I’d pulled Beth into a hug and rocked gently back and forth while I told her that no one knew all the facts yet. Sure, the media were in the business of selling papers and getting Internet hits, but you couldn’t always believe what you read. I advised her it might be better for her if she kept her distance from social media for a bit. Rumours can very easily get out of hand. However, telling a fifteen-year-old to stay off social media seemed like a cruel and unusual punishment in her eyes.
‘I can’t do that. I won’t be able to talk to all my friends,’ she said.
‘Can you not, you know, just phone each other and have actual conversations instead?’ I asked.
The roll of her eyes was enough to let me know that wasn’t a viable option.
‘This is hard enough,’ she said. ‘All of this is hard enough without being banned from going online or talking to my friends, too. They’re the only things keeping me sane now. They understand in a way you and Dad never could understand.’
Part of me wanted to argue back with her, but that same part of me remembered what it had been like to be fifteen myself. When it was Julie, Clare and me against the world. We thought no one could ever be friends like us. No friendship was as strong as ours. No matter the drama, the only people I was sure who could understand me were my friends. If my parents had tried to block contact between us, I would have been utterly bereft. The thought of not seeing them …
The reality that I wouldn’t see Clare again came at me like a wave. I choked back my emotions and pulled Beth into another hug.
‘You’re right, darling. Of course you are. I’m just trying to protect you from the world and all this horrible information about Clare’s death. What happened was wrong and cruel and brutal, and I’m afraid you’re going to hear things over the next few days and weeks that are going to be hugely upsetting. Not all of it’s going to be true, either.’
‘Why did they do it, Mum?’ she asked. ‘I don’t understand.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t understand, either. I can’t think of anyone who had a bad word to say about Clare. But the police are working morning, noon and night to track whoever it is down and get the animal who did this behind bars.’
She rested her head against my shoulder and I kissed her hair, angry and upset that my child had been robbed of her innocence in such a violent manner.
‘Do you really think they might hurt someone else?’ she asked.
My heart lurched. How much should I tell her? She was fifteen. A bright kid. If I was to suggest her going to Belfast for a bit, we’d more than likely have to tell her the truth – but the thought of her being scared horrified me.
‘One of the boys in the youth club said it was like those shows on TV, you know, like Criminal Minds or something. Like what if it’s a serial killer? I told him to wise up, we don’t get serial killers in Derry.’ She looked up at me, chewed her lip a little. ‘I heard Dad on the phone to you earlier about those flowers and I probably shouldn’t have, but I looked at the card after. It gave me the creeps. I heard you talking to Dad about what if you’re next and now I’m wondering if that boy in youth club was right?’
I was sure she must have been able to hear the persistent thudding of my heart in my chest. I wasn’t equipped for this. This wasn’t supposed to happen.
I took a deep breath. ‘Darling girl, we all need to be brave now and we have to remember that the police are on our side. They’re aware of everything that’s happened and they’re going to put extra patrols on in this area. They’ve assured me they’re watching out for us, but I’m not going to lie, darling. You’re an intelligent young woman. This is a scary time. I’m scared and I’m sure Dad is, too. But we’re doing everything we can to keep you and Molly extra safe.’
‘How can you do that if we don’t know who we’re watching out for?’ she asked and I felt her squeeze my hand tighter.
She didn’t look so much like a young woman as she did a scared child and I wanted to run away from all this with both her and with Molly, the two most important people in my life.
‘We have the police on our side,’ I repeated with a confidence I certainly didn’t feel. ‘But we may have to make some tougher decisions in the short term to be extra sure.’
‘Like what?’ she said.
I shook my head. ‘I’m not sure yet, sweetheart. I need to talk to your dad. But please believe me, neither he nor I are going to let any harm come to you. I promise you that.’
She nodded but I could tell she didn’t quite believe me. The worst part of it all was that I wasn’t sure if I believed me, either.
I got straight to the point with Paul. Told him I thought we should consider the girls going to Belfast to stay with him in the flat until the police were in control of the situation. He looked at me as if I’d grown an extra head.
‘Surely that’s going a bit far?’ he said. ‘What exactly have the police said? Remind me.’
I sighed. ‘They’re going to put on extra patrols. They’re taking these flowers seriously enough to get both them and the cards forensically analysed. They’ve given me a direct line if I need them.’
I was exasperated. I’d told him all this before but he didn’t seem concerned in the way I was. Was I overreacting? Was I losing it?
‘And Julie got something similar?’ he asked.
‘Yes, but a different lyric. A couple of lines from “Ten Green Bottles”.’
He stifled a laugh. ‘You do know how ridiculous this sounds?’
‘Of course I do. And if it wasn’t for the fact my friend has been murdered I’d probably be a dismissive asshole just like you.’
He blinked at my words. Looked as if I’d hit him with them. I knew I’d snapped at him and I immediately felt shame pile in on top of me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s just hard and I’m scared. I’m really scared.’
I willed him to cross the room and take me in his arms to comfort me. It’s what Michael would have done. He’d have made me feel better. Feel protected. He wouldn’t have laughed at me. Despite my feminist principles and belief that women can rescue themselves, I wanted an alpha male in that moment. I needed Paul to show he felt protective of me, of the girls. Of what we had.
‘So you’ve told me,’ he said, not moving from his spot. ‘But don’t you think it’s a gross overreaction to take the girls away from their home environments, their friends, what they know – to ship them to another city when the most the police think it merits is some extra patrols in the area? Surely if you, if they, were in real danger the police would do more than that? I think we risk doing more harm than good.’
‘But wouldn’t you sleep better just knowing they’re out of harm’s way?’ I asked.
‘Rachel, you’re being completely impractical,’ he said. ‘I can’t take them to Belfast. I’ve work to do. I’ll be out at the office and who’ll mind Molly? I’m pretty sure you’re not planning on running out on work and coming with us?’
‘You know I can’t. Not with exams coming up. My pupils are relying on me to get them through. Maybe I could travel up and down every evening … I don’t know. Let me think about it.’
‘So you’re putting your kids at school ahead of our children? You know it’ll unsettle them and Molly wouldn’t even see you. She’d be sleeping when you left and back in bed by the time you reached Belfast. But yeah, tell yourself it’s in the best interests of the children if you need to,’ he said, rolling his eyes.
‘That’s not it at all. I just want them to be safe.’
I was shouting then, crying. I couldn’t understand why he was making it so difficult, except to think that he really didn’t care about us. He liked his alone time. He didn’t need the girls cramping his style. The scratches – and they were unmistakably scratches – didn’t get there on their own. Had he someone he was aching to see in Belfast? Was this murder just a massive inconvenience to his extra-curricular love life?
I knew I was a hypocrite. I’d lost the right to be suspicious and angry the first day I’d agreed to go for coffee with Michael after class. Or the day I’d stored his name as ‘Michelle’ in my phone. If I’d been planning to keep things platonic, if it was no threat to our marriage, then why would I have done that? Maybe it was my fault Paul had been seeing someone else. My fault that he was angry and hard to reach. Had I pushed him away as I’d pulled Michael closer? Was it my coldness that made him talk to me as if my very existence annoyed him? The scratches on his arm, the angry pointing of the knife, the laughing away of my genuine concerns.
‘Please,’ I asked him. ‘Just think about it.’
‘I have thought about it and no. There has to be a better solution.’