‘Oh, for fuck’s sake, grow up. Those guys were total losers.’
‘Well, who knows? He could be nuts behind it all. It’s always the quiet ones.’
‘But he’s not even quiet! He’s just normal.’
‘Exactly. What I’m saying is it’s always the ones you least suspect.’
‘That would make you bottom of the list.’
‘Ha. Ha.’
‘Combats, shaved head, knows the scripts of
‘Well no-one’s come knocking on my door to take me in.’
‘No-one’s come knocking on Shaun’s either, you fuckwit. It’s so embarrassing, though. Apparently his dad’s going around asking people questions, doing a Jessica Fletcher on it.’
‘Jessica Fletcher.’
‘Anyway, people are getting fairly pissed off. Richie’s going apeshit. People are saying things to Lucky’s dad, then not saying stuff to Richie or else they’re just getting fed up saying the same things over and over again. And maybe the guy should be looking a lot closer to home. Mr Lucchesi, I mean.’
‘There’s no way Lucky had anything to do with this.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘You sound like my mother.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘Shut up.’
‘Lucky, though. Could his nickname
Shaun turned back and walked home.
‘I hate to have to do this again,’ said Frank, trying to smile at Martha. ‘But you never know what you might find that would help.’
‘It doesn’t feel right,’ said Martha. ‘She was so private.’ She pushed open the door to Katie’s bedroom. It was a wet, grey morning and the room was dark. They both looked up, drawn by the fluorescent stars on the ceiling. Martha turned on the light and the glow disappeared. She sat down on the bed, a tissue up to her nose, thinking:
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Frank,’ she said, getting up quickly, ‘I’m dreaming.’ She closed the door gently behind her.
Frank looked around. The room was a little girl’s doing its best to be a teenager’s. The wallpaper was pink and girly, but a strip had been torn away for notes to be scribbled on it. The quilt was floral and faded, but the lamp by the bed was simple and modern. Her wardrobe should have been brown, but had been sanded and repainted white with a bright pink border. There were no teddies or dolls anywhere. He walked towards the mirror. A piece of ribbon stretched across the top with tiny clips attached to hold photos. He didn’t see Katie’s face in any of them. He saw Ali and a few other girls from around the village, he saw Shaun and he saw a tiny little girl at the zoo, holding a man’s hand and looking up at him, smiling. He looked closer and realised it was Katie and her father, taken a few years before he died.
A box on the dressing table was filled with hair pins, scrunchies, makeup and cheap jewellery. He turned around and pulled open the doors of the wardrobe, running his fingers across the clothes. He bent down and saw piles of old shoes and two old tennis rackets. Then he saw an envelope, from an oversized greeting card, stuck into the side. He pulled it free from its slot in the wood and laid it on the bed. The big card was a birthday card, signed by several girls, love hearts and circles dotting the ‘i’s. The messages were all innocent. He reached his hand to the bottom of the envelope and pulled out more cards and letters from her girlfriends and from Shaun, birthday cards stretching back to her childhood and a few Valentine’s cards. One of them, in a soft pink envelope had a teddy on the front, holding a flower. He opened it. ‘Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Sugar is Sweet and So are You.’ It was a child’s writing. A big question mark filled the left-hand side. Frank was surprised anyone would write such a cliched poem. But how old was the card? He flipped the envelope over. It was postmarked the previous year. Why would a child be sending Katie a Valentine’s card? Or was it someone trying to appear like a child? But that didn’t make sense. He flicked through the rest of the cards, had one last look around the room and walked down the narrow stairs to the living room. Martha got up expectantly.
‘Well?’ she said.
He waved the card at her. ‘Do you know where this came from?’ he asked.
She took it from him and smiled. ‘Aw,’ she said, tears welling in her eyes. ‘I can’t believe she kept this. It was from Petey Grant, bless him. She thought it was so sweet. It gave her a bit of a boost at the time, even though she knew there was nothing really to it. That’s why she showed it to me. She’d never have showed me the others she got. I remember she laughed that he’d bother putting a question mark on it, because his handwriting was so recognisable. He used to pin notes on the boards in school to let them know if the floors were wet or a classroom had to be closed for cleaning.’ She stopped.
‘Anyway, I’m rabbiting on here. Do you need this?’ she held up the card.
‘No, you can hang on to that,’ said Frank.
D.I. O’Connor parked his car in the lane andwalked up to the Lucchesis’ door, admiring the view as he went. Joe took his time answering.
‘You’ve done a wonderful job on the lighthouse,’ said O’Connor.
‘That’s my wife.’
‘I’ve always had a fondness for it.’
‘Yeah. It’s a great place.’
Joe nodded and waited.
‘As I’m sure you know, I’m Detective Inspector Myles O’Connor from Waterford and I’m heading the Katie Lawson investigation.’
‘Yeah, I know. Come in.’
They stood in the hallway.
‘This is about your involvement. I’m going to have to ask you to…’
Joe knew O’Connor was hoping to avoid finishing the sentence.
‘To?’ he said.
‘To stay out of things. I’ve never been in this situation before with a person going around to people’s doors asking them questions, arriving unannounced at the station and telling our men what to do—’
‘I thought I was helping out. The information I was giving was based on my experience—’
‘Let’s just cut to the chase here. You obviously think we’re not doing our job right, that we’re some quiet village with a sleepy force…’
Joe said nothing.
‘Do you honestly think an investigation into the death of a teenage girl is something every single one of my men is not putting their whole heart into? Things are done differently around here. Don’t mistake a measured approach for a leisurely one. We’re not all Flash Harrys speeding around the streets chasing down “perps”.’
‘Neither am I.’
‘Well that’s two misconceptions out of the way, then.’
‘I guess so.’
Joe looked past O’Connor.
‘Right, well, I won’t keep you. But I want you to know that we’re doing OK without your help.’
He went to walk away, then turned back.
‘We don’t have guns or VICAP or HOLMES or a Ten Most Wanted list, but then we don’t have tens of thousands of murders a year. We have around fifty.’
Joe shrugged.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ said O’Connor, ‘we make our mistakes, but so does the NYPD, so does every police force in the world. But any time I’ve been on a trip to New York, I’ve never charged into a precinct—’
‘Come on. Katie was my son’s—’
