Chapter 59
As he drove into Ragmullin, trying to find the Galway road, Mooney saw Chloe’s name flash up on his hands-free.
He ignored it.
They’d had a conversation earlier, a conversation that had shocked him.
But what did she think he could do for her?
He didn’t know her. Met her once at that wedding in June.
Okay, he knew her mother. Barely. Did he honestly want to get caught up in the drama that would follow the revelation?
Therein lay his dilemma. He was a fair man with a sense of justice, something that was not always attainable, and he didn’t think it would be achieved in this instance.
She’d kept her clothing and there could be trace evidence that might prove contact, but how could it determine the advances had not been consensual?
It was a typical she said, he said case. But he believed her.
He had gone to tell Lottie. To pass the buck, so to speak, even though Chloe had said not to mention it to her mother. He thought she had a right to know, but then he’d baulked at saying anything.
He lit a cigarette without opening the window because it was too damn wet and cold, then coughed in the smoke-filled car.
No, he couldn’t do it to Lottie. Not until he had more time to think it through.
And anyway, Mark Boyd’s belligerence had scuppered any nerve he might have had.
Boyd needed a kick up the hole. Wasn’t Lottie doing him a favour?
And there he was prancing around her house like he owned the ramshackle ancient walls, red-raw jealousy exuding from his pores.
Well, Boyd had walked out on Lottie, so it was his own funeral.
Mooney lowered the window and threw out the cigarette, momentarily conscious of littering then forgetting about it as quickly. His mind was overflowing with conflict. Doubt riddled his core.
What he needed was a drink. That would necessitate staying the night in Ragmullin, and he’d already turned down Lottie’s offer of a bed for the night.
Chloe’s name flashed up on his hands-free again. He hit the off button. I’m a coward, he thought, but he had no update for the girl. He could manufacture a meeting with this McKeown shithead and see what he had to say for himself.
‘Feck it,’ he said to the rain drumming a head-splitting tune on the windscreen.
Indicating, he turned round in a gateway. Ragmullin for the night it would be. Maybe he could get some answers from the culprit himself before he spoke to Chloe again.
Lying on her narrow bed with the bare walls mocking her, Chloe swore as Mooney declined her call a second time. Surely he’d talked to her mother by now. Despite asking him not to tell her, that was what she wanted him to do. She expected him to be able to read between the lines.
At this stage, she’d presumed Lottie would be driving to her straight away, or at least on the phone.
Or maybe she was gunning for McKeown. Either way, Chloe wanted the adults to sort it for her.
She was an adult but currently saw herself as a child, a damaged and crushed child.
She hadn’t felt this way since her dad died.
Totally broken, she could no longer cry.
She’d used up all her tears and was now left with a shrivelled sense of herself.
As she was about to put her phone under her pillow to try and nab some sleep, the device buzzed in her hand.
She checked the screen.
McKeown.
Her hand shook. She dropped the phone. It buzzed and vibrated, then stopped. The silence was instantaneous. Her whole body went into a tremor.
A text arrived. She couldn’t help herself. She picked up the phone from the floor, curled her legs under her on the bed and opened the message.
Hey, Chloe, thanks for last night. I couldn’t believe how you came on to me. You little minx. Such a flirt. How could a man say no to you? Anyhow, I’d love to take you up on your offer of another night out. Soon. Sam x
A shiver of horror slithered down her arm and she dropped the phone again.
Then she leapt out of the bed and rushed to the toilet, where she was violently ill.
Lying in bed listening to the rain beat a tattoo on the windowpanes, Lottie concentrated on the new patch of damp on the ceiling.
Should she take time out of work to sort her family?
Rose was as fine as she could be. Katie kept an eye on her, and Rose’s friend Betty was great at stepping in when needed.
Sean was doing well in Galway, and in a perverse way she was glad he was staying with Grace.
She’d hoped Grace would dote on him, and Matt Mooney had said as much.
Then she recalled the missed calls from Chloe.
Glancing at the time on her phone, she wondered if it was too late to ring.
After midnight. Surely Chloe was asleep by now.
If it had been important, Lottie would have got a screaming text littered with emojis to tell her to answer her damn phone.
All the same she pressed the call button, but got no reply.
She’d call her daughter first thing in the morning.