Page 121 of 56 Days
Moments likethis.
She wants the truth of what happened that day for her mother, before the woman’s time runs out. She was never the same after that fateful day, after the knock on the door that revealed two strange men outside, one in a Garda uniform, one in a dark suit, both of them looking apologetic and solemn.
I’m afraid we need to ask your son some questions.
It had broken something in her mother’s soul that could never be repaired, that had somehow only grown more broken since.
It’s about the local boy who went missing, Paul Kelleher.
But Ciara also needs the truth for herself.
It may not bother Siobhán—or her sister might do a good job of pretending it doesn’t—but for Ciara, the not knowing is a torment. Both boys had different stories; in each, the other was the ringleader, the real killer, the bad seed that started it all. The Gardaí had a third: who started it didn’t matter, because they’d both contributed to the boy’s death.
Is Shane in? Could you ask him to comedown?
The jury considered everything—how quickly Oliver had let go of his lies, his tortured tears in interviews, the bloodstained NASAT-shirt—and decided that whatever had happened had happened because Shane took the lead. Perhaps this was helped by the fact that their family lived in a house in Mill River set aside for social housing, that her father was one of thelong-termunemployed and that, before any of this had happened, Shane had struggled to concentrate at school and been held back a year. Meanwhile, Oliver’s family occupied one of only six detached, corner houses on the estate that came with an extra acre, he had two doctors for parents and one of his character references was the parish priest. He evenlookedbetter—clean, neat, and handsome compared to Shane’s pale pudginess and spray of angry red acne. The judge punished Shane with a sentence of no less than twenty years and promised Oliver he’d be out at eighteen, which by then was less than five.
Ciara could remember the foreign stillness hanging over the house hours after the sentencing, her lying on the camp bed in Siobhán’s room because for months she’d been unable to sleep in a room alone, knowing they were both wide awake, staring into the dark.
“What happened?” she’d asked her sister.
“Your brother murdered someone,” came the flat reply.
Ever since, whenever anyone got close, Ciara felt something clamp down inside of her, something sharp and dangerous, like abear-trap. Fearing that there’s something in her soul that lies in wait, a part of her unknown even to herself, a dark,barbed-wirethread through her DNA that could make awful things happen if the opportunity arose.
How can she be sure she isn’t like him?
She keeps a screenshot on her phone of a quote by, supposedly, Abraham Lincoln:Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want the most. Maybe that’s true, but discipline has never been her problem. It’s fear she struggles with. She thinkscouragemight be choosing between what you want now and what you want the most, because what she wants now is to walk away, to shut this down, to close the doors. To retreat. To stay in the place where she feels safe and secure. In this moment, that’s nowhere near Dublin, or KB Studios, or Oliver St Ledger.
But she needs to know what happened that day.
Exactlywhat happened.
Who or what Shane was then. Who or what he might be now, if he had lived.
And here is her chance.
“Yeah,” she says. “But not as good as Kennedy Space Center.”
18 Days Ago
When Oliver awakes, the bedroom is bright with early morning sun and something is different about it. He pulls himself up onto his elbows, looks around. It was messier last night, he thinks; there’s no clothes strewn about the floor now. The air is odorless and the window has been opened—he can hear the chirping of birds outside. He’s grateful for the glass of water he finds on his bedside table and gulps it down greedily, trying to banish the layers of acrid dryness that coat his throat.
Noises, in the kitchen: running water, the pump of the coffee machine, the tinkling of a spoon inside a cup.
She stayed here last night then. All night.
He hopes that’s a good sign.
Oliver puts on fresh clothes, acutely aware that this would be his fourth day in a row wearing the same ones otherwise, wincing at the pain in his elbow and then vaguely recalling walloping it on something last night.
He quickly brushes his teeth and splashes his face with water in the bathroom before he goes into the main room to meet her.
“Good morning,” she says.
“Good morning.”
She’s sitting on the couch, drinking coffee. Perched on it, really, back ramrod straight. She looks tense.Braced.
