When Your Eyes Close: A psychological thriller unlike anything you’ve read before!

‘What will you do?’ she’d asked. ‘Can you trace the call?’

‘We can look at your phone record, see if it’s a known number. Apart from that, I’m afraid we have very little to go on.’

Of course. It was as much as she had expected. They’d check the number – if they even bothered with that – but they wouldn’t be able to trace it. Was it any wonder so many cases went unsolved?

On Wednesday, she went online and tweeted to find out if anyone happened to have a copy of the missing person’s supplement that had been printed with the Sunday World. An hour later, she received a message on Twitter. It wasn’t anyone she knew, a random follower who had a shared interest in true-life crime. She looked at his profile: @darbryan1. His interests, apart from following true-life crime stories, it said, were film noir and folk music. He looked pretty normal. She read his message.

@darbryan1: Hi Caitlin. I have that supplement. Can pass it on if you want it? Dar.

Caitlin wrote back.

@caitlindavis: Thanks. Do you know if there’s a link?

@darbryan1: I don’t think so. Could post it to you if you give me address?

Address. Was it a good idea to send some random stranger her address? Maybe there was an easier way to get the supplement. She didn’t answer darbryan1’s message. Instead, she phoned the Sunday World, but they told her they didn’t have any spare copies to send out and the supplement wasn’t available online.

She sat looking at her computer screen. She could ask darbryan1 if there was any mention of a David Casey in the supplement. She hadn’t changed her maiden name when they’d got married, so at least he wouldn’t make the connection.

@caitlindavis: That’s okay. Thanks. I don’t suppose you recall if there was anything about a guy called David Casey in there?

@darbryan1: Hmm, not sure. I can check for you. Hope you didn’t think I was some weirdo asking for your address! J

@caitlindavis: That’d be great, thanks.

About a half hour later, she received another message from darbryan1. He’d scanned and attached a page of the supplement. A brief paragraph mentioned David, saying he’d last been seen at a music shop on 16th October 2016, that his car had been found in the city centre but that no leads had suggested where David might have gone. Several sightings had led nowhere. At least now she knew; the hoax call had very likely come about as a result of the article. She’d put her phone number on all of the missing persons posters she’d put up at the time. It was a miracle, she thought, that she hadn’t received any calls up until now. The guards had told her it hadn’t been a good idea, making her number public like that, but she didn’t care. If anything was reported, she wanted to know about it.

@caitlindavis: Thanks Dar.

She typed back.

@caitlindavis: That’s exactly what I was looking for.

@darbryan1: No problem. Happy to help. Too many missing people out there. L

She wondered if he had a story of his own, but she didn’t ask him.

Gillian wasn’t surprised when she told her the response she’d got when she called the guards. She didn’t tell her about darbryan1, or the article. What was the point in killing her hope completely? Caitlin was fuming. What sort of person would get amusement from making a call like that? Some sicko. She was glad, suddenly, that David had insisted on their telephone number not going in the directory. At least the man didn’t know where she lived. Who knew what a person like that might do? – but God, he’d be choosing the wrong woman to mess with. She only wished that she could track him down. He’d be sorry he’d ever made that call.

CHAPTER NINE (#ulink_2a9ec75e-e661-5602-b57b-7bed524c0dc9)

Michelle (#ulink_2a9ec75e-e661-5602-b57b-7bed524c0dc9)

Michelle pulled off the road and parked beside the low wall outside the cottage. A dog barked ferociously, and she strained to see where it was, but among the caravans and general chaos of the garden she couldn’t spot it. The lock was not on the gate, which meant the old woman was available. She stepped from the car and hovered outside, looking at the door and the window, checking again to see whether there was any possibility that the dog was loose, but the rest of the garden was fenced off from the footpath, so she took her chance.

As soon as she tapped on the door, a cacophony of barking erupted from the house. The unseen hound started up again in tandem. She heard the old woman telling the dog to stop and a few minutes later the door opened and she was beckoned inside.

Nothing had changed since she’d last been here. The old woman led her into a room filled with old newspapers, religious relics and an array of paraphernalia that must have gathered over decades. In contrast a wide-screen television was mounted above the fireplace, the sound now muted. Michelle sat on the sofa that was covered by an old quilt and tried to ignore the stench of urine and something else, something rotten that she couldn’t identify, as the small dog eyed her warily from behind the old woman’s legs.

‘Life is good?’ the woman said.

Michelle attempted a smile. ‘Not bad,’ she said. She always tried to tell the woman as little as possible: she didn’t want to lead her in any way; although, if the woman was still as good as she’d been before, the strain in her voice would be enough to alert her that something was the matter. Nick, in his scepticism, was accurate about that. Michelle knew there were any number of charlatans out there. She remembered the time she and her friend, Anna, had gone to see your man off the television – the one who told horoscopes. They’d gone in one after the other, and afterwards when they’d consulted, they’d realized that he’d been too lazy to even invent different stories. They were both about to meet a man with a tan briefcase. They’d laughed about it after, pockets lighter by forty euros. Anna had sworn never to visit a psychic again. But Michelle knew that the old woman was good. Hadn’t she told her about her mother’s illness? A sickness of the blood and the bones, she’d said. There was no more accurate description of the cancer that had attacked her mother’s bone marrow. Within five years she was gone, leaving Michelle and her sister devastated.

The old woman took Michelle’s hand and rubbed it gently, watching her face all the time. ‘You work in a place with a lot of people,’ she said. Michelle only slightly inclined her head in affirmation. ‘A lot of women, dancing.’

Michelle smiled. ‘That’s right.’ The old woman hadn’t lost it.

‘You’re good at your job. You’ll have your own business maybe in the next year or so.’ Again, the psychic was right. At least that was the plan. She’d already looked into starting her own Zumba and Pilates classes. She’d spoken to a friend to find out what it would entail, setting herself up as a business, taking out personal insurance. She was saving some money before she quit her job to set out on her own. It was her goal, and she knew she’d do it.

‘Things haven’t been so good in love,’ the old woman said.

‘No.’

‘How long were you together?’

‘Almost eight months.’

‘And everything was going well before. You were thinking of moving in together?’

They hadn’t talked about that, but Michelle had thought that it hadn’t been too far off. She spent three or four nights a week at Nick’s place anyway. He said he hated it when she wasn’t there. She did too. She’d loved living alone before. She liked the freedom, the not having to answer to anybody. Before, she’d lived with a man for almost three years, and it had stifled her. Everywhere she went, he’d asked questions. The thing he’d claimed to love most about her, her free spirit, was what tore them apart in the end. And then a year later, Nick had come along.

‘Things went bad – just like that.’ The old woman clicked her fingers with her free hand, then rested it on top of Michelle’s.

Despite herself, she could feel the tears coming. Nick would surely laugh at her for that – a flashing neon sign for the psychic to interpret. Damn him anyway.

‘No explanation.’

‘No, he just … disappeared.’

‘He’s torn,’ the woman said. ‘Wants you in his life and doesn’t.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Is he well?’ she asked then.

‘You mean healthy?’ Michelle shrugged. ‘I think so.’

The woman looked confused. ‘A drinker maybe?’

Nick drank a few beers, but he didn’t drink too much, did he? She’d never seen him particularly drunk, no more so than a lot of their friends.

The old woman sighed. ‘I’m not sure this is a good situation for you, lovey. This man, he has a good heart, but he’s not willing to commit. There’s a reason, but it’s not clear to me. There isn’t another woman?’

‘No. I mean, he was married before, but that’s finished.’

‘A child?’

‘No.’

‘Funny, I see a child. A dark-haired little girl and a woman.’

Strange. There was no child – unless he hadn’t told her. He wouldn’t have kept something like that a secret – not after eight months, would he?