Only We Know Read Free

it.
    Sleep comes to her
     then, swooping down and taking her; under the burning sun, she lets it all go – the
     argument this morning, her decaying friendship, the ultimatum delivered, the indecision
     and dread that she has been dogged by lately – all of it obliterated by the blanketing
     darkness of sleep.
    A scream.
    The shrill note of terror.
    It comes to her through her dream.
     Instantly, she opens her eyes, squints under the glare of the sun, feels the tightness
     of sunburn across her forehead and cheeks.
    Another scream. She pulls herself up, head
     heavy and swimming with sleep. She looks about her, confused, the searing knot of a
     headache announcing itself at the back of her eyes.
    Silence surrounds her. Only the gentle
     hissing of a breeze through the grass, the click and hum of insects. Birds in the trees.
     And yet the absence of any other sound strikes a chord of urgency within her. She cannot
     hear the children now but, remembering the scream, her heart gives a sudden lurch of
     fright. She knows it wasn’t imagined.
    She stumbles to her feet, scans the empty
     field, and turns towards the river. She moves swiftly, the ground hard and unforgiving
     beneath the soles of her feet, propelled by a fear that has come alive inside her.
    The silence seems to deepen, to gather
     density as the dark clutch of trees looms in front of her.
    A voice whispers in her head.
    The boys
, it says.
    And then it starts,
     the stream of frightening possibilities – a fall, a broken limb, a gashed head, a
     snake-bite – all of it running through her as she pounds a ragged path through the bush.
     The silence seems to roar around her now, and a warning voice sounds in her head, a
     voice that tells her to hold steady, to steel herself for whatever is to come.
    Another scream – this time from the opposite
     bank – stops her in her tracks.
    And it comes to Sally then, with a striking
     clarity, an insight so clear that she knows it to be true.
    The river.
    A child under water.
    Momentarily the fear drains away as she
     reels from the impact, coldness flushing through her body. It lasts but a second. Then,
     she starts to run.



Part One
----
DUBLIN 2013

1. Katie
    It starts with the pictures.
    A Thursday morning, much like any other in
     the office, three of us standing around Reilly’s desk shooting the breeze while we
     wait for the deputy editor to arrive. The others are giving me flak on account of my
     appearance – last night’s make-up slipping off my face, my hair still spiky with
     grips, the collapsed up-do that I haven’t yet brushed out. I’m feeling like
     I’m only half present. The other half of me is biding my time until I can get back
     to my desk, finish writing my piece, then high-tail it home to my apartment for a shower
     and a long sleep.
    Colm from Legal says: ‘Jesus, Katie,
     the smell of booze off you would knock out a horse.’
    Beside him Peter sniggers and I smile
     sweetly. ‘Just doing my job, boys. Sacrificing my sobriety for the scoop, you know
     how it is.’
    And he says, no, he doesn’t, but
     it’s all fine, really, despite the pain searing my temples and the weariness
     rising up my legs, like mercury in a thermometer. I’ve been here before. And then
     Reilly arrives, clearly harassed, as if he has something important to tell us. He sits
     in his chair, throws the pictures onto his desk and says: ‘Get a load of
     these.’
    The four of us lean in to peer at them and
     straight away I feel it start.
    Pictures of a dead
     girl floating in a swimming-pool.
    ‘They just came in,’ Reilly
     tells us. A death at a party in the early hours of the morning. Drink, drugs, a bunch of
     students, a game that got out of hand.
    Peter is spreading them out now so that they
     cover half of the desk. The water so clear. The girl, only a teenager, her hair fanning
     out in the water.
    ‘Some sicko at the party took these
     with his phone,’ Reilly explains.
    ‘We can’t print