It Could Never Happen Here, page 20
Frances took a deep inhale.
Beverley picked up the knife and resumed chopping. When the beetroot was done, she started on the fancy lettuce.
Whenever Frances started to think she knew her daughter inside out, she reminded herself that there were two goldfish swimming around the floor of what was an otherwise perfect white cube. Beverley still had the ability to surprise.
‘I know I’m good enough,’ she said, her voice so small it could only have come from her inner child.
It was as much as Frances could ask for.
‘Good,’ she said, rolling up her sleeves and glancing around the kitchen for a potential source of pots. It was impossible to discern the walls from the cupboards in here. ‘What say I make a system-cleansing turmeric grain bowl to go with this? That spice does wonders for the complexion.’
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Arlo got through the afternoon’s work as quickly as he could. He put up shelves for the new woman, Tamara, and he tiled the splashback in Mrs Regan’s kitchen without taking a break. When Mrs Regan started talking about how a radiator his dad had installed in her husband’s pharmacy was already leaking, he didn’t fight it. He just accepted the reduced fee, thanked her politely and left. It was 9 p.m. when he got to Fiona Murphy’s house. Depending on the scale of the emergency, he might still have time to see Ella.
Arlo parked the van in Fiona’s driveway and took his toolkit from the back. He had a bad feeling that the problem with her sink lay with the water supply line. He’d replaced the drain, examined the pipes, tightened the nuts and bolts. He’d even redone the putty last time he was out. But a leak in the water supply line was a much bigger problem. If that was why she kept having difficulties, he’d be here all night – and even then, there was a good chance it would be beyond his expertise.
When Fiona opened the door, she was dressed, as she sometimes was, in a long silk dressing gown. It was wrapped tightly around her, but it still parted at the bottom and Arlo could see nothing but leg. He crossed the threshold, already blushing and already annoyed at himself.
‘I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,’ he said, following her through to the kitchen. Her feet were bare, and he thought for the first time that he should offer to take off his grubby work boots. Maybe this was one of those houses where people didn’t wear shoes.
‘Not at all,’ said Fiona. ‘I hope I didn’t tear you away from anything important. You weren’t on another job, were you?’
‘All finished for the day now.’
‘Well, that’s even worse. Am I interrupting your evening plans? You were probably going to meet someone, go out. It is a Thursday, after all. I know that’s the new Friday.’
‘No plans,’ he said politely. ‘Nowhere to go. Nobody to meet.’
‘I find that hard to believe,’ she said in that sing-song way that made him think she was teasing him. ‘You don’t have a girlfriend?’
Fiona was friends with Ella’s mother. ‘Nope,’ he said.
‘No one?’
‘No girlfriend.’
Fiona grinned. ‘Good.’
Arlo got down on his hunkers and opened the toolbox. ‘I was thinking the problem with the sink might actually be in the supply line,’ he said, glancing up, only for his eyeline to be level with the split in her dressing gown. ‘I’ll have to take up a bit of the skirting to have a look,’ he continued, head back in the box. ‘Even then it might be hard to say for sure, but if I can’t sort it, I have the number for a plumber who owes me a favour and—’
‘Oh Arlo, darling. The sink’s fine. You did a wonderful job on it last time.’
He blew air up into his face and removed his head from the box. ‘Right. Okay, well that’s good.’ He stood, taking a step back from Fiona and trying not to think about what was or was not under her gown.
‘It is,’ she said, smiling. ‘You always do a wonderful job.’
He did his best to return the smile, but he was starting to get that constricting feeling in his chest. ‘So what’s, em, what’s the emergency?’
Fiona leaned back slightly, her arms reaching behind her so they gripped the edge of the kitchen table. This caused her chest to push against her dressing gown and he was embarrassed to find himself light-headed. He didn’t like her. He knew he didn’t. So why was he dizzy?
‘It’s about Woody,’ she said.
‘Woody? My brother Woody?’
‘I’d be surprised if there was another Woody in Cork, wouldn’t you? Let alone in Cooney.’ She turned around briefly and picked up a phone from the kitchen table. Her phone, Arlo knew, had a Little Miss Fiona cover, but this one had a shiny yellow back plastered with stickers. ‘Ciara’s at her father’s house tonight. He doesn’t usually have her on school nights, but I thought it would be better if we could talk about this privately. Where is it?’
She frowned at the screen of her daughter’s phone and Arlo felt like every resident of Cooney had their hands around his lungs and they were squeezing at once.
‘I heard Woody was the boy involved in the sexting scandal up at the school.’
She made it sound off-hand but of course it wasn’t. He said nothing. He couldn’t. He just stood there, and she went back to the phone.
‘There’s been a bit of chatter about it, you probably won’t be surprised to hear. I swear Cooney was built on sand and gossip. And petitions. If you went back through the annals, I doubt you’d find any acts about the founding of this town, just a whole load of rumours passed around the various high kings and monks of Ireland.’ She looked up again. ‘Woody Whitehead and Maeve Maguire. It’s only ever a matter of time before the word gets out, isn’t it?’
Arlo could not place that name. Maeve Maguire. Fiona said nothing about Amelia Franklin. If they only had the details half right, maybe they weren’t so sure. If nobody knew for certain, maybe they’d be reluctant to spread it around.
He could feel Leo pushing to deliver some smart-alecky comeback to that, but he refused to let him in.
‘That’s not,’ he began. ‘It’s not … That’s not right.’
‘Look, don’t worry, you don’t have to say anything about it. I didn’t ask you here to catch you out. We’re friends. Right?’
She was a customer and he was an employee. He couldn’t even bring himself to use her first name.
He nodded.
‘Good,’ she said, still smiling. ‘Which is why I thought you should see this.’ She held out the phone. ‘I check Ciara’s phone every week. Usually it’s a cursory check. But after Monday’s meeting at the school, and then I heard some things, well, about your brother, at coffee this morning, I thought I should do a deeper dive. I found this in her deleted images. I’m not sure when it was sent exactly but it was saved on …’
He was no longer listening. So much of his attention was trained on the image on the screen that he was barely in the room any more.
‘Arlo?’
Fiona’s voice was muffled and at a distance. The only thing he heard was the throbbing in his ears.
‘Arlo? Arlo?’
He looked up from the screen to where Fiona’s mouth and nose were suddenly too large for her head. They were starting to pulsate.
‘That is Woody, right?’
The more he looked at them, the more her features no longer seemed to belong to her face. They were coming apart, like the Picasso poster that hung in Ella’s bedroom.
‘I thought so,’ she said, nodding, as he realised he was doing the same. ‘I couldn’t quite remember what he looked like but the boy in the photo just looked so like your dad and like you.’ Fiona laughed. ‘His face, I mean. I couldn’t speak to the rest.’
‘What are you …? What will you do with this?’
‘Oh,’ said Fiona, as if it hadn’t occurred to her that she might do more with this naked photograph of his little brother than show it to Arlo. ‘Well, I’ll be talking to Ciara again. She insists it was unsolicited’ – Fiona rolled her eyes – ‘but I find it hard to believe she didn’t send anything in response. She has a bit of a crush on your brother, you know. I think a lot of the girls do. I haven’t shown it to her father yet, though I really should. It’s just that with him being in the shop all day and trading as much in gossip as meat, I might as well take out an advert in the Southern Gazette. The whole town would know by lunchtime tomorrow. I don’t really mind people knowing – you know me, I’m an open book – but for you and your family …’ She made a pained expression. ‘You’ve already been through so much. And then, of course, Butcher has such a temper, he’d be up making a show of himself at your door or screaming at your poor mother in the bank. And I wouldn’t want that. It’s always the mothers who get the blame.’
‘So don’t tell him.’ Arlo’s voice squeaked, making it sound more like a question than an order.
Fiona scrunched the lower half of her face in more pained confusion. ‘Oh, but I have to. He is her father.’ She took the phone back and put it on the table. ‘I’d have thought Woody would be more careful, after what happened with Maeve Maguire, and all the attention and drama that brought.’ She took a step closer and placed a hand on Arlo’s arm. ‘I’m sure he’s not a bad kid, no matter what people say. And I hardly see how this is your mother’s fault, or even your father’s.’
Arlo’s head was spinning. He knew the room wasn’t swaying, but he couldn’t seem to get that through to his inner ear, or wherever it was that controlled his balance. He had been breaking his back trying to turn around the Whiteheads’ reputation. He was exhausted from it. His face ached with the constant smiling. It always felt like one step forward, two steps back, but he was still trying. If this got out, that Woody was sending naked photos to multiple girls, they’d be driven out of town with pitchforks.
‘Please don’t tell him. Please.’
Arlo moved his hands so he was holding her right one in the space between them. There was a flash of surprise, but she didn’t pull back.
What was wrong with Woody that he would do this? The parting line of his father’s letter swam in his head. Look after your mother and your brother. He’d said the same thing the day he was taken away.
He squeezed her hand and implored her: ‘Please don’t. Please. Just don’t say anything, Mrs Murphy – Fiona, Fiona, sorry, Fiona. Don’t tell your husband. I’ll do anything.’
‘My ex-husband.’
‘Your ex-husband.’ Arlo was nodding too quickly, the dizziness getting worse. This must be what it felt like to float in space, and suddenly have your helmet disappear. ‘Don’t tell your ex-husband. Please, Fiona. Please.’
‘Oh, Arlo, sweetheart. Hush now. It’s okay.’
‘I’ll do whatever you want up here for free for a whole year. I’ll clear out your back garden. And I’ll talk to Woody. I’ll make sure it never happens again, not with Ciara or anyone. But please don’t tell anyone. It … It would kill my mom.’
Fiona’s brows nudged ever so slightly closer. He was finding it difficult to look her in the eye; everything on her face seemed too big, almost grotesque, and the more he looked at it, the more stressed he felt.
‘I am a sucker for a man who loves his mother,’ she said. ‘Butcher hated his mother – she is an absolute weapon, but still – that should have been enough to send me flying for the hills.’
‘Please,’ he said again. ‘Please don’t say anything.’
‘Well …’ Fiona stared into the middle distance over his shoulder, her left hand coming up to join the right so they were clasped around Arlo’s. Only where his grasp had been beseeching, hers was gentle. ‘I suppose we are friends.’
‘Yes,’ he replied quickly, his heart pounding. ‘Yes, we are.’
‘And I wouldn’t want you to start getting a hard time in Cooney. I do like you …’
‘And I like you.’ He spoke quickly, barely registering that she had taken a step closer and was now moving her fingers ever so slightly against his.
‘Do you?’ She was in his face. Her nose about three inches from his mouth. She tilted her head up slowly, and it was only at that point that the strangeness of their set-up – standing so close together, holding hands – hit him. She wasn’t going to … Surely she wouldn’t—
And then her lips were on his. They pushed his apart and something hard jabbed to get in. It shook him from his daze. Was that Mrs Murphy’s tongue?
‘I’m sorry, no,’ he said quickly, as he put his hands on her shoulders and stepped back. ‘I have a girlfriend. I’m sorry I said I didn’t, but I do.’
A flash in her eyes, an emotion he couldn’t quite identify.
‘You – you’re an attractive woman, Mrs Murphy, Fiona, and maybe if I was older, and didn’t have a girlfriend …’
There was that look again.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
‘I was only joking, Arlo,’ she said, suddenly breezy, as she returned to her default expression of being in on a private joke. ‘You’re the one taking it seriously.’
‘Right, okay, sorry.’
He was confused, embarrassed, and not sure how the kiss could have been a joke, but fully trusting he was the one who’d misread the situation.
‘Sorry,’ he said again.
‘I suppose you should go see your girlfriend, so.’
‘Yes,’ he said gratefully. ‘Please don’t tell anyone.’
‘About what?’ she asked. ‘About Woody, or about our little frisson?’
Arlo had meant about his girlfriend but faced with this choice he wanted to say both. He didn’t know what a frisson was, but he was pretty sure whatever had passed between them wasn’t it. ‘About Woody,’ he said, picking a priority.
‘I won’t.’
He exhaled heavily. ‘Thank you, Fiona. Thank you so much.’ He picked up his toolbox and felt for the keys in his pocket. ‘And I’m sorry for the misunderstanding, if I gave you the impression that I liked you – not that I don’t like you, I do like you, but I mean like that …’
Her lips tightened. ‘It’s fine, Arlo,’ she said coolly. ‘You really need to stop making such a big deal out of it.’
Ella Belle 9.30 p.m.
Hey. You still planning to call over tonight? My granny might be meditating in the back garden so try not to scare her. X
Ella Belle 11.02 p.m.
It’s 11 now so I’m gonna take it you’re not calling. I hope you’re not working too hard. Good luck tomorrow. Give me a call on the drive to the prison if you want. X
26
••••••
ABERSTOWN GARDA STATION
‘I’m going out to see the wife,’ announced Sergeant Whelan.
‘Do you want me to come?’ said Joey, hands on his belt once again. ‘Or I could go instead?’ He pictured himself motoring out to Cooney, making a key discovery and speeding back out to the station with the siren blaring.
Whelan shook his head. ‘You’ve got a second round of interviews to type up. I’m just going to check in. She doesn’t appear to have many friends in town. I don’t know if anyone is keeping an eye on her.’ He pushed himself up, laboriously, and pulled on his jacket. ‘The poor woman. Your husband goes to work one day and never comes home. I doubt she thought much harm could come to him. It’s got to be one of the safest places to work, doesn’t it? A primary school. My eldest is studying to be a teacher and when I think about how he wanted to enter the guards, I’m constantly relieved. Schools, I used to think; nothing all that bad can happen at a school.’
‘But his drowning may not have anything to do with the school.’
‘Which is another reason I’m going to speak to the wife,’ said Whelan, heading for the exit. ‘Maybe something has occurred to her – someone with a grudge, or even a reason for him to have been out there. For now, his workplace is just the place he was supposed to be at the very moment that he lost his life.’
‘So you don’t think there’s a connection?’
‘That’s for us to find out,’ replied his boss, one foot out the door. ‘I’m hoping we will know, one way or another, today.’
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Beverley Franklin, parent
I spoke to him the day before. He was helping with the musical – most of the staff were. It was just about that, work stuff. I didn’t get the impression he was worried about anything. There was no sense that something bad was about to happen. Is it possible he was having problems at home? Men aren’t always the best at addressing their personal issues.
Orla Smith, parent
I’m not as, shall we say, involved as some of the other parents. So I can’t exactly say I knew him. Most of my Glass Lake interactions are with my own children’s teachers. He seemed nice, though. Are you treating the fall as suspicious? I can’t imagine anyone having it in for him.
Ms Cunningham, teacher
It’s not the norm to give out progress reports, no. I heard Mr Cafferty was doing it and I told him it wasn’t a good idea. You agree to one, and next thing you know you’re doing twenty. He said he didn’t mind. He was really trying with the parents. Because he was new, I suppose, and because of the discipline issues. I share a classroom wall with him, and the truth is they’d been going on a while. He was doing his best, but the students just don’t want to listen.
27
••••••
SIX DAYS EARLIER
Most of the Glass Lake teachers had a ‘yard coat’, a heavy-duty jacket worn only when it was their turn to do break-time supervision. The rest of the time, the bulky garments lived in their classrooms. There was no reason yard coats had to be ugly – there were jackets that were both warm and stylish – and Frank Cafferty refused to give in to this trend. His yard coat was a cream trench with tartan lining that Jess had bought him for their second wedding anniversary. He thought of it as his geezer coat.
