A press lying face downwards reminded him of a coffin. Dominick helped him to lift it upright and check that it was empty. Glass from a television screen crunched under their feet. The searchlight illuminated broken bottles and syringes. Karl picked up a bottle. It looked clean. Someone had been drinking here in the recent past. Dominick said it happened regularly. Vagrants drinking red biddy, kids shooting up.
Eventually, the search of the house was called off and they emerged into daylight. The volunteers looked ashen, as if the grey, mouldering atmosphere had seeped into their skin. The orchard stretched on either side of the house and around to the rear. Not that it looked like an orchard any more. Ivy clung to the branches and briars snapped at their clothes as the group re-formed and moved through the trees. How anything but weeds could grow in this wilderness he didn’t know, but the trees looked healthy and windfall apples from last season’s crop rotted in the long grass. The wall Karl had once scaled, hoisted upwards by Dominick, still looked as intimidatingly high as it did all those years ago.
Litter had caught in the long grass, tin cans and bleached scraps of paper from a discarded black plastic sack, ripped open by birds. The searchers stopped at a command from Sergeant Moran. She bent over to check something on the ground.
‘What’s going on?’ Karl asked the woman next to him.
She craned her neck, then shrugged. ‘Can’t see. Could be nothing.’
But it had to be something significant. Shivers ran over his skin. He wanted to break rank and run towards the policewoman but he waited, like everyone else, when they were told to hold their positions. Trampling grass could destroy vital evidence, Sergeant Moran said. She gestured at Karl to come forward and hunkered over a clump of thistles. A mobile phone cover was caught between the barbs. The sides of the cover were open and splayed like the wings of a speckled butterfly.
‘Do you recognise this cover?’ she asked Karl.
He was about to kneel to look closer but a curt command from her kept him on his feet.
‘No, I’ve never seen it before,’ he replied.
‘Think carefully. Have you ever seen your niece using it?’
‘Never. Her cover is pink and covered in music stickers.’
Sergeant Moran pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and carefully transferred the phone cover to a plastic bag. Last night’s rain had collected in the grooves and stained the leather surface. The speckles, Karl realised, were small holes, as if the leather had been pecked by birds or scratched by rats. He was unable to read the sergeant’s expression but he suspected that recovering fingerprints from it would be difficult, if not impossible.
She walked along the line and spoke quietly to the search team. They must retrace their steps and search for a phone. They turned and painstakingly scanned the grass. They checked between the roots of trees and deep in the tangled undergrowth but all they unearthed were more pockets of litter and rusting tin cans. Finally, the search was called off. They returned to the community centre, where the atmosphere was muted, the conversations low. They accepted mugs of tea or coffee and sat down at tables that had been laid with plates of sandwiches.
Justin, who had been talking to a group of volunteers, came over to Karl. ‘Have you read this?’ He flung a copy of Capital Eye on the table.
The headline Connie Come Home and an enlarged photograph of Karl and Constance seemed to jump out at him from the front page. They had been photographed sitting on the edge of the stage at the end of a concert, spotlights bathing the background in a lurid red. The photograph had obviously been taken on a mobile phone by either Tracey or Gillian. Constance, her arm around his neck, was leaning forward, pouting provocatively at the camera. Karl had no memory of the moment they were photographed but he must have protested because his hands were splayed across his face and only his eyes were visible.
His anxiety grew as he read the caption. Missing schoolgirl, Connie Lawson, seen here at a concert with her uncle, Karl Lawson, controversial editor of Hitz, the popular music magazine. How many images had Amanda Bowe viewed on the girls’ mobiles before she had chosen that one, he wondered, as he began to read.
Connie Come Home
Amanda Bowe
A day after gardaí launched a search for missing schoolgirl, Connie Lawson, 13, the mystery remains. Where has she gone? Did she run away from home? Was she lured from her bedroom by someone she trusted? Was she groomed by an anonymous ‘friend’ on social media? These are the hard questions her distraught parents must confront as the search for their daughter continues.
Her close friend, Tracey Broome, wiped tears from her eyes when she spoke about Connie. ‘She loves horses and training with the Glenmoore Junior Harriers. I hope she comes back to us soon,’ she said between sobs.
‘She’s a Blasted Glass fangirl,’ added Gillian Miller, another close friend. ‘She was really looking forward to hearing them at the Ovid. She phoned just before I went to sleep and said she’d ask her uncle to sort it out. That’s the last time we spoke.’
Connie’s uncle, Karl Lawson, controversial editor of the popular music magazine Hitz, enjoys a close relationship with his niece and had promised to bring the girls backstage after the concert to introduce them to the band members.
The tearful schoolgirls sent out a special plea to their friend. ‘Please Connie, get in touch. We’re so worried about you. We love you, Connie. Please phone and let us know you’re safe.’
Hopes are high that Connie will soon be reunited with her distraught family. Gardaí intend carrying out door to door enquiries in the Cherrywood area but, as yet, foul play is not suspected.
Foul play… foul play… the expression had a staccato force that stripped away the pretences, the possibilities and reassurances that came from the brisk busyness of the volunteers. They had formed for only one purpose. To search for a girl who could be the victim of foul play.
‘How often do I have to say it?’ He raised his hands in an appealing gesture to Justin. ‘Constance didn’t contact me and, if she did, I’d have sent her straight home again. I never take sides with her in a row, as you know. You have to ignore this rubbish.’
‘How do you propose I do that?’ His brother’s clothes were rumpled, the same ones he had pulled on yesterday when he realised his daughter’s bedroom was empty. ‘Should I ignore the fact that the reporter is telling the truth?’ He jabbed his finger at Karl. ‘You were forcing Constance to grow up too fast. Turning her into a groupie.’
‘That’s not fair!’ Karl protested. ‘I always keep my eye on her and her friends when I bring them to gigs. All they ever do is look for a few autographs and take some selfies with the bands.’
‘She’s too young to be exposed to that environment. She was into harmless boy-band stuff until you started influencing her—’
‘I gave her a few free albums, that’s all. Some she hated, some she liked. I never tried to influence her.’
A woman approached the table with a teapot and filled Karl’s cup. Her hand trembled, as if the intensity of his dread had touched her.
‘No, you just play the hipster uncle,’ Justin said when she left. ‘Undermining my authority every chance you get.’