
‘I’m sure. But to prove it now? I don’t know how you could.’
‘You’re right,’ I said. ‘We’d need to find something fairly big on Gill to get anywhere. But if we can find that, or a combination of things, we could threaten to take a civil case. Once proceedings are issued, the allegations against him would become public. He won’t want that. Bear in mind that his main area of operation is the States. A lawsuit like this isn’t common our side of the Atlantic, but it’s better known over there. If it got picked up on by social media or news outlets – and it would – Gill would be damaged. Badly damaged. That’s why I think that, if there’s any truth to the allegations at all, he’ll want to settle with us.’
‘Settle?’ Ann spat out the word. ‘You mean pay money? Money couldn’t replace Deirdre. If there was a case, it would have to be about justice.’
‘I know. It’s not about money. But money’s the only way to get to him. I explained already about the DPP and why the criminal courts’ route is closed to us. What I’m saying is that if we want to hit him where it hurts, we have to hit his reputation – and his pocket.’
‘You can’t just go around making accusations against powerful people like Gill.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s not how it would be. I’d be careful. Nobody would know about my personal connection to the case. And we would only issue proceedings when – if – we had the evidence. Which we might never have. Or we might find out that somebody else was responsible. We’d have to be prepared for that to happen.’
‘I see what you’re saying,’ Ann said. ‘Though it’s not what I expected from you. After what you found out today, I expected you to be …’
‘Looking through the photos?’ I asked.
‘I suppose,’ she said.
‘Not my style,’ I said. ‘I wish it was. I might be more well adjusted.’
‘You’re all right, girl,’ Ann said. ‘Don’t run yourself down.’
The sudden kindness unmoored me. For a moment, all I wanted was to find a dark place and sleep for a week.
The moment passed.
‘Ann, this is what I know how to do. It’s all I know. In my job, I look for cause and fault and blame, for the thread that runs through things. I mightn’t find every answer, but I’ll find some, I’m sure I will.’
‘I kept a lot of it from Sean,’ Ann said. ‘How much she’d changed, and it’s all a muddle in my head what happened, so long ago, only yesterday too it seems like …’
‘I know you say it’s all a muddle,’ I said. ‘But it’s my role to sort through it for you.’
After a long silence, while the tap dripped and the ancient fridge groaned, Ann spoke.
‘I’ll tell you what, we’ll go with it,’ she said. ‘For a while, anyway. See what progress you make. But I want to make one thing clear before we start. We’re not taking any stupid risks. Sean might sell the house to fund a case, but I won’t. Does that sound selfish? Maybe it is. But we have to live somewhere, if you’d call it living. The guilt never goes, Finn. I keep thinking, even still, that I could have stopped it if I’d done something, if I’d known what was in her head, if I’d picked up on the signals. Don’t say anything, none of the stuff about it not being my fault. It’s what people say, and I’m worn out from hearing it, from telling it to myself and not believing. Makes no difference.’
‘Tell me what you remember,’ I said. ‘No matter how silly or insignificant it seems.’
‘I’ll try,’ Ann said. ‘Well, somehow, she got involved in the Film Festival, during her Transition Year at school, doing what exactly I’m not sure but it was short films coming out our ears for a long time, I can tell you. It was arranged by her art teacher at the time, Mr O’Donnell, Colm is his first name but he was always Mister in this house. The week of the festival she was off school and was in at the festival all the time. She had a couple of pals that she was close to, Jessica Murphy and Aifric Sheehan. And there were a few boys she was friendly with too, Joey O’Connor was one of them. I don’t have addresses for all her friends, though I have Jessica’s. And there could be more of them, maybe, from other schools.
‘I saw very little of Deirdre during the week of the festival – she was gone in the morning and back in the evenings exhausted, with nothing to report about what she had been up to for the day. I put it down to the teenage thing, kind of let her off to spread her wings a bit. She told me that everything was none of my business and that she was grown up and well able to take care of herself …’
At that, Ann smiled ruefully and shook her head.
‘Try living with that, Finn. You see, at the time Sean was away a lot, driving the lorry, doing as much overtime as he could get away with. We were still thinking of university for Deirdre at that stage. He had a run to Dublin, would collect up there again and would head for Letterkenny after that so he could be away three or four days on the trot and when he came home Deirdre was always on her best behaviour, no cheek for Dad.’
She smiled again.
‘Deirdre could wrap him around her little finger. And me too, if I’m honest. She was so precious …’
I would have to press harder if I was to get any useful information.
‘Was there a time before the attack when you noticed anything different, maybe something that made you uneasy?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Ann said. ‘It was gradual, a kind of a moving away from me, from us. I noticed after the Film Festival that she was keeping a secret. She’d got one of those Ready To Go pre-pay phones for her Junior Cert results that September. She hardly used it at the beginning because very few of her friends had mobiles then, they were only just coming in, but Deirdre was an only child, we spoilt her, gave her what she wanted. Anyway, after the festival she was getting a lot of calls or she’d get a call on her mobile and would run out to the hall and take a call on the landline and talk for ages on that. Ringing mobiles was very expensive at that time so she used the landline for longer calls. Sean didn’t know the full extent of it, still doesn’t, no point. I gave her privacy, though of course I regret that now. But thinking back it could have been Gill, maybe. I answered it one time when she had left it out of her hand, gone to the toilet or something, and it was a male voice but she came back in and grabbed it from me before I had a chance to … And you asked about something that made me uneasy. I don’t suppose it means much but I remember that before and during the festival she was all talk about Jeremy Gill and his short film, and then after it she stopped talking about him. I did think it was strange, even at the time, that she suddenly didn’t want to know, said nothing about him ever again. I thought he was a reminder of how she had been before. But I see it differently now, that Sean might be right, that it could be him she was trying to forget.’
‘Tell me about the 12th of December 1998.’
‘Yes,’ Ann said. ‘The day it happened. It was a Saturday. I should have twigged there was something fishy going on. In retrospect I see that. As far as I was concerned she was going on a sleepover to Jessica’s, there were going to be a few other girls there, all normal but she was extra-excited that day, that week. I did notice it, I’m not imagining it. Anyway, there was no sleepover, she never went to Jessica’s. She arrived back here the following morning early and went straight to bed. I didn’t even see her going up the stairs. I was in the kitchen. But later on I heard her bawling and I went in to her. And she told me to get out and I did at first but I couldn’t stay out and I went back in. She was all curled up in the bed. So I sat down beside her and talked to her and eventually I persuaded her to tell me what was wrong but all she would say was that something bad had happened to her, and that it was her fault. And that was all she ever said, really, down all the years until her … until we lost her. That someone had hurt her and it was her fault. And I asked her, of course I did, if we would call the doctor, and the guards, and she said to call nobody, and that come hell or high water she wasn’t going to ever call the guards or let us ever tell anyone and that if I did tell anyone she would never talk to me again and she’d leave and run away and all sorts like that. And by then Sean had come in, he’d heard the commotion and he said it too at first, that she should report it, but then he went along with her, that we would keep it to ourselves what had happened. I wasn’t happy but I went along with it too, thinking, I suppose we both did, that we could talk her around later and that she would tell us, tell someone, who had hurt her. But she never did. If it was now, well, I would do everything differently. We know all about trauma and counselling and DNA now. But that was new then, new to us anyway. So I washed and cleaned her, I had to be careful not to hurt her any more than she was already …’
‘She was physically injured?’ I asked.
‘Bruised mainly, like she’d been held down. Her upper arms, her shoulders. All over her legs, thighs, belly. She’d been battered, my baby girl, everywhere except her beautiful face. But that was changed too. Pale as a corpse she was. It was like she’d been dosed with a lethal poison. Her eyes were dead, even though she was breathing.’
‘Ann, I know she didn’t tell you who hurt her, but did she say any more about what had actually happened?’
‘She didn’t have to say the word for me to know that she had been raped. She was torn, and bleeding from inside her, bleeding too much for it to be normal …’
‘And you didn’t call a doctor?’ I said.
‘I wanted to, but I didn’t. She said that she’d die of shame if anyone knew. I understood what she meant, though it makes no sense to me now, but back then, and with herself and Sean against me, well, I was weak. It was a mistake, the biggest one I ever made. I was her mother. I should have done better by her. I failed her when she needed me most.
‘And I threw out the bloody sheets and the stained clothes that she’d been wearing and I dressed her in her pyjamas like she was my baby again. That means there’s no evidence, doesn’t it? Nothing. The mobile phone she was using is long gone. Sometime after, she put it in the sink and covered it in water to destroy it. I threw it away. Thought it was useless. If I’d kept any of the stuff there might be some hope of tracing him from phone records or DNA, I’m sure, even now, wouldn’t there?’
‘Hard to say,’ I said. ‘And what’s done is done. We need to work with what we have. Any idea where she went that night?’
‘Not a clue. And the way it was, that we couldn’t tell anyone, I couldn’t ask Jessica or I was afraid … I don’t know … Maybe the truth is that for a while I might have thought it was Deirdre’s fault too. And that’s the worst thing, that I thought badly of her.’
‘Her attacker groomed her,’ I said. ‘Whether it was Gill or someone else, Deirdre was led into a situation that turned into something she didn’t want.’
‘I know. But I wish I had seen it at the time, or even that I could help in some way now,’ Ann said.
‘You might be able to help me with these things,’ I said. ‘I found them in at the back of the desk drawers in her room. Did you know there was something hidden there?’
Ann shook her head. I took the bagged box and contents out of my handbag and handed them to Ann, one at a time. First the coaster from Muskerry Castle.
‘Do you have any idea why Deirdre would have this?’
‘No,’ Ann said. ‘You’d need to be half a millionaire to go to a place like that. I’m sure Deirdre was never there.’
The next item was the badge. Ann shook her head again.
‘I’ve never seen this before,’ she said. ‘I’ve no idea what it is.’
The final item was the identity tag.
‘It’s Deirdre’s handwriting all right, but as to what it was for, I don’t know. I don’t remember her ever being at a conference. She was a schoolgirl, and after she left school she didn’t have any education worth talking about. Unless she did a course when she was in St Michael’s having treatment? But I think I would have heard about that …’
‘Think, Ann,’ I said. ‘Did she ever go to anything where she might have needed a name tag like that, a seminar or a school debate, maybe?’
‘There was nothing like that,’ Ann said. ‘Nothing at all.’