Forget Me Not Page 27

  ‘He’s dead,’ I said.

  For the second time, I knew this wasn’t a question but a statement of what I knew in my heart.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ Constable King said. ‘He sustained catastrophic head injuries. Medical teams were at the scene and were with him in less than a minute, but there was nothing they could do. They believe he’d have died instantly. I’m so very sorry.’

  The words swam over my head as if I were watching a scene in a TV show.

  I took a breath. ‘And Rachel? Is she okay?’

  ‘She’s receiving treatment. Her injuries aren’t life-threatening, but I’m not sure I’d say she was okay.’

  I nodded. ‘Thank you,’ I said to Constable King before turning my head away again.

  ‘Michael’s been released without charge. I thought you should know that. He’s back with the children. It would appear that Aaron used his name when signing up for the writing course. We obtained a copy of his student ID, which confirmed this.’

  I couldn’t speak.

  I just wanted to close my eyes.

  Saturday, 16 June

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Rachel

  ‘I’m not sure this is a good idea,’ Paul said as we turned the corner and waited for the lift.

  ‘I have to do it, Paul. So many of us are hurt now. If she wants to meet me, how can I say no? She’s a frail old lady. She’s had a stroke. She’s not a threat to me or us.’

  He patted my shoulder. ‘Okay.’

  The door of the lift opened and he pushed my wheelchair through it.

  My leg had been broken during the attack. Doctors couldn’t understand how I’d been able to run on it, except that adrenaline must have pushed me on. A cracked rib, torn ligaments in my arm, a fractured eye socket, and cuts to my feet and head. I’d been patched up. Stitched back together. Given a headscarf to wear to cover the areas where he’d cut my hair so short he’d slit my skin.

  My face was still swollen. I was still in pain. I still didn’t want to be left alone. Still needed the light on at all times. Was afraid to sleep. Was still so very angry with myself for falling for him. For putting my family and myself in such danger. But I couldn’t have known.

  Could I?

  Paul had taken the news of my affair better than I could have hoped, but I feared it was just a knee-jerk reaction to the trauma we’d been through. The need we had for things to be okay at that moment. When things calmed down, I knew we’d still have to deal with the massive issues in our marriage. We’d let each other down so badly and broken the trust we’d once shared.

  He didn’t look at me the same now, nor, if I’m honest, did I at him. It was as though everything had changed. I didn’t know if we’d ever get what we once had back. We’d have to be honest with each other. More than we’d ever been before. We’d already talked about seeing a counsellor and he’d agreed to give up his Belfast flat, stay closer to home.

  He’d brought the girls to see me the day after I’d been admitted. Molly had been too frightened to come close to me. She told me I looked scary. It had broken my heart to see her tremble at the sight of me, but I knew I had to give her space. She’d come round. At least I had the chance for her to come round. The ache I felt when I thought that I may never have seen her or her sister again was worse than any physical pain I was experiencing.

  Beth had held my hand and wept. She’d told me she loved me. Promised she’d do whatever she could around the house until I was fully recovered. It may sound strange, but even as she spoke I already hoped for the day when she’d stomp upstairs and refuse to wash the dishes. Then I’d know things were back on track. That we’d come through this.

  I’d only spoken to Julie on the phone. She was still in County Down with Brendan and his family. She had no memory of Clare treating Laura so badly. Or maybe, like me, she had buried them away somewhere. Grateful that it wasn’t us. Happy to be in our group of friends and not wanting to rock the boat. The Clare I knew, the woman she became, would’ve been horrified to think she could’ve made someone feel so badly. Clare wasn’t a bad person, but in her teenage years she’d made mistakes. We all had.

  I didn’t tell the Taylor family what Aaron had said. What good would it do to them? It would only bring more pain and God knows, we all had enough of that to contend with. I didn’t tell them, or anyone, about the recording of Clare pleading for her life, either. I tried to bury it and hoped it would stay there. The police had yet to uncover Aaron’s phone, despite combing the school building for it.

  ‘Are you nervous?’ Paul asked, pulling me from my thoughts.

  ‘Yes. I know I shouldn’t be. But I am.’

  ‘You can still change your mind,’ he said as we arrived on the correct floor and the doors opened again.

  ‘Nope. I need to do this.’

  He pushed me through to the ward. I noticed glances from the staff, who no doubt knew who I was. What had happened. How close I’d come to a horrific end.

  A woman with curly red hair introduced herself as Cliona, Mrs O’Loughlin’s social worker, and led me to her room.

  ‘I’ll wait outside,’ Paul said. ‘Grab a cup of tea or something.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, looking up at him, noticing how he looked at me, feeling a sadness at what we had done to each other. He turned and Cliona pushed my chair into the room where this woman – who I’d last seen in the kitchen of Clare’s house – was resting in bed. She looked smaller. Frail. Older. There was a sadness to her that made my heart ache.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ I said, my voice cracking with emotion.

  ‘And you must be Rachel,’ she said, taking in my appearance. ‘I’m so, so sorry my boy did this to you. And hurt your friend. I didn’t think …’

  ‘Shush. You’ve nothing to apologise for,’ I said, tears rolling down my cheeks. ‘You’ve lost so much, too. I’m so sorry if anything I ever said or did to Laura contributed in any way to her death …’

  Elizabeth raised her hand. ‘There’s no need for apologies there, either,’ she said. ‘Laura was a troubled person. I don’t think any one person or group can be blamed for what happened to her. I had to learn that after her death. It wasn’t easy, but there’s no other way to think of it without losing one’s mind. And don’t you think enough people have lost their mind already?’

  I nodded.

  She gave me a small smile, but her face was as tear-stained as mine.

  ‘Do you have people to help you and support you?’ I asked, all too aware that both of her children were now dead.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I have my son-in-law. Michael.’

  I started at the mention of his name. She paused for just a second.

  ‘The real Michael. He’s a good man, you know. I have him and my grandchildren. Laura’s children, Max and Ava. And Cliona here has been a star,’ she said, nodding towards the red-haired woman. ‘And you? Will you be okay?’

  ‘I think so,’ I said and we sat, looking at each other, thinking of all that we could say but wouldn’t.

  It didn’t really matter now, did it? We just had to learn to live with what had happened and rebuild our lives as best we could.

  Wednesday, 20 June

  Epilogue

  Rachel

  Clare was finally laid to rest on a blisteringly hot Wednesday morning. We all felt not only a sense of relief at finally being able to bring her to her final resting place, but also an overwhelming sense of sadness at the unfairness of it all. We knew our grief was only really beginning. We knew it would never really make sense.

  Some names scrawled on the back of a random photograph was all it took for Aaron O’Loughlin to choose his victims.

  An associate of Aaron’s from Wales, where he’d moved after leaving Derry, had sold his story to Ingrid Devlin. He said Aaron had become obsessed with the idea of ‘making things right’ and rebuilding bridges with his mother. But he’d also talked incessantly about justice. About the need for people to be made accountable for th
eir actions. He’d said he’d do what the police didn’t have the guts to.

  It wasn’t of importance to him that none of us had any real connection with Laura’s suicide. He had to be angry with someone, the trauma counsellor who’d been appointed to me had said at my first session.

  It didn’t really matter though, did it? No amount of soul-searching or navel-gazing would bring Clare back. She was gone. Her coffin was proof of that. Paul had helped to carry it from the church and I’d felt sick imagining that he could so easily have been carrying my coffin.

  Ingrid was there at the back of the church. A suitably sombre expression on her face. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. It had been she who’d been driving the blue car that had scared me senseless just before it had all happened. She’d looked for an interview with me, which I’d politely declined. She’d never hear my side of the story.

  Paul and Beth had held my hands tight as Clare was lowered into the ground. Poor Mrs Taylor was buckled with grief. Ronan had to hold her up while Mr Taylor held his composure, just. He was broken. Utterly destroyed. I struggled to be able to look him in the eye. I felt the weight of Clare’s death like a stone around my neck. It could have been me. I could have been in the grave beside her. It was only fate or luck or something that I wasn’t.

  Julie didn’t even make it to the funeral. She was still in County Down. Brendan had said she was struggling to cope. She was struggling to come to terms with the fact that she, too, had been taken in by Aaron, who’d pretended to be a father. Pretended to have children at the same school as her own children. That had scared her – how close he’d come to her own children. Just as it scared me. Could he have hurt Molly and Beth, or would he have stopped after he killed me, or Julie? I suppose we’ll never know.

  As the crowds were dispersing, Ronan invited us back to the Taylors’ house for tea and sandwiches, but I was tired. I wanted to be at home. I wanted to escape the pervading sense of grief. I wanted to heal with my family around me.

  As Paul pushed me back towards the car, I saw the woman with red hair pushing Elizabeth through the cemetery gates in a wheelchair. We didn’t stop to chat – we were too far apart – but I lifted my hand and gave her a small wave. She nodded in acknowledgement and then returned to staring straight in front of her.

  Clare Taylor hadn’t been the only person laid to rest that day.

  Elizabeth

  A fresh mound of dirt lay on top of the grave with a grey granite stone bearing the names of my beloved husband and daughter. Soon, Aaron’s name would be etched into the same stone in silver.

  ‘He’s at peace now,’ Cliona said and God, I hoped he was.

  I hoped both he and Laura were. I hoped that if there was an afterlife, a greater being overseeing it all, they’d acknowledge Aaron’s troubles. They’d understand that I was still a mother who still loved her son. Who hoped to see him again one day.

  There were only a couple of wreaths on his grave. It was sad that this was all his life amounted to. One of them was from my sister and her family. Another was from me, a simple display of white roses and lilies.

  But the cornflower blue between them caught my eye and my heart started to thump.

  ‘Can you bring me closer?’ I asked Cliona.

  ‘Of course.’

  I saw it clearly then. A simple display of wild forget-me-nots, their stems wrapped in black ribbon. A familiar white card pinned to them.

  ‘Can you reach that card for me?’ I asked Cliona and she did.

  She opened the envelope for me, my own hands shaking and still weak from my stroke, and handed it over.

  ‘Can you read it okay?’ she asked.

  I looked down at the words. In blue ink:

  It was all for Laura.

  A chill ran through me and I glanced around, suddenly feeling as if someone was watching us. I thought of all the times I’d felt as if I was being watched before. All the times I’d caught a shadow of something and dismissed it as nothing more than my overactive imagination.

  The times I now knew were Aaron watching me. Too afraid to come and talk. If only he’d approached me. Maybe I could have got through to him. No one else had needed to die.

  But the day was still. No one was there. The only shadows were from the leaves on the trees, the shade from the gravestones.

  I shivered.

  Acknowledgements

  Pulling a book together and getting it on the shelves takes a lot of work – and I am more grateful than words can say to the phenomenal team at Avon who have helped me bring Forget Me Not to life.

  To my former editor Phoebe Morgan, who oversaw the editing of this book and my two previous thrillers. I owe you a debt of gratitude. You saw something in me and my writing that I don’t even think I saw and you took a chance. You have taught me so much during our time working together and have made me a better writer for it. Thank you for bringing your guidance, and patience, to this book and to this author. I wish you all the best in your new endeavour.

  To my new editor Helen Huthwaite, who has already mastered calming my nerves, thank you for your support and for taking me under your wing. I look forward to what we can do together.

  Thanks also to Sabah, Elke, Molly, Dom, Oliver and all the team at Avon for your enthusiasm, support and endless hard work on behalf of all your authors. You are incredible.

  Thanks to Claire Dean for her sterling copy editing work.

  Thanks also to the team at HarperCollins Ireland, including Mary Byrne who should be off sunning herself in Italy by the time this book reaches the shelves. I appreciate all your efforts.

  For matters relating to the police procedure, rank and protocol, thanks go to Karen and also to my sister-in-law Inspector Penny Jones of the Cheshire Police. Any mistakes are entirely of my own making.

  As always, thanks to my agent Ger Nichol – a woman best described by the Shakespeare quote: ‘And though she be but little, she is fierce’. Thank you Ger for your unwavering support over the years and the way you have my best interests at heart always. Your reminders to ‘mind yourself’ are appreciated!

  Thank you to booksellers and librarians for getting behind my books. You are rock-stars. Special love and thanks to Bob, Jenni and Dave – royalty of the Indie book trade. And to Heidi Murphy, Maria Dickenson and all at Eason, Foyleside.

  Thank you to all the book bloggers and reviewers who do amazing work for very little reward! Especially Mairead at Swirl & Thread and Margaret Bonnas Madden at Bleachhouse Library.

  Sincere thanks to my writing friends, who make this journey less lonely and more craic. Thank you Louise Beech, John Marrs, C.L. Taylor, Brian McGilloway, Margaret Scott and Caroline Finnerty and to the wonderful, incredibly talented Liz Nugent who gave me the inspired idea of bringing Ingrid Devlin back in this book, and who during the course of a conversation on a writing retreat gave my confidence a great boost.

  While writing this book I was approached by a lovely woman on Twitter with the simple request that, if possible, I name a character after her mother, who passed away in summer 2018. I was only too happy to do so, and so Patricia Hopkins, the FLO in the book, got her name. With great love to Andrea Molloy for her Twitter loveliness. I hope this small gesture makes things just that little bit easier for you.

  To my friends and family, thank you always. Mum, Dad, Lisa, Peter, Emma and assorted partners, little people and dogs, Erin, Catherine, Marie-Louise. Mimi, Auntie Raine, thank you all. And to my Twitter pals, thanks for the laughs.

  To my husband, and my two children, and the two cats and the one puppy – thank you again for giving me the time and space to create another story. I love you.

  This is a book that, in its very twisted way is about friendship and as such I’m dedicating it to the three friends who have been there for me most of all and continue to be so.

  Jim Morrison said: ‘A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself – and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be fee
ling at the moment is fine with them. That’s what real love amounts to – letting a person be what he really is.’

  Julie-Anne, my oldest school friend, proper Derry Girl, and now road trip buddy; Vicki, my new mum friend and the person I am most ‘me’ with; and Fionnuala, my writing partner in crime and my soul sister (not to mention a bloody brilliant beta reader) – you all lift me up and I love you x

  And finally to you, lovely reader, thank you for continuing to allow me to have the best job in the world.

  If you loved Forget Me Not, try Claire’s first thriller!

  Not everyone’s life is as perfect as it seems …

  Click here to buy now.

  All she ever wanted was to be a mother …

  And stay one.

  Click here to buy now.

  About the Author

  Claire Allan is a former journalist from Derry in Northern Ireland, where she still lives with her husband, two children, two cats and a hyperactive puppy.

  In her eighteen years as a journalist she covered a wide range of stories from attempted murders, to court sessions, to the Saville Inquiry into the events of Bloody Sunday right down to the local parish notes.

  She has previously published eight women’s fiction novels. Her first thriller, Her Name Was Rose, was published in 2018 and became a USA Today bestseller, followed by Apple of My Eye in 2019.

  When she’s not writing, she’ll more than likely be found on Twitter @claireallan.

  Also by Claire Allan:

  Her Name Was Rose

  Apple of My Eye

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street