Lying in Wait Read Online Free PDF

she got herself knocked up again and went back to St Joseph’s?’ said Da, a tone of concern creeping into his voice.
    ‘She’dnever go back there, Da, not in a million years. I know she wouldn’t.’ Ma agreed with me. ‘And even if she was pregnant, why would she go anywhere without her clothes, or a bag?’
    ‘I’m ringing the guards,’ said Da on Friday the 21st of November 1980.

3
Laurence
    Iheard him say it quite clearly.
    ‘The weekend of the 14th of November? Let me think … hold on now … let me see – ah, yes, I was here with my wife. Why do you ask, Garda?’
    ‘The whole weekend? You didn’t leave the house?’
    ‘Yes, well, I got home from work on the Friday about six o’clock and didn’t go out again.’
    It was a lie.
    ‘And was it just you and your wife here? Nobody else?’
    ‘My son was out that Friday. But I think he was home before midnight. What is this about?’
    ‘Well, sir, it’s just that … a car was seen visiting the home of the missing woman over recent months, sir … Like yours, sir … the old Jaguar.’
    The guard’s tone was nervous, subservient. Too many ‘sir’s. It was clear he had drawn the short straw when sent to question my dad. Or Judge Fitzsimons, as he was more recently known.
    ‘And may I have your name?’ my father asked, and although I couldn’t see him, I could hear the air of superiority in his voice, coupled with a strange tremor that was new. The kitchen door behind me was only slightly ajar, and I strained to hear what followed on the doorstep.
    ‘Mooney, sir. I’m sorry to be having to ask, like –’
    ‘And what exactly is your rank,
Mooney
?’ He lingered on the ‘oo’ in Mooney.
    ‘I’m a detective, sir.’
    ‘I see. Not a detective sergeant or a detective inspector, then?’
    I knew that tone. Dad could be rude or dismissive with strangers and he could fly off the handle. He intimidated me sometimes. I’m not sure that he meant to. He just did.
    At the other end of the table, my mother was looking at me quizzically.
    ‘Is that your fifth potato, Laurence? Go on, quick, while your father isn’t looking.’
    I hadn’t been counting.
    My mother got up, muttering about the draught. She closed the door behind me and turned on the radio and began to hum along tunelessly to the song playing. I said nothing, but now I couldn’t hear what was being discussed at the front door.
    My father had just deliberately lied to the guards. I admit I was taken aback by his lie. He was being asked about his movements almost two weeks earlier. I remembered that Friday night very clearly indeed because I was having my own adventure. I had also lied about my whereabouts. I had told my parents that I was going to the cinema with school friends, when actually I was losing my virginity to Helen d’Arcy, who lived in Foxrock Park, just twenty minutes away.
    I had not intended to have sex with Helen on our first real date. I did not find her physically attractive. She had very nice silky blonde hair, but her frame was both wide and too thin. Her face, which was unnaturally big, sat on top of a scrawny neck. My own skin was flawless in comparison, perhaps because it was stretched.
    I went to Helen’s house simply because she invited me. I did not get many invitations.
    She had caught up with me as I was returning from school a few weeks earlier. It was raining, as usual. School was awful. I had only started in St Martin’s Institute for Boys the previous January because of Bloody Paddy Carey. I tried very hard not to let my parents know how much I was bullied in my new school. There was a particular group of four or five boys, all brawn and no brain. They did not often attack me physically after the first month, but my books were stolen or defaced with disgusting slogans, and my lunch was taken and replaced with items too revolting to mention.
    Helen’s school was one of the fee-paying ones a little closer to town, but she lived near our school. I had