I find Manda Moran the next morning, explaining the difference between black and white pudding to a group of Californian tourists. Reactions range from sceptical to repulsed.
‘Coffee and toast it is then,’ she says cheerfully, probably relieved to put the frying pan away for another day. The state of the wood-panelled breakfast room suggests it’s been a busy few hours and I’m tempted to start helping her clear things away.
I can’t say with any certainty that time hasn’t been kind to Manda Moran because I honestly can’t place her, however I’m fairly sure she couldn’t have looked like this as a teenager as I’d have surely remembered this strange triangular-shaped person. Normal(ish) on the top half, the width of a dual carriage way from the hips down. Like a tepee on legs.
‘He said you’d be calling, all right.’ She points towards a set of frosted double doors. ‘Go on through, I’ll be there in minute.’
‘Who said, Aiden Doyle?’ I feel a tiny prick of irritation. I’d wanted to catch them on the hop.
‘No, that old gobshite, Swords.’
Poor Bill. ‘He was a bit more complimentary about you,’ I say, smiling.
This surprises her. ‘Was he? I wonder what he’s after? Is it me body, y’think?’ She whoops with laughter, happy to be the butt of her own joke. ‘Aiden Doyle though,’ she adds, salivating comically like the Big Bad Wolf. ‘Now didn’t he grow up to be a pure ride.’
I grin a ‘no comment’.
Walking into Manda’s living quarters is like stepping through the wardrobe to Narnia – a whole different world awaits you. While the B&B’s all chintzy sofas and embroidered curtain drapes, Manda’s private space has been well and truly pimped. Less ‘nursing home’, more ‘footballer’s crib.’ An open-plan space with white leather sofas, black marble flooring and a television the size of a pool table.
The most telling thing though is the 200 or more Christmas cards that cover every shiny surface and every available wall. That’s a few hundred people who didn’t include Manda Moran in a communal Facebook share. They didn’t send her a round-robin email. They got a pen, wrote her name, licked an envelope, found her address, bought a stamp and walked to a post office and that tells me what Swords said was probably true – ‘a great girl, altogether’.
‘Sorry about the state about the place,’ she says, walking in and attacking a non-existent mess, fluffing cushions and moving magazines. ‘I don’t get a frigging second to meself round here. I don’t think half these eejits get the concept of B&B. You know, “Bed” and “Breakfast” – and maybe a light evening meal if you ask me nicely. Do you know what one of them asked me for last night?’ She doesn’t wait for my guess. ‘The wine list and a fecking ice-bucket!’
‘They’ll be asking for spa treatments next.’
She likes this. ‘It wouldn’t fecking surprise me! You’ll have tea o’ course.’
It’s an instruction not a question but I give her the thumbs up anyway.
She shouts over from the kitchen space. ‘So what in the name of God can I tell you about Maryanne Doyle? Terrible business, though, isn’t it. Swords told me she was strangled, is that right? And that she was living in England all this fecking time! A fifty-minute flight away.’ Hands on those considerable hips. ‘So strange that she never came home, hey?’
Very.
I shout back. ‘She hadn’t just lived in England. She’d seen the world, Manda. Sydney, Hong Kong, Cape Town.’
She makes a catty ‘lucky for some’ noise, then catches herself. ‘Ah well, I suppose that’s something.’ There’s a note of regret in her voice. ‘She’d done something with her life, at least.’
I walk over to the kitchen island and watch her for a minute – kettle on, mugs out, milk poured, sugar spooned, without ever looking at her hands once. A sad little choreography.
‘So am I right in thinking you never heard from Maryanne again?’
She goes misty-eyed, the way Gran used to go when she relived the moment she heard Elvis Presley had died.
‘I last saw Maryanne Doyle on Friday May twenty-ninth 1998, sometime in the afternoon,’ she says, peeling the cellophane off a tin of biscuits. ‘And not one fecking peep since. I can still see her now, she was sitting on the wall of St Benny’s, smoking a fag and flashing her bra-strap at some young lad. Pure Maryanne, like. She reckoned she’d gone up to D-cup since Easter. She never stopped going on about it.’
‘And do you remember anything odd about the days or weeks leading up to Maryanne’s disappearance?
She hands me a mug. ‘Not really. Hazel has a better memory for that sort of thing. Are you seeing her?’
I nod. ‘Anything at all, Manda? Anything she said, anyone she’d met, plans she had for the future, that sort of thing.’
A funny little snort. ‘Oh, she’d plenty of plans, all right. Usually America though, never England. I mean, what she thought she was going to do in America, I haven’t a clue, but you’re full of big dreams when you’re that age, aren’t you?’
I gulp my tea, ignore the fact it’s far too milky. ‘So, what was Maryanne’s big pipedream?’
She shrugs me off. ‘Ah sure, I can’t remember, and even if I could, how in God’s name would that help you?’
I put my cards on the table. ‘We’re not sure what Maryanne was doing in England until around 2001, when she turned up in Brighton, and if we understood a bit more about her motivations, her interests, it might give us more of a clue where to start, Manda. It’s a long shot, I know, but we don’t have too many short ones.’
She puts her mug down, gives me a conspiratorial smile. ‘Christ, Cat, you must have really pissed someone off to get this gig. Talk about the short straw! What’d you do? Clatter your boss?’
I smile and feel a surge of affinity for canny Manda Moran. She may have the jolly spinster act down pat, but she’s as shrewd as they come.
And she’s not finished either.
‘Well, look,’ she says, examining her short, neat fingernails, ‘and I’m pure speculating here, but I’d say there’s one very obvious reason why an Irish girl would slip off to England on the hush-hush, and it’s not to chase any big pipe-dream, you understand what I’m saying?’
Perfectly.
‘You think Maryanne was pregnant and wanted an abortion?’ I hold back the fact that we know she had a child, Manda doesn’t need to know this and it might derail her. ‘What makes you think that?’
She won’t be drawn, gives a little twitch of the shoulder. ‘Pure speculation, like I said. Hazel’s sure of it, though. When are you seeing her, by the way?’
I look at the clock. ‘In about half an hour. Do you still see a lot of each other then?’
She pours more tea. I don’t bother arguing. ‘Ah sure, what’s a lot? I’m run off me feet with this place. She has three nippers under seven and a useless lump of a husband – although a handsome lump, I’ll give him that.’ Melancholy cracks her voice again. ‘Sad though, isn’t it? We used to be the best of pals and here she is, only in the next village, and we’re lucky if we see each other once every three or four months.’
Something suddenly occurs to her and her face lights up. I find myself beaming back even though I don’t know why.
‘Do you know what, feck this,’ she says, switching off the kettle and picking up her car keys. ‘If I drink one more cup of my own fecking tea, I’m going to go loopy. We’ll go down to Ganley’s. I’ll call Hazel and tell her to meet us there. It’ll be gas! They’ve got gorgeous pastries too.’ She picks up the phone, eyes blazing with excitement at the thought of a break in the routine. ‘And Hazel’ll be a lot more help than me, I promise. Nothing got past that one. She’s exactly the same now.’
*
Nothing gets past Hazel O’Keefe apart from her useless lump of a husband’s super-sperm, it seems, and Manda’s face is a picture as Hazel strides into Ganley’s with an obvious round stomach and a ‘don’t-fucking-ask’ expression.
“He got his mojo back, I see,” howls Manda, barely able to breathe from laughing.
The Diner’s now Ganleys, a chi-chi little ‘bistro’ with red and white checked tablecloths and paintings of mournful Pierrot dolls gazing down from every wall at our raspberry mille-feuille.
Hazel plonks herself down, shaking her head at Manda. “Shut-up, you. It’s a fucking disaster. Seriously, he only has to sneeze near me and I’m up the pole again.” She picks up the menu, looks around. “Right, I’ve only got twenty minutes, I’m afraid, as per fucking usual.”
Hazel O’Keefe, nee Joyce, doesn’t have long red hair clamped in a ponytail anymore. She’s got a low-maintenance mum-cut and high-maintenance eyebrows, like she had to make the choice between one or the other and drawing caterpillars on her face seemed like the better option.
She also has a slight edge to her. A spikiness that suggests she’s not mad about being summoned to eat French pastries with law enforcement officers in the middle of the day.
“We were just talking about Aiden Doyle,” Manda says to Hazel, which is an out-right lie. We’d actually been talking about Manda’s hair, a lovely rich auburn.
‘Oh yeah? I heard he was back visiting the father over Christmas, all right. I bet he had nice things to say about us, hey?’ She catches my face. ‘Ah go on, what did he say? We’ll have probably deserved it, honestly, it’s fine.’
I give them the short version. ‘Just that you could be a bit harsh sometimes.’
‘Yeah, and the rest,’ says Hazel, hailing the waitress. ‘He was such an oik back then though. Hear he’s a big hot-shot in London now. Hey, d’ya think he’d be in the market for a ready-made family? I could just see me and the kids tearing it up and down Bond Street.’
‘Speaking of London,’ I say, once she’s ordered her hot chocolate. ‘Hazel, do you know if Maryanne knew anyone in London, or even England would be a start?’
‘No. Not that she ever mentioned, anyways, and believe me, she’d have mentioned it. She had these couple of cousins in Chicago and seriously, you’d think she had the freedom of the city, the way she went on about it.’ She sits back a little, rubs a rhythmic hand over her bump. ‘There was this English family in the village around the time she went missing, they were over from London, I think.’
My heart stops.
‘Oh God, yeah, I’d forgotten about them,’ says Manda. ‘See I told you, Cat, she remembers everything. I’m fecking useless. Memory like a goldfish.’
‘What, and you think . . .?’ I don’t know how to finish this sentence and I’m grateful when the arrival of Hazel’s ‘chocolat chaud’ forces a brief pause.
Hazel takes a sip, mutters, ‘Luke-fucking-warm as usual. Ah no, I didn’t mean anything by it. You mentioning London made me think of them, that’s all. We didn’t really have much to do with them. The girl knocked around with us a coupla’ times, I think, that was about it.’
Manda nudges Hazel. ‘That’d have been pure Maryanne, though. Decides she likes the accent and then takes off to England without so much as a backward glance.’
‘Ah, you’re such a gom, Mands. Look, Cat – it is Cat, isn’t it? – between you, me and the gatepost, Maryanne was pregnant, and there’s only one reason you go to England if you’re pregnant. I’ve half a mind to pay a visit meself!’
‘You never told this to Bill Swords?’ I say.
It’s not meant to sound like an accusation but Hazel takes it as one.
‘Course I fucking didn’t. You don’t grass on your mates, and anyways, I thought she’d probably be back, so why would I make trouble for her by going round telling people her business?’
‘How are you so sure she was pregnant?’ I keep my voice light, careful not to wind her up again, although I get the feeling Hazel O’Keefe could get wound up by a Buddhist monk. ‘Did she tell you?’
A lightning shake of the head. ‘No. But come on, she’d gone up a cup size in less than six weeks. And I’d caught her throwing up in the Diner a few times’ – she prods the table – ‘in here, I mean, that’s what this place used to be called. She blamed the drink but she wasn’t drinking much either, that’s another thing. I mean, she hadn’t stopped drinking or anything, but she wasn’t getting plastered like usual. I’m telling you, as sure as I’ve a hole in me arse, she was pregnant – fact.’
I don’t disagree. ‘It’d have cost a lot of money though, if she was planning a termination – flights, travel, staying over? Where would Maryanne have got that kind of cash?’
‘She did well on the tips in here,’ offers Manda.
Hazel’s more cynical. ‘Ah, she was fierce resourceful, was Maryanne. Sweet-talked it out of some lovesick eejit, I’d say.’
Blackmailed it?
‘Any ideas on the father?’
‘The father,’ repeats Hazel, laughing. There’s a line of chocolate milk running the length of her top lip – Manda doesn’t point it out so I don’t either. ‘My money’d be on Ryan Roland or Shane Dillon but it could have been anyone, really. She had a thing for older fellas too, so God knows. She wasn’t exactly . . .’
Manda scowls. ‘Ah now, stall the ball, Hazel. You’re making her sound like a proper skank and she wasn’t.’ She turns to me. ‘She was just gorgeous, that’s all. Never short of a few offers, you know.’
My phone vibrates. I glance down, praying for it to be anyone other than Jacqui. I know I’ll have to face that fight eventually but it can definitely wait another day. Or another week. Another lifetime.
Parnell
Saskia French still not answering. Hicks don’t have next of kin. Have a lovely old Doris from flat 12a keeping a watch out for her. When u back?
SMS 12.03 p.m.
I tap out a reply while Hazel gestures for the bill.
Covert surveillance, love it Should be back at HQ 5.30ish. Looking like Maryanne was preggers when she left Ireland.
SMS 12.05 p.m.
Once it’s sent, I turn my attention back to Hazel O’Keefe, conscious she’s going to stride out of Ganley’s in the next few minutes just as quickly as she strode in, and Manda Moran was right, she has been a lot more use.
‘So what did you think when Maryanne didn’t come back?’ I ask. ‘I mean, fine, maybe she was going to have a termination, but didn’t you find it odd that she never came back? Never even made contact again?’
‘Sure, why would she come back?’ Hazel says, wiping her chocolate moustache. ‘What was here for her in Mulderrin? A bollix of a father and spotty little brother?’ She shrugs. ‘Good luck to her, I thought.’
‘And you, Manda?’
‘I was a bit hurt,’ she admits, ‘and maybe a bit worried, yeah. But I had me own shit to deal with, you know. I thought she’d probably just hitched up with some rich, hot fella and like Hazel said, good luck to her.’ She looks at me earnestly, like it’s important I understand something. ‘But I did think about her a lot though. I’ve looked for her on Facebook, but sure, I didn’t know if she was married, if her surname had changed.’
‘She’d changed her first name too. She was calling herself Alice.’
A dewy-eyed look passes between them. ‘Alice,’ says Hazel, smiling, and it’s a proper smile too. A genuine smile that says Maryanne had meant something. ‘Alice in Wonderland. That’s what we used to call her ’cos she always had her head in the clouds, you know? Living in this dreamworld about all the places she was going to go, places she wanted to live. We were only teasing though and she loved it. She always said she loved the name.’
Manda’s dewy-eyes give way to tears – tears which surprise her and appal Hazel.
‘Jeez, cop yourself on, Mands,’ she says, looking around to make sure no one’s noticed. ‘We’ll be the talk of the town, you big gom.’
I fish a tissue out of my bag and Manda sniffs gratefully. ‘So who else are you talking to, Cat?’ she says eventually.
‘No one else. It’s been a flying visit.’ Something stirs in me – the chance to plunge my hand into another wasp’s nest. ‘Actually, Swords mentioned someone called Tina McGinn,’ I lie. ‘Said she was a bit of a character, would flirt with her own shadow, that sort. They’re often the best kind of witnesses.’ Maybe I’ll call in on her.
It sounds weak to my ears and I’m not even sure what I’m hoping to achieve. Do I actually want to speak to Tina McGinn, or do I just want to gauge if she’d have been Dad’s type?
Hazel O’Keefe’s eyebrows hit her hairline. ‘Flirt with her own shadow? Is that what Swords said?’ A fast glance towards Manda. ‘Fucked her own shadow, more like. More cocks than a hen house, that one.’
Manda doesn’t protest. Her pious face says it all. ‘She doesn’t live around here anymore, not for years. Last I heard, she’d broken up another marriage down Spiddal way.’
I sense there might be a story here – maybe a Moran man who fell for the wanton charms of Tina McGinn? I get an even stronger sense that contrary to Dad’s assertion that ‘there was absolutely nothing going on’ between him and Tina McGinn, I’d bet everything I hold sacred on the fact there absolutely was.
Which gave Maryanne stronger leverage to blackmail him to do what?
‘Right.’ Hazel O’Keefe stands up abruptly. ‘I better get home, I suppose, if I want the house still standing.’ She kisses Manda on both cheeks and they make promises to meet up properly in the New Year, promises they both know they won’t keep. ‘I hope you catch whoever did it,’ she says to me. ‘She could be a right cow sometimes, but sure, couldn’t we all at that age.’
‘Ah now, she wasn’t that bad, Hazel.’ Manda dabs at her eyes again, more for effect than necessity. ‘Don’t be speaking ill of the dead.’
Hazel picks up her phone. ‘It was just that she was snide, you know, that’s what I could never stomach. Me and Mands, and even Durkin Donut – that’s Colette Durkin – we fought and fell out and we slagged each other and all that, but Maryanne could be proper, proper snide. Putting you down in front of folk. Taking the piss without you realising.’
‘And always taking your stuff,’ chimes in Manda, clearly thinking ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.’ ‘Not stealing it, she was more wily than that. She’d just suddenly be your best pal, you know? All over you like a rash, flattering you, saying whatever she had her eye was soooooo gorgeous and she was so jealous, that sort of thing. Before you knew it, you’d given it to her – “here, it’d look better on you,” I’d end up saying. Sad thing is, it always did.’
‘Hey, I like your Tinkerbell,’ she said, touching the tiny pink pendant that hung around my neck – a Holy Communion gift from a distant Aunt who wasn’t big into Jesus. ‘Where’d you get it? It’s gorgeous! Look, it matches my belly-button ring, dead-on!’