One Bad Turn Page 2

  The doorbell sounded for a third time.

  ‘I really have to get this.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Claire paused for a moment, then walked back across the floor and grabbed the buggy by its handle. Anna was fast asleep but she still didn’t like the thought of leaving her in the doctor’s care, particularly since the woman was not exactly hiding her eagerness to finish work for the day. Her receptionist didn’t work on Thursdays so she’d had to handle all of the morning’s paperwork and appointments on her own.

  Sending a silent prayer of thanks to her husband and his insistence on buying a ‘travel system’, with its thousand-euro suspension, Claire wheeled her still sleeping daughter smoothly and silently through the surgery, down the corridor and into the large toilet, taking care to shut both doors gently but firmly behind her. The baby didn’t stir. When Anna slept, she fell almost into unconsciousness. Just like her father, Claire thought, then shut away the image. She didn’t need to think about Matt now. Didn’t need to think about him, or what he wanted, or, indeed, how he’d feel if he’d known what she was discussing with the doctor today. She didn’t have the energy for that right now. She needed to get things straight in her own head first. Then she’d talk to him. Then things would be fine.

  She parked the buggy under a folded nappy-changing table, leaned over and stared into the mirror. God! No wonder the doctor had handed her a tissue. It was only a surprise she hadn’t suggested a prescription for Xanax as well. Her roots were two weeks past needing to be done and black mascara was smudged into the spidery lines at the sides of her eyes, lines that hadn’t been there eighteen months ago. It wasn’t fair to blame them solely on her baby, either. Work had been insane this past while. Claire loved being a detective. The job was everything she had always dreamed it would be: challenging, busy, never boring. But, God, it was full-on. And now Matt, who was supposed to be the main parent in the home, had just seen his web-design business take off like a rocket. That was brilliant for him, of course, and the money was handy, but the increase in his workload had brought with it as many complications as advantages. The grannies were being great but they couldn’t be around all the time, and gaps were emerging in their childcare arrangements that kept Claire awake at night while her husband and his identikit child snored on. Ah, she was just weary, that was all. Worn out. She felt like she was working to 99 per cent capacity most of the time and when the extra one per cent was thrown into the mix . . .

  Get a grip, woman. Bending over again, Claire turned on the cold tap and splashed water on her face. Cup of coffee, hour to herself, be grand. She stood back from the sink and registered, in the distance, the sound of a door opening and voices coming into the main surgery. Straightening, she raked her fingers through her hair. Hopefully whoever it was wouldn’t stay long and then she could leave, make another appointment with the doctor for a week’s time. She’d have her mind made up by then, surely.

  She could do with a glass of water first, though. All that talking – okay, crying – had left her parched. Leaving Anna asleep in the buggy, she walked out of the toilet and back into the corridor that separated it from the surgery. A small drinking fountain had been installed on one wall, and as she bent over it, words filtered to her through the thin dividing door. At first, she tried to ignore them, aware she was impinging on the privacy of someone who was consulting with a doctor. But the police officer in her couldn’t ignore the anger in the woman’s voice as the volume rose.

  ‘Why do you look so surprised, Heather? Do I scare you, is that it?’

  Claire heard fear in the doctor’s voice as she asked, ‘Is that – is that a gun?’

  The dull slapping sound of metal hitting flesh provided the answer.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Eileen, 1985

  Eileen watched her dad’s car disappear around the corner, a trail of blue smoke hanging in the air even after the vehicle had vanished from sight. She looked up along the road then, but didn’t move her feet. She’d seen that street a million times from the top of the bus, but had never walked along it before. She was only twenty minutes from her home, but might as well have been a million miles away.

  ‘They were lovely houses in their day,’ her mother had told her dubiously, when she’d read the address on the party invitation.

  ‘Huge mansions. You’d have had servants and all living in them, once upon a time.’

  But that day must have been a very long time ago. Now the street was neglected, scruffy and unloved. The newsagent on the corner had bars in the window and the wooden sign outside was so tattered you could read only half of the ad for that night’s Evening Press. As Eileen squinted at it, an empty can rattled past her foot, making her jump.

  ‘It’ll be a flat, I suppose,’ her mother had said finally, handing back the invitation. I wonder do you really have to go . . .’

  Eileen knew she had to kill the discussion right there. She wanted to go to the party more than anything else in the world. Even the invitation had been a thing of wonder. Eileen had been to birthday parties before, of course she had, and she’d hosted a few as well, and every one had been exactly the same. Eight or nine girls sitting in a kitchen, wearing cardboard hats from Hector Grey’s and eating homemade Rice Krispie buns. No one her age ever sent out invitations, especially not printed ones. Invitations were for twenty-first birthdays and weddings, not for twelve-year-olds who saw each other every day in school. But that’s exactly what Heather Sterling had handed around the week before, a glossy white card with a picture on the front of a stick figure dancing beside a record player. Inside, elegant black handwriting declared that Heather Sterling was about to turn twelve and that she’d love it if Miss Eileen Delaney could come to her party. Miss Delaney had thought about little else ever since.

  The green numbers on her digital watch told her she was running late but, nervous now, Eileen still couldn’t persuade her feet to move. Her friends were getting ready in Mary B’s house. Eileen could picture the scene, could smell it even, Mary B, Trisha and Mary C fighting for space in front of the mirrored wardrobe doors, the air heavy with Impulse and the smell of the gloopy green hair gel Mary C used to scrunch dry her curls. Mary B’s mam was going to give them a lift to the party and collect them afterwards, and there would have been room for Eileen in the car, too, if she’d wanted to go.

  But Eileen hadn’t. She and her friends would be heading to secondary school in a few months’ time, and already the Marys were planning that they’d continue to sit together, or at the very least hang around together at lunchtime if they ended up in different classes. Eileen couldn’t help feeling it all sounded, well, a little boring. Predictable. So, for one day at least, she had decided to do something completely different. Except now, as the street in front of her seemed to grow longer, the buildings taller and more imposing, she was regretting that decision.

  ‘The principal told me I was to come in here?’

  When she’d arrived in their class, just over a year ago, the American accent hadn’t been the only thing that had marked Heather Sterling out as different. She didn’t wear a duffle coat, didn’t scribble the names of the bands she liked onto her green cloth schoolbag, didn’t produce Club Milks and cheese sandwiches from a plastic box to eat at lunchtime. In fact, she didn’t seem to eat at all, just spent her free periods sitting on the small wall beside the basketball court, one leg crossed over the other, a black slip-on shoe hanging lazily from her toe. Sometimes she read magazines, NME and Melody Maker, which were nothing like the brightly coloured Smash Hits the two Marys borrowed from Mary B’s older sister and devoured from cover to cover. And she didn’t even go home to the same sort of place as they did. Eileen and her friends all lived in houses that looked like children’s drawings, white boxes with four windows and a door, a strip of grass in front and a family car parked in the gravelled driveway. Heather and her parents lived in what she called an apartment, a
nd Eileen’s mother called a flat, and it all seemed hopelessly exotic and exciting.

  Heather’s mother was an anthropologist, she told them. Eileen had made her repeat the word three times, but she still didn’t understand what it meant, despite having looked it up in the set of encyclopaedias they kept at home on the lacquered shelf over the TV. But it didn’t matter: anthropology sounded foreign and adventurous, a bit like Heather herself, and Eileen couldn’t help hoping, if she hung around a bit more with Heather and a bit less with the Marys, that some of the delicious strangeness might rub off on her. So here she was, ready to dive into Heather’s party, and her world. Now all she needed to do was to get her feet to move.

  Slowly, Eileen began to walk down the street, the tall red-brick houses looming over her. Each one had three storeys and a basement, and was separated from the street by black or grey metal railings, many of which had newspapers and crisp packets caught in their spikes. She tugged her pink T-shirt down, making sure it completely covered her stomach, which, according to the Jackie magazine Mary B had bought last weekend, was her Number One Problem Area. Eileen’s mother hadn’t wanted her to wear the T-shirt, or her jeans, claiming the outfit wasn’t ‘dressy’ enough. They’d even had a row about it, their first proper argument in as long as Eileen could remember. Theirs wasn’t a family that fought. Eileen had no siblings, and most of the time she and her parents got on pretty well. Her mam stayed at home during the day and Eileen would come in from school at half past two and do her homework. Her father would arrive a few hours later and they’d all have dinner in front of the TV. There wasn’t really anything to fight about.

  But when her mother told her that jeans weren’t suitable for a party, and that she should wear the dress she’d bought for her cousin’s wedding, Eileen had disagreed, and told her so, heatedly. It was such a strange feeling, the rage bubbling up inside her and overflowing before she had time to think about it. Her stomach was in a knot about the party anyway and the thought of turning up looking like an eejit in a wedding outfit was too horrific to bear. She’d shouted at her mother – if she couldn’t wear what she wanted, she wouldn’t go to the party at all. Then the anger had gone, as quickly as it had appeared, evaporating into the air, like bubbles from a glass of 7-Up. Eileen had gazed at her mam mutely, expecting her to be furious. But then the weirdest thing of all happened. Her mother just turned and walked out of the room, muttering that Eileen was old enough to make her own mistakes now, she wasn’t to come crying to her if it all went wrong. It had been strange and quite unsettling. Eileen knew she should have felt victorious, but instead she felt slightly wobbly, like she was standing on the edge of something.

  Number eighteen. This was it. Eileen paused at the top of a flight of scuffed grey steps and looked down into the basement. The thought of going in on her own was making her feel sick. What had she been thinking? If Mary C was here, she’d tell her the jeans looked fabulous on her, or Mary B would be going on and on about something that had happened on Neighbours the night before, and that would have been enough to distract her from her clothes. Maybe if—

  Before Eileen had a chance to turn and flee, the door at the bottom of the steps was flung open and a head of bushy auburn hair popped out.

  ‘Hey, honey! You’re in the right place, come on down!’

  When she reached the bottom of the steps Eileen was enveloped in a velvety hug, almost smothered by a rich, spicy perfume.

  ‘Who’s this now? Eileen? How wonderful! Heather’s told me all about you. Come in, my darling! We’re so excited you’re here!’

  Steered by a red-velvet-clad arm, she barely had time to register black-and-white floor tiles and a pile of shoes in the corner of the hall before she was pushed through a large wooden door and into a long narrow room. Several of her classmates were huddled around a table at one end and Eileen, abandoning any desire for independence, rushed over to them.

  ‘Hiyiz.’

  Her voice came out as a whisper. Lined with bookshelves and with what looked like real paintings, it was the type of room you felt you should whisper in, even though Heather’s mother was practically shrieking, saying their names over and over again and asking what sort of drinks they wanted. It was almost, Eileen thought, as if she were nervous. But that was ridiculous. Mothers didn’t get nervous. Not in their own homes.

  Mrs Sterling did look hassled, though, and very busy. It was a warm day, but she was wearing layers of clothes: a red velvet top over jeans – Eileen felt a stab of vindication when she saw that – with a camel-coloured suede waistcoat on top and an orange scarf draped over the entire ensemble. It was a gorgeous outfit, nothing like Eileen’s mother would ever dream of wearing, but it must have been uncomfortably hot, especially with the sun streaming through the large window at the top of the room. She was constantly on the move too, in and out of the sitting-room door, returning every few minutes with new guests, a couple of curious parents and, finally, what looked like a large steel pot of food.

  ‘Just a curry, girls, nothing fancy!’

  Mrs Sterling had the same accent as her daughter, Eileen realised, as she stared at the steam billowing from the pot. American, but she sounded nothing like the people on Dallas, who were the only Americans she knew. She and Mary C had asked Heather once where she came from, and she’d told them she’d been living in New York for two years, but nobody actually came from there, which hadn’t been a satisfactory answer at all, when they had dissected it later.

  Nothing fancy? Eileen took a step towards the steel saucepan and looked inside. Her own mother made curry once a year, on 27 December, to use up the last of the Christmas turkey. A pale yellow concoction stuffed with raisins, it bore no relation to the brown, heavily spiced sauce Heather’s mother was ladling into bowls.

  ‘There’s rice here, and poppadums.’

  ‘Poppa-wha’?’

  A girl behind Eileen stifled a giggle but other than that, no one spoke, and no one moved any closer to the food. Mrs Sterling smiled even wider, and filled another bowl.

  ‘Home-made chutney on its way!’

  Then her voice rose to an even higher pitch as the door opened again.

  ‘Here she is now, the birthday girl!’

  Even dressed in the Our Lady’s school uniform, with her long red hair pulled back in a ponytail and white socks up to her knees, Heather always looked different from the other girls. Today, with her hair tumbling over her shoulders, she might have belonged to another species. There were a hundred shades of red in that hair, Eileen thought, from the darkest rust to the brightest strawberry blonde. Heather’s skin was almost translucent, dotted with caramel freckles, and she was wearing make-up, but only a touch, not the streaks of blue eyeshadow Mary B had experimented with, which Eileen’s mother said made her look like a streetwalker. But it was Heather’s dress that was the most spectacular thing. You wouldn’t call it a dress, even. It was a gown, cream, with ruffles at the high neck, a V of lace at the sleeves and a long, full skirt that hung just to the toes of a pair of ox-blood Doc Martens.

  Eileen knew she was staring, but she didn’t care. Ox-blood Doc Martens! She wanted to rush over, to tell her how amazing she looked, to gush over her boots and ask her where she had bought the outfit when, from the group of girls behind her, she heard a snort of laughter.

  ‘I didn’t know it was fancy dress.’

  Stacia Simpson had spoken and, as usual, Arlette Flanagan was right in there, backing her up.

  ‘Looks like someone’s a fan of Little House on the Prairie!’ A bright red colour washed across Heather’s creamy skin and she wavered, half in and half out of the door. Her mother beamed at her.

  ‘Come in, darling, come in! All your little friends are here – we’re dying to start the party.’

  ‘Little friends!’

  Stacia was openly laughing now, while most of the others were giggling and nudging each other. Meanwhile Rach
el Fitzgibbon had picked up a bowl of curry and was sniffing at it, making exaggerated ‘blech’ noises and wondering, in a stage whisper, if anyone had seen her pet cat recently.

  Mrs Sterling picked up a long stainless-steel ladle and plunged it into the pot.

  ‘Now – who’s hungry?’

  The girls stared at her. No one expected to have their dinner at a birthday party. They’d had lunch at home as normal and would be heading home later for tea. Where were the buns? The bowls of crisps? The birthday cake? There was going to be cake, wasn’t there?

  ‘Or we could play games . . .’

  Her smile fading, Mrs Sterling stood, ladle in hand, and pointed towards a table in the far corner of the room where, Eileen saw, a pile of games had been stacked. Pin the Tail on the Donkey and a bag of Pass the Parcels. Baby games, stuff they hadn’t played in years.

  ‘Eh, is this a seven-year-old’s party?’ Arlette was laughing now. ‘Should I have brought my little sister?’

  Mrs Sterling froze and a drip of curry fell from her ladle onto the varnished wooden floor. Stacia and Arlette were in stitches, their shoulders shaking. One of the mothers who had hung around after dropping off her daughter was openly laughing too. For a moment, Eileen thought about joining in. This was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? This must be what it felt like to be cool, to be in on the joke, not the subject of it. Then she looked across the room again and saw the tightness on Heather Sterling’s features. A flash of tears in the green eyes. And Eileen felt again the dizzying sensation of being at the edge of something.

  Heather blinked twice, then pushed her shoulders back and beamed across at her mother.

  ‘Great curry, Mum! Thanks for going to all this trouble.’

  And Eileen realized that Heather Sterling was the bravest person she had ever seen. She walked forward and stood in front of the birthday girl, speaking loudly enough for the others to hear.