DS McCarthy stares at the computer screen. Her routine background check on Joanna Stedman just got interesting. Joanna Stedman née Joanna Kirk. McCarthy sits back, thinking. Kirk is Joanna’s maiden name, and the woman who was referenced in Cora’s notebook is Cynthia Kirk. Kirk. Not an extraordinarily unusual name in Ireland, but not at all common. She waves at Walsh to come over to her desk. They’d called to Cynthia Kirk’s flat on Saturday, explaining that her name and address were in Cora’s notebook. Cynthia denied that Cora had contacted her; said she had no idea what they were talking about. And there was nothing they could do – an address in Cora’s notebook wasn’t enough. But the surnames are the same. That can’t be a coincidence. Walsh is making his way to her desk. McCarthy picks up her keys and gestures for him to follow. Time to chat to Cynthia Kirk again.

66

June 2018

WHEN I WAKE, THE black is gone. Now it’s white. Everything is white. Bright lights and a smell that tells me it will be OK. A hospital smell. A nurse calling a doctor. Checks and muttered words and reassuring nods. It’s going to be OK. I go back to sleep.

The next time I wake, Mark is there, holding my hand. I can’t talk at first, I’m crying too much, trying to ask to see the kids, but choked with tears. He’s shushing me, promising he’ll bring them soon. What day is it? It’s Thursday, he says, I’ve been here since Tuesday night. An overdose of OxyContin; crushed and dissolved and injected by the woman who gave birth to me.

It takes a while to understand what happened, to piece it all together from what Mark tells me. The police had found Cynthia’s address in Cora’s notebook, along with the notes she made on my questions. Cynthia’s denial that Cora had called could not be disproved: CCTV showed that Cora had gone to the building and gone through the main door but not where she’d been beyond that. Maybe Cora had called when she was out, Cynthia had said. She knew nothing about this Cora person. Sorry she couldn’t be of more help.

It might have been left at that, but when I phoned DS McCarthy on Monday, worried about suicide, she logged my call, and on Tuesday, she decided to do some digging into my background. It felt a little odd when Mark told me that – imagining a police detective looking into me. But a good thing she did, because apparently, on Tuesday night, she discovered my maiden name was Kirk, and linked me with Cynthia. She and Walsh went back to Cynthia’s apartment but nobody answered their repeated knocks. The neighbour had been very cross this time, according to Mark, and had come out to have a word with the two gardaí. She was adamant that a woman had been rattling the front door and had gone back into Cynthia’s flat not fifteen minutes earlier. Nobody had left since, she told them, there were definitely two people inside. Maybe Cynthia was in trouble? the neighbour speculated.