The Empty Room

by Brian McGilloway

Genres: Hard-Boiled; Police Procedurals

Synopsis

What do you do when your child disappears?

'A hugely compelling story of loss, grief and vengeance, The Empty Room is probably the best novel yet by one of our finest mystery writers. Unmissable.' John Connolly

'The tension and heartbreak kept me turning the pages' Patricia Gibney

'A searing, thrilling and heartbreaking look at life, loss and revenge, expertly handled by a hugely talented storyteller' Chris Whitaker

Pandora - Dora - Condron wakes one morning to discover her 17-year old daughter Ellie, has not come home after a party.

The day Ellie disappears, Dora is alone as her husband Eamon has already left for the day in his job as a long-distance lorry driver. So Dora does the usual things: rings around Ellie's friends... but no one knows where she is. Her panic growing, Dora tries the local hospitals and art college where Ellie is a student - but then the police arrive on her doorstep with the news her daughter's handbag has been discovered dumped in a layby.

So begins Dora's ordeal of waiting and not knowing what has become of her girl. Eamon's lack of empathy and concern, Dora realises, is indicative of the state of their marriage, and left on her own, Dora begins to reassess everything she thought she knew about her family and her life. Increasingly isolated and disillusioned with the police investigation, Dora feels her grip on reality slipping as she takes it upon herself to find her daughter - even if it means tearing apart everything and everybody she had ever loved, and taking justice into her own hands.

Praise for The Empty Room

'Superb' Natasha Cooper, Literary Review

'A finely calibrated account of loss, grief and simmering rage' Irish Times

'A powerful portrayal of one mother's desperate ordeal... perceptive' Sunday Independent

'The Empty Room has all the elements of great drama - murder, revenge, sacrifice - along with complex moral questions that will keep you engaged long after the final thrilling page' Martina Murphy

'A compulsive, addictive, heart rending read, The Empty Room is a tale of grief and loss, and ultimately redemption, that puts Brian McGilloway at the very top of the game. I could not put it down' Sam Blake

'Masterful, humane, compelling, beautifully written, utterly convincing - and without a wasted word' Catherine Kirwan

'The Empty Room is a tense, and at times claustrophic, slow-burner which builds to a devastating conclusion' Claire Allan

'A tense thriller' Irish Daily Mail

'The Empty Room surely secures Brian's place as one of the best writers out there. . . a thoughtful exploration of a mother struggling with a changed world. . . exceptional' Chris MacDonald

'High tension and high emotion make this story a page turner' Roisin Meaney

'An utterly gripping and propulsive read, as one would expect from one of Ireland's finest thriller writers' Irish Independent

'A terrific thriller. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough, and the final act is going to haunt me for a long time to come' B P Walter

Praise for Brian McGilloway

'A compulsive police procedural, but it's so much more than that: thou

Release date: March 31, 2022

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 100000

Sample

The sky was bleached white the morning Ellie went. The cloud cover, low and heavy and unrelenting, seemed to trap its light and disperse it, draining from it all colour, all hint of warmth or heat or joy. I could see it through the crack caused where the curtain caught on the radiator and hadn’t been pulled wholly closed. The vertical blinds offered a gaptoothed smile as three of the middle strips lay curled on the sill, their plastic fittings snapped and not yet replaced.

Eamon had woken early, rolling himself off the bed with a movement that caused the springs to creak in complaint as first they dipped then rose again in his wake. He’d been awake for a few moments; I’d felt him turn from his usual position, facing the far wall, shuffle closer to me, his hand snaking up inside my T-shirt. He pressed himself against me, waiting in vain to see if I would respond, then gave up and went downstairs.

Alone now, I allowed myself the luxury of moving to the centre of the bed, pulling the duvet after me, feeling the heat seep into my bones, imagining myself filling with light that would take away their ever-present aches.

Eamon was rattling around in the kitchen, making no effort to be quiet, no allowance for the sleepers of the house. I could chart his movements by the bangs and clatters and the evidence of previous scenes he had left for me to clean on countless other mornings: the cupboard for a bowl; the casual pour of cereal, which would leave cornflakes scattered across the floor; the suck and thud of the fridge door opening and closing; the sloshing of the milk, spilling on the counter top where he would leave the milk carton unlidded; the prangs of the toaster; the click and low rumble of the kettle; the chiming of the porcelain as one mug struck another as he pulled it from the wooden tree next to the teapot; the rising, quieting pitch of the water filling it; the stir and double tap of the spoon on the mug’s rim; his smack and sigh of satisfaction as he took his first sip.

I found some strange comfort in that game, played it most mornings when Eamon was going to work, then tested myself by imagining where in the kitchen he’d have left lying the various items he used for me to clean. There was something satisfying in each minor success, some validation that I knew my husband, knew my family, that I was a good wife, a good mother. Such small victories. As if they mattered.

I must have dozed for he appeared at the end of the bed seemingly seconds later, but the light had changed in the room, and my cheek was slimy with drool. I wiped at it with my sleeve as he bent to kiss me, leaning his weight on the bed, on me. His breath was warm and yeasty from last night’s beer.

‘I’ll see you on Monday, love,’ he said.

‘What time’s your crossing?’ I sat up, gathering the duvet around me.

‘Eleven. Best get a head start, what with all the checks and that.’

I glanced at the alarm. Seven thirty a.m. He’d woken early, maybe in the hope of sex before he left. With that unfulfilled, he was going on to work. I felt a little guilty at my earlier pretence so kissed him, hard and open mouthed, like a promise.

‘Take care on the sea.’

He chuckled, low and scoffing. ‘That’s beyond my control. I’ll ring you later. My Bluetooth is broken so don’t be calling me when I’m driving. Tell Ellie I’ll see her on Monday.’

He stopped in the doorway and turned. ‘I’m sorry about last night. You know how I get before I head off. I hate being away from home.’

‘I’m sorry, too,’ I said. ‘Be careful on the road. Come home safe.’

‘I will,’ he said, his hand raised in a gesture of farewell as he trudged off down the stairs.

With that, he was gone, the room suddenly silent and wide. I stretched, heard the door shut tight. A moment later, I heard the deep rumbling of his truck engine, shaking itself to life. Scrapping open the drawer next to the bed, I fished under my pants and tights for the box of cigarettes I hid there, grateful to have three whole days of freedom to smoke in my own house.

After we married, Eamon told me he didn’t like me smoking inside, because of his chest, he said. His allergies. He spent enough time cramped in the cab of his truck, crossing Europe, he said, without having to feel he was suffocating in his own home. Besides, he always added, it was better for me to quit, better for my health, for Ellie’s.

But when he was away on a long haul, I had two, sometimes three days to indulge myself. On such occasions, I could sicken myself. Even on my worst days, before marriage, I’d not have had one before my morning cuppa, but today, I moved across to the window, peering through the gaps to watch his tractor unit disappear around the corner of the estate, offering a hoarse blast of farewell to Harry, the guy who lived on the corner, Eamon’s mate, who was just now getting into his own builder’s van. He glanced across at the house and I felt sure he spotted me at the window, sure enough to retreat behind the curtain until he was gone.

I opened the window a crack. It was so long since I’d last smoked that the first drag left me immediately lightheaded and nauseated. But it passed. And I felt I had found a brief moment of peace.

Above the estate, crows circled and wheeled, stark against a sky the colour of old bone. Beyond that, though, the world was still, all traffic silenced at this distance, all movement frozen save the frantic shifts and turns of the birds. Even the lawns in the small yards I could see and the common, a green area encircled by the estate, seemed drained of colour somehow, the grass sun-bleached. I had a sense that the earth had been asleep all along and was only now rousing itself to wake and, for some reason, that morning, that thought brought no comfort.

My smoke finished, I pulled my dressing gown about me and went down for breakfast. As I passed Ellie’s shut door, I could see the daylight bleeding around the crack of it and thought she must have forgotten to pull her curtains the previous night. She’d gone to a friend’s party for a few hours, she said, and hadn’t been home when I went to bed.

I opened her door an inch, just to check that she was okay. Her bed lay empty, the duvet undisturbed, her teddy bear, Leo, still sitting sentry on her pillow, staring at me glassy eyed.

That was the moment, I would later realise, by which all other moments in my life would now be defined, the moment that would give them all, for good or bad, their meaning. The moment I discovered I’d lost my daughter.

My first thought was that she’d stayed over with Amy, her friend from school. She’d told me she was going to a party with her the previous night. She’d never stayed out all night before, though had asked once or twice to sleep over in her friend’s house on the next estate. I’d always refused. ‘What can you be doing in someone else’s house you can’t do in your own?’ I’d asked rhetorically, both of us well aware of all that you could do at the age of seventeen, away from the restrictions of home.

Ellie had huffed a bit about it, pouted and fussed and claimed everyone else was allowed to do it, why couldn’t she, but she’d never really challenged it and I suspected it was because she liked her comforts, liked her own bed, the security of her things, her pictures, Leo watching over her as she slept, his fur threadbare in places now from being hugged.

I tried her mobile, but it went straight to voicemail. I left her a message, asking her to call, telling her I’d assumed she’d run out of charge because she’d not come home to charge the phone.

I’d been surprised at the ease with which she had accepted the embargo on staying out all night, indeed had half expected some act of rebellion before now, would have grudgingly accepted it as an indicator of her growing independence. Still, on that morning, as I waited for Brenda, Amy’s mother and my closest friend, to answer the phone, I worked myself into a pantomime of anger, ready to play my expected part.

‘Yes?’ Brenda’s voice slurred with recent sleep.

‘Brenda, is my Ellie there?’

‘I’m not sure, Dora. I don’t think so. Let me check.’

I heard the business of movement and the muffling of a hand on the mouthpiece of the phone, then, in the background, heard the soft tones of a girl’s voice somewhere, which I took to be my child’s. My relief at having located her so easily gave way to a slow build of annoyance at what she’d done when the girl’s voice on the phone surprised me.

‘Mrs Condron?’

It took me a second to realise it wasn’t Ellie.

‘Amy?’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s Ellie I wanted to speak to,’ I said.

‘Ellie?’

The s ilence lengthened as I realised the cause of her confusion.

‘Is Ellie not with you?’

‘No,’ Amy said. ‘Why would she be?’

‘She’s not come home,’ I said. ‘She was out with you last night at a party. I thought she might have stayed over.’

‘No,’ she repeated, and I was unclear just which element of all that I’d said she was challenging.

‘She was with you last night, wasn’t she?’

I could hear Amy’s breathing, ragged, fuzzing in the receiver.

‘She didn’t stay here,’ she offered.

‘Then where is she?’

‘I don’t know,’ the girl said. ‘She wasn’t here anyway. Maybe she …’ The comment seemed to die in her throat and I heard a voice in the background, presumably Brenda’s. ‘She thought she might have stayed here,’ Amy said to her.

A mutter.

‘I don’t know,’ Amy said. ‘She didn’t tell me … I don’t …’

It became apparent that her attention was focused more on her mother than on me.

‘Do you know where she might be, Amy?’ I asked, raising my voice to draw her attention.

‘No,’ the girl said. ‘Did you try her mobile?’

‘It went to voicemail.’

‘I don’t … I’m not sure,’ Amy said. ‘I can Snap everyone, see if anyone knows where she is. I’ll call you when I find out.’

I thanked her and hung up, worry starting to gnaw at my innards, my imagination casting to the most extreme reasons for Ellie’s not coming home, almost as if thinking the worst would somehow ward against it actually happening.

I made a cup of tea and lit another cigarette, then tried Ellie’s mobile again and left another message.

Beyond the kitchen window, I could hear the street come to life: the slamming of front doors; the spluttering of car engines; somewhere the sound of a baby crying, which caused my stomach to constrict, as if in protest at the warm drink.

I replayed, in my mind’s eye, our conversation of the previous evening. She’d come into the living room while I was watching EastEnders and ironing Eamon’s T-shirts; he liked the crispness, he said. She was wearing a tan leather skirt and a brown top under a faux-fur waistcoat. Her hair was straightened and hanging round her shoulders.

‘I’m off to Amy’s,’ she said. Or did she? I replayed the conversation, but this time she said ‘Mary’s’. She had a friend called Mary, so it was possible, but I’d no number for her. I assumed Amy would know her, though; would include her in the Snap she was sending. But it might have been someone else entirely. I realised that, all the time she’d been talking about these friends from college and they had come alive for me through her telling of their stories, I didn’t know who they were or how to begin finding them.

‘Don’t be late, love,’ I’d called.

‘I won’t.’ She half closed the door, then opened it again and leaned in, her hand gripping the edge, her fingers tanned, her nails painted, which colour I can’t for the life of me remember, for each time I do, they change from blue to red to black.

‘What time is Eamon leaving in the morning?’ she asked. ‘Eamon’ never ‘Dad’. That’s not who he was to her.

‘The usual. Have fun, love,’ I added, glancing up at her and smiling.

She raised her chin a little in acknowledgement of the response. ‘See you,’ she said.

And with that she was gone.

That was the final memory God or the universe or simple accident gifted me. ‘See you,’ as she slipped away out the door.

‘Do you have your key?’ I called after her, but she was already out of earshot.

The police officer who took my call, initially, seemed disinterested. She’s probably out with friends, he said. Nine times out of ten, too much drink has been taken and the missing teenager will roll into the house, sheepish and worse for wear, by lunchtime. Still, he said, best give us a description, what she was wearing, where she was going.

‘I think she said she was going out with her friend, Amy, but Amy says she wasn’t with her last night.’

There was a pause. ‘Could there be a boyfriend on the scene? Or a girlfriend? Someone secret she didn’t want you to know about?’

How would I know if it was a secret? I wanted to scream.

‘None that I can think of,’ I said.

‘Is this out of character for her? Staying out for the night.’

A roll call of suspicion and implication. Was she a good girl? Did she sleep around? Could you trust her? My immediate response was annoyance. Of course I trusted her; she was my child. Was she a good girl? Yes: to me. Could she have slept around? She was still a child who cuddled her teddy bear as far as I knew.

‘Totally. She never stays away from home. We don’t allow it.’

‘Has she taken anything with her? Toothbrush? Money? Anything that might suggest she’d planned on staying out?’

I realised, with frustration at myself, that I hadn’t thought to check and so went back upstairs to look, taking the steps two at a time, my dressing gown hem bunched in one hand, the phone in the other. Her toothbrush remained in the scummy chipped drinking glass we used as a holder. I went back into her room, the sight of her belongings making the churning of my stomach intensify. I could feel my heart thud in my chest, heard it pulsing in my ears.

Ellie kept her money in a Hello Kitty tin she’d had for years. It was part of an Easter egg set she got when she was still a child and, whether through practicality or sentimentality, she retained it and used it as a money bank. I prised off the lid and the sight of the tightly rolled notes of her savings conflicted me: relief that she had not planned to leave, and growing concern for exactly the same reason.

‘No,’ I said, a little out of breath from the exertion of running up the stairs. ‘Her things are all here.’

‘Is she on any medication?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘She gets headaches at times, but that’s about it. Paracetamol,’ I added, absurdly.

‘She’s not on any medication for mental-health concerns.’

‘She isn’t,’ I said.

Another pause as he considered the implication of what I’d said.

‘How was her mood before she left last night?’

‘She was fine,’ I said. ‘She was heading out for the night. Asked when her stepdad was leaving today.’

‘Her stepdad is leaving?’

I shook my head then realised the futility of the gesture. ‘No, he’s a long-distance driver. He’s away to Rotterdam, for work.’

‘When did he leave?’

‘This morning.’

‘Would she be with him?’

Again, I cursed myself for panicking without thinking to check. But then, would she have been with Eamon?

I had Ellie when I was eighteen. I was still at school, doing my A-levels, when I got caught. It hadn’t been planned. Her father didn’t hang around, but then I didn’t particularly want him to, so we parted before she was even born, with an unspoken mutual consent and the odd birthday or Christmas card with a tenner in it until Ellie turned seven when all contact stopped. I learned afterwards that he’d moved to work in America.

Around that time, I met Eamon, on a rare night out with Brenda. He was a few years older than me and carried it with confidence, standing with Harry, our neighbour, at the bar, the pair of them dressed in matching jeans and checked shirts. Harry and Brenda had been married a few years by that stage. Eamon had come along for company; he’d separated from his wife, though never explained why beyond telling me she was a hateful bitch. I’d pushed him once or twice on the subject, usually when the two of us had drink in us, but had learned it was a subject best not broached. I still saw her in town, at times, working in the organic food market she’d set up after he left her. Part of me didn’t want to admit it, but she looked better than ever the longer she was away from him.

Ellie liked Eamon, as far as I could tell. But he’d never been ‘Daddy’ to her; he was always Eamon. There hadn’t been the same warmth in their relationship as we had, Ellie and me. She’d cuddle with me in the evenings, curled up beside me on the sofa as we watched some junk on TV. With Eamon, she was more guarded, self-aware. She leaned into any hug she gave him; with me, she wrapped herself into an embrace. But she was a teenaged girl with all that that entailed, so I never thought about it too deeply. Would she have gone away with him, without telling me? Without him telling me?

‘Ma’am?’

The question hung unanswered between us. ‘No. They’re not like that, Ellie and Eamon.’

‘Eamon’s your partner.’

‘Husband,’ I said. A flash of the pair of us at the registry office, Harry and Brenda, Ellie and a few friends. Eamon had wanted to make a thing of it, take me away somewhere nice, but I saw no point in a big party. Money’s tight enough without wasting it on nonsense, I’d said. He’d promised he’d take me away somewhere for our tenth anniversary instead. He’d meant it too. Back then. I saw Ellie, standing next to us, in a peach-coloured dress, a small bouquet in her hand, eyes wide at the novelty of a day off school and a new daddy. But she never called him daddy. ‘He’d have told me if she was with him.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t realise. Could she have stowed away in his truck?’

‘I’ll call him and check,’ I said, feeling a little guilt, and a little concern about what it suggested, that I hadn’t contacted him first.

‘Maybe put out feelers on social media and that, too,’ the officer said. ‘Someone will be out with you later, if she’s still not home.’

I thanked him and hung up, then called Eamon, glancing at the clock.

Eleven thirty a.m.

The ferry would just have left the dock, his signal good for maybe another twenty minutes before it moved beyond reach. It rang eight times before he answered.

‘I told you my Bluetooth was broken,’ he said, by way of greeting.

‘I thought you’d be on the boat,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

I could hear a sudden burst of laughter in the background in response to a conversation I could not make out.

‘I’m just in the lounge now,’ he said. ‘Sorry, lads,’ he added, and I could hear the soft grunt he always made as he pushed himself to his feet. I guessed he’d been sitting with the other drivers and was moving away from them to take the call. Was I that wife, I wondered?

‘Is Ellie with you?’

‘Me? Why would she be with me?’

‘She didn’t come home last night.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Her bed’s not been slept in. Did you check on her this morning?’

‘You know I don’t like wakening her.’

That wasn’t quite true. When she turned thirteen, they’d had a blazing row about his going into her room without knocking. She’d been getting changed, she’d said, and he’d just walked in, looking for something or other. I’d tried to explain to him; he’d never had a daughter before, didn’t understand. She needed her privacy.

‘She’s a spoilt wee bitch,’ he’d said, then seemed to see from my reaction that he’d gone too far. ‘She’s running this house and all in it,’ he added as qualification.

‘Knock on her door, please,’ I’d said.

He didn’t, choosing instead to avoid going into her room at all when the door was closed, perhaps through a refusal to yield to her demand that he knock rather than respecting her right to privacy.

It had made no difference to me how the battle was resolved, only that there was peace.

‘She wouldn’t have hidden in your truck?’ I asked, echoing the police officer to whom I’d spoken.

‘Sure I didn’t have the trailer with me at home,’ he said. ‘I’d know if she was in the cab. She’s probably at Amy’s.’

‘I’ve checked.’

‘What made you think she’d be with me?’

‘The police—’

‘The police? You didn’t call the police, did you?’

‘I didn’t know what else to do.’

‘Do nothing. Have a cuppa, put on the radio, do whatever it is you do in the day. She’ll rock in at some stage, hung over, like any normal teenager. She probably met some young lad.’

‘She’s seventeen.’

‘Said the kettle of the pot.’

The comment stung more than he intended, for he quickly added, ‘Look, I’m sure she’s staying over with a friend somewhere. I wouldn’t be worrying about her. She’s a big girl.’

I nodded silently, telling myself that his failure to share my fears was an act, out of concern for me, to encourage me not to worry.

‘Mind you, she needs a firm hand,’ he added. ‘I’ve told you that before. You let her get away with murder.’

Amy phoned back a few minutes later to say she’d rung around, and no one had seen Ellie, but that she’d texted her and would let me know if she heard anything.

‘Are you sure she wasn’t with you?’ I asked, aware even as I spoke of the absurdity of the question.

‘I’m sorry,’ Amy said. ‘I saw her around eight. I went for a walk to the shop with her. I came on home then.’

‘Where did she go?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Was she not going to a party with you?’

‘I don’t know, Mrs Condron.’

‘You don’t know?’

I could hear the catch in her breath on the other end of the line, her frustration palpable. But she was the last person to see Ellie as far as I knew. She must have told her something, I reasoned.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sure she’s okay.’

I sat in the silence of the kitchen. The sky outside had darkened, it seemed, the clouds gathering and heavy with impending rain. She’d no coat, I thought. I’d seen her go out, dressed in the waistcoat and top. She’d have not worn that just for going to the shop.

Keen for something to do, I pulled on my coat and walked the three streets round to the corner shop. I knew the owner, Madge; I’d worked there, once, a few years back. Madge was working at the till when I went in.

‘All right, love? Eamon’s off, I see. The usual?’ she asked, winking conspiratorially as she reached behind her to the tobacco display. I’d not realised before the predictability of my routine.

‘Have you seen my Ellie?’

Madge shook her head. ‘Not today, love. She was in last night, before closing.’

‘Did she say where she was going?’

Another shake of the head. ‘She bought a quarter bottle of vodka though, for your Eamon.’

‘Eamon didn’t ask her to buy vodka,’ I said, with more confidence than I felt.

Madge blanched. ‘I’m sorry, love. I knew she was underage but she said Eamon had sent her. She’s such a good lass, I just took her word for it. I thought m. . .