I stand up and take my coat off the arm of the chair to show her I’m going. But I watch Gary Curran’s face and I’m aware of Roly next to me. “Mr. Curran, is there anything you can tell us that might help us? You worked for the forestry service, for Coillte, in 1993, is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you use a spade? In your work?” I hold my breath.
“Yeah.” He shifts his weight from foot to foot and I can see that standing is making him uncomfortable. “That was my job, digging holes.”
The nurse moves toward me and I glance at Roly. He nods. Go for it. “Mr. Curran, if there is anything you can tell us, we would really appreciate it.”
“Sorry. My mother is tired.” He turns and walks out of the room. I can hear his footsteps disappear into the front of the house. His mother looks up at us, confused.
“Mrs. Curran,” I say, “we’re going now. It was lovely to see you again. I’m so sorry you’re not well.”
She tries to smile, but waves instead. I can see in her eyes that the pain’s got her. “Yes,” she says. “Nice.”
Gary Curran is waiting for us in the hallway.
“I’m sorry about your illness, too,” I tell him.
He frowns. “It’s hepatitis. I got it from a needle in Thailand.”
Roly’s uncomfortable. I can feel it, but I force myself to stay calm.
I gamble. “Your mother knew something about my cousin’s disappearance. Something she didn’t tell me. Can you tell me what it was? It might be very important. They can’t do anything to you now, the Guards.” I glance at Roly. “They won’t do anything to you. You know that. I’m so sorry you’re ill, but you could help us solve this. I don’t know if I can describe how much it would mean to my uncle, and to me, to know what happened.”
The nurse makes a cluck-clucking sound behind me. There’s a mechanical humming somewhere in the house. Raindrops are pinging on the roof.
He looks up at me and I can see his impulse to lie overridden by something else. He shrugs, as if to say, What does it matter now? And he starts to talk.
“I followed her. I used to do that, when I was younger. I got in trouble for it and my mother knew. She was very … She tried to stop me from doing it, but she couldn’t always. The girl, your … cousin. She left the house pretty early and I watched her out the window.”
He takes a deep breath. Just that much has worn him out.
“She walked down towards the lodge and I thought that I had to go to work anyway, so I would just walk that way and I could follow her. I could … watch her through my binoculars. I liked to do that, I had a whole … If I tried to explain, you wouldn’t understand.”
“So you followed her?” I can feel it, the knowledge that what’s coming next is important.
“Yes. She walked down by the lodge and the bus came in. I thought she was going to get on it, but she didn’t. She kept walking up the Military Road. Fast. I followed her. I had my spade and everything so if anyone came I could pretend that I was working. And I watched, I watched her walking toward the walking paths, like. And—” He breaks off and lets out a terrible rattling cough. When he picks up again, his voice is hoarse. “I kept following her. She kept going up the path, like she was looking for someone or something.
“I knew a place where I could sit and watch her, away from the path. And when I got up there, I saw her walking away from the path, off into the trees. But then there was a man. I think he must have followed her up, too, and I watched him coming towards her on the path, waving like he knew her. They talked for a little bit.”
“And then?” I’m holding my breath. This could be it.
“I don’t know because I stopped looking.”
“Why did you stop looking?”
He takes a deep breath.
“Because someone was coming.”
Something clicks in my brain. Someone was coming.
He sits back on the couch and runs a hand through his hair. There’s a thin film of sweat on his face.
We’re all silent. I can feel Roly and me waiting.
“It was a girl. She was talking to herself. In some other language. At first I thought there were two people and I put the binoculars away and started digging but she came up the path and it was just her. There was something wrong with her. When she saw me, she gave me a really weird look and muttered something and kept walking. I waited until she was gone and then I dropped my tools and tried to find your … your cousin. And I couldn’t, so I went up a bit higher but I still couldn’t find her.”
Roly says, “Was she German? This girl you saw?”
“Might be. Yeah, I think that was the language. I don’t know for sure.”
“When did you hear that Erin was missing?” I ask him.
“I don’t remember. Mam said the Guards came to see her and she asked if I had seen anything. I couldn’t tell her, could I, because then she’d know I followed her. But I think she knew I had seen something. The Guards interviewed me.” He looks up at Roly. “You interviewed me, but I couldn’t tell you because then I would have to tell you I followed her. That would have gotten me in trouble.”
The nurse steps forward and hands him a glass of water. He looks exhausted, spent. We don’t have any more time with him.
But we need to push him a bit further. “What did the man look like, Mr. Curran?” Roly asks. “Had you seen him before? What did he look like?”
“I’d never seen him before. At least, I don’t think so. I never really got a look at his face.” I feel my stomach drop. “He had dark hair. He was pretty tall, and he was wearing something brown, like a brown tweed jacket, or maybe leather. That’s all I could see.”
I lean forward and try to meet his eyes, but he keeps looking down at the ground. “Mr. Curran, when you went back, was your spade still there?”
“No,” he says. “It was gone. I had to pay for a new one out of my wages.”
43
TUESDAY, JUNE 7,
2016
Roly and I find a pub on the road back toward the coast. The fire is burning, it’s warm and welcoming inside, but the two of us just sit there dazed for a few minutes.
The television is on over the bar and the announcer is talking about a banking scandal involving the trading of mortgages. They run a clip of a gray-haired man leaving court and then the newscaster says, “As gardaí search properties in and around Baltinglass, County Wicklow, the family of missing Galway woman Niamh Horrigan is calling on Wicklow residents to try to remember anything that might help to find their daughter and bring her home safe and sound.”
Niamh’s parents are shown talking to a reporter, who asks them: “Do you feel the authorities are doing enough to find Niamh? There have been some problems with the investigation that you have found worrying, isn’t that correct?”
“We do thank them for all they’re doing, but it’s been seventeen days now and Niamh is still missing.” The mother begins to cry and the father finishes for her: “If there’s anyone out there who knows where Niamh is, we just want to say that we don’t care what might have happened, we just want our daughter back. She is such a kind and good person. All of the children she teaches love her so much. If you talk to her, you will see that—” Now the father’s crying, too.