Looking for something to use to pin Joe’s death on me. Planting
evidence. An uneasy feeling prickles at the back of my neck.
‘You’re being paranoid,’ I whisper to myself.
But then I see that there are only three porcelain dolls on
the shelf, where there should be four. Scarlett isn’t standing
where she should.
I spot a whisper of green velvet poking out from under the
legs of the chest of drawers. On my knees, I reach under the
drawers and pull her out, skirt first.
Her face, once perfectly porcelain, flawless with green glass
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eyes set against the palest of skin, is a mess of sharp edges and dust. Someone has very deliberately applied brute force to her
face and crushed it. She is broken beyond all hope of repair.
I touch my hand to the crooked edges where her cheek is
now hollowed out, her green glass eye forced inwards, and yelp
as the sharp porcelain slices the side of my hand. Watching the
blood pool then drip on her clear white skin, I wait for the
stinging sensation to take hold.
When it does I allow myself to cry, but only a little. I’m
scared. I’m scared that someone – most likely Ciara – is delib-
erately targeting me. Someone is pushing me because they know
that I do have a breaking point.
Someone is creating their own narrative of whatever happened
in this house and they firmly believe, or want people to believe,
that I snapped. That I killed Joe.
They want me to snap again. To show myself in all my flawed,
unhinged, damaged glory. But I won’t do that. I’m better now.
I can control my emotions. I have a husband who loves me
and a daughter who needs me, and I won’t show either of them
just how broken I was.
Broken just like Scarlett. She may be only a doll. A stupid
remnant from my childhood to anyone looking in. But she is
the last one my mother bought for me. She is symbolic of
happy times – more innocent times. And the one person left
alive who knows this more than anyone is downstairs right
now painting herself as a grief-stricken daughter.
I reach into the pocket of my cardigan, pull out a spare tissue
and wrap it around my hand, feeling my nerve endings throb
and sting, a welcome distraction from the sick feeling in the
pit of my stomach. I look down and see there is blood on my
cardigan and more has run up my arm, leaving a red tide in
its wake.
The door to my room opens just as I reach for the handle
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and Alex is there, Lily in his arms, looking first at me, my eyes wet with tears, my cardigan stained with blood, then at the
broken doll.
He glances to my hand, the tissue I have held to my cut
already becoming sodden with yet more blood. I don’t think
it’s a deep cut, but it doesn’t seem to want to stop bleeding, or
throbbing with pain.
‘Jesus, Heidi, what happened? Are you okay?’
‘I’ll live,’ I say, trying to give him a watery smile, which I’m
sure looks less than convincing. ‘I don’t think Scarlett will,
though.’
‘What happened? Did you drop her?’ he asks.
‘No. I found her like this. Half hidden under the chest of
drawers. Someone broke her and then tried to hide the evidence.’
‘Someone?’
‘I’d put my money on Ciara,’ I tell him.
His eyes widen just a little. I want to take Lily from him, to
hold her, but I know my hand is still aching. Still bleeding. I
lift one of her muslin cloths from her changing bag and wrap
it around my hand.
‘I’ll need to clean this out to get a good look at it,’ I say.
‘You don’t really think it was Ciara, do you? Don’t you think
it might have just been knocked off the shelf by a breeze or
something? These things happen. It doesn’t have to be malicious.’
‘There’s no breeze in here,’ I say, wanting him to be on my
side. No, needing him to be on my side. ‘Look at how her face
is smashed in, Alex. That doesn’t come from a tumble from a
‘But if she hit the drawers on her way down,’ Alex says, lifting
the doll and carrying her back to where I found her. ‘Look,
there’s debris on the top here.’
There is a small smattering of porcelain-coloured dust, a few
chips. But I’m still sure that someone has done this deliberately.
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Or am I? I look at Alex and he has a look of sympathy, or pity, or something in his eyes.
‘I’m not making it up,’ I tell him. ‘You think I’m unhinged,
don’t you?’ I ask, aware that right at this moment, my hand
bleeding, my eyes red with tiredness and tears, I do in fact look
unhinged.
‘I think, Heidi, that you’re exhausted and stuck in this strange
limbo that would drive anyone to distraction. But accidents do
happen.’
I don’t know if there’s any point in arguing back. What would
it achieve, after all?
‘Look, maybe you’ll feel better after we get that cleaned and
you can have a rest. I’ll go and get the first-aid kit and we’ll
get you sorted then you can grab a few hours’ sleep. I’ll wake
you if we get the call about Joe. I’ll see if maybe this doll can
be repaired, too,’ he says, gesturing at Scarlett, but I know she’s beyond fixing. No amount of glue and patience in the world
will put her back together again.
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Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ciara
Now
I shouldn’t have had that third cup of coffee. I’m jittery now
and my heart is thumping. I wish I still smoked proper ciga-
rettes, not these pathetic vape devices. I wish I could have a
drink right now. God, I wish I could smoke a joint. I wonder
if anyone would notice if I rifled through my father’s meds and
found something to give me a suitable hit.
I’m not a drug user. Not really. Cannabis doesn’t really count,
or the odd discreetly acquired prescription med. And I need
something to take the edge off.
The police had walked in and turned everything on its
head. ‘We will be here to support you,’ they said before leaving
and offering absolutely no support, just the fear that they
would find out ‘foul play’ had played a role in my father’s
death.
Dr Sweeney had been happy to sign the death certificate.
That should’ve been the end of it. He knows what he’s doing,
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after all. We thought we’d just move on to the wake and the funeral and then with the rest of our lives.
But now everything has changed.
I’d love to just block it all o
ut, but I’m sure it wouldn’t look
good if I was stoned out of my head, either. I suck on my
e-cig, hoping for a hit of something it can’t give me, and pinch
the bridge of my nose. I’m tired. Really tired. Maybe Heidi
had the right idea of going for a sleep, but I sense Kathleen is
on the point of unravelling and I feel it’s my responsibility, for my sins, to support her. To contain her.
I should probably eat something, I think. I’ve not had anything
since last night. I’ve not been hungry, but now my stomach is
growling and I realise if I don’t at least try to eat something
there’s a good chance I’ll be sick.
I can’t face the vat of vegetable soup Kathleen has made, so
I decide to make some toast and put on a pot of tea as well.
The panacea for every ill, it seems.
Comfort food, I realise. I need comfort food.
I hear someone come into the room and turn to see Alex
walk in, looking just as pale as the rest of us. He’s an attractive man, I suppose. Not my type, of course, but I can see he is
handsome. Tall, thin – possibly a little too thin – with thick dark hair that he wears just long enough that it has started to curl a
little at the ends. He wears glasses, a modern dark-rimmed pair,
and is in need of shave. He’s not quite rugged, but he screams
‘nice guy’. He has a decent job, dresses well. He’s fairly sociable.
I wonder what he sees in Heidi. How he fell in love with her.
She has never had any redeeming qualities, in my eyes. Quite
plain-looking, quiet, spoiled – I struggle to understand what he
sees in her and I very much doubt he knows all about her past.
I’d seen the fear flash in her eyes when I’d mentioned it earlier.
‘I was just going to get myself a glass of water,’ Alex says.
‘Heidi’s still sleeping.’
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‘I’m putting on a pot of tea. Making some toast, if you’d prefer that?’
‘I think I’ve reached tea saturation levels for the day,’ he says.
‘And I grabbed a burger when I was out earlier. Walked as far
as McDonald’s.’
‘Oooh, a Big Mac would hit the spot right now,’ I say with
a wry smile, relieved to have just a hint at a normal conversa-
tion.
‘I’ve brought the first-aid kit back,’ he says and I notice for
the first time the blue box in his hand. ‘Can I get past you to
put it back in the cupboard?’
‘First-aid box? Did you hurt yourself or something?’
He sighs. ‘No, it was Heidi. She cut her hand.’
I raise an eyebrow, wonder if she’s up to her old tricks. Alex
looks weary again.
‘One of the dolls in her room was smashed. She cut her hand
trying to clean it up.’
I have the good grace to blush and thankfully he doesn’t
seem to notice.
‘She’s very upset about it,’ he says. ‘It was one of the dolls
her mother got for her.’
‘God Almighty.’ I hear Kathleen’s voice from outside of the
room. ‘The man who raised her is dead and she doesn’t shed
a tear but she’s in bits about a doll. That girl! There was always a want in her.’
‘I’m sure she is upset about Joe,’ Alex stutters. ‘It’s just, you
know, her link with her mother?’
‘He was a parent to her longer than her mother was,’ Kathleen
declares before sitting at the table.
Alex doesn’t respond. He just looks extremely uncomfortable
with her outburst.
‘Is it a bad cut?’ I ask. ‘Did you find what you needed in the
first-aid box, because I can always take a run out to Sainsbury’s
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and pick up anything else you might need? It might do me good to get out of here for a bit.’
‘I don’t think it’s particularly deep. But it did bleed a lot,’ he says. ‘It seems okay now and she’s sleeping. I think it will do
her good. She’s getting herself so wound up, which is under-
standable, but you know, it’s not good for her.’
I raise an eyebrow, wonder if Alex does know just how bad
things can get when his wife gets wound up. Does he know
what she is capable of?
‘I think we all need to keep a special eye on her,’ I say. ‘She’s
very vulnerable, isn’t she?’
The look on Alex’s face tells me this is news to him. I wonder
if I’ve said too much.
‘In what way?’ he asks.
‘You mean you don’t know?’ Kathleen says incredulously. ‘She
must’ve told you.’
Alex bristles. ‘If she’d told me I wouldn’t be asking questions
now.’
‘Your wife was a very troubled young woman,’ Kathleen says.
‘But maybe you should ask her about it. I don’t think it’s our
place to say.’
Alex looks to me. ‘What does she mean?’ he asks.
‘As she says, it’s something you probably need to talk to Heidi
about. And you know, it was a long time ago and she’s been
stable for a good while now.’
He looks alarmed. ‘Stable?’
‘That probably makes it sound worse than it was,’ I say, aware
that it was actually that bad. ‘She struggled a lot, you know,
after her mother died. It was to be expected, I suppose. And
maybe we should have seen the signs faster, but she was just so
angry and paranoid and didn’t want to talk to any of us . . .’
The last bit wasn’t exactly true. She may well have wanted
to talk to us, but we – and especially me – didn’t want to talk
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to her. She was a freak who’d stolen my father. I thought he deserved the hard time she put him through.
Just as I think she deserves to have that stupid doll of hers
smashed to pieces. I’m not proud of myself for that, but it was
either that or take my anger, grief and fear out on her.
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Chapter Thirty
Heidi
Then
The poor pet. Is it any wonder she’s acting up? Losing her mother so young. Joe’s a saint taking her on. Honestly. No one would blame him if he just walked away.
The whispers from the mammies in the school yard weren’t
long in reaching my ears. And acting up? I wasn’t doing anything.
I was just wandering around the playground on my own, rattling
a stick against the railings.
Sure, when Kathleen had called for me to come on now, it
was time to go home, I’d pretended not to hear her, even
though her voice was high and scratchy and everyone else
seemed to have gone quiet.
But that wasn’t acting up.
I just didn’t want to go home. Truth was, I didn’t know what
home was any more. All I knew was that the only place I’d
ever remembered living my whole entire life didn’t feel so safe
and cosy now.
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But if I said anything, anything at all, what would become of me?
When I did see Granny she seemed so sad all the time. She’d
visit at least once a week, but she was never really present. Not
the way she used to be. She seemed as if she’d given up on
life. Grandad’s health was deteriorating. She was struggling.
There was even less chance than before that they would be
able to take me in. ‘Oh, wee doll, as nice as it is to see you,
it’s like a knife to my heart at times. You’re so like your mammy
was at that age,’ she would say and break into fresh tears. The
last thing I wanted to do was to make her life any harder than
it already was. Speaking up would’ve done that.
I already felt guilt-ridden just for reminding her of my mother,
but that wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t help how I looked. Maybe
if I cut my hair I’d look different. That’s what I was thinking
the night I took the big scissors and hacked at my ponytail. I
watched my curls fall to the ground. One strand followed by
another, followed by another.
Maybe if I looked less like Mammy, Granny wouldn’t be so
sad. She wouldn’t cry when she saw me.
Maybe she would invite me to stay more and I could show
her what a great help I could be with Grandad, and that I
didn’t take up much space, or eat much or need her to spend
money on me.
Maybe if I looked less like Mammy, Joe wouldn’t look at me
the way he did. He wouldn’t cross the landing at night-time
to ‘see if I was okay’ and ‘offer to tuck me in’. He mightn’t tell me how beautiful I was and how I made his heart happy.
He wouldn’t call me his special girl.
Joe had been horrified when he saw what I’d done to my
hair. He’d called for Kathleen, who was living with us at the
time, and her mouth opened wide in shock like a cartoon
character.
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‘Oh, Heidi, what have you done to your lovely curls?’ she asked.
I looked downwards. Yes, maybe I’d got carried away with
the scissors. I didn’t mean to cut my hair so short, but at the
same time, I could see that it had got to Joe and that gave me
a sense of satisfaction.
‘Can you do anything with it?’ he asked his sister.
‘Christ, Joe, I don’t think there’s anyone who could do
anything with that. We’ll just have to try to tidy it up the best