Angel Kiss Read online

  Angel Kiss

  Laura Jane Cassidy

  Jacki King is fifteen and adjusting to her new life in a small village. She's missing Dublin but she's making new friends: artistic Colin, feisty Emily – and Nick, gorgeous yet unavailable. But no sooner is Jacki settled than the torturous headaches and nightmares begin – followed by strange visions, voices and signs…Jacki refuses to believe that something paranormal is happening. But then she discovers the unsolved murder that occurred in the village years before…

  Laura Jane Cassidy

  Angel Kiss

  © 2011

  To Jean, Joe and Liam,

  with love.

  Four

  The number of wings on a wasp

  The number of chambers in the heart

  The number of strings on a violin

  The number of photographs he gave me

  Prologue

  I sang and strummed over the whispered chatter of the crowded audience. Playing in this intimate Kilkenny club was a welcome break from the harsh tone of the Dublin circuit. I noticed a man coming in late, alone. He sat at the back but looked a little out of place; he was too neatly dressed, in a charcoal suit that matched his thinning hair. He held a large brown envelope in his left hand. I guessed who he was. In a way, I’d been expecting him.

  When I’d finished my set he stood up and approached me. I slipped my guitar into its leather case and turned to face him.

  ‘Jacki?’

  I nodded. I could see his features clearly now. The edges of his brown eyes and his thin lips were creased with wrinkles.

  ‘Can I speak to you outside?’ he said.

  I followed him to the smoking area outdoors where the cold night air hit me with force. The sky was studded with tiny sparkling stars. The centre of the courtyard was crowded with people huddling round gas heaters so we stood in a vacant corner. I was sorry I hadn’t taken my coat out with me as goose bumps were appearing on my arms. My black lace dress was no barrier against the chill.

  ‘My name is Detective Sergeant Matt Lawlor.’ He held out his hand. The skin felt coarse, but his handshake was firm. ‘I’m a member of a team working on Operation Trail, investigating the disappearance of a number of Irish women over the last ten years… We’re concentrating on four cases at present.’ He paused as if expecting a response. When all I offered was silence, he continued: ‘I hoped you might be able to help, Jacki. Would you be prepared to help us?’

  I’d guessed he was going to ask me this, but I couldn’t answer straight away. I avoided his gaze and stared at the envelope in his hand. I wanted to help if I could… Well, help the victims and their families more than the police. But it was complicated. I felt completely torn. Last year hadn’t been easy… I wasn’t sure if I could go through it all again.

  ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ I said. ‘Can I get back to you?’

  ‘Of course.’ He held out the envelope. The top had been sealed with a strip of clear tape. I took it from him reluctantly.

  ‘I’d appreciate it if you could give me a decision by the end of the week.’

  He took a small white card from his inside pocket and gave it to me. His mobile number was scribbled on it in pencil. Just as I’d suspected, there was nothing official about our meeting.

  That night I lay on the lumpy mattress of the hostel bed with the brown envelope hidden under my pillow. I tried to sleep but couldn’t. Just before 3 a.m. I decided to tear the envelope open. Inside were four photographs. Four photographs of young women, each one prettier than the last. I felt my stomach knotting with tension.

  Word had travelled from the Garda station in County Leitrim. Sergeant Lawlor had heard about my experiences in Avarna last summer. And now I had an important decision to make, but I didn’t know if I could go through it all again.

  Chapter 1

  I watched the funeral pass by from the window of our cluttered caravan. The renovation of our new cottage was not yet complete, so that summer we were living in a little caravan at the top of our lane, overlooking the winding country road. My mum was among the cluster of darkly clad mourners headed to the graveyard. The body in the coffin was that of Jim Cullen. He was a popular man who had lived in a stone cottage about ten minutes’ walk from the village of Avarna. Jim had died suddenly of a heart attack aged seventy-two. He was survived by his wife, Lily, and two children. I’d never met him.

  We had been living there only two weeks. Mum had met him several times when she’d been house hunting in Avarna the previous year. It was Jim Cullen who had told her about one particular house that would be coming on the market, as its eccentric owner, a farrier named Alf, was moving to an island off the south coast. The moment she saw it Mum put in an offer and set about selling our house in Dublin. Thanks to the late Jim Cullen she had her idyllic country residence. I’d begged Mum not to accept the job, not to move. I really didn’t want to live in the country. I’d screamed and cried and pleaded with her not to make me leave Dublin, but it was no use. She’d never understand just how hard it was for me to leave my friends, my school, my band, everything that was important to me.

  When I protested about going to Jim’s funeral she presumed it was because I was still mad at her. That was true, but there was another reason. I really disliked funerals. I’d always found myself sensitive to other people’s suffering; I seemed to soak up their grief like a sponge. I already felt unwell that day; I had a headache and just knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I watched until the large crowd passed and then went back to strumming my guitar.

  Mum didn’t go to the Cullen house for tea afterwards because she only vaguely knew Jim’s relatives and didn’t want to intrude. I noticed how her eyelids were red when she dozed off later. No doubt she felt just like me: the day’s events had reminded her of my dad’s funeral. He’d died of a brain tumour when I was nine and even after six years I could still recall the small details of that day. The navy woollen tights that made my legs itch, the smell of the white lilies laid out on the coffin and the grip of my mum’s hand on my own small trembling one. He’d been sick for a while, but then suddenly he was gone and the funeral was the first time I began to accept this. Mum and I had learned to cope since then, but we still thought about him all the time. We liked to remember the happy times, how he’d always made us laugh… and the way he used to sing along really badly to the radio.

  The caravan was a poor replacement for our suburban terraced house, but Mum had assured me that soon we would have a beautifully refurbished cottage, a home unblemished by memories, a fresh start. I missed Dublin so much that I couldn’t really appreciate this. I was still coming to terms with the fact that I would have to move to a new school in September, make new friends, find a new band, basically rebuild all these vital parts of my life. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to that. I was looking forward to moving into the house though. The caravan was unbelievably cramped, which didn’t make things easy between me and Mum when we both needed our own space.

  I’d thought living in a caravan would be great fun, kind of like living on a tour bus. And it had been fun… for about ten minutes. Mum had rented it online and somehow it looked massive in the images, but in reality it was more like one from an episode of Father Ted – except nobody was laughing when it was delivered and we saw how tiny it was. My head almost reached the roof, and I’m only five foot five. At one end there were two single couch beds with some very compact storage space underneath, and there was a table in between them that you could have either up or down. At the other end of the caravan there was a counter top with a hob and a kettle and two cupboards underneath. And in the middle, beside the tiny space that joined the ‘bedroom and kitchen’ (as the website had put it), was an even tinier bathroom. My bed was the most u
ncomfortable thing on the planet and I dreaded getting into it.

  The night of Jim Cullen’s funeral I slept uneasily and awoke from the strangest dream with the scene still vivid in my mind: a drunken man stumbled up a lane, struggling to stay upright. A car pulled up beside him, almost knocking him to the ground. The window rolled down. A hand emerged, clutching a brown leather handbag.

  ‘Here. Take this and burn it. Do you hear me? Burn it! This and everything in it.’ The hand was trembling but the voice was steady.

  ‘Why the… why the hell should I?’

  ‘Because if you don’t I’ll tell everyone what you did. Do you really want me to tell them about -’

  ‘Fine… I’ll burn the bloody bag. Whose is it anyway?’

  He got no response. The car reversed out, leaving tyre marks in the earth. The drunken man continued up the dark lane, the bag dangling from his right hand.

  Once was unsettling enough, but I’d had the same dream nearly every night that week. The way it was so clear in my mind was starting to scare me, and there was one particular thing about it that really freaked me out. I recognized the lane. It was the one that led to our new house. I didn’t recognize the men though. I’d never seen them before and I certainly had no desire to. Particularly not the one sitting in the car. His pale eyes held a vicious manic stare that I couldn’t forget.

  As I tried to get back to sleep, the image of the bag kept coming into my mind. It was a satchel made of chocolate-brown leather, with a little handle as well as a longer strap, and it swung back and forth as the drunken man moved hesitantly along, the moonlight glinting off its gold buckles. The bag looked familiar, like something I’d see when I was searching through vintage shops for clothes.

  I hate it when I’m trying to get back to sleep in the middle of the night and my mind won’t stop racing. I tried hard to think about something else. Maybe I was so fixated on the dream because I didn’t have anything more exciting to distract me. Clearly my anxiety over the move to Avarna had created a recurring nightmare composed of random memories. Once I felt settled I was sure it would go away. I should spend more time exploring the village, I thought. I’m sure there were interesting little corners I hadn’t yet discovered. Places like that café and the garden by the river, and that cute little clothes shop. It looked expensive but maybe I’d call in anyway… Eventually, after the distraction of planning my tour of the village, my brain shut down and I fell into a welcome dream-free sleep.

  The next morning there was a gorgeous blue sky and I felt a lot better. But we’d run out of milk so I couldn’t have cereal. Instead of being annoyed I decided it was fate; I’d wander into the village to get some milk and explore a bit more.

  As I walked into the local shop I heard a loud smack on the window. A fly swatter hit the windowpane with brutal force. I watched as the doomed wasp fell on to the dusty sill, its legs flickering for a moment before it died. The shop owner, Mary Reynolds, stood triumphantly, clasping the blue swatter.

  ‘The little feckers come out earlier every year,’ she said as she scooped the tiny corpse into a tissue and dumped it in the bin behind the counter. ‘How are you, Jacki? Are you keeping well?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine, thanks,’ I said, trying to be cheerful and heading for the fridge.

  Mary knew all of Avarna’s residents by name and there was little that happened in the village that she didn’t find out about. The first time I’d gone into her shop was only for chewing gum, yet she’d kept me chatting for twenty minutes. She found out my name, my age, that my mum, Rachel, was the new primary school teacher starting in September, that I’d just done my Junior Cert. exams and that I didn’t have a boyfriend. In return I was subjected to her son Nick’s entire life story. He was a year older than me, had just finished transition year, was allergic to tomatoes and played electric guitar.

  Today I was spared from interrogation as she was soon chatting to another customer. She introduced me to Joe Clancy, owner of the aptly named Clancy’s, one of Avarna’s four pubs.

  ‘And did you hear Tommy Ford’s wife had a baby girl?’ said Joe. ‘I’m not sure what they called her…’

  ‘Chloe Louise, eight pounds twelve ounces, big head of brown hair,’ said Mary as she stared at the open window, daring another wasp to fly through it. The shop was uncomfortably warm, as was everywhere in the village during that unusually hot summer.

  ‘Here’s hoping she gets her looks from her mother,’ said Joe. ‘That fella Tommy has a face like a melted welly.’

  ‘You’re terrible,’ said Mary with a laugh.

  I smiled to myself. You couldn’t help liking Mary, in spite of her knack for getting information out of everyone who came into the shop.

  ‘Anyway, I better be off,’ said Joe. He sauntered out with an ice-cream cone in his hand and a folded newspaper tucked under his elbow.

  I checked the selection of biscuits, searching for my favourites.

  ‘Nick!’ shouted Mary. There was silence. ‘Nick!’ she bellowed again. A few moments later her son emerged from the storeroom in the back with a copy of Kerrang! magazine in his hand and a disgruntled look on his face. Although I’d heard a lot about him from Mary, this was the first time I’d seen him. He was tall and slim and wore faded blue denims and a black T-shirt. His brown hair was quite long and curled across his forehead. As he came towards us I could see his striking blue eyes and that he had a few freckles on his cheeks. His arms were strong and tanned.

  One syllable echoed silently inside my head: Wow. Nick was gorgeous, even with that grumpy look on his face.

  ‘Nick, I have to go to the wholesaler’s, so stay behind the counter, will you?’ said Mary. She mustn’t have realized we hadn’t been introduced.

  Nick nodded grudgingly and slumped down on the stool behind the till.

  ‘Bye, Jacki,’ said Mary, and then she hurried out the door, taking with her any affection I felt for my ex-boyfriend in Dublin. I took out my purse and approached the counter with my milk and biscuits.

  ‘Hi,’ he said.

  ‘Hi.’

  I tried to think of something intelligent to say, but failed miserably.

  ‘That’s two ninety-five,’ said Nick.

  ‘Thanks,’ I murmured as I handed him three euro with a slightly shaking hand.

  ‘So, you’re Jacki?’ he asked as his eyes met mine, and he dropped the change into my palm. My insides jolted when I heard him say my name.

  ‘Eh… yeah. You must be Nick.’ There were a few moments of silence. I tried to think of something to say. Anything at all. But nothing came.

  ‘So how are you finding Avarna so far?’

  ‘Yeah it’s… it’s cool.’ Avarna was a lot of things, but cool certainly was not one of them. Why did I have to say cool? Any other word would have done. Any one at all.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Nick. He smiled at me. I could feel my cheeks warming. The thought that they were undoubtedly bright red made me cringe.

  ‘OK, I better be off,’ I said. I wanted to get out of there before I said something else embarrassing.

  ‘See you around,’ he said.

  And then it came. Whatever possessed me to wave at someone whose handsome face was a mere metre away from me I will never know. But I did. I gave him a big giant wave. He looked at me a little strangely as I turned away, embarrassed, and rushed out of the shop, my cheeks burning so brightly I could almost feel my new social life going up in flames.

  Chapter 2

  The next morning I got up early. I put on my purple skinny jeans and Led Zeppelin T-shirt, ran my fingers through my hair and swept some black mascara on to my eyelashes. I slipped a couple of bracelets on my wrist and checked my reflection in the mirror before heading outside. Work on the site had stopped as the builders were having their morning tea break. Mum was standing beside the empty cement mixer talking to Des, our electrician. She was nearly forty but could easily have passed for younger in her cream top and denims, and with straight blonde hair li
ke mine that rested just above her shoulders. I had a feeling from the way he’d been hanging around lately that Des fancied my mum, but there was no way that was going to happen. She hadn’t so much as looked at another man since my dad died. The sooner Des realized that and stopped trying to flirt with her the better. As I walked towards them, avoiding the muddy areas and the builders’ mess, I caught some of their conversation.

  ‘Did you get your hair done, Rachel?’ said Des.

  ‘Just a trim,’ said Mum. ‘Can’t believe you noticed.’

  How creepy, I thought. Poor Mum, she was way too polite for her own good.

  ‘It’s very nice… very… shiny,’ said Des with an elaborate hand movement that I presumed was supposed to convey shine. Then he went slightly red and started to mumble something under his breath. Unable to watch his cringeworthy antics any longer, I turned and headed for the road, saying I was just going to get something from the shop. We were running low on bread, but I was really just hoping to see Nick again.

  As I wandered towards the village, I thought about how it can take seconds to create an obsession, and years to get over it. Within minutes of meeting Nick I’d allowed myself to slip into that familiarly dangerous territory. That place where you think about a person constantly, where you rehearse future conversations in your head, where you plan your day around the blissful possibility of bumping into them. I’d only been in love once before. It had ended when I’d discovered my now ex-boyfriend, Cian, wrapped round my former best friend.

  I still wasn’t used to walking on the country roads but I loved picking the tall grass and the wildflowers along the way. Mum had told me to walk facing the oncoming traffic so I could be seen, but sometimes it felt like I was staring straight into certain death. I nearly stepped right into the ditch whenever I heard a car coming.