Good Girl, Bad Girl by Michael Robotham

Author:Michael Robotham
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780751573428
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

33

As I near the Sheehan house, a neighbour appears at his front gate sitting astride a mobility scooter. Rolls of fat cascade over his belt, making it hard to see where his legs begin.

‘Are you with the police?’ he asks aggressively.

‘No.’

I don’t stop. He follows, accelerating to my pace. I recognise him from his photograph: Kevin Stokes – the former swim instructor who served eight years for sexually abusing two boys at a local swimming centre.

‘Yes, you are. I saw you the other night. When are they gonna clean this up?’ He nods towards his house where the words ‘pedo’ and ‘pervert’ have been daubed in red paint across his front fence.

I don’t stop.

‘What about my rights?’ he yells.

‘What about the boys you abused?’ I mutter under my breath.

A police officer answers the door at the Sheehan house. Female. Uniformed.

‘Is anyone home?’ I ask.

‘Mrs Sheehan has gone to church.’

‘And Mr Sheehan?’

‘He left early this morning.’

The constable jots down the address of a nearby church and draws me a map on a scrap of paper. I follow her directions until I see the steeple from two streets away. The main doors are locked so I try a side entrance and enter a nave with a vaulted ceiling criss-crossed by white beams that join together and plunge down pink-tinted walls. Seats are arranged on three sides around an altar.

Maggie Sheehan is cutting flowers and arranging them into tall vases. She has a warm, open face with a high forehead and pale blue eyes. She’s an introvert. I recognised that when I first saw her deferring to Dougal, letting him speak first, almost seeking permission with her eyes before she voiced an opinion. It was as though she had grown accustomed to being in the background and I could imagine how easily she could disappear, fading into the wallpaper, or evaporating without leaving so much as a spot.

‘I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs Sheehan,’ I say, clearing my throat. ‘Do you remember me?’

‘Dr Haven.’

‘Cyrus.’

She goes back to trimming the flowers. ‘We’ve been sent so many I thought I should bring some to the church,’ she explains. ‘People are very kind. I do the flowers every week . . . and clean the presbytery for Father Patrick.’

‘I called on Felicity earlier,’ I say. ‘It must be a comfort having her living so close.’

‘She’s like a sister to me. People used to think Bryan and I were twins, but he’s two years younger. I remember when he first brought Felicity home to meet our parents. He whispered to me, “I’m going to marry this one.” And he did.’

She snips another stem.

‘I was engaged to Dougal by then. We talked about a joint wedding, but I fell pregnant and we had to rush up the altar. Does that shock you?’

‘No.’

‘I guess it doesn’t matter so much any more. Sex before marriage. A pregnant bride. Felicity was my birth partner because Dougal didn’t want to see the “nuts and bolts”. That’s what he called it. I promised that I’d do the same for Flip but she took ages to fall pregnant.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.