Have you thought of questioning prostitutes other than Brenda? What about her clients? There must be a clue somewhere. Her clothes, maybe.
‘We’ve done all that,’ Graham Patterson would reply wearily. ‘We do know our job, Mr Clancy. We’ll keep you informed, I promise. Go home. There’s nothing you can do here.’
Michael would go then, but return a day or two later and continue his harangue. ‘Don’t you see?’ he implored of any officer willing to listen. ‘It’s not right to let it go. We can’t just give up. We have to know her name.’
When the coroner’s office took out a restraining order, Michael’s father stepped in. ‘You’re not well, Michael. You need professional help. We’ll ask Dr Donahue to give you a referral to a psychiatrist.’
But Michael knew that a psychiatrist was not what he needed. It was not his mind but his spirit that was sick. Empathy was one of the qualities that had made him so well liked. It was this that had enabled him to see Amy and Linsey’s plight and act with humanity and integrity in their last desperate bid to conceive. But now empathy was his enemy.
He imagined the girl’s family: perhaps kind and loving, waiting for a postcard or a phone call. Or were they evil and abusive? Did the girl run from them only to find a life of further abuse and evil? In his worst nightmare, he saw the small, broken body crammed into a box, her cries for recognition smothered by the weight of the indifferent earth. He would wake from this dream gagging and then lie on his back, staring at the ceiling, which became gradually defined as the pre-dawn light turned the room from black to smudgy grey.
He was now afraid to walk in case he was tempted to breach the restraining order, and he became increasingly claustrophobic in the miasma of anxiety and concern that surrounded him in his parents’ house, to which he had been persuaded to return ‘for his own good’.
‘Just until you’re feeling a bit better,’ his mother promised. ‘It’s been a horrible experience. You need to rest.’
After two weeks of confinement he could take no more, and slipping away while his parents were out, he returned to his flat to pack a few clothes. Since the accident he had been unable to bring himself to drive his car, so he took a bus down to the coast.
‘It’s a Father Jerome, from the Benedictine monastery at Tunnawarra,’ Michael’s mother said that evening, her hand covering the receiver. ‘He says that Michael turned up on their doorstep and asked for sanctuary.’
‘God Almighty! Tell them we’ll be down in a couple of hours to pick him up.’ Already on his way out the door, Michael’s father wheeled sharply. ‘Did you say sanctuary? What on earth is the matter with him?’
‘It seems that he doesn’t want to come home. We can’t force him, Vic. They said he could stay in their retreat house for a while.’ She spoke into the phone again. ‘He’s very fragile at the moment, Father. Yes, I understand. Thank you. Call us any time—day or night.’ She replaced the receiver and sat down heavily. ‘He sounded very competent. And nice. Father Jerome, that is. He said he has a degree in clinical psychology, so that’s one blessing. I told him about the accident. I thought he needed to know.’
‘We can only hope it does Michael some good. At least he won’t be hanging around the coroner’s office. Who knows? Maybe he knew all along what he needed.’ Seeing tears in his wife’s eyes he put his arm around her. ‘Don’t worry, Paula. We’ll go down and see him in a few days. Did the priest say when we could visit?’
‘He suggested we give Michael some space for a week or two. He said when you hate yourself you can’t believe that anyone else could love you . . . Vic, Michael thinks we secretly despise him for what happened.’ She gave up the fight and began to cry in earnest. ‘He says we can’t help him. We’ve failed him, haven’t we?’
Vic’s shoulders sagged. ‘Jesus Christ! What a mess.’
Michael had left with no clear plan. He had set out for the coast on a whim, because he loved the sea and hoped to find solace there. But as he waited at the bus station, the fever that had driven him for the last weeks, and which had finally impelled him to act, suddenly dissipated, leaving