The Escape Read online

  Now, as she reaches for a baby bottle and presses it to her doll’s lips, I step into the narrow bathroom and force myself to look into the mirror. I touch a hand to my own hair. The vivid red has drained the colour from my face and I look pallid and tired, but when I hook Helen’s glasses over my ears I look more like her than I did twelve hours ago. My nose is longer and wider than hers and my chin is narrower but our eyes are the same murky green, our lips generous and full. If the customs officer gives the passport photo more than a cursory glance there’s no chance we’ll make it onto the ferry. If he asks Li-Li her name there’s no way she’ll say Ben. It’s a risk, but so is staying in the UK. I pull on a tonged curl, then release it. It pings back into place. Time to go.

  Chapter 33

  I warned you, Jo. I told you not to sleep. I said something awful would happen if you slept, didn’t I? Only you didn’t listen, did you? I could have taken your daughter from you as you slept alone in your bed, completely oblivious to the fact that I was in the house. I could have swept Elise up in my arms and spirited her away and you’d never have seen her again. Only your daughter isn’t as stupid as you, Jo. She woke up when I let myself in. She stared at me from between the bars of her cot – her eyes wide and startled – as I stood at the entrance to her bedroom. As I crossed the room she tried to climb out of her cot, to escape, but she lost her footing and tumbled towards the ground. I caught her. I saved her from harm. And I would have taken her if she hadn’t cried out.

  PART TWO

  Chapter 34

  The iron hisses, releasing a cloud of steam as Mary lifts it from the crisp cotton sheet and places it in its holder on the right of the ironing board. She grips the edges of the sheet and, in a practised move, slides it off the board. She agitates the cotton with her thumbs so the edges of the sheet align near her feet, then she folds the sheet in two. She folds it again and again, until it becomes a tight, neat square. She runs the iron over it once more, then, with one eye on the clock above the fireplace, carefully places it on the pile to her left.

  It’s 3.12 p.m. There is no time for a cup of tea today but she still has a few minutes to spare before the children come out of school so she darts into the hallway and stands still, listening. There are five rooms in Seamount House B&B but business is quiet in February and only one room is occupied. She hasn’t seen Mr Hogan since breakfast at 8 a.m. He told her he’d be driving to Drogheda for business and would return in the early afternoon but she hasn’t seen him yet. No matter. She leaves the hall and enters the kitchen. Her slippers make a soft swooshing sound on the granite tiles as she crosses the floor. Once in the utility room at the back of the house she removes the apron she’s been wearing all day and drops it into a laundry basket. She selects a clean apron from a pile on the shelf, pulls it over her head and ties it behind her back, then reaches for the plastic basket of window-cleaning products.

  She glances at her watch. 3.14 p.m. She pauses at the mirror in the hallway. She fingers the pearls at her neck, a gift from Patrick many years ago, then touches a hand to her hair and smooths down a short blonde strand that’s standing to attention on the crown of her head. She sweeps her fringe across her forehead and pats it into place then tilts her head forward to examine her roots. She grimaces. Only 67 and pretty much 100 per cent grey, just like her mother at the same age. She’ll have to ring Siobhán and bring her appointment forward by a week. She won’t have the other ladies gossiping about how she’s letting herself go. She can’t abide being talked about. She had enough of that 32 years ago when she couldn’t walk down the street without hearing, ‘Oh, poor Mrs Byrne,’ ‘God bless her soul’ or ‘It’s a terrible thing that happened.’

  She looks at the clock again – 3.16 p.m.

  She darts into the dining room and carefully removes the ornaments from the sill then shifts the net curtain along its wire so it hangs at the side of the window. There are three panels of glass – two side panels that can be opened and a larger central panel that can’t. Mary opens one of the side windows and a gust of cold February air blasts into the room. It’s expensive to heat such a large house and it will take at least an hour for the dining room to warm up again once she’s closed the window, but Mary doesn’t mind. It’s a small price to pay for the excited chatter of the children as they skip and run down the road.

  Mary reaches into the basket, pulls out the glass cleaner and, holding it about half a foot from the window, squeezes the trigger. The glass mists instantly. She squeezes again. The sound of a child’s laughter drifts through the open window. Mary squeezes the trigger again. Is there a more beautiful sound?

  As shouts, cries, giggles and mumbles join the laughter, Mary reaches for her yellow polishing cloth and swipes at the mist covering the window. A child’s face appears. It’s little Aoife Flannigan from three streets down. She looks so smart in her royal-blue sweatshirt with the little yellow crest near her collarbone.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Byrne!’ She jumps and waves. Her mother, Sinead, appears behind her. She’s six months pregnant and her grey woollen coat is straining at the seams.

  ‘How’re ye, Mary?’

  ‘Grand. And yourself?’

  ‘Fat. And getting fatter.’ She pats her bump and laughs.

  Aoife and Sinead continue on down the hill, hand in hand. The little girl looks up at her mother and says something but it’s carried away by the wind and Mary can only watch and speculate as Sinead’s face lights up. But then little Aiden O’Connor and his twin brother Declan appear and Mary nods and smiles and asks them how they’re doing even though her heart is twisting in her chest. And then there’s Margaret Ryan with her three grandchildren. She’s waggling her finger at the eldest, Fionnán, and the other two are laughing at him behind her back, jumping around and pulling faces. Margaret doesn’t stop to say hello to Mary but she does raise a hand and nod as she walks past. She looks tired and at the end of her tether but she doesn’t know how lucky she is. Mary would give anything to walk a gaggle of grandchildren home from school and then sit them around her kitchen table, listening to their silly stories as they fill their bellies with the contents of her fridge.

  But the smile doesn’t slip from her face as she squirts and wipes, buffs and polishes. By the time the last little straggler strolls past the B&B Mary’s front windows are gleaming. But then they always are. There isn’t much chance for them to get dirty when they’re cleaned five times a week.

  As the street falls silent Mary reaches for the window catch and pulls it closed. She returns the basket of cleaning products to the shelf in the utility room and fills the kettle in the kitchen, then she climbs the stairs to the room at the top of the house. Niamh is waiting for her, as she always is, in the silver-framed photograph on the dressing table – always smiling, eyes filled with love. Mary presses her fingers to her lips then touches the photograph. Time to go and see her daughter.

  Mary pulls her hat down over her ears and tugs at the zipper of her thick winter coat, but it’s already up around her neck. A thermal vest, a dress, thick tights, two cardigans, her warmest winter boots and a scarf and she still feels as though the wind and rain are biting into her bones.

  The streets are deserted, the schoolchildren long gone. Everyone else is at work or else sheltering in the warmth of their living rooms. The wind is strong, the sea an angry grey mouth that roars at her from the bottom of Main Road. There are always people on the beach – all through the year – walking their dogs, driving their cars or taking in the sea air, but even the gulls have abandoned it today.

  Mary Byrne feels like the last woman left on earth as she gets into her car but there was no way she could have remained in her house today. Even if she was laid up with flu like poor Mr Carey, she’d still find a way out of the house. It’s the 21st of February. Nothing and no one could keep her inside.

  Mary bows her head and crosses herself as she pushes at the heavy iron gate and enters the churchyard. The wind has whipped up the fallen leaves and the ground is li
ttered with their crisp brown skeletons. They crunch underfoot as she makes her way through the graveyard. She pauses beside a grave and crosses herself again.

  Sacred to the memory of

  Conor Michael Healy

  21 September 1925 – 4 November 1995

  ‘Whosoever shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in Heaven.’

  And also of his wife

  Ciara

  5 July 1928 – 31 December 1995

  Seven weeks. That’s how long Mary’s mother had managed to hold onto life after her husband died. Everyone said it was of a broken heart and it was – figuratively and literally. The doctor said she’d had a heart attack in her sleep. Mary had been the one to find her the next morning, lying on her side, one hand reaching across the empty side of the bed as though reaching for her lost husband.

  Mary says a short prayer and continues onwards, clutching the ornamental rose bush she bought the previous day to her chest. She put it in two plastic bags before she left the house, to protect it from the wind. She prefers bringing plants to the graves. Flowers die so quickly and it’s always so heartbreaking to remove them from their vases, their stems dry, their heads bowed and faded.

  She hurries onwards, past the grave of old Mrs McDonagh who died four weeks earlier, still a mound rather than flat, and heads towards the back of the church. She slows her pace as she draws closer to the grave she is looking for. It happens every time she visits it, as though grief weighs down her boots.

  In loving memory of

  Niamh Maria Byrne

  Beloved daughter of Mary and Patrick

  2 January 1981 – 21 February 1983

  And also of

  Patrick Byrne

  Beloved husband of Mary, father of Niamh

  25 August 1947 – 12 April 1988

  Mary’s knees creak as she crouches down beside the grave. She crosses herself, says a prayer, then touches her fingers to her lips. She presses the kiss against her husband’s name then presses her fingers to her lips again and kisses her daughter. Thirty-two years to the day since she lost Niamh. They say time heals all wounds, but some wounds are too deep, too violently inflicted to ever recover from. Mary has half a heart. It was smitten in two the day Niamh died, then cauterised the day she found out who was responsible. She cannot remember Patrick leading the Garda into the dining room as she sat at the window staring, unseeingly, into the street. She cannot remember the words the Garda used. But she can remember the pain that sliced her in two. She can remember the scream.

  Chapter 35

  ‘Boat!’ Elise calls from the back of the car as we inch closer to the ferry. ‘Boat, Mummy!’

  ‘Yes!’ I glance at the rear-view mirror. There’s a line of cars behind us, stretching all the way back to Fishguard harbour. I can’t see any police cars but that doesn’t reassure me. They could be in an unmarked car or already on board, waiting.

  The car in front of me pulls forward and enters the mouth of the ferry. As it does, a man in a high-visibility jacket appears and waves his arms at me. For one terrifying moment, I’m convinced he’s a policeman, but then he points across the gloomy bowels of the ferry, directing me to park up at the end of a short queue of cars. My heart is in my mouth as I turn off the engine and it takes me several attempts to undo my seat belt.

  ‘Mummy,’ Elise says as I click the buckle open and lift her out of her car seat, ‘bad smell.’

  She’s right. The car port stinks of petrol fumes. It catches in the back of my throat as I weave through the parked cars and head for the stairs with my daughter in my arms and the ferry vibrating beneath my feet. With my bright-red curly hair and Helen’s spare black-rimmed glasses I feel horribly conspicuous, but there’s no time to go back to the car for a hat. I need to find a place to hide as soon as possible. Elise squirms and arches her back, desperate to be put down, as I duck into the stairwell. I climb the steps at a jog, my weight on the balls of my feet. My breathing is laboured and my heart is pounding in my chest even before I reach the top of the first flight but a clanging sound from below spurs me on. Someone else is coming up the stairs. I can hear their footsteps on the metal steps and the muffled voices – male and female.

  ‘Mummy!’ Elise squeals as I speed past deck 8. Her voice seems to bounce off the walls and it’s all I can do not to press a hand over her mouth. Instead I whisper for her to shh and increase my pace. The muscles in my thighs are burning now and I’m sucking in air in noisy gasps but I have to keep going. I studied the map of the ferry this morning and I know exactly where we need to hide.

  Just when I think I can’t take another step I reach deck 9. The narrow doorway opens up into a vast space, with signs pointing to the canteen, cinema, children’s play area and the shop. Everywhere I look there are people. Families, couples, pensioners and children – queuing for food, peering out the windows, shovelling food into their faces, playing cards at tables and feeding coins into slot machines. The cacophony of voices, bleeps, bangs, clanks and clunks overwhelms me and I feel a sharp stab of fear. How do I escape if something goes wrong? From studying the map I know where the lifeboats are but there are so many people on board. We’d be crushed in the stampede if something went wrong.

  ‘Excuse me.’ A hand on my shoulder makes me jump and I spin round, expecting to see Paula or a policeman standing behind me. Instead an elderly man in a tweed jacket gives me a yellow-toothed smile. ‘Could we get past, please?’ Beside him is an equally elderly woman, her hand in his.

  ‘Yes, sorry, of course.’

  I step to the side and, as I do, I spot the sign for the toilets.

  Fifteen minutes. That’s how long we’ve been hiding in a toilet cubicle. Every minute has felt like an hour. Elise demanded we leave the moment she finished her wee, yanking at the lock with Ben’s jeans still pooled around her feet. I distracted her by launching into a whispered rendition of ‘The Wheels on the Bus’. When her attention waned, I slid all the silver bracelets off my wrist and gave them to her to play with, repeatedly shushing her whenever her babble grew unbearably loud.

  ‘Elise,’ I say now, then tense as the main door creaks open.

  ‘Sssh.’ I press a finger to my lips and hold two fingers of my other hand above my head like ears. ‘Quiet mice.’

  My heartbeat thumps in my ears, almost blocking out the soft squeak of shoes on the tiles beyond the door, then the cubicle door beside us slams open, shaking the dividing wall. Seconds later I hear the sound of the lock being drawn. Logically I know it could be any one of a hundred different passengers on the ferry but fear has too tight a grip on me for me to be able to think clearly. The main door creaks open again and a new sound fills the small toilet, a slow clip-clopping, and I keep my eyes trained on the gap under the toilet door. What kind of shoe is going to appear behind it – a shiny policeman’s shoe, a man’s boot or a woman’s high-heeled shoe?

  ‘I know you’re in here!’ says a woman’s voice.

  I press my fingers to Elise’s lips and widen my eyes, urging her to remain quiet. Normally she’d yank at my hand and laugh. Not now. Now she goes very, very still as she stares at me with large, frightened eyes, my bracelets dangling from her fingers. She’s picked up on my fear and is as scared as I am.

  ‘I know you’re hiding,’ the woman says.

  A pair of high heels appears beneath the toilet door then BAM! The door rattles on its hinges. Elise jumps so violently my hand falls from her mouth. The bracelets tumble to the floor and her startled cry fills the air.

  ‘Shit! Sorry, sorry! I was just …’ The boots disappear from beneath the door and the wall of the cubicle next door vibrates at exactly the same time that two small voices explode with laughter.

  ‘We’re in here, Mummy!’

  ‘Josh, Isaac, out! Game’s over.’

  I hear the sound of a lock being pulled back and the scuffle of trainers on tiles as the two boys are yanked out of the cubicle.

  ‘You didn’t find
us!’ one of them cries jubilantly.

  ‘Out!’ Elise wriggles off my lap with tears in her eyes and slams both palms against the door. ‘Out!’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ the woman says, over my daughter’s shouts. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. I didn’t think anyone else was in here.’

  ‘It’s OK. I … um …’ I stand up and straighten my clothes. ‘Is the ferry on the move? Have we left the dock?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’

  I pick up my bracelets, slide the lock away from the catch and open the door. Elise barrels past me and almost smacks straight into one of the small boys.

  ‘Sorry!’ I usher her out of the way and through the door, without making eye contact with the other mother, and down a corridor. I almost cry with relief as I catch a glimpse of the view through the window. We are out at sea.

  ‘Sea!’ Elise kneels on her seat and slaps her palms against the window as I wrestle my mobile phone charger into the power point beneath the table. ‘Birds! Clouds! Look, Mummy. Look!’

  ‘Shh. Yes, I know.’

  The woman at the table next to us has glanced round three times since we sat down. She’s older than me, early fifties maybe, and her two children have headphones on and are staring intently at the tablets on the table in front of them. Her husband is reading the paper and has thwarted every attempt she’s made at conversion with a grunt or a shrug of the shoulders.

  Elise notices the woman watching her and stops bouncing on her seat. She smiles shyly then bangs on the window with the palm of her hand. ‘Sea!’

  ‘Yes.’ The woman catches my eye and smiles. ‘It’s very grey, isn’t it?’