Eighty euros poorer, I drove in the direction of Phibsboro. Some friends and I had shared a house there, on Geraldine Street, when we’d been students at the Law Society. We used to go the Basin, a quiet green place with a pond and a few benches, to loll about after summer lectures. Only ten minutes’ walk from O’Connell Street, the park felt like a local secret.
Seeing a space on the left side of Wickstead Street, the address Sister Bernadette had given me, I pulled in, making sure to text my parking fee before I did anything else. I wasn’t going to get clamped twice in one day. Then I got out of the car and started knocking on doors.
I had no story concocted for my meeting with the Macbrides. If I started out on a lie, I could never regain their trust. But I had to be discreet: I couldn’t assume that Rhona had told her parents anything about what had happened with Gill, if anything had. I was keeping the question open as a formality, a sop to my legal training, even though, by now, I was sure that Jeremy Gill had attacked both Deirdre and Rhona. Sister Bernadette couldn’t understand Rhona’s change of behaviour and decision to move schools, but to me it made perfect sense. If Gill had sexually assaulted Rhona, it was only natural that she would have wanted to move away from the memories she had of him, and of the filming, at the school.
Number 17 Wickstead Street was a two-storey Victorian red-brick, typical of the area, with steps up to a holly-green front door, and a well-tended front garden. The woman who lived three houses down had said she was ‘nearly sure’ that this was Macbrides’. But the door was answered by a child, a sturdy fair-haired boy of nine or ten.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Hiya,’ the boy said.
‘Is this where Thomas Macbride lives?’
‘That’s my grandad. But he’s called Tommy, not Thomas. And he’s not here.’
‘Oh, I see. Is there anyone else home maybe?’
‘My granny.’
‘Could I talk to her, please?’
He turned and roared into the house.
‘Granny!’
‘All right, all right, Shane,’ a voice said. ‘No need to tell the whole street.’
A glamorous blonde woman of about sixty came to the door. Her hair was styled in soft curls. Either she had just had a blow-dry or she had a way with heated rollers. I had imagined another Ann Carney, someone spare, someone haunted. Not this.
‘Mrs Macbride?’
‘Yes, my dear. How can I be of assistance?’
She had a confident, seen-it-all air, like a senior Aer Lingus stewardess. I had the feeling that, if I stood around long enough, Mrs Macbride might offer me a G&T.
‘Actually, it’s Rhona I’m looking for.’
‘You’re looking for Auntie Rhona? Not here,’ the boy said.
‘That’s right. Rhona doesn’t live here, hasn’t for years,’ Mrs Macbride said.
‘I know,’ I said, winging it. ‘But I really need to talk to her.’
‘Are you a friend of hers?’
‘Not a friend, exactly. Look, I don’t expect you to just give me her address or phone number. But maybe you could ring her for me and tell her I need to talk to her. That it’s very, very important, it’s vital, actually, that I do. This is my driver’s licence and here’s my business card. I can wait out here if you’d prefer. I’m parked just down the road.’
I handed my card to Mrs Macbride. She took it and read it.
‘You’re a solicitor?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I want to talk to her about when she was at the Convent of the Blessed Eucharist. Just before she changed schools. I know it must seem unusual.’
Mrs Macbride’s face changed, as if something was clicking into place.
‘Wait here,’ she said.
She closed the door and went into the house. Moments later, she was back. She handed me a piece of paper.
‘Here’s Rhona’s address. I’m sure with the internet you’d have found her sooner or later anyway. It’s better if she doesn’t know you’re coming, she won’t answer the door if you give her warning in advance. And she definitely won’t answer if she knows I sent you. We – well, we don’t get on. We talk, but not much. I’d prefer if you didn’t tell her you were here. She’s at work now but she should be home some time after five. Don’t get your hopes up, she never talked to us. I can’t tell you more because I don’t know anything. Goodbye.’
Without warning, she shut the door, leaving me alone on the step. I almost rang the bell again, but stopped myself. There was no need, I realised. I had got more information than I could ever have expected from Mrs Macbride, and from Sister Bernadette too.
Winding my scarf more tightly, I walked quickly towards the car. Though she wouldn’t be home for another hour at least, I wanted to locate Rhona Macbride’s house before dark. The day was dark enough already. Cars had their lights on, and it had started raining again, a drenching downpour that might never stop. The wet and the heavy traffic made driving almost unbearable. And dangerous.
I turned off Skreen Road and drove south in the shadow of the walls of the Phoenix Park and, further on, McKee Barracks. Rhona lived on Rossbeigh, a few turn-offs shy of the North Circular. I pulled in across the road from the small development. I conceded that you could just about see the tops of the trees from Park View Mews, but calling it a view was pushing it. More significantly, there was a locked gate and an intercom and a coded keypad. Maybe that was the reason Mrs Macbride had given out the address so easily: I wouldn’t be able to gain access to the front door unless Rhona agreed to press the buzzer.
Before I did any more, I needed to go to the loo. I wanted to catch Rhona soon after she came in from work, before she settled in for the night or went out again. And if she did agree to see me, I didn’t want ‘where’s the bathroom?’ to be my first question. I pulled off and drove around until I saw a coffee shop. Then I ran in, grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and left it on the counter with the assistant, saying I’d be back to pay in a moment.
But sometimes you can move too fast. On the way out the door, I collided with a heavy-set man in a suit, pulling a copy of The Herald out of an inside pocket.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t see you. The glass, it’s all steamed up.’
Ignoring my apology, he muscled past me, brushing the rain off his jacket. He marched straight to a table, sat and opened his paper with a snap. By now, I was the aggrieved one. Didn’t people say Dubliners were friendly, that Corkonians were supposed to be standoffish? I shrugged and left. Then I did a U-turn and headed back towards Rhona’s place. She should definitely be home by now, according to what her mother had said.
I rang the buzzer.
‘Yes, who is it?’
I started at the voice from the intercom.
‘My name is Finn Fitzpatrick. I’m a solicitor. I’ve come up from Cork today. If it’s all right, I’d like to talk to you.’
Silence.
‘How did you get my address?’
‘Please can I talk to you, Ms Macbride? It’s about …’
‘I know what it’s about. And I don’t want to talk to you.’
‘I understand, Ms Macbride, Rhona, if I can call you that. But maybe it’s time.’
More silence. Then, at last, a buzzing noise.
I pushed open the gate and hurried in before Rhona could change her mind. A door opened on the right side of the car park and a lone figure stepped into the rectangle of light. An outdoor lamp flashed on automatically as I approached.
‘I need to see ID,’ Rhona Macbride said.
She pushed the door almost closed and I handed my driver’s licence and card through the gap. The door slammed shut. The sensor light clicked off and I was in darkness. I moved and it flicked back on. Then the door opened again.
‘You can come in,’ Rhona Macbride said.
‘Thanks.’
She nodded towards the rear of the house. I went down the narrow hallway and came into a white-painted kitchen with white cupboards and a mid-century-style round white table and four white chairs. I waited until Rhona came into the room, then sat at the table. She handed me my driver’s licence, but put the card into a white fruit bowl on the counter. She sat down in the chair furthest away from me and sighed. Eventually, she spoke.
‘I’ve been expecting this for ever. Not you. Someone. Doesn’t make it easy.’
‘No,’ I said.
‘I won’t say anything, you know. You can sit here all night and I won’t talk.’
‘Okay. I understand. But is it all right if I ask why you let me in?’
She got up and leant against the counter. For the first time, I could see her properly. Dressed in leggings and a slim-fitting grey tunic, with thick black socks on her feet, she looked like a ballet dancer. Her hair, tied up in a high ponytail, was long and thick and naturally blonde. Rhona Macbride had been pretty onscreen as a schoolgirl. She had grown up to be beautiful.
‘I saw your name in the paper at work today,’ Rhona said. ‘Some Twitter thing in Cork at the Film Festival. A row between you and Jeremy Gill. I thought that if you went from that hassle to coming up here you’d be hard to get rid of so I thought I’d better see you and explain, face to face, that I am never going to talk. Get that? Never.’
‘I missed that article,’ I said. ‘Where is it that you work, by the way? Is it far?’
‘Not that it’s any of your business, but seeing as you found me here I suppose you’d find that out too. I work in the Department of Defence.’
‘Near enough, so. On Infirmary Road?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ve sued your department once or twice. Soldiers’ personal injuries claims. I remember one of my clients went for medical examination in St Bricin’s Military Hospital.’
‘That’s not my area.’
‘No?’
‘I work in … Don’t think you can soften me up with this chit-chat.’
‘I didn’t think I could.’
‘It’s still no. I am not going to talk to you. And I’d like you to leave. Now.’
‘You’re not the only one, Rhona. Gill hurt you, I know he did, or I think he did, at least. But there was another girl, from Cork. Gill met her in 1998, when he was visiting the Film Festival. I represent her parents. She died, in January, earlier this year. It was suicide.’
‘Suicide?’
‘She was raped, had a nervous breakdown and never recovered. She alluded to Gill in her suicide note. Said that the academy mightn’t like him so much if they knew what he was really like.’
I paused.
‘I went to your old school today, spoke to Sister Bernadette. She told me about you, about how Gill chose you for the film role, how you changed schools afterwards. That was when I knew for sure. Her description of you. It was like listening to Deirdre’s parents.’
‘Deirdre?’
‘Deirdre Carney, that was her name.’
Rhona sat at the table again and dropped her head, and I couldn’t see her face.
‘Anything you say to me would be between us, Rhona. Off the record. I promise that I won’t tell anyone else, not without your authority.’
She looked at me then.
‘Off the record? Bullshit,’ she said. ‘You want me to talk to the Gardaí, I know you do, and I can’t do it. I won’t.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You going to the Gardaí is not what this is about. I’m telling the truth. An off the record conversation with you would be extremely valuable to the work I’m doing for Deirdre’s parents. You could tell me about Gill, about how he operates. You might be able to point me in the direction of new evidence for Deirdre’s case.’
Silence.
‘Do you want to think about it? I could go away and come back?’
It was my last try. I wasn’t going to hound the woman any more than I had already. Unless Rhona agreed to talk, I would let her be. She took a long time before she spoke again.
‘All right. I’ll tell you my story. Off the record. But no more questions. And no recording. I talk, you listen, and then you go. Take it or leave it.’
‘I’m grateful for anything you say, any way you want to say it,’ I said.