The Blue Pool Read online

  The Blue Pool

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Ruth

  Kathy

  Charlotte

  Ruth

  Kathy

  Charlotte

  Ruth

  Charlotte

  Ruth

  Kathy

  Charlotte

  Ruth

  Kathy

  Charlotte

  Ruth

  Kathy

  Charlotte

  Ruth

  Kathy

  Charlotte

  Ruth

  Kathy

  Charlotte

  Ruth

  Kathy

  Charlotte

  Ruth

  Kathy

  Ruth

  Charlotte

  Kathy

  Charlotte

  Copyright

  Guide

  Cover

  Title Page

  The Blue Pool

  Siobhan MacDonald

  Ruth

  Berkshire, England

  Present Day

  “Hello, Ruth, is that you?”

  The voice was shrill. Urgent.

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Charlotte.”

  Oh no.

  Her knuckles whitened on the handset. It was late afternoon. A chill had entered the conservatory and she suddenly felt cold.

  “Charlotte?” she played dumb. She knew exactly who it was.

  “Yes, Charlotte Moran.”

  “What a surprise. I didn’t recognise your voice.” She was a good liar.

  “I’m… I’m sorry to call you out of the blue like this. It’s just that…” Charlotte broke off, breathless, unsure. “Well, there’s no easy way to say this, so here goes – they’ve got someone.”

  Jesus.

  “I thought you should know.”

  The blow felt physical. Stunned, she slumped back against the wicker chair. Holding her stomach, she stared with fear over the lawn. She hadn’t spoken to Charlotte in years, twenty to be precise, and yet Ruth knew exactly what she meant.

  “Who is it?” she whispered, feeling faint. She always knew this day would come. The day she dreaded.

  “Some guy walked into a police station in Limerick.”

  “A weirdo?”

  “Not sure. All I know is he’s a janitor or a handy-man and he’s in his sixties.”

  In an instant, she conjured up an odd-job man, pasty-faced with pock-marked skin. Evil in a tradesman’s clothes.

  “How come you know all this?” she asked, her mind filling with sickening images.

  She heard Charlotte catch her breath. “Richard is stationed in Limerick,” she said. “This guy, he just walked in off the street to the police station. And Richard rang first thing this morning.”

  Richard was Charlotte’s brother. That was the thing about Ireland. If there were six degrees of separation, that reduced to three degrees in Ireland. Everyone was tightly connected, and everyone knew everyone else.

  “I take it he’s… he’s confessed?” She was careful in her choice of words.

  “I don’t know. The police are questioning him now,” said Charlotte, cautiously. “Richard said they want to keep it quiet. No press. Not after last time.”

  Ruth swallowed hard. “Have you spoken to Kathy?” She had to ask.

  “No…” Charlotte faltered. “It’s a long time since we spoke. I don’t think she’s been well. You know what she’s like. She hasn’t been the same since.”

  Like any of them had.

  They’d tried to move on. None of them wanting to remember, yet finding it impossible to forget. But Kathy – Kathy couldn’t leave things be. Wallowing in grief, she’d wrapped despair around her, withdrawn from friends, from life, from everything. As if hiding herself away she could turn the clock back. Make the blackness go away.

  “Keeping it together hasn’t been easy on any of us,” said Ruth. “But let’s face it, we all know Kathy’s a disaster. She was a melt-down waiting to happen.”

  All three women were scarred. But Kathy’s pain was greater. Her reality, more harsh, more demanding. And Ruth had long ago lost patience with it all.

  “I know you two didn’t part on the best of terms but it hasn’t been easy for her.”

  “I hear you,” Ruth said coldly. “Someone has to tell her. Do you want me to do it?” She would tell her straight.

  “Would you? I don’t think I could face it.”

  How predictable. After all this time, after everything that had happened, the dynamic between them was the same. It was always left to Ruth to sort things out.

  To the casual onlooker, Ruth, Charlotte, and Kathy had remained friends for most of that last year in university. However, as the attention faded, they’d gradually drifted apart – wanting release from one another, not wanting to be tied together by something so horrendous.

  Now, more than two decades later, though there’d been little communication, Ruth was filled with dread. She’d hoped it could have turned out otherwise but it was not to be. They were bound together, their relationship forever shaped by what had happened that long-ago weekend. It now looked certain that they would never be free of those events.

  She felt paralysed, fear leaching out of her bones and into her belly. She could smell it. Hair stood up on the back of her neck. Sitting alone in the conservatory, company spread sheets half-done, she felt an unhealed wound about to rip apart. Memories started to crawl out of their hiding places. She pictured her – giddy, clowning about, waving. It was all just one big laugh to her. Except it wasn’t.

  Ruth shivered. She looked over her shoulder as if someone else was watching. Force of habit. But the pictures she could see were only in her head. Hearing a sniveling on the other end, she stiffened. “For Christ’s sake – don’t. Don’t start this again. I don’t think I could stand it. There was quite enough wailing and grieving twenty-five years ago. How many more times? It wasn’t our fault.”

  “Oh, I know, I know that,” said Charlotte. “You’re right of course…” She broke off. There came the sound of nose-blowing. “When Richard rang this morning, I felt sick. I thought I was going to throw up. Now – now I don’t know what to feel. Glad they’ve finally got the bastard? Relieved? Afraid? I just don’t know.”

  Ruth knew exactly what she felt – like an uncontrolled explosion had just gone off. No advance notice, no warning. Nothing. There’d been no time to plan or prepare. She’d been blind-sided. She tried not to breathe so hard. Distracted now, she attempted to gather her thoughts. The truth may indeed come hurtling towards them. But at what cost? What dark havoc would it wreak in its wake?

  “Closure. That’s all we want, isn’t it? It’s as much as we can hope for,” she said eventually. She tried to sound matter-of-fact. Calm.

  Ruth let her eyes drift to the dog in the garden. At that moment she’d have gladly traded places with Bailey. She’d love to scuff about the lawn, to slob around the shrubbery, to hunker down under the willow by the fountain, and watch the insects landing on the flower-beds. She had zero interest in resurrecting ghosts. And less desire to dig up her shameful past. Melancholia descended on her. Happy memories of her student days as young Ruth Kelly were few and far between. She’d been robbed.

  Somehow, she’d survived. She and Colin had made a good life together in Berkshire. For the past ten years they’d lived a comfortable life in Ascot. No matter what secrets slithered out of this disclosure, Ruth would do her utmost to preserve what she’d created.

  “Shall I give you Kathy’s mobile number?” Charlotte sounded unsure.

  “I suppose you’d better.”

  Slipping into a familiar role, Ruth took charge. This was probably f
or the best. The situation needed to be managed. Kathy was a loose cannon.

  “And I’ll give you my mobile too. We can text.”

  The two women exchanged numbers.

  “You never said what Kath was up to.” Ruth was curious.

  “I didn’t?” Charlotte replied. “Alternative therapy.”

  “No way.” Ruth was surprised. “I’d have thought Kathy needed something proven, something more conventional.”

  “Hang on a minute. You’ve got the wrong end of the stick there. She’s a practitioner. She’s a therapist.”

  Ruth was gobsmacked. It hardly seemed plausible. Kathy healing others when she was so broken herself? It took a few seconds to sink in.

  “You still there?”

  “Yeah, sorry. Just trying to get my head around all of this.”

  “Thanks for agreeing to tell her. I knew you’d know what to do. And you were always great at handling Kathy.”

  And you were always great at chickening out, thought Ruth.

  “No problem, Charlie.” Ruth called her by the name they’d used at university.

  “Maybe now we’ll find out what happened…”

  Ruth’s heart skipped a beat. There came a pounding in her ears. Sweat prickled her palms and she dug her nails into her skin. “Yeah, maybe. Maybe after all this time. It’s been hell.”

  The call over, she sat in the chill, thinking. She closed her lap-top. The company accounts would have to wait. There was no way she could concentrate on spread sheets now.

  Making her way to the kitchen, her herbal tea untouched, she placed the cup on the marble island and stood there a while, looking around. She took in the shiny appliances, the marble worktops, the marble floors. There was a pleasant lemony scent in the kitchen. The cleaning lady had just left.

  Ruth liked her life. The thought that it could fall apart filled her with alarm. The firm that she and Colin had built together provided a good life. As a director, Ruth oversaw all of the accounts but in recent years she’d only worked part-time.

  Claire and Michael were in independent schools that scored well in national league tables. Ruth was on committees in both. And after years of carefully watching her step, she’d gained a following bordering on friendship at the golf club. There was talk of her becoming Lady Captain.

  The phone-call could threaten all of that.

  She had a well-connected circle of friends in Ascot. They were different to the friends from her university days in Ireland. They’d lost touch over the years. There hadn’t been a Christmas card to speak of in the last ten. Each keen to forget their connection that centred on the person who wasn’t there.

  However, it now looked like the past could no longer be contained. It looked like there was nothing she could do. Things were about to erupt. She’d always known that someday, the past would come looking, to exact a toll.

  She, Charlotte, and Kathy were forever snared together. As if by some dark sorcery, the more they pulled apart, the more the noose was fastening, tightening them closer together in one unholy knot. And all because of what had happened to Sarah Nugent.

  Kathy

  Dublin, Ireland

  Present Day

  Kathy Clarke was having a bad day. She’d woken at five, and ever since she’d felt unsettled. It wasn’t as if there was anything in particular to worry about today over any other day but she knew with sickening familiarity that when she woke with this feeling, it hung like a blanket all day. The house was quiet. It was Emma’s week with her father.

  She cast a doubtful eye on the mat on the bedroom floor. Not today, she thought. Yoga won’t cut it today. Shuffling down the staircase in tea-stained slippers, she opened the door to the bright kitchen. Glass-block walls with fig and rubber plants aimed to create an atmosphere of calm. It was important for her clients. It was more important for her.

  Staring at rows of limp wheatgrass growing in trays on the counter, she felt despondent. The wheatgrass held as much appeal as the yoga mat. “Forget it,” she muttered to herself.

  Zipping up her hoody, Kathy unlocked the door at the end of the kitchen and found herself in the semi-darkness of the garage of the small semi-detached house. Stepping over old suitcases and boxes she hadn’t unpacked from the move, she stumbled her way to the small white chest behind a rack of clothes. A pajama leg caught on the pedal of her bike as she bent down. She was definitely setting aside a day next week to sort out the mess in here. It was getting beyond a joke.

  But today could be her breakout day. Kathy allowed herself one a week. The light from the fridge hurt her eyes and her head was throbbing. This hangover was murder. Now, what would she have? The shelves were stocked with German salami, plastic tubs of chocolate mousse, and a variety of soft French cheeses.

  Choosing a chocolate mousse, she hunkered down next to the fridge, settling herself onto the bolster cushion from the antique armchair of her former marital home. Andrew had given up asking her if she knew what had become of it. It wasn’t a particularly comfortable cushion and Kathy didn’t particularly like it but it was from Andrew’s favourite armchair. That was enough for her.

  As she sat in the gloom, eating her chocolate mousse, and staring at a long-dead fly caught in a web, it struck Kathy that such days of dread and anxiety had become more or less habitual. Today was no different. Her misery antennae were in full working order – she could feel in her bones that something awful was about to happen.

  Tucking into slices of salami with the grace of a scavenging dog, she heard the phone ringing loudly from the hallway – a rude rebuke for her indulgence.

  “Ballybracken Healing Centre, good morning,” she said, attempting to sound professional. She was out of breath rushing from the garage. With her tongue she maneuvered the salami to the side of her mouth.

  “Kathy, it’s Ruth Kelly. I’ve got some news.”

  She thought she was going to choke. “Ruth…” she tried to swallow. The lump of salami felt like a stone making its way down her throat. “Just a minute.” She placed the phone on the hall table and ran her greasy hands through her hair. Shit, shit, shit, she thought. I don’t want to talk to Ruth. News. I don’t want any bloody news. I want to be left alone. Then, get a bloody grip. Pick up the phone. You have to talk to the woman. Telling herself to breathe, she grasped the phone.

  “Kath, are you there?” There was irritation in Ruth’s voice.

  “Sorry about that. You caught me eating. What’s up? I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. How did you find me?” Kathy was gushing, the words tumbling out, falling one over the other, threatening to trip her up.

  “I got your number from Charlotte. I hear the alternative therapy business is going well for you in Dublin. That’s great.” Ruth sounded competent, clever, and confident. As always.

  “Yes…” she said hesitantly. “It took a while but I’ve found my niche.”

  “Good for you – anyway, as I was saying I’ve got some news.”

  “So you said…” Her fingers drummed the console table. Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good.

  “Are you sitting down?”

  She knew it. Bad news.

  “It’s about Sarah.”

  Her stomach turned. Sarah. Sarah Nugent. The name she went to bed with and the name that came to her every morning on waking.

  “Oh God,” she croaked. “Have they? Is she…?” Her voice trailed off, unable to form a question. She felt herself go clammy.

  Ruth carried on. “Charlotte rang yesterday. They have a guy. Richard rang to tell her. Remember Richard?” She was business-like, to the point.

  Of course Kathy remembered Richard. He was in the police force or at least he had been when she’d known him. Nice guy, a bit dull, and pretty harmless. Generous though, when they’d been scabby students with not a penny. He’d rescued them from many pasta surprises – anything added to pasta from mouldy cheese to peanut butter.

  She remembered how he’d pitch up at whatever dive they were living in, whisk th
em off in his car, and treat the four starving students to Chicken Maryland with a side of floury chips in Lydons by Eyre Square.

  “Yeah, of course I remember him. Decent guy,” she said. There’d been precious few of those.

  She had half a memory of having had sex with him. As she cast her mind back, she remembered. She’d had sex with him alright. Not that Charlotte knew anything about that. Kathy hadn’t been known for her discretion but she’d been pretty careful to keep that one to herself. It had been up against the graffiti-covered white tiled walls in the toilets of a nightclub. She hadn’t fancied him – it was more a question of feeling grateful for the attention. She’d had sex with lots of guys in college. Back then, she knew how to party.

  “They want to keep things quiet,” said Ruth, still matter-of-fact. “Charlotte asked me tell you. They want it out of the news. But there’s no harm in being prepared.”

  Things had been ominously quiet for years. In the beginning there’d been the documentaries and regular features on crime programs. But after a while, interest died. There were sporadic appeals from Sarah’s family and a few mawkish column inches in weekend reviews. And as the years passed by with no leads, things had lapsed into an uneasy silence.

  “After all this time I still feel guilty.” Kathy was shaking. The ‘ifs,’ the ‘buts’, and all the ‘maybes’ had haunted her for years. She’d love to be as calm as Ruth. She’d always been the weaker one. “How do you handle the guilt?” she asked.

  “For God’s sake! Don’t you start, Kathy. I’ve no intention of going through all this shit again. No way.”

  But Kathy couldn’t stop herself. It had gnawed at her for years, the badness eating her from the inside out, the constant stab of shame and guilt. ‘That day, Oh God, I was so weak… we should have… I should have –”

  “Should have what, Kathy?” Ruth stopped her dead. Cold as ice. “Told someone? Sarah’s parents? The police even?” She paused. “Really, is that what you really think? And how do you think that would have worked out for everyone?”

  “I suppose…” she trailed off. Ruth was always able to see stuff much more clearly. “But I still need to know what happened.” She knew she sounded like a whining kid. “I need to know for my sanity –” she stopped. “Oh God, you don’t think… you don’t think we’ll get called in for questioning again?”