The Empty Room by Brian McGilloway

Author:Brian McGilloway [McGilloway, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2022-03-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty-Three

Whether it was the exhilaration of standing my ground with Eamon or the sheer sense of relief I felt after he had left, I couldn’t tell, but as I sat that evening, it seemed clearer to me than ever that I needed to confront Adam Ward face to face. I knew there was no point in trying to speak to him; he would not stop at the college for any longer than it took to drop off his sister. Besides, I suspected that both of them would be well warned to avoid me. I confess now, it did not strike me then as odd that I was confronting two youths. To my mind, one of them had taken my Ellie from me, the other knew about it and had done nothing to protect her. I needed to get his attention, I reasoned. I needed him to stop.

I could barely sleep that night. My mind raced, thoughts of Eamon, of my own father, of Adam Ward, someone whom I had only glimpsed once and yet who merged with the other men in my life who had taken things from me. I thought of him, sitting back in his chair, confident in the safety of his car, sure of himself. Getting away with murder. And I had no doubt that he was a murderer. I had looked into his face. I had seen the final face Ellie saw. I had stood so near to him. How had he looked at me? How had he faced me?

I ran through various scenarios in which I stopped him and confronted him. I could bring a knife in my bag, force him out of the car, force him to confess. But I knew that I would not; that was not me, no matter how satisfying the fantasy seemed in those early hours. But I needed to do something, to let him know that I knew. To let everyone know who he was and what he had done to my child.

I was in town early that morning, waiting at the paint shop not far from the art college. I’d everything bought and ready long before the college was due to open.

I walked down and took my seat once more at the bus stop opposite the art college, the can of red paint I’d bought opened and sitting on the ground next to me in a plastic bag to conceal it from view. I was waiting for the red BMW this time, knew whence it would come and at what time and so I spotted it in a queue of traffic while it was still some distance from the college.

I steeled myself, then stood and, lifting the pot, prepared to step out onto the roadway. I could see some of the students near the door of the college looking across, spotted a few raising their mobile phones. Perhaps they had recognised me from the previous morning: perhaps they thought it was some form of installation art. Either way, they were recording, just as I had hoped they would.

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