The Thorn Girl

by Laura Elliot

Genres: General Fiction; Literary Fiction; Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction; Mystery; Historical Mysteries; Female Sleuths; Crime Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

On a cool April evening, fifteen-year-old Marianne lays out a rug on the stone floor of an abandoned cottage and waits for her boyfriend Shane. Her mother does not know she is missing. Shane will never arrive, and by the end of the night, Marianne’s life will be shattered into a million pieces.

Years later, in a dimly lit attic, Adele stumbles across the secret diary of the mother she has never met, and a shocking account of a crime committed twenty-five years ago.

Returning to the last place her mother was seen alive, Adele’s arrival and the diary spread like wildfire amongst the small close-knit community. Old memories are stirring up fresh wounds.

No-one wants the truth of what happened that cool Spring evening ever to be told.

And the deeper Adele digs, the more lies she uncovers.

Adele knows Shane is innocent. The question is, can she find those responsible before they silence her?

Release date: October 24, 2019

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 392

Sample

Chapter 1

Adele

A swallow fluttered its wings in an attic and everything changed. Adele Foyle had no idea how the bird found its way into the dim, slanted space but there it was, flapping wildly around her. She bit back a cry and ducked as the swallow skimmed over her head before disappearing between the rafters. She could hear it twittering, a siren of alarm that told her it had not yet found an escape route. When it flew into view again, she decided to direct it towards the open trapdoor and release it through one of the windows. Her efforts to do so only added to the bird’s distress. Its frantic swooping came to an end when it crashed into the rafters and fell to the floor with a soft thud.

It must be dead, Adele thought, as she knelt beside it. A quick sudden death. Like the one her grandmother had always wanted. A heart attack, swift as a dagger in the dark, Noreen Foyle used to say. But when it came to the end, Noreen’s worst fears were realised when she found her sanity slipping slowly away from her. She had been an organised woman. Documents and letters had been filed alphabetically, along with a list of relevant names to be contacted when she died. She had even outlined the type of funeral she wanted, down to the last hymn and prayer. All her affairs were in order long before illness deprived her of the ability to make even the simplest decision. Adele’s last responsibility had been to clear out the attic and now, as she prepared to close the trapdoor, all the contents stored there for decades had been removed to charity shops, the recycle centre or binned.

The swallow was stunned, not yet dead. Adele, easing her fingers carefully under the soft feathers, brushed against the edge of a strap. Unable to see what was attached to it, she carried the bird downstairs and out into the back garden. She laid it under a bush and, returning to the attic, reached into the recess between the floor and ceiling. She tugged at the strap and pulled out a black backpack. Camouflaged against the dark rafters, it had been easy to miss during the clear-out. Dust stirred then settled again in an inaudible puff and cobwebs clung to her fingers when she pulled it out. The smell of mould was strong and the backpack was covered with blue speckles. Gaudy stickers stuck to the front flap were still intact: pop stars, hearts, flowers, butterflies, and one defiant two-fingered salute.

Adele brought the backpack to the kitchen and removed a make-up bag containing foundation, eyeshadow and mascara. Cheap and girlie items from the Body Shop that her grandmother would never have used. She delved further into the backpack and shook out a creased nightdress and pyjamas, seven pairs of briefs, socks and a pair of bedroom slippers. A plastic bag with a tie string contained toiletries, a facecloth wrapped around a bar of soap, deodorant and talcum powder, toothpaste and a roll of dental floss. But it was the hairbrush with strands of dark brown hair caught in the bristles that caused her to cry out. A low moan of grief and recognition for someone she had mourned but never known.

She delved into a side pocket and found a diary with a painting of a dolphin on the front cover. Tears stung her eyes when she recognised the handwritten name inside the cover, written with a turquoise dayglo pen. Without reading the entries, she turned a page, then another. The pages were filled with a teenage slapdash scrawl, the pages smudged in places, as if water had dripped on the paper and stippled it. Tears, perhaps? A strip of photographs fell out. They must have been taken in a photo booth and had served as a bookmark. Five images of a teenage girl and a youth, cheeks together, arms around each other, pulling faces, pouting, scowling, laughing. On the back of the strip were written the words ‘Marianne and Shane in Bray, August weekend.’

Marianne… Marianne… During her childhood, Adele had used her mother’s name like a mantra at night, allowing the syllables to finally lull her to sleep. In her teens she had listened repeatedly to Leonard Cohen singing ‘So Long Marianne’, the lyrics remaining in her head long after the song ended.

‘Your mother is one of God’s special angels.’ Noreen had created a make-believe paradise and sold it to her young granddaughter. Sometimes, particularly after she had enjoyed a few glasses of Baileys at Christmas or on her birthday, Noreen would relate some innocuous anecdote about Marianne’s childhood. The day she had been lost on a crowded beach. The dog she had loved, the medals she won for long-distance running. How she had danced her way to the finals of a talent contest and won. These anecdotes, though they were pleasant to hear and Adele was always content to listen to them, had never touched her emotionally. They could have been stories about any young girl growing up in a small Irish village; the real story, Adele suspected as she grew older, ran too deep for her grandmother to share.

When she began to demand more meaningful information about her young mother’s death, Noreen would snap, ‘No good ever comes from stoking the past. Marianne is in heaven. Let her rest in peace.’

The past had remained a locked box, secured with clamped lips, a blank gaze and silence. Unable to find the information that could conjure her mother into a person she could love, Adele eventually stopped trying to coax information from her grandmother. As soon as she finished secondary school, she had enrolled in a media studies course in London and the bonds holding them together loosened even further.

Before she left for London, Noreen had handed her a Kodak envelope containing photographs of Marianne. Two of the photographs showed her posing self-consciously before the camera on the day she started school and, eight years later, her entry into second level. Her First Communion, Confirmation and all her birthdays had been charted until she reached her fifteenth. These photographs had sustained Adele throughout those lonely, early months in London as she struggled to adjust to the city. They provided positive proof that her mother had been a vital living force, not a sylph who had touched earth briefly to give birth to her before floating onwards to some distant nirvana. And, now, here she was again, carefree, hair mussed up, lipstick smudged, her face glowing.

Was this gangling teenager called Shane her father? Adele drank in the sight of him, searching for resemblances between them. His spiky hair, black – same colour as hers. Blue eyes – negative. Hers were brown, inherited from her mother. Like Adele, he tanned easily, a golden sheen on his skin. Different-shaped foreheads; his was higher, but she could see a similarity about their lips. Voluptuous, Daniel always said, and thinking about her fiancé, Adele wished he was there with her to share this moment of discovery.

Hands shaking and moving faster, she flipped towards the last diary entry. It was undated like the others but it must have been written shortly before her birth. She stared out the window at the unmoving swallow. Such a tiny bird, defenceless. A cat would come soon and that would be the end of that. The law of the jungle. She rubbed her hand against her jeans but the cobwebs clung like gum to her fingers. Her mother’s death had signalled the beginning of Adele’s life. Her instincts warned her that the information contained between those pages could be haunting and raw to read. No stoking the past. Noreen’s advice echoed in her mind. There must have been a reason why she had never wanted to discuss her daughter’s death. Was the story so laden with sadness that she had believed it was better to maintain a brutal silence rather than satisfy Adele’s curiosity? The information she had sought could be buried in these scribbled entries. She snapped the diary closed and shoved it into the backpack, along with the other items.

She had sold Noreen’s bungalow and all she had to do now was lock the door behind her. Her flight was booked and Daniel was waiting impatiently for her return. She clasped the backpack to her chest and let it rest against the buffeting force of her heart. Outside in the garden the swallow stirred. Adele watched, unable to decide if the breeze had ruffled the feathers or if the bird was still alive. The wings spread outwards and the swallow paused, an instant of indecision before it ascended into the leaves and was lost from sight. Sinking to her knees, Adele removed the diary and began to read.

 

Chapter 2

The Marianne Diary

I wish it would rain. Lashing rain like whips! Monsoon rain! Hurricane rain! The kind of rain that’ll reflect how I REALLY feel. But it’s really sunny and the only smudge in the sky is a jet trail heading off to God knows where. Just like me.

I want to know where we’re going. Mum says I’ll find out soon enough that. She’s made sure to keep us apart since IT happened. Three months now. I never thought a day would pass but it did and another followed and now it’s ninety-two days since they came for me!

Sergeant Bale said it was important to get to the truth. The nub of the matter, that’s what he called it. How could I be sure it wasn’t Shane? Three, I told him. Over and over again. They came to the cottage and threw me to the ground and did IT. But all he did was bring his black, hairy eyebrows together, like he didn’t believe me, no matter how many times I told him how it was.

Mam’s clattering about downstairs. We haven’t even left and our house sounds echoey already, like our memories are disappearing into the emptiness we’re leaving behind. Everything’s packed, all I’m taking with me, that is. I gave most of my clothes to Castaways. It’s where I bought them in the first place. Vintage. Second-hand. I don’t do brands. That’s because I wanted to be different. Turns out I was. Well done, Marianne. Go to the top of the class for your slut star! My clothes won’t fit me soon. Vintage or branded, it won’t make any difference. Even when I can wear them again, they’ll remind me of IT… so it was best to get rid of them.

Mr Lewis said I have to forget Reedstown. This is my new beginning. He stood in my bedroom, like he already owned our house, and said I’d my whole life in front of me and this bad time would soon be forgotten. Hah? It doesn’t matter how often the Thorns pray over me. I’ll never forget IT, even when I’m old and crazy and pushing a Zimmer!!! Never… never… nor will I be able to forget the things everyone’s been saying about me. Horrible things that aren’t true and the older girls sniggering and calling me a slut every time they see me.

I’ve taken down my posters of the Spice Girls. Girl power. Hah. They have it all and they still haven’t a clue what a mess-up life is. I’ve dumped the stars from the ceiling into the rubbish skip. The paint came away and the ceiling looks like it has acne. Dad put the stars up when I was a kid. They’re luminous in the dark. After he died, I pretended he was the one in the centre. The brightest one shining down on me.

He would have moved heaven and earth to find them. He would have pulled off their balaclavas and killed them stone dead for doing that terrible thing to me. But he’s the one who’s dead and I don’t even have his stars left to remember him by.

 

Chapter 3

Adele turned each page carefully, stopping when it seemed impossible to continue, yet always returning to those scribbled entries, greedily devouring each word. Her eyes were stinging when she finished. She closed the diary and rubbed her hand over its sleek cover. The floor beneath her seemed unsteady when she stood. Unreliable and capable of pitching her forward if she did not hold onto the wall for support. She had always imagined her mother as an inexperienced fifteen-year-old, stumbling into pregnancy by way of an innocent, reckless passion. Noreen, too, had nurtured this belief with evasiveness and lies. But within those stark pages the truth had been laid bare.

Adele knew her voice sounded disconnected when she spoke to Daniel on the phone, as if it was being channelled by someone else. She told him she had been forced to cancel her flight and would stay overnight in Crannock. Some problem with house deeds. She was surprised at how easily she lied to him, but then again what she had discovered was too raw to share on a phone call.

In the immediate aftermath of her grandmother’s death, a burden had lifted from Adele. She had been unaware of its heaviness until her shoulders lightened and she realised she was free to begin a normal life with Daniel. This sense of release had been followed quickly by grief. She had lost the woman who had reared her, the only family she had ever known; but now, having read the entries in Marianne’s diary, this grief was giving way to anger over Noreen’s secretiveness. Her thoughts were chaotic when she lay down to sleep, her cheek resting against her mother’s nightdress. Shadowy figures roamed through her dreams. She awoke gasping, convinced she was being suffocated by a membrane so heavy she was unable to breathe through it. In the morning, she showered with her mother’s soap, a thin lather on her skin, the faint scent still lingering.

She dressed quickly in shorts and a T-shirt. Another hot day; the warm spell had settled into an uncustomary pattern that showed no sign of changing. She took a mug of coffee outside and sat on the window ledge. In the distance, the brown, jagged outlines of the Ox Mountains wavered in the heat haze. Ox, she had always thought, was a strange, clumsy name for those brooding, granite peaks. Noreen had told her that the name was the result of a mistranslation from the Irish language. If it had been correctly translated into English, the range would be known as the Stormy Mountains. Today, the storm clouds were inside her head and the sun, flitting between bobtail clouds, weaved a filigree of light and shade over the slopes. The bungalow sat alone on a bleak curve of the mountain road. It was her inheritance but Adele had experienced only relief when she sold it. The buyer was an elderly author, intent on writing about the mythological creatures, hags and goddesses associated with the mountains’ glacial lakes. From her vantage point, Adele could see the glisten of one such lake, the icy stillness hiding the turbulence of its folklore.

Until she was eight years old, she had believed that Marianne had lived her short life in the shadow of the mountain. This belief was shattered when her friend Rihanna told her that Noreen was a ‘Dublin Jackeen.’ That was what Rihanna’s father called her. He said she had only moved to Crannock when Adele was a newborn baby. Astonished to discover that her mother had not played in the same fields as she did, attended the same roadside school or sat in the same shiny pew at mass on Sundays, Adele had pestered her grandmother for more information. Finally, reluctantly, Noreen admitted that she had moved to this isolated hinterland from Reedstown, a village on the north side of Dublin. She had pointed it out to Adele on a map, a smudge of land close to a river, and snapped at her for continuing to ask questions. She could feel a migraine coming on, she’d said. Noreen’s migraines were regular occurrences and had the power to stop all awkward questions.

Adele had planned to visit Reedstown after she left home but London had swept her into its vortex and the longing had faded to an occasional, whimsical notion that had, until now, always passed.

 

Chapter 4

The Marianne Diary

Mam never looked back when she drove away from Reedstown. The jet trail had broken up and was disappearing into the blue sky. Miss Grimes in science told us that that blue is created from molecules of air scattering light. I keep thinking about such a scattering. How it breaks everything apart in ways that can never be fixed… never ever!!!

All the morning traffic had gone from Main Street and there were just a few people going into mass. I ducked my head when Mam drove past the Garda station in case Sergeant Bale came out. She was holding onto the wheel so tight that her knuckles were ridged like Toblerone. At the traffic lights, she almost crashed into the back of Keith Lewis’s new car. The roof was down and Liam Thornton was in the passenger seat. He’s been staying in Keith’s house since his mam left him again. The children from the national school were going to confession. A big, long crocodile of them and it looked like they were all staring at me. I should be used to that by now but I’m not.

Mrs Thornton put her bony hands on my forehead after IT happened and said she’d blessed me with the oil of forgiveness. I hate her and I hate the Thorns with their screwed-up faces and mean, ugly lips. They worship a God who doesn’t exist. If he does, I don’t want to know him. He’s the God of fanatics. That’s all they are with their made-up name. Mum says I have to stop calling them Thorns, they’re the Sodality of Thorns and Atonement. Who cares?

She keeps insisting that Mr Lewis was helping us through this terrible time. How? By buying our house for next to nothing? Big deal. I begged her not to sell. All he wanted is our big long garden. She wouldn’t listen. I’ve shamed her in front of everyone and there’s nothing to do except start again in a new place where no one knows us. She says Mr Lewis is right. I will forget. That’s what time does. Like it’s some kind of magic eraser? She’s SO wrong!! It doesn’t matter how often she tells me I’ll be safe and no one will call me names, I’m scared sick of what lies ahead for me.

 

Chapter 5

 

The clenched sensation in Adele’s chest eased a little when she flew into Heathrow Airport and saw Daniel waiting for her in arrivals. His arms reached out to welcome her and guide her through the Underground. Such a cacophony of noise, a Tower of Babel compared to the quiet hinterland she had left. She held his arm tightly as they pushed their way onto the Tube.

They had met two years previously when she was doing research for Voice Dox. The clean air policies of Greendene Petro, the company where Daniel worked as an environmental engineer, had been the subject of a documentary she intended to make. The interview had lasted longer than necessary and his request for her phone number in case he thought of any further information that would be useful for her research had been a thinly veiled excuse to see her again. She gave it to him willingly. Six months later, she moved into his luxurious two-bed apartment in Nine Elms. His rent was subsidised by Greendene, one of the perks of the job, he told her, cracking open the champagne and toasting their future.

Shortly afterwards, she brought him to Crannock to meet Noreen. She had been nervous about introducing him, worried that he would be offended by her grandmother’s taciturn personality.

Four months had passed since Adele’s last visit home and she had been shocked by the change in Noreen’s appearance. Her clothes, stained with food and liquids, hung loosely over her gaunt frame. Food rotted in the fridge and it was evident from her dramatic weight loss that she had stopped cooking for herself. Her mental state was even more alarming. She was frightened of Daniel, unable to remember who he was or why he was in her house. At times, she forgot Adele’s name and called her Marianne. Daniel had returned to London alone and, as Adele suspected, when she persuaded Noreen to visit her doctor, scans revealed that she was suffering from the rapid onset of dementia. A month later, Noreen was admitted to a nursing home and Adele travelled back from London every second weekend to see her.

Noreen’s outbursts, when she referred to Adele as a slut and a whore, made these visits difficult. Adele tried with photographs and music to bring her back from the abyss but Noreen became mute, as if, at a subconscious level, she knew she could not be trusted to hold her secrets close, as she had done so determinedly throughout her granddaughter’s life. A year after she entered the nursing home, she suffered a catastrophic heart attack and was rushed to hospital. She survived until Adele arrived from London and died in the early hours of the following morning.

‘It’s so good to have you back,’ Daniel said when they were seated on the Tube.

‘It’s good to be back,’ she said, aware that he was referring not only to the week she had spent sorting out Noreen’s possessions but to the time before then, the Sunday nights when she had returned to him, wan and grief-stricken from witnessing her grandmother’s rapid decline.

‘You sounded so distracted over the house deeds,’ he said. ‘Did you manage to sort out the problem?’

‘I’ll tell you about it later.’ Perhaps, in the quietness of their apartment, she could relax and speak coherently about her discovery. She leaned her head on his shoulder and he, smiling, slid his hand along the side of her thigh, a gesture invisible to everyone but themselves. Small familiar gestures that she welcomed as they journeyed towards his apartment, where a beef stew was simmering in the slow cooker and would be ready for serving when they arrived.

They would move to Colorado in September.

Greendene was taking on a new pipeline project and Daniel would be heading up the environmental team. A five-year contract, he had told Adele, all expenses, including their accommodation, covered. She had been torn between her excitement at the idea of moving and her responsibility towards her grandmother. Now Noreen could no longer hold her back, but the thought of moving to unfamiliar surroundings no longer filled her with anticipation.

He lit candles when they entered the apartment, and turned on the music. She thought they would tumble to the bed, as they always did when she returned from Ireland, kicking off shoes, unbuttoning, unzipping, greedy and eager for the touch of each other. But this evening, he concentrated on bringing food to the table, a casserole that was as delicious as he had promised. The reason soon became obvious. Their departure date for moving to Colorado had been moved forward.

‘It’s all happening much faster than planned,’ he said. ‘Madison wants me in place by next month. I told her it’s very short notice and that I needed to discuss everything with you first. She’s waiting on my answer. You know what she’s like. Today’s information needed yesterday.’ His laughter belied his uneasiness, his gaze sizing up her shocked expression.

‘What about my job?’ she asked. ‘I’d planned on having three months to finish the projects I’ve been working on.’

‘Can’t someone else take them on? I know it won’t be an easy ask but I want you with me. Madison has contacts in the media. She says you’ll have no problem finding work. If anyone knows how to pull strings, it’s her.’

Adele had met Madison Fox, the project manager with Greendene, when she came to London on a business trip some months previously. She was a brittle redhead with a commanding voice and a personality to match. Adele didn’t doubt her string-pulling abilities.

‘It’s a lot to absorb, Daniel. Too much for me right now.’

‘You’re tired. I understand. We can talk about it again tomorrow.’

‘No, let’s talk about it now. What if you go on ahead and I follow you?’

‘That’s the difficulty,’ he said. ‘The company want the apartment back. One of Greendene’s executives is flying in from the States around the same time as we’re expected to leave. He’ll be moving in here. The removal firm will take care of everything but we need to organise our stuff for them.’ He opened his iPad. ‘Take a look at this. Madison sent on these photos of our new home.’

The apartment Madison had chosen for them was an Aladdin’s cave. High ceilings, gleaming marble and wooden floors, elegant furnishings, glittering chandeliers and a breathtaking view of city lights; all it needed to make it perfect was Adele’s approval.

‘We can be married in Colorado.’ Daniel put the iPad to one side and took her hands in his. ‘We love each other. As long as we have that going for us, the rest will be easy.’

Her thoughts were in turmoil as she listened to his reassurances. His enthusiasm overwhelmed her. In comparison, her discovery felt like a dulled pain radiating from her with no sense of direction. She winced as his grip tightened and the hard bite of diamonds pressed against her fingers. He could not afford to mess up. He told her so gently, pleadingly, firmly.

His phone rang. Madison in Colorado. Unable to listen to the one-way exchange, Adele wheeled her case into the bedroom and be. . .