I stand up before she can ask anything else. My head hurts, my mouth feels dry, my breath tinny. “I don’t know about you, but I’m wrecked all of a sudden. You ready to go?”
“Yeah, of course.” She’s startled and she drops her purse, bends to pick it up. I take a deep breath, force my heart rate down.
Out on the sidewalk, I say, “Griz, I can’t tell you what a pleasure it’s been working with you. Thank you for everything.” I give her a hug.
“You too,” she says. She watches me for a minute. “And listen, Maggie, I’m going to find out, about Erin, for you. I want you to know that. I’d like it to be now, so we can find Niamh. But even if it takes another twenty years, I’m going to do it for you. I’m going to work this case.” She smiles, gives me a little salute, and takes off.
28
1993
By late October, there was nothing more on Erin, and I had become all too used to the rhythm of the Dublin pubs. At four o’clock, it was old men, exhausted-looking tourists, and students going for a pint after class, depending on the pub. By six, it was a respectable crowd of workers, couples meeting up. The really touristy pubs served a lot of food between five and seven, the rest handed out sandwiches to drinkers to line their stomachs, but things tended to clear out between seven and eight for a bit and then filled in again with after-dinner drinkers and students out for pints or, on the weekends, a night on the town.
Then you settled in.
I had come to love Dublin at night. It wasn’t romantic, exactly, not Paris or even New York. When I think of Dublin now, I think of empty stretches of sidewalk, skittering leaves at dusk, sideways rain. Lights on the Liffey. The looming darkness of the Dublin mountains on one side and the wide emptiness of the sea on the other. The sudden burst of sharp yeasty warmth that hit you when you got inside the door of a pub.
I spent a lot of time sitting in warm pubs, thinking, counting hours, talking to people I’d never talk to again, old men and girls made up to look old enough to order pints, and married couples out for a treat. I listened to a lot of sessions, the circular rhythms of traditional tunes taking me out and back again, letting me out, reeling me in.
But the waiting was getting to me.
The phone rang one night at the house and when I answered it, there was only silence on the other end.
“Hello?” I couldn’t hear anything but static.
“Who’s there?” I shouted. “Erin? Erin?”
When I turned around, Daisy had come out of her room and she was standing there with a terrified expression on her face.
“Are you all right?” Her eyes were wide. “Was that…?”
“I don’t think so. I thought…”
She went back to her room.
One night, I drank at Brogan’s on Dame Street and then walked around Temple Bar, tipsy and sad, hoping I’d see Conor, but he never materialized from the darkness, never stepped out of the café. I went home, fell into a drunken, dreamless sleep that left me with a headache and a healthy dose of self-disdain the next morning.
Emer and Daisy watched me warily that week. When they asked how the investigation was going, I answered with platitudes about the long game and having patience.
I kept looking for Brenda’s family in the phone book.
I was walking home from the pubs one evening when I got the feeling that I was being followed. It was still pretty early, people heading for home after work, and I slowed down right around Bolands Mills and bent down to tie my shoe. When I turned my head, I saw someone walking quickly on the other side of the street.
I turned onto Barrow Street and walked straight along to the house. It was dark; Emer and Daisy were out. I went inside and, leaving the lights off, I looked out the narrow panes of glass next to the door.
He didn’t come onto Gordon Street, but I saw him stop at the corner of Barrow and find a doorway to turn into. He stood there, his back pressed against the door, and casually lit a cigarette. He didn’t look in the direction of the house.
I rummaged in the drawer next to the kitchen sink and took out a Phillips-head screwdriver. I tucked it into my coat pocket. Outside, I stopped in front of the house for a minute and buttoned my jacket up around my neck, to give him time to see me, and then I set out again, walking east on Gordon Street.
There weren’t many people out and about now, and when I turned left, I saw him walking slowly, the cigarette a distant red glow. He was keeping his distance.
I was scared now and I thought of finding a phone booth and calling Roly to come meet me. But I was worried he’d take off if he saw me make a call and it felt like this might be my only chance to figure out who he was and why he was following me.
I turned onto Irishtown Road, wanting to stay where there was more traffic for a little bit so I could think. Finally I decided to try to draw him out. I turned down one of the little streets just off Irishtown Road and waited to make sure he was behind me before I made another turn and then sprinted to the end of the street and darted into one of the lanes. There was a knee-high cement wall and I hid behind it, waiting to see what he’d do.
He wasn’t stupid. He didn’t sprint after me and stand on the corner looking in both directions. He just came down the street, walking very quickly, still smoking the cigarette. He looked the opposite way down the street, toward a little shrine to the Virgin Mary, and then reversed direction and walked past my lane. I looked up at the windows above me. The lights were blazing in most of the houses. I was pretty sure someone would come out if I screamed.
I waited until he was almost to me and then I swung out of my hiding place holding the screwdriver in front of me. “Why are you following me? Did you know Erin?” I asked him.
He barely started. He was young, close to my age, with thick dark hair and a pudgy face. He was wearing a dark overcoat and underneath I could see a light shirt collar peeking out.
He watched me for a long moment, his body relaxed.
“I think you’ve got it wrong, miss,” he said in a quiet, controlled voice. Dublin accent. “I’m not following you. I’m just walking home from the office. Taking a stroll, like.”
“You’ve been following me. I recognize you,” I told him. “Who are you? Why are you following me? Did you know Erin?”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about. I’d take care with that, if I were you.” He nodded to the screwdriver, then he winked at me and walked off, slowly and deliberately, in the direction of Irishtown Road.
When I start high school, I think Erin and I are going to get close again. We’re riding the same bus and I assume we’ll sit together the way we did the year we were in junior high with each other.
But when I get to the bus stop, she’s already there and she’s already talking to Jessica. She says hi and asks me if I’m ready, but when we get on the bus she and Jessica sit together and immediately start whispering.
I walk into the building alone.
The first couple of weeks are fine. Once in a while, Erin and Jessica talk to me on the bus. They sit in a group with the boys in our neighborhood, Brian and Chris and Devin and Derek. They make fun of each other and talk about our teachers, about how they dress and how lame they are.
Devin O’Brien is telling a story about a party his older brother, Greg, had at their house, about how out of hand it got. Brian tells about how his older brother, Frank, lied to their parents about where he was and then his dad took the dog for a walk on the beach and found him passed out in a dinghy by the club pavilion. They’re all laughing.