Chapter 4

4

The tan was a disaster. If she'd taken her time doing it, it would have turned out grand. She'd applied fake tan too many times to count in her twenty-five years but tonight it had to be perfect and it wasn't. It was a streaking mess.

‘Typical,' Laura Nolan moaned at her reflection in the smeared mirror.

Trying not to cry, which would be detrimental to her make-up, she attempted to muster up positive vibes. She'd had her hair washed and blow-dried, even though it broke her heart to fork out the twenty euro she couldn't afford. The effect was worth it, wasn't it? She hoped so. She'd already ruined her silver sequin skirt with tan and had to resort to a pair of dark denim jeans. Her black chiffon top with its diamanté spaghetti straps was okay. She hoped.

Flicking an eyelash with another dab of mascara, she heard a voice behind her.

‘Stop fiddling with it. You'll make it worse.'

Laura groaned as her mother revealed herself in the mirror, her face a little askew because of the crack in the top right-hand corner. Small, too thin, with not a grey hair in her fair mane (she could afford the salon, of course), Diana's bracelets tinkled as she moved a hand to fix a stray hair at the back of Laura's neck.

‘Don't!' Laura snapped. ‘You'll ruin it.'

‘Be hard to ruin something that's already ruined, missy.'

‘Can you leave me alone? Please?'

‘Where are you going?'

‘Out.'

‘I gathered that. Out where?'

‘Why do you care?'

‘I want to make sure you're safe. Are you meeting up with a friend?'

‘Yeah, for dinner and drinks,' Laura said, to shut Diana up. Her friends had drifted away once she'd got pregnant with Aaron. He was almost four now and she loved him with every bone in her being, but she missed her friends.

‘I can't be on call to babysit all the time, you know that?'

‘I do, and I'm grateful to you. It means a lot to me.'

Her mother smiled. Laura knew it was forced. ‘Just so you don't forget, you have a little boy here who wants to see you when he wakes up in the morning.'

‘I won't forget.'

How could she, Laura thought, when Diana was constantly reminding her? How could she when she loved her son so much? A mistake, a one-night stand, how could you? No condom, not on the pill, how could you be so stupid? Her mother's words from the night she'd told her reverberated in her brain. She'd had no choice but to tell her. No choice but to drop out of college and lose her grant. To run back home because she could no longer pay the rent. All of that. But Diana had insisted she keep the baby. No daughter of mine (she was the only daughter, as far as Laura knew) will get an abortion. Over my dead body.

She had agreed to help. And Laura had accepted. But she hadn't realised that the help was offered grudgingly. It came with more complaints and caustic words than a day could hold. The proverbial strings attached to that help circled her neck and threatened to choke her to death. But she didn't want to think about all that now.

She pursed her glossed lips, dropped her mascara tube into her cosmetic purse and scrunched the purse into her tiny handbag along with her phone. Maybe tonight she would meet the man who wouldn't mind dating a girl with an almost-four-year-old child in tow. A young woman who still lived with her mother.

One could hope.

Why did pubs have music playing so loud? It was only nine o'clock and Shannon Kenny already felt like the band had set up a practice session in her ears. She leaned towards her date to say something; he turned at the same time, their noses inadvertently touching.

He laughed. ‘That's an Eskimo kiss.'

At least that was what she thought he said. He could have asked her to marry him and she wouldn't have known.

Trying not to make a tit of herself, and as loudly as she could, she said, ‘I'd love another drink.'

‘Same again?'

She was able to lip-read that. ‘Make it a double,' she said, miming.

While he was at the bar, she studied the broadness of his shoulders and realised his waist looked too small, his legs too short. In fact he appeared totally misshapen. Or was that the effects of drinking on an empty stomach?

It should have been the first warning sign. He'd promised her dinner in the Joyce Hotel restaurant but then had insisted on pre-dinner drinks in Danny's Bar. And it now appeared he had no intention of leaving. Maybe she should have asked for a packet of crisps.

She glanced around, trying to see someone she recognised. The place was heaving and the band had got louder – if the thrumming in her ears was anything to go by. He was still at the bar, chatting with the girl who worked there. How they could hold a conversation with the resounding din was beyond her. Maybe she should leave. Grab her coat and get the hell out of there.

‘I must be getting old,' she told herself, despite having just had her twenty-fifth birthday. Not that long ago, all this was her idea of heaven. But that was before…

‘That was then, this is now,' she said.

Shit, she was talking to herself. God Almighty, was this what rehab did to you? You went in with one complaint and came out with a host of new ones. Next stop, the asylum.

Grinning at her own dark humour, she noticed him glance over his shoulder at her. A quick smile before he turned back to the bar. Was he checking she hadn't escaped? More likely he was telling the girl what a big mistake he'd made tonight with his date.

How long could she sit here with him up there flirting while the boom of the band took root in her ears? Not much longer was the answer. But as she stuffed her phone in her bag, he returned with her large gin in a fancy balloon glass, and she decided she couldn't let a good drink go to waste.

Laura sat in Casey's on her own. The pub was less crowded than usual. She wondered if she should have phoned Shannon. Not that they'd spoken in almost a year. But sometimes you needed to confide in someone other than your bloody mother.

Her date hadn't turned up. She checked her phone. It was early yet. Plenty of time. She had the correct pub, hadn't she? She scrolled through the app and found the message. Yes. So where the hell was he?

Glancing at his photo, she smiled despite herself. He wasn't half bad-looking. Clicking out of the app, she strained her neck to look around again. No, he wasn't here. She ordered a Diet Coke. He could buy the alcohol when, if, he arrived.

Then she felt a tap on her shoulder. Slowly she turned, hoping it was him, and a warm, fuzzy feeling settled in her chest as she waited for her eyes to meet his for the first time.

But it was just someone trying to get close to the bar to order a drink. She felt her shoulders deflate and her expectation flying away on the expelled air.

It was after ten and he was driving around Ragmullin again, being careful to keep to the outer roads, using rat runs through housing estates. He didn't want to be caught on traffic cameras or CCTV in the centre of town, nor the guards to stop and quiz him when he was on a scouting mission. And that was what tonight was about. He was searching for the ideal candidate. The approximate age and build were ingrained in his brain as if etched by a knife on a slate. He knew who he was looking for, even if he didn't yet know who she was. But he had been given enough information to recognise her when he saw her.

He parked in a housing estate, and sat there with the engine off for maybe twenty minutes, keeping his mind alert by recounting the tools he kept in the boot, while ignoring the knife he'd stuck into the glovebox.

If the guards happened to stop him, he had a plausible story: the taxi light was off because it was broken. Not that he would give anyone a reason to stop him. He felt a tug of excitement. Maybe tonight he would be successful.

He glanced at his phone. Time to move. Turning up the heat to defog the windscreen, he set off once more. If unsuccessful, he'd try again later. He could not leave town empty-handed. She would not be pleased.