Before You Were Gone Read online

  ‘Except one of them didn’t disappear,’ Louise said. ‘She drowned. The only reason Emer thinks that woman could be her sister is because of the eyes. But heterochromia isn’t that uncommon, is it?’

  ‘Not really,’ Dee said, remembering the statistic Emer had quoted in the taxi. ‘Six in every thousand people, apparently. Anyway, Leonard says Annie’s stopped working in the pub. Which means we’ve hit a dead end. It’s probably time to let this go before it gets any crazier, right?’

  Louise frowned. ‘Dee, I don’t mean to pry, but is there something else going on?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve already got quite a lot of work on. Every time we speak you tell me how behind schedule you are with your book. So I don’t understand why you haven’t already done the right thing and told Emer she needs to accept the truth. All this digging around into her past and trying to prove something that’s clearly not true, how is that helping anyone?’

  Dee took a sip of her wine as she considered this. Louise was right. This obsession with looking into Kitty’s death wasn’t helping anyone, least of all Dee herself, who should be focusing on her book and her career and the rest of her life.

  Except every time she thought about the rest of her life, every single time, all she could see was the mobile home, a few hundred metres along the beach from her own house, empty and deserted.

  Twelve

  One month earlier

  Emer walked into the bar and looked around, wondering if she’d still recognise Maeve Ryan after all these years. She hadn’t been here before. It was one of those new, characterless bars that seemed to be popping up across the city with alarming speed. Full of shiny young things with too much money and no taste. Emer wasn’t feeling particularly shiny today, and wished Maeve had suggested somewhere different, somewhere a bit less upbeat. Music pumped from speakers she couldn’t see, the sound echoing off the bare brick walls, thumping in time with the throbbing inside her head.

  ‘Emer?’

  A petite woman with elfin features and black hair cut into a severe bob was standing in front of her, smiling.

  ‘Maeve.’ Emer tried to smile back, not quite managing it. ‘God you look fantastic. I barely recognise you. Sorry, that came out wrong. Clearly, you’ve always been gorgeous.’

  ‘Liar.’ Maeve opened her arms and the two women hugged awkwardly.

  ‘Thanks for getting back to me,’ Emer said. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d want to hear from me.’

  In fact, she’d almost given up on Maeve. It was almost three months since Emer had found her on social media. Until yesterday, Maeve hadn’t reciprocated Emer’s follows or shown any sign that she might want to get in touch. Then, yesterday evening, Emer had received a text message from a number she didn’t recognise. The sender was Maeve, asking if Emer would like to meet up. Emer had called her immediately and they’d arranged to meet here, in this anonymous bar just off Eyre Square.

  Maeve said something, but Emer didn’t catch it.

  ‘Is there anywhere quieter we can go?’ Emer shouted. ‘I can’t hear myself think.’

  ‘There’s a conservatory through there,’ Maeve said. ‘No music. You go through and grab us a table. I’ll get the first round in.’

  The first round, Emer noted. Well, she was fine with that. It wasn’t as if she had anything better to be doing this evening. She’d driven to Galway this evening and, guessing the night might involve a few drinks, she’d booked herself into a cheap B&B in Salthill. Even if Maeve didn’t want to stay out too long, Emer knew that a night away from her mother’s cloying presence would do her the world of good.

  Emer gave Maeve her drink order before going into the conservatory, as instructed. She didn’t have to wait long before Maeve was back, weaving her way through the crowd, a glass in each hand.

  ‘One G&T,’ Maeve said, placing Emer’s drink in front of her. ‘Sláinte.’

  ‘I forgot to ask how you got my number,’ Emer said, after she’d taken a healthy slug of her drink.

  ‘Robert,’ Maeve said. ‘We’ve been doing a bit of work together. He hasn’t mentioned it? Well, I suppose there’s no reason to, really. I’m thinking about opening a second hotel and Robert’s coming in as a silent partner.’

  ‘Wow.’ Emer drank some more gin and tonic, trying not to feel woefully inadequate. While she was throwing her life down the pan, Maeve was successfully running one hotel and about to open another one. ‘That’s impressive.’

  ‘Not as impressive as it sounds,’ Maeve said. ‘I inherited the Lodge from my parents. When we left Ballincarraig, they had to start over. They built the Lodge up from nothing. It was the only thing that kept them going, really. Now they’re both gone, I feel a huge responsibility to keep it going. It wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. I was part of a drama group. I wanted to be an actor, but my parents put a lot of pressure on me to keep the hotel going. I didn’t feel as if I had a choice. And it’s not so bad, really. I’ve been doing it for too long to do something different now. So far, things have gone really well. Which is why I’m now in a position to expand.’

  Emer remembered the photos of the hotel on Maeve’s Twitter feed. A beautiful, waterfront hotel on the banks of the Dunkellin River near Clarinbridge, a small town outside Galway city. It was the sort of timeless, classic place she could see herself and Nikki going for a luxurious mini-break. If they were still together and if Emer had a lot of money which, at the moment, she didn’t.

  ‘Well I hope it continues to go well for you,’ she said, meaning it. ‘I’ve thought about you so much over the years, you know.’

  ‘I’ve thought about you too,’ Maeve said. ‘There were so many times I thought about trying to find you, but I always chickened out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Mam and Dad wouldn’t have forgiven me. I don’t know how much you remember from the weeks after Lucy disappeared, but they always felt Kitty wasn’t telling the truth about what had happened that night. They never forgave her. Or your parents.’

  ‘My parents?’

  ‘My dad thought your mother was protecting Kitty,’ Maeve said.

  The idea of Emer’s mother protecting anyone apart from herself was ridiculous. But even as she thought this, a memory came to her. One of many arguments between her parents during that time. Arguments that got worse in the weeks following Kitty’s death. Mostly, those arguments merged together in her memories. Except for one.

  Emer had been in bed, her eyes squeezed shut and her hands pressed over her ears, praying to a God she’d already stopped believing in. Begging the uncaring bastard to bring her sister back to life and stop her parents from screaming at each other.

  ‘This is all your fault.’

  Her father’s voice, cold and angry. And her mother shouting back: ‘We didn’t have a choice, remember? The girls were there that night.’

  The girls.

  Sitting here now, in the pub with Maeve, it occurred to Emer that if her mother had been protecting anyone, it was herself, not her daughter.

  ‘Sorry,’ Maeve said. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you by saying that.’

  ‘It’s fine.’ Emer shook her head, dismissing the memory and the thoughts that hovered around it. Her mother had many faults, but to think she had something to do with what had happened to Lucy Ryan was nothing short of crazy.

  ‘I was gutted when we moved away from Ballincarraig,’ Maeve said. ‘I didn’t know how my parents could do it. I kept thinking, what if Lucy came back and we weren’t there? How would she ever find us? But after a while, I realised a fresh start was what we all needed. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to revisit the past.’

  ‘So how did you end up going into business with Robert?’

  ‘We had a chamber of commerce event at the hotel,’ Maeve said. ‘Robert was the keynote speaker. After the event, he came and found me. We got talking and, somehow, I ended up telling him about my idea to open a new hotel. He was keen to get involved, so we met a few t
imes and before I knew it, we had a plan. Having Robert on board has been great. He’s hugely influential, as you know, and it’s no secret that you get ahead in this country because of who you know, not what you know.’

  There was a lump in Emer’s throat that she couldn’t get rid of, no matter how often she swallowed, and a sour feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘I had no idea you and he were so close,’ she said. ‘He never said a thing.’

  ‘He’s too kind for that,’ Maeve said. ‘You know what he’s like.’

  Emer nodded, but really she was wondering if she did know what Robert was like. Because if he’d been having business meetings with Maeve Ryan and was planning to open a hotel with her, surely he’d have mentioned this to Emer at some point?

  ‘He’s really inspirational,’ Maeve said. ‘I didn’t realise he did so much work with the Travelling community. It’s rare to meet someone in politics who actually cares about the underprivileged. I mean, I know loads of politicians pretend to care, but with Robert I get the feeling he really believes in the work he does. Did you know that, last year alone, he’s secured apprenticeships for sixteen people from Travelling backgrounds? He’s even persuaded me to get involved with the programme. We’re going to run an apprenticeship scheme when the new hotel opens, recruiting entirely from the Travelling community. I’m a bit nervous about it, but Robert’s promised he’ll make sure it’s a success. Anyway, enough about all that. I’m sure you know way more about that side of his work than I do.’

  ‘I guess I take it for granted,’ Emer said. The truth was, Robert rarely told her anything about his charity work. She’d known more about it when she was younger, before Robert and her mother got married. Back then, Ursula had been working as Robert’s PA. Emer remembered the steady stream of young women, in and out of the office on work placements. Ursula had done her best to ignore what she called ‘Robert’s girls’, never bothering to hide her disapproval of their presence in her sacred office space. After the wedding, Ursula stopped working, and Emer had barely thought about those young women since.

  ‘I was sorry to hear about your dad,’ she said, keen to change the subject.

  ‘Thanks,’ Maeve said. ‘It was a relief in the end, to be honest. He’d been sick for a long time. Not just from the cancer, which is what actually got him in the end. But depressed, too. He got really bad in later years, especially after Mum died. They never recovered from what happened, you know.’

  ‘Of course they didn’t,’ Emer said. ‘How could anyone recover from something like that?’

  ‘It’s the not knowing,’ Maeve said. ‘It’s a form of torture. You don’t know how much I’d give to find out what happened to her. And if I ever did find out, I’d make damn sure whoever took her pays for what they did to my family.’

  She nodded at Emer’s glass. ‘Your drink’s nearly finished. Let me get you a top-up.’

  ‘You got the last one,’ Emer said. ‘This is my round. What are you having?’

  ‘Well just one more then,’ Maeve said. ‘I don’t normally drink during the week, but it’s worth celebrating being back in touch, don’t you think?’

  One drink turned into several, as the two women caught up on all the news they’d missed out on over the years. Sharing gossip about people they’d once known, reminiscing about the things they’d got up to before their worlds fell apart and they lost touch with each other.

  At some point, Maeve asked about Kitty and Emer found herself telling Maeve everything that had happened in London. It might have been the drink, but Maeve seemed to take the sighting seriously, especially when Emer told her about Kitty coming into her hotel bedroom the night she was supposed to have drowned.

  ‘What did your mother say at the time?’ Maeve asked.

  ‘She didn’t believe me,’ Emer said. ‘No one did. They all said I’d imagined it. And that’s what Robert and Ursula think now as well. They think I’ve lost the plot.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Maeve asked.

  ‘I’ve got a cousin in England who’s an investigative journalist,’ Emer said. ‘I wanted to contact her and see if she’d help, but Ursula had a hissy fit. So Robert stepped in and offered to help. He’s going to hire a private detective.’

  ‘If he’s hired a detective,’ Maeve said, ‘then he must believe you, right?’

  ‘I think it’s more a case of proving me wrong,’ Emer said. ‘But maybe he thinks there’s a chance I might be right.’

  ‘Of course there’s a chance.’ Maeve nodded at Emer’s empty glass. ‘One more for the road?’

  ‘Maybe just a soft drink?’ Emer said.

  ‘Good idea,’ Maeve said. ‘Tell you what? Instead of staying here and getting plastered, why don’t we go and get something to eat? That way we can carry on speaking for a bit longer. It’s so good to see you after all this time. And I’d love to hear more about what you’ve been doing with your life.’

  ‘That’ll be a short conversation,’ Emer said. ‘But going for something to eat sounds like a great idea.’

  They found a tapas bar near the docks and spent the next two hours eating food while they shared memories of the sisters they’d lost. By the time the evening drew to a close, Emer felt if she’d found a part of herself she hadn’t realised was missing. As they left the restaurant, Maeve made Emer promise to keep in touch.

  ‘It was so lovely seeing you again,’ she said. ‘We’ve both already lost too much. Let’s not lose each other again, okay?’

  ‘Definitely not,’ Emer said. ‘You know, I was scared that you might think I was a freak.’

  ‘Why on earth would I think that?’

  ‘All that stuff about seeing Kitty,’ Emer said. ‘Most people I’ve told about it think there’s something wrong with me.’

  ‘Well I don’t think that,’ Maeve said. ‘You know what you saw, Emer. Don’t let anyone else try to convince you otherwise. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ Emer’s eyes pricked with unexpected tears. Suddenly, for the first time since she’d split up with Nikki, she didn’t feel entirely alone.

  Thirteen

  By the time Tuesday came around, Dee knew she wasn’t coping. Her anxiety about a future without Jake was increasing as each day passed. When she woke up, the urge to stay in bed, pull the duvet over her head and hide away from the world was so strong she almost succumbed to it. In the end, she forced herself to get up and have a shower.

  This restless anxiety and creeping depression were relatively new. When she was younger, she’d never felt this way. It was only in the last few years, after the break-up of her marriage and the deaths of both her parents, that she’d started to suffer these bouts of blackness. She’d let herself believe that lifestyle changes – drinking less, exercising more, allowing herself to fall in love again – had fixed the problem, but this morning she admitted to herself, for the first time, that this might be something she couldn’t fix by herself.

  The logical part of her brain knew there was nothing wrong with admitting there was a problem. Especially these days, when every time she opened a newspaper or listened to a podcast she was confronted with some famous person talking about their battles with mental health problems. Despite this, she couldn’t help feeling ashamed. As if it was some weakness inside her, and if she was a stronger, more resilient person she would be better able to deal with life’s knocks.

  She’d grown up believing she could do anything, that she was the sort of person who could achieve whatever she set her mind to. Discovering in middle age that her own mind could refuse to act the way she wanted it to was disconcerting, to say the least.

  When she’d spoken to Louise about it on Sunday, Louise had advised Dee to make an appointment with her doctor. At the time, Dee had agreed that was a good idea but, so far, she still hadn’t made the appointment. Maybe she’d do that later this morning. First, she needed to get some work done, because the book she was working on wasn’t going to write itself.

  Somehow, she found the f
ocus to get two solid hours of writing done. By the time she’d finished, she was feeling more upbeat. Her mood improved even further when she checked her emails and saw a new one from Leonard. The email had two photos attached to it. Different shots of the woman called Annie. In the first photo, she was sitting at the bar in the Town of Ramsgate talking to Nick, the landlord. In the next photo, Annie had her head turned away from Nick and was smiling at someone, or something, out of the shot.

  Is this her? Leonard had typed beneath the final photo.

  Yes, Dee replied, That’s her.

  Leonard’s reply came back five minutes later.

  What do you want me to do now?

  In her mind, Dee could hear Louise’s voice, telling her how bonkers this whole thing was. At best, a waste of time. At worst, an unnecessary intrusion into another person’s private life. Yet Dee’s gut wouldn’t let her give it up. Not just yet.

  Follow her, she typed. Find out as much as you can and let me know asap.

  She thought about phoning Emer, then changed her mind. At this time of day, Emer would be working and probably wouldn’t be able to answer Dee’s call. Besides, Dee didn’t see any point in giving her cousin false hope. There was every chance this woman would be exactly who she said she was. It was better to wait until Dee had as much information as possible before giving Emer an update.

  Instead, she opened the email she’d received from Emer last night and read it again. Emer had replied to the list of questions Dee had sent her. She’d asked Emer to give her some background information about her parents and stepfather, as well as anything Emer could tell her about Lucy Ryan’s family.

  In the email, Emer told Dee that her mother had married her second husband in 1999. Which was just two years after Emer’s father had walked out on the family. Dee knew that divorce had been very difficult in Ireland back then, but Emer hadn’t given any explanation for how her mother had been able to marry again so quickly.