The Girl Behind the Lens: A dark psychological thriller with a brilliant twist

SIX

‘Where are you off to?’ her mother asked, as Joanna sat on the stairs pulling on her boots. Joanna had barely spoken to her in the two days that had passed since Rachel Arnold’s visit. Angela had been at pains to restore normality, Joanna knew that, but she wasn’t about to concede. The fact that they’d always been close – more like sisters – made her mother’s lie impossible to accept.

She looked up, knowing that her mother wouldn’t like her answer. ‘My father’s funeral,’ she said.

‘You’re not … surely, you’re not thinking of going?’ There was a warning tone in Angela’s voice that Joanna was only too familiar with.

‘Why wouldn’t I? It’s my last chance to see him … to know what he was like.’

‘But you won’t see him. The coffin, it’ll be closed.’

‘How do you know?’ Joanna stood up, and took her heavy winter coat from the banister. She wrapped a red scarf round her neck.

‘It’s not possible in these circumstances. The water, it’ll have bloated the body. Made him … unrecognizable. He’d been in the canal for days.’

Ignoring her mother, Joanna took her car keys from the hall table. ‘Well, it’s my decision and I’ve decided to go,’ she said.

‘Don’t.’

A low warning that caused Joanna to stop and look closely at her mother.

‘Why not? Is there something else you’re worried I’ll find out about?’

‘No. It just won’t do you any good, that’s all. Look, can’t we talk? It’s getting us nowhere, you behaving like this …’

‘Me behaving like this? What about you? You’re the one who brought about this mess – you and your lies. Did you think I’d just forgive you, Mum? And anyway, I don’t see what’s so strange about going to my own father’s funeral, do you?’

Angela stood blocking the door. ‘I’m asking you not to do this, Joanna, for my sake. Don’t go bringing that woman into our lives.’

‘This isn’t about you.’ Joanna strode past, forcing her mother to step back from the door.

‘Well you needn’t expect them to welcome you,’ Angela shouted after her.

Joanna ignored her. She slammed the car door and reversed dangerously fast out of the driveway.

Joanna was still seething when she arrived at the churchyard. How dare her mother attempt to stop her from going. She pulled into the car park, which was already filling up, and attempted to calm down before going inside. As Joanna sat there, she watched, from the anonymity of her car, the groups of people gathered near the church doors. Yellow light spilled from inside and illuminated the faces of men in heavy winter coats congregated at the entrance. They moved from foot to foot in an attempt to thwart the icy chill as their wives clutched at each other’s arms. These, she thought, were the people who had shared her father’s life.

In the street, the cavalcade of rush hour traffic passed the church gates – a procession as slow as that which would bring the dead man to his mourners. She watched them pass and felt strangely detached. Heads turned and the crowd dispersed to make way for the long black hearse as it drove slowly through the gates. It was followed by a single mourning car. The doors opened and a tall man dressed in black got out. The driver opened the door at the other side and Rachel Arnold stepped out, head held erect as she stood by and watched the pallbearers slide her husband’s coffin from the back of the hearse and then wheel it into the church. Several people touched her arm, and she exchanged words with them as she passed.

Joanna waited until the crowd outside the church had entered. And, with a glance in the rear-view mirror, she stepped from the car and crossed quickly to the entrance. A man reached the door just as she did. He nodded and beckoned for her to enter first.

There was quite a crowd in the church. Rachel Arnold sat in the first pew and next to her sat the man from the mourning car. The previous night, Joanna had read Vince Arnold’s obituary online. She knew that he had a brother – Patrick – and she figured that must be him. The Arnolds had no children. None, that is, except for her.

Joanna stared at the coffin and reminded herself that the man inside was her father, but she felt detached. Her feelings amounted to nothing more than a macabre curiosity about the dead man. She scanned the room, eyes moving over the rows of people that filled the church as they had once filled her father’s life. As the priest droned on, she became aware of someone watching her. She turned to find the same man she’d met at the entrance staring at her. Embarrassed, she looked away, but when she turned again a moment later he was still looking. He smiled slightly and nodded. She returned his gaze, but not his smile. And suddenly the Mass had ended.

The church organ played as Rachel Arnold made her way slowly down the aisle accompanied by the man in the dark suit. The people in her pew stood, and she joined the procession of mourners who filed out of the church to pay their respects to the widow.

When she stepped outside, she saw the man who had smiled at her. He was unshaven and wore a long black coat. He was talking to the man by Rachel’s side – the one Joanna imagined was her uncle. She saw him introduce the man to Rachel, who took his hand. They talked while others idled waiting for their opportunity to pay their respects. Joanna wondered who the man was. He’d stared at her so intently in the church that she wondered if he knew her.

She waited until the crowd had thinned. Then suddenly she found herself standing before Rachel Arnold wondering what to say.

Rachel took her hand in hers and squeezed it. ‘You came,’ she said. ‘I wondered if you might.’

Joanna nodded. ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she said. The well-used expression sounded meaningless, but she couldn’t think of what else to say.

‘Is your mother here?’

‘No.’

Rachel looked relieved. ‘I take it she told you?’

‘That he was my father, yes.’

‘I’m sorry that you had to find out like this. I’d have liked it to be different.’ Rachel looked around. There were still some people waiting to speak to her. She kept her voice low. ‘I’d like to talk to you again, Joanna – when everything calms down. You must have so many questions about Vince.’

Joanna nodded, unsure of what to say.

Rachel fumbled in her bag. ‘I’ll give you my number,’ she said. She took out a small notebook, scribbled something, tore the page out and handed it to Joanna. The man in the black coat was standing a few feet away smoking a cigarette and talking to Patrick Arnold. Joanna looked past Rachel to where the man stood.

‘That man … the one in the black coat … who is he?’ she asked.

Rachel turned to look at him. ‘He’s the one that found Vince. It turns out he knew Patrick, Vince’s brother. I’ll introduce you if you like. You should meet him, Patrick …’

Joanna hesitated. ‘No. I mean – I’d like to, but another time. It’s all a bit too strange right now.’

‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Rachel nodded her understanding.

Patrick Arnold had turned away from the man in the black coat. He glanced over, but Joanna took her leave before Rachel had a chance to beckon him. The other man stubbed out his cigarette and walked towards his car, which was parked near Joanna’s. He looked up as she approached.

‘I heard you’re the one who found him,’ she said.

The man looked at her, curious. ‘That’s right.’

She held out her hand. ‘I’m Joanna. The man … Vince … he was my father.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m Oliver. Oliver Molloy.’ His hand was cold as he shook hers. ‘I can imagine how distressing it must be …’

She shrugged. ‘I didn’t know him,’ she said.

‘Oh?’

She felt suddenly stupid, unsure why she had said that to a total stranger. A morbid desire to know the details of her father’s death made her carry on. ‘They said he was trapped under the ice? How did you find him …? I mean was the body …?’

Oliver studied her for a moment before he answered. ‘He was close to the edge of the canal, just beyond the reeds. He’d probably floated down from somewhere else. His hand was above the ice, but apart from that I didn’t see him … like you said he was trapped …’

‘Do you think it was an accident?’

‘I suppose … don’t you?’ His grey eyes looked into hers with interest.

‘I wouldn’t know. I just … I wondered. The thing is I didn’t know he existed until last night.’

Oliver Molloy watched her, waiting for some kind of explanation. His silence forced her to speak. She was surprised at her own anger.

‘My mother never told me about him … and then last night she came …’ She looked over at Rachel who was talking to a small group of people standing by the mourning car. Patrick Arnold was looking in their direction.

‘I’m sorry … that must have been quite a shock.’

‘Yes.’ Her uncle was still looking over. She didn’t want to meet him; she wasn’t ready for that. ‘Look, I’d better go. Thanks … for talking to me … I’m sure you must think it strange. I hadn’t meant to tell you all that. I’m just … never mind.’

The man reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out his wallet. ‘Here, take my card. If you ever want to call me … for advice or just to chat …’

She took the card from between his fingers: ‘Molloy and Byrne Solicitors’ in thick black print.

‘Not just legal advice … anything at all … sometimes it’s easier to talk to a stranger.’

Joanna slipped the card into her pocket. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

He smiled and said goodnight.

SEVEN

Oliver closed the door behind his last client of the day and walked to the window. The evening air was punctuated by the sound of car horns as frustrated commuters attempted to escape the chaos of the city in order to return to their comfortable suburban lives. Below, the quays were blocked in both directions. Traffic inched forward en masse like some huge lumbering beast as pedestrians launched themselves in front of slow-moving cars to cross bridges whose lights burned orange in the blackness of the Liffey.

A rough-looking couple were arguing in the street. The man took a few steps towards the woman who pointed a finger in his face as he swayed and gesticulated, spilling beer from the can that he clutched in one hand. The woman lifted a hand as though she was about to slap him, but he turned away. She tugged at his arm, and he shrugged her off, raised the can to his lips and made his way back towards the boardwalk where he would probably spend the night. The names she shouted after him hung in the night air.

Oliver turned away from the window, disgusted by the fact that he had wanted the man to strike out. He wanted him to lose his patience with the woman; the fact that he hadn’t rendered him, Oliver, the inferior of the two. If he had walked away, none of it would have happened. Mercedes would, at that moment, be making dinner in their house across the city – the house that he couldn’t bear to return to each evening; instead, choosing to stay late in the office, replaying the events again and again in his mind, tormenting himself with the possibility of an alternative outcome – one that might not have been so devastatingly absolute.

Mercedes had been in the kitchen that day when he arrived. A rich aroma of cooking spiked the air. She didn’t answer when he shouted hello, and he assumed she hadn’t heard him and continued up to the bedroom where he kicked off his shoes, undid his tie and pulled on a warm fleece over his white shirt. When he went back downstairs she was putting dinner on the table.

They talked about their day. He didn’t notice anything strange in her behaviour; she hid it well. Then she began to tell him about a guy in the office at work who was having an affair with a French girl in her department. She cursed him. She didn’t blame the girl, she said; she was smitten and couldn’t see that he was never going to leave his wife for her.

‘I suppose the only thing she can be blamed for is being foolish. What do you think?’ she said.

Oliver shrugged and told her he’d seen that kind of case so many times. Of course the law would say that the man was wrong; the mistress wouldn’t come into it, and the wife, well, she’d try to take the man for every penny she could get. They always did.

‘I’m not talking about law; I’m talking about lives. I mean … who’s to blame, the husband or the girl? What if I were the wife, for example, who do you think I should take it out on, you or the girl that you seduced?’

It was then that he went on his guard. ‘Look, not everything is black and white,’ he said.

‘Isn’t it?’

‘No, you don’t know these people, their situation.’

‘Ah, but I do.’

Mercedes’s eyes flashed as she spat the words, and he knew that she’d found out. He should never have believed that Carmen would keep quiet. She was too like Mercedes: a straight talker. She liked to get her own way, but she lacked Mercedes’s morals. Carmen didn’t care whose lives she destroyed to get what she wanted, and she knew that her sister was likely to forgive her in time.

Mercedes had stood up and instinctively he did the same. She walked round to his side of the table, drew her tiny frame up to its full height and slapped him so hard that his cheek stung.

‘Why did you do it?’ she said. ‘Why the fuck did you have to do it, and with Carmen. You … you think you’re so above it all, above everyone, but you’re weak. Can’t you see it? You’re just like the rest of them. Dangle a piece of bait and you’re hooked. It’s pathetic.’

He tried to apologize. He told her that, yes, he’d been weak at that moment. Hell, they hadn’t had sex for the last couple of months. What did she expect him to do? He realized as he said it that his apology with its counter-accusation was probably not the best tactic, but he couldn’t help but try to push some of the blame onto her. It was his only mechanism of defence.

‘So, you don’t think your sister had any part in this?’ he snarled. ‘You don’t think that her coming round here when you were away, dressed like a … like a fucking prostitute had anything to do with it? I mean, what man with blood in his veins wouldn’t, for Christ sakes? She was screaming for it!’

Mercedes hit him again. This time it wasn’t just a slap. She pummelled and kicked him, and he tried to grab hold of her wrists to stop her, but she bit his hand so hard she drew blood. He knew that he should’ve taken it, but something inside him just snapped. Mercedes lashed out, her fist catching his jaw. He stumbled backwards, and then lunged at her. His hands were round her throat as he pushed her down onto the sofa. She struggled and he pressed down harder to prevent her from hitting him again. He was appalled and aroused by the violence, and the more she tried to free his hands from her throat, the tighter he clenched them. When she finally stopped struggling, he released her. He thought that he had merely tired her out, stopped her from attacking him. Wasn’t that what he had set out to do?

Oliver’s hands were shaking from the memory as he tidied away the files on his desk. He jumped when the door opened and his partner, Colin Byrne, appeared in the doorway.

‘Is there something you’re keeping from me, Oliver?’

‘What?’

He froze at the open cabinet.

‘Is business better than I figure, because I’m beginning to think you’re hoarding all the clients for yourself. You’ve been here late every night.’

‘Ah. No, it’s not that,’ Oliver said. He hesitated, returned the files to the drawer and locked it. ‘To be honest, Colin, I’ve been having a few problems. Mercedes and I haven’t been getting along.’

‘Wouldn’t it be better to go home then and try to sort it out?’ Colin asked.

‘It might if there was somebody there to sort things out with. She’s gone away for a while – I’m not sure for how long. So, I’d rather be here sorting some stuff out, anything rather than sitting in that house thinking about her.’

Colin didn’t ask questions. He was tactful, and when Oliver didn’t offer any more information he took his cue to leave.

‘She’ll be back,’ he said, touching Oliver’s shoulder before going home for the night.

The truth was Oliver couldn’t stand being in that house. He’d begun to take the phone off the hook in the evenings so that he didn’t have to listen to Carmen Hernandez’s messages. Sooner or later he knew that he would have to come up with something to put Carmen off for good. He’d considered sending her a letter. He’d even spent time copying Mercedes’s handwriting in order to send Carmen a note that said she never wanted to see her again, but then he’d given up. He knew that it wouldn’t be enough, that there had to be something else, but without Mercedes he couldn’t think of anything else. He could say that she had left him. Carmen would believe that, but he knew that Mercedes’s disappearance would motivate her family to contact the police – and he wanted to avoid that for as long as he possibly could.

Oliver was about to leave the office when there was a long buzz on the intercom. He looked at his watch. Could Colin Byrne have forgotten his keys? Cautiously, he crossed to the window and looked down into the street. A man in a dark-coloured coat stood below. He didn’t recognize him until the man stood back and looked up at the window. Curious, Oliver lifted the intercom and told Patrick Arnold to come up to the office.

EIGHT

Joanna’s mother was seldom home. At first, she thought her absence an attempt to avoid her but, when she thought about it, her mother had been out a lot recently, even before Rachel Arnold’s visit. She hadn’t asked Joanna about the funeral nor had Joanna volunteered any information about it. What she had decided to do was take Rachel Arnold up on her invitation in order to find out about her father.

She stood outside the front porch of the Arnolds’ house and leaned on the bell. It buzzed, a sharp, insistent sound. There was movement in the hall, and through the amber glass next to the front door she saw a figure move down the hallway, and she braced herself for the meeting. The door swung open, but instead of Rachel Arnold, Joanna found herself face to face with the man she had seen at the funeral – the one that Rachel had told her was Patrick.

Joanna stammered, disconcerted. ‘I’m here to see Rachel.’

Patrick Arnold seemed to scrutinize her. ‘Joanna, isn’t it? I saw you the other night at the church, but you disappeared before I’d a chance to say hello. I’m Patrick, your … Vince’s brother.’

He extended his hand; it was warm as it gripped hers. He had been about to say ‘your father’ Joanna mused, but had thought better of it. She wondered how close this man had been to his brother – if Vince had confided in him all those years ago about the affair with her mother. He stood back and Joanna stepped into the warmly lit hall, acutely aware that she was entering her father’s house.

She glanced round. Both walls and carpet were a deep cream colour. A large Monet print hung above the stairs, and a man’s navy sports jacket lay draped across the banister. She wondered if it was Patrick Arnold’s, or if it had been her father’s. Patrick led her into the living room, and she resisted the urge to touch the coat as she passed.

Rachel’s expression as she entered the room was a mixture of pleasure and surprise.

‘Joanna, I’m so glad you’ve come. I see you’ve met Patrick.’

He stood by the fireplace looking slightly amused but he didn’t say anything. None of them did, they stood round in the bellowing silence until Rachel finally spoke.

‘Odd meeting like this, isn’t it? But then it’s been an odd few weeks. It’s hard to know where to begin. Thank you for coming the other night. I wasn’t sure you would but I imagine she’s told you everything, your mother?’

‘She told me some things.’

Rachel’s blue eyes were not without sympathy. ‘It must have been a shock to find out like that. I’m sorry.’

Joanna straightened. ‘That’s what Mum said. Bit late to be sorry now though, isn’t it? It seems no one wanted me to know.’

Rachel didn’t deny that. ‘And what did she tell you?’ she asked.

‘I know about my mother’s affair … that he didn’t want anything to do with me when he found out, that you forbade contact.’ The words cut even as she said them, the wounds deeper than she’d thought.

‘Well, I should have known she wouldn’t leave that out.’ There was anger in Rachel’s tone, but she checked it. ‘I don’t suppose she told you that I wanted to adopt you, bring you up as our own.’

‘What?’

Rachel nodded. ‘Vince and I had been trying for a child for a number of years – then he had the affair with your mother and … well, she refused to give you up, of course. Why wouldn’t she? I hated her. She had Vince’s child and I didn’t. How fair was that? So yes, I told him if he had any part in your life, our marriage was over. I suppose you think that was selfish … maybe it was, but it would never have worked. I wasn’t about to be part of any triad. I was his wife.’

Patrick, having stood by listening, spoke suddenly. ‘So you see it wasn’t that easy … for anyone, not for my brother either.’

Joanna felt light-headed. She wished her mother had told her everything and not left her open like this. She turned on Patrick Arnold. ‘Oh, it seems it was easy enough. He cut himself off – never bothered to find out anything about me – his only child. Just as well he didn’t have any others, isn’t it? If that’s the kind of father he was.’

This was aimed at Rachel, who looked taken aback by her sudden anger.

‘I’m sorry, Joanna. And I don’t blame you for being angry. I’m not going to pretend that it isn’t my fault – all our faults – it must seem everybody conspired against you. We did think about you … I wondered if he’d one day want to find you. I knew where you lived; your mother was in the phone book, so he knew it too. And it seems he did wonder because I found this among his things.’

Rachel crossed the room and took a book from the shelf. As she did so, Joanna saw a silver-framed photo of her father on a cabinet; it was the same photo she’d seen when she’d typed his name into a search engine the night that Rachel had come to the house. Vince Arnold smiling into the camera at what looked like a racetrack. He wore a white shirt open at the neck and a sports jacket, his hair was thinning, eyes creased with laughter lines as he squinted into the sun. Most of the national newspapers had printed the picture next to the article reporting his death. A tragic accident, they had said – Arnold was the latest victim of the biggest freeze to have gripped the country in almost forty years.

Rachel returned and Joanna found herself looking at another picture, which Rachel held out to her.

‘This is the reason I went to your mother’s house that night. I thought that maybe she knew something; that she’d had some contact with him before his disappearance, but she denied ever having seen it.’

It was a picture of Joanna on her confirmation day, posing outside the church in a little skirt suit that her mother had bought her for the occasion. There were many like it in the family album at home.

‘Where did he get this?’ she asked.

Rachel shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea. I thought maybe you could help me to find out?’

Joanna looked at her. ‘Well, it couldn’t have been my mother; she said she hadn’t seen him in years.’ Even as she said the words, she knew that it was the only possible way such a picture had come into her father’s possession. She looked at Patrick and again wondered how much he knew.

‘Did you know my mother then?’ she asked him.

‘No, I was just a kid. Vince didn’t exactly want me hanging around back then.’

‘But you knew … about me?’

‘Yes, he told me one night … he was upset.’ He glanced at Rachel Arnold, giving Joanna the impression that he didn’t want to say too much in front of her.

Joanna looked at Rachel, unable to decide whether she should hate this woman for making her father disown her, or feel some allegiance to her as another victim of her parents’ deceit. If she were to find out anything about her father, she decided, she had better keep her resentment in check. These people were her only link to him. Family by blood if nothing else; at least, Patrick was. She looked at him, curious, wondering if he bore any resemblance to Vince. She looked again at the picture Rachel had given her. ‘I’ll ask her about it,’ she told her, putting the photo in her bag.