Angel Kiss - Laura Jane Cassidy [1]
I’d guessed he was going to ask me this, but I couldn’t answer straight away. I avoided his gaze and stared at the envelope in his hand. I wanted to help if I could … Well, help the victims and their families more than the police. But it was complicated. I felt completely torn. Last year hadn’t been easy … I wasn’t sure if I could go through it all again.
‘I’ll have to think about it,’ I said. ‘Can I get back to you?’
‘Of course.’ He held out the envelope. The top had been sealed with a strip of clear tape. I took it from him reluctantly.
‘I’d appreciate it if you could give me a decision by the end of the week.’
He took a small white card from his inside pocket and gave it to me. His mobile number was scribbled on it in pencil. Just as I’d suspected, there was nothing official about our meeting.
That night I lay on the lumpy mattress of the hostel bed with the brown envelope hidden under my pillow. I tried to sleep but couldn’t. Just before 3 a.m. I decided to tear the envelope open. Inside were four photographs. Four photographs of young women, each one prettier than the last. I felt my stomach knotting with tension.
Word had travelled from the Garda station in County Leitrim. Sergeant Lawlor had heard about my experiences in Avarna last summer. And now I had an important decision to make, but I didn’t know if I could go through it all again.
Chapter 1
I watched the funeral pass by from the window of our cluttered caravan. The renovation of our new cottage was not yet complete, so that summer we were living in a little caravan at the top of our lane, overlooking the winding country road. My mum was among the cluster of darkly clad mourners headed to the graveyard. The body in the coffin was that of Jim Cullen. He was a popular man who had lived in a stone cottage about ten minutes’ walk from the village of Avarna. Jim had died suddenly of a heart attack aged seventy-two. He was survived by his wife, Lily, and two children. I’d never met him.
We had been living there only two weeks. Mum had met him several times when she’d been house hunting in Avarna the previous year. It was Jim Cullen who had told her about one particular house that would be coming on the market, as its eccentric owner, a farrier named Alf, was moving to an island off the south coast. The moment she saw it Mum put in an offer and set about selling our house in Dublin. Thanks to the late Jim Cullen she had her idyllic country residence. I’d begged Mum not to accept the job, not to move. I really didn’t want to live in the country. I’d screamed and cried and pleaded with her not to make me leave Dublin, but it was no use. She’d never understand just how hard it was for me to leave my friends, my school, my band, everything that was important to me.
When I protested about going to Jim’s funeral she presumed it was because I was still mad at her. That was true, but there was another reason. I really disliked funerals. I’d always found myself sensitive to other people’s suffering; I seemed to soak up their grief like a sponge. I already felt unwell that day; I had a headache and just knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I watched until the large crowd passed and then went back to strumming my guitar.
Mum didn’t go to the Cullen house for tea afterwards because she only vaguely knew Jim’s relatives and didn’t want to intrude. I noticed how her eyelids were red when she dozed off later. No doubt she felt just like me: the day’s events had reminded her of my dad’s funeral. He’d died of a brain tumour when I was nine and even after six years I could still recall the small details of that day. The navy woollen tights that made my legs itch, the smell of the white lilies laid out on the coffin and the grip of my mum’s hand on my own small trembling one. He’d been sick for a while, but then suddenly he was gone and the funeral was the first time I began to accept this. Mum and I had learned to cope since then, but we still thought about him all the time.