I remembered the photographs in Dad’s files. Denise as an adult, emaciated, almost toothless, thin, limp-haired and angry. Clinging on to me for life. Mark would have to see those too.
‘This photo,’ I pointed at the portrait, ‘this was taken shortly before she was abducted, right?’
Mark nodded, his eyes glassy.
I thought of Abebi and Maduka, and Sue’s children, and Anubha’s children. Their smallness, their innocence. I felt anger again, but checked myself when I looked at Mark, Denise’s brother. I wished I’d had a sibling. Someone to share these feelings with. Someone who missed me as much as he missed Denise.
‘I don’t understand,’ I said, ‘you were so young. How could you miss someone you knew for such a short time?’
‘She dominated my entire life. Some of my earliest memories are of my mother crying, flashing blue lights outside our house, guards coming to our front door. In supermarkets, shopping centres, on holidays down the country, we never stopped looking. By the time I was sixteen, there was nowhere left to search. Our dining room was a shrine. There was even an altar with that photo in a silver frame in the middle of it. Candles constantly burning.’
‘Oh, Mark.’ I was imagining what it was like to be Mark. I was putting myself in his shoes. ‘Weren’t you angry?’ I asked, thinking that I would have been.
‘One day I came home from school and watched as Mum blew out the candles on the altar. She wanted to give up.’ His face dropped into his hands. ‘I tried to relight the candles, but Dad stopped me. The altar was dismantled the next day and the photo disappeared into a drawer. They stopped talking about Denise, they stopped talking about anything. Our home was silent and I couldn’t think which was worse.’
I felt true sadness.
‘When I left home at eighteen to go to college, I felt like I could breathe for the first time. I worked shifts in a petrol station and rented a tiny, dingy flat in Rathmines, and for six months, I lived a normal life. I made friends with guys who didn’t know who I was, I had girlfriends, I played a lot of snooker. I was finally free of it all. And then … she was found.’
I let a silence fall between us, because I knew the rest of the story, or I thought I did. One question bugged me, though.
‘It was an anonymous tip-off, wasn’t it?’
‘I think I know the answer to that one. It was on one of those true crime websites. A guy who ended up in Mountjoy Prison claimed he’d made that call to the guards to tell them where Denise Norton was being held. He’d discovered her while trying to burgle the house.’
‘What? When?’
‘The house in Killiney, where you were held. He boasted about it, apparently, to cellmates but was too stupid to realize he could have used it to get leniency on one of his many prison sentences. Word got around, though.’
‘Is he still alive? I’d like to talk to him.’
‘No, he died in 2011. It infuriates me that prison guards and police knew this for years and never thought that we might want to talk to him. I managed to verify it a few years ago with his sister.’
‘So, you said she was found? But we were found together.’
‘I know, sorry. My parents’ interest was in Denise. It’s not that they didn’t care about you, but they didn’t see you as Denise’s child. And for me … it was …’ Mark put his hand over his eyes again. ‘I’d spent my whole life living in the shadow of this ghost, and I had just found my life. My sister’s rescue was all over the media. I was in the limelight again. My new friends wanted to know everything about her and all that had happened. Part of me wished we’d never found her, because after that, it was worse.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I wasn’t allowed to visit her and nobody would tell me why. I thought Denise would be able to give statements to the police and then she’d be able to come home, but then … there was you.’
‘I was her daughter.’
‘But you were his daughter too.’
I closed my eyes.
‘I don’t mean to … look, try and put yourself in my parents’ position.’
I tried, but this time it wouldn’t work. I was a child. A victim. And their own grandchild.
‘I wanted my parents to take you home and raise you. I offered to move home and help them, but they said there were so many issues with your development. I’m so sorry.’
‘What does your father think now? Have you told him that you found me?’
Mark shook his head. ‘He saw the story about what you did to Tom Diamond. That was enough for him. He didn’t want to know any more. I tried to tell him that I’d connected with you, that you were good and kind …’
‘Am I?’
‘But then I saw you attack Caroline, outside your house.’
‘I’m angry, Mark. Most of the time, I can keep it hidden, but sometimes, when I feel threatened or vulnerable, the rage bubbles up. I’m working on it, I promise you, with Tina.’
‘Sally, you were out of control.’
‘I know. I frightened myself. I’m sorry. But you know why I’d hired a security guard that day, right? I was terrified that he might turn up. Conor Geary. There were children in my garden. He knows where I live.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Mark, did you ever think that maybe I get my lack of empathy from your side of the family? How could your parents abandon me?’
He looked anguished. ‘I don’t know.’
He was upset, too, when I told him there was no record of him at all in Dad’s files or on Denise’s tapes.
‘Are you sure? My name never came up? Never?’
‘She didn’t mention you. I’m sorry.’
‘I have to listen to those tapes.’
‘Come back to Carricksheedy,’ I said. ‘I’m sure they won’t have replaced you at the factory yet.’
‘I took sick leave, but I didn’t think I could ever come back.’
‘Mark, you have a life here, you have friends. You have … a niece. I want to hear about my birth mother too. Do you think your dad would understand now? He could like me. He’s my grandfather.’
‘I’m not sure. He’s so old now. Almost ninety. I don’t think he’d be able for such upheaval.’
I was annoyed that my existence was such an inconvenience to my own grandfather.
‘I think we should see my therapist together. You’re the same generation as me. You could think of me as your sister?’
‘Like Denise?’
This time I was emphatic. ‘No, not like Denise, not like Mary Norton, like Sally Diamond. That’s who I am now. Do you want a sandwich?’
Mark laughed. I don’t know why, but it broke the tension between us.
‘I’ll go back to the village. I’ll tell the office I’ll be back on Monday.’
‘I’ll explain to our friends. Most of them know now that you’re my uncle. They were surprised but sympathetic. You’ll be welcomed back.’
I asked him about Anubha. He admitted that he’d only said he was interested in her in order to put me at ease. I voiced my disapproval. He said he was still in love with his ex-wife.