cut off at the edge of the page, ‘chesi’. ‘Does this have something to do with Joe?’ she asked, her voice trembling.
‘You’ll have to ask him,’ said Nora. ‘I’m sorry. This is my fault.’
‘No it’s not,’ said Anna. ‘But I’m going to have to go. I have to talk to Joe.’
Joe punched the numbers into the phone and was pacing across the kitchen before Giulio even picked up.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ said Joe.
‘I presume you’re talking about the plane tickets. I was helping my grandson out.’
‘Playing the big shot. He doesn’t need your help.’
‘The kid’s been through too much. He needs a break.’
‘That’s not up to you. Are you crazy? Coming in, trying to drag him back to New York? Do you think that’ll look good to everyone around here?’
‘He called me, looking for help. So I’m helping him.’
‘To run away. I can’t believe I’m even having this conversation. I can’t believe Shaun even called you.’
‘I don’t think you fully appreciate what’s been going on in his head,’ said Giulio.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘He feels like a criminal. He’s only sixteen—’
‘And what the hell would you know about sixteen-year-olds?’
‘And then there’s you, running around trying to get involved, embarrassing the poor kid.’
Joe was taken aback. ‘None of this is any of your business,’ he snapped.
‘It
‘But if your son’s unhappy—’
‘Get over it, Joe. Mommy and Daddy still love you, they just can’t live together.’ His voice was a cruel whine.
‘You’re a real cold guy, Giulio.’
‘Shaun needs to get away, relax, where no-one is crossing the street to avoid him.’
‘No-one’s crossing the street to avoid him, for crying out loud.’
‘He sees things differently. He needs to be accepted at this stage of his life. And that’s not happening in your quaint little village over there. Get him the hell away before any permanent damage is done. He’s at an important stage—’
‘What? You making up for lost time now? Is that it? You’re going to be there for him ’cos you weren’t for me?’
‘Well, look how you turned out, you can’t stick with anything.’
‘Jesus Christ Almighty, he’s on to the college thing again. Let me spell it out for you – it was never gonna happen. I was not born to become anything you think makes you look good to your professor friends or whoever the hell you want to impress. Yeah, my son is a cop, yeah, yeah. I bet that doesn’t come up in conversation too much at lunch with the dean. Dad? I would have made a shit entomologist, OK? I make a damn good cop.’
‘Why are you not working now, then?’
Joe was apoplectic.
‘You blew it, Joe, and you know it.’
The line hummed. Joe couldn’t get any angrier, so he did the next best thing. He took some breaths, lowered his voice and spoke gently.
‘You think I can’t stick to anything, huh? Is that how you feel? What about Anna? What about the woman I love and promised to love with all my heart the day I married her? Seventeen years of marriage. So there you have it, there’s something – I’ve stuck with my wife. Which I think we’ll agree is a whole hell of a lot more honourable than walking out on a dying one.’
The Jeep was gone and the house was empty when Anna got back. Joe’s mobile phone was on the kitchen counter. She was still trying to come to terms with the photo. She didn’t want to think about what it meant. She remembered the project she wanted to show Nora and went to the filing cabinet in the den. She tried the top drawer, but it jammed. The one underneath was still open. She bent down and pulled it out. At the back, the corner of a page stuck out from a brown folder with no tab. Her hand hovered over it. This was Joe’s drawer. But she reached in and slid the page free. It was a short letter, addressed to The Personnel Department, One Police Plaza. Her heart fell. Scanning down, she saw
‘
Anna slammed the drawer shut with a swift kick.
The sky was grey over Mariner’s Strand. Joe walked along the pebbled sand wishing he was one of the people there to enjoy the view. Instead, he was thinking about grief: his for the loss of a perfect marriage, Shaun’s for a beautiful dead girlfriend. He saw Frank and Nora Deegan by the water and walked towards them. Frank nodded at his wife and she went on ahead.
‘I don’t know whether this is good news or bad for you, Joe, but I found out who sent Shaun that email. It was Barry Shanley, a fifth year student in St Declan’s who was trying his hand at being the tough man.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Joe. ‘But—’
‘I’ve gone through everything in detail with the computer teacher at the school. There’s absolutely no question about it and Barry admitted it himself. He was crying by the time I left him. You’ve been through a lot, Joe. It’s understandable things like that would rattle you. Oh, and Richie went to see Mae Miller today and he said there’s not a bother on her. We don’t think she’s suffering from Alzheimer’s, Joe. John Miller can be a funny fish. Probably looking for some sort of sympathy vote.’
Anna walked around the house trying to decide what to do. She didn’t want to waste her anger on a phone call Joe could hang up on. She wanted him to register every bit of hurt and disappointment she was feeling. She had been right – both her boys were lying to her. She had fought for them over and over and this was how they had paid her back.
‘Screw you,’ she said. She was going back over to the drawer when she heard the doorbell ring. She didn’t move. It rang again. She stormed through the hall and jerked the door open. A man stood smiling in front of her. He wore brown hiking boots, skinny jeans, a check shirt and a creamcoloured vest. Anna’s heart rate soared so sharply, she froze. He was reminding her that he was Gary, the replacement gardener. She found herself staring at the tendons in his arms. Then she realised he had stopped talking. She looked up. Their eyes met. His smile died. She started fumbling desperately for the door. She tried to jam her bare foot against it. Duke was already pushing her back, sliding her towards the wall. The rough wood scraped up her foot, dragging splinters through the torn skin. She cried out and jerked her foot away, slamming backwards into the wall. She dropped to her knees and scrambled past Duke. In one stride he was behind her. He wrapped his arm around her waist then wrenched it towards him, crushing her stomach and ribs. She tried to prise his arm away, but he held her rigid. Something inside her sank. As he carried her back through the door, she caught his strange, distorted reflection in the glass. The only thing she could make out were two dilated pupils that made her scream. Windows to the soul…and the soul was black.
Ray and Hugh were standing at the bar having one of their discussions when Joe joined them.
‘To me, faces from those police sketches are like a whole separate species,’ said Hugh. ‘Like, that guy from that American Heroes place. That face doesn’t exist in any reality. Only in a police file or in a newspaper. I mean, the face we see isn’t actually anyone’s face. It’s like a mutant, pulled together from memory. I always picture these two-D faces floating around the place, with these evil eyes, sharp cheekbones and always the creepy, slitty little mouth. “Hi, I’m the sketch from the robbery? The bank job?” “Wow! You are so not like the guy they got for that!”’ He looked from Ray to Joe. ‘Know what I mean?’ he added.
‘Hugh’s PC is in for repair,’ said Ray. ‘It’s been very upsetting for him.’ Hugh nodded sadly.
