Ray rang the doorbell at the house. Anna eventually came out.
‘I didn’t want to bother you, but it’s just about the lantern house, the rust and stuff. I don’t know are you interested in having a look or, you know…’
‘Just one second,’ she said and reached in to grab her jacket.
She jogged across the grass and walked up the lighthouse steps, climbing the ladder into the lantern house. The walls had been completely stripped back to bare metal. Some of it was badly rusted.
‘It looks so different,’ said Anna. ‘Very dark.’
‘I know,’ said Ray. ‘The stuff really worked. It got all the layers of paint off, no problem. Now we can repaint the whole thing white, brighten it up. But we really need to get rid of a couple of the panels. You can see the rust. So, will I go ahead and replace them?’
‘That would be great,’ said Anna. ‘Thanks so much. I really appreciate all the hard work. Tell Hugh, too. I’m sorry I’m too tired to be more enthusiastic.’
‘Weird,’ said Joe. ‘I could have sworn.’ He was in the hall, leaning against the banister looking up at the landing light he knew had been on in the house at the end of the Seascapes cul-de-sac.
‘It could have been the sun,’ said Shaun. ‘You know the way.’
‘I’m not buying that,’ said Joe. ‘I saw it, on.’ He walked up the stairs and flicked the light on and off. ‘So you definitely haven’t been here since Thursday?’
‘I was out on Friday, Dad. And that was with Katie. And now she’s gone. I was in all last night worrying about her. You saw me. So that’s what I’m thinking about. Not about answering stupid questions from you that make no sense. So what if there was a light on?’ He opened the front door. ‘C’mon, Dad, this is retarded.’
Petey was pushing his mop awkwardly back and forth along the floor of the canteen, his first job every Monday morning. Frank came up behind him.
‘Hello, Petey. I just have a few questions for you if you have a minute. I’m doing the rounds.’
Frank saw the fear in Petey’s eyes when he noticed the clipboard with his name and details across the top of a questionnaire.
‘It’s about Katie Lawson.’
Petey flushed and stared at the ground. He rocked the handle of the mop back and forth.
‘I heard she’s gone missing,’ said Petey. He shook his head. ‘It’s awful.’
‘Yes,’ said Frank. He waited. ‘What do you know about Katie?’
‘That she goes out with Shaun Lucchesi and she’s in the school here.’
‘Yes, well the last time she was seen was on Friday night just gone. You didn’t see her or anything on Friday night, did you?’
‘No,’ said Petey, looking down and blushing. ‘I was at home. I don’t really go out.’
Frank felt a surge of pity.
‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘Was your mother with you in the house?’
‘No. She was out at bridge. Then she came back home very late with her friend, Mrs Miller. She stayed the night at our house.’
‘What were you doing when they were out?’
‘Watching TV. Watching Discovery. An amazing programme. About the Fastnet race disaster of 1979. Between August 13 and August 15, a force eleven—’
‘Petey, tell me about Katie. Did you like her at all?’ Frank struggled to get eye contact with him.
‘She was a nice girl. I got on well with her.’ Petey turned his head away and blinked back tears. Frank patted him on the back. Petey flinched.
‘It’s OK,’ said Frank. ‘Thanks for your help. We’ll get back to you if we need to.’ He stopped around the corner to write a note across the bottom of the page.
Richie stood stiffly on the stage, his legs spread, his arms folded across his chest. He looked out on the small group of teenagers that made up the secondary school. Frank slipped in the side door.
‘Good morning, everyone,’ said Richie. One of the boys from the football team stifled a laugh, then followed it with a loud cough. Anger flickered briefly across Richie’s face.
There was a part of Frank that thought Richie would be more respected because he was younger, closer to the kids’ ages. But another part of him understood how he wasn’t. Richie had never been able to strike a balance between authority and severity.
‘I came in today to talk to you all about Katie Lawson,’ Richie continued. ‘As you know, Katie is a fifth year student here. She went missing last Friday night and we haven’t heard from her since.’
Nervous energy ran through the crowd. They looked around for a reaction from Shaun, but he had been excused for the day.
‘So if any of you know anything,’ said Richie, ‘anything at all, however insignificant or irrelevant it may seem, please talk to myself or Frank.’ He nodded towards the wall where Frank stood. Some of the students smiled over at him. A few waved. Richie paused, then went on. ‘As well as some detectives from Waterford, we’ll be calling to houses around the area over the coming day or two, so you can catch us then as well. And, of course, anything you tell us will be treated in the strictest confidence. Thank you.’
Joe was standing in Tynan’s buying
‘Yeah, I saw the guy,’ said Joe. ‘And a journalist asking questions. Some people talked to him.’
‘But it’s never the ones closest to the families,’ said Kitty.
‘Never is,’ said Joe.
Joe went to a bench by the harbour and read the article about the tragic disappearance of schoolgirl Katie Lawson and the concern of anonymous neighbours.
Anna stood in the kitchen at the chopping board, with a pile of sliced onions in front of her. She had stopped to watch the sun set.
Joe walked in, frowning, pressing his jaws with his thumb and middle finger. Then he used both hands to massage the area above his eyebrows.
Anna turned around. ‘Not again.’
He nodded and pulled open the medicine drawer.
‘That can’t be right,’ said Anna, pointing to the decongestants. ‘No-one takes those for that long.’
He shrugged, then knocked back the decongestants with two prescription painkillers and a glass of water. He tapped his watch and pointed towards the sitting room. He lay down on the sofa and waited for the effects to hit. The pain had intensified in the last year. He had seen doctors in New York that between them had diagnosed sinusitis, earache and the standard stress they threw out when they read his job description. One young doctor suggested yoga. Joe would have laughed out loud if he thought his jaw wouldn’t shatter. He was happy to walk away with a script for painkillers. Anna was putting him under pressure to see a specialist in Dublin, but he hadn’t got around to it and he used the breaks from the pain to slip into denial.
After half an hour, he walked back into the kitchen. ‘I forgot to say to you – what the hell is wrong with that guy, Miller?’
‘John Miller?’ said Anna, throwing the onions into a hot pan.
‘Yeah, the alco.’ He slid his lower jaw back and forth.
‘Why do you ask?’ she said, going back to the window.
‘He was saying some weird shit to me in Danaher’s the other night.’
‘Like what?’ she said, slicing into a red pepper.
‘He was giving me a hard time, saying stuff about you. Have you met him or something?’ Anna looked at
