Her Name Was Rose: The gripping psychological thriller you need to read this year. Claire Allan
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by it. Even Owen took time out from a patient to watch the lunchtime news report, and to shake his head when Kevin McDaid appeared on screen.
‘Isn’t he one of ours?’ Tori had asked, and a room of horrified faces turned to look at her. ‘I think he’s one of our patients – or was. There’s something about him?’
Donna had gone to the office to check our records and came back a few minutes later, ashen-faced. ‘He was a patient here before. Lapsed now. Was here as a child; hasn’t been since he was sixteen.’
Owen walked out of the room, slamming the door so strongly behind him that tea from a cup that had been sitting beside me shook and spilled onto the table. For the rest of the day he went about his work saying only what he needed to and no more. The rest of us walked on egg shells around him, all the while lost in our own thoughts about how the foolish actions of a nineteen-year-old could change the lives of so many.
*
On the day Kevin McDaid was brought before the court, I found myself itching to get on Facebook to try and see how Cian was coping. Was he angry like Owen? Was he a bigger person than many of us? Had he found compassion for his wife’s killer? Did he have a sense of closure? A victory that, bar sentencing, the man who had taken his wife from him was being brought to justice?
I found he hadn’t written much. No letter to Rose. No rant at the judiciary. No angry words aimed at Kevin McDaid. In fact, just four words.
From Darkness Comes Light.
It was the title of his most successful book to date. I hadn’t read it, to be honest. I wasn’t much of a reader. Didn’t have the concentration span for anything more than reading bite-size portions of news and stories. Still I clicked onto Amazon, searched Cian’s name and the book title.
The blurb didn’t enlighten me much. I was able to ascertain, amid the flowery language, that it was a story about redemption, of a flawed detective who found he was losing all he held dear, and who battled to make his life his own again.
I clicked to buy it, wondering if Cian and I were more kindred spirits than I had ever thought before; if he would understand, in a way few could, that flawed people can find the light again.
When I asked the girls at work a bit more about Rose and Cian, being so very careful to make sure I didn’t reveal just how much I had gleaned about them from my hours on the internet, Tori told me they had been the most in love couple she had ever set eyes on.
‘He would come and pick her up from work each day. He used to tell me he couldn’t wait a minute more to see her. And that wee baby of theirs? Well you combine the genetics of that pair and you get a baby that could be a model. Rose was such a good mum to him too. She doted on him.’
I wondered what that was like, to have someone come to collect you from work because they just could not bear to be away from you for five more minutes? Oh, to have someone love me like that and mean it.
So when I read Cian’s posts on Facebook, when I thought of a man who feared losing it all more than anything in the world, I thought of Tori’s words – the dreamy look that came across her face when she spoke of him – and I thought how unjust it was that someone with so much love to give had been left with this gaping hole in his life?
On occasion, when I closed my eyes at night in my bed, I allowed myself to picture his face. Allowed myself to think he was saying those love-filled words to me. That he would look at me with such an intensity that I would fear my breath would catch in my throat forever. That maybe he would kiss me, the roughness of his stubble rubbing against my chin and my face so that when he pulled away I would feel that I had been thoroughly kissed. I tried to not allow myself to think about that very much because it felt a little wrong.
But sometimes, in the darkness of my bedroom at night, it felt very, very right.
*
It was an unusually quiet Tuesday morning when the door of Scott’s Dental Practice opened and a man pushing a buggy edged his way in backwards out of the rain.
I was at the reception desk dealing with patients, beside Tori who was answering the phones. I looked up when the door opened, an instinctual reaction to the gust of cuttingly cold air that rushed in and made me shiver where I sat. Fat droplets of rain ran from the man’s coat to the non-slip mat underneath his feet. His hair was matted to his head and his jeans bore a tide mark from where they had soaked up the moisture from the ground. He brushed the excess water from the top of the rain cover on the buggy, sending it splashing onto the street below before he turned around and closed the door behind him.
I knew him immediately. Even though he was soaked and tired-looking. Even though his face was thinner than it had been before, more drawn.
Cian Grahame. I felt myself suck in the air around me, my hands tense, my brain screaming at me not to welcome him by name. To fight the urge to run up to him and hug him and tell him I was so, so sorry for his loss. That I found his letters to her moving and genuine and heartbreaking. That I had started to read his book, that I felt enchanted by the lyrical language, by the sense that he knew me, that he was talking about me in his fluid prose. I held my breath as he walked towards me. I peeked over the top of the desk to see a sleeping toddler lying back in his buggy and then I raised my head to look at Cian, directly into his eyes. I prepared myself to welcome him in the most professional way possible. He didn’t know who I was and I, as far as everyone knew, did not know him.
I was just about to speak when I heard a gasp from Tori beside me.
‘Cian!’ she cried out, the two patients sitting in the waiting area looking up at the commotion. She jumped from her seat and moved out from behind the desk at lightning speed and threw herself at him, pulling him into a giant hug. He took a step back, but she followed him, not letting go of her grip. He let her hug him, his arms limp at his side before she pulled back and glanced down at the buggy, tapping on the rain cover and cooing loudly at the baby inside.
‘Oh Cian, it’s so lovely to see you here! And Jack too.’ Stunned from his slumber, Jack blinked at her through the prisms of raindrops. I watched him rub his eyes with chubby fists as Tori whipped the rain cover off and lifted him out of his pram and into her arms. He started to cry, but Tori, oblivious to being the cause for the child’s distress, just pulled him close to her and kissed the top of his head, telling him it was okay. Cian stood watching the scene, not interjecting. He looked worn out. I fought the urge to reach out to him and offer to help him in whatever way I could.
Tori continued to coo at Jack while Cian spoke, his voice soft and low. ‘I know Rose was intending to register Jack here so I wanted to do what she wanted. His first teeth are well through so it’s time to start doing things, isn’t it? I thought I would bring him here for a check. Sure, he knows you all anyway.’
At that he turned to look at me. He narrowed his eyes, looked me up and down as if trying to place me.
‘Hi,’ I said softly. ‘I’m Emily. I’m very sorry for your loss.’
I extended my hand to his, but his arms remained by his side. He just looked at me, his eyes vacant, and I grew wildly uncomfortable.
‘When did you start here?’ he asked, blinking at me.
‘A month ago, something like that,’ I answered.
‘You’re her replacement then?’ he said, his voice sad but I couldn’t help but notice a new tension in his jaw. ‘Owen didn’t waste much time, did he?’
I blushed, blinked. Didn’t know what to say. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t like that. I’ve heard Rose was irreplaceable,’ I offered.
‘Clearly not,’ he said, any softness gone from his voice.
I couldn’t find any words. I just stood and looked at him and then to Tori, hoping to catch her eye, but she was lost cooing over Jack who had stopped his crying and was looking around him, taking in the sight that must have been so familiar to him at one time.
I felt awkward. The blush that had started